January 2014

[Boric Glanduum]

“Yes, I am going with you, and yes, it would be appreciated if you ‘watched out’ for me and didn’t let me die.” The snakes on Arahana’s head hissed in irritation at the elf’s tongue-in-cheek suggestion to the contrary. The dwarf shook his head in disgus t; Arahana caught the movement from the corner of her eye. “I know you do not care much for me, master dwarf, but I’m still going to go with you, whether you like it or not.”

Malgrim cleared his throat and made as if to spit on the ground, then thought better of it. It was true he did not care for her; he had only today bothered to try and remember her name. I do not trust you, he thought. You are an unknown variable; we four have chemistry. You are a new element forcing yourself into our alloy. Time alone will tell whether the new compound will be stronger, or made more brittle, by your addition. “I pray that this newly-forged blade of ours does not now shatter needlessly at the first strong blow,” he said. The others looked at him, puzzled at his words. Only then did he realize that most of his commentary took place only in his head. He reddened a bit and turned away.

After obtaining some new equipment, including a group hold-all bag, the five started out. Arahana activated the necessary magic and before Malgrim knew it, they stood on a windswept sandy plain. His eyes were filled and his face covered by fine sand almost immediately. Feldspar, antimony, hexonite, plain sand... and something... unusual, he thought, tasting the elements on his lips with the end of his tongue. Jade. A hint of jade, that’s what it is.

The five set out walking, covering only a relatively short distance their first day. The group decided to rest in a small depression in the sand. Malgrim volunteered for first watch and the others fell asleep quickly. Malgrim’s watch passed uneventfully and he woke Trident for Second Watch, falling into his own rapid slumber.

He was awakened by a shrill shriek of terror from the gnome, followed by a brilliant flash of light and a rumble of thunder. The air was soon filled with shouts and spell-casting, a wall of spinning blades appearing just off the rim of the sandy crater. The gnome re-appeared, followed closely by an immense creature that scrambled to a halt at the edge of the blades. Malgrim immediately recognized the massive beast as a behir, and began shouting out long-memorized facts and tips to the others.

Knowing that a thrown axe would never clear the barrier of spinning blades, Malgrim grabbed for the belt pouch on his left hip and extracted the first wand he felt. He looked it over once, drew a pattern in the air with the tip, and then pointed at the behir’s massive head, a score of feet above his own head. A fiery pebble formed at the tip of the stone wand and then sped off toward the creature. The tiny rock passed through the blades without deflection and struck the beast between the eyes. The behir blinked twice and renewed its efforts to find a way through the barricade.

Arahana spat a word or two in disgus t, and fired an arrow nearly straight up into the air. Malgrim watched the path of the missile as it rose quickly, almost out of sight, and then turned around and fell back toward the earth. The arrow struck the behir at the top of its head and the full top quarter of the beast fairly exploded, sending gobbets of flesh and fluids for two dozen feet all around. The group cut the behir open finding a recently-devoured humanoid wearing a brilliant, shiny crown on what remained of its head. Malgrim looked at it briefly and noted only that the gems inlaid on the crown were stones known as tigers' eyes. Eli took the crown, cleaned the gore from its surface, and placed it on his head. Nothing happened; nothing continued to happen as the elf raised and lowered the crown to and from the top of his head. Arahana finally noticed what Eli was doing and scoffed. “That crown will do nothing for any of you; in truth, it is only effective when I am around. That crown will block my ability to turn to stone any creature wearing it upon their heads.” She smiled sweetly at Eli, who shuddered at the thought of being turned to stone yet again. His hands tightened around the metal band.

Their rest was quickly shattered again, as darkness fell around them and acid rained down from the sky. Out of the darkness fell a young black dragon, knocking Malgrim to the ground and pinning him under its weight. Jaws snapped out at Eli. Again, spells and arrows flew as Malgrim struggled to pull himself from under the evil creature. The elf shook his head, waved his arms, and suddenly the entire group stood together just out of the dragon’s reach. The elvish magic had even pulled Malgrim from under the weight of the dragon. The group assaulted the dragon with every weapon at their disposal. The creature only tolerated a few attacks before deciding to take flight and escape with its life.

Moving on, the five found another place to rest, only to have their brief rest shattered by falling boulders. The hill giants in the distance were simple to identify, even among the falling rocks. At the first sign of giant, Malgrim drew his twin axes from their sheaths at his side: Morir Giant-foe in his right hand and Jarral Orc-biter in his left. The elf grabbed the gnome and the dwarf by the arms and used his magic to teleport all three of them nearly into the midst of the giants. As they vanished, the gnome completed a spell making all three of them invisible to the normal eye.

Upon landing, Malgrim stepped unseen almost into the arms of the first giant he saw, then immediately laid about him with Morir and Jarral. Three times the blades dug deeply into giant flesh and three times blood and gore flew about in sprays of red. The giant toppled as Malgrim swung his weapons a fourth time; Malgrim’s foot slipped in a puddle of gore and he lost his balance enough to finally miss the giant. Malgrim smiled as he realized his missed final blow was not necessary after all; the giant’s chest rose once and then fell. It did not rise again.

A great wail arose as the dwarf appeared from his magical blanket of invisibility. The remaining three giants gnashed their teeth in anger, not just at their cultural enemy, but at the speed, ferocity, and perceived cruelty with which the hated dwarf had slain their brother. Each of the giants shouted their fallen brother’s name, then ran at the dwarf, swinging their clubs. Each of the clubs rose once and fell once; each one struck the dwarf for mighty blows, rattling the bones inside his body. Spells and arrows flew, felling one of the giants in front of Malgrim, then a second. The second narrowly missed crushing the tiny gnome as it fell; Trident danced behind the last giant left standing. The movement distracted the giant sufficiently that Malgrim was able to flank him and strike out again with Morir. The axe’s blade sank into the giant’s leg, severing muscles, nerves, and femoral artery. The giant bled out quickly, falling to the ground dead.

A quick debate followed: Arahana decreed that they should move quickly, citing the numbers of evil creatures reputed to live in these environs and the noise and commotion the group had already made. Solaster argued that they were tired and needed to replenish spells. Malgrim, on the other hand, waffled. At first Solaster’s argument had merit; he was exhausted too, after all. But Arahana’s logic was irrefutable. The gnome and elf agreed with the dwarf and the medusa, and the group moved onward through the early morning darkness.

As the light broke across the desert plain, the group found themselves in sight of an immense stone arch flanked by a massive sculpture. “That is it!” shouted Arahana. “That is what we seek! Come, let us hurry!” The group moved forward. The statue was humanoid in form, although headless. Trident distrusted it on sight and moved quickly away from it. The group scattered around the area searching for clues as to their next step. The search was interrupted with the sound of grinding stone. The statue was, in truth, a stone golem, which moved in to attack the group.

Each individual attempted to strike at the massive golem: spells flew from fingertips and wands, all to no avail. Webs surrounded its legs, slowing it slightly. Blades fell and arrows rained down on the stone creature. Balls of acid and orbs of magical force struck the golem repeatedly. Fire rained down, succeeding only in burning away the webs. The stone fists fell once, twice, thrice. Eli felt its wrath, as did Trident and Solaster. The gnome and the dwarf fled to the stone arch and began to clean the sandy crust from the runes inscribed on the arch’s surface. Their proximity to the golem apparently alarmed the creature, and it rushed to attack the two diminutive foes. Trident and Malgrim danced out of its reach and around the sides of the arch, where they continued to clean. Each rune glowed blue as the sand was removed from its surface.

Finally, success! An attack from Arahana nearly broke off one of the golem’s arms. Another attack and another fell on the living statue, until it fell, shattering into boulders and sand to lie formless upon the ground.

A few more rounds spent cleaning and the arch fairly glowed with the blue light emanating from the runes. A quick glance between each of the party showed that they were all ready and willing to enter the arch in furtherance of their mission. One by one they stepped through the arch; one by one they felt a nauseating wrench as they were teleported to an unknown location at an unknown distance.

As their eyes opened, their gaze fell upon a group of orcs. A group sufficiently large that the movement of the orcs made counting them impossible. Malgrim sighed and moved Morir to his left hand, Jarral to his right. His fists tightened around the hafts of his weapons and he felt his heart begin to race. Let it begin, he thought.

[Just Rob]

Great write-up!!!

[Theylan]

Oh give me the cover of the woods away from sand and blistering sun, a place of repose where the giant orb only blankets softened earth with its light in patches where it can manage to pierce the canopy. Give me the shade and not this forsaken landscape of rock, sand, debris and grit; where every part of you begins to chafe because the grime penetrates every orifice of one’s armor and clothing. Give me the pleasant breeze of the forest not the sandpaper gusts of the desert - Eli’s Lament.
My hope was clearly in vain; of all the places the portal could take us why the desert? We marched what seemed like ages and finally took shelter in a partial depressed amphitheater type rock formation. The first few hours went uneventful as I was awaken by Trident and Malgrim to my duties. The gnome and I took opposite positions to our encampment to watch. An hour or so passed when the gnome heard the oddest of sounds. He poked his head above the rock formation and moved in the shadows for a closer look. I awoke the rest just as a ball of fire filled the night sky. The gnome came tumbling over the hill as I went rushing up. Solaster put a barrier of whirling blades right behind me. A ghastly creature with great speed attempted to swallow me whole and I had to teleport behind the blade barrier. The monster was clearly of some intelligence since he came to an abrupt stop and peered left and right to find the end of the line of swords. His pause was his death as spell and arrows rained in on him from the rest of the party. We cut the beast open afterward since we detected some magic within him. He had a helm of magical power which we discovered would protect us from the gaze of creatures. I took some comfort in that as now I could ward myself from the Medusas eyes. As playful as she is with me I don’t appreciate being stone.
We resumed our rest or attempted to when a rain of acid fell upon us and a large dark object soared through our skies. Vision was poor but fortunately the creature decided to land, albeit on our friend the dwarf. It was a black dragon with more ambition than size and we threw everything we had at the creature until it felt itself beaten and flew away. It didn’t quite make it as it was finally felled by medusas arrow. After this attack we felt it necessary to move on without rest.
We skirted about the rock formations until we were ambushed by a band of hill giants. Their rocks came pounding upon us from a great distance. The boulders had little effect but kept up bounding about like a bunch of prancing ponies. I grabbed the gnome and dwarf and we teleported next to them cloaked in invisibility. It was a beautiful tactic that took one of them out immediately. Unfortunately the retribution was painful for the dwarf and he took several solid hits and seemed on the point of collapse. Trident and I put everything we had into taking the rest out and with the ranged aid of solaster and the medusa we were successful. None the too soon since I believe Malgrim wouldn’t last another hard blow.
We bounded off again in search of the portal, Malgrim receiving healing along the way. We were lead to an oasis glade with a large stone statue and a stone arch. At last we had reach our destination. We approached cautiously eyeing the stone statue. None of us believed it a mere structure and so we were not surprised when it came to life. We spread out using hit and run tactics but found most weaponry and spell were of little effect. I myself took a heavy blow and had to create some distance. It fell upon me and the others to keep the stone golem distracted until Malgrim and Trident could clean off the portal enough to activate it. Finally in an explosion of boulders and rock the Golem fell and we could clean to portal without harassment. Ready we stepped through and out of a hill face staring straight at a horde of Orcs. I looked back but the portal was mostly covered by earth. There was no going back. I drew my court blade to face my mortal enemy.