PbP – What’s This?
PC’s: Phil, Aashas, Sylvan, Grey, Kaine, Artix
DM: Nastaris
Well hello again everyone, Artix von Krieger is back again. Back in more ways than one it would seem, as due to a strange series of events during which I …. sacrificed myself? I was brought back to being slightly less stocky, slightly taller, and could not speak dwarvish anymore. Magic. Guess that means that a lot has happened since my last log.
I came home to find that I had already known that Isaac was missing… time on this island is really messing with my head these days. So much so that I apparently sang about it.
On to more ridiculous things…
So there is a powerful witch that lives in the swamp south of town and she has a magically bonded hunter. Their names are Dama’Yami and Caerbor, I think others have mentioned them before (ooc: Dan has, but Artix can’t say that).
Caerbor had gone out for a dangerous hunt in the Underdark…. but NOT US. Nope, we first went over for a visit to Szordian’s place to deliver his lemon blueberry crullers from Nanaya’s bakery. At first, he was not at home but someone else had come to pay him a visit.
It was a bit of a trip… all told, I think Sylvan was interested in her after it all ended. Which is relatively nice considering she started off trying to kill him after he started talking to her in Elvish. I guess some Drow are very keyed into the animosity between themselves and other Elves. I am not really too sure though since the first Drow I met were all very nice.
Where was I supposed to go next? Oh right, we stopped her from killing anyone but she turned into a new kind of small spider and slipped back out. Sylvan seemed okay when we woke him up again and Szordian showed up and explained the Drow have been sending assassins after him for basically the entire time that he has had a lab in the Underdark (a very long time).
It was after that quick (and kinda deadly) visit to an old friend that we went off to see Dama and join in with Caerbor’s hunt. When we arrived the witch that appears as a kobold sent us off to the Underdark via an entrance Caerbor had taken before we had arrived. Things turned deadly very quickly, again, for Sylvan in particular, again I will say Again, as a massive hook went straight for him….
Not that it went well for the hook throwing fiend: as caught unaware as we happened to be, we all came ready for a rumble in the underdome Underdark. Other than a small hit to Sylvan that was healable, the fiend was dispatched with little worry. Then things got…. foggy. Grey’s mind started to fog over because the assassin had been wearing a cursed belt of super strength that we let him use. The area began to fog over as we walked around looking for clues. And worst of all, Grey’s eyes began to fog over because he had no ability to bring his new fish friend Ahab with us.
MAY YOUR LIFE BE LIVED IN ALL THEATERS OF EXISTENCE
EXCEPT FOR THE FIRE PLANE, WE DO NOT WANT YOU TO FRY
All that fog saw us separated from each other as we began to walk through special individualized trials of the mind. I have no idea what the others saw, save for the ending, but I got to talk to my parents again. That is always nice to get to do since I have not seen them all that often after a necromancer destroyed my entire village in an attempt to ….. not the point. Let us leave it at the fact that they are zombies but I love them all the same.
We had a nice chat where they tried to get me to go home and save it from something other than undead. I love them but that is just plain silly. There are plenty undead here that need smiting and if I leave it all to the rest of you….. it is not fun for me. So I waved goodbye and headed off like … the… relatively rude son I guess I am now… oops. Lets move on from there before I take up an entire hour contemplating if I am no longer a son to be proud of…. Because just after that I met Light and Darkness. They are one being, but appeared to me as two beings. Some of the others saw one or the other or saw both like I did. The more important thing is that she/they are Nanaya’s Daughter.
So naturally….. I gave them one of the cakes that she made. It was a black and white cake and I felt it was fitting. I do hope people that visit them do not always do that…. it might have gotten annoying by now if they do.
As I left the area of the Duallady, I found myself in a room with all of the others. I had wings marking both of my hands, one light the other dark, and the others seemed similarly imprinted upon. Especially Aashas. He was very imprinted upon. So imprinted upon that he was dying in a deathlike stasis of light and darkness. I was able to get through the cocoon of magic around him but i could not do much else.
trapped in magic
Luckily Sylvan and Grey were able to use their separate and opposing marks to crack the cocoon open and then bring him back to a breathing state. I then quickly healed him so that he would not go and meet Lady Death any time soon. We rested for a bit because we finally found Caerbor, holed up in a stone home of his own magical design after having gone through a similar experience. We left after a good sleep and found ourselves face to face with another wall of fog and not wanting to risk it being poisonous I elected to use a scroll I had been holding onto for a while. With Warding Wind around us we passed through without any trouble and found ourselves…. IN DOF?!?!?
Kidding of course, this was indeed a desert oasis but it was nothing to do with the DOF portal or the desert home of the Khenra. It was some sort of pocket dimension that existed within the space made by the mist or something else my old friend Warlic would have explained. The important thing was that Daimyo and I got to fly around and go for a swim. Which reminds me, before we left I upgraded Daimyo’s capabilities with a scroll of find greater steed, so now he has wings and absolutely loves to fly around with the birds.
His real wings are griffon wings
Like all good deserts, this desert had a tower that opened up into a stairwell area that spiraled down into some sort of magical room that descended into the depths. I did not know it did that at the time though, because I was dead when it started doing that…. You seeeeeeeee there were these sconces…. for liquid…. and Phil, Sylvan, and I all went and put a drop of blood in them. It seemed like the standard adventuring puzzle thing to do…. Aashas followed suit (Daimyo too but it did not do anything) and suddenly we were all asleep…. or were we….
The dripping blood of Paladins
It is the blood of stupid people who may not be seen again
When the bleeding from your heart
Matches the bleeding of the pun
There is a life about to end ‘fore tomorrow comes
Then the four of us were questioned by some kind of gatekeeper who was very clear about us needing to have someone die in order for the other three to leave. I talked with him for a while to see if there was any alternative all while purposefully trying to overload the system with diaposing elements so the other three could leave.
GOOD NEWS: It worked
BAD NEWS: What bad news….. there was no bad news…..
Translation: “Tell them about how you died”
OH FINE, You win Daimyo, so I may have happened to die. And I may have happened to meet the daughter of Dama’Yami who is named In’hime. And I may have happened to give her a pastry which she may have seen as a villainous act and targeted at the downfall of her livlihood.
“I’m starting to think you are the one that would have been judged unworthy… Trying to hand out carbs to everyone.” In’hime is a pretty interesting person and kind of reminds me of my childhood friend. Well, not really the point right now. The important thing was that she sent me back to being a human shadow hybrid rather than being a dwarf shadow hybrid as well as returned me to life and sent me on my way to help the others again. Only issue was the jump scare ghost girl who was no ghost. I mean really. Who ever heard of a simple construct being used for a jump scare. WHERE ARE ALL OF THE UNDEAD TO SMITE. Oh right, there were some, they threw smites back at people…. Undead that reverse the flow of smites. What is this place coming to? It almost makes me want to hang up my axe and retire, but then I would not be able to smite…. it is such a strange thing to think about.
After vanquishing those threats….. Caerbor was dead on the ground. This was mainly due to the jump scare ghost girl who was really a construct that would blow up her ghost buddies to try and kill all of us. Caerbor had already been downed when she was doing this and the ghosts prevented healing from taking effect. Luckily we had a safe trip back to Dama’Yami’s hut and she was able to bring him back. The means of which a thought better than to inquire about. That’s pretty much it for this log now. I hope everyone had a great Mogloween too.
