Absolutely in no way based on that popular movie
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012 09:32 amD&D was excellent last night! Dustin made me a Wild Tiger mask for Valentine's Day, because he is awesome (or just enjoys seeing me geek out) so I dutifully wore it for the whole session, except when it got too warm.
I never finished last week's summary, so here's the short version: once we'd awakened from the dream, the party was torn on what to do. We investigated Hektos to see if he'd caused the dream, and found that he'd awakened after we escaped through our own means to a mysterious explosion in the dream that was so violent said dream had ended; Sabine, Denar and Llewain questioned where Xenocrates had gotten his 'reagent' that he'd planned to use to enhance his spell, and what it was. On being told that it had to be freshly-dead brains and he'd gotten them at the night bazaar, they grew thoroughly fed up with him and told him to shut up while he was in midst of explaining how he'd learned to enhance the ESP spell from an old woman. We then proceeded to investigate said bazaar. There, we all encountered some problems-- a) that nobody decided to disguise themselves, and b) that nobody actually had any plans of what to ask the merchant when we found him-- which left us floundering for a moment. The merchant would not say exactly where he got his wares, simply that he sold the pieces of the body for smaller prices and the whole body for ten gold pieces if the party was interested. Unwilling to make such a purchase unless it were absolutely necessary (and in Iris's case, at the very least, disturbed by the idea of making such a purchase at all), the party broke away from his stall and discussed what to do. We were all agreed that Maligos, whom we suspected had been disguised as a woman in the dream realm and might come to attack us, must be found and at the very least talked with, if not stopped; we were also agreed that we wanted to look into the ritualistic murders we'd heard about before.
However, since we could not re-enter the dream realm and had no means of determining where Maligos might be physically, Esra decided to go talk to Xenocrates and find out more about the old woman he'd mentioned, since 'enhanced ESP spell' had been mentioned in the same breath as 'she was a master of dream magics'. Meanwhile, the rest of the party wandered the night, trying to look like appealing targets and lure out an ambush that we thought might be waiting for us. (I suppose 'tried' is debatable. No one divested themselves of their armor/vestments or feigned drunkenness, for example, haha!)
Esra did talk to Xenocrates, who was pouting, and tried to soothe his ruffled feathers and reassure him that he was totally awesome while asking after the old woman. Xenocrates explained that her name was Red Alexandra, and she might be able to teach the group how to control their dreams to protect themselves. He also said he could probably find her place again, provided she hadn't moved in the two years since he'd last seen her. Xenocrates also professed concern about Kristoffer, the mage who we took on some time back after changing him back from the ferret he'd been trapped as. Esra, who'd completely forgotten about poor Kris, agreed that he'd have to look into that sometime and then promptly forgot again-- once the night was over, we provisioned the ship over the next couple of days and then set sail for Lyn and Red Alexandra!
Last night picked up while we were at sea, heading towards the central island of Lyn. Shortly into our voyage, we caught sight of a ship approaching us, with a white sail. (We briefly discussed which flag we were flying at the moment, and decided that the Lyn flag was safest since we were headed there. As usual, we apparently are keeping one of each nation's flag.) When the ship got in range for us to see more clearly, we could make out first that the white flag was decorated with a crossed out Jolly Roger, and second that their crew was standing at the ready to board us, swinging grappling hooks on ropes in preparation. Between Sabine and Denar's cajoling, and his own agitation, Esra used the scroll of fireball that Sabine had insisted on getting, and set the ship's sails on fire, killing several of their crew instantly and making it possible, as we watched their mast collapse and their crew struggling to salvage the ship, to outrun them without having to fight them directly.
Sabine: THAT WAS AWESOME!
Esra: Yes, well, I won't be doing it again. No scroll, you know.
Sabine: Why don't you know that spell?
Esra: It's barbaric!
Iris: Um, yes, you did just set five people on fire.
Denar: They could have been innocents, why'd you do that?
Esra: Innocents do not stand around clearly trying to engage in combat and board our ship!
Llewain: But they were antipirates. Their flag said so.
[We then have a long side discussion about whether anti-pirates would explode on contact with Sabine; then on whether antimatter and matter could possibly react in as volatile a fashion as suggested by Captain Harlock; then on why Voyager is so bad, and has such scenes as jettisoning plasma and then "igniting" it with their phasers, which Bret likened to setting water on ice. It is suggested that perhaps it is blood plasma like the kind he works with, and joked that oh yes, THAT is actually quite flammable! Bret sets us to rights with his phlebotomy: Oh, no, that stuff is like 90% water.]
We sailed without further incident for some time, but at one point late in the third night of travel, Sabine noticed a mist gathering around the ship, and a strange, unearthly seeming light. It manifested into the figure of a woman, who croaked "Turn back! Danger!" when Sabine tried to speak with her. Ringing the bell to alert the others-- who were primping (Iris), cleaning up the magic lab (Esra) and consulting the seacharts (Llewain) respectively. Denar, who had been on deck the whole time, simply melted out of the shadows in his customary rangery way.
We could get no more out of the old woman than Sabine had; while Denar and Llewain were unmoved by the warning and Sabine laughed at the superstitious nature of it, Esra and Iris wondered if it would be possible to chart a course that turned them back, considering the mist dimming the stars. Ultimately, it was decided they'd just go forward, so everyone went below deck who'd been there and slept a while, while Sabine continued to steer the ship.
Until a chill went down her spine, and she wrenched the ship hard to port, narrowly evading a giant, quivering, slick black mass-- an enormous squid!
The squid latched on to the ship and began attacking it, while Sabine rang the alarm and the group groggily returned to deck, buckling on armor and supplies, nursing bruises from being thrown from their beds (or knocked over where they stood) when Sabine pulled port. She pointed out the beast off the starboard bow and the group tried to figure out what to do, even as the slimy monster's huge tentacles descended on the ship.
Sabine began hacking tentacles off at the tips, while Denar and Llewain both stabbed the tentacles nearest them through. Esra pulled free the wand of lightning we'd recently acquired, while debating the merit of equipping Sabine with the rings of free action and gills so she could fight the sea monster beneath the waves. Ultimately he decided against it, calling lightning through the rod and into the monster in a sharp bolt.
Between getting stabbed, hacked at and shot, it was not happy. So it started grabbing us all up in chokeholds with its slimy tentacles and started trying to crack us open! We kept barely managing to struggle free, then being grabbed again, so Esra gave up struggling when he was caught the second time, and, with his one free hand, kept striking the monster with the lightning wand. Iris healed herself just in case, while Denar and Llewain struggled free again, and Sabine tried to hack Esra free. You see, it's reasonable to note that while still in the squid's grip, everyone thus immobilized was being hit by Esra's crazy attacks. Still bound, even though he was just shy of passing out, he activated the wand again, blasting the monster as hard as he could and, by extension, himself and Iris. Iris stayed up, but Esra passed out-- just in time, because so did the squid. Victorious, we continued to sail away, but realized we were taking on water. So once Iris had reawakened Esra, we asked Albert and Jacques to help repair the ship. The next few days of travel were spent in recovery, resting up on part of the party and fixing the ship on part of our darling NPCs.
Along the way, Xenocrates wondered where Glorya had gone, and Esra went to ask Slasher if she'd seen him. She explained that he'd left a couple of ports ago, citing "irreconcilable differences", which made Esra wonder what'd caused them. Slasher professed that she totally liked Esra more than Glorya anyway and he could be her new friend!
Esra: *returning to the bridge* Apparently, Glorya left the ship a couple of weeks ago, possibly more. Troublesome, really.
Sabine: Why?
Esra: Slasher says he had 'irreconcilable differences' with someone?
Xenocrates: I just wondered where he was because I hadn't seen him in a few days. Well, weeks, I suppose.
Denar: *drily* I wonder who he had differences with.
Iris: Indeed.
In any case, Xenocrates guided us faithfully to the town of Ular, while relating that he is actually from Portsmouth and has a wife and children there, from whom he is estranged (for whatever reason). As we were docking he also explained that Red Alexandra lived a couple of days' travel inland from Ular on foot, and that she lives in what he thinks of as a crossbow hut-- you know, a hut where all approaching strangers are shot by the owner with a crossbow.
More later!
I never finished last week's summary, so here's the short version: once we'd awakened from the dream, the party was torn on what to do. We investigated Hektos to see if he'd caused the dream, and found that he'd awakened after we escaped through our own means to a mysterious explosion in the dream that was so violent said dream had ended; Sabine, Denar and Llewain questioned where Xenocrates had gotten his 'reagent' that he'd planned to use to enhance his spell, and what it was. On being told that it had to be freshly-dead brains and he'd gotten them at the night bazaar, they grew thoroughly fed up with him and told him to shut up while he was in midst of explaining how he'd learned to enhance the ESP spell from an old woman. We then proceeded to investigate said bazaar. There, we all encountered some problems-- a) that nobody decided to disguise themselves, and b) that nobody actually had any plans of what to ask the merchant when we found him-- which left us floundering for a moment. The merchant would not say exactly where he got his wares, simply that he sold the pieces of the body for smaller prices and the whole body for ten gold pieces if the party was interested. Unwilling to make such a purchase unless it were absolutely necessary (and in Iris's case, at the very least, disturbed by the idea of making such a purchase at all), the party broke away from his stall and discussed what to do. We were all agreed that Maligos, whom we suspected had been disguised as a woman in the dream realm and might come to attack us, must be found and at the very least talked with, if not stopped; we were also agreed that we wanted to look into the ritualistic murders we'd heard about before.
However, since we could not re-enter the dream realm and had no means of determining where Maligos might be physically, Esra decided to go talk to Xenocrates and find out more about the old woman he'd mentioned, since 'enhanced ESP spell' had been mentioned in the same breath as 'she was a master of dream magics'. Meanwhile, the rest of the party wandered the night, trying to look like appealing targets and lure out an ambush that we thought might be waiting for us. (I suppose 'tried' is debatable. No one divested themselves of their armor/vestments or feigned drunkenness, for example, haha!)
Esra did talk to Xenocrates, who was pouting, and tried to soothe his ruffled feathers and reassure him that he was totally awesome while asking after the old woman. Xenocrates explained that her name was Red Alexandra, and she might be able to teach the group how to control their dreams to protect themselves. He also said he could probably find her place again, provided she hadn't moved in the two years since he'd last seen her. Xenocrates also professed concern about Kristoffer, the mage who we took on some time back after changing him back from the ferret he'd been trapped as. Esra, who'd completely forgotten about poor Kris, agreed that he'd have to look into that sometime and then promptly forgot again-- once the night was over, we provisioned the ship over the next couple of days and then set sail for Lyn and Red Alexandra!
Last night picked up while we were at sea, heading towards the central island of Lyn. Shortly into our voyage, we caught sight of a ship approaching us, with a white sail. (We briefly discussed which flag we were flying at the moment, and decided that the Lyn flag was safest since we were headed there. As usual, we apparently are keeping one of each nation's flag.) When the ship got in range for us to see more clearly, we could make out first that the white flag was decorated with a crossed out Jolly Roger, and second that their crew was standing at the ready to board us, swinging grappling hooks on ropes in preparation. Between Sabine and Denar's cajoling, and his own agitation, Esra used the scroll of fireball that Sabine had insisted on getting, and set the ship's sails on fire, killing several of their crew instantly and making it possible, as we watched their mast collapse and their crew struggling to salvage the ship, to outrun them without having to fight them directly.
Sabine: THAT WAS AWESOME!
Esra: Yes, well, I won't be doing it again. No scroll, you know.
Sabine: Why don't you know that spell?
Esra: It's barbaric!
Iris: Um, yes, you did just set five people on fire.
Denar: They could have been innocents, why'd you do that?
Esra: Innocents do not stand around clearly trying to engage in combat and board our ship!
Llewain: But they were antipirates. Their flag said so.
[We then have a long side discussion about whether anti-pirates would explode on contact with Sabine; then on whether antimatter and matter could possibly react in as volatile a fashion as suggested by Captain Harlock; then on why Voyager is so bad, and has such scenes as jettisoning plasma and then "igniting" it with their phasers, which Bret likened to setting water on ice. It is suggested that perhaps it is blood plasma like the kind he works with, and joked that oh yes, THAT is actually quite flammable! Bret sets us to rights with his phlebotomy: Oh, no, that stuff is like 90% water.]
We sailed without further incident for some time, but at one point late in the third night of travel, Sabine noticed a mist gathering around the ship, and a strange, unearthly seeming light. It manifested into the figure of a woman, who croaked "Turn back! Danger!" when Sabine tried to speak with her. Ringing the bell to alert the others-- who were primping (Iris), cleaning up the magic lab (Esra) and consulting the seacharts (Llewain) respectively. Denar, who had been on deck the whole time, simply melted out of the shadows in his customary rangery way.
We could get no more out of the old woman than Sabine had; while Denar and Llewain were unmoved by the warning and Sabine laughed at the superstitious nature of it, Esra and Iris wondered if it would be possible to chart a course that turned them back, considering the mist dimming the stars. Ultimately, it was decided they'd just go forward, so everyone went below deck who'd been there and slept a while, while Sabine continued to steer the ship.
Until a chill went down her spine, and she wrenched the ship hard to port, narrowly evading a giant, quivering, slick black mass-- an enormous squid!
The squid latched on to the ship and began attacking it, while Sabine rang the alarm and the group groggily returned to deck, buckling on armor and supplies, nursing bruises from being thrown from their beds (or knocked over where they stood) when Sabine pulled port. She pointed out the beast off the starboard bow and the group tried to figure out what to do, even as the slimy monster's huge tentacles descended on the ship.
Sabine began hacking tentacles off at the tips, while Denar and Llewain both stabbed the tentacles nearest them through. Esra pulled free the wand of lightning we'd recently acquired, while debating the merit of equipping Sabine with the rings of free action and gills so she could fight the sea monster beneath the waves. Ultimately he decided against it, calling lightning through the rod and into the monster in a sharp bolt.
Between getting stabbed, hacked at and shot, it was not happy. So it started grabbing us all up in chokeholds with its slimy tentacles and started trying to crack us open! We kept barely managing to struggle free, then being grabbed again, so Esra gave up struggling when he was caught the second time, and, with his one free hand, kept striking the monster with the lightning wand. Iris healed herself just in case, while Denar and Llewain struggled free again, and Sabine tried to hack Esra free. You see, it's reasonable to note that while still in the squid's grip, everyone thus immobilized was being hit by Esra's crazy attacks. Still bound, even though he was just shy of passing out, he activated the wand again, blasting the monster as hard as he could and, by extension, himself and Iris. Iris stayed up, but Esra passed out-- just in time, because so did the squid. Victorious, we continued to sail away, but realized we were taking on water. So once Iris had reawakened Esra, we asked Albert and Jacques to help repair the ship. The next few days of travel were spent in recovery, resting up on part of the party and fixing the ship on part of our darling NPCs.
Along the way, Xenocrates wondered where Glorya had gone, and Esra went to ask Slasher if she'd seen him. She explained that he'd left a couple of ports ago, citing "irreconcilable differences", which made Esra wonder what'd caused them. Slasher professed that she totally liked Esra more than Glorya anyway and he could be her new friend!
Esra: *returning to the bridge* Apparently, Glorya left the ship a couple of weeks ago, possibly more. Troublesome, really.
Sabine: Why?
Esra: Slasher says he had 'irreconcilable differences' with someone?
Xenocrates: I just wondered where he was because I hadn't seen him in a few days. Well, weeks, I suppose.
Denar: *drily* I wonder who he had differences with.
Iris: Indeed.
In any case, Xenocrates guided us faithfully to the town of Ular, while relating that he is actually from Portsmouth and has a wife and children there, from whom he is estranged (for whatever reason). As we were docking he also explained that Red Alexandra lived a couple of days' travel inland from Ular on foot, and that she lives in what he thinks of as a crossbow hut-- you know, a hut where all approaching strangers are shot by the owner with a crossbow.
More later!
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