Core Competencies

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JimboJimbo
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Re: Core Competencies

Post by JimboJimbo »

Arn watches her body ride the ring of concussive force. Her flailing limbs and limp body reminding him of his sister’s rag doll, though that hadn’t smelled of cooking goat. He winces as Festoonia slams into the wall then the ground. Hair singed, skin a mix of cooked pink and soot-stained black, she lies motionless and silent.

Exploding Rune trap. Spell description says you have to read it, but that doesn’t make much sense.

“Fest?”

Nerva’s long legs carry him to her faster than Arn. The big Republic man is on his knees, pulling bandages from his pack and winding them around the fallen halfling’s wounding face and limbs.

(D4-1 for bandaging. Roll 1. Healed; 0)

Nerva ties the strands of cloth with practised skill, but his expression is grim.

“I don’t think it’s going to help much,” he says.

Festoonia’s swaddled hand twitches then is thrust into the air.

“It’s okay guys, I got the loot!”

A small leather pouch dangles from her burned fists. It rattles slightly in her hand.

“Man that hurt. Who’d have thought wizards would trap chests?”

“Do we need to waste another week resting in town?” Astra asks, her tones arch.

Fest hears the rumble deep in Arn’s chest, reaches out with her empty hand.

“Nay,” she says, “it’s just a little sun burn. I’m good for at least a dozen goblins.”

The magus scoffs.

“Good. Do we return to the hallway, or take the stairs down.”

“Deeper,” Arn barks, axe visibly shaking in his fist.

“We go down and find the architect of this mad house.”

The dwarf leads down the carved stone stairs. Breath clouds from his lips. Frost grips his moustaches. Behind him, he hears Fest’s teeth chatter in her skull. From the corner of his eye, he sees the republic man shiver.

“I don’t like this,” he whispers, his voice a sharp rasp in the darkness.

“Nor I,” the sorceress says.

Slowly, they reach the last step. Stone walls seem to weigh down on them. Bronze doors, unlike any others so far.

“Hold,” Astra says, holding up a hand and pressing the fingers of her free hand against her temple.

Small hairs rising on the back of his neck, Arn watches serenity pass over the sorceress’ features before her mouth twists into a horrible hook. Her eyes flash wide.

“We must turn back,” she says, ice in her words, “great evil dwells behind that door.”

“Nothing my axe can’t rehabilitate.”

“The gums of a babe would be of much use against these foes. Come, we must return when we have more power.”
Astra turns and heads back up the stairs.

The other three swap glances then, grudgingly, follow.

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merias
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Re: Core Competencies

Post by merias »

Agree on the runes, I have always thought of exploding runes as working best on scrolls, so they go off when someone unrolls a scroll and looks at the runes. If they are just on chests or urns or walls I think they make more sense as acting like proximity mines or something triggered by an event (like the chest opening).

JimboJimbo
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Re: Core Competencies

Post by JimboJimbo »

merias wrote:
Thu Aug 18, 2022 1:55 pm
Agree on the runes, I have always thought of exploding runes as working best on scrolls, so they go off when someone unrolls a scroll and looks at the runes. If they are just on chests or urns or walls I think they make more sense as acting like proximity mines or something triggered by an event (like the chest opening).
I think I need to get a magic user to 9th and reserach and new spell. How does Clay Moore's Terribly Nasty Trap sound? ;)

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merias
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Re: Core Competencies

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JimboJimbo wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 1:55 pm
I think I need to get a magic user to 9th and reserach and new spell. How does Clay Moore's Terribly Nasty Trap sound? ;)
:lol: :lol: :lol:

JimboJimbo
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Re: Core Competencies

Post by JimboJimbo »

Sorry for the dealy in posting, folks. I lost my dog on Thursday and haven't really been feeling it. It's not really an excuse as I've had parts 9&10 done in advance, but uou know how it is.

They exit the stair room, turning left to continue into new territory. After thirty feet, they come to a junction of arches; one set in each direction. Arn peers into the eastern exit.

“The angle of that corridor takes it back to the room with stairs,” he grunts, “I must have missed a trick in the stone work.”

“This one angles off into nowhere,” Nerva say, peering through the western arch.

The agree to keep heading south, travel a short distance before a secondary passage spurs off to the east. Astra updates her map, but they keep heading south.

“I see you!” Arn shouts, destroying the passage’s silence, “Step out of the shadows, elf, or I’ll treat you as foe and act accordingly.”

(1/d8 to notice. Arm rolled a 1.)

The elf peels from the shadows. He appears to flinch away from the lantern in Festi’s hand. His mail glimmers deep blue in the lamp light. Stark white hair contrasts sharply with his obsidian-black skin. A long, slender blade hangs at his hip. A silver-white cloak hangs from his shoulders.

“Greetings,” he says, bowing. “Fun found you here.” He waves a hand at Festi, a grin on his lips.

“Should not come not to Be’sha’Zera’i’s home.”

(Is that enough apostrophes for Drow speak? Old Salvator set a precedent and I’m not sure I can keep up with it!)

The dark elf’s fingers snap loud in the tunnel. Soupy shadows assault the lantern light, batter it into submission.

“I’m blind!” Festi squeaks.

(Drow wins intitiatve. 3:2)

(Drow 22 (modified) vs AC 16, hit, 4 damage)
(Arn save vs poison 6 vs 14, fail)

Arn grunts as cold steel slides between the bands of his armour. Ice spreads from the pin-prick wound, races through his heat. His head spins in the darkness. He crashes to the stone floor.

(Nerva, 7 vs AC 16, miss.)
(Festi, 17 vs AC 16, hit, 2 damage,)

Bandaged fingers crossed at her chest, Festi launches a dagger into the darkness. A sharp curse, foreign to her ears, makes her offer a prayer to Granny Good Biscuit.

“Enough,” Asta yells, pressing fingers to her temples.

The sorceress focusses, reaches out with tendrils of thought. She feels the drow’s mind, shudders at the alien hate within. Sweat beading on her brow, she probes harder, penetrates psychological defences built through a lifetime of hate, torture, and revulsion.

“Your tricks,” the drow’s thoughts punch into her mind, “don’t work on superior beings.”

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merias
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Re: Core Competencies

Post by merias »

JimboJimbo wrote:
Sun Aug 21, 2022 6:19 pm
Sorry for the dealy in posting, folks. I lost my dog on Thursday and haven't really been feeling it. It's not really an excuse as I've had parts 9&10 done in advance, but uou know how it is.
Sorry to hear that :( . Still enjoying these, but take your time!

JimboJimbo
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Re: Core Competencies

Post by JimboJimbo »

Thanks, Merias, glad you're still enjoying things.

Here's part 10:

(Arn’s out & Nerva’s blinded by darkness, so I’m going to allow our new friend to shoot Astra with his pistol-bow then dash. )

Round 2:
(Drow, 17 vs AC 11, dam 4)
(Astra savs 15 vs 16, pass.)

A string of alien words rattles down the corridor. The hard clack of heels on stone follows then stops as if it had never been.
“Retreat,” Nerva orders, his voice one that has commanded obeisance in days past, “we cannot see and Arn is down, so start moving.”
“Arn?” Festi whines.
“No good, puella, the dwarf is currently slumped against my right boot. I can drag him, but I can’t fight while I do it. So by the mighty thrower of thunderbolts, we need to get out of here.”
The Spades retrace their steps through dim halls. Nerva makes no complaint at his heavy burden, though the dwarf grunts in his enchanted slumber as he is dragged up the stairs.

(Something like 12 turns of movement and not a single wandering monster!)

Arn has not awoken by the time they reach fresh air and warm sunlight. The sweating Republic man hoists the dwarf’s body into a miner’s handcart and pushes him to the town’s shrine. Festi tries not to look at the four new graves at the cemetery's edge.
Sister Sarah rushes from the cot of an injured miner as the Spades enter the small wooden church. Grave concern is etched into her features as she crouched beside Arn and the handcart.
“Can you help him?” Festi squeaks, voice thickened a touch by barely-restrained tears.
Without answering, Sarah pulls the black-fletched dart from Arn’s chest and turns it in her fingers and sniffs the metallic tip. She calls an aide, who brings a wooden bowl in which Sarah discards the quarrel.
“I can pray for him, yes, but I am honour bound by my oaths to request a donation. Such a hefty prayer requires great generosity. Combined with the your burns and other wounds, the fee will be quiet extreme.”
Ignoring the party’s claim to wealth and need only for Arn to be awakened, the priestess bows her head. Soft, white-blue light seems to form a corona around her. A tranquil wave seems to wash through the small temple. As her lips move in prayer, Arn’s fingers twitch. His hands flex. He sits up in the barrow.
“Where am I?” he growls, “and where’s that stinking elf?”
Festoonia rocks the barrow as she throws herself at the dwarf, wrapping him in an embrace.
“You have come at a fortuitous time, friend adventurers. I’ve not heard from my sister priestess for some time. I have come to worry for her safety. In exchange for the blessings of our Protector, I ask that you travel to her and do what you can to ensure she is well.”
As the priestess bows again, her lips moving in prayer. Each of the Spades hears the subtle jingle of tiny, spectral chains.

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badams30
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Re: Core Competencies

Post by badams30 »

These are great.

JimboJimbo
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Re: Core Competencies

Post by JimboJimbo »

badams30 wrote:
Wed Aug 24, 2022 12:31 pm
These are great.
Thanks buddy! I'll keep them coming :)

JimboJimbo
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Re: Core Competencies

Post by JimboJimbo »

(Okay, had to drum up a quick point crawl [which I don’t really understand) using a rather charming generator [ditto])

The Spades leave the mine in the next day. They travel an old path carved through hills and valleys. A large herd of deer makes Arn lament his lack of a crossbow, but as the antlered stag draws closer, the dwarf changes his mind. Twice his height at the shoulder, the beast is a fine specimen, and one that Arn would not want to tangle with.

The cross the mud-and-rock stricken road in a couple of hours, reach the outskirts of Deton as the sun crawls high in the sky. Raising his shield and spear, the Republic man grunts at the splintered wood and broken rocks that had once been the village’s paliasades.

“No wonder that priestess hasn’t heard anything,” he grunts, pulling his long, wide shield over his body and running toward the ruined village.

Wattle-and-daub houses are little more than blackened ash. Charred corpses, their flesh ripped by scavengers, lie in the mud. One structure remains. Though far from pristine, its soot-stained pillars and chipped lintels have fared fare better than the rest of the settlement.

“Come on,” Nerva shouts, rushing past his shorter and less physically-adept counterparts.

Burned flesh seasons the stench of smoke filling the small temple’s interior. Smoke stains darken the walls. Any and all carved or woven items stand in a fire-ravaged heap, clogging up the church’s nave.

Shield up, spear ready, Nerva leads the Spades towards the crossing. Eyes half-closed against the acrid smoke, he scans the seven radials coming off the nave.

“Open trap door in the central radial,” he growled, gesturing with his spear.

(Yep, went for a little overland jaunt to take a break from the dungeon & the dice lead us underground again).

“Me first,” Festoonia squeaks, diving through the open trap hatch.

Reflexively, the team fall into an established marching order. Arn follows Festoonia, his skin crawling form Astra’s proximity to his spine. Nerva takes the rear, ears sharp and spears ready to hurl or stab, should the situation arise.

(I’m switching to Goblin’s Henchman’s In the Heart of the Unknown for a change of pace)

The stairs lead down to a small, 20x20, cellar. The choking stench of death and suffering crashes down on them as the reach the bottom step. Three doors, one on each wall, greet them. None are open. None show signs of use.

Festoonia moves around the room, pressing her ear against each door in turn.

(Listen 1-2/d6. Rolls: 2, 2, 2).

Her face grows more obviously pale at each portal. Her hand subconsciously slips to the hilt of her twinned blades.

“Voices,” she whispers, her voice cutting through the air.

She jabs a finger at the southern door.

“Chanting from that one, possibly the most voices too. That way’s pretty dense for sound also,” she stubs a thumb eastward.

Arn clenches his fist around his axe. Nerva shuffles his shield in front of his body. The wizard closes her eyes, reaching out with her mind.

“They all wear robes. Black, embroidered with a golden ram. Eastward lies a sorcerer.”

“Then we kill him last. Ask him about the priestess before we finish him off.”

Words barely through past his bearded lips, Arn strides forward and kicks open the door.

Arn charges the quartet of robes cultists. Festoonia stands by his side. Astra and Neva come after, the big Republic man using his height and reach to strike over his shorter friends. The magus stands beside him, slender fingers pressed to pastel blue temples.

(Spades win initiative 2:1)

(Arn: 12 vs AC 12, Dam: 8 vs 3. D&C: 19 vs AC12, dam: 7 vs 5. C&D: 6 vs AC:12, miss).

Sister Sarah’s voice loud in his mind, Arn charges into melee. He drives his shoulder into a cultist’s belly, severs his head at the neck with a downward cut. He reverses his swing, angling it to the right. His blade sheers through half of the second man’s face. He strikes again, but the third cultist leaps back, avoiding the blade.

(Festoonia: (nat) 1 vs AC 12, miss. Fumble. 1/d20 on fumble chart: weapon dropped).

Festoonia lunges, low and fast. Dwarfish steel whistles past her face, threatens to shred her right eye. She gasps, twists her hip to avoid the blade. Her blade clatters against wooden puncheons.

(Nerva; 19 vs AC 12, hit. Damage: 3 vs 3hp. D&C: 13 vs AC 10, dam: 4 vs 5hp).

The Republic man lashes out, extended his bodyweight over the sprawling halfing. His spear strikes high, ripping through his larynx and silencing his future prays. A flick of his wrist cuts through muscle and skin. Blood sprays as the blade cuts a broad slash against the last man’s chest.

Astra rasps, eyes closed and fingers pressed against her temple, “Fall to your knees.”

(Cult mage save: 2 vs 13, fail).

Robe darkened, face a pallid rictus, the cult mage did as ordered.

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