Post by DM Exitium on Dec 4, 2016 18:49:59 GMT
Storytime from The Chronicles of Ragnogov:
Aaelar the elf found himself launched from the book in which he was trapped into the devastated first floor of a familiar estate. As he quickly surveyed the scene he saw his friends Thokk'gar the half-orc warchief bard, Onyxia the dragonborn barbarian, High King John Deere Gondson of the dwarves, Skamos the Tiefling druid and a pesky forest gnome alchemist that follows the group on his pterradon that they only refer to as "Shorty". In addition to seeing his friends, he notices several corpses of large humanoid beetle creatures, some frozen, some with cracked carapaces and others slashed to pieces. "Hmm...Mezzoloths?" Aaelar muses to himself. The room was a mess, and it dawned on Aaelar that they were on the 1st floor of David Dusklo's estate...
"By Selune! What have you imbeciles done now?!?" Aaelar shouts, having been unaware of his surroundings while trapped in the book. David Dusklo was their esteemed ally and one of the 3 Trade Princes of Tailo, the Trade Prince of Magical Items and Curiosities.
"We've no time to explain, elf!" Shouts the warchief Thokk'gar, "Dusklo's guards are massing at the top of the stairs!"
The King lowers his hammer and places a hand on his helm, "Oi lads! I just got word the ships are under attack. No worries, I'll take care of it! You fellows take care of the old fairy boy!" as he runs out the door of the estate back towards the harbor.
Shorty jumps onto his pterradon and flies out a window up to the second floor, leaving the group behind. As Aaelar shouts, "But why are we fighting with Dusklo?" infuriated that he had no context as to why they were fighting an ally.
Thokk'gar beats his wardrum with his maul, chanting in orcish as the top of the stairs begin to crack and the leathery bat-like gargoyles amassing at the top screech in pain and curse the orc in infernal. Skamos, hearing his native tongue sets his eyes on the top of the stairs and lifts his hands but makes a head nod to Aaelar first. Aaelar, getting the hint, pulls out about a tablespoon of butter and rubs it between his fingers chanting in Draconic. The moment the Nycoloths at the top of the stairs began to fly and run down, Aaelar covered the top of the stairs in thick grease that the running Nycaloths slipped and fell into. Skamos immedietly creates a fire in the grease, starting a sticky wild flame that the Nycoloths writhe in pain as Onyxia flies to the top of the staircase and staring at the guards, lets loose her acid breath. The Nycoloths seem unharmed by her breath attack...but the stairs did not. Crumbling under the weight of grease fire and acid and bulky Nycoloths, the staircase began to collapse. As the stairs and Nycoloths land in a heap on the floor, Thokk'gar is on them in a moment, beating his drum and cracking the floor and wall with his war songs. Shorty flew in the broken window above the staircase and threw a potion down into the grease fire. A thick brown cloud quickly covered the fire then burned brightly. The Nycoloths inside could be heard cursing in Infernal and Abyssal as Thokk'gar beat his drum one more time with a shout in orcish "Bow to the warchief!" and another crack hits the grease fire and the Nycoloths all drop dead.
At this moment, David Dusklo flies in through the broken hole in the ceiling where the stairs used to be chuckling madly. "Oh Mendel! Can you come in here and help me!" The group looks towards the door that David is looking at, and through it steps a thin man with a spear, shield and a towel wrapped around his head. He's clearly not Mendel, Trade Prince of Exotic Foods, Spices and Drink. The Mendel they knew was extremely fat, but they hear a ghostly tortured voice of Mendel rasp out "Yes Master." Aaelar notices it was the thin man's shield speaking, and after looking closely sees Mendels flabby face, painfully nailed to the front of the thin man's shield. The face seemed enchanted to speak while the thin man's face remains mute. The man joins the fray, thrusting at the group with his ornate spear and catching blows on his shield with the tortured face. Aaelar manages to remove the towel on his head to reveal a hyena's face coming out the back of the thin man's head. Aaelar thinking quickly, mutters a spell in Draconic to bring the stone archway of David's estate come to life. The archway ran over to demon Mendel and began kicking him as Skamos tried to hold him down. David began flourishing his cape that appeared like the night sky. As he did so, magic missiles struck Thokk and Onyxia, and chain lightning crackled through group.
"You will pay your debts with your life if you must" David says as he tweaks his dangly earrings. The more spells David used, the more his features became more furry, and a snout protruded out of his face. Is he an Arcanaloth? thought Aaelar, having studied fiends before. While the archway continued to stomp the Mendel-face-wearing-demon, David flew up and out the hole in the ceiling muttering about "I need to grab something real quick and then you will pay! You won't leave hear with your lives!"
"David was a powerful magic man with who knows how many powerful magical treasures to use against us?" grumbles Onyxia, placing her bastard sword back in its belt-loop.
"We can't leave and rest, and even if we did, he would as well! We can't leave this unfinished, Thokk, Onyxia, Skamos. We have to kill him here and now. But what did he do worth killing him? Based on his appearance, he seems to be possessed by an Arcanaloth. But can any of you simpletons tell me if he actually intended to become possessed and meant to betray us?" Shouts Aaelar.
"Lets send the demon packing and ask Dusklo ourselves!" Skamos sneers.
"Alright. I found this a while ago" Aaelar shakes an ornate spell scroll from out of a pocket in his robes, "If I use it, it will bring the whole of David's estate down on top of him."
"Good idea, but girly man can fly" Onyxia says.
"Well then, we have to do our best to see that he's in the building when we bring it down." Skamos says as he shrugs.
"The building is coming down soon whether or not we intend it to. Look at this place," Thokk gestures around. "We have to get away from this building now". The grease fire, all the shattering songs of the warchief and Aaelar's animation of the arch had made the building unstable.
As the group begins to bolt for the exit past the broken archway, Skamos, Aaelar and Thokk run out into the sunlight to find David perched on a gargoyle above them. He floats down towards them and holds up a spell scroll of his own and lighting crackles at the wizard and warchief. However, David didn't notice Onyxia hadn't exited the building yet. The massive barbarian Weredragon was just coming out the door and planted her feet firmly. Her wings were gone at this point and she had to rely on the strength of her legs to reach David nearly 20 feet above her in the air. She plants her feet and leaps right up behind David and grabs him by his scrawny neck and hurls him through the broken doorway back into the first floor of his estate. The group all run as fast as they can and as they get nearly 50 ft away Aaelar turns, unrolls the spell scroll and the earth begins to shake and fissures open under David's estate. As the estate falls they hear the jackels howls as Aaelar gives a satisfied smirk.
As the dust settled, the group trudged into the fallen mansion to search for Dusklo's body but found the Arcanaloth oozing demonic ichor and laying crushed beneath a rock. It gasped and cracked one eye open as the group approached him. A deep bloody rasp of Infernal escaped the fox's mouth that Skamos and Aaelar heard as "Do not think this means your debts will go unpunished...." and it closed its eyes one last time. The group tensed for a moment expecting another spell or attack but the Arcanaloth seemed to have passed on and the fox like features returned to that of Davids.
Skamos flicked his wrist and muttered a spell that tied David to the ground with vines and Thokk gagged him for good measure. When the sun came up the next morning, they were relieved to see David still restrained. Onyxia spit on his forehead which startled Dusklo awake. "Mmmmf!" he chokes into the gag. Thokk grins but Aaelar leans down to remove the gag.
"Where am I? Why do I ache all over? And why on earth do you have me restrained?" Dusklo gasps.
"You were possessed by a demon and destroyed your estate while enslaving the city. We arrived just in time to defeat you and restore your mind to itself" Thokk kneels and grimly tells him. Aaelar looks as if he wants to correct the warchief but Thokk just gives him a glare and he keeps his mouth shut.
"Well I thank you friends for restoring me to my senses. Wait...destroyed my estate? Where did you say we were?" Dusklo looks around suddenly panicked to see the state of his Mansion.
"Again, we are in what is left of your estate. Are there any important artifacts that must me immediately secured?" Thokk grunts.
"Why would I give them too you, orc!" Dusklo shouts with thick racism.
"Because clearly you cannot be trusted with the items that you buy and trade. Therefore you must allow us to place an adept magic user in your staff to screen any and all magical curiosities that you distribute." Aaelar scoffs, joining into the deception.
"....there is." Skamos whispers in Infernal and with empty eyes begins walking towards a large pile of wreckage.
"What did he say?" Onyxia asks
"He said 'there is' in the devil tongue" Aaelar says. "What is there?" Onyxia and Thokk begin to follow Skamos and the tiefling mutters in his tongue to raise a set of thorns and vines that grow into a perfect pedestal holding a Talisman to Nerull, God of Death. Skamos reaches his hand out to take it, but just before he can take this talisman of ultimate evil he is stopped by Onyxia and Thokk.
Aaelar picks the talisman up with his mage hand and lifts it out of reach. "This you cannot be trusted with this Dusklo, and you certainly won't be touching this Skamos."
"The first salesman that touched that died. I had to have that shipped to me in a lead crate. I doubt you'll do much better protecting it..." Dusklo grumbles but agrees.
And so we ended that encounter on the cliffhanger of Skamos wanting the Talisman and the rest of the party wanting to hide it away.
Aaelar the elf found himself launched from the book in which he was trapped into the devastated first floor of a familiar estate. As he quickly surveyed the scene he saw his friends Thokk'gar the half-orc warchief bard, Onyxia the dragonborn barbarian, High King John Deere Gondson of the dwarves, Skamos the Tiefling druid and a pesky forest gnome alchemist that follows the group on his pterradon that they only refer to as "Shorty". In addition to seeing his friends, he notices several corpses of large humanoid beetle creatures, some frozen, some with cracked carapaces and others slashed to pieces. "Hmm...Mezzoloths?" Aaelar muses to himself. The room was a mess, and it dawned on Aaelar that they were on the 1st floor of David Dusklo's estate...
"By Selune! What have you imbeciles done now?!?" Aaelar shouts, having been unaware of his surroundings while trapped in the book. David Dusklo was their esteemed ally and one of the 3 Trade Princes of Tailo, the Trade Prince of Magical Items and Curiosities.
"We've no time to explain, elf!" Shouts the warchief Thokk'gar, "Dusklo's guards are massing at the top of the stairs!"
The King lowers his hammer and places a hand on his helm, "Oi lads! I just got word the ships are under attack. No worries, I'll take care of it! You fellows take care of the old fairy boy!" as he runs out the door of the estate back towards the harbor.
Shorty jumps onto his pterradon and flies out a window up to the second floor, leaving the group behind. As Aaelar shouts, "But why are we fighting with Dusklo?" infuriated that he had no context as to why they were fighting an ally.
Thokk'gar beats his wardrum with his maul, chanting in orcish as the top of the stairs begin to crack and the leathery bat-like gargoyles amassing at the top screech in pain and curse the orc in infernal. Skamos, hearing his native tongue sets his eyes on the top of the stairs and lifts his hands but makes a head nod to Aaelar first. Aaelar, getting the hint, pulls out about a tablespoon of butter and rubs it between his fingers chanting in Draconic. The moment the Nycoloths at the top of the stairs began to fly and run down, Aaelar covered the top of the stairs in thick grease that the running Nycaloths slipped and fell into. Skamos immedietly creates a fire in the grease, starting a sticky wild flame that the Nycoloths writhe in pain as Onyxia flies to the top of the staircase and staring at the guards, lets loose her acid breath. The Nycoloths seem unharmed by her breath attack...but the stairs did not. Crumbling under the weight of grease fire and acid and bulky Nycoloths, the staircase began to collapse. As the stairs and Nycoloths land in a heap on the floor, Thokk'gar is on them in a moment, beating his drum and cracking the floor and wall with his war songs. Shorty flew in the broken window above the staircase and threw a potion down into the grease fire. A thick brown cloud quickly covered the fire then burned brightly. The Nycoloths inside could be heard cursing in Infernal and Abyssal as Thokk'gar beat his drum one more time with a shout in orcish "Bow to the warchief!" and another crack hits the grease fire and the Nycoloths all drop dead.
At this moment, David Dusklo flies in through the broken hole in the ceiling where the stairs used to be chuckling madly. "Oh Mendel! Can you come in here and help me!" The group looks towards the door that David is looking at, and through it steps a thin man with a spear, shield and a towel wrapped around his head. He's clearly not Mendel, Trade Prince of Exotic Foods, Spices and Drink. The Mendel they knew was extremely fat, but they hear a ghostly tortured voice of Mendel rasp out "Yes Master." Aaelar notices it was the thin man's shield speaking, and after looking closely sees Mendels flabby face, painfully nailed to the front of the thin man's shield. The face seemed enchanted to speak while the thin man's face remains mute. The man joins the fray, thrusting at the group with his ornate spear and catching blows on his shield with the tortured face. Aaelar manages to remove the towel on his head to reveal a hyena's face coming out the back of the thin man's head. Aaelar thinking quickly, mutters a spell in Draconic to bring the stone archway of David's estate come to life. The archway ran over to demon Mendel and began kicking him as Skamos tried to hold him down. David began flourishing his cape that appeared like the night sky. As he did so, magic missiles struck Thokk and Onyxia, and chain lightning crackled through group.
"You will pay your debts with your life if you must" David says as he tweaks his dangly earrings. The more spells David used, the more his features became more furry, and a snout protruded out of his face. Is he an Arcanaloth? thought Aaelar, having studied fiends before. While the archway continued to stomp the Mendel-face-wearing-demon, David flew up and out the hole in the ceiling muttering about "I need to grab something real quick and then you will pay! You won't leave hear with your lives!"
"David was a powerful magic man with who knows how many powerful magical treasures to use against us?" grumbles Onyxia, placing her bastard sword back in its belt-loop.
"We can't leave and rest, and even if we did, he would as well! We can't leave this unfinished, Thokk, Onyxia, Skamos. We have to kill him here and now. But what did he do worth killing him? Based on his appearance, he seems to be possessed by an Arcanaloth. But can any of you simpletons tell me if he actually intended to become possessed and meant to betray us?" Shouts Aaelar.
"Lets send the demon packing and ask Dusklo ourselves!" Skamos sneers.
"Alright. I found this a while ago" Aaelar shakes an ornate spell scroll from out of a pocket in his robes, "If I use it, it will bring the whole of David's estate down on top of him."
"Good idea, but girly man can fly" Onyxia says.
"Well then, we have to do our best to see that he's in the building when we bring it down." Skamos says as he shrugs.
"The building is coming down soon whether or not we intend it to. Look at this place," Thokk gestures around. "We have to get away from this building now". The grease fire, all the shattering songs of the warchief and Aaelar's animation of the arch had made the building unstable.
As the group begins to bolt for the exit past the broken archway, Skamos, Aaelar and Thokk run out into the sunlight to find David perched on a gargoyle above them. He floats down towards them and holds up a spell scroll of his own and lighting crackles at the wizard and warchief. However, David didn't notice Onyxia hadn't exited the building yet. The massive barbarian Weredragon was just coming out the door and planted her feet firmly. Her wings were gone at this point and she had to rely on the strength of her legs to reach David nearly 20 feet above her in the air. She plants her feet and leaps right up behind David and grabs him by his scrawny neck and hurls him through the broken doorway back into the first floor of his estate. The group all run as fast as they can and as they get nearly 50 ft away Aaelar turns, unrolls the spell scroll and the earth begins to shake and fissures open under David's estate. As the estate falls they hear the jackels howls as Aaelar gives a satisfied smirk.
As the dust settled, the group trudged into the fallen mansion to search for Dusklo's body but found the Arcanaloth oozing demonic ichor and laying crushed beneath a rock. It gasped and cracked one eye open as the group approached him. A deep bloody rasp of Infernal escaped the fox's mouth that Skamos and Aaelar heard as "Do not think this means your debts will go unpunished...." and it closed its eyes one last time. The group tensed for a moment expecting another spell or attack but the Arcanaloth seemed to have passed on and the fox like features returned to that of Davids.
Skamos flicked his wrist and muttered a spell that tied David to the ground with vines and Thokk gagged him for good measure. When the sun came up the next morning, they were relieved to see David still restrained. Onyxia spit on his forehead which startled Dusklo awake. "Mmmmf!" he chokes into the gag. Thokk grins but Aaelar leans down to remove the gag.
"Where am I? Why do I ache all over? And why on earth do you have me restrained?" Dusklo gasps.
"You were possessed by a demon and destroyed your estate while enslaving the city. We arrived just in time to defeat you and restore your mind to itself" Thokk kneels and grimly tells him. Aaelar looks as if he wants to correct the warchief but Thokk just gives him a glare and he keeps his mouth shut.
"Well I thank you friends for restoring me to my senses. Wait...destroyed my estate? Where did you say we were?" Dusklo looks around suddenly panicked to see the state of his Mansion.
"Again, we are in what is left of your estate. Are there any important artifacts that must me immediately secured?" Thokk grunts.
"Why would I give them too you, orc!" Dusklo shouts with thick racism.
"Because clearly you cannot be trusted with the items that you buy and trade. Therefore you must allow us to place an adept magic user in your staff to screen any and all magical curiosities that you distribute." Aaelar scoffs, joining into the deception.
"....there is." Skamos whispers in Infernal and with empty eyes begins walking towards a large pile of wreckage.
"What did he say?" Onyxia asks
"He said 'there is' in the devil tongue" Aaelar says. "What is there?" Onyxia and Thokk begin to follow Skamos and the tiefling mutters in his tongue to raise a set of thorns and vines that grow into a perfect pedestal holding a Talisman to Nerull, God of Death. Skamos reaches his hand out to take it, but just before he can take this talisman of ultimate evil he is stopped by Onyxia and Thokk.
Aaelar picks the talisman up with his mage hand and lifts it out of reach. "This you cannot be trusted with this Dusklo, and you certainly won't be touching this Skamos."
"The first salesman that touched that died. I had to have that shipped to me in a lead crate. I doubt you'll do much better protecting it..." Dusklo grumbles but agrees.
And so we ended that encounter on the cliffhanger of Skamos wanting the Talisman and the rest of the party wanting to hide it away.