15/06/2000
Alias writes...
EditSummary
EditPlayer Characters
Oberon, Lord of Wands
Damien, Prince of Demons
Alias, Warder of Secrets
Morphia, Weaver of Dreams
Odin, Caster of Runes
Beau Rutherford, Lord of Charms
EditMajor NPC’s Visited
Li Mae, Agent of Lord of Intrigues
Lady of the Deeps
EditPlaces Visited
Citadel of Wands, Feralie
Imperial City, Feralie
The Deeps
EditMission
Small groups of skeletons were causing havoc in the Lord of Intrigues empire on Feralie. We were to put an end to it.
EditMotivation and/or Employer
After trading for information, a favour was owed to the Lord of Intrigues. In addition, the skeletons fell into the hands of (as we suspected) the Lady of Deep after some meddling with the whale song by Odin.
EditAdventure Summary
EditTo the Imperial City
With several pressing tasks available to the group, we decided to finish a commitment to the Lord of Intrigues. This found us discussing matters in the City of the Rose, Sparlainth. Before leaving, the city was organised to set about repairing the infrastructural and economic damage caused by the recent war. After organising this, dispatches were sent to the Lord of Intrigues.
The Lord of Intrigues replied with instructions to head to Feralie. Oberon seemed to know the location, so off we headed. This took us through the Bridge of Sighs (from Sparlainth to Feralie). After a little debate about heading to the Manor on the Moors, we ended up heading to the Citadel of Wands, a house of Oberon.
At the Citadel we had the pleasure of meeting Autumn and tall beautiful Dryad, with hair of auburn gold and pretty freckles. After noticing that she did not say much, both myself and Damien compared notes on the merits of a woman who didn’t speak much. Ignoring Morphia for a change, Damien pressed his graces in the direction of Autumn, who showed no interest. A large, aged, forest surrounded the Citadel.
Oberon, who seemed to know the lay of the land, travelled rapidly to the outskirts of the Imperial City and laid a teleport point. He then returned to collect us. Upon arrival outside the Imperial City, we had five days travel to reach the inner city.
EditLi Mae
Travel into the Imperial City was a drawn out process. Upon arrival I was given enough Jade taels for each of us and we were instructed to keep them on our possession while in the Imperail Kingdom. After happily accepting these attractive devices, we continued into the city.
Odin, barbarian that he is, wanted to be greeted by parades and fireworks. Unfortunately I humoured him. Next time I must remember to keep him intoxicated. With the exception of myself, the whole party partook in crowd waving and baby kissing. The baby kissing got a bit out of hand when Damien unhinged his jaws and made joking movements indicating he should devour a baby or two.
Not long later the crowd evacuated in an orderly manner. I’m not sure what scared them more, baby eating Damien, or levitating Oberon. Anyway, we didn’t miss out on the fireworks. Beau did not seem impressed by the antics of the party in general, although did partake in making sure everyone knew we had arrived.
The City is huge and very well organised, as are the surrounding lands. Local rulers seemed to have a lot of money to play with, and Beau took advantage of gambling oportunities to make a name for himself. He is quite the show man and not a bad gambler, by all accounts.
Upon arriving at the palace, Li Mae was on hand, in her typically efficient manner, to act as our host. She is a picture of the mysterious oriental beauty. She had already sent word to outlying area’s, instructing them to send reports regarding attacks, and providing staff to answer our questions. To refresh us after our long journey prepared tea, she is definitely a Mistress of Tea Ceremonies, an excellent way to recover power.
Next morning we met the staff. They seemed to defer to me, a situation I did not enjoy. After attempting to hand over to Damien, who is more skilled in command an military tactics, the discussion broke down into a mess of questions. Oberon and Beau were most useful.
EditSkeletons and Squids
After some poorly thought out plans, we eventually got ourselves infront of one advancing line of skeletons and waited up hoping to catch them in action. Eventually a sudden storm arrived, and water spouts were seen delivering groups of skeletons. In hindsight we found the storms were causing the land to be a valid target for the water spouts to drop skeletons, otherwise the spouts could not have come ashore.
We dispatched of the skeletons except a few for divining purposes. We eventually discovered that they were infested with control devices last seen in the tentacles of the Lady of the Deeps. This was all we needed, so a few days were spent preparing new spells, after which we headed out to sea. Damien was tracing the controlling magic on the control devices (small squid) and after two weeks travel on the surface we headed down to the deeps. At one mile below, we were good to go.
An underground city was found, and the trace lead into a large temple. Outside the temple a squid door lead into another area, filled with impenetrable ink. We eventually encountered a giant squid. Quick unthinking by Odin lead to a part water, which turned out to be a effective way of killing the squid. It did not survive the 120 foot fall. Damien survived the fall, just. I handled the fall a lot better than Damien, although it cost. The others feather falled and climbed down.
Not long later we found ourselves in an underground lagoon. Being careful not to raise an alarm, we carefully scouted the interal area before making our way to a large clam. While making our way to shore, sharks and another creature attempted to intercept us. Thanks to Beau, being a Manta Ray, we were able to detect these fiends. Oberon blasted away with his cone of paralysation, neutralising the threat.
Meanwhile, on shore a humanoid creature beat us to the shore. A phantasm by Morphia dispatched the creature with ease. Three more came ashore moments later. Various bolt spells left three more corpses lying beside the first.
On the shore we investigated the large clam. A huge black pearl could be seen in the centre. Various divinations revealed this to be a gate. The clam was extremely resilient, and a force wall was protecting the gate. Eventually we realised the clam was a contraption to house some kind of squid like creature. We realised the gate was active and something was arriving. Something tentacled that could use the clam.
EditLady of the Deeps
Without further ado, the Lady of the Deeps arrived in some kind of form created from outer darkness matter. She quickly took control of the Clam and began casting. Brute force seemed the only solution as we feel into our familiar routines.
Only Beau tried something different. After charming her, she looked favourable upon him and she decided to get rid of us so they could spend some time alone. This was one gamble Beau thought had backfired, and he was desperate for us to kill her.
While trying to smash through her force shield, animated hard water attacked us. Morphia found the easiest solution, hacking at the water with a sword, while myself and Oberon chose the hard option, dodging. As usual Damien pretty much stood there and took it like a demon. Odin had scuttled under the clam and was playing around riving a back door.
Eventually we got through the force wall. At this point, summoned invisible silent water was released from inside the shell and it washed over us. Being at the front, I wasn’t impressed and decided that washing me down now would make me come back more powerful. Oberon and Morphia took a beating as the water ran over them. In typical Damien fashion, Damien attacked the oncoming water with a lightning strike parting it if you will. Odin continued to hack at her from the back and Beau was using his time to interfere with the pearl at the centre of the clam.
With the wall of force down, Damien was in a position to deliver some damage. Unfortunately this broke Beau’s charm and the Lady of the Deeps was not happily scorned. Oberon moved and delivered a hell fire. She didn’t like the hell fire and smashed Oberon with a metallic limb, sending him flying. I jumped out of my cloak. Odin continued the good work. Morphia let loose with confusion.
I had had enough of this up front fighting and bolted for Odin, looking to get in the back door. Oberon let loose with stitched hell fires. Unfortunately a wall of water was interposed reducing the damage to practically nothing. She also seemed to buy off more black lightning from Damien and confusion from Morphia. Odin was cutting his way into her flesh by this point and continued to pound her.
Meanwhile, she directed her attentions to Beau, who cleverly dived away and took Manta form, something she wasn’t expecting. That was shark infested water he dived into. Fortunately she seemed overconfident or confused, because she was not directing her attention to the real artillery in the party and instead spread the damage amongst us all. Admittedly she was wearing us down, but everyone was still on their feet for the moment.
By this stage I had made my way to Odin. Stepping forward with the Ebon Spear loaded with a silver spray ward, I let loose. She had no defenses back here, and didn’t seem to have elemental powers allowing her to resist the attack. She may have been surprised, although it seems unlikely as she was faster than all of us.
The silver spray killed her. After a brief celebration her death curse played itself out. I was turned into a creature of the deep. We didn’t stay long.