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Why, yes, it IS another “Homebrewed,” and yes, so soon.  The day after our game, in fact.  Gotta pick my brain while the pickins are good.  Right now, Iema and Natalia are still at the mage fair, enjoying their friend Raelan’s presentation and searching for more clues on Chenestes.  However, every time we’re moseying along, minding our own business, something gets in the way.  Most recently: Some suspicious-looking guy standing over our new, disintegrated friend, Althris.  Lost?  Catch up with part 15, located here.      

Briezen the 4^th      

This game is brought to you by…CTHULHU!  Seriously.  Look:      

A big shout-out and thank you goes to Ruth, from whom I ordered this crocheted awesomeness.  I was opening the package right when we were getting ready for our next “Homebrewed” game.  And I have to say, we were all very impressed with it.  It’s even cuter in real life than in the pictures.  Initially, when I told Jim that I was ordering a crocheted cthulhu, he was doubtful.  But when I handed it to him, he was like, “WOW.  That IS cute.”  Good thing he loves it, since I really bought it for him, heh.  Phil also took a look at it, said he’d like one for his desk.  I’m half-tempted to order another one later on.  For anyone else who is interested, Ruth’s Etsy store is here.  Help fund a fellow geek!  I highly recommend it.       

But, alas, as bad ass as Cthulhu is, I doubt he can take on Gremlin.  I’ve seen what that kitten has done to my crochet swatches.  And Gremlin was already circling the scene, so Cthulhu didn’t stick around for the game–he went up on the bookshelf, where he would be safe.      

So, onto the game:  Iema and Natalia wake up in the PORTABLE MASION.  Sorry, but you cannot say PORTABLE MANSION without caps.  Or shouting at the top of your lungs.  It’s just too awesome.  So we wake up and go downstairs.  There, we find the kids already up.  The little girl is playing with Beta, while Corin is fiddling with a multi-colored disk that looks like the one The Thing tried to use during our encounter with him.      

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that part, didn’t I?  The Thing had a disk that he was trying to use to Plane Shift out of there when he realized that being mauled by a dire lion and a druid-gone-wild wasn’t exactly what he wanted out of life.  Well, Thing, sorry, but if I cannot Plane Shift my ass out of my cubicle during the week, you don’t get to Plane Shift your ass out of your untimely demise.  Only fair.      

Anyway, that is another clue that, perhaps, you D&D veterans out there can use to identify The Thing.  I, however, am the noob that I am.  I’ve absolutely no idea what it was.      

Iema asks Corin if he can look at the disk and examines it.  It’s about 6″ in diameter and 1/2″ thick.  He tries to do a spellcraft check on it, but it doesn’t go so well.  He decides to show Uliver once he wakes up.      

We don’t have to wait long.  Uliver finally comes downstairs, ready for his morning coffee.  You’d think that with all the spells wizards can learn, they’d find a better way to wake up than caffeine.  Then again, why mess with what already works–and is already good?      

Uliver carefully turns the disk over in his hands.  He tells Iema that he thinks it’s something that sort of creates energy–something casters can use when their powers are tapped out.  This makes sense.  Initially, The Thing tried to Plane Shift without it.  It only tried to use the disk after his own Plane Shift failed.     

Iema debates who could best use it.  Uliver looks at him strangely.  “You don’t understand.  It’s good for spontaneous spellcasters.”     

Which, obviously, would be Iema, who is the only spontaneous spellcaster in our little crew.     

Iema wants to test the disk out.  We debate where to test it out.  We talk about trying it out later, when we’re away from the kids–     

“But I want to go with you!” Corin cuts in, in his Jade Islander accent.  (Which, incidentally, sounds Irish.  Or Scottish.  Oh, lord, I don’t know–it sounds funny, okay?  And good.  I didn’t realize my man was so good at accents.)     

Iema explains to Corin that it isn’t that he doubts Corin’s skills at all, but Iema is concerned for Corin’s safety.  He is only 13, after all.  He had planned on leaving Corin with Uliver at times to learn some things during the times we’re gone.     

“But I don’t want to stay with Uliver!  I don’t want to be a wizard!” he protests.     

“He wouldn’t be teaching you how to be a wizard,” Iema tries to explain.     

“We’re worried you’re going to die,” Natalia says.  “And even though I can cast Reincarnate on you, you probably won’t come back human at first.  And you’ll come back with something wrong.”     

“Although, I guess Raelan could always just polymorph you back to a human,” Iema says.     

Corin shoots a wry look at Natalia.  He turns back to Iema.  “If something happens to me,” he says, ”can’t you just take me to a cleric or someone who can do a real resurrection?”    

“HEY!”  Natalia says sharply.  “Whaddaya mean, a REAL Resurrection?”    

Iema and Corin debate.  Corin says he can use a dagger.  And it becomes clear that Corin is not going to back down on this, so it’s settled:  Corin is going to be coming with us from now one.  I guess this would be Phil’s character’s official first “follower.”    

“Well,” I say, once things are decided, “I do not care, the little girl is not coming with me.  SHE’S FIVE.”    

We can all agree on that.    

Everyone turns their attention back to the disk.  Iema tries to use it to cast an invisibility spell on himself.  And that’s when things go horribly wrong.    

KABOOM!  (Gotta love Jim and his sound effects.)    

After the dust settles, we all find ourselves on the floor.  The table is charred, destroyed beyond recognition.  Iema is the first to rise, looking for Corin.  The bard finally finds the kid under the coffee table, unconscious.  Iema pulls him out from under the table and starts healing.  Corin snaps upward, coughing, sputtering.    

“How do you feel?” Iema asks.    

“Alive.”    

Natalia crosses her arms.  “You still wanna come with us, hm?”  Corin pointedly ignores her comment.    

Iema is still checking on everyone and finds Uliver nearby.  “Hey, you need some healing, too?”    

Uliver sits up.  “Um, no.  I’m just fine.  How about we don’t do any more spells before our morning coffee?”    

The only ones missing are Beta and the little girl.  Natalia finds Beta slammed into the wall.  The little girl had been behind him before the explosion.  Natalia scrambles over to Beta, shoves him up, looking behind and underneath him for the girl.  She’s nowhere to be found.    

Finally, we find her.  She has been slammed through the wall into the next room.  Jim says she’s pulverized.  Natalia’s heart sinks.    

“We have to Reincarnate on her,” Natalia says desperately.  “She’s only 5.  She didn’t even get a chance to live.  Of course, the chances of her coming back human…”    

“She might actually prefer not to be human,” Iema points out.  “You saw how much she likes animals.”    

My brain is already whirring.  “I can cast Speak with Animals, too, so if she does come back as an animal, I can find out if that’s how she wants to stay.”    

“We could always take her to a cleric,” Iema says.  “Since her death is really my fault, I’ll foot the bill for it.  It’ll be expensive, though.”    

Natalia shakes her head.  “Let’s do it the free way,” she says.  She turns her attention to the girl and casts Reincarnation.  I roll the dice to see what she comes back as; Phil happily looks at his Player Handbook so he can know right away.  To all our amazement, she actually comes back as a little girl.    

When she comes to, her eyes grow big.  Then she curls up into a ball and starts rocking back and forth.  Soon, we discover she’s also wet herself.    

Uliver comes over, peering over our shoulders to look at her.  “Uh oh.  That’s not good.  You broke her.”    

Iema leans over to sing a lullaby, one that inspires courage.  She relaxes and falls asleep.  Natalia scoops her up.  “I’m going to change her clothes,” she says.  “Uliver?”    

He points her in the right direction.  Natalia turns to leave.  Behind her, she can hear Uliver say how he’s never been dead, that he never plans to.  Natalia wonders about how men can make jokes about lichdom after seeing a kid died, but maybe that’s just this world.  She goes to change the little girl.    

She finishes up, brings the little girl back into the room.  We discuss what we’re going to do with her.  I had already known that Natalia wouldn’t be able to keep the little girl; my druid’s lifestyle just isn’t what one could call child-friendly.  But I wanted to be very careful in selecting a caretaker for her.  I didn’t want to just dump her on the first person who promised to take care of her.  I wanted someone who could keep her safe, who could take care of any issues that might crop up (out of character, I know about the curse; Natalia doesn’t, though), and who would make her happy.  The kid’s had a shitty enough life as it is.  Secretly, I’d been mulling between Elianra and Roan as being possible adoptive parents to the little girl.    

But now we have an added issue:  The little girls got some severe mental trauma from being brought back from the dead.  We decide to first decide what exactly were were dealing with–what exactly went wrong when Natalia Reincarnated her.    

Natalia hoists the dozing little girl onto her back.  We say goodbye to Uliver and go to find Ressin, the cleric that had sold us the wands, to see if he could help us figure out what’s wrong with the little girl.  Ressin suggests that we find a necromancer.  Natalia worries aloud about necromancers being evil; I’m informed out of character that not all necromancers are evil, although it certainly seems to draw some pretty nasty people.  To calm my nerves, Phil rolls a Bardic Knowledge check to see if Iema knows any way of identifying a goodly-aligned necromancer.  Luckily, he does well, and Jim tells him that Iema knows that good necromancers worship one of the good gods.  I think he gave a name of one, but I didn’t catch it.  Anyway, they often wear a symbol of an orchid with a sickle across it.    

Corin, smart kid that he is, speaks up.  “If we want to find a necromancer, why don’t we go to the Wizard of Titles?”    

Iema looks at Corin, interested.  “The Wizard of Titles?  How do you mean?”    

“I heard Raelan talking to you guys about him the other day,” he says.  Perceptive kid.  “Wouldn’t he, out of anyone, know a goodly-aligned necromancer?”    

Good idea!  So we head over the the Wizard of Title’s booth.  Turns out the Wizard of Titles is a Gravekin, whose name is Axien, and who is currently flipping through pages of a book.  He has pieces of flesh hanging off in bits.  Natalia shifts her weight with the little girl still on her back, staring at the Gravekin.  Which, yes, is kind of rude, but Natalia’s not exactly the polished sort.  I imagine she would probably stare at amputees, too.  I know.  Not classy at all, right?     

Iema takes the strangeness of the Axien in stride, though, asking him if he knows where we can find a goodly-aligned necromancer.  When Axien speaks, he sounds kind of like a frog.  He gives us a list of names, but strongly suggests we talk to the Wizard of Scales, Toris.  We thank him and turn to leave.    

“Wait,” Axien croaks.  “Before you leave, I need you to tell me: Is the Wizard of Ribbons dead?”    

Iema looks at Natalia.    

Natalia says, “Sorval?  Yeah, she’s dead.”    

“Are you sure?  She’s gone?  She’s not coming back?  You saw a body?”    

Now I’m getting unsure.  “Yes.  Why?”    

“Because there’s a young sorceress that’s interested in taking the Wizard of Ribbons title,” he explains.   

Oh, okay.  That actually makes sense he would be asking about it, then.  Damn, he had me worried.  I was nervous that she wasn’t dead and that she’d be hunting down Raelan with that annoying little steam mephit again.   

We then hurry off to see this Toris person.  I swear, most of this mage fair is just looking for people.  Nobody is at the Wizard of Scales’ quarters, save a boy who is brushing a horse.  We ask for Toris, and he starts to scamper off to get him.  Iema calls out that we’ll just follow him and go to Toris –no need to drag Toris back to us, away from whatever he’s doing.   

The boy leads us to a tent.  Jim says when we enter the tent, we realize that it is enchanted, so sound cannot leave.  Within the tent, there is a group of people gathered in a meeting, many of whom are shady-looking characters.  However, the man we discover to be the Wizard of Scales is not one of them.   

He comes over to find out what we want.  We show him the little girl, explain the situation.   

He holds the sleeping child, examines her.  “First of all,” he snaps at Natalia, “you should leave the resurrecting to the clerics.”   

I’m about to snap something back–Natalia is sick of the anti-druid crap–but quickly decide against it, lest we piss the man off and he doesn’t help the little girl.  The little girl’s mental health comes before Natalia’s ego.   

“I’ve seen this before,” Toris says, handing her back to us.  “She remembers being dead.  Now she’s aware of everything that could kill her.  She’s afraid of everything because she remembers.”   

Natalia cradles the girl.  “So, really, she’s lost her innocence,” I mutter.  Well, I guess it was in-character, so I guess Natalia muttered it, too.  But the thing with kids is that they’re not so aware of their mortality–not the way adults are.  I don’t know about you guys, but I used to do all sorts of crazy shit as a kid I would never do now.  For one, I used to be quite a climber.  Now, you’re not getting me to climb anything.  All I can think of is a thousand ways a head can split open.   

I miss being a kid sometimes.  But back to the game.   

Toris says that several things can help the little girl, refocusing being one, like taking on an apprenticeship.  Natalia immediately remembers the Wizard of Animals.  The second option, he says, is to take her to a cleric of a benign faith.  The third option is discipline.  That, he says, he can offer.  She can join his entourage, the Gray Phalanx, which consists of warriors, clerics, and paladins, amongst other things.  They will make use of her natural talent (I automatically think of her affinity with animals) and train her.  

Natalia is hesitant to hand over the girl to him, even though Jim tells me out of character that his group is a lawful good group.  Natalia tells Toris that she wants to check with the Wizard of Animals first.  That, I think, would be the girl’s first pick.  Toris understands, states that he’s there if Elianra doesn’t work out.  And it’s a good thing that option is left open because when we go to see the Elianra…well, things haven’t been so good for her.  

When we get to Elianra’s, the portal to go to her little pocket jungle-realm has smoke coming out of it.  The guy standing outside it tells us that it’s closed.  We tell him that we need to speak to Elianra on a personal matter.  He allows us to go in.   

Inside, everything is a mess.  Elianra comes to greet us, but she looks stressed.  She explains that when the Dragon Council was underway, with all the dragons there in their humanoid forms, a latecomer showed up.  She didn’t catch everything because she was at a distance, but she could tell that the rest of the Dragon Council was, at first, shocked to see the latecomer, and then most of them refused to believe him to be who he said he was.  The commotion quickly escalated into combat, which is why the jungle-realm was destroyed utterly.  

We told her of our own combat with The Thing.  We told her another thing it was doing that we found odd: It was ripping up Althris’s druidic scrolls.  We were trying to compare the times of the incidents, trying to figure out if they coincided at all, but we quickly realized they took place at completely different times, and, honestly, were most like unrelated.  

At any rate, we told Elianra why we originally had come, but now, we don’t think playing foster mother/master would be such a good idea.  “If you think this is the best place for her, of course, I’ll take her,” Elianra says.  “But my own life is in danger.  Several members of the Dragon Council believe that I lured them into an ambush with the newcomer and have threatened my life.  My own safety is in jeopardy; I cannot guarantee hers.”  

Well, the little girl’s safety is number one priority for Natalia, and honestly, the Wizard of Animals cannot take much more stress.  The decision’s pretty much made for us what to do with the little girl.  Still, I can’t just leave Elianra without extending some kind of help.  “If they’re after you and you’re needing a place to stay,” Natalia says, “I have a tree house.  You’re welcome any time.  And…I have myconids living underneath my tree house.”  

“Thank you,” she says.  “And I would definitely be interested in the myconids.  Do you think you can talk to them, have them look at my realm?  Maybe they can see it, help regrow everything.”  

Natalia agrees.  Elianra gives Iema the scroll to use to call her when we’re ready for her.  

We say goodbye and good luck, head back to Toris.  Now, he’s outside the tent with a man in full plate armor.  That man appears to be a paladin.  There’s also a female fighter decked out in chainmail.  We tell Toris that with him appears to be the best place for her.  But, first, Natalia wakes the little girl up to meet her new family, of sorts.  She’s not going to let the little girl wake up to find herself among strangers, of course.  

At first the little girl is frightened and clings onto Natalia.  The paladin steps forward.  The little girl relaxes.  The paladin holds his arms out.  She scrambles into his arms and holds onto him tightly.  

I feel better about this decision already.  Still, Natalia feels a little glum.  She has gotten attached to the little girl.  “She likes animals,” Natalia offers feebly.  She pauses.  “And she doesn’t have a name.  Are you going to name her?  Just…just so I know who to look for later.  I would like to visit her again.”  

“Of course,” the man says.  He looks at the little girl.  “I’ll call her Keala.”  

“Keala” means “kitten” in Upper Numbraran.  It seems kind of perfect.  Natalia knows the girl will have a good life, probably training as a paladin, with the Gray Phalanx.  Although the girl would have made a damn good druid when she got a little older, too, I think.  

Before we leave, Iema gets the name of the fighter’s husband, who is also a bard.  Then we go to a skiffing game, particularly for Iema and Corin.  Corin especially seems to be really into sports.  Skiffing is a game that is like jousting, but it’s in the water, and people are riding humanoid water creatures rather than mounts.  “You know,” Iema says to Natalia, “you would probably be very good at this game.”  

Natalia wrinkles her nose.  Ugh, sports.  With teammates and all those people?  No, thanks.  Still, we enjoy the game, especially Corin–the Jade Islanders are dominating the game.  It’s the only one where the Fasset team isn’t the force to be reckoned with.  

After the game, we head out to see the shypsies.  They’re out by the sea.  They’re a very dark people, with very dark hair, and the men have styled, greased-up facial hair.  We seek the captain, who has poofy pants and some long gun thing tucked into the waist.  Jim says Natalia’s never seen anything like it before.  (Note: I don’t think guns are too big in Valt.  In fact, I think they’re supposed to be pretty damn rare.)  

Iema shows him the magical ring we got from that giant we saved him from.  It seems so long ago now.  Iema could tell it was shypsie craftmanship, but he couldn’t tell much beyond that.  The captain looks at it and announces that it’s a ring of thieves.  Phil gets excited because, based on Jim’s description, he knows what kind of ring it is.  (I guess it’s a Ring of Mind Shielding?  My noobish state is proven when I failed to see why this was such an exciting find and Phil had to explain it to me.)  The captain invites us to buy from him.  He prices are crazy, but Iema and Natalia pool funds together to get Corin a dagger, a Fog Razor.  Corins’s eyes get big when Iema hands it to him.  

“For me?” he asks incredously.  “Really?”  He tucks the Fog Razor in his boot, puts his crappy, old dagger in his sheath.  Corin may only be 13, but he’s a sharp kid.  Really sharp.  Seriously, I know.  Jim let me see his character sheet, heh.  

We all still want to find out about the The Thing, so we leave the shypsies and head to the admin tent to see if Jovos can make heads or tails of it, based on our description.  First, he just listens to us, our descriptions based on what we remembered.  “That’s impossible,” he says.  He points to a nearby crystal.  “The amount of magic to do what you say would have to be great.  We have that crystal set up to go off if any Master spells are used.  It will zoom in and show whomever is casting it.  It never went off last night.”  

Iema also shows Jovos the disk we had found the The Thing.  Jovos says it’s some sort of chromatic disk and warns us not to use it–it will detonate if we do.  

“Yeah, too late,” Iema mutters.  “We already found that out the hard way.”  

Jovos is still troubled by our encounter with The Thing.  He turns to Natalia.  She feels something flipping through her mind.  “Do you mind?” he asks.  

It occurs to me that Jovos probably can’t do that with Iema, since he has that Ring of Mind Shielding thing.  “Um…okay,” Natalia says.  He flips through her mind faster, as if going through index cards.  Is it really a good idea to have an arch-devil flipping through your brain?  Probably not.  Hmmm.  

Then Jim says, “Spring, what is Natalia’s worst memory?”  

“Uh, do you mean after our game started?  Or something that is in her background?”  I immediately think oh shit oh shit oh shit.  I didn’t put that much thought into Natalia’s background.  

“Either.”  

“I guess when Beta died the first time.  She wasn’t so used to it then.”  

“Okay,” Jim says, “Jovos finds that memory and plucks it out.”  

Just like that, eh?  

Since Jovos can go through everything in Natalia’s mind, he can see all the events that she might have not necessarily remembered.  “This is troubling,” Jovos says.  “Whatever did that would have had to have done it within 6 seconds in order to keep the crystal from going off.  From what I could tell from Natalia’s memory, 20 spells were discharged in a span of 18 seconds in a very small area.”  

Damn, that’s a lot.  We try to think of anything else can show him.  Iema reminds Natalia of the Ioun Stone that we found on The Thing–the one that adds +2 to her Wisdom, the stone that is currently orbiting around her head.  Jovos reaches out to take it, but it bounces away from him.  “May I?” he asks Natalia.  

She plucks it out from the air and hands it over to him.  Jovos explains that Ioun Stones are usually manufactured, but this is a natural one, which occurs only in the Outer Planes, and frequently in the Loom, which is the elemental plan of magic. I thought I heard Phil groaning about this, but don’t ask me what it means.  I’m sure it’s another thing that veteran gamers know.  I’m too dumb to know better and am instead asking why the hell we can’t just go there, haha.  

Jovoes hands the Ioun Stone back to Natalia, who places it near her head and lets go.  The stone immediately begins circling her head again.  We say goodbye to Jovos.  For an arch-devil, he isn’t so bad.  I should be careful, though.  If there’s anything my super-religious Southern Baptist parents taught me, it was that Satan has sneaky ways of SLIPPING INTO YOUR SOUL.  

Of course, my Southern Baptists parents also told me that D&D was Satanic and was the reason so many kids became possessed by demons.  So, obviously, listening to my parents isn’t my strong suit here.  

Jovos suggests for that the armor and dagger looted off the giant, we go to an item identification booth.  He gives us directions to one.  There, we find a very strange elf, whose eyes are half closed and is swaying back and forth.  It’s like…a hippie elf.  Natalia is immediately suspicious (remember her distrust of elves) and hangs back, while Iema wakes him out of his stoned-like state to give him some money to identify the items.  The elf says the dagger is a +1 dagger.  It’s better than what Iema has, so Natalia convinces him to keep it–not that it takes much convincing, heh.  The armor is glamoured, meaning that it can look like regular clothes, which we end up selling later on for 4,000 gold.  

Now, we’re discussing The Thing again.  How else to find out something more about it.  Based on what Jovos has said, it sounds like we have at least narrowed down The Thing’s origin to the Outer Planes.  Finally, Natalia has an idea.  

“Hey,” she says.  “You know the Wizard of Titles?  Well, there seems to be a title for everything, doesn’t there?  Why don’t we check with the Wizard of Titles to see if there is a Wizard of Planes or something?  That wizard could probably tell us if there is anything on the Outer Planes that matches The Thing’s description.”  

Iema agrees.  We go to the Wizard of Titles, who confirms that there is a Wizard of Planes, but the wizard himself isn’t here–just his apprentice.  Still, that will do.  We head off to see the apprentice of the Wizard of Planes, whose name is Orin.  However, Orin can’t give us much information.  Like, at ALL.  Natalia’s disappointed.  Before we leave, though, Orin whispers, “Be careful…someone isn’t who he says he is!  Someone is a devil.”  

“We know who that is!” Iema says to Natalia under his breath, thinking of Jovos.  

After we get some distance from Orin, Corin says, “For a guy who specializes in this stuff, he sure didn’t know much.”  

“I agree,” Natalia says.  “Maybe he’s the one who isn’t who he says he is.” 

So, there is more specalation about The Thing and what could have caused Althris to disintegrate within the 6 second time frame that Jovos said that person would have had to have had.  Natalia suggests–well, I, I guess, because I was really not “in character” when I said this–but I suggested that maybe it wasn’t magical at all.  Maybe it was a machine or scientific, but I’m not sure if that’s even feasible in Valt or even D&D in general.  We got back to Althris’s campsite and throw more checks.  Natalia succeeds pretty well in her’s and makes an interesting discovery:  

The standard druidic spells were merely ripped; the non-standard and unique druidic spells were utterly destroyed.  

Corin remembers something else that he thinks would be helpful.  We had bought and sold with Althris the day he was murdered.  Iema had given him some Shotan coins, which aren’t exactly common around here.  The killers took Althris’s money, so they should have the Shotanese coins on them.  We go back to the admin tent to see if anyone can point us in the right direction to even begin such an investigation.  

Jovos is, again, the one we’re dealing with.  He tells us we don’t need to go any further.  He had just gotten some Shotenase coins that day–from the Fasset team.  

Now I am sorry I didn’t give you the gory details of watching the Fasset team play in Break Ball and Scramble.  First of all, Fasset is supposed to be a bad ass city, full of bad ass people as is.  It’s supposed to be next to impossible to get into the city or attack it.  Secondly, the Fasset team, if I remember right, is the freakin’ prison team.  And we saw them do some pretty nasty things during the games.  They’re impressive–and scary.  

We think of all the spells that had to be cast in Althris’s dwelling.  “Is any of them a spell caster?” Iema asks.  

“The manager,” Jovos says.  “Furthermore, they have paid the shypsies large sums of money for fast passage to Fasset.  I thought it was strange that they still managed to make it here just for a couple of games when half their team died on the trip over.”  

Iema nods.  “Almost like they were here for something else.”  

Jovos continues to tell us that murder at their mage fair does not look good, and he suggests we find whomever did this.  We agree, run off to find Raelan (who, of course, agrees to go with us), and rush off to catch the Fasset team before their boat leaves.  We have to deal with the shypsie captain first, though, who says that the team has specifically stated that they do not want any visitors.  Iema politely offers gold to let us on.  The captain is concerned about damage to his boats.  

Finally, Natalia gets annoyed.  “Look, you do business here, right?”  

“Yes,” the captain says.  “It’s all right.”  

This would work better if business was kickin’, but Natalia keeps going.  “Well, the people heading this fair are very angry about people being killed here.  We think those people are on those boats, and they will not be happy if you let them go.  They might not let you come back if you let those guys get away.  Think of all the future business you’d be losing.”  

“Aaaaaaaaah,” the captain says, wagging his finger at Natalia and grinning, “you speak very clever!”  

Yet he still charges us to get on the boats and makes us promise to pay for any of our damages.  

We get on the boat.  And, yes, we do believe we find the killers.  They’re all wearing eagle feathers, and the bird itself is roasting on a spit.  Jim reminds me that Natalia specifically remembers that Althris’s companion was an eagle.  

OMG.  JERKS.  They have offended my delicate druidic sensibilities. 

And then Jim starts drawing on the battlemap.  Never a good sign.  

At this point in the game, it was getting late, and I was nodding off.  My notes here start getting worse.  I do have this: The Fasset team consists of a brutish-looking woman, a Kuo-toa, a Sahuagin, an Orc, a Hobgoblin, and a human–presumably the spell casting manager.  As soon as they see us, they draw their weapons.  Iema is disappointed, as he was going to try a more, uh, non-violent way to get them off the ship so we wouldn’t have to worry about damaging it, but alas, there is no way these guys are letting us off now.  As soon as they see us, they know the shypsie captain sold them out.  

I don’t have all my notes from the encounter–busy trying to stay awake and all–but I have pieces.  The brutish-looking woman went first, running toward us, jumping down the platform and pulling out a freakin’ warhammer.  The orc tries to jump down from where he’s at, but he’s not so graceful (I believe that would be the nat 1 Jim rolled) and falls.  I cast Greater Magic Fang on Beta (when am I ever going to learn to cast that OUT of combat?) and he charges forward.  The woman hits him, and then the Kuo-toa climbs into the rigging, preparing to jump, I’m assuming.  I’m keeping an eye on him.  

Meanwhile, the human casts Obscuring Mist.  So he is the spell caster.  Iema, concerned for Corin’s safety, puts Haste and Improved Invisibility on Corin.  Jim says that as Beta is chomping on the orc’s leg, Natalia sees blood suddenly spring forth on the orc’s head.  It’s from a knife wound.  Natalia is impressed–apparently, our little Corin has a little bit of rogue potential in him.  

Beta gets knocked out.  He stays out for the duration of the fight.  Raelan turns his attention to the human’s Obscuring Mist.  “Screw this,” he says, “I’m dispelling your penny ante tricks.”  (I’m not so sure if this was so much Raelan saying it as it was Jim, heh.)  He dispels the mist, and then turns his attention to the Kuo-toa, who is bouncing around everywhere.  “Stand STILL,” Raelan says. 

The Kuo-toa hops down a little further to mock Raelan.  “Here I am,” it says.  The Orc, who isn’t far, joins in, punches Raelan in the face.  Iema starts his singing and attacking with rapiers.  (I think Phil said he’s going to take some levels of rogue with his bard.  Or maybe he already has.  Either way, should be interesting.)  Meanwhile, Natalia turns into a brown bear and Raelan unloads Magic Missiles into the Kuo-toa.  It drops down and bashes Raelan in the face three times.  The woman wisely realizes that Natalia-the-brown-bear is going to become a problem, so she turns her attention to the druid and smacks her in the face with the warhammer. 

Which, incidentally, isn’t so bad.  Not as a brown bear.  Note to anyone who is thinking about playing a druid: Once you get Wild Shape, it seriously kicks ass.  Ask Phil.  He said he quite enjoys the brown bear, although I think he secretly wants Natalia to turn into an orca at some point. 

The Orc comes behind Raelan and gets him behind the head.  Natalia attacks and kills (rather easily, I might add)  the Kuo-toa.  This lets Raelan turn his attention to the Orc.  Raelan is SICK of being smacked around.  Before he does anything, though, Iema quickly heals Raelan and throws a Blur on himself.  Raelan casts Stoneskin on himself.  Then Raelan reaches out for the Orc–and combusts him.  Seriously.  Flames were coming out of his eye sockets.  It was a wickedly impressive sight. 

Sometimes, Raelan almost makes Natalia wish she were a wizard.  Almost.  She wouldn’t give Beta up for anything. 

The Sahuagin is a brave one, attacking Raelan after that.  Luckily, Raelan’s Stoneskin spell soaks some of the damage.  We hear the woman screaming during all this, but it’s in a language we don’t understand.  The woman then tries to run past Natalia, but I take the attack of opportunity and not only manage to get a swipe in, but I grapple her as well.  (Kinda hard to compete with the brown bear’s +20 on that!)  She yells again, telling the human spell caster to hijack the ship.  And I’ll give him this: He tries.  He really does.  He runs up to the front, put his hand on the steering wheel thingy, and as soon as he did, we heard a shot. 

The shypsie captain is standing on the shoreline with his gun.  He’ll be damned if anyone hijacks his ship.  I could learn to like that man. 

So now, the human is down.  Iema is still going himself, and he does 10 points of damage to the Hobgoblin.  Raelan turns to the Sahuagin, says something to it in a language that the rest of us don’t understand, and the Sahuagin starts laughing like crazy, losing his turn. 

Then Raelan reaches out to the Hobgoblin with his hand.  But the Hobgoblin had seen what Raelan had done to the Orc.  “Nononono!” he says in horror, scurrying away from that evil hand. 

Natalia doesn’t even get to see this.  She’s still got the woman grapppled.  Natalia gets another bite in before the Hobgoblin attacks her.  Raelan fires Magic Missiles at the woman, finishing her off, then turns the rest of his Magic Missiles on the Hobgoblin.  Iema crits on the Hobgoblin, so he does a lot of damage.  Good thing, because Natalia only gets one measly bite in before rolling a nat 1, failing the rest of her attacks.  At any rate, that’s the end of the Hobgoblin. 

Raelan turns his attention to to the Sahuagin.  He summons something that looks like a lion.  Natalia is surprised.  I didn’t realize that wizards could summon monsters.  Jim says the lion-thing lands on the Sahuagin with “all five pointy ends.”  It does enough damage that all Natalia-the-Bear has to do is step on its head with her massive paw to squish it. 

So now everyone on the boat is dead, and with no damage to the boat to boot!  Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to roleplay going to Jovos about our job well done; it was nearing 12:30 AM, the time when they start towing visitors out of our parking lot, so Phil had to get going.  But we did at least loot.  Not much to loot, though:  Just some personal belongings of Althris and some spells he had on him. 

And that’s all, folks.  Oh, except for one thing: Iema and Natalia made it to level 11.  Barely.

Tags: D&D, dork training, gaming, homebrew D&D, Homebrewed

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