And we’re back (finally!) with another two-part “Homebrewed,” a game that spanned between a Friday night and Saturday afternoon. If you’ve read the last installment, you know that events have turned grim after Natalia, Iema, and Corin were tricked by a couple of drow and now are slaves in Fasset, home of the Scaled Emperor. No idea what’s going on? Feel dirty and ashamed, but then redeem yourself here.
Chilldenor the 24th
If you’ve read the last installment and the corresponding comment from Jim, you’ll see I’m getting the timeline of our capture a little messed up. I take notes as I go along, so it’s not a memory thing: I’m just completely confused as to where Jim “has” us in Valt. He said in the comments that the last game wrapped with us finally arriving in Fasset, but in the beginning of my notes for this game, I have started off with the following: Spent entire day sailing. Doc[k].
(Shut up about misspellings. You try taking the obscene amount of notes that I take during a game.)
Anyway, my question is this: If we were in Fasset by the last game, where the hell are we sailing now? Maybe within Fasset? My understanding is that part of the population is underwater, so I guess that could be possible. So, Jim, my dear DM-and-husband-to-be, please enlighten all of us in the comments section, ‘cause I’ve got nothin’.
At any rate, this game starts at night, and Jim gives us a run-down of what we can see outside the boat, such ogres and other various races unloading stuff off the boat, an ogre with a long pole scooting people along, and, as we get off, a half-ogre checking people’s hands. We find this curious. Our “host” (funny word for SLAVE DRIVER) explains to us that the half-ogre is checking for Rings of Citizenship, something that’s very important to have in Fasset. We will be getting temporary ones, and something to note: You sure as hell don’t want to be caught wandering around the city without a ring, and creating a false one is punishable by death.
The so-called host’s name is Curnen, his name obtained by Iema, who seems to be taking his new slave-status in stride and is still making friends with everyone. (As you can imagine, Natalia does no such thing. Mostly, she mopes and snipes at people, behavior that I think, while unhelpful, is totally in character for a druid.) Once we get to a building that is set in a cliff, Curnen tells us he’s going to take us to our rooms, and even asks if we would like our rooms separate or together.
Iema, remembering Natalia’s prudish tendencies, suggests that he and Corin should have one separately. Natalia is grateful for this, although she does ask for them to be near. You know—better to hear her friends if they suddenly get murdered in their sleep or something. Curnen agrees and places us in rooms across from each other. Very lovely rooms, admittedly, complete with fireplaces and flaming spheres to light the area.
Still, it’s no treehouse with a colony of myconids living underneath. Natalia is completely homesick. The least they could do is equip it with Internet. Sheesh.
Almost as soon as Curnen leaves, Iema and Corin leave their room and knock on Natalia’s door. She lets them in, and together, we all debate if anyone will come get us. I think we all came to the conclusion that the answer is a big, fat no. Beta knows where we are, but as awesome as he is, awesomeness alone will not help you break into Fasset if you’re not supposed to be there.
We’re still wondering who the traitor is that sold Julium out and who helped us get shipped off as slaves. Corin suggests Jerth. We all agree we could see that coming from him. Jerth is evil. Jim has left us no doubt of that, not that Natalia and I need reassurance—I got that impression the first time Natalia “met” Jerth, long before Jim, out of character, confirmed it.
But the point is moot. We go to our separate quarters and go to bed.
That night, Natalia has a weird dream. She dreams that hideous things are chasing her, unknown things, and she is without her magic, her gear, her friends. Although she can’t see what’s behind her, she knows it’s Alesander, the werewolf that she and Raelan had killed so long ago. Suddenly, Beta is running behind her, catches up, and knocks her to the ground. She looks up at her wolf. His one good eye is glowing orange.
He speaks to her in his low voice: “Help is coming.”
Chilldenor the 25th
We’re all woken up in the morning by Curnen for orientation. Damn, Jim knows how to make a world realistic. Even in a place full of wonders and wizards, there’s still a bunch of freakin’ red tape and bureaucracy and hoops to jump through.
Since Phil and I both work at an insurance company, we know all about the hoops. Doesn’t mean we like them.
Natalia mulls over her dream, which she’s positive means something, but she doesn’t have a chance to tell Iema and Corin about it because we’re all whisked off in three separate directions by interviewers.
We’re not told (at first) what Corin’s interview is like, probably because he’s an NPC, but I do get to hear Jim roleplay Phil’s/Iema’s: He’s taken somewhere where he’s shown a device, an hour glass, and a spoon. Don’t ask me what the three have to do with each other (something else I’m confident Jim will elaborate on in the comments), but I do know that Iema was asked to cast Light on the spoon. Iema obliges, and then he’s asked to list all the spells he knows, as well as any unusual abilities.
Natalia’s interview has a similar feel to it, although she’s interviewed by another druid like herself named Vreyan, who also has a collar on her neck similar to the ones we have, showing her slave status. Natalia eyes it cautiously, wondering what it means that another slave is interviewing her. Natalia, for the first time since being captured, engages in some small talk. She finds out the Vreyan is formerly from the Maple Circle and now in one called Gull, which apparently is the most prominent circle in Fasset. Also, it’s appropriately named, as there are seagulls everywhere.
Natalia, remembering the druid from the mage fair, asks Vreyan about the Palm Circle. Vreyan simply says that they’re ex-patriots. Natalia toys with this in her mind. She knows they’ve got to be here somewhere, although she’s not sure what she’s really going to do with that knowledge.
Then the tests begin. Natalia is more glum than Iema about performing tricks like a freakin’ circus seal, but she goes through the motions, showing that, yes, she can Create Water like a good little druid. (Sounds like potty training, doesn’t it? Make water for Mama, now! GOOD GIRL.) She also is to list any unusual spells. She has more in her arsenal than the other druid was expecting, having an unique spell called Ant Trap. Also, Vreyan is impressed that Natalia is particularly skilled in woodworking, thanks to her long efforts on the treehouse.
Finally, the testing is done, and we’re brought breakfast—still separately from each other, of course. The breakfast consists of seagull eggs and something that resembles hash browns but is green in color. Jim appropriately enough, calls them “hashgreens.” During her breakfast, Vreyan offers to teach Natalia new spells. The deal? They must be used for the betterment of the city. Natalia hopes the betterment of the city isn’t something totally evil but agrees to it. Who would pass that up? So after her breakfast, Vreyan takes Natalia out of the building to learn a spell called Wings of the Sea, a level-1 druidic spell that increases a subject’s swim speed.
It’s the first thing that’s made Natalia happy since she’s been brought into Fasset, although that happiness will be short-lived.
Eventually, we’re brought back together and given lunch in our rooms. With lunch, we’re also finally given our wooden Rings of Citizenship and warned again not go out without them. Finally, we’re left alone.
Eagerly, Natalia tells Iema and Corin about her dream. Phil asks Jim if he can make some kind of check—I don’t remember which kind—but it doesn’t matter because he doesn’t get a good result on the die, so Iema guesses, “It was a Nightmare spell that you managed to will out of?”
Jim rolls for Corin, getting an equally dismal result. Corin says, “Yeah, that sounds about right.”
Positive that the dream means something, I ask Jim if Natalia can roll to make the same check. He agrees. I get lucky with the dice, and Jim tells me that Natalia knows better—the dream is something else entirely.
We discuss our interviews. “I lied in mine,” Corin announces. “I didn’t let them know about anything I could do.”
Iema and Natalia look at him, surprised. “You lied to them?” Iema says incredulously.
“I thought we were supposed to be working against these people!” Corin protests.
We discuss our capture. We apologize to Corin about his missing finger. (“It was my third most favorite finger!” he says, showing us his first two favorite fingers by flipping us the bird with both hands.) We talk about possible escape plans, including fleeing to nearby islands outside Fasset’s control. However, most escape plans involve playing nice for now until we’re trusted to be without the collars, so it’s seems we’re going to be here for a while.
Later, Curnen takes us out to see the city. The city is impressive. For details on it, I would recommend reading Jim’s post about Fasset. What you need to know in a nutshell: It’s built into cliffs and part of the population is underwater. Curnen points up, saying that directly above us lays the Garden of Nobility, which is gated. Peons like us cannot go in there. Curnen doesn’t say it exactly like that—he’s tactful enough to not call us “peons” to our faces—but the meaning is still the same.
I almost think Curnen’s tour guide for us was to impress upon us the difficulties of escape. He seems smart enough to try to impress that upon us. I think this because the next thing I have listed in my notes was that we were taken to a roped bridge, that we saw a 20 foot wooden wall around the city with very few doors, and that the few doors that were there were heavily guarded. Jim says we can see how hard it would be to attack the city because you would come in through the gates and immediately face a steep drop off.
I would also like to note that while we’re given the description of the heavily guarded doors of Fasset, Phil starts groaning. Turns out that those doors weren’t always guarded. Once upon a time, Jim ran another game in Valt, and the character Phil had played apparently did something to make someone somewhere decide that guarded doors would be a good idea. In other words, Phil says, the guards are his fault.
“One thing about your fiancé, Spring,” Phil says, “he likes to rub salt in a wound.”
Jim and Phil try to give me a brief run-down of what happened, but as usual, I didn’t catch it. Maybe one of them will enlighten us someday.
Anyway, moving forward with other little tidbits about our new home: Fasset has a LOT of ogres, and occasionally, it’ll see some action from younger giants throwing rocks into the city. Mostly, Curnen assures us, it’s just property damage. Rarely are there any actual casualties. Still, good money is paid for giant ears.
We’re also educated that, technically, Fasset is at war with pretty much everyone, but that’s mostly on paper. Er, parchment? Whatever they use here. Because the fact is that Fasset is such a good place to trade, even nations “warring” with them also trade with them. And it’s not like other nations can get under Fasset’s skin by refusing to trade with them: Fasset is amazingly self-sufficient, having everything they could need.
Our chances of escape, of assault, of anything are looking bleaker by the moment.
On the note of things being one thing in reality and another thing on paper, Curnen advises us that, if anyone causes a fuss about us being taken as slaves, on paper, we’ve been caught and captured for killing the Fassian team. We, of course, protest this, stating that Jovos had wanted them taken care of for killing our new druid friend that we had met there.
“Actually,” Curnen says, “they didn’t kill him. They found him that way. They just took his stuff.”
“Oh.” Iema pauses. “Well, now I feel a little bad about killing them.”
Remembering the bird on the spittle, Natalia says, “I don’t.”
The tour continues with more facts: Demonic cults frequently spring up in Fasset, nobody’s sure why; the slave trade is big here (duh—Natalia gives him dirty look, but Curnen doesn’t seem to notice); the city is also home to many dwarves, but they live up in the mountainous area; rumors keep flying that there are Underdark connections within the city, which Curnen says is untrue, although the Underdark does run underneath the city; there are various temples, including one to Natalia’s god, Lolmoro. Natalia cheers up a little bit at this bit of news, but only just that—a little bit.
After showing us around, Curnen returns us to our quarters. We’re told that we’ll be working the next day. Natalia is asked to make sure to only prepare regenerative and curative spells for the next day, things of that nature. Natalia agrees, no questions asked. Naturally, she’s curious, but she figures she’ll find out soon enough what exactly it is they want her to do.
Chilldenor the 26th
We wake up and are given breakfast. Corin is in an unusually foul mood.
“What’s up?” Iema asks.
The boy pouts. “Remember how I lied in my interview? You know, about what I could do?” He waits for us to nod before continuing. “Well, because I did such a good job of it, they’ve decided that I’m totally useless, so they’re going to send me to school.” He scowls.
Iema laughs and laughs and laughs. At that point, a woman that Jim describes as a “vapid kindergarten teacher” comes over to collect Corin. She waves at him and practically baby-talks to him.
“Why does everyone treat me like I’m a kid?” Corin wonders aloud. No matter to Vapid Teacher—she leads Corin away from us to go to class.
“Behave now,” Iema sing-songs to his apprentice.
Corin turns to him and mouths Fuck you.
And then he’s gone, leaving just the grown-ups. Not that it means much, as I’m pretty sure Corin is smarter than both of us put together.
After breakfast, Natalia and Iema are led down to the canels. There’s a white ribbon roping an area off that contains a shipwreck. Shipwrecks, by the way, are not uncommon. Iema and Natalia are taken to the site and asked to help recovered victims. Iema starts using singing using his Virtuoso feat or skills or whatever they are; someone catches on, quickly nabs him, and leads him down to the ER area for the more critically injured.
And I have to admit that Natalia didn’t think this was so bad. If her job is now to rescue people from wreckage…well, at least it’s rewarding, right?
We do this until we’ve exhausted our spells, which Jim says is around noon. We’re then advised that we’re free to leave and do what we want around the town, but we must be back by the 12th bell. So we do. During our wandering through the crowds of Fasset, we spot a half-elf fleeing through a crowd and hear yells of him pick-pocketing. As he’s about to run past us, Iema sticks out his foot to trip him. The half-elf falls. Desperate, he whips out a dagger, but not before guards come and beat him. People clap Iema on the shoulder and congratulate him.
Natalia frowns. She’s not too keen on how badly they beat up the thief, but she’s outnumbered, so she keeps her mouth shut. Iema, on the other hand, doesn’t seem too concerned.
We explore some more. Iema wants to check out the bars. What a lush. By 8th bell, most people are off from work and filling up seats. We also run into Corin again around 8th bell. Corin tells us he cut class, and instead, spent his day trying to checking out the criminal underground. (Yup, that’s what happens when you drop out of school, kids!) He managed to locate and join a thieves guild. Sadly, they only allow humans, so it’s probably not something they’ll allow Iema in, since he’s an arcling and all.
In hushed voices, we talk more about escape. Remember when our “host” told us that that the rumors that there were connections to the Underdark within Fasset weren’t true? Turns out he either lied or is misinformed because there most certainly is a connection to the Underdark within Fasset.
We make an unconventional choice on how to escape: We’re gonna go through the Underdark. Later, after the game is over, Jim will admit that he didn’t see that one coming because who the hell would do that?
Us, that’s who.
We agree, though, that we’re gonna need money for special gear to get through it. And what’s the best way to get money fast? Why, performing a robbery of course.
And so begins our life of crime. Le sigh!
Chilldenor the 27th
Natalia again is given a list of spells that she know will tap her out again, but since she knows that it’s going to be used to heal people, she doesn’t mind so much, although she does wish she could keep a spell for herself and her friends. Iema, likewise, is taken back to the ER to do his thing. While there, he keeps an ear out for the best places to rob in Fasset. Not that anyone’s talking about it, but hey, you never know.
Natalia is taken back to the infirmary, as she expected, to heal people, but after she exhausts her healing spells, they take her back for something else entirely.
She’s taken outside to a body of water. Another druid there casts a water-breathing spell on her, and she is taken underwater. Natalia’s instructed to cast Wings of the Sea on some sort of shark. I think it was a dire shark. If I recall correctly (it’s been a while since this game now), Jim also told me they were having Natalia cast Awaken on the shark as well.
Now, Natalia’s not thrilled about helping out Fasset’s defenses, but that’s not what she took issue with. What she took issue with was that they had brought down a human to be sacrificed so she wouldn’t take an XP hit when casting the spell. The man struggles underwater, trying to get air. Natalia starts for him, but others immediately stop her. And what can she do? She is outnumbered, has no spells, and has this stupid collar on her neck to pretty much keep her from doing whatever it is they’re afraid she’ll do. She’s informed that the man is a criminal who is sentenced to die anyway. They insist that Natalia might as well put his death to good use, using the sacrifice of his life to help her perform her spells—and, in terms of game mechanics, keep from losing XP.
Natalia and I debate it. At this point in the game, I had grown very quiet, and Jim was staring at me. Finally, I say, “I’m not doing that, Jim. I’ll take the XP hit.”
Natalia announces her decision. They shrug and drown the man as Natalia watches helplessly. She then performs her spell, losing XP. Another sea elf nearby casts Permancy so the Wings of the Sea spell “sticks.” When Natalia sees the druid that had cast the water-breathing spell on her, she gives him a dirty look.
The other druid looks defeated. He shrugs. “We don’t have a choice” is all he says.
Jim asks where Natalia goes next. I think it’s kind of obvious: She goes home, crawls under the covers, and cries. Natalia hates Fasset.
Iema, on the other hand, is off doing his own thing. After he’s done in the ER, he manages to make friends with some aspiring thieves and goes off to throw rocks at seagulls with them. (Good thing Natalia doesn’t see this.) And this is when he finds out that there is a museum in Fasset with some priceless stuff inside. Others would pay good money for some of the items in there, but it’s very well-guarded.
Nonetheless, Iema decides the museum has a lot of potential. He makes a mental note to tell Corin and Natalia as soon as he gets a chance.
Chilldenor the 28th
We wake up and have a communal breakfast. Despite Iema’s hangover (I guess he did a little more than pelt seagulls the night before), he musters up enough energy to tell us about the museum. Corin has some information of his own, telling us that the bad news is that magical items, which we’ll need for our escape through the Underdark, are illegal for non-nobility.
Yeah, like we care. Escaping is probably not considered legal either.
Corin, who has managed to score a little bit of money since joining the thieves guild, gives Natalia and Iema 25 gold each, mentions there being a library (don’t remember, though, if we did anything with this information), and everyone goes about their separate ways.
For Natalia, this morning is very similar to the last: She’s taken to cast spells on a shark, she refuses the human sacrifice, and she take an XP hit.
Iema and Corin, on the other hand, spend a day at the museum, scoping out the place. Corin is disguised as an arcling, complete with metallic dust in his hair. Iema makes a note of both security and valuable items: There’s a book in a glass cage which is said to contain 1,000 Horrors; in the Wizardry section, there is some kind of Staff of Power, a Deck of Many Things, and a Mace of Cumulous Blows…? I’m not sure if I got that last one right, but that’s what it says in my notes. Anyway, it is said that it was possessed by a Jade Islander wizard and has the power to destroy Fasset. It’s worth approximately 300,000 gold—half a million, street value.
Regarding security, Iema sees the following: Three front doors (the building is multi-level) which are the only ways in; parts of the floor are movable, so there are probably traps underneath; and there are claw marks along the baseboards. Iema pretends to stop and tie his shoes to further investigate the claw marks, but he can’t tell the source of them.
Iema and Corin split at this point, Corin to investigate museum security further while Iema heads to the library to see what he can learn about the Underdark. After a day of studying, Iema comes to the conclusion that there isn’t just one entry to the Underdark in Fasset, but there are many, although they’re probably closed off. Further, at least one connection is in the freakin’ palace of the Scaled Emperor.
How convenient.
Through his reading, he realizes that we’ve got our work cut out for us: We’re not just going to have to get through the cities, but we’re also going to have to go through Underdark wilderness, sea, drow metropolis, and other various cities, amongst other things.
However, there was someone who had done it before. His name was Fashlin, who had done extensive traveling with a dwarf, a bugbear, and a drow. Iema can piece together some of the route, and although it’s opposite of where we want to go, Fashlin’s route did go through the Jade Islands.
Iema finally returns home, meets Corin and Natalia, and tells them what he’s found. Admittedly, the Underdark sounds daunting. Corin suggests an alternative: Killing the Scaled Emperor himself.
We have to sleep on that one.
Chilldenor the 29th
We continue our conversation in the morning. For his part, Corin talks about what he’s found out about security in the museum. Also, he’s found out about items that would help us see in the dark, such as a Helm of Darkness, a Moonstone Mask, etc.
We debate between traveling through the Underdark or just overthrowing the Scaled Emperor. Although he was the one who had suggested it the night before, Corin admits that we won’t survive a showdown with the Scaled Emperor. Even if we got past him, we won’t get past all the guards that would swarm us. There are simply too many.
We decide faking our way through the Underdark is our best bet. Still, we need money to get equipment to go down there. Any ideas on how to get money? Aside from robbing the museum, that is.
“Gambling,” Natalia says.
Iema and Corin look at her like she’s crazy.
So she explains. “This is a city. You know there’s gambling going on somewhere. And I’ll bet there’s something like cock-fighting around here.” Both Natalia and I shudder at the thought, but Natalia continues: “I can pose as an animal and fight others. Seeing that I’m a druid, I sort of have the upper hand on winning. Others don’t have to know that I’m really a druid; they’ll just think I’m an animal.”
Corin and Iema/Jim and Phil look at each other, mouths open. At first, I thought I said something incredibly stupid because neither Jim nor Phil said anything for a moment. Then Jim/Corin says, “That’s a bloody BRILLIANT idea!”
Whew.
The problem, of course, are the collars that keep us from doing whatever we want. Natalia suggests that surely with all the corruption about, one of the people who knows how to work our collars is caught up with the gambling world. They help us fiddle with the collar, we give them a cut on the profits. Iema also suggests that since Corin is already in a thieves guild, he should look around to see if he can’t find someone who would be able to pick our collars.
That’s the extent of our conversation. We’re then whisked away by our appointed, um, well… “whiskers,” for lack of a better word, heh. But my point is that the three are taken their separate ways. Natalia is again forced to Awaken another dire shark, again presented the “opportunity” to use a criminal’s execution as a sacrifice for her spell, and again, refuses to cooperate, taking the XP hit instead. Everyone around her thinks she’s crazy, but she’s stubborn, saying instead that she was not going to participate in men’s deaths just so she didn’t take some kind of lash back on her spells.
Still, erasing the XP on my character sheet to subtract points was pretty painful. It also hurt to see that, almost as if to prove a point to Natalia, they hurt the man in a much worse way than he would have died being used for her spell.
Iema’s day was much better than Natalia’s. He spent more time healing, then sniffing around to find out if there was any kind of gambling involving animal fights. (Which, of course, there is.) He also checks out the museum again, thinking that with the security involved, a fire would be a good distraction. Of course, there are always risks with fires, too.
He gets bored of the museum and decides to go the animal fighting ring guarded by two ogres. He gets past them and gets inside. There are currently two dire rats fighting each other. Iema scans the crowd. His eyes settle on someone that he thinks is a bureaucrat there. He makes a note of the bureaucrat, putting 5 gold on an animal.
Jim says other creatures fight each other; Iema places bets. For kicks, Jim rolls the fight between the creatures to see who really would win in a battle. I think it was indulging the desire for the geek battle—you know, the imaginary battles comic book shop geeks love to indulge in, like “who would win in a fight, Batman or Superman”? I actually really hate that stuff. Or maybe it’s the vehemence that comes with it. At any rate, I find it annoying, but Jim and Phil are typical geeks in this sense and wanted to see how it played out. (They like it enough that when Phil was just hanging out the other night and I was off crocheting in the other room, I came out to find them drunk and having various D&D creatures fighting each other.)
But I’m getting off-topic. The point is, Iema places bets and wins. When he goes to collect his winnings, he talks to a bookie, who didn’t do as well, and explains why certain ones will most likely win over others. He offers to help the bookie note special properties to know which ones have the best chance of winning.
Next up: Bum fighting. Which, by the way, according to Phil and Jim, is a real practice. We live in a really sick world.
Back in our D&D world, though, Iema spots the bureaucrat again and tails him. He follows him outside. Sadly, Phil fails his move silently check and accidentally stirs up some seagulls, sending them squawking. The bureaucrat and some thugs see and approach Iema.
Iema quickly suggests they talk elsewhere. They do, and he discusses the druid-fighting idea. The men seem interested, but they say if they’re going to help us, we have to clear it with their employer first.
I don’t know about you guys, but I certainly did not like the sound of that.
Chilldenor the 30th
I don’t have a lot of notes for this day. I jotted down that Natalia was given another list of spells for the day, but this time, they’re requesting her remove disease spells as well as healing spells. Before we leave for the day, Iema tells Natalia that he was successful in finding an animal-fighting ring and people willing to be in on it. He makes sure that Natalia is still okay with the animal-fighting idea, which she is.
Finally, we’re collected and taken to what I guess you would call our jobs. This time, though, we’re taken to the town guards, many of whom are covered in claw and bite marks. We’re told that this is the handy work of lycanthropes. So that explains the request for healing and remove disease spells. And, as I concluded in my notes, we “do our thing there.”
Huskyr the 1st
Again, we’re collected to help victims of lycanthrope attacks. We do our thing and leave. Iema wanders about the town, trying to make himself “publically available.” I don’t mean in the hooker-sense. Iema’s not that easy. I mean in the sense that he wants to make sure he’s easy for the bureaucrat to find. And find him, the bureaucrat does, telling Iema to meet him the 11th bell—with all of us.
Iema quickly gathers Natalia and Corin together, and we go to the designated meeting spot at the 11th bell. The meeting spot is a warehouse that looks like a temple, which we find curious. Aside from having sconces along the walls, there is a bizarre pattern on the floor, which Jim draws out for us.
Phil and I peer at it. “It looks like a beholder,” I say, thinking what a coincidence this was, since I had just read this post about beholders on Chronic Geek’s blog just the day or so before.
We’re warned that if we don’t convince their employer of our plan, then we won’t be coming out.
We follow our hosts into another room. Lo and behold, the boss is a beholder. HA. I was right to be suspicious when I saw that pattern.
We tell the beholder of our plan. He disintegrates Natalia’s collar but refuses to do Iema’s or Corin’s, telling them that we have not given a satisfactory reason to get rid of their collars. Natalia is grateful to have that stupid collar removed, but there’s one little problem: Not having one now marks her as a fugitive.
So we leave. One collar off is better than none. We go visit Corin’s thieves guild, but they don’t want to help Iema because he’s an arcling. Apparently, they’re a racist guild.
We try very hard to convince them why they should help Iema. Natalia even argues that Iema could be useful, pointing out that Julium Numbrar, one of the greatest strategists she knows, has used Iema as a key point in his plot against the Spruce Circle.
They at least hear some of it. The main guy says he can’t help, but another says he will. I believe this guy was a dwarf, though, so I don’t know if he was part of the guild or what. (I was under the impression they were a human-only guild…?) Anyway, this guy calls in an ogre, who cuts their collars off with gigantic bolt cutters.
The guy who helped says, “I can hide these two”—he points to Corin and Iema—“but I’m not sure about you.”
Thinking there wasn’t enough room, Natalia agrees. “That’s okay. I can disguise myself as a seagull. God knows there’s enough of them here.”
The guy agrees that’s a good idea. “But come back in a couple of weeks,” he says. “And meet us. We’ll have some plan set up.”
Natalia nods, morphs into a seagull, and flies off.
Iema and Corin turn to the guy. “Thanks for all your help,” Iema says. They shake hands. I don’t know what it was that gave Phil a hint—maybe Iema felt a prick or something—but Phil says, “Oh, shit.”
And Iema and Corin are turned to stone.
Natalia, of course, knows nothing about this. This was a difficult part of the game. I mean, I knew that Iema and Corin had been turned into stone, and as tempting as it was to have Natalia go back and check on them, there was absolutely no reason why Natalia would, since she had no clue as to what happened. The guy that helped us gave us no reason to be suspicious or anything. So, instead, I had a roleplay a clueless Natalia and what she did on her two weeks off.
The first thing Natalia did was decide to get another animal companion, since it appears we won’t be seeing Beta anytime soon. I decide on getting something that will fit in around Fasset, so it won’t draw too much suspicion. Furthermore, I would like something that can fly overhead and help scope out escape routes, bad guys, or what have you.
I decide on a dire hawk.
Since there are plenty of them, Natalia doesn’t waste time in finding one. She spends the day performing her Awaken spell (there goes more XP), and the dire hawk looks up at her. “Hello!” the bird says.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Natalia greets her cheerfully.
The hawk cocks her head to one side. “Sunshine? Is that my name?”
And that is how my dire hawk’s name came to be Sunshine. Phil took great pleasure in this, which he explained: Sunshine sounds, to us, like a nice, cheerful name, but in Valt, the sun is deadly and considered evil. The only reason why life can exist on Valt is because of the constant, thick cloud coverage. So Sunshine really is kind of a perfect name.
Except, as I’m going to find out, Sunshine is not very evil at all. In fact, she’s one of the funniest characters in the game so far. Originally, I was going to have her as a temporary companion for Natalia, but she quickly grew on both me and Phil. I think Jim’s grown to like her a lot, too.
But I’m getting ahead of myself, as usual.
Since we’ve got time to kill, Natalia decides she’s going to go to the Chute and pick items off the corpses floating around there. Sunshine picks off a dead gnome. Turns out, she really likes fingers. Natalia lets her go to town on it (as a Warcraft Horde-playing person, I hate gnomes, so I took a special pleasure in this, heh); meanwhile, Natalia gathers up loot and hides them in Sunshine’s nest. Incidentally, her nest is ENORMOUS. Natalia can lie down and sleep in her human form with no problem.
Natalia can’t really think of much else to do during her two weeks. She does shift into a dire eagle and look for escape routes, although she doesn’t have much luck. It occurs to her that she could easily escape Fasset—all she has to do is fly out. However, she’s not about to leave Corin or Iema behind, so she stays in town.
Huskyr the 15th
Time’s up. Natalia and Sunshine fly back to where she last saw Corin and Iema. Jim says that the day is Hallow’s Eve, so there’s definitely a party atmosphere about Fasset. Natalia leaves Sunshine outside and goes into a bar full of dwarves.
Once inside, she asks someone, “Have you seen a man and a boy? I’m supposed to be meeting them here?”
The dwarf she had addressed has a look of recognition. “Ah, you mean the coaster and the coat rack!”
“Huh?”
The dwarf leads Natalia to a backroom and opens the door. Inside, is the “stoned” Corin and Iema. The dwarves, indeed, have been using them as a coat rack.
Natalia sighs. The dwarf that had turned them into stone comes by and says he had to do it to make sure we weren’t double agents. He takes away the stone spell, and Iema and Corin resume their normal selves. They’re irritated at first about losing two weeks of their lives being stone statues, but upon hearing the dwarves’ reasons for it, they decide it’s understandable.
The head dwarf tells us that if we’re needing money for our trip to the Underdark, they have a job for us. The next night, they’re going to initiate a gang war—and they want us to kill a bunch of gnomes.
Huskyr the 16th
We prepare our spells, and while we’re waiting for night to fall, Natalia introduces Iema and Corin to Sunshine. Sunshine, incidentally, has a very low intelligence score. If I remember right, Jim told me later that it’s actually lower than Natalia’s. (Natalia’s, if you remember, is a mere 8.) However, she has a very high charisma, so it’s hard not to like her. Also, something you can’t really tell from reading this: Jim roleplays her as being really loud. And cheerful. I always envision her sentences ending in exclamation points for that very reason.
But enough of that. Night finally falls, Natalia turns into a Wharf Rat, and she sneaks into the gnomes’ place through an air vent. When she gets in, she runs into some barbed wire. She uses Rusting Grasp to get past that, then hurries to the door to unlock it and undo all the trapped locks. While doing this, she almost wakes up one gnome, but luckily, he falls back to sleep.
Natalia opens the door and lets her friends in. Corin quickly redoes the door behind him, making sure the traps are back in place. Then they both sneak up on gnomes sleeping in their beds.
Out of character, I look at Jim and say, “Dude, I am not killing gnomes in their sleep.”
“I will,” Phil says happily. Did I mention he also plays Horde on Warcraft?
Iema is successful at killing his gnome; Corin, however, is not. Corin stabs at a helmet at the end of the bed. Turns out that his gnome is rather clever: He had put his helmet between his feet and his head was actually at the other end.
The clever gnome sits up, sees us, and starts yelling about how there’s an attack.
Well, now they’re awake, I can feel better about killing them, haha.
The room suddenly becomes alive with activity. The clever gnome makes a go for Corin—logical, since Corin is nearby and just tried to kill him in his sleep—but before he can, Natalia whirls on him and casts Blinding Spittle on him, causing him to go blind. Sunshine tries to run up to us, but sadly, she can only move 10 feet while on the ground, and there’s not exactly a lot of room for her to fly around here.
By now, the gnomes are out of their beds. Luckily, Iema has managed to cast Invisibility on himself, and Corin has not only mage armor and some spell to improve his dexterity on him, but Natalia had cast Bark Skin on him as well before we came, so he has some protection. The gnomes, though, sense that Natalia’s probably the bigger threat, and start circling her especially. Suddenly, Jim says that she sees a Halfling lunge out at her. It’s a creepy looking little guy who is malnourished-looking, has teeth filed to points, and has bones and other crap in its hair.
Natalia wastes no time and casts Ice Storm. Might as well pull out the big guns early. Sunshine flanks a gnome with Natalia and picks it off. The gnomes, of course, fight back. Meanwhile, Ieam attacks the monks (there are monks in a gnome thieves guild?), Corin gets stunned, and Natalia gets stabbed. Then Sunshine gets hit in the back of the head.
“AAAAH!” Sunshine yells, as if she had just been delivered a fatal blow. (She wasn’t.) “I’VE BEEN HIT!”
Phil and I started laughing at that.
Back in the game, though, one of the monks manage to pinpoint where Iema is and tries kicking him the nuts. Luckily, he misses. Another does some sort of stunning fist on Natalia, which he makes, but since I made my fortitude save, it’s not as bad as it could have been. Still, Natalia’s taken some damage, so she quickly throws a healing spell on herself.
There’s more scuffling. Iema kills a monk. Sunshine gets hit again.
“AAAH! I’M DYING, I’M DYING!” she squawks. (Note: She’s totally not.)
Natalia decides to quit screwing around and turns into a dire wolverine. Yes, I love my dire bear form, but we’ve already determined that that form would be too big for this little house we’re in. Because I got the feat that allows to shapeshift quickly, I still get a claw in my round, doing about 9 points of damage. Sunshine attacks a gnome, and then Corin jumps in to help her, whacking at the gnome and finishing it off.
Sunshine looks at Corin. “Thank you, tiny person!”
Corin doesn’t look too pleased at being called tiny, but he doesn’t have time to argue, either.
There were some rogues attacking, some weapons being thrown at us, but in the end, the ones that are left try to run away. One of the monks actually try for the door. Remember, Corin redid everything when he closed it behind him. The monk, in his rush, doesn’t notice this, and although he manages to dodge the traps, the door blows up.
Well, that takes care of him.
So there was just a little bit of clean up. I—er, Natalia—got to rage as a dire wolverine and take out another gnome. Sunshine runs past Corin at her super-slow ground pace, panting, “I’ve got to do something! I’ve got to do something!” She jumps in and attacks, along with Iema, who takes out another gnome.
There is only one gnome left, who throws a dagger at Sunshine.
“THERE’S A DAGGER IN ME!” yells Sunshine, who dramatically falls over.
Natalia kills the final gnome; Iema heals Sunshine up. Once healed up, Sunshine happily goes to work eating gnome fingers. Iema and Corin look at her with morbid curiousity, but Natalia shrugs. “Yeah, she really likes fingers.”
We let her finish, though, and then Iema and Corin go outside again. Natalia locks up what’s left of the door, turns back into a Wharf Rat, and scurries back through the house to go back out the way she came. Unfortunately, though, she runs into more wire, and she doesn’t have any more Rusting Grasp spells, so she just goes through and sucks up the damage.
Once outside, Sunshine looks at Natalia and says, “You’re bleeding!”
“Yeah, I ran into more wire,” Natalia says.
Sunshine blinks. “Boy, I bet a snake would have had no problem with that!”
Natalia stares at Sunshine and her obvious solution. “Shut up, Sunshine.”
“What?! What?!”
And so concludes our first night of crime. We go back to the dwarven thieves guild and are awarded handsomely: 22,986 gold.
I can see where this could get addicting.
