Saturday, June 30, 2007

Session 17 Quotes

“That was back when Rellik and me were all like, ‘Heh heh heh. Sigrid’s not looking. Quick, let’s go poison someone.’” – Blank

“Gerard Butler get out of my head!” – Blank*

“Plant spy: if Richard Nixon were a gardener.” – Paerk*

“It’s like Disneyworld. If you can get in, you can watch the parade.” – Blank

“I can get one of those frilly shirts!” – Blank

“Just make up a good in-character reason. Just, like, don’t tell him.” – Paerk*

“So I can knock her out by punching her in the back of the face with Mark.” – Blank

“Not people. Giants.” – Blank
“Yes people! There’s humans and faen too!” – Sigrid

“If Dar-Shada is killed, I don’t have to attack him anymore.” – Sigrid

*This never happened

Session 17: Planning Is Blank's Kryptonite

Fourthmonth 13th – Fourthmonth 19th

Having handily defeated the golems, the intrepid crew proceeded to loot the trees, acquiring forty gems somewhat resembling the yellow orb they had found at the Temple. They wondered, momentarily, why Monala hadn’t taken all the gems, then returned to the ships and made sail for Ao-Manasa.

That trip took about five days. When they had arrived in Ao-Manasa, on the 18th, they first dropped by the Black Angle, then Ea-Shamar. (Does anyone remember what they did at the Black Angle? My notes are remarkable fuzzy on this point, as is my memory.) Their conversation (by which I mean Sigrid’s conversation) with Ea-Shamar involved getting invited, as additional security, to the upcoming wedding of Li-Karen, the steward’s son, to Iu-Malan. (Which got them introduced to Dar-Shada, in charge of security.)

Sigrid, of course, wanted to go to the wedding for perfectly legitimate reasons, but Commodore Blank had other ideas. Blank had a plan—he wanted to kidnap one or the other of the people involved, and ransom them back to the city. His plan consisted of “waiting for something weird to happen” and then taking advantage of the resulting confusion. Sigrid didn’t know, but the rest of the party was mostly going along with it.

The next day was, naturally enough, occupied mostly by the wedding. Turned out Monala was there, which made Sigrid quite angry, but before they could fully react to this turn of events the proceedings were attacked by a horde of Faen ninjas, in airship/hot air balloons. Lighting things on fire and stabbing people with long spears. Captain Blank began to put his plan into action by punching Iu-Malan in the face. Dar-Shada objected to this, and attempted to grapple him; which was, naturally, when Mark grappled him.

Meanwhile, Sigrid used her newly acquired runechild dimension door ability to teleport over by Monala, but Monala gained the upper hand by (unbeknownst to the rest of the party) casting dominate on her. Monala instructed her to prevent Blank from capturing Iu-Monala (so Sigrid grappled him, too). Then she grabbed Iu-Malan and teleported away herself.

Soern made himself useful by blowing the faen ninja balloons out of the sky. He was assisted in this project by Paerk, a sprite gardener (employed by the city) who joined the fray as soon as it looked like plants might be in danger. (And who, in between basket-blastings, healed random citizens.)

Rellik helped by shooting at Dar-Shada.

With his initial target snatched, Blank escaped from Dar-Shada, and ran over to where Li-Karen was. (Sigrid had stopped grappling him as soon as Monala left, and turned to attacking Dar-Shada, non-lethally at first and then with progressive deadliness as Monala refined her instructions.) Mark, thinking along the same lines, had already punched him in the face.

Then Dar-Shada showed up again, and nearly killed Mark before nearly dying himself from the combined efforts of Sigrid, Rellik, and a well-placed acid pit. He didn’t die because Sigrid quit attacking him at that point, and helped him out of the pit.

At this point, various other guards had gone for help, so Soern and Rellik took the opportunity to escape, Soern with invisibility and Rellik with his trusty rooftop jumping technique. Sigrid chased after them.

Blank, never one to give up a plan, punched Li-Karen in the face again because Paerk had revived him when he healed a bunch of people, then dragged him into the corner and sort of camped out, with Mark defending him.

Ea-Shamar showed up, with a phalanx of more or less competent guards, and Blank demanded ransom. She refused, and they engaged in a standoff for a few tense minutes. Sigrid returned, and the standoff continued, despite her efforts to convince Blank to drop the ransom idea, with his being surrounded. Then, at some point, Ea-Shamar suggested that instead of ransom, she could pay him to track down his two compatriots who had escaped, and then to capture Monala. They haggled a bit on the specifics, but Blank eventually agreed, and Ea-Shamar deputized Paerk and told him to watch the pirate for her.

Notes Session 17

Another horribly late summary. At least it's here! Oh, yeah. Success.

On a more update note: Everyone was here! Eventually, at least. People might have been late. (07/01/07: Actually, Rellik's player wasn't. Yet another reason to get these done in a timely manner.)

Paerk joined the group, a spryte (quickling) greenbond who worked for the city of Ao-Manasa as a gardener.

I can taste the cohesion already.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Session 16: GIANT SNAKE

Fourthmonth 8th – Fourthmonth 13th

The crew went back to the Mevarin estate, but the door was locked and Ratham didn’t seem to be there. So they went to talk to Ea-Shamar, and then to the University to talk to Uthar. Ea-Shamar told them that Ratham was being held for questioning, and for his own safety. Uthar directed them to a couple of books, mostly out of an attempt to be rid of them.

Soern read the books, until Sigrid dragged him out of the library and back to the boats, because she wanted to set sail for the Island of the Jeweled trees, and didn’t think that he was achieving anything meaningful.

So they sailed to the Island of the Jeweled trees. (Which took about five days.) They came upon the island, covered by glassy, glittering green trees, with a bit of a gate on one end, weighed anchor, and then set to exploring the beach. (They took Mark, and left “the kids” in charge of the boats. They briefly considered leaving Rellik as a supervisor, but immediately discarded this plan as much too likely to end in stabby death.) Whereupon they discovered a truly prodigious number of crabs, which Soern proceeded to melt with his acids.

They walked through the gate and made their way up the island, along the cliff that made up one of its sides, through the glass jungle. Within this jungle, they discovered a number of flocking red birds, which spit many colors when disturbed by the giant snakes that came crashing out of the jungle to attack everyone. The colors caused much confusion, and the snakes caused much being crushed and bitten (Mark nearly met his doom) but they eventually prevailed, particularly on account of much ice blasting by Blank and a truly impressive death blow from Sigrid.

Soern made note of Gannen’s approximate whereabouts, through his magics, and they continued along the path in the appropriate direction, until they discovered a curved glass wall, with an opening. Through the opening, and they discovered a second wall, of invisible magics, round six glittering, jeweled trees—and Gannen and Monala. She delivered a short villain monologue of the “Fools! You are too late!” variety, kissed Gannen, and they both disappeared.

At which point the wall attacked them. Being unfortunately composed of glass golems, in some measure. That battle was won handily through the timely deployment of acid pits.

Notes for Session 16

Yes, this is very, very late. Actual session took place on Friday of May the 25th, year 2007.

Rellik's player, again, wasn't here. I think. It's, um, been a while. I know he was at least late.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Session 16 Quotes

“Slightly more dead than most people.” – Blank

“Hey look, it’s pie!” – Blank

“Let’s leave Rellik here then. He could take care of the children.” – Sigrid

“We meet again, crabs!” – Blank

“Shoot, shoot, shoot the giant menacing snake. Try, try, try, to not get your face eaten.” – Blank

“Twenty crab flambĂ©! New, at Long John Silver’s!” – Blank

“My one weakness! Snakes. I hate snakes.” – Mark

“Man, I gotta lay off the shark man, man.” – Giant Snake (Blank)

“Okay, I killed a snake.” – Blank
“She killed a snake better.” – Soern

“I bet one of the snakes was really Gannen.” – Blank
“Nooooo!” – Sigrid

“Now thtep carefully children.” – Blank

“Detect Gannen!” – Sigrid

“I am tired of these motherfucking snakes, on this motherfucking island.” – Blank

“I’m on to you, motherfucking snake.” – Blank

“He doesn’t seem to be moving that much.” – Soern (probably)
“Oh, that’s a good sign.” – Blank

“She’s good. She is controlling him magically, but the kiss makes it look like they be in more than ‘cahoots.’” – Blank

“Why are you so racist?” – Sigrid

Monday, June 4, 2007

Updated Champion

I updated and completed the Champion of Loyalty template. I also submitted it to DiamondThrone.com.