(G242 12/06/2015 via Roll20 - Guru(GM), JF)

(G242 12/06/2015 via Roll20 - Guru(GM), JF)

Well, we sat and thought about how to defeat the construct, but after a while we felt like relaxing so we
asked Sylvia to tell us more of her tall tale of a place called Riverbek...

[GM note : Al not playing so Guru did some more 5th Edition with JF as the player]

''
So, some time had passed for Random. He was still robbing houses and things in Riverbek. Things were
going ok for him on the whole and after his last job with his boon companion, Skeldrog, he had enough
money to relax for a while.

He may have been a wicked rogue in many ways and have some pretty sticky fingers, but when it came to
his family he had a heart of gold. His wife, while not a nag exactly, liked to keep her husband informed
of the goings on with their children and she had been telling him that Tulip, their eldest had become
friendly with some other girls from a background that she as a parent did not approve of.

At first he didn't pay much attention to her, his wife's social climbing was well known to him. He was
more interested in how the twins, Wyvern and Naga, were getting along as apprentices to a teifling
warlock called Varus and how to shift a giant mirror he had stolen during a time recently when dragons
had been flying about and terrifying the citizens of Riverbek.

Random was also still heavily involved in Thieves Guild business with Kaleb, Varus as mentioned and
a female smuggler named Eon.

Still, his wife's constant reminders filtered down to him and when he reflected that his daughter's
delinquency could affect his standing in the Guild he decided to take matters in hand.

Now, in Riverbek there was a, what you might call, healthy population of Teiflings and one of these
was named Lady Shazuno, a priestess of Tutu (The God of Children and Wealth) and she, among other
things, was involved in an orphanage in the docks - and across the street from it - a brothel.

The orphanage, to a certain extent, supplied the brothel with employees and two of the young girls
who were headed that way were friends of Tulips. Fearful that her friends would lead her into an
ill considered profession Random decided to go check things out.

Not being able to lay his hands on Skeldrog, Random took a house guest with him called Tah'ran.
Now, not to go into the details too much, Tah'ran was a high elf thief, a refugee from the city of
Lot Tharel, recently destroyed by the dragons I mentioned earlier and an old pal of Random's.

These old friends turned up at the orphanage unannounced and were met by some of the children.
Random noted with approval that the children all looked reasonably well fed and not all that
scruffy.

Not long after their arrival a human woman in her mid twenties met them. She was Rosana and
worked at the orphanage and she had once been a member of the thieves guild and indeed had
once had a special understanding with Random if I can put it like that (and I'll just note that
she was far from the only woman in town that Random had special understandings with!).

Rosana was pleased to see him and took them both into the kitchen and offered them tea. She
discussed with them the orphanage and the brothel, which she deeply disapproved of.

After a short while Lady Shazuno arrived. It might surprise you to learn this fact, but despite
being both notable Teiflings of Riverbek, Random and Lady Shazuno had never met.

Random approved of her shapely figure but did not let that deter him from his task, namely,
finding out what was going on. Lady Shazuno answered all his questions with apparent honesty
though and Random felt mollified.
'Are you trying to lead my daughter into prostitution?' he asked bluntly.
'No, although I think it a reasonable enough profession for a girl of poor prospects.'
Random nodded but said, 'That may be true, but Tulip is no orphan. She has two parents and
a family. What of these other girls then?'
'Well, he friends are Juna, who has joined the thieves' guild and Edna who has gone to
work across the road.'
'I thank you for your candour.' said Random as they left.

Outside, he said to Tah'ran, 'What do you make of that?'
Tah'ran did not venture and opinion and when Random decided to enter the brothel 'for research
purposes' the high elf blushed and headed for home.

A scantily clad lady named Maxine met Random in the reception area. In the name of research Random
spent nine gold. Needless to say, nine gold bought him a great deal of research indeed!

Afterwards he asked for Edna to be sent to him, and his lusts sated for now he had nothing more
than a chat with the girl back in one of the common rooms. Edna was happy to talk and although
she was not particularly happy with her lot in life she felt that things could have been worse
for a girl born out of wedlock such as she.

Random noted that Kaleb and a couple of other lads from the Guild were in the brothel as well,
up to no good and hiding from their wives. Random was in no position to judge.

Content for now Random headed home and told his wife not to worry. Tulip was in no danger,
Lady Shazuno appeared to not be a pimp after all and all was good.

..

Not long after this though Random happened to be in his back garden, an area that backed onto
the Crusty Crab and noticed that there was a hole in it.
When he asked his wife about it she rolled her eyes and said,
'I told you about that days ago! Ask the twins.'

Random called in Wyvern and Naga and asked them to explain themselves. The whole story came out.
'Who dug the hole?' asked their father.
'A bird man and a weird druid.'
'How were you involved?'
'We didn't help or anything!', pleaded the twins, 'We didn't help try and rob the Crusty Crab
or anything!'
'We'll see about that.' said their paterfamilias.
Silently Wyvern handed over a drawing she had done. It was a drawing of a bird man holding
a large staff in the shape of a snake. It sparkled with magic.
The world closed in on Random and a single quiet, but commanding, voice seemed to speak in his
head, 'I .. Will ..  Have ..  That .. Staff.'

With the drawing folded up in his pocket Random went to see Kaleb at the Crab and was shown
the basement.
'Yeah, so you can see Random, old friend, old bean, old boon companion, they dug in here. They
were after my treasure. Didn't get it though, I had to get the Gauntlet out. In the end it was a
stand off and we came to an agreement.'
Random rubbed his chin and surveyed the destruction,
'They dug up my garden. They involved my kids. I can't let that stand.'
'I appreciate that, old spoon, but I made a peace pact with them.'
'I've made no pacts. Where can I find these jokers?'
Kaleb simply smiled and took a feather from the leaves of a nearby book then handed it to
Random.

Now, as luck would have it, Random had a second high elf lodger in his house called Lumiel. She
was an enchanter and using her magic she charmed the feather to always point in the direction of
the bird man it had come from.

Random sat at his kitchen table looking down at the feather as it quivered and pointed northwards.
He carefully unfolded the drawing and looked at the staff.
'It will be mine..' he whispered.

(G240 24/04/2015 via Roll20 - JF(GM), AP, MI) 34

(G240 24/04/2015 via Roll20 - JF(GM), AP, MI) 34


22/05/2015

DAY 98 (fri) cont ...

1435 hours

Kirk shot at the Numiri Combat Bot as it came down the corridor on its four spider-like legs.
It returned fire with a volley of four grenades, one EMP, two frag and one tear gas.

Kirk ducked behind the wall at the stairs then shot again, this time aiming for the grenade
launcher. It was well armoured though and it would take more than one shot so as it opened up
with its twin autoguns he ran up the stairs to warn the others in the main hall.

They didn't have much time to prepare though as it came through the main doors to the hall
which had been left open. As all Starfleet personnel and the Banean spies opened fire on the
Bot the Numiri officers took their opportunity to flee.

Kirk concentrated his fire on the Bot's grenade launcher and took it out of action. It continued
to fire its autoguns and chewed up the furniture a bit, but it was an easy target for the rest
of the crew and it was soon knocked out.

After it was destroyed they gathered together and headed for the door that lead to where
Mioen had said Paterson and Rumbleton were being held.

Kirk tried to bluff his way in but the guards on the other side of the door were not falling
for it. Things went from bad to worse as small flying Scout Bots appeared to kept a watch on them.
Next small rockets came down the corridor, able to turn corners, and started exploding around
them. Under  fire and in danger Kirk used up two clips of phaser ammunition burning a hole in
the door and in they went.

The guards had retreated to where Paterson and Rumbleton were being held. Mieon took her
turn at burning down doors, but unfortunately for her the guards were waiting, crouched
behind two coffers in the room beyond and as soon as they saw her they fired.

Poor Mioen was killed by the two shots that hit her and her body fell to the floor in
a bloodied heap. To the others she was dead, but the shock of it made her spirit leap
out of her body and she began to Astral Project in a ghostly form.

Inside the dungeon chamber, once they had stunned the guards Kirk and his team found Paterson
unharmed but Rumbleton unconscious.

Deciding to leave Rumbleton for now they headed back to the main hall, it was imperative to
get to the shield generator that was somewhere in the complex so that they could beam out.

In a room beyond the main hall as they were trying to get their bearings they were attacked
by two squads of Numiri Special Forces. They managed to knock out two of them as the Numiri charged
into the room, but the others that came behind shot them down like stalks of wheat. Paterson
went down with a nasty wound, the three Banean spies were taken out and Munro was shot dead.
Dell was shot and fell and finally Kirk. Kevek, the last man standing, put up his hands and
surrendered.

Meanwhile the spirit of Mieon had been flitting around in the castle and had luckily come across
the shield generator. An officer, two NCOs and three Numiri soldiers were guarding this area and
one by one she tried to Suggest to them to lower the shields.

It took her several attempts, her powers were weaker now that she was dead, to get a guard to
do as she bid. Eventually much to the surprise of the others one of them went over to the control
panel and hit the emergency shutdown button.

As Kevek was being frisked for weapons by the Special Forces he was amazed to see Kirk suddenly
transported away. He reasoned that if it had been the Aeroshuttle's Kirk Alpha 1 program kicking
in to rescue him then the shields must be down!

'One to beam up!' he said calmly as he tapped his badge and he too was returned to the Aeroshuttle.
Next he beamed up everyone else and the bodies of Munro and Mieon.

Many of the others were dying so he grabbed a first aid kit from the wall and one by one stabilised
them.

Finally he went over to lay Mieon to rest and as he reached down to close her eyes he sensed her
presence. Lightly touching her temples he made contact with her spirit and began to communicate
with her.

Kevek decided to attempt a rare form of mindmeld with Mieon and transfer her Katra (as the Vulcans
call the soul) to himself. It took a few minutes, but he managed to bring Mieon into his own mind.
Time would tell if he would ever come to regret joining such a wild and adventurous spirit to his
own.

(G241 29/05/2015 via Roll20 - AP(GM), JF, Mira, Guru)

(G241 29/05/2015 via Roll20 - AP(GM), JF, Mira, Guru)

DAY 229 (26 Marpenoth) cont ...

And what a battle it was. Up until recently I'd not had much dealing with golems, but my brother
has. He and his partner in trouble Fenrir, once fought a stone golem (or living statue if you prefer)
and when they were in 'Darknessdeep' they had a flesh golem ally called Fred and they encountered a wood
golem while there as well.

Way way back in Sasserine, in Castle Teraknian myself and my poor dead friend Raz once encountered some
snake constructs. There was a huge construct in Renkrue, the work of a gnome artificer called Willy Reach,
but I was not there when it went berserk and the crew of the Sea Wyvern did battle with it.

After this battle though I'll certainly of had my fill of constructs! As my brother had warned me
they are tricky things to deal with. We'd found that out back at the Monastery when fighting the Gloomgolem
and had the lesson reinforced here.

We started with a wave of crocodiles, which did some damage, but not enough to inconvenience it greatly. Mirabella
fired off a few arrows to begin with, but when she saw that they were merely bouncing off she sat down with
Badger and in a grumpy fashion took out a pack of cards. Whatever she was up to though I was too busy marshalling
my crocodile forces.

Gurudor waded in and managed to get a few good hits in, but every time is appeared damaged the red liquid from
the big crystal in its chest flowed out and seemed to repair all the dings and dents.

We had to come up with a new plan and between ourselves we shouted out our strategy. Mirabella was to lure the
thing out over the bridge where I would use woodshape to hopefully plunge it to its doom. It was a rather desperate
plan considering how much damage its whirling arms could do, but it was the best we could do.

Gurudor jumped to it and Sylvia was to cast Sanctuary on Mirabella before she tried to duck past the golem and make
her way to the other side of the room. But she had misunderstood! She leapt down off the stairs and rush towards
the golem.
Sylvia cried out, 'Sanctuary is a touch spell you fool!'
Mirabella stopped in her tracks in confusion and was stuck down by a blow from the golem and landed in a crumpled
heap at the foot of the right hand stairs.
With a silent prayer Sylvia leapt over the banister and went to help her fallen companion.

Gurudor, rather confused, tried to lure the golem away but it was too intent in what was going on by the stairs.
I managed to get it interested in the crocodiles though, long enough for Sylvia to get Mirabella up in her arms
and run back up the stairs.

Gurudor then calmly sauntered past the golem and joined us in the retreat back to the other side of the bridge
where we healed up and got poor Mirabella back on her feet.

We needed another plan! It was barely 10 in the morning, but we settled down to rest and think.