"Time is a predictable path, always forwards. History is a predicatble story, always repeating. The recurrence of legends is the illusion that time has been fought and stalled, by the return of these larger than life figures. However, Time continues onwards with its own dark purpose to its black conclusion. History is just its clever minion, making us look backwards instead of forwards, distracting us with false hope rather than allowing us to look with clear eyes to determine our own futures..."

 - Thrazidum, to the Thraki'i

I've closed the other thread, but please look at the last post if you haven't already. Feel free to jhave another reaction post here :)

So...just to clarify...first there was a deer stampede, then a normal brown bear who just ran past us, then some kind of giant shadowy mutant bear thing which looked like it was going to attack...and then a blue dragon appeared from...er...somewhere, and impaled the mutant bear on its claws, lifting it into the air? Slightly worrying that we somehow failed to notice a dragon large enough to do that...

The blue dragon appeared from the woods (moving overland not flying), it was barrelling through the trees. It was moving pretty quickly and directly behind the mutant bear, and also blasted the area at the side with lighting too just before it appeared. I think you can be forgiven for noticing something mythical that shouldn't exist until it upstaged said mutant bear, given all the mitigating factors. :p

Also, technically speaking they are both 'large' sized, just the Dragon is stronger and has the power of artistic license on its side.

Dragons as "mythical"? In DnD? Hmmmm...
Sooo, can my Nature check apply to the dragon too/instead? Or shall I roll another one? I'm fairly sure I know quite a bit more about DnD blue dragons than Nym does, but I might as well see what she knows before I have her start commenting on it/attempting to strike up a conversation ;).

OOC: Think it was mentioned before that dragons are mythical in this particular setting.  Apparently everyone was wrong about that though since we've got one staring us down right now.  Unless it's an illusion of course...
Anyways, since I seem to be rock bottom in the Initiative order, I'll wait to see what Nym is up to :)


[Private to The Altweaver: Immediate suspicion here is that we were supposed to fight the bear, but Meri somehow inadvertently 'summoned' this thing to us with that symbol of Tiamat.
Assuming the link between Tiamat and dragons might have occurred to Meri too, given that she recognised it back there.  Will check to see if holding that symbol can exert any control over the creature, dunno if Arcana or Religion would be best for that...  Holy symbol = Trying Religion: 13 (6 + 7) - Ick...]

Yeah, the Shadow mentioned the history of the world way back, and I've commented about dragons to you since then. In this setting, he said that the gods asked the dragons to back off for a bit to let the 'younger' races estabilish themselves, then when the dragons came back they were a little pissy that they seemed to have just been abandoned and userped, and basically wrecked stuff to conquer these mortal lands. However, they then started fighting amongst themselves, some other mortals from across the sea to the south came across and vanquished the dragons, and then basically took up residence in the land.

The dragonborn are said to be the descendants of the dragons, and that's why they had some troubles with dragonborn in history. To be fair this second part has been hinted at withtalks with Farren, and it might be a year or more since it was mentioned.

Anyway, as it was probably all a myth, and because no one has ever seen dragons that you know of nor are they ever talked about (despite them still being in the collective unconscious...) then yeah, no one sjhould know anythign definitive about them. You een commented on how you doubted, in Dungeons and Dragons, the dragons would all be gone and mythical. You were right. You can roll Nature separately for the Blue Dragon, or History, but don't expect Nym to know too much. I'll trust you not to metagame too much :) To be fair, you know enough now. Causes Lightning. Flies. Strong. Scary. :p

Okies, I'll roll Nature then...cool, 28 :).

Sorry, between mum being down until Monday night, a (last minute cancelled) audit this week at work, lack of sleep, and a walk I've got to scout / lead at the weekend, I've not really had nor will have the time to kick off the battle. Look for that next week :) I mean it's a chapter end anyway, so I figured it's fine to have a mini-hiatus.

Obviously, absolutely nothing else to see here :p

With the Dragon hovering in the air paying attentionto its captured bear, you might just have a tiny moment of time to do stuff. Technically I'll go by your initiative order when you start the battle (ie when suddenly stuff happens), so you can react in discrete chunks of time and checking things out for the moment.


[Private to Meri: Aww, 13 is a little low. Anyway, so Meri won#t know anything for sure. But the symbol doens't seem that powerful, and the dragon hasn't homed in on Meri - yet. So it is perhaps less likely that it can exert any influence. However, it was mentioned that dragon-like creatures should be able to feel the symbol, so Meri can at the very least use that to torment the creature. Whether Meri wants to try and invest more time to sense a latent 'control dragon' power is up to you :)

In metagame terms, who knows what you were supposed to fight and or not... As I said though, a bear seems a little subtle for a chapter ender :D

Oh, and yes, if I didn't say before, the mutant bear was absolutely the scent of magic Meri could smell. Odd that the dragon went right for it above all else so aggressively, isn't it?]


[Private to Nym: For the bear, your Nature roll would be enough to spot that in many ways the mutant bear looks like it perhaps could have been exactly like the other bear once. The mutation doens't look natural, and is perhaps relatively recent. Someone, maybe Geekaar, did mention that the bear observations only seemed to come up a few weeks ago. Oh, I made a mistake (given it's been ages since I looked at the stats). I forgot that bears (and minotaurs, etc) in 4th edition are medium sized creatures. Like, really big medium, of course :p And that's why it seemed logical for the dragon to pick the bear up mechanically. Yes, the dragon is still large :D


As for the dragon, Nym won't know anything from history, tales, etc. Howevemr for that god roll I can probably give you a lot of stuff just based on quick observation.

The dragon is fast - really fast, especially on it's wings. And really manoeuverable. Hence why it 'snuck' up on you! Basically, it's 8 squares normal and 10 squares flying, and you can suspect it has sneaky extra actions / reactions to be able to move more (without opportunity attacks). Which will just make it feel really quick and hard to pin down. It also seems as if it would be hard to pin down being so big. That means don't expect stuns and dazes to last more than that turn. You might be able to slow it down, but even that might not last (it has a large saving throw bonus).

The thing's tail doens't seem too scary, and it seems more intent on flying on its wings (so don't expect those to attack) but those wings do seem to generate quite a buffetting effect (so watch out for that if you get to close and aren't paying attention, say because you are attacking it). The claws look deadly though as noted, as does its maw. And you've seen evidence of burning trees and exploding grass that it seems to have the ability to lob lighting around. So it is probably immune to that, or at least very resistive to it. Like, you know, resist 10 or something...

Probably one of the few things anyway would know about even mythical dragons is they breath stuff, so it seems likely this dragon breaths lighting, cool and scary as that sounds!

Anyway, enough to be going on with? I haven't mentioned dragonfear, so either that's not a thing or Nym hasn't been affected by it yet. All good? ]
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:07, Wed 14 Mar 2018.

Given the situation I think Nym will momentarily freeze up anyway for now. Normally, of course, she'd happily greet a new creature if it showed up in front of her (if it didn't seem like it was about to try and attack her), but this one has done so by impaling and picking up another new creature. Violence right in front of her which would normally put her into "combat mode", in which case she would probably start with the creepy childish laughter and all that. But the dragon hasn't attacked us yet, so she's not quite been pushed fully into "killkillburnburndiediedie" mode just yet. So she's sort of teetering on a weird balance of the two and so will do nothing until something else happens to push her one way or the other.

[Private to GM: Hmm, super-fast, with lightning breath plus resistance to lightning and status effects? And a wing buffet and predictably deadly claws and teeth? Ouch. Hm, well, squishy caster will probably try to hide at the back, I expect, if she doesn't get too carried away once combat kicks off (assuming that it does, of course ;)).
On that note, actually, can I just announce now that I'm gonna use Slaad's Gambit the first time I get directly attacked (assuming that I do at some point)? Immediate Interrupt, targets the triggering enemy. I teleport away and zap them in retaliation - I'm pretty sure I've used this once before, at whatever the last thing was that we fought. The Teachers, maybe? Anyway, you can see it on my character sheet, the last power under the "Offensive" section. Just want to make sure I've got that declared now so you know I want it to go off, since it's an Interrupt so will mean the attack against me will fail unless I somehow manage to still be in range of it after teleporting away ;). Yay for out-of-turn actions in a forum-based game ;).]

If the sight of the dragon shocked Meri, she wasn't letting any signs of it show.  Timur on the other hand shuffled down onto her pack as if trying to hide behind her.

Her gaze moved from the dragon to the bear and back again, flickering briefly back towards Sarah as she spoke up, then back to the dragon again.
Around her, the ground still smouldered, charred by the fiery display she had called up earlier, the parts of the staff in contact with her hands still glowing a faint red with the heat.  Without lifting the staff from its defensive position in front of her, she spoke up in a rather neutral tone that still refused to give any hint of her inner emotions, if any existed.

"So do either of you two want something from us?"

[Private to Nym:
Note you describe yourself as the squishy mage, but you and Meri are prety similar in power levels, and it's probably not a surprise to realise that as the plaers, you are going ot have a higher power level than village NPCs. And as adventurers who have just tackled an ancient evil, you are more skillful that stay at home village guards :p


So noted regarding the Slaad's Gambit, that's not a problem. I'll try to recall it as an option in future too. As this is a big encounter with a single powerful foe, if it does go to combat I'll probably go pretty blow by blow through your own options and turns so your various tactical options shouldn't need to be set up ahead of time otherwise. Though a lot of the dragon's stuff is reactive, so don't be surprised if it has some reactions to you own tactics either!]


There was relative quiet for a moment, with many in the camp looking to Meri. Some as if she were mad, some with hope in their eyes that someone was at least starting to act and find a way through the unreal insanity they had found themselves in.

The bear wwas finally the one to reply to Meri's question, though not in an understandable way. It simply screamed with a horrific cry as the dragon - hovering high on powerful wings, the buffetting still being felt on the ground - grabbed the bear to grip it properly with a second taloned hand. Something tore as the dragon removed its original taloned hand from the bear's back with ugly menace, and then the bear was thrown down to the grass below.

There was a wet thump, and some low moans and squirming, but the mass of fur seemed in no condition to react further to Meri.


The dragon looked around the camp, giving no indication of even hearing Meri. It sniffed once, twince, then three times. It seemed to look directly at Meri - or perhaps passed her?

And then with a powerful set of wing beats, it leapt high in to the air to become lost in the dark blue skies.


So.... that went well. Feel free to roll Perception to get a better idea of what the Draon was looking at - or where it has gone (one roll needed for each), or Inight to work out perhaps why the Dragon was looking, or if it understood anything.

Also any other skill checks are good too.


Farren moved forwards quickly, for some reason going to Many's side rather than Meri's, even though the little beholder was cowering hidden well enough from the dragon.

Someone - one of Geekaar's older retainers, with such a strained voice it was hard to tell which - yelled their master's name. Geekaar did not look anywhere but up in the air, moving backwards with odd certainty of foot and slowness of purpose.

Elias seemed to shake free of his own dumbstruck fear, and moved towards Geekaar. "D-do something!" he demanded with petulance to Geekaar, pointing a finger. However, Geekaar's guards were in the way, and without much concern no hesitation, the guard flashed a sword blade and removed the finger easily in warning.

Elais screamed and feel backwards and the guards that noticed reacted with shocked calls. Elias held his hand to his chest in shock, blood fountaining. Desmine ran to his side, calling him an idiot over and over but clearly shaken. Geekaar still did not look round, nor did the guards. They all kept backing up towards the horses or wagons, it seemed.


That was unpleasant!

Nym seems to have become somewhat oblivious to the surrounding events, staring with an expression of vaguely bemused confusion at the dragon and its actions, and not really reacting at all to the scream of Elias nearby. She looks up at the sky, perhaps attempting to follow the path of the dragon's flight.

Okay, let's try some skill rolls...Insight first, to try and read the dragon's intent and/or thought process as he(?) looks at Meri and then decides to shoot upward...17. Then Perception to try and follow his(?) flight path...25. Can I see if he's(?) preparing to dive back down at us or something, or whether he's(?) actually buggering off somewhere? Slightly worrying that we are having to roll Initiative and yet no combat seems to be taking place. Dun dun dunnnn...

[Private to GM: Of course, it might be that this chap has been sent by the Other, and on seeing Meri the immunity from my Wish has kicked in and caused ol' scaly-boy to drop the matter and leave her (and consequently us) alone.
Incidentally, the reason for announcing my intentions for Slaad's Gambit at the start of combat were because it's an Immediate Interrupt, so if I'd been attacked then it would trigger straight away, so you wouldn't get to actually roll anything against me and tell me I'd taken however-many-shitloads of damage, because I'd already have teleported away by that point and caused the attack to be wasted >:).]

OOC: Just making a few skill checks too here, who knows what's going on inside Meri's head... :)


[Private to The Altweaver: First of all, Heal check to see if the bear is too badly wounded to save: 29 (17 + 12).

Also, Insight check to try to figure out the bear's intentions (as in, did it look like it actually came here with the intent to attack us in the first place, in which case saving its life might not be such a smart move, since I might then have to fight it, having used up my Healing Infusions in saving it so it could attack us!  Irony abounds!):  20 (11 + 9).

Also, like Nym, using Perception to try and spot if the dragon is actually gone or still circling around up there somewhere: 22 (8 + 14).
Will try for a second one too to figure out what it was looking at: 32 (18 + 14).

Dunno if there's a maximum amount of skill checks I can do in one particular 'round' or not...]

So many rolls, and no visible comments from me. Clearly nothing going on here. :D

I mean, sure, I got you both to roll Initiative earlier, which means there's this odd looming threat hovering over you, as if I can now spring a combat on you at any second. Who knows why I would have done that, that mechanically clearly bears no resemblance to your circumstances right now. No looming threats here, no sudden potential for violence out of nowhere...

[Private to Meri: Yeah, bear is far too gone to be saved. It probably just had its spine snapped :( "Good" news, you don't believe it will be alive too much longer so won't suffer, so no point going over to it to help it one way or another :(

Hard to gauge its exact intentions, but since the other bear just ran passed you, and you now know both were running form a dragon, it seems more likely the 'challenge' was some odd form of warning. Which would have made the bear oddly smart, or at least sympathetic, possibly some side effect of the same magical mutation.


The dragon seemed to not understand a word Meri said, even though its gaze looked far too intelligent to be merely animal. So you should be able to speak around it all you like, it won't understand the words of your plans, though it might understand the tactics of them. It seemed to be sniffing around for a new scent, clearly the bear's one making that harder. It also for a moment seemed distaracted by something near Meri - very likely the item in her pack - which also seemed to cause it a little confusion.

However, Farren's movements seemed to confirm something just as the dragon's sniffs focused it. Somehow the dragon became focused on the spot behind Meri, where Many was... as if it could scent Many's own magical nature, and was hunting for Many too...

Luckily, Farren being there has probably confused it, and you suspect its raised up in to the air to get a new position, to try and pinpoint whether its Farren or something else that it is hunting now.


If Meri is looking up to the sky though, she won't get the chance to zero in on the dragon because...


Meri looked to the dull sky trying to follow the streaking shadow, however, her eyes watered. There was some odd optical illusion, that caused her eyes to see strange patterns in the clouds rather than find the dragon. It was as if there was a dark, blackened face in the clouds, feminine in nature, with a green spot on one side for an eye, an unmoving blue spot in the other for a second eye, a red underlight from the fading sun making a mouth, with the white of some purer cloud forming the bright fanged teeth of a grin within those reddened lips.


I'll say your Insight was so good that you will spot that Nym is not seeing the odd thing you are seeing in the sky. No one else is. What an odd optical illusions! :p]


[Private to Nym: Yeah, the dragon just seemed to be interested in MEri for some reason, and was looking pretty much at Meri not anyone else. Hard to tell if the dragon understood Meri though. It seemed intelligent.

More importantly though, when the dragon lifted itself up in to the air, it seemed to keep its eyes focused roughly in that area still... as if it was making sure it was oriented as to where everything was on the ground. So Nym can be pretty certain that yeah, it's only gone upwards in order to come back down with some speed somewhere around the area of Meri!

The existence of the Wish is certainly a good indication of the nature of the dragon. If Meri has some form of proper immunity, you'll know The Other is able to bring something pretty substancial to bear against you! If not, then who knows what powerful entity could summon a dragon out of myth against you all. No idea. :D

Oh, and Slaad Gambit is a cool idea, but I would have let you use it anyway, so really you just missed the opportunity to see safely how many dice I roll for damage :p]

Nym's eyes track upward, following the path the dragon took. She sort of vaguely waves up at the sky as though bidding the creature goodbye and seems about to say something, but then stops and glances around at where Meri is standing, then looks upward again.

"Oh. Are you coming back down again?" she asks.

Meri's gaze tracked the dragon as it launched itself up into the air.  For some reason though, her expression took on a more puzzled look as if she had seen something unusual there.  This look was quickly followed by a noticeably disturbed look, whatever she saw in the sky clearly leaving an impression.
"That's...  That's not good" she muttered quietly to herself.

At the sound of the scuffle by Elias, she looked back, briefly pointing her staff as if by instinct at the guard who attacked him.  Her eyes narrowed at him and she lowered the staff again, backing towards Farren and Many's position while watching the sky for the dragon returning.
"It's still up there, trying to get a better view.  The symbol I'm carrying confused it for a moment, distracted it from its target."


[Private to The Altweaver: OOC: Out of curiosity, is there any way to tell that particular guard apart from the others?  If they get into a fight with the dragon, then I know one that Meri might happily use as a human shield if needed ;)  hehe.

Also, dipping into Arcana knowledge to see if Meri knows any way of using that symbol or its attraction effect against the dragon: 18 (4 + 14) - Ick, getting the bad rolls out of the way before anything else kicks off at least...]

For no reason, here's a rough map that for no reason has a grid.
/games/63699/misc/gamemap.jpg?1521579501

The edges are forest, the brown square is where Maggrath was carving deer, the 'R' there is Maggrath, the remaining 'R' are Geekaar's other retainers, the four 'S' are the four experienced guards with Maggrath, the four 'S' near Meri are Sarah, Jessah, Gibb and Stark, leaving the last two 'S' as Elias and Desmine.

Geekaar and his personal guards (W) are should hopefully be obvious, the blue circle was the cauldron, the brown circle of shapes are the cushion chairs that don't block movement, and the purple 'Be' is the dying mutant bear.

I've indicated the general direction of the horses and wagons.


Sooo, is everyone happy with that lay out, or do you think you are nearer/ further from anything?

Also, let me know exactly what Timur and Ryn would be doing, and if they are active or not.

Again, all of this for absolutely no reason :p


[Private to Meri: The guards seem pretty interchangeable right now, so probably bets to push them all in to the dragon if you get the chance :p

As for using the symbol, nothing new, but keeping on keeping on seems a good plan. It does seem to be confusing it a little as you surmise. If you need to augment that later, just because it can't understand you doens't mean if you show it the symbol later it won't react. For example, maybe being mad realising what was bugging it before, maybe being mad something like you is befouling a symbol of it's god, etc :) Especially if you were to do anything to the symbol :p

But no, with that roll you don't think there's any way to amplify the effect I'm afraid.]

"Hmm? What symbol?" asks Nym vaguely, still looking upward.

Ryn, meanwhile, bounces over from where she had been snuffling around the edge of the camp and clambers up onto Nym's shoulders.

Ryn's movement had been something I'd intended to have happen anyway, I just hadn't got around to actually saying that yet. Her jumping up onto Nym's shoulders will have switched her from Active to Passive. If I need her to switch back it's only a Minor to do so, so that shouldn't be an issue if necessary.
Nym's still sort of halfway between "normal mode" and "combat mode" - I think she sort of knows that something's about to kick off, so she's ready to let loose as soon as it does, meaning she's not "allowed" to be her normal conversational self. Because that would mean having to notice there's a dead/dying mutant bear thingy on the floor in front of her leaking vital fluids all over the place. And a guy somewhere behind her who's just had a finger chopped off. Mind you, maybe Meri can heal it back on again, or something? It got pretty cleanly cut off, didn't it? So just pick it up, hold it in place against the stump, and magically reattach via heal spell? :D
Also, the thought occurred a few days ago that Nym doesn't have a weapon out right now (she put her staff in her pocket a while back), so I'll need to remember to use a Minor on my first turn to do that. Nym's not in "combat mode" quite enough yet to think of doing that, I don't think. But I imagine she can yank the staff back out of her pocket or unsheath the dagger (which I think is at her waist? Can't remember where she put it, or if I actually ever specified) easily enough. I don't think she uses Minor actions for much anyway.

[Private to GM: Ooh, something else I just thought of - if the situation arises, I want to try my Seed of Chaos power, triggered when myself or an ally uses an Action Point to attack (after said attack is resolved). I don't know which of the two of us (Meri or me) are likely to use any Action Points (I tend to forget about them), but just in case she does before me, I want to use that power :). All that would happen is I roll 1d6 and depending on the result there will be a minor good thing that happens to the ally or a minor bad thing that happens to whatever target they just attacked. Hmm, presumably if the triggering attack was against multiple targets, the Seed of Chaos would affect all of them. I'll have to check that but might as well wait till it comes up :).]

"Tiamat's symbol" replied Meri in a low voice.  "Kobolds and Dragonborn could sense its presence, and it seems dragons too.  Suspected that, but obviously no-one ever tested the theory until now."

She raised her staff in a defensive stance and glanced back at Many with a brief flicker of a worried look...


OOC: Timur is passive for now.  His active ability is only really useful when I'm firing alchemical stuff around, so he'll likely remain passive unless I intend to do a lot of that.

[Private to The Altweaver: She'll mostly be aiming to keep it away from Many if possible, even if that involves using herself as a shield.  Might be a bit ouch!]

[Private to Nym: So noted regarding the seed of chaos power. Can I suggest you don't forget about action points nor inspiration nor anything else you possess, and use it all when it's your turn :p  Front loading seed of chaos and the slaad's gambit is a good start though! Regarding minor action, remember I'm allowing recovery / drinking of a potion to be only one minor action, not two. So those minors can be more useful than normal. Especially now you and Meri have a linked inventory, and Nym can 'accidentally' take whatever stuff Meri has and vice versa!]

Meri being both a mage and having the Heal skill (along with Alchemy) definitely means I'm happy for some creative healing to occur on occasion :) Plus you seem to be in the good books of various nature demi-gods and spirits, so that always helps.

Anyway, I think not having a weapon drawn will be pretty low on the list of things not done to prepare for a dragon potentially attacking you all. I didn't realise it was my birthday already, but thank you all for the presents :p


Next post will be the first combat post. Did I say combat post, I meant the next updating of the game where the dragon has apprently run away and you all get to just carry on as normal.

Your good combined perception rolls earlier will mean the dragon won't get a surprise round, not that we're in combat or anything. So I'll slot your previous initiative rolls and everyone else's in to initiative order, remove your familiars from the map, make the map prettier, and post it and the first game actions.

That will porbably be tomorrow evening or Saturday. As you are both relatively close together with 9 and 5 respectively, you'll probably find that you will both get to act as you please, and co-ordinate if you like. We can take the rounds slower since the dragon - as you will find - is an unsurprisingly tough opponent. Not that you will be fighting it or anything. So working through your own turns OOC and so forth is fine.

Okay, that's cool. I'll see what I can come up with regarding Nym sharing her knowledge with Meri about this guy, although chances are he's acting some way before either of us and will probably get to show off all his lovely and wonderful abilities before I get a chance to describe them :P. As far as tactics are concerned, though, I don't really like to metagame so while there are one or two useful things I can do that would involve Meri, I would prefer for Nym to explain them (or just go ahead and do them anyway :D) rather than me.

[Private to GM: Bah, when do I ever get around to using potions? Okay, I think I have a few times...but looking at my inventory I don't have any right now so unles Meri does, I don't think it's gonna come up in this fight ;).
But in checking that, I did happen to glance over the stats of my Wyrmtooth Dagger and remember what they are. Soooo...think that's probably gonna come in fairly useful this fight >:).]

OOC: Still not sure if blue dragons resist lightning and thunder yet, I'm fairly sure they at least have some lightning resistance (if I'm remembering rightly that blues are the lightning/storm-based ones).  So I suspect I'll be falling back on alchemical weaponry until I've used them all up.  Really wishing I hadn't used up my fire trick scaring deer now...
This message was last edited by the player at 16:16, Fri 23 Mar 2018.

Since Thunder is more of a physical force, then you can perhaps feel a little safer to try it out! And hey, do not underestimate how much less screwed you are right now having dealt with the deer. They could have done some major damage and caused lots of fun confusion pulling your focusand actions. And then the dragon would have appeared :D Still yeah, fire would be good right now. Stupid no good choices, may aswell act for the consequences you feel will be for the best...

As to the dragon showing off all his powers before Nym can say anything, how could you ever think such a thing...?

There was an ominous quiet, aside from the slight wimpering of Elias. However, it felt as if everyone was focused on the sky, in one way or another. Geekaar and his group were still ignoring everything relse, at least the town guards and Geekaar's abandoned retainers noticed Nym and Meri were discussing... something.

[Private to Nym: And as Nym looked up in the sky, a small dot that might have been nothing then seemed to be something then seemed to be definitely something, then seemed to be definitely something moving quickly and becoming larger as it 'fell' to earth. However, there was an odd sensation in the pit of her stomach, totally alien. It was completely unpleasant and felt imposed. And seemed to stop her acting for a moment. And yet, somehow deeper, there was some pther stirring, like when she had managed to 'hatch' the small seed from The Shadow. As if something with some kinship was approaching.

The sleek, blue shape diving toward the ground was mesmerising... and then a ball of lightning spat from the creature's opened maw, and then it did not seem as mesmerising.


There you go, narratively you can have your Dragonfear to explain your low initiative roll and the fact the dragon has so many actions before you can act! Or have something else. The other emotion is more a nod to the primal, elemental core of Nym, and the fact that this creature is also far closer to some ancient source than normal. :) ]

[Private to Meri: The vision of the terrible woman was still written in the sky where the dragon had disappeared. As Meri looked up, the grin became wider - the teeth shifted, and a strange white tongue darted out of her mouth as if in impish mockery. Except the tongue kept extending, her lips unravelled, her face fell apart, and her two pupils elongated grotesquely. In a moment, the vision was now of five chromatic heads - the depiction of Timat - each laughing as the vision faded.

Except for one head, the blue head, which darted towards Meri...

And then it was clear that it was not a vision, but the dragon suddenly returned. It's sleek snout, beady black eyes, wide nostrils, and gleeming teeth filled Meri's vision as if came down - and then there was an explosion of light that filled her vision instead...

Low initiative counts against fast moving dragons are terrible things! :D]

And then, suddenly, the camp was filled with a ball of glowing, jagged light. Farren barely had time to dive towards the cowering, hidden Many before the immediate area around Meri and the spilled cauldron exploded with lighting. Retainers and guards screamed. Samel, being at the edge, somehow manayed to dive out of the way, but the older retainers were not so fortunate.

And then the blue dragon was in the air, beating powerful wings over the devestation it had caused, hovering over the heads of Sarah, Jessah and Stark as they writhed in pain. Young Gibb had fallen over screaming, and simply scrambled to his feet, tripping and trying to rush around the pillows and away from the beast.

The dragon barely paid attention to the fleeing guard, nor the terrified ones below. It instead scented the air for a moment, as if to admire the stench of ozone. However it was clearly scenting for something instead as the sniffs became more nuanced. Something was wrong though.

Then it took a giant breath, chest expanding. It flicked its head to the left, towards where Maggrath and the more experienced guards were. And then it breathed out. Lighting, far more chaotic, streamed from its mouth like a physical shafted, tearing apart the blanket and those on it - the air filled with fresh screams.

Somehow satisfied, the dragon looked back. It sniffed again, and swapped its attention between Meri and Farren. Although a further scream from Gibb drew its malevolent gaze and there was a rumble from its chest like terrible laughter.


Welcome to combat! I mean..the opportunity to make fromeds with Mr Dragon. Start by rolling Diplomacy on telling him how hice his Lighting is :p Ok, not really.

Combat map: /games/63699/misc/gamemap.jpg?1521892309

So, funny story, all the initiative rolls for almost everyone were low, aside from most of the people who would delay anyway! It is currently Nym's initiative count at 9, but I've hinted at any actions those acting after Nym's will make, so Meri, please feel free to also make all your actions too.

So the first attack was a lightning ball that exploded in a 5 x 5 grid centred in the square between the dragon and Meri. It doesn't hang around.

The dragon should be obvious, and is see through because it's in the air. It has a number (currently 5) attached to it. That's how high up it is, and all your attacks need to add that number to calculate range. 4th edition doens't worry about diagnoals, etc, so it's pretty easy to work out if you can hit it or not otherwise.

Don't worry about the odd ring around the dragon, I'm sure that will never be important :p

Funnily, all the damage rolls were pretty low, so while everyone expect Samel and Many (hiding under Farren) in the camp got hit, and the three on the blanket near the deer, no one is bloodied yet. So that's nice.

Also, for reasons I will reveal to Meri alone, I'm using DM fiat and saying she automatically takes half damage from that initial attack without me rolling anything (half damage being the minimum). That's 7hp, which isn't too bad! See, this is going to be an easy fight!

Have at it!

[Private to Meri: Ok, so Farren clearly protected Many so Meri will know Many's alright for the moment. Farren seemed to be keeping Many protected for the moment - mechanically, Farren second winded to heal up and also give himself a defensive boost.

The last of your good Insight on the dragon from earlier will give you this final piece of info. The dragon seems to have picked this side to get a second co-ordinate on pinpointing its new prey. The lightning blast was clearly to clear the way - hence why you personally (and Farren, and therefore Many) - were deliberatrly only on the edges of the blast. It seems as if it was then downwind of the deer carcass, and so it brutally almost murdered everyone around the carcass just to get rid of that scent.

This is not a nice creature :p

However, it does not seem to feel threatened, and so in no hurry. And hence, it seems to have temporarily allow itself to ponder Gibb. Most likely there's some primal fleeing prey instinct it would be happy to indulge if it can.

This is not a nice creature!

So, there is a chance to do something with Many while it is distracted. If it's using scent to look for Many because it doens't seem to know exactly what it's looking for, and is diatracted by Meri's symbol, there is the opportunity to try and swap the two out. Maybe that would work. Certainly, even if it doens't fool the creature, Many is small enough that if he can get in to your backpack or Nym's robe, he would be safe in the little pocket dimension as long as both items as in tact.

Obviously, there are numerous ways to try and accomplish this, if you want to try it. Simply tanking the dragon and keeping Many hidden - or trying to come up with new magical scents - is another.

Good luck whatever you choose! :D]

Oh, and the double initiative count for the dragon isn't a mistake... it gets to act twice, in a very specific way. One of the few good rolls it had here was initiative :)

OOC: Just to check (in case it becomes necessary to know), if there are folks directly below it like that, would they still get caught in an area-effect attack, or does the area of effect on those work vertically too?

Got Meri's first move planned out, but I'll stick with Initiative order and let Nym act first here in case she changes something. (She usually does, in spectacular fashion!) ;)

All area effect spells work in a cube (so the lightning ball attack was actaully three blocks high too). However, the dragon is 5 squares away from the ground so unless you have something HUGE then they should be fine. You can fire upwards and miss people too.

Yes, do not neglect the third dimension! Now, let's see what we can do...

Nym seems to watch in a sort of daze as the dragon swoops in and attacks. But as the lightning breath hits and causes further chaos and destruction throughout the camp, some part of her seems to finally come to a decision on what to do. She looks up at the dragon and smiles brightly.

"Oooooh, look! Dragon! Raaarr!" she calls, and skips over to stand beside Meri. Her attention, meanwhile, is on the dragon and she points a scolding finger up at it. "No, no, no..." she says. "You're naughty. Stop the zappy stuff. It's very rude. You shouldn't be rude..."

She gives a sort of shimmer, but nothing happens to the dragon. Instead, she seems to crackle with a faint hint of lightning herself, part of which then seems to split off and surround Meri in the same fashion. Nym then, almost absently, reaches to her waist and draws out the fang-like dagger she bought so recently at Blackwood Village. She now points this at the dragon and as she does so, a rush of energy courses down Nym's arm and she laughs as a surge of her own lightning energy (this one sort of greenish in colour) launches upward. As it does, Nym gives a sort of flick of her other hand and a tiny speck of ever-changing force, like a seed that can't settle on its colour or material, follows the lightning and streak toward the dragon.

Okay...so first I use my Move action to get to the square just northeast of Meri.
Then a Minor to use Elemental Shift, changing my Wild Soul to, of course, Lightning and sharing that with one adjacent ally (guess who :P). So we now both have Resist 5 Lightning for the rest of the Encounter and since my Wild Soul type has changed, it also means my arcane powers ignore that same amount of Resistance in anyone I attack. I don't know if Mr Dragon has more than Resist 5 Lightning but if he does I have another trick I can use later. Note that Meri only has the Resistance herself, not the ability to ignore it in enemies.
Anyway, that's the Move and the Minor. I'll then trade my Standard for a second Minor to draw my dagger. And then use an Action Point to cast Pinning Bolt. Doing so means I can also trigger Seed of Chaos, which will resolve after the attack.
So...attack roll for Pinning Bolt is...dun dun dun...hmm, okay, a not-terrible 23 vs Ref. If that hits, a rather pitiful 13 Lightning damage and Mr Dragon is knocked Prone and is also Slowed till the end of my next turn. Note that the damage calculation does take into account the fact that I'm using the dagger instead of the staff (which has an extra +1 damage bonus I remembered not to add on here ;)).
And then Seed of Chaos triggers (regardless of whether or not Pinning Bolt hit)...I roll a d6 and depending on the result either I will have a nice thing happen to me or Mr Dragon will have some kind of debuff...okay so I rolled a 4. What does that mean...Ha, cool, Mr Dragon now grants Combat Advantage till the end of my next turn. It doesn't specify he only grants it to me so go go go everyone, enjoy your +2 to hit plus any other bonuses you may get for having CA over someone :D.
Aaaand that's my turn. Woot! Stuff! :D

[Private to GM: I have slightly tweaked the wording for Slaad's Gambit in my character sheet to make it more clear - I'd logged into the Char Builder to check someone else and thought to check. I may have a problem triggering it, though, sinc Mr Dragon is currently more than five squares away. Unless he's about to fall down, of course >:). But if he does attack me and he is within five squares at the time, I will teleport so that I'm around a different side of him to where I am now, but not near anyone else, if possible. If I can teleport across to the other side without being inside the auraa or whatever that is, that'd be cool. But I can only teelport my Speed, so that might be an issue ;). Note that Slaad's Gambit does trigger before the attack against me is rolled (that was part of what I checked when I looked it up).
Phew! That was a turn and a half! Think I've done everything right, remembered all the little bits and pieces, and amended my sheet accordingly. Hopefully ;).]
This message was last edited by the player at 10:28, Sun 25 Mar 2018.

The dragon roars, perhaps more in surprise and anger than pain, though it is clear Nym's power has an affect.

The lighting crackles around the dragon's wings in dancing mockery, entangling and spiking the creature. It can't, for a moment, keep flying, and jolts down to the ground.

The guards below it gasp and duck, and the dragon smashes in to the ground with a crashto the earth. Thereis a collective gasp rom everyone else, as the once impressive dragon is left scrambling on the ground, tormented by the lightning it supposidly was master of, and frustratedly trying to regain its footing from where it has been humbled.


Oooh, very nice set of moves there! The dragon does have lightning resistance, and unfortunately it is higher than 5. Still, it's now 5 less, which is not nothing. Also sadly, its fly speed means that when the prone condition hits it just safely descends without fall damage, and so Nevermind, the slow condition should take effect first. Its speed is reduced to 2, so it will fall 3 squares, take falling damage (only 1d10, but it's not nothing), and therefore actually falls prone! And being prone, it may or may not lose part of its first 'free' action next round. Not too shabby! Oh, it granting combat advantage and also being slowed absolutely does not hurt either!

More importantly though, you've focused its attention on you, and also probably rallied all the guards that otherwise might have, you know, run away because you didn't reassure them about the mythical dragon. Still, maybe now they can spot why you weren't worried about it :P

So Meri, it's in the same position just on the ground and entangled in some guards (unless otherwise stated in your powers, you can aim to miss them). It is granting combat advantage for +2 to hit (melee or not thanks to Nym), but will have +2 to its defenses against ranged attacks unless you are adjacent to it.

[Private to Nym: As you can see you did knock it out of the sky to be within 5, and tanked agro. So yeah, most likely the gambit will trigger! 6 squares is still enough to put you at about 8 o'clock around it, so i presume this is ok?]
This message was last edited by the player at 17:07, Sun 25 Mar 2018.

OOC: Yep, I had a feeling she was gonna change something.  My first attack was going to be a ranged one :)
Okies, slight tactical change, let's see if it actually does have any Thunder resist...


As the dragon dives, Meri's eyes widen slightly as if she saw something odd in the sky again.
She raised her staff instinctively at the lightning assault, sparks cascading along the metal.  Drawing back the weapon, she prepared to strike out, a crackling silvery arc of energy spiralling around the length of the staff, from one of the tips to the other.
Nym's attack got there first though, and she seemed to change her mind, allowing the gathering energy to dissipate in a shower of silver sparks.

While the dragon is occupied trying to right itself again, she half-turned to look back at Many waving a hand and beckoning to her pack, while on her shoulder, Timur helpfully undid the flap, holding it open for the beholder to fly into in an obvious invitation.

Turning her attention back to the floored dragon, Meri drew back her staff again, a rumbling crackling purple energy gathering around it.
Instead of aiming this at the dragon though, she pointed the staff towards Stark, sending a beam of purple energy towards him.  This wrapped around him and exploded outwards with a loud crash of thunder in the dragon's general direction.

Without waiting to see if that attack struck home, Meri spun her staff around to point the other end downwards at the ground.
The small metallic rune-etched bands around it clicked open, exposing blue crystalline components inside.  These began to glow ominously with the same purple energy, growing brighter and forming into drifting patterns vaguely reminiscent of arcane runes around the staff.
Quickly, Meri jabbed the staff down at her feet, releasing a surge of the purple energy which enveloped her, leaving a purple aura whirling around her, emitting a cracking and faint rumbling like a storm cloud.

"He's under my protection" she called out to the dragon.  "You get one warning.  Leave here and live!"


OOC: Okies, rolling out the scary intimidating display early on here :)
First attack is a Thundering Armour use on Stark (Assuming he's the "St" adjacent north of the dragon, if not, I'll edit the name).
Gives him +1 AC till the end of Meri's next turn and smacks the dragon with a thunder attack:
Attack: 29 (18 + 9 + 2) vs. Fortitude
Damage: 13 (8 + 5) (Thunder damage) + Push effect, aimed 1 square southwest - Wooo, max damage too :)  Hadn't used that d8 in months, must have been saving that up!

Then spending an AP to use Thunderclap Armour on Meri until the end of the encounter.
Gives her resist 5 thunder, and any enemy ending its turn adjacent to her gets 5 thunder damage right in the face.  Also unlocks the Thunderclap Armour at-will attack, giving me a much-needed extra weapon :)

Also, giving the dragon a little bit of advice! ;)
(Not sure if it can even understand her, but, oh well, at least she can say she tried to warn it off now...)

Will also trigger 'Trip the Trap' if it moves adjacent to Meri at any point.

Just checking, even if an attack does no damage due to resistance, do any effects from that attack still apply?  Like Static Shock's damage penalty or Lightning Sphere's combat advantage.

EDIT: Added in the +2 from Combat Advantage :)


[Private to The Altweaver: Trying to signal to Many to hide in her pack now too :)]
This message was last edited by the player at 14:10, Mon 26 Mar 2018.

Yes, effects will still trigger as long as the attack hit. If the damage is resisted that's okay as long as the other effects weren't dependent on damage being done (I don't think I've ever come across a power yet where that was the case). So if I'd had low enough damage on my Pinning Bolt that it had all been resisted, the dragon would still have been knocked Prone and Slowed.
You seem to have forgotten to add on the +2 to your attack roll against Mr Dragon - don't forget he is currently granting CA to everyone. So your 27 vs Fort was actually a 29 ;). I should probably lay out breakdowns of my roll totals as well but I keep forgetting in between switching through about three different windows when composing my posts. Still, that's easily less than half the number of windows I have open when hosting combat in my own game :O.

[Private to GM: Regarding the Slaad's Gambit, since Meri has now shoved Mr Dragon southwest I suppose it's better to teleport to be directly south of him instead now, since going northwest will put me only a few squares away from those other guys up there. Oh, also, the specific trigger for it is when I am hit by an attack, so I suppose you would still roll to hit and then I only blip away if you roll enough to hit me (but before you roll damage or apply any other "on hit" effects). I was a bit thrown off by the fact it says "Before the attack, teleport your speed". Maybe that refers to the attack that I make. Either way, he can't hit me unless he has a big boom AE that can hit both my starting and finishing square. So I definitely don't want to end up in that aura-circle-thingy ;).]

As Nym said, as long as the attack hits, damage isn't important by default for any other effects on a hit. Also note, that a power that has a separate 'effect' line as well as a hit line has that effect always trigger.

Wow, so poor dragon, being slowed limits it to 2 squares, being prone limits it to half movement too... it's not really going many places until it can shrug some stuff off!


To match Nym's lightining, Meri had called the thunder. Stark did not know how to react when the thunder aura surrounded him, and only as the struggling dragon was exploded backwards by the magic - and Meri herself surrounded herself with the same force - did Stark understand.

Seeing the two powerful mages standing side by side defiant at the dragon, and seeing the dragon itself snarl and spit lighting helplessly against the arcane retribution galvanised the town guards.

Gibb had changed direction in more panic as the dragon had fallen and moved around, but came to a bewildered standstill as he realised the dragon was being battered by Meri and Nym. He even laughed at the sight, though still half in terror.

Across the way Desmine had hastily tried to bandage Elias. The man waved his fellow guard away, gesturing to the fallen retainers as he rushed to young Gibb's side, putting himself in harm's way.

Desmine meanwhile scrambled to Nym's side - yelling at the two injured retainers to get up and get behind the cushions as Samel had done. Mortified, Samel at least helped pulled her kin Darasee across, while the guard Desmine had managed to recover a halberd on her hasty rushing, and used the butt to push Sirrecco over.

Desmine then gave a taut nod in Nym's direction, fumbling her halberd as she looked to the dragon in determination.

Beside Maggrath, the two injured guards pulled the cook away from the burning carcass to check on her, while the other two guards - the odd twins - rushed forwards. It seemed that halberds were the preferred weapon for wagon guarding - allowing reach across to attackers - and so the twins managed to stay back and viciously stabbed at the creature. One hit only scale, but the other managed to bite in to a wing's membrane, digging in.

The creature bellowed again, sepentine neck swishing left and right and maw snapping at nothing with sparks flying. However, with a powerful movement of tangled wings the creature attempted to free itself from both its fall and its foes.

The buffetting of air was enough to knock back everyone close - the twins, Elias, and a bemused Stark who had stood still even as Jessah and Sarah had rushed passed him to grab the weapons. Jessah had attempted to put a halberd in to the man's hand when he had been knocked sideways on to the pillows, and her eye rolling at him standing around doing nothing had widened to confusion.

However, the dragon took the moment of confusion to reorient itself. Finding the direction of those that had humbled it, it did not show that it had understood Meri's words at all, but perhaps her stance as a challenge. It spat another gob of lighting at her that exploded at the ground right by her instead, and once more there were cries of pain and terror.

The dragon then rolled itself painfully to its powerful feet. The twins tried to move for their weapons quickly. The less successful of the two had one small piece of fortune, when his hesitation in grabbing his weapon saved him from the dragon's claw as it smashed down on the earth around the halberd. Unfortunately, he tried to take advantage of the situation and pull the halberd from between the dragon's toes, and his hand was torn open on a talon as the creature flicked its arms clear.

The other twin was more successful, grabbing for his own halberd and feeling nothing but the nashing jaws of clanging off the armour of his back.


While the dragon was distracted though, the reminder of its might was still echoing in the explosion at the camp.

Many had luckily taken to Meri's promting with all haste, aided by Farren as the revenant realised what Meri was doing. Unfortunately, though Many escaped it time, it left Farren compltely unprepared for the explosion. He tumbled backwards, barely covering his face as lighting blew him backwards.

Sarah, too, had been caught out by Jessah stopping and Stark's fall. She too was blown backwards, wounded greatly - though both Jessah and Stark were caught in the blast, and could not help their friend from crying out at their own agony.

Desmine at least saw the blast coming, the guard twisted to try and escape the worst of it, grunting in pain as the lighting earhted itself along her armoured back. However, Sirrecco has instinctively raised himself in indignation, all thoughts of the dragon forgotten in his fall. The expression on his face would have been comical in another time, but instead it was transformed in to a contorted mask as he was slammed painfully backwards again to writhe on the grass.

Darasee had it worst though. Samel's hesitation meant the woman was still clambering over the cushions, and indeed was almost being held aloft in to the blast. Samel was thrown backwards as her elder kin was taken full force by the lighting and spun like a rag doll in its wicked thorns. Darasee didn't even scream, blacked out - or worse - by the pain. It was Samel instead, physically unhurt - who screamed all the louder.

Farren scrambled over to the body, as if some instinct was in him. He looked to Samel helplessly. "Help me help her!" he yelled through bloodied lips. Samel didn't understand at first, and Farren simply gripped Darasee's head, as if willing the dying woman to come back to life. A moment more, and Samel understood and scrambled across, muttering hurried words in a foreign tongue. Still, whatever she had done, Darasee's body jerked and her eyes flew open.


Across the clearing. Geekaar finally seemed to be shaken out of his pause. And also, it seemed he was also shaken in to acting. With a dismissive wave, he gestured for two of his guards to go across to the injured retainers. And with that, he pulled on his remaining to guards to continue falling back.


As for Nym, the moment the blast struck the ground near Meri, the wild mage simply...vanished...


Whew. Lots happening. Look at the map if you don't believe me!
/games/63699/misc/gamemap.jpg?1522092549


Too many NPCs, not enough good dice rolls to start killing them all. Yet. Ok, fine, I rolled two crits one of which killed an NPC but then I rolled some really terrible low rolls against the twins who should have been torn apart. So it's actually not fair all things considered. Especially as Farren can just go do a proper Heal on an NPC, even an NPC without healing surges and get them alive again. :(

Anyway, Nym avoided damage this turn for ... reasons. Meri, you will take 12hp damage (should be 17) unless you can beat a 20 versus Reflexes (I don't believe you can, but maybe you can get another +3 from somewhere), in which case you'd only take 3 (should be 8)!

You've actually pinned the dragon quite effectively this turn, and its taken quite a bit of damage, all told. Keep it up before it gets wise to your tricks!


[Private to Nym:
Since Meri hasn't moved, you are free to work out where you would teleport to, and just tell me where you start.]

When the lightning hits, it's almost as if Nym's magic reacts before she does - she sort of half-glances toward the dragon and gives a little squeak as the lightning streaks toward her...but then in a faint swirl of colour she is gone, reappearing on the other side of the dragon from where she had been standing, Ryn still on her shoulder. As she appears, the swirl of energy which apparently caused her teleportation then condenses briefly into a ball of translucence, a wavering in the air not entirely dissimilar to that of the way the air ripples in the heat. But then it suddenly snaps out, like a lash of intangible force acting almost of its own accord as it whips toward the dragon's head.

Slaad's Gambit attack roll...hmm, 19 vs Will. If that hits, 18 Psychic damage. If not, 9 Psychic damage (since it's halved on a miss). Also, Nym teleported six squares away, so I'll have her go straight diagonal southeast which puts her on the pale square just outside the dragon's aura-circle-thingy, directly south of whomever is the circle marked "2" on the map.
So that was my out-of-turn action, taking an Immediate Interrupt on the dragon's turn since he tried to attack me. So there goes another Daily but it was worth it to not get horribly zapped, I think ;). Are there any more turns to go or shall I post my next move now?

Note, the aura is round just to give a general feel for it while looking ok. This is fourth edition, so you need to square those corners off if you want to really think about the area it can effect with... a thing.

Actually, you've already seen it. If it gets whacked with a melee attack, it can buffet you all down with its wings in the 6 x 6 area around it :)


Anyway, yes, the dragon has taken the rest of its turns (I sort of had you reappearance delayed to speed things along) as has anyone else in turn order (which is just Geekaar, his guards, and Farren. So go ahead!
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:17, Tue 27 Mar 2018.

Okay, cool. Let's see what else I can hit the bugger with (did Slaad's Gambit hit, btw?)...
[Private to GM: Oh, something else I noticed in my sheet that I should mention - if I get hit by a melée attack I can trigger (as an Opportunity Action) the Encounter Power granted by Ryn's current form and deal 5 Poison damage to the attacker. Well, it can trigger if either myself or Ryn is hit, but she's probably gonna be staying Passive for the whole fight so doesn't count ;). So if Mr Dragon does manage to land a melée hit on me then he can take that as a free hit from me (no attack roll needed, from the looks of things) :D.]

Nym dances back a little, laughing as she puts a little more distance between herself and the blue-scaled menace. She seems almost oblivious to the danger of the situation and seems to stroke the dagger through the air as she spins in a circle, leaving a faint line of light which shimmers for a moment and then seems to ripple inward with a brief flash before it dulls to a faint sort of shimmering, multi-coloured glow which seems to both clash and harmonise with the faint crackle of protective lightning that she had previously conjured around herself.

She finishes the spin facing the dragon once again, and channels another huge surge of power, this time along both arms as she holds the dagger in two hands, pointing it straight outward at the dragon. She giggles as the energy ripples forth, building at the very tip of the dagger into a large, swirling ball of multicoloured light which seems to reach some kind of critical mass before shooting forth toward the changeling's foe.

"Wheeeeeeee!!" she laughs, watching the orb shoot through the air, changing colour and form as it goes before apparently settling on one right before the point of impact.

Woo, more Dailies! So, first I'll move away a bit more, let's say a couple more squares southwest (sorry, I just realised I said in the previous post that she teleported southeast - I meant southwest, oops!) and then a couple west.
Then I'll burn Chaotic Defense (Minor Action), which requires a d4 roll - on a 1-3 I get a specific bonus, on a four I get all three bonuses! Sooo, let's dig out a d4 and see what I get...woot, I rolled a 4! So, I gain 2d6+4 Temp HP (will roll in a sec), +2 to all defences till the end of the Encounter and each creature that attacks me takes 2d6 damage till the end of the Encounter. It doesn't say for that last one exactly when the damage is dealt (ie before or after any attack/damage rolls are made) but it's some more free damage against Mr Dragon if (or more likely, when ;)) he decides to go for me...
So, I'll roll my Temp HP...okay, two threes, so that's a total of 10 with the +4 :). I've made the necessary annotations to my sheet in case you need to check them, adding in the Temp HP and also the additions to my defences (only my Forst is below 20 right now, that's ridiculous...but necessary in this particular fight, I feel ;)). Not sure how you want to manage the automatic damage hits that will go off if I get attacked - I can roll some in advance or something?
Anyway, that was just my Minor action. Still got my Standard, and in case it wasn't obvious from the narrative description I'm using the wonderful Chromatic Orb :D. So let's see if I can get a nice big attack roll with this so I get some extra effect from whatever element I roll (and hopefully not roll Lightning since I know he'll resist some of it even though I ignore five points of it).
Attack roll...here we go...hmm, 20 (12+8) vs Ref. Normally I'd be quite happy that that was a hit but since I know this guy is fast I suppose it may not be. If I did hit, that'll be 32 damage (10+9+4+9), or 13 on a miss. Now to roll a d6 to see the specific damage type...okay, rolled a 2, that's "Red", so Fire damage (again? Aaww). So if the attack roll was a hit, the damage is Fire and also deals 4 Fire damage to everyone adjacent to the dragon...which looking at the map is no-one, thankfully ;). If I missed then it just deals the miss damage and no extra effect. Bah, that's about the most boring damage type I could've rolled against this guy, given the various status effects and stuff I could inflict with, like, pretty much all of the others (as long as the attack actually hit, I mean). Oh well. Burn, you scaly blue bastard!

Oooh, and I just realised, I've been forgetting my Chaos Burst - depending on whether my first attack roll on each of my turns is odd or even, I get a thing. So since the Chromatic Orb roll was a 20 that's even so I get +1 AC till the start of my next turn (which I won't write on the sheet since it's not lasting for the whole rest of the combat). Must also remember Unfettered Power if I ever crit or botch, too. It's been so long since we fought something, I'm forgetting all the cool stuff I can do, and that's without all the extra stuff I've added to my toybox since our last battle :D.
Right, what else was there...oh yeah, since I'm ending my turn now, the Slowed condition and the granting of CA will now wear off Mr Dragon (booooo). Hopefully we can wreck him soon because I think I've now blown all my best attacks.

[Private to GM: So noted! Aren't all these powers fun :)]

The psychic attack did indeed hit, as did the Chromatic Orb! That's some nice damage being stacked on here!

I'll ask you for rolls at the time when I need them. Flavourwise I have no idea how they are trying to spin a defense that damages someone even if they shoot at you with a ranged attack half a map away. I'll just say they hear the noise right by them if they focus on you for an attack.


And wait, you haven't reduced his resistance by 5, you personally just ignore 5, right? Not sure why I thought anything different.


Anyway, map hasn't changed, and I reckon Meri you can go next - the other NPCs will be waiting after Nym's display to see what you do :p

"Everyone try to spread out" called Meri to the others.
On her back, Timur disappeared into her backpack...

Glancing back at Farren, she tapped on one of the blue crystals on her staff, sending a wave of healing energy in his direction.
Then she began to run towards the southern edge of the circle of cushions, ducking nimbly around Gibb and Elias and circling around the dragon.

As she went, she dug into a pouch at her belt, pulling out a handful of rune-etched metal shards.
Skidding to a halt, she threw them into the air, raising her staff into a defensive stance again.
The shards rose into the air, the runes on them suddenly glowing brightly with a ghostly blue light, then as one, they darted like a rain of metallic hail at the dragon, some of the blue energy passing through the creature and moving towards Serricco.

At her backpack, Timur emerged once again, holding some kind of metallic object clutched tightly in his arms which Meri took from him, holding it clenched in one hand.
Timur quickly dropped down into the pack again as if going for something else...


OOC: Okies, lot going on here.
Guessing the dragon's lightning attacks are either area effects or bursts, so trying to tell everyone to spread out so it can't hit so many people in one attack.  Whether they listen to Meri or not is uncertain though :)

Minor Action: Burning an infusion to try to pull Farren out of Bloodied status (actually not sure if Revenants get some kind of special power when Bloodied, so maybe should have left him there.  I'm sure it won't be the first time he gets Bloodied anyway at this rate!)
Anyways, he gets his healing surge value + 4 HP back.

Move Action: Heading 3 squares south, and 3 more southwest, putting Meri 4 squares south of the dragon's position on the current map if I'm reading it right.

Standard Action: Firing off Life-Tapping Darts at the dragon and targeting Serricco with the Temp HP effect from that (Assuming Serricco is the 'Si' one which is 9 squares away from Meri's new position?)
Attack: 26 (17 + 9) vs. Reflex.
Damage: 15 (7 + 3 + 5) - On a hit, one ally with 10 squares of me gets 10 Temp HP.  On a miss, it does half damage and the ally gets 5 Temp HP.

Finally, a Free Action to use Fast Hands, with Timur's help to pull the symbol from my backpack to try to distract the dragon away from the remaining wounded folks.
Phase 1 of 'Operation Decoy' is GO!  (Though I had intended to use someone else as the 'decoy' part of that...)
This message was last edited by the player at 23:57, Wed 28 Mar 2018.

Just a quick note - despite reminding Meri that she forgot to add her +2 for CA against the dragon, I then went and forgot to add it myself for both my attacks (Slaad and Orb). Good job they both hit anyway :D.
And yes, I ignore five points of Lightning Resistance in any enemy I attack with an Arcane power (so, pretty much all of them :D) in addition to having Resist 5 Lightning myself since my Wild Soul is of that damage type for the remainder of this battle. Meri only gets the resistance, not the ability to ignore it in enemies.

Nym's odd reappearance seemed to affect the dragon, as if she had somehow moved through the dragon, with all the mental distress that feeling might cause. It certainly seemed to have provided the necessary distraction that the draogn's previous attacks had been far less devestaing - one brobably broken arm aside - than it could have been. The ball of swirling distraction and pain was just the latest insult from the mage who mad grounded the creature and mocked it with its own lighting, and skittered away from harm while the dragon was still unable to do so itself.

Fire exploded all around it as the chaotic magic settled on a form, and it clearly had less tolerance for such a thing, rolling around to get the flames out in a bestial panic.

Everyone else was transfixed, though it seemed rather than fear it was the anticipation of what Meri might do first. With chagrin, of course, Meri then pointed out the very necessary precaution of doing exactly the opposite.


Elias pushed young Gibb away, though the young man did not move far. Elias himself simply turned and rummaged around on his leg for a small crossbow rather than try to move himself. Gibb, seeing this, recalled his own small armament and fumbled with the weapon himself.

Sarah and Jessah moved back too, also noting their crossbows. It became clear that this was a very instinctive thing, now the guards had been shaken back to sense again, and perhaps Blackwood Village had seen the occaional predator in its time.


Meri's healing was not lost on Farren, though the source of it was. He looked to Samel at first, who did not understand the confusion. Then Geekaar's guard came over, trying to pull Darasee upright and shover her towards the forest. Samel almost started fighting with the guard, screaming at the man pulling Darasee away, but Farren realised the intent - if brutally handled - and stopped her. "Go!" he said, but while Darasee stumbled and rushed to the forest, with the guard stepping slowly backwards behind her, Samel shook her head and withdrew. She circled aroudn the cushions, and seemed to try and compose herself, as if trying to work out what she could do in the situation.

Desmine took Meri's position as the artificer moved away to confront the dragon, also loading a crowwbow at her side. She seemed very ill at ease, understandable given that the guard who had sliced off Elias's finger was now near her.

However, the tension was ended by Meri's attack on the serpentine form of the dragon - the hail peppering the dragon's hide. He lurched up in rage, and meanwhile over by the cushions Serricco lurched upwards too, eyes wide as he was oddly invigorated.

Farren noticed this, and seemed to put two and two together regarding the mysterious healing. Serricco needed no further instigation, and positively rushed across to the protection of the forest while his own guard slowly backed away. Geekaar's guard did not even acknowledge the black look Desmine gave him, and the town guard semingly decided to concentrate on one foe at a time.

Luckily Farren has no bloodied power you would care about right now, and the attacks hit. Good hustle here team!

The more experienced town guards weren't listening to Meri's advice. Seemingly their instinct was to band together. The two guards who had been looking to Maggrath seemed to be be confident that the woman was well enough to rush to the woods. With an encouraging word the guards rushed off to aid their fallen comrades, who were scrambling to their feet. Maggrath stumbled towards the woods, though stopped at the edge to look back and see the result of the charge.

The four guards attempt to spear the dragon's chest and wings, embolded by the distracted dragon. The dragon begins beating its wings, making it difficult for them to stay on their feet. One managed to spear the creature's wing, stopping it from taking off as it clearly wants to. However, in response it snaps the halberd with its jaw and then spits lighting in an explosive ball that blasts them all backwards.

The remaining guards fire their crossbows at the dragon, some bolts pinging off of its hide, but a few tearing off its membrane.

The creature thrashes around, turning its body away from the onslaught and directly looking towards Meri and Nym's position.

Now that he creature is on the ground, and in the temprary delay, to its hostility, it could be seen that its body and head were perhaps smaller than first impressions. It was certainly a young creature, its wings only for flight, it's tail barely flicking around. And it was very obvious that its scares were a pale and thin, clearly it had taken far more injury than the myths of dragons would have thought possible.

Still, this moment of vulnerability was only a fleeting thing. The creature's snout flared, its eyes narrowed in undisguised, intelligent hatred, its bloodied chest puffed up, and then with deliberate maliciousness it breathed a giant cloud of lighting in Elias's face, then moving the cloud over towards Meri and Nym.

Luckily for you both, low rolls... I mean its vicious intinct to offload at Elias first... and your resistance means that it only does a ridiculous 4hp damage to each of you. And in Nym's case, that actyally means she only has 6hp temp hit points left :p

The dragon spreads its wings, and finally lifts off from the ground where it had been humbled hurt. It rose up high, and then hovered in the air, bellowing at the foes far down below it.

The dragon turned its attention bck to Nym and Meri. It spread its wings wide in challenge again, and then let forth a roar.


So, good news, you barely took any damage. And Nym, you get to roll damage against the dragon damaging you. And good news, most of the civilians are now off safe on the edges, and most of the other guards have spread out. And really good news, the guards managed to start shooting bolts at it, took it below bloody. So yup, finally it is bloodied! Oh, and so triggered its breath attack (when it had one prepared anyway, so mechanically OOC speaking you avoided being blasted by a breath weapon twice). Oh, and the one good halberd roll against it knocked it prone, so it had to use up an AP to move rather than attack, and didn't get to run away earlier. So all this is good.

Bad news, umm, actually there isn't any. Had to use an AP and a standard action to get the three move actions for the dragon to get clear of all the pain, so no fun blowing up guards and killing them :( I mean, I guess the bad news is that its20 squares high, so harder to hit. Still, that can be what readied actions are for. Maybe organise a defense. Or, you know, you can just use the abatement of hostilities to get peopel out of the way. Whichever :)

Anyway, Nym's up again (Farren's delaying). Map here:
/games/63699/misc/gamemap.jpg?1522351303

Aaw, he gets APs? Booo. And if he's 20 squares away that puts him out of range of everything I can cast. Still, I get the 2d6 free damage for him attacking me and since he was Bloodied by that point, I get an extra +2 damage on top of that since my gauntlet effect will have now kicked in (+2 to all damage rolls versus Bloodied targets) :D.

As the lightning brushes past Nym, she barely seems to notice and instead continues laughing and giggling, the aura around her seeming to shimmer and send a jolt of chaotic energy back along the line of the lightning to strike the dragon.

Nym then continues giggling, dancing around and pointing up at the dragon.

"Ha, ha, you're up there! La-la-laaaa, isn't this fun! Come back down and play some more! Wheeee!"

She twirls her dagger around, sparks of chaotic energy rippling along the fang-like blade.

Okay, so, the damage roll for the retaliation is a rather nice 12 (6+4+2, with the +2 being the gauntlet bonus). Untyped, hence the "chaotic energy" description rather than a specific element.
Then I think I'll take a Knight's move northwest (two north, one west...or one west and then two north, whichever :D) to get a bit further away from Meri in case of more AE lightning.
Then I'll use my Standard to Ready an action - cast Chaos Bolt if Mr Dragon comes within range (10 squares). That's the only attack power I've got left now which isn't Close.
Also, I was just re-reading some of my power descriptions in the Char Builder and realised that had my Chromatic Orb missed, it still gets the effect, not just the damage type. So that's cool. It just does a couple of d10s less damage. It seems I've been too concise in some of my power descriptions on my sheet here on RPOL so I'm working on any other tweaks I need to make to any wording that's not quite right. Might as well see what other crazy extra bonuses and stuff I get on top of all the other stuff I have to remember, right? ;)
One more thing - since it says the 2d6 damage (from Chaotic Defence) applies to "each creature that attacks me", not "each creature that hits me/deals me damage", presumably that means I get to do that before any attack would actually hit. So I might end up killing Mr Dragon as he attacks me and thus potentially prevent some damage to myself. Just something to bear in mind >:).

OOC: Yep, 20 squares is out of range of everything I can fire at him too.  Also looking at those four bloodied guards, I'm thinking I really need an area-effect heal...


Meri had raised her staff again as if to launch something else at the dragon, when it flew back up into the sky.
Cursing quietly to herself, she lowered the staff again.
Reaching into her pocket she pulled out the small bronze-coloured metal object she had been tinkering with back at Celindara's forest.
Holding it on the palm of her hand she raised her staff again, channelling a crackling energy along it towards the tip which then arced through the air onto her hand and struck the metal device, wreathing it in sparks.  The faint whirring and ticking sounds of the clockwork mechanism Meri had been building inside it became audible, and the blue crystal at the front began to glow, in a way similar to Timur's eyes.
Six small extensions like tiny legs unfolded from its sides and it scuttled in an almost insect-like motion up Meri's arm to perch on her shoulder, peering out at the area in front of her, an occasional flicker of some blue energy similar to Meri's infusions visible around it.

Timur poked his head out of her backpack briefly, this time holding a scratched and dusty looking vial of some kind of greyish-green substance.  Meri took this from him, stuffing it into a pocket and handing him the metal symbol.  Taking this, he quickly scrambled down to the ground and began running off in the direction of the wagons.

Meanwhile, Meri herself moved a little further away in the same direction, pausing to eye the four Blackwood guards as if checking on their condition.
Looking back up at the dragon, she concentrated intently, causing a silvery spiralling arc of energy to gather around her staff.  It continued to crackle and swirl around the length of the weapon ominously, clearly held in check for now...


OOC: Mostly shuffling stuff around for now.
Weird clockwork gadget is just flavour text for an encounter power she's not using yet, but probably will soon.  As is the vial of sinister stuff she just stashed in her pocket (flavour text for Meri not having to awkwardly twist around to get it out of her backpack when she does decide to use it.  Always wondered how they did that!)  [Private to The Altweaver: (If you're curious, it's the Ungol Dust from the cavern under the Falls.  Not too sure what it looks like, but I had it in my head as greyish-green dusty stuff)]

First up, using a Minor to switch Timur to active mode and giving him the symbol (Arcane Porter feat means he should be able to carry it, since I'm guessing it's lighter than 5 pounds).
Also Active Familiar means I can double move actions between me and Timur, so he's moving 1 square southeast and then 5 east, while Meri moves 1 square southeast (hoping the dragon will go after either Meri or the symbol rather than the injured guards.  Operation Decoy - phase 2!)

Then readying an attack with Spike Wire as soon as the dragon moves close enough (Ranged 10).
Attack: 18 (9 + 9) vs. Fortitude - Ick, knew my luck couldn't last!  Have to hope that's enough.
Damage: 13 (8 + 5) - Force Damage, and if it hits, the dragon takes +4 damage from all other attacks until the end of Meri's next turn.  Hope it hits, this could hurt! :)

Oh, almost forgot, can a Heal check tell how much more damage those four guards can take, or would I need to roll for each of them?
Got: 29 (17 + 12) - Gah, wish I'd gotten that for the attack I just rolled for! (>.<)'
This message was last edited by the player at 16:52, Fri 30 Mar 2018.

Rather than being mean and automatically going with the action I tried to do last turn (then realised I'd run out of actions), Meri, roll me a Bluff roll to draw fire (one for Meri herself, but I'll also let you roll one for Timur if you like...) If you do roll twice, I will of course assume Timur's triggers first, and that if Timur is successful, Meri would be as much then trying to throw focus away from Timur as the solders.

Oh, Nym, the dragon doens't appear to understand what is being said to it, but if you want to roll Bluff too for taunting it with all the magical displays, I'd let that give Meri and Timur a +2 bonus to their rolls if you succeed. Or feel free to turn the taunt in to some other skill check if you have another idea for it.

[Private to Nym: A follow on from the previous Knowledge check. Nym should probably spot that at this height for the dragon, it can spit at leisure without needing to come down any lower. Stupud 4th edition and its square diagnoals. However, its breath weapon - that it doens't seem to be able to summon at will, but needs to build up - seems to be far larger but shorter of range.

So, you know, maybe you need to play out the time somehow and focus its spitting safely, until it wants to go breath lighting fully again - in which case, it will come at least as low as 10 squares and can be shotted by a readied action then :)]


[Private to Meri: One Heal check is good. Meri would know that although Gibb is about to panic over Elias being wounded (and that he was wounded before with his finger thing) he's still reasonably fighting fit at 27/47hp. Oh, and Sarah looks a little shaken from the inital attack, and is currently sitting at 16/47hp.

The main four currently unnamed experienced guards are at 18, 33, 19 and 19/47hp right now. So they are okish (and guard 2 is fine, surface abrasions aside) but also one good hit could kill (or at least knock to dying) three of them. I should know, I did roll the attacks and damage last round before realising they couldn't trigger... and maybe I almost had a far nastier thing for Meri to worry about this round... >:D

Note, narratively anyone hurt by the dragon will need medical attention at the end of the fight. It's just not life threatening and not impeding them while adreniline is lowing :D]
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:36, Fri 30 Mar 2018.

OOC: Rolls for attempted Bluffery:
Timur: 9 (7 + 2) and Meri: Critical 22 (20 + 2) - Oh dear.  Target painted looks like! (O.o)'

[Private to The Altweaver: 29 HP left.  Crossing fingers, toes and anything else physically capable of being crossed :)]
This message was last edited by the player at 23:48, Fri 30 Mar 2018.

Nym's not so much deliberately taunting as being in full-on "combat mode" whre suddenly everything is a game, wheee, look at all the pretty colours as all the bad guys get zapped/incinerated/melted, etc. I'm sort of out of ideas for now - I need to get more movement-restricting powers, it looks like ;). Stormy Emotions is the only one I've got left right now and it's Close Burst 2 so probably won't get a look in here. I think I'm just gonna have to wait till Mr Dragon comes back into range - I don't think Nym herself would have any particular ideas right now since in a fight she tends to be less focused on tactics (beyond "hit the bad things and try not to hit the good things or let them get hit by the bad things") and more on just downing all enemies as quickly as possible with her super-fun-time magic stuff. Despite the current situation, I sitll don't regret trading out Acid Orb (Ranged 20) since I know that Burning Spray is gonna save my arse one day when I get surrounded by Minions or something ;).

[Private to GM: So basically we have to wait till you successfully roll whatever you need on a d6 to recharge the close-range, high-damage lightning breath and in the mean time tank/avoid the long-range, lower-damage lightning breath. Eek...well, hopefully Meri has just drawn some agro and hopefully Mr Dragon will get a faceful of blasting before he can give her too much of a faceful of lightning. Hey, at least she has Resist 5, right? Maybe she'll only end up mostly dead ;).]

Nym the character is behaving in a way that could be construed as mocking even if she doens't really mean it, and Nym the character has a high Bluff skill in part, I believe, because she is very good at subconsciously conveying her intent or the intent of her form through her actions. Funnily I think her bad 'lying' makes her really good at using Bluff too :p So if you, Nym the player, want to roll Bluff to influence the story saying this is what happeens in this case - even if Nym the character doesn't mean to be tactically mocking - go ahead. :)
[Private to Meri:
Given the extent of the injuries Meri can both see from unprotected guards that took a lightining ball right to the face, and Meri's own experience of taking a lighning ball directly to the face while protected by Nym's magic, she could be confident of at least surviving one. Or hoping she could survive one more than not :)]

[Private to Nym: I was more just pointing out something you should be aware of - that thanks to 4th edition the dragon has the ability to attack really well with one power from where it is, while still reassuring you that it's preferred power would put it back in range of your readied actions. I'm not just pulling back to dirt you out and mock you for not having ranged effects, it's very much in character for the dragon that just got destroyed by the mages and the guards to use it's biggest advantage.
A
lso in the spirit of you not feeling helpless, I wanted to point out you still had some options to sway it. Another one is as simply as you've clearly scared it - if it thinks its not even safe where it is (if you can reach out and touch it where it is, even if the effect isn't actually damaging, powerful, or an attack at all) it might also decided to retreat and lick its wounds.

You actually do have a way to accomplish this too - it simply needs to attack you, not matter where it is apparaently -  and realise that the weird damaging effect last time it used its breath weapon is alwys going to happen if it attacks you, no matter how :)]

Hmm, fair enough. Although if Mr Dragon decides to swoop and and have at me with fang and claw I'm not too sure how many hits I can take - squishy mage, and all that. And if he's only just Bloodied then it's gonna take more than a couple of At-Wills to finish him off. Still, I suppose I have some extra bonus damage and stuff now. And I'm not dead till I reach -23hp. Okay. So, a Bluff roll then...hmm, a precisely average roll of 23 (10+13). But maybe the "taunting" will have the opposit effect, if Nym has been scary enough, and will make Mr Dragon decide to bugger off and just leave us alone. Then again, from an OOC point of view, if he doesn't seem to understand anything we're saying there's probably something wrong with him, messing with his head and stuff, otherwise he'd probably have said something by now.

[Private to GM: Yeah, don't worry about us not being able to reach him for now - I mean, if he wasn't trying to get away from the zappy-stabby-firebally things that keep attacking him, he's probably either completely stupid or otherwise mind controlled beyond his natural survival instincts or something - trying to get out of the mass of painful things and figure out a way to deal with them without experiencing even more painful things would be perfectly in-character for pretty much anyone that isn't a raging barbarian type ;).
Still, I suppose I can tell now that he's not influenced by the Other, since he's dealt Meri damage and I'm pretty sure I covered for that in my Wish. Can't remember the exact wording by now but it was along the lines that she be unable to be affected in any way by anything the Other may try to do. If the Other is controlling the dragon, then the dragon in theory shouldn't be able to touch Meri. I hope...]

Remember dragons are mythic, and also were attackign humans last time they were reported in those myths. It's not so much that it might be stupid and not understand you just, you know, dragons might have felt speaking 'common' is beneath them, the common language may have changed in all those years, or it's simply young and never interacted with other mortals before. So many reasons for it not to understand the words you are saying :p

Also, you and Meri are equally squishy in general terms, and she's taken more hits and has less temp hit points right now!

[Private to Nym: You might want to double check the wording on your wish (it should be in the chapter 4 separate threads. I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm just pointing out maybe you should know the limits of your wish. The fact there's still a chance you were speaking to The Other shouldn't even cross your mind :p ]

The dragon had been eying the town guards scrambling beneath it with evil intent, and it seemed to see something over its other shoulder, but then the movement of Timur and the mages caught its eye. Its nostrils flared as it saw the little homonculus running withthe symbol of its mistress, but then Nym and Meri's antics drew its eye back.

It spit a hateful gob of fire towards the mages, though biased more towards Meri whose world briefly turned in to painful white jagged light.

Well done! You drew aggro! And unless 25 is less than your reflexes, you will be taking 12hp damage (discounted down from 17 for your resistance). 23 was the hard DC, so yeah, Meri needed the help to and Nym just made it. The guards might still have been spared with a lesser roll, but then you wouldn't have gotten the reprieve of this next bit...

The dragon was already moving off, however. Given the deliberate and confident action of the two mages, it seemed to decide to use the previous attack to move away rather than press an advantage, clearly not trusting Meri nor Nym. It also seemed that something had drawn its attention to the horses. It flew high overhead beside them instead, and heedless of the camp began spitting lighting in to the horse ranks. Unstandably, the horses began to panic and scream, attempting to break free of their bindings.

The more experienced guards had not had the change to react to this, pulling each other upright and trying to recover from the previous assault. Young Gibb, too, had rushed back to Elias's side to help the injured man up to unsteady feet.

It was Sara hand Desmie who reacted, but both in opposite directions. Desmine rushed towards the horses, looking backwards as she scrambled to reload her crossbow. "The horses! The village! We can't get help! We can't warn them! We can't escape! We need to stop it!"

Only Farren moved with her, but he seemed focused on something else. "Geekaar's gone his guards don't seem to care!" he remarked, but was otherwise not pushing to rush in to the chaos.

Sarah, meanwhile, was petitioning to Jessah and Stark who were dithering, while rushing to the edge of the forest. "Who cares? Now! We need to get under cover now! It can't get us in here! Not without us being able to get it back! We...we can pin it down and kill it!" She then lost her desperate confidence and looked over to Meri and Nym. "Can't we?"


Dragon shooting at poor horses now to remove your tactical options (it probably spotted Geekaar escaping) and maybe draw you over to it. However, maybe being in the tree cover will remove its ability to fly well enough you can get all stabby and shooty at it - certainly the guards that used their halberds managed to pin it down well and do some damage.

Anyway, that's where we're at. The turn order for the guards isn't quite as stated, but really I can't be bothered to move it around right now, since it might shift with all of your actions. Anyway, your turn again!

Map: /games/63699/misc/gamemap.jpg?1522584010
Dragon is still 20 squares high, and juuuust off of the map beside the 'horses' words. If I unhide it, then you would still see the 'aura' intruding back in to the map.

"Oi! Oi, oi, oi!" yells Nym, running over toward the dragon while Ryn hisses at the creature from her shoulder. "No, no, no, don't do that. No burninating the horsies! Bad naughty monster! Come back here and play - it's more fun! Oi! Yoohoo!"

She is jumping up and down as she goes and waving her arms about,

Well, since Mr Dragon has gone so far I'll just head as far east as I can (the running is narrative, not mechanical, just in case he decides to go for me - I could do without him having a bonus to hit me :P). Can I make another Bluff roll to get him to focus on me again or something? Got 17 (4+13), meh. There's basically sod all I can do until he comes within range - readying Chaos Bolt again for if he does :P.

If you have the ability to break the bonds of the horses somehow, or use less violent methods of getting them to panic enough to pull free (and in a uniform direction rather than getting in each other's way), that might both save them and pull focus, as sadly that bluff roll is far too low to pull focus just yet.

Meri stumbled and almost fell as the attack struck, the silvery spiralling energy around her staff disintegrating into a shower of sparks as she lost her concentration on it.

One hand went to the ground to keep herself from falling to her knees, and she remained there for a few seconds, wreathed in smoke rising from charred patches on her clothing.
Quickly though she dragged herself back to a standing position, a hint of pain on her face but mostly clouded out by anger for now.

At Sarah's shout she looked over and gave a brief nod before starting to move towards the forest, slowly at first and limping slightly, but gathering speed as adrenaline took over.
"It's attacking the horses to try and lure us into gathering over there" she shouted towards Nym and the guards.  "Head for the forest, it'll have to come down again to find us in there."

Without any visible prompting, Timur quickly changed course away from the wagons, now angling sharply back towards Meri and the forest...


OOC: Okies, burning Second Wind to keep Meri alive, and then heading 6 squares north.  Doubling move action again to move Timur 3 squares northwest and 3 north :)
This message was last edited by the player at 11:48, Mon 02 Apr 2018.

Farren nodded and yelled Desmine. "We pinned it and hurt it so badly its trying to pull us out in to the open! We're not riding out of here!"

Farren then turned to Samel. "Psionic powers! Can we free those horses?"


Samel, for the moment, looked around not understanding.


I'll leave Nym to see if she wants to do anything to free to the horses before updating for people#s actual moves.

Meri, don't forget you have +2 to your defenses this round thanks to Second Wind.

Well, unless it involves shouting there's really not much I can do from this far away. Nym is going to completely ignore anyone who suggests leaving the horses to get incinerated and/or eaten as a possible course of action :P. But they're, what, at least 20 squares from me (after my movement), probably more than that. So there's not really a lot I can do from this distance if the Bluff failed.

Some of the guards looked like they wanted to argue with Meri, but there is enough inertia with Jessah and Stark moving to Sarah's side, and Elias ushering Gibb onwards, that the more experienced guards were forced to fall back too to cover them.

[Private to Meri: Feel free to order the guards how you want.]

Desmine seemed the only one unmoved, and rushed forwards with Nym.

Samel, meanwhile, seemed confused but moved at least slightly closer to Farren's side. "We...we can't do anything like that. It's not magic, it's not... it's all mental. And I can't do anything external, just... shield people. With my mind. I can't teach you to do anything else, even if you can do it."

Farren had drawn his blade, but nothing seemed obvious in terms of using it at distance. Instead, they all looked towards the dragon with impotent anger.

The dragon, for its part, did look to Nym. It gave the wild mage a too long look, as if trying to assess it. Seeming to understand that there was no trick there, it seemed happy to merely spit in Nym's direction - just missing Timur as the small homonculus rushed away frm the area, and distracted by the flash of the symbol seemed to undershoot the lighting ball, blasting the ground in front of Nym rather than directly striking the mage.

And then in howled.

So, Dragon spat at you Nym... and missed. So half damage, with along with the reduction, is 2hp. TWO!!!! I mean, you aren't even out of temp hp yet :( Yeah, failing the bluff check means you got shot at, but moving toeards it at all means I'll at least say you drew one of its attacks from the horses.

Anyway, now you get to roll your reciprocal damage back again - hence its howling :) And, because of the reciprocal damage...

The dragon seemed confused at being attacked somehow from its place of security. It drifted away from Nym, now knowing for certain she was the source of the strange effect it had now felt twice. It once more spat angrily around the horses, though not to injure it seemed. It aimed for the little mounting posts this time, blowing them apart and freeing the horses. Before the dragon had been trying to get the horses to panic, getting them to run away or be useless.

Now it needed them. It needed them to run. It needed them to run not away, but towards.

While most of the horses simply danced sideways them tore away to the road, some of the horses obliged. Four of them became a wall of terrified speed. A mass of brown and black hooves churning the earth, spit flicking form open mouths as they trampled through the area where Farren, Samel, and Desmine were.

Also, the departing horses revealed a prone figure huddling on the ground, and now revealed. He seemed surprised that he was both alive and now not hidden. It was Dott.


Yeah! You saved the horses! They're coming over to give you special hoof hugs! Well, hug your friends. Well, trample them in to the dirt. I will let you use a readied spell if you like Nym (unlike normally when you can't change the trigger), but I'm not sure you'd want to hurt them like that.

So it's a case of do you run the deer strategies back, maybe burn some rerolls and rush towards them, or maybe do you let the NPCs handle themsevles, and instead get in position to block them later in order to try and catch them so they won't run and leave you horse-less :)

Map: /games/63699/misc/gamemap.jpg?1522785190
[Private to Nym:
The dragon seems like it might want to leave now. And for the moment, it doens't seem to have noticed Dott due to looking across to you. Dott is right underneath it...]

Woo, 2d6 for Mr Dragon attacking me...meh, a rather pathetic 3 (2+1) :P. And you're right, Nym wouldn't attack the horses, since she doesn't class them as enemies. I had been wondering where Dott was. Now we know...

"Raar! Raar-raaarr-raaaaaaarrr!!!" bellows Nym, hurrying forward further and waving her arms around in the direction of the horses. There is a shimmer from her robes, which quickly expands into a blindingly-bright light which fades almost as quickly as it appeared.

Okay, I'll go four squares east and then two northeast and use the effect on my robes - it makes a bright light at Close Burst 2 which Dazes all it hits, but obviously that won't do anything since there's no-one in the range. But I figured I'm still making a bright light that can be seen, so maybe I can startle the horses (like I did the deer) into at least stopping or changing course or something. Also, I want to keep Mr Dragon's eyes on me and not on the cowering human right underneath him. Another Bluff roll if needed...hmm, 20 (7+13). Can't Ready an action this time since the robe's light-burst thingy was a Standard.

Meri continued heading towards the forest, although, noticing the horses approaching, she veered in that direction.  As she went, she tapped on a sequence of crystals on her staff, charging up a burst of electrical energy at one end which she unleashed in the direction of Farren and Desmine.

The crackling bolt arced high over them, striking the ground to the left of the horses and exploding in a cloud of sparking lightning in what Meri clearly hoped would mimic the dragon's attack on them and steer them away from that direction...


OOC: Oki doki, moving Meri 6 squares northeast, and Timur 6 squares north.
Lightning Sphere causes an area burst 1 within 10 squares, so will target it at the square just northwest of the 'W' in "Wagons" on the map.
Intention there is to cause them to veer sharply away from it, thinking the sudden lightning blast is the dragon attacking them again, and thus herd them roughly north into the forest where they might calm down if they can't see the dragon any more (or just keep on running north and not over any of our allies!)

Dunno if attack/damage rolls are needed for Lightning Sphere since I'm not actually attacking anything, in fact trying to avoid actually catching any of the horses within the area of effect, but putting one up if needed:
Attack: 13 (4 + 9) vs. Fortitude - Would probably have missed if I'd actually fired that at something anyway!
Damage: 8 (3 + 5) Lightning damage + Any accidentally hit horses and any small bugs or earthworms or anything on that patch of ground I aimed at will grant combat advantage until the end of Meri's next turn.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:35, Thu 05 Apr 2018.

An Area attack would only need to make attack rolls against any affected creatures in the square (some powers specifically target "Enemies" while others just target "Creatures" so could hit allies in the area too). The power actually targets the square, not any creatures within it, and then you would make an attack roll against each target within the affected area - multi-target powers always roll an attack against each target, but then only one damage roll for the whole thing, which obviously only affects those who were hit...well, unless it was one of those Dailies which deals half damage on a miss, in which case you'd still damage everything that wasn't a Minion (since Minions never take damage on a miss). But in this case, as there were no targets in the range, you wouldn't need to roll any attacks (same with me and my light-burst thingy from my robes just now) ;).

Unless you're trying to do something non attack with it, in which case the DM might explicitly ask you to make an attack roll, with the caveat that a 'miss' might have some unintended effect :p

Technically you might have needed to make an attack roll if you hadn't also rolled a Bluff roll, as I might have had the attaxck roll determine if horses stopped by you or went through you!


Obviously I weigh in to thiswhether a power is at-will, an encounter, or a daily as to what effect just using it has, and how big a non-attack effect you want to generate.

As you aimed off to one side rather than in front of the horses, then the 'miss' won't be anything happening to the horses. You've made sure they're ok by aiming away from them. Instead, I'll just say the angle of their turn isn't quite enough for everyone to get off scott free...

The horses stumbled and turned aside from the lightning sphere exploded and Nym's robes flared in to bright light. They turned aside from their initial charge, and were definitely not going to go towards the brilliant light - they charged towards the trees and Meri had hoped.

However, while the other two had been spared - and theguards behind - Farren was not so lucky. He apparently wasn't as spry as his rodent form, and had been caught wrong footed by the change in direction of the group of horses. He just about twisted aside of the first horse, but it knocked him down and the hooves of the second caught him painfully in the chest. He cried out in pain.

[Secret to Meri: And suddenly Meri felt everything slow down... or rather her mind sped up. It wasas if Farren's cry was unleashing something else. Desmine and Samel seemed to feel it too, Samel understanding it right away. Samel was already taking advantage of her sped up senses and moving her too slow body in a run towards the forest.

Yay, Farren does have a special power when he's bloodied! He can grant all allies within five squares - like you - either a shift 1, or a half normal movement as a free action. Pick a direction, I'll adjust the map after you've made your choice as the others might not want to get too close :p

It then seemed as if Farren's mental energies, unwittingly turned inwards. He somehow managed to shrug off the injury, or part of it, and was already starting to move again withoutunderstanding his close brush with death.

Farren used up a healing power (sub-consciously) as is not bloodied anymore. Don't worry about him!]

Farren scrambled to his feet, clutching his ribs but somehow able to stand. He looked around to ensure the others were ok, shaking his head as if dizzy for reasons other than concussion. He nodded and moved off towards the forest and the horses too, though ung back to check on Nym and Meri.

The remaining guards were making to the forest too - Geekaar's guards stiffening when the horses had come close, but had made no move when the horses had swerved and broken in to the canopy further away. Desmine avoided Geekaar's guards and made for theother guards, while Samel - with a small hesitation - simply rushed through the gap between Geekaar's guards in to the forst too.


The dragon bellowed again, hovering. It wasn't clear if it was gloating over Farren's brief assault, or more likely bellowing in frustration at Nym and Meri foiling it again. The dragon seemed fully focused on Nym's radiance for the moment. Dott panicked and got up. It should have been the end of him, but the young man lucked out that the dragon's focus was pulled such that it didn't see the small form dart out from under its dull shadow and in to the forest.

Unfortunately, in the dull evening, Nym's radiance had another effect. The shiny body of Timur, and more importantly the sparkling golden item he was carrying, pulled focus for a moment. It seemed enough, and the frustrated dragon screeched.

It spat lightning at Meri as if to keep her at bay while it flew towards her  familiar. It seemed that the hurt it received from Nym hadnot been enough to deter it from spitting a ball of lighting in Nym's direction too to keep her at bay as well.

It then descended menacingly, as if trying ot get free of the influence of the bear corpse to sniff the air. It sniffed nothing though, but it hovered directly above the little homonculus, either ready to dart down and free its Queen's symbol from the unbeliever, or simply to blast the poor familiar to pieces for its blasphemy.

Sorry Nym, 20 got you Dott safe, as well as helping with the horses. Not hitting the 23 though meant you both get shot at and Timur gets spotted :p Which, to be fair means it puts itself in range 10...

That's right. it's hovering 10 squares above the ground! It's in range of stuff again! Umm, and also in range to go be mean to Timur though :(

Anyway, on to the lighting blasts. Meri, you just take 3hp damage as it missed (reduced from 7hp).

Nym, I actually rolled a 20! Not a natural though, so I think maybe with the various bonuses floating around that might miss. If it does hit though, woohoo, I scored a really high roll, so you'll take, after adjustment, a whole... 4hp (reduced from 9hp). FOUR! So, you know, you'd lose your final temp hp if a 20 hits your reflexes. And if it does miss, then don't even worry about it, just ignore it like you've been able to shrug off all its attacks this game :p

Oh, except roll 2d6 again. I retconned your last poor damage as something it shrugged off. Roll high, and it might not be as happy shooting at you anymore. Also, pouring damage at it right now might also make it unhappy either. That goes for both of you!

And Meri, don't forget you have some bonus giving powers if you want to ensure you and Nym can make a hit this round. I forget if they require you to be near each other or not, I do not believe they do.

Map: Awaiting an (secret) move action from Meri, but here's the provisional one.
/games/63699/misc/gamemap.jpg?1522995367

Edit: Map updated for Meri's secret movement! Secret maybe Farren related movement! Not really a secret movement because you've seen her do it movement.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:18, Fri 06 Apr 2018.

OOC: 3 HP was nearly enough to knock Meri back into Bloodied status again there.  Been soaking up the damage for this battle.  'Operation Decoy' is probably not a tactic Meri will be in a hurry to employ again if she makes it through this one :)
Will use the half normal move action.  2 northwest and 1 west.

Again, I got Meri's next move figured out, but will stick to Initiative order to see if Nym dramatically alters the circumstances  ;)

Hmm, shouldn't Meri only take two points of damage? Seven minus five isn't three ;).
The dragon missed me - with the extra defences I have till the end of the Encounter, only my Fortitude is currently below 20 so ha-ha, Mr Lighting-Breath missed me :P.
My 2d6 in retaliation for him attacking me, however...let's see if I can roll better than last time. I mean, there's only one roll I can make that could be worse, so here's hoping...haha, that's better! Total of 11 damage (6+5) :D.
I'm guessing that Farren is "down" but having played a Revenant recently I know that they have a little more resilience than us living creatures when it comes to having a current hp total of lower than zero...still, Nym won't know that and he's still on his feet and she has no means of healing him anyway and yaaay dragon is in range now so let's do some pew-pew!

As the dragon swoops in closer Nym dances toward him, laughing happily as she practically skips around the latest lightning attack, a shimmer of magic rippling off her in retaliation which she barely seems to notice.

"Oooh! That's better!" she laughs. "Much better! Yay! We can play better now! Look - sparkly! Catch the sparkly things! Yaaaay!"

She sweeps the dagger through the air and a spark of colour shoots down her arm and out of the end of the blade, flying erratically yet somehow unerringly through the air toward the dragon.

I'll move three north and one west and then let loose a Chaos Bolt...hmm, only 17 vs Will, but 18 (9+9) Psychic damage if that hits. And that was an even result so I have another +1 AC till the start of my next turn. The bolt should also ping off and allow me to attack something else but as there are no other enemies around it can just go straight up and dissipate in the air or something.
On top of that, if I did hit with the attack then I can also use the Minor power on my headgear to see the total remaining hp of Mr Dragon as he is a Bloodied target that I have hit with an attack power this turn. And you must also know he's gonna fill one of my gems if I end up getting the killing blow on him >:).

Sorry, but it is 3hp. M brain couldn't decide between writing 17hp for the full damage or 8hp for the half damage and tried to write both :p

Funnily, Farren is surviving on the back of his ardent powers alone right now. Ihaven't even needed to take in to any revenant stuff yet :D

11hp is far better damage, and will make the dragon think twice about going for you again.

And feel free to shoot one of Geekaar's guards if you like, nothing bad could happen :p

Unfortunately 17 doesn't hit its Will, but if you or Meri can do anything retroactve to improve that then feel free.

The "pinball" effect from my Chaos Bolt has to target something within five squares of the previous target, so can't hit anything anyway if Mr Dragon is ten squares up ;).
Anyway, I think the only thing I can do that might help me hit is to burn my Inspiration - can't remember exactly what that does, though. Does it give a bonus to the roll, or a straight reroll? If I can somehow use it to boost my roll a bit then I'll do that :). Surely 17 can't be that far off a hit, especially since this guy seems to have so far been described as having his Reflexes as his highest resis, so maybe I only need a +2 or something in order to hit...

I gives a reroll, and in the event of failure a +4 (that second part was my house rule to try and ensure Inspiration actually felt like it was going to do something rather than being very risky). Since I'm asking about it you might guess a +2 maaaaay be close enough to turn the tide, so +4 would be very good. Or you can try Meri's +2 bonus she's offered in the ooc thread.

Edit: Nm, saw you replied in the OOC thread. I'll go ahead and update for you using inspiration. Spoiler warning - it hits :)

Meri paused in her movement toward the forest, turning around to look back at the dragon and Timur, then glancing towards Nym's position as she unleashed some kind of magical effect.
A blue aura from her staff began to swirl around her, sinking into her wounds and closing up the worst of them.

Raising her staff, she began to charge up the same spiralling silver energy she had been using previously, at the same time as moving forward a few steps and pointing her staff up at the dragon, sending a jagged helix of energy darting towards it.  At the same time Timur quickly darted off towards the west.

Almost in the same movement, she reached to the bandolier around her chest and grabbed one of the yellowish-green glowing vials and hurled it up towards the dragon...


OOC: Okies, hoping to make the most of the time it stays low enough to hit.
First Minor for a Healing Infusion to keep Meri from getting bloodied again by the next gust of wind that comes along :)

Then moving 2 squares south (and Timur 6 squares west) and aiming a Spike Wire attack at the dragon:
Attack: 27 (18 + 9) vs. Fortitude.
Damage: 12 (7 + 5) Force damage.  Also, if it hits, the dragon will take an extra +4 damage from anything else that hits it until the end of Meri's next turn.  (Nym might have some competition for that killing strike) ;)

Then burning my last AP to sling one of Meri's alchemical acid bombs at the dragon, hoping that Spike Wire hits and the additional damage also affects ongoing damage :)  hehe.  If not, hopefully it'll fluff the saving throw anyway!  Assuming I can even hit the thing at this distance...
Attack: 10 (8 + 4 - 2) vs. Reflex - Meh, probably not! :(
Damage: 7 Acid damage - On a hit it does ongoing 5 acid damage (save ends).  On a miss it does half damage with no ongoing effect.

The backlash of Nym's wild magic when the dragon attacked her had unleashed another howl far more pained than the previous frustration it had suffered last time. To have Nym's chatoic spell then shred its mind was enough to completely draw its focus away from poor Timur, and the little homoculus was able to change direction and rush away from the ragon as fast as his small legs would carry him.

However, Meri was clearly not going to allow the dragon off so easily for daring to move against her familiar. The spiked wire managed to painful loop around one of the dragon's wings, causing it to howl and wobble in the air. Her final reminder for the dragon to never assault them again met with a backhand form the free wing, though even then the vial smashed enough to burn the dragon with a few splashes of acid.


It was clear more than enough. The dragon took in some deep breaths, as if to breath a cloud of lighting, but it turned out it was just sniffing for its original target, now it was at the other side of the bear corpse. However, with Timur out of sight but the symbol still an unseen niggle, and no Many around, it was being frustrated in that way too.

It gave a final, terrible howl, and less magestically due to trying ot unentangle itself, it flew up and backwards to the west. It didn't see Timur, instead firing off a final gob of lighting that missed Meri - though still hit too close to comfort - and then it turned tail. The dragon gave one final roll if it's head, small beady eyes taking in every feature of Nym and Meri as if to commit them to memory forever.

And then, it beat its wings painfully, rolled on to its front and moved off west across the treeline and out of sight as quickly as it could.


So Meri, last bit of housekeeping - you take 5hp damage. I rolled a respectable 20hp for damage, but you know, missing plus that cursed 5hp resistance form Nym has just been doing good work! [Private to Nym: Sorry, two bits of housekeeping - the dragon has 79hp, and there's probably no harm in not stating that it started at 296hp so you guys - with some help from the guards - put in darn good work here!]

Anyway, that's the last action of the combat though. The dragon can move 30 squares, (10 without even generating OAs) when using its free and normal actions, and aside from one last free spite attack, it's going to leave!

VICTORY!

Against a mythical creature that appeared out of nowhere, apparently at the whim of a god. Woohoo. Why don't you each take 625XP for that, restore your encounter powers, and spend as many healing surges for free to take yourself back to full health. For Nym, I believe that number is a number x, where 1 < x < -1 :p

So yeah, feel free to react to all that. Note that the horses did not stop, and the four horses that haven't run away on the road (most likely gone) will be currently deep in the woods somewhere. Otherwise, everyone else will probably be in shock regarding, you know, deer stampe going to mutant bear attack going to mythical unreal creature attack going to Geekaar running away going to Nym and Meri basically becoming mythical heroes before their eyes and just kicking arse without once showing fear to having a mythical seemingly unstoppable foe just running away terrified. No biggie, really :D

Ooh, adding up the exp puts me on 9718/10k...looks like one more Encounter should be enough to ding me, yaay :D.
I am sooo glad I managed to get those Temp HP...that plus using Elemental Shift as early as possible has really saved me from taking...well, any damage :D. I still had four Temps left! But now combat is over, all my extra resistances and stuff will fade, plus my Wild Soul will result to what it was (Poison). And Meri will lose her Lightning Resist too.
And we don't technically get to restore Encounter powers till we take a Short Rest - I don't know if that's about to happen but if we end up running around looking for horses and stuff instead, that doesn't count as a rest ;).

Nym looks almost disappointed as the dragon rapidly wings away into the distance.

"Ohh, are you leaving?" she asks, then shrugs and waves with her dagger. "Okay, bye then! Maybe we can finish up next time! Hee hee hee..."

She trails off, giggling to herself, and starts vaguely wandering away from the site of the battle, seemingly now oblivious to events. On her shoulder, Ryn stares intently at the departing dragon for a while until she seems sure the creature isn't coming back, then flits her gaze around what remains of the campsite, perhaps checking the state of things while Nym is otherwise occupied.

Nym will be with you shortly. Just as soon as she can "reset" back out of combat mode ;). I imagine Meri will know to expect something like this by now, along with the accompanying cluelessless as to the destruction and general fightyness that just happened...

OOC: Phew, thanks to that last infusion, it didn't take much to restore me to full and recharge both infusions.  Could perhaps still take on those two weird guards Geekaar left behind ;)  hehe.
Didn't take as much of a beating as I thought I would against a dragon, though resistance from Nym and the dragon's habit of blasting random NPCs and horses instead of us probably helped, despite Meri using herself and Timur as decoys a few times :)


Meri raised her staff again as if to launch one last attack at the retreating dragon, although it was moving away far too quickly and she resorted to leaning on her staff instead as the adrenaline slowly left her.
Due mostly to her own healing abilities, she was in surprisingly good shape apart from a few cuts and bruises and numerous charred patches on her clothing that were still emitting wisps of smoke that curled up around her, perhaps adding to any intimidating appearance in the eyes of anyone else looking her way.

After taking a few moments to recover, she slipped off her backpack, placing it carefully on the ground and opening it up.
"It's ok, it's gone now" she called inside to Many.

She looked over at Timur as he approached, still carrying the strange symbol.
Taking it from him, she looked down at it with an unreadable expression.  It was now possible for anyone looking in that direction to see the object clearly.  It appeared to be a stylised representation of the goddess Tiamat, forged from metal coloured as black as coal with its five intricately carved dragon heads their own individual colours.
Meri glanced up at the sky above the wrecked campsite as if searching for something she had seen there before, then shrugged and placed both the symbol and the vial of grey-green dust she had pulled out earlier into her backpack.

Reaching up to her shoulder, she picked up the strange device that she had activated during the battle.  Its single crystalline 'eye' had gone dark again, its small mechanical 'legs' retracted back into the casing, and had only remained sitting on Meri's shoulder due to a combination of luck and fortunate balance.  Whether it had been damaged by the dragon's attacks, or had simply run out of whatever power Meri had charged it with was uncertain.  She looked it over, then carefully tucked it back into her pocket, then lifted Timur up onto her shoulder again and stood up, looking towards the forest as if checking on the others.

Her gaze fell on the two of Geekaar's guards who had remained behind.
"If you know where your master scurried off to, you can tell him it's safe to come back now" she remarked.
It was difficult to tell whether the slight edge to her voice was in disdain at Geekaar abandoning his people so quickly or if she hadn't forgiven the guards for the seemingly random attack on Elias earlier.

"If he doesn't come back, I may have to disenchant those bells" she muttered quietly to Timur, "that ringing is really starting to grate on my nerves!"


OOC: Letting Many out now, then looking around to check how messed up everyone else is.
Not sure if Nym would have seen Meri with the symbol before.  It wouldn't have been amongst the stuff Meri packed before they left to follow the Ball, if Nym can remember back that far.  So I'll leave it up to her if she starts suspecting Meri is a secret Tiamat worshipper (though I expect they don't go beating up chromatic dragons!)
Might be curious if that guard takes offence, though I don't think Meri would mind an excuse to beat them down.  Though they might be a little wary of attacking someone who just helped kick a dragon's scaly butt and is still alive...
This message was last edited by the player at 20:20, Sun 08 Apr 2018.

A Short Rest is the five minute period after combat. In terms of a 'short rest', you don't have to actually be resting, just back in non combat non strenuous activity. Basically, in enough of a mode to narratively be checking on your wounds, not being asked for physical skill checks, etc. It would be the exception not the norm for you to not be able to 'rest' after I finish a successful combat, and I would flag up the fact you couldn't rest. Or just not end combat and keep it combat timed. If you were able to run after the horses, or do anything that required such physicaly activity to stop you resting, I would have said. So please restore everything you need to restore!

And yep, do not underestimate the part the physical resitiance played in the fight. Go calculate your life totals if you go deduct five to every attack (except Nym's last, that would have been 4hp. It did seem an interesting mix of low damage rolls or low attack rolls for the dragon, and a lack of recharging except for the one time you also then got it to bloodied where it auto-recharged anyway so that cancelled out! The slow/prone combo at the start also led to an interesting window you lot exploited very well. And, you know, I'm not just going to throw all the damage at you forever for fun. I mean, if I wanted to do that, the thing would never have gone lower that 20 except to lightning breath you :) Or wait, maybe that's what it was trying to do and you got it when it did :p

Odd, I've missed a 500XP award somehow, which is worrying. That's cool though. A next encounter might only be 500XP (250XP per person per creature is a standard combat build award at this level), but I'll just make sure there's some form of end of quest XP bonus aswell to bump you both over :)


Many was not visible inside the backpack when Meri looked inside. Instead, a small eyestalk appeared coming out of one of the pockets of Nym's radiant robes. The eystalk blinked at the light and disappeared. "Ah wahs not scare-ed", came a small shaking voice from inside the robe, though the words also echoed oddly and came to Meri out of the backpack too as the faintest of echoes.

[Secret to Meri: When she received it, the Timat symbol seemed oddly warm for a moment, and the jeweles twinkled as if malevolently anger. However, it seemed a passing sensation and in reality it was just a normal art piece. There was no further visions in the sky of the goddess, nor any sense of forbodding of such.]

The two guards of Geekaar that were standing at the forest edge gave no signs of acknowledging Meri nor actually caring about anyone else around. Before in Geekaar's presence they had always seemed alert and reactive, and during the fight they had seemed passively vigilant. Now they just seemed.... switched off. Their gazes were vacant, and it was impossible to tell if they were even moving nor breathing.

Across to where the horses had been, the two guards Geekaar had left to guard him were also back to standing again from where they had been knocked down during the previous attack. They seemed perhaps slightly more vigilant, but only enough to look and see if anyone was about to move closer to their position. It was an unsettling cycle of mindlessness and sudden sentience that simply highlighted how unatural the fugue state of the guards was when it occurred.

Most of the people in the woods were barely seen shadows, still not daring to come out, it seemed. It was hard to see any of the retainers passed Geekaar's guards. The more senior guards from Blackwood were still hovering at he egde of the woods, speaking wiht each other but also turning to give awed glances at Meri and Nym. After a moment, two of them headed in to the woods while the other two - the twins - stayed outside.

Farren, still outside of the forest too and near the two mages, turned to Meri and Nym, but perhaps noticed Meri was the more aware of the two. "Well, that was.... I have no words for what that was. And I am someone who sees the face of the Raven Queen every time he closes his eyes, and finds that memory more real than all of this." He said it with disarming honesty, perhaps highlighting in his own way how the encounter had shaken him, and been outside all his strange psuedo-knowledge.

He paused for a moment, thinking, and was clearly about to say something more when Samel burst out from the woods. She gave Geekaar's two guards an uncomfortable, quick look, but they showed no reaction to her. She looked back around to Farren, Nym, and Meri. "Please. Come quickly. Sirrecco and Darasee, they're... they're not in a good way."

In game terms, they both are on low single digit hp so and are fine. In real terms of course,that's almost dead. Meri's life infusion for temp hp energised Sirrecco earlier, and Farren turned Darasee from dying to not dying, but yeah, mechanically they won't be in a good way. Similarly, despite none of the guards being too low in hp, manyare still bloodied and most still have some burns or other wounds.

Meri grinned slightly at the echo from her pack.
"Of course not" she replied.

She glanced back at Farren as he spoke up, then looked up at the sky again.
"The gods interfere again it seems.  I wonder if they were intent on clearing away the remnants of the Shadow's influence, or if that was just sheer malicious spite."

Meri gestured towards the dead bear.
"That thing had the same magic in it, wild chaotic forces like those of the Shadow, and like Nym's too in a way.  I think the dragon was after anything with that power, that's why it attacked the bear first.  The bear had been changed by something.  After that, it clearly scented another target."
She seemed about to go over to examine the bear corpse when Samel appeared, asking for help.

Responding only with a curt nod, Meri picked up her backpack and turned towards the woods.
Veering towards the Blackwood guards, Meri pointed back over her shoulder at her recovering ally.
"Umm, could someone keep an eye on Nym, make sure she doesn't wander off too far?  She'll probably be ok in a minute or two."
She continued past them into the forest, then paused and glanced back.
"Oh, don't touch her...  Just in case" she added before disappearing from sight between the trees.

Finding her way to where the two named retainers were, Meri placed her backpack and staff down next to them, and rummaged around inside the pack, her arm once again searching noticeably deeper than the pack's size should indicate as being possible, as if her equipment had gotten shifted around again.
Pulling out some alchemical items, she examined their wounds while measuring out a few basic healing herbs...


OOC: Okies, Meri will do what she can for the injured folks, starting with whoever looks noticeably closest to the Raven Queen's Door first.  Do I need to roll Heal check(s) here?

Also, now I'm wondering if those guards are actually automata or some kind of psychic puppets that mostly just shut down if Geekaar moves too far away from them...

(Had this idea in my head of one of the guards going up and poking Nym and saying: "Are you ok?" or something, only for her to spin around and go: "Ohh, you wanna play too?  Pew! Pew! Pew!"  *KABOOM!*.  Hence Meri's remark there)  ;)

Hehe...well, hopefully Meri would probably have worked out by now that Nym doesn't normally attack anyone unless they make a hostile move first, either toward her or toward someone she considers an ally/friend. But yeah, it's logical to want to be careful this soon after combat, just in case she's still, um...what's that word for something like a bomb that might go off at the slightest touch? Volatile? Something like that...

Nym sort of stands around vaguely for a moment, then glances back toward the campsite and the spilled cauldron that had previously held the incomplete stew. The changeling blinks a few times and looks a little confused. She goes over to the pot.

"Aaaww, look, it's all everywhere." she says in a sad sort of tone. "I was looking forward to yummy food and now we don't have any..."

She looks around, seeming further confused that almost everyone seems to have disappeared.

"Maybe I can pick it up..." she mutters to herself.

She bends down and starts waving her fingers around over the area of ground where the food spilt, then notices she's holding the dagger in one hand. She gives it a curious look, then shrugs and resheathes it at her waist. She then continues trying to levitate the spilled, soaked-in food from the ground back into the pot.

Don't worry, I'm not expecting it to work. I'm sue the stew has long since soaked into the ground and the fire probably went out when the dragon fell on it. But, you know, it's Nym ;). It's something for her to concentrate on that doesn't involve...you know...blood and screaming people and stuff ;).

He's an important thing to point out - Meri's infusions can get filled up by ally healing surges too. So, you know, if you suspect Meri's going to be using a few of them soon, maybe don't have her blow all her own Healing Surges to do it :D

[Private to Meri: At worst, Farren will share his Healing Surges with Meri if she decides to use Infusions on the NPCs.]

Over by the ruined campfire and stew, it was clear that while the water had long since gone, the vegetables had mostly escaped being stomped on or being blasted to oblivion. They were still solid enough as the water had not been boiling for too long.

Many wiggled his way awkwardly out of Nym's pocket, and tried to help levitate the vegetables too. In the end, either deliberately or or purpose hemostly tried to help lift the same ones as Nym lifted. Still, he made happy 'yay' noises as each one was returned and grinned as if proud of his contributions.

Across the clearing, it was clear that while the main deer carcass that had been worked on was burned to a crisp and unusable, there were a couple more which had not drawn the dragon's ire. While 'proper' cooking was possibly out of the question, Nym could probably simply heat some meat, reheat the vegetables, and sort of guess the taste that Maggrath had been going for. Or even make things taste like less mundane things. Really, perhaps it had been a blessing in disguise as Maggrath's feelings didn't have to be hurt about how much effort she was going for compared to how easy magic made things. Even water might not been too much of an issue, as the wagons had survived unscathed and they had plenty of water still loaded.


So yeah Nym, you're free to try and make food. As you've pointed out, magic can actually do most of the work, so she can certainly approximate something good here and circumvent lots of the time and effort people seemed determined to take for no good reason :p  Some NPCs might be in a position to help in the next few paragraphs too :)


Farren had a moment to reply to Meri as both of them went towards where Samel was. "I think we both saw what the dragon went after next. Beating this foe of your in the forest seems to have allowed the gods to unleash trees and dragons of myth in retaliation. Is that a necessary evil and weakness of its plans, or...in some perverse ways, part of them?" Farren lapsed in to thought as Samel concentrated on guiding Meri to the others. Of course, Farren might be wondering what his own patron would do or could be allowed to do if some cosmic balance had been upset.

One of the twin guards had made uncertain moves towards Meri anyway, so Meri did not have to divert far to speak with him. "H-hello," said the man. While he might have been dazed from Meri's previous performance as a would-be dragon slayer, close too he also seemed a little worse for wear. [Private to Meri: He's bloodied, but still in double digits, so worry not for the moment :)] Singes and abrasions were all over his face and his armour was cracked and blackened. Still, he then straightened up and gave a respectful salute. "People call me Diamond, and I seem to be at youe service." He winced at the quick movement. He then winced at the odd comment regarding Nym. "Of course!" he said.

Then, "Oh, and...later...could you look to my brother? Ah...later?" he re-iterated as if to pacify Meri. He seemed concerned over his twin, who appeared to have a broken arm and be a little more tottering. Still, Maggrath appeared, gave him a thankful pat, looked to his arm, and seemed to waive it off as if not convinced it was anything to worry over. Maggrath then totters over to the other deer carcasses herself, and starts poking at them almost for something to do.
[Private to Meri:
He's bloodied and in double digits too. The arm looks odd, but he doesn't seem to be in enough pain for a break. He'll keep, roll a Heal check when / if you decide to go across to him. Maggrath seems just above bloodied, so she's probably fine too :)]

When Meri was led to the two older retainers, she saw that Darasee was drifting in and out of consciousness, part of her hair burned away on one side, and her headscarf similarly singed. Serricco just seemed bewildered and out of it.

Rather than try to come up with medicine, we'll just say they are in shock from their wounds and from the pretty terrifying attack, and that if Meri can get their bodies under control they will probably be ok, amazingly. Darasee was probably electrocuted and Serricco is blunt force from the explosion, so there's nothing bloddy to heal. If Meri can spare an infusion for each I'll let you Heal based on Meri's own healing surge value. Roll Heal checks for a bonus hp boost for them.

[Private to Meri: Note that for every five minutes passed I'll let you refresh your infusions, so it will be slow but steady healing of the NPCs if you want to risk it and spare the time.]


Meanwhile, over by Nym, the less injured twin guard walked gingerly up to the wild mage. "Ah..ma'am?" He looked back to where Meri had gone, but seemed like he had been tasked with a mission he had to follow. "Hello. We haven't properly met. Everyone calls me Diamond. I... thank you for... what you did."  HE paused for another moment, perhaps noticing the little beholder bouncing around and Nym's mundane efforts with the cauldron. "Can... I help?"


There you go, see, Maggrath's around looking to the deer, and there's a guard to help go fetch water or pick up caudrons or whatever Nym needs :p

Nym looks up, seeming a little surprised at being addressed.

"Oh. Yes. Hello!" she says, quickly recovering. "Sorry, I thought it seemed like everyone was busy with something. Um. So...the food all fell over - that's not very good, is it? I'm hoping we can pick it up and...you know...sort of...put it back again? Um...in the pot? And then Maggrath can cook it. Or um...maybe I can - I think she might be busy..."

She picks up a lump of vegetable and looks at it.

"Hm...I don't think this looks too dirty, does it?" she asks. "I mean, veggy-thingys come out of the ground anyway, right? So...maybe if I just sort of...give it a quick check and then we can just put these back and cook them again. Um...except the water's all gone. Hey, um, do you know if there's any more near here?"

She looks up at the guard.

So basically Nym will carry on picking up veggy-chunks and putting them back in the pot, giving them a quick Prestidigitation to clean any that look like they've got anything manky-looking on them from being on the floor.

OOC: "It seemed like everyone was busy with something"...  Yep, you could say that ;) hehe.
Also, alchemical tinkering is mainly just flavour text, since I'm hopeless at coming up with too many different ways to describe the same action without diverting off into some weirdness.


Meri frowned slightly as she checked over Serricco.
"Should be ok with some rest, just got a nasty jolt or two out there" she murmured, though whether aiming that comment to anyone else or just talking to herself was uncertain.
She raised her staff, generating some of the blue mist from one of its crystals and using this on Serricco, then she moved back to Darasee, pausing to glance at the alchemical vials she had taken out earlier then examining her injuries.

This time, she seemed a little more concerned, although this mainly seemed to manifest in her becoming more focused and intent on her own actions.
Raising her staff again, she created another of the blue misty infusions, this time aiming it directly into an empty vial where it swirled around, half-filling the container almost like a liquid.
Placing the staff aside, she selected a couple of vials of some kind of powdery substances from her kit and tipped out a few grains of each of these into the infusion vial.
Whatever they were caused the energy in the vial to react suddenly, the grains disintegrating in a series of fizzing sparking noises, turning the infusion energy from a hazy insubstantial blue mist to a brighter swirling blue-green energy that glowed brightly.  Taking up this vial, she tipped the contents over Darasee with a quick movement, allowing it to gather around her and absorb into her wounds.

OOC: Using Heal check to try to boost the infusion on this one: 23 (11 + 12)

"She'll definitely need some rest too.  This should help at least.  I'll go look over the others for now" remarked Meri, packing her equipment back into her backpack and raising it onto her shoulders, then tucking her staff into the straps and going off to examine the guard Diamond had directed her to before.

"Sit down and rest up a bit" she insisted, lowering him to the ground and running her hands over his arm and narrowing her eyes slightly as if checking for something.
"Doesn't seem to be broken, but best to be sure..." she muttered to herself, reaching up and pulling the goggles down over her eyes, flicking down several of the smaller lenses before examining him again.

OOC: Heal check on him: 22 (10 + 12), back to middling rolls it seems.
While Meri isn't a healer by trade, I'd imagine she's used to checking for structural damage in items.  Maybe best not to tell anyone here that she's better at fixing non-living things and probably keeping herself focused by thinking of them as damaged items to be repaired though! :)

The guard standing by Nym looked puzzled at Nym both doing something so mundane, and also a little odd. However, it was hard to both argue with Nym's logic, and argue at all with someone who had just taken on a dragon and won without ever batting an eye. Meri's warning perhaps also gave him pause, and the fact Nym was managing to clean some of the worse for wear vegetables with a wave of her hand sealed the deal.

"Y-yes, of course," he said, looking around. "The wagons have water. I - I can go get some. Shall I?" The guard looked uncertain, but then decided to go fetch some rather than start any arguing. A few moments later, the man reappeared with an abundance of large waterskins. He grunted to take them the final distance, and then dropped them down near Nym. He was perhaps wondering if all of this was some odd dream, but then he could clearly see the mess at the left hand edge of the camp and was reminded if the realities of just a few moments ago.

Most of the fighting happened to the left of the cauldron, near that seating area. Just to explain both the comments OOC, and also the guard's reaction now.


Both Serricco and Darasee looked better after Meri's ministrations. even though Serricco had mildly protested about being ministered too - though very weakly. Samel had hovered around, looking to Farren as if to help of for some other reason. His reluctance to speak caused her to instead comment to the other two retainers - when they looked better. "Master Geekaar. He left us? I... I didn't think he would be so-"

"Selfish?" said Serricco, with a grimace and bad humour.

"Cowardly!" said Samel, for some reason finding the fact sad. Or perhaps just finding it sad she had saddled herself with such a master, a reflection upon herself.

However, both Serricco's and Darasee's eyes opened wide, despite both of their injured states, and they shared a look. Serricco looked away quickly, and left a drowsy Darasee to speak with her kin.

"Geekaar the Great is the most selfish man in the world, I have no doubt," she said quietly, and deliberately, "but never, never, think the man a coward. Do you understand, Samel?" There was a hint of warning in her voice, despite the fact that clearly her body wished to enjoy the lack of pain, and rest. She tried again, now apparently conscious of Farren and Meri close. "If you think someone a coward, you might think you can say...certain things to them. Or get away with certain things. Just.. just think about what he did. Exactly. Ask yourself wha ta selfish person would do, and what a coward might no."

Darasee seemed to be almost phrasing it like one of Geekaar's pirate riddles somehow. The effort took its toll, and Darasee drifted off to sleep. Luckily, this seemed a far more natural sleep, and there was no danger now of her not waking up later.

Serricco said nothing further, immitating sleep while clearly not sleeping. Still, he seemed far sharper too. Samel was left to lapse in to silence, after a distracted thanks to Meri. Farren seemed to simply take this new information as a further reason to lapse in to thoughtful silence.

Cool, so mark you've used two infusions, and if you want them replenished, Farren can replenish them for you using his healing surges. Whether that happens fuzzily at some point or you want to make it explicit is up to you, along with the mechanisms of it.


Meanwhile, the guard Meri walked up to seemed surprised at the attetnion from out of nowhere. He had been trying to help Maggrath one - handedly move some carcasses to the charred blanket with mixed results.

"Look, if Pill put you up to it, it's fi- ARGH!" Despite Meri's reasonable care, it was clear that the arm had been wrenched from its socket rather than broken. It was probably adreniline and bloodimindedness that was keeping him moving around, but both would run out eventually. He really needed the arm popped back in its socket, and a magical restoration afterwards would be able to skirt the months of rehabilitation to otherwise get the arm back to proper functioning again.

Heh, good enough roll for a disgnosis and heal, but not quite making the 23 Hard DC, I'll just say that Meri will almost but not quite be able to do things as painlessly as possible, but there might be the tiniest of blacking outs when she resets the joint :D Using up an infusion will mean he can use his arm normally, so no combat penalties for him fighting before its fully healed. Not that there will be future combat, why would there be?

Nym smiles at Diamond as he brings her the waterskins.

"Ooh, yes, that looks good." she says, still sitting on the ground retrieving vegetables. "I wonder what happened to Maggrath..."

She sits up and starts to look around, but then blinks distractedly and shakes her head, returning her attention to the vegetables.

"Oh, never mind. She's probably busy." she says. "Hmm, I don't want wet fur..."

She wiggles her hands a bit and the fur on them seems to shrink in on itself, as though growing backwards into nothing. The skin remains the odd reddish colour, however, and the general feline appearance doesn't fade from the rest of her.

"Hmm..." she says, eyeing the waterskins and the cauldron. "So...I suppose we need to make a fire under this again, right? Maybe we can set it up again, then I can light the fire...but we'd better put the water in first, in case we spill it. And then I'll light the fire. And cook the veggies. And um...anything else...I think they had some meat or something, right?"

She then sets about attempting to manoeuvre the cauldron back into a cooking sort of position.

So Nym is going to sort of start doing this by herself but has sort of half-assumed that Diamond will help her - the plan is to set the cauldron up again, set up some wood underneath it (she might be able to magically dry it if it got drenched before) for a new fire but not light it yet, then stick the water in the pot along with the last of the veggies that she's found on the floor and if anyone wants to bring any meat or anything she can stick that in too. Once that's all done she can easily light the fire and help the pot warm up :). Hopefully by that point maybe someone who has a clue about cooking can come along and actually do the stirring and herb-adding and whatever else Nym has no idea how to do ;).
I am so glad I thought it'd be a good idea to take those Feats to give myself Prestidigitation back at the start - it's been my most-used magical thing this entire game :D.

Meri pulled the goggles back up onto her forehead again.  She eyed the guard for a moment, as if trying to evaluate his sanity as well as his arm then looked around trying to find Farren.

"Hey, umm, I might need to borrow some of your strength here, my own is a bit too depleted after all that" she muttered quietly to him, with a look that suggested she wasn't too happy at having to admit some kind of weakness in herself.
"If I can get his arm re-set and healed enough to use, it should be fine" she added.


OOC: Yep, will go asking Farren for spare Healing Surges then.  I can see myself using up all my own here :)

Farren still seemed distracted, and so didn't notice Meri's reluctant declaration. He merely nodded and stiffly stood up from his contemplative crouch. Samel noticed the movement, and seemed torn - she clearly wanted to eventually speak with Farren, but also wanted to look after her recovering fellow countrymen. Dott happened to take that moment to reluctantly emerge from the right hand side of the woods, still looking terrified. With confusion and relief in equal measure, it seemed Samel insistently gave him the task of looking out for Darasee and Serricco, and after pointing to where Farren and Meri were going, walked off to trail the two.


Farren, meanwhile, had gone over to Meri and spoke softly. "Of course, if I can help in any way. During the battle, it seemed as if my psychcic talent might allow me to help restore others. I'm not sure how much I want to lean on another psychic to help me unlock that, though, until I know if I can protect my mine. However, if I can use those energies to help your efforts..."


So there you go, yes, Farren will give you his healing surges, and in terms of Farren's help it's flavoured as if he's channeling his psionic energies to Meri however she want to use them, or store them for later.


Diamond seemed to understand what Nym was attempting, and aided her with righting the cauldron, and even made some half-hearted motions to put some unspent fuel under  it. He poured water in to the cauldfron too, and then looked back over to where both some of the rest of the firewood had been stacked, and where Maggrath was also working - equally as distracted as Nym.


Diamond took the opportunity to go over and get both - holding some extra firewood in the crook of one arm, and guiding Maggrath across to the camp again, with a respectful hand hovering close in case the cook might fall. It was hard to see what inuries and burns Maggrath might have, as the deer blood hide things.

"Well, it seems the apprentice becomes the cook, then," said Maggrath in greeting to Nym, dropping the venison in to the cauldron. "I don't think we have that much time to let all this cook normally. So I suppose I'll have to show you my secrets another day, and thi evening you get to show me how you make food quickly with magic."

I'm not sure if you as a player missed what had happened to Magrath (that she's fine) or if that was more Nym just not wantign to think about seeing Maggrath attacked earlier. She luckily survived reasonable unscathed thanks to a bad dragon roll flavoured by diving behind a deer carcass and having guards around her, so he injuries are mostly superficial and psycological in nature :)

Meri nodded, looking to Farren thoughtfully.  Her depleted energy seemed more obvious up close, as the luminous blue colour of her eyes had faded back to what was apparently their natural blue-grey colour.

"Well, if I can help in any way" she replied.  "I'm not much of an expert in psychic matters, but a means of defending the mind might be something I can research and find materials for at Thirdgate."

She trailed off there, as if remembering something and took off the amulet she was wearing.
"This could work, but I think only once before it needed to recover its energies.  And the energy backlash would probably injure whoever was trying to help you.  Back at the centre of the Blight, there were creatures who could strike at the mind, so I made this from two others Celindara gave us to protect against anything else like that I might run into by turning their attack back at them."
She handed the amulet to Timur, placing him on the ground and turning her attention to the guard.

"There's probably no easy way to do this" she explained to him.  "Your arm has become detached from its socket, and we have to get it back in.  It'll probably hurt, but with some quick healing afterwards, you should have near enough full use of it soon afterwards while it heals the rest of the way naturally."
She glanced back briefly at Farren, then made to reach for the guard's arm...


OOC: Meri's bedside manner probably leaves something to be desired...  I'll wait to see if the guard is willing after that :)

Curious to see what else Farren can do.  (And also aware I may regret that someday!)

I hadn't missed that Maggrath is okay (I noted the description of her working ont the remaining deer carcasses)...that was just Nym doing her usual "I will not look at all the blood and dead people, nor acknowledge any sign that I just exploded a load of stuff" thing ;).

Nym giggles slightly at Maggrath.

"Yes, it seems that way." she says. "It's a shame it all went on the floor but I think it'll be okay, see? Hmm, but I suppose those spicy-thingys you put in will be gone. Do you have more? Maybe we can use them. And hopefully it won't all fall over this time."

She starts concentrating her efforts on heating up the pot, but also waves her hands over the contents as well, apparently attempting to speed up the heating process a little.

Trying some Prestidigitation once more to heat up the pot's contents directly in order to help it cook faster...but more concentrating on the water since that will then heat the food - if I heat up the veggies and meat they might end up getting too hot and get all burnt and stuff :P.

Cool regarding Maggrah, just wanted to check, and forgot the reference earlier

"I still have spices," reassured Maggrath, "but you can always show me how you flavour your food if you want. You're the cook, now."

Diamond looked around the sky with a worried look. "It's getting darker, and... well, maybe we can move this in to the woods?" He pointed to the clearing in the woods formed by the dragon's exit - it still had branches overhead forming a makeshift canopy. Maggrath looked, nodded, then despite her aged look easily too on her side of the cauldron. Diamond seemed surprised at handling the cauldron.

"The cauldron shouldn't heat up too much if the magic is heating the water first," she said.

I presume Nym can still happily heat the water on the move if everyone wants to move the cauldron in to the sheltered area of the woods? Also, I'm sure the magic can heat the water directly so the pot will be handleable at least for a little while right now.


Farren looked to the amulet held by Timur, then back to Samel. "Perhaps the threat of backlash would be enough to stop any prying," he said.

If Meri's temporarily offering the amulet, Farren will certainly take it at least for right now. Watch out, that reduces your defense bonuses by 1 until you get it back.

he guard's eyes widened regarding the treatment, but then steeled himself. He nodded his head ready to be cured, clearly willing to trust Meri given her previous demonstrations of skill.

Go ahead and mark of an infusion and so forth, Heal roll to diagnose counts for curing him narratively :)

"Oh, right, okay." says Nym happily, with a shrug. "Shall we bring all the wood and stuff too?"

"Well, you can borrow it if you like" replied Meri distractedly, looking over the guard's arm once more before taking hold of it and pushing against his shoulder with a quick movement.
Her hands glowed blue as she did, channelling some of the power Farren had given her through her own abilities...


OOC: I have very little medical knowledge, so no idea if there's actually a particular way to reinsert a dislocated arm.  Falling back on 'Hollywood movie medical aid' that would probably kill anyone it was applied to in the real world, and magical healing, because magic! :)

Many was already bobbing around, trying to help lift the wood with his raising things eyestalk. When - for a few reasons - it didn't work, he quickly darted back to the cauldron, as if his 'help' was needed and he'd almost left the group in trouble by to coping with it alone. "Sowwy! Sowwy!" He then mock grimaced at pushing on the caudron with his magic, notably picking Diamond's ide to help rather than Maggrath's.

"Wood'd be good," noted Diamond, grunting a little, "but we can come back for that. And the rest of the camp. I think setting up in the woods will be fine. I know some tricks to stop us catching the canopy on fire."


The area the cauldron will be dumped on will be the broken tree area pretty much directly in front of the camp. From there, Nym would be able to spot Dott looking after the other two retainers who are recovering over by some logs. Obviously, once the cushions are brought over, people could be moved to be more comfortable. The rest of the guards seem to be over to the left, but speaking amongst themselves and fussing over a few of their number.


The guard moved awkwardly, not competely braced, and both staggered and cried out in pain. However, after the initial unpleasantness - and Farren ensuring the man did not fall over - the guard seemed to be surprised when he gingerly tested his arm.

"Ah...that... that still feels weird, but... ah...more like I twisted it oddly when lifting, rather than having a whole dragon try to crush it. Hmm... thank... thank you. For everything. My name's Propp, and my brother's Pill. I guess I get all the luck - in names and arms. Comes from being second born, I know it..."

It seems that he's healthy enough if he can start complaining about being the younger twin :p

And yes, hollywood handwaving is good for me too :)


Jessah seemed to have come out from woods to look for both Meri and Propp. "Hello! Mister Muppler is asking after you both, or well, after Diamond more but Diamon's got a pop in his hands and I don't want to disturb him, and Sarah is too quiet and not telling me to shut up nearly enough when I'm telling her to come see you about being healed, which means she really must be injured, and Mister Muppler won't even let us see his hand even though he's going pale, and-"

Basically, a healer's work is never done :) I'll leave you decide if you cut Jessah off by asking questions, speaking over her, walking away, etc :p 

"Well, names don't necessarily stick" replied Meri, looking over his arm.  "I rejected the one I was born with and chose this one instead."
She didn't elaborate on that, merely picking up Timur and placing him on her shoulder again, turning to look for anyone else noticeably injured badly.

She looked over at Jessah as she appeared, her outward expression giving no sign of the inward sigh she was probably making.
"I'll take a look" she replied, taking advantage of any slight pause Jessah made to draw breath, and heading in the direction she indicated...


OOC: Just thought I'd leave him with that, in case there wasn't enough mystery about Meri for them ;)
One (borrowed) infusion left for two folks, hmm.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:42, Tue 17 Apr 2018.

Just gonna point out that Nym didn't even take any damage during that fight (it was all to my Temp hp so I never lost any actual hp :D) so I still have all my Surges. But I imagine you know her well enough by now to realise she probably won't really register how badly injured some people are and how much they might need healing in order to consider offering anything herself ;).

"Ohh yes, we can be careful with the fire." says Nym, nodding. "I can make it go in different directions too, as long as it doesn't get too big. So I'm sure that will be fine. And then we can cook the food. And then we can eat it! Yay!"

Meanwhile, on her shoulders, Ryn seems to have decided that she wants to do something other than sit and watch so she drops to the ground and starts snuffling about, moving with her slightly silly-looking bouncing gait (which makes her super-fluffy fur bounce along with her) to investigate the area - she makes her way around, sniffing at each person or group of people before moving on to the next.

[Private to GM: Ryn isn't specifically trying to eavesdrop on anyone or look for someone or anything like that, she just got a bit bored on Nym's shoulders and has decided she's okay to be left for now. So she's just generally mooching around.]

Yeah, well Meri and Farren took samage, and they're currently still draining more surges after the fight, so at least I can ensure that two of you will be... umm... more tired. When you sleep. Uninterrupted. At the end of this section. With no more problems happening between then and now. And then heal fully tomorrow. That was it...

In that vein Meri, Farren would keep channelling energy, so he would both restore your infusion to be used, then restore the used up infusion. So you can still have two infusions, just Farren will spend three surges to do it.

Maggrath and Diamond carefully steered the pot to a temporary resting place in the trampled mess that had been clearly by the dragon earlier. Nearby Serricco stirred to look at the cauldron, and Maggrath wandered over to make sure the green robed man was alright. She shooed Dott away, pointing him towards where the firewood and old campfire had been. Diamond stood around for a moment, then followed suit.

A moment later, Nym had all the firewood she could possibly want. The fact that there was enough broken branches around was only noticed with shagrin by the farrier and guard a moment later.
[Private to Nym:
So Ryn won't be pausing to listen to full conversations? ]


Both Jessah and Pill seemed to be caught wrong fotted by Meri's assured departure, and came along slower. Farren seemed to pause as well, but mostly because Samel seemed to want to speak to the man, and with a sigh the revenant paused to hear what the other ardent had to say.


In the woods, it seemed that the remaining guards were huddled around discussing a few things earnestly. There was occasionally pointing in the direction of the deeper woods by some people, or Meri by others. The two more experienced guards that had fought the dragon were notable by their absence - it seemed that only Stark, Gibb, Sarah, Desmine, and Elias were in view.

"-should go," Stark was saying, pointing in to the forest.

"But Sarah's not well!" bemoaned Gibb. Sarah, for her part, did look pale and burned.

Meanwhile, Desmine had been pointing towards Meri, and when the artificer came close, Desmine actually spoke out to her. "Thank goodness! Can you speak sense to this man and have him looked at?"

Elias was pale and cradling his hand. He simply shook his head but didn't say anything.

Oh yeah, we need to find that guy's finger and stick it back on again...
[Private to GM: Hmm, okay, yeah, Ryn will pay attention to conversations if they seem to be about any of Nym, Meri, Farren, Many, or Geekaar. I figure the latter is more likely because they're probably discussing where he's buggered off to. Heh. The thought has occurred that he's run off almost-alone (he had two of the creepy guards with him, didn't he?) away from the two dragon-fighting mages and now the dragon has similarly headed off away from the same two characters and is probably a liiittle bit pissed off at getting its arse handed to it like that...]

"Yay!" says Nym happily as wood is found, and alongside anyone willing to help sets up a pile of it beneath the cauldron once more. This done, she gestures at it and within seconds a campfire is once again blazing away merrily. Then she focuses on warming the contents of the pot from above in order to hasten the process.

Yay, let's cook the nom-foods at last so everyone can have dinner :D.

OOC: I knew there was something I forgot...


Meri looked over at Elias then back to Desmine.
"Might not be too late.  Did anyone happen to find his lost finger?"

She then turned to look Sarah over, without waiting for a reply.  Although on her shoulder, Timur looked up at Desmine, as if waiting for a reply in Meri's stead.


OOC: Heal check on Sarah: 20 (8 + 12) - Think Kaelynn jinxed my d20...

Desmine's eyes seemed to loos focus. With an oddly stiff movement, she gingerly reached in to a pocket. There was a shudder, and then she very slowly, with great reluctance, took out the severed, bloodied digit. "I...I did?" she said, clearly confused. "Everything was so surreal. I... I think it was just something normal to do. In the circumstances. Pick up...something... that was dropped. I didn't think... I..."

Heh, you might want to take the finger from Desmine sooner rather than later before she loses her cool, calm demeanour. Still, you canunderstand after a deer stampede, mutant bear appearance, mythical dragon appearance, and your paymaster's guard casually severing a collegues finger off their hand, the brain might just want some easy task to distract it, a task that might seem icky at any other time :D

Meanwhile Sarah shifted back at neing the focus of attention. "I'm... fine..." she said, though it wasclear her speech was a little slurred from the burn on her jawline that intruded in to her mouth.
[Private to Meri:
Eh, she a little weak and pale an burned, in the real world she might be in a bad way with bad burns. In fantasy world, she's still in decent double digits for hp and Meri's magical healing should be good. She might have some faint scars, or at least texture to her face and skin, but will be fine with an infusion :)]


Maggrath and Diamond, and a reluctant Dott - still looking backwards to the other retainers - joined in with the wood stacking. Diamond also created a similar stack of fresh wood, apparently for later to ensure they had fuel for the evening. Light was fading, and the light of the campfire was welcome.

Dott went for some cushions, putting them very close tothe fire and encouraging Darasee to wake up and come closer, and Serricco to help guide the woman to the fire. Serricco ended up being the one who neededhelp, still woosy himself.

Maggrath grabbed more cushions too, to complete the close circle of cushions around the campfire and cauldron. She then ensured Nym had a cushioned to sit  on right by the cauldron if she needed it. Afterwards, Maggrath started fussing over the top of the cauldron, looking ot her spices, but always asking Nym's permission to use various ones. It seemed she took the position of Nym as head cook very seriously.

[Private to Nym: The first group Ryn would come to would actually be Farren and Samel. Would Ryn want to hear what Samel is saying to Farren? Presumably about himself?

Geekaar left all four guards here. Two by where the horses and Dott had been, and where he'd escaped - they haven't moved from there, even when the dragon briefly attacked them as part of attacking the horses. The other two are just to one side of the opening in the woods, and seemed to have been set up to guard the two retainers. They shifted almost imperceptibly sideways as if in line with the moving retainers, but otherwise aren't reacting too much either. Though at least slightly more than the two over by the lack of horses area :)

As to where Geekaar or the dragon are, who knows :) *cough me always me cough*]

Nym, for her part, seems both appreciative of the help and confused at the asking for permission. She maintains her position warming the food but even as Maggrath seems to have started treating her like the one in charge of the meal, she looks to the human herself.

"Um. So...I mean, I haven't cooked anything before." she says. "Well, I mean, I have, but it was just warming something up in my hands. I've never made...you know, proper food, with all things in it like this. And I can just make stuff taste the way I want as I'm eating it, so I don't know when this will be ready and taste good...but I suppose if we do get it wrong, I can just make it taste okay anyway."

She grins at the thought that even if the cookery is messed up, at least people will be able to eat something tasty, even if the taste isn't "real".

"So, maybe you can tell when it's ready?" she asks.

[Private to GM: Ryn will pause to listen briefly, but if it just seems like personal Farren stuff that wouldn't affect us, she'll probably move on - I think Farren is deemed trustworthy enough that if he learns anything more about himself, we can be sure he won't use that information to do anything that might harm us or anyone else. Ryn would be more interested if it was someone else talking about Farren, rather than Farren talking about himself. Because he's considered "part of the group", so if other people are talking about any of us, it might be worth listening in, in case they're saying anything negative/ominous.]

Meri glanced towards Desmine, then reached out and took the finger, tucking it carefully in a pocket out of sight.
As she did, Timur quickly lowered himself from her shoulder and climbed down into the depths of her pack, using the branches of the tree-like structure inside as a ladder.

Turning her attention back to Sarah, she looked over the burns.
"Should be ok with a little extra help" she murmured, reaching back and placing her fingers over the two blue crystals on her staff while holding her other hand up to Sarah's cheek, not quite touching it.
A surge of infusion energy rushed up one arm and down the other, gathering around Sarah's face and soaking into the burned patch like water.

Straightening up again, Meri moved over to Elias and reached out to take his wounded hand.
On her back, Timur clambered back out of her pack, dragging the box she kept her various reagents and other alchemical substances in.
"Funny how fate works sometimes" remarked Meri, crouching down next to Elias and taking the box from Timur.  "I've only ever been trained in repairing inanimate objects and infusing them with energy.  While that can also be redirected to heal the living, something like this would be more complex.  I can't just stick a finger back on like some village craftsman repairing a broken chair leg or something, I mean it would hold together, but it wouldn't be alive."

While she was talking, she selected a couple of vials from the box and poured their contents into an empty vial, watching them react in a fizzing crackling display before settling into an oddly flesh-coloured liquid that occasionally changed to a lighter or darker shade of colour when not directly observed.
"But, a little while back, we happened to encounter someone who was cursed by a strange arcane occurrence happening at the same time as a spell he used was turned back on him.  It changed him into the form of a wooden stick.  Inanimate form, but still alive."
Taking up the vial, she handed it to Timur, then pulled her staff out from the straps of her backpack, examining one of the crystalline shard tips.
"Long story short, someone else then broke him in half.  Lucky for him, the magic of his unusual form sustained him for some time.  And, putting him back together helped me learn a little about repairing living things.  So, while you might not feel too lucky right now, fate gave you a break when it brought us together.  You're also lucky that sword of his was sharp, made a nice clean cut, easier to repair..."

She raised the staff again and looked back at Elias.
"Is all this talk distracting you?  Hope so, because I'll need to numb that arm, or this'll hurt like the Nine Hells!"
With a sudden movement, she jabbed the tip of the staff towards Elias, causing a purple-ish spark to jump onto his arm, making it immediately go numb.

"Sorry about that" she continued.  "I find it's best not focus on these things too much.  Ok, now keep perfectly still unless you want this to go back on crooked!"

Picking Timur off her shoulder, she placed him on Elias' arm, where he clung on, still holding the vial.
Meri placed her staff aside, pausing to give one of the metal bands near the tip a sharp twist, detaching one of the crystalline tips to use as a tool again.
With a glance in Desmine's direction, she cautiously removed the severed finger from her pocket and handed it to Timur, swapping it for the vial he held.  While Timur held the finger in place against the stump, Meri quickly poured the vial over it, then she set to work using the tip to direct some kind of thin concentrated beam of the blue infusion energy over the cut, somehow fusing the torn skin back together.
Closing her eyes, she then focused her awareness inwards, concentrating intently on reconnecting the broken bone and the other intricate internal connections...


OOC: Anyone getting the feeling Meri's bedside manner needs a lot of work? :)
Figured that putting the Stick back together would have given her some experience of repairing living things inside and out.
Rolling Heal: 25 (13 + 12) - Lucky 13 :)

Using an Infusion on both Sarah and Elias too.  Won't ask Farren to recharge them after this though, unless there are others I need to use them on.  Don't want to use too many of his up in case we run into trouble again before we can rest.

Desmine still looked slightly unfocused, and reacted slowly but vaguely thankful for passing on guardianship of the finger.

Sarah winced as Meri went to work, touching her face and other burns afterwards gingerly. Still, she seemed to be much more ready to push away both Starl and Jessah from fussing over her, so her health had certainly improved. That group moved with Sarah towards the new campfire, so sit and watch proceedings.

Meanwhile, Young Gidd dithered around, wincing and craning in equal measure to see what was going on with Elias. Elias's hand, it seemed, had caught a blast from the dragon's breath which had fortunaely sealed off the wound - even if in an ugly way. There was therfore a lot of blood staining his clothing from the start where he had jammed that hand in to himself, but it was fine to now take time healing it as close to properly as the situation and Meri's skill allowed.

Elias, despite previous grumblings, seemed at least able to shut up and keep stoic now that his hand was finally being seen too. Perhaps having to finally show it off, as well as Meri's words, made him a touch more reassured. Or perhaps the dragon had put many things - the loss of a finger - in to perspective. Desmine also kept close to reassure the man, though she didn't look too closely at the wound itself.

The pale faced guard almost looked as if he was going to remark on Meri's initial wild stories, but again a real live dragon, on top of Meri's fighting of such, the previous tales of bears coming true, the previous tales of the 'woods witch' coming true.... all of it seemed to force Elias to take the story at face value.

He cried out in angry shock when pocked then cried out in surprised pain and the cursed then finally, simply grumbled and set himself against the pain as Meri attached the finger. At least it seemed numb enough the nam didn't faint. It seemed that Meri's study of Goodwin and the cleaness of the cut had worked out well. Meri's magic managed to combat some of the burn damage, and the finger seemed to be reattached with what passed for a similar look to the rest of his hand. Elias could barely move it or the hand, but that should only be a temprary thing, and a few days of exercise would most certainly start to rehabilitate it. Elias stared in shock,and simply nodded in thanks.

"Elais says thank you,"Desmine said simply, then guided the man towards the campfire too.


No problem about the surges, after all, not like you'll need access to healing for the rest of the night, right? :p  Maybe figure out a way to ask Nym sneakily for surges. Or just use up your own if you think you've got spare ones too.

Oh, really like the story as distraction and just general fun Meri showing off what she's experienced, nbd :)


Meanwhile, Maggrath was waving away Nym's concerns. "Eh, we are running out of time, so you cannot get it wrong. I would overheat rather than underheat the meat though. It might make the vegetables mushier and the outside of the meat tougher, but I'm sure you can just magic that better somehow. It's more important to make the meat safe than strickly edible." Maggrath took out a needle thin knife from somewhere, and after sprinkling in some more spices, stabbed the meat. She seemed to take more care to dig deeper and pull the meat open wider many times.

All the people who gathered together round the campfire - far closer than tey had been earlier - simply sat and stared at the flames, or Nym's and Maggrath's movements, and gingerly examined their remaining wounds. There seemed to be a companionabe silence as everyone tried to assimilate the events that had just happened. Having Nym - who had been not long before a larger than life wild mage fighting a dragon - sitting happily heating a cauldron seemed to be oddly soothing.

As Ryn moved around, the guards would distractedly acknowledge her, and some like Gibb or Jessah even reach out a hand to try and see if they could pet her.

[Private to Nym: Only the guard twin with the rest arm spoke earlier when Ryn was close - mumbling something about idiots as he looked deeper in to the woods as if to look for someone.

Meanwhile, Farren and Samel's conversation had seemed reasonably benign.

"- would you wear that?" asked Samel of something Farren was wearing on his neck.

"Can you blame me? You seem to have me at a disadvantage."

"But I helped you! With your powers! When..with Darasee!"

"And I'd like more help, but you seem to be the one who is famed for closing off your mind, while you just told me I was projecting mine."

Samel grumbled, and then started trying to explain complex psionic terms as Ryn moved away...]

"Okay!" says Nym happily, as she continues heating the cauldron and its contents. "If something doesn't taste good, I can always change it anyway."

She focuses a little more heat on the chunks of meat to ensure they're cooked more thoroughly.

"And if we start eating and someone thinks something isn't cooked right, I can always cook it a bit more. I just need to point some warmth at it, that's all, to make it all hot and yummy and stuff. So I'm sure everything will be fine and we can all have yummy food!"

Ryn, meanwhile, sees those reaching hands out to touch her and allows it for a few moments per person before moving on.

I sort of hope we don't level up any time soon, seeing how I don't have access to the Character Builder either...well, technically I think I do since I think it's on this laptop, but not Nym's file specifically. Still, I could probably just remake it from scratch given that I have everything written out in her sheet on here. But maybe we can spend a few IRL weeks just having this dinner and some conversation and stuff, and I'll be back at my computer again by the time anything else happens ;).

Meri straightened up, looking more wearied than she had even after the fight with the dragon.
Reaching for her staff, she re-attached the tip to it and threaded it into the straps of her backpack again, then began packing away the alchemical equipment.

"The numbness shouldn't last much longer, but I'd avoid any heavy lifting or anything else that might put a strain on that finger for now.  It should heal up nicely given time" she remarked, looking to Elias, before turning her attentions to everyone else around them.


OOC: Anyone else look banged-up enough to need healing?  :)
This message was last edited by the player at 23:22, Mon 23 Apr 2018.

Don't worry about leveling up Nym, after all, you need to earn more experience first. And that would mean some sort of encounter. And what encounter could possible happen right now? Why none, none I say! I mean, I feel really guilty about making Meri heal all these people and do all this book-keeping, when clearly all the surges and so forth will restore at the end of this encounter-less night :D

I mean in all seriousness, I can slow the pace down a little but presumably even if we did get in to a combat / skill challenge situation you'd be ok playing from your RPoL character sheet?


Elias nodded, seemingly emotionally numb himself still, but at least was able to mumble a thank you. It seemed as if now his finger had been restored, everything had been a dream he was trying to tell if he was woken from.

Meri, Diaomond back at the camp looks bloodied, Stark is just bloodied, andJessah still seems injured without being bloodied. So up to three guards you could still concentrate on if you wanted. Depends how far you want to go with your resources. Don't forget, Samel and/or Farren might also have something like healing if you wanted to prod them in to action.

It seemed as if everyone had gathered around the campfire now, even Farren and Samel coming back. Farren took his previous position at the opposite end from the retainers, and reluctantly Samel went over to them, giving Farren an odd look.

Still, it was far cosier than the previous arrangement with Geekaar, and not just because the distance was so much closer, and the canopy of the wood sheltered them more. All were in a companionable silence, to a certain extent. It was hard to feel as threatened or wary of fellow humans when a legendary beast had attacked the group for an unfathomable reason.

Maggrath stood up from a stoop, poking the meat. "I would say the food is done enough. Sorry all, that it is not my best, but luckily that is because it will be Nym's best. Mortal means has done all it can in trying circumstances. But Nym has promised to make the food to our liking, and I for one am planning to ask very nicely but very vocally for something good. I think we all deserve it. Always honour a cook by taking what they offer, if it's going to be good."

Maggrath gave a bow to Nym, and then painfully walked over to a cushion and sat down. She also went and gave a hand to briefly pet Ryn, and it seemed the activity continued with more of the guards and retainers.


Seems like Nym has permission to go distribute the food :) Fel free to decide how your going to do that, and who to start with!

Jessah looked around, then took a breath. "So... can I ask... what was that? I mean... any of that? Any of the things? Or what happened? Or why? Or what we're going to do about it? Or what we're going to do in general? Or..." Jessah came to an uncharacteristic stop, looking around confused.

Farren raised his hand, to the odd looks of some. "I have a better question. Or two." He pointed behind him. "What are we going to do about those four?" He asked, of Geekaar's guards, two of which were still visible, standing with their backs to the group unmoving. Farren then pointed almost accusingly between the two twins. "And what happened to your two guard friends? Why aren't they here with the rest of us?"

As Farren was pointing out, the two female guards who had fought alongside the twins earlier, and had protected Maggrath, were missing. Maggrath herself seemed embarrassed to have missed that, everyone else was simply curious but looked to Diamond for answers.

Well, I have my dice now - stopped by the house a few days ago and picked them up. Sorry it's been a few days since I last posted - hadn't got on the laptop again till tonight. Hopefully will be on more often over the next week. Not sure where I'll be past next Friday but should know by the end of Monday.

"Oh, don't worry." says Nym, cheerfully. "I'm sure we can all have yummy food. If it doesn't taste good I can just change that, too."

She pauses and peers into the cauldron.

"Hmm. Do we have...um...spoons and things? To scoop it up? And, you know, bowls to put it in? Or something we can use as bowls?"

She glances around, looking for some kind of suitable containers.

Hope it's all working out ok!

Since your pause is just for a simply thingie, I'm happy to add a comment about it.


Maggrath looked around. "Hmm, cooking takes longer than this usually. The bowls and plates are still in the wagon."

For obvious reasons, everyone looked across to the collection of wagons out in the open with trepidation. It seemed that the guards had small makeshift cuttlery for themselves if neededin their own packs, at least those who had thought to take them from their own wagon.


So yeah, Nym can go get them herself, or ask someone nicely to go get them while she dishes up to those who have plates already.

OOC: Sorry for the delay.  Bit of a busy week!

Meri had cleared away the last of her equipment and returned Timur to his usual perch on her shoulder again.
"That was a dragon" she replied almost matter-of-factly to Jessah's question.  "Though I'm more interested in that."
She pointed towards the mutant bear creature that had appeared before being killed by the dragon, eyeing it with a curious look.

At the question of the missing guards, she looked around, pulling her goggles down over her eyes and staring intently at the surrounding ground...


OOC: Hmm, maybe went after the horses?  Or got picked off by some sinister stealthy sneaky stalky thing?  :o

Rolling Perception to see if there are any signs of which way they might have gone.  Footprints, broken tree branches where someone pushed past them, that sort of thing...  34 (20 + 14) - ooo, natural 20!  I can see The Universe in all its glory! :o
(Yep, probably going to wish I'd saved that for an attack or something later!)
This message was last edited by the player at 18:56, Sat 28 Apr 2018.

Ha, I wouldn't worry about you having delays when I might not even have Internet access past this Friday ;). It's looking like the longest possible time it could take to fix our house it about six months but it should probably take less time than that. So presumably we'll be in some kind of temporary house for that time and I don't know if we'll have Internet access. Bloody hope so, though :(.
Anyway...

"Oh, okay." says Nym happily. She looks around. "Um...shall I go and get them? Or did you want to do that? Wait, I don't know where in the wagon they are...I mean, I don't remember seeing any. Um. So maybe you could do that? And then everyone can have food! Yay!"

Is there a ladle or something with the cauldron that we can use for serving?

Oh no Nym! :(  I hope the temporary accomodation is as good as can be expected, and I hope you get as quickly as possible back to your actual home!

Maggrath looks across to the wagons, then shrugs and reluctantly starts off. Diamond seems to relent, and moves with her to provide an 'escort' across to the wagons. Also managing to avoid answering any questions. Both keep looking to the skies, although there is nothing but the gathering clouds and the darkening sky. Dott seemed to hesitate regarding also following the two to help, but finally sadly sat down, apparently not quite letting go of the fear of dragons.

After a few moments, the mundane terror from the skies of light rain reared its head. Luckily, the canopy under the trees was such that only those going across to the wagon needed to fear it, though.

Meanwhile, Nym found a ladle, normal spoon, and the knife that Maggrath had kept wiht her to tend to the food. Pill, Sarah, and Jessah appeared to have their own bowls, but also enough spare that Gibb and Stark got too. Gibb dutifully offered his to Elias, who after a moment slightly less dutifully offered it to Desmine. Desmine took the bowl, but was clearly more concerned with filling ti fot Elias, who still looked to his numb finger, and still looked slightly pale.

Paleness is just narrative! Nothing stew won't cure!

As the five guards gathered round the pot, it was Pill that answered Farren and Meri's question. "Tesse and Jynne went after those horses, or at least find one. They should be able to find them quickly. We should perhaps have at least one rider get back to Blackwood and let them know what haoppened here. You know... just in case...."

[Private to Meri: Yeah, Meri would be able to to spot that where the forses went, the last place she'd seen the other two guards, etc mean this is exactly what's happened. Now Meri looks closer, there are some obvious signs of the horses having smashed throug hthe trees, so the two guards should not have too many problems following the horses. It would be more a case of where the horses decided to stop, and how terrified they were to coax back again. Meri would expect the two guards to be back soon, and if they aren't, could be very confident of following their trail.]

He last the last quietly, and concentrated on the bow in front of him. Jessah was still uncharacteristically quiet after Meri had said the word 'dragon' out loud, and didn't ask further questions.

It was up to Sarah to look over to Meri and Farren, and address Meri. "What is ... what is that bear?" Sarah couldn't look across to it for too long.

Yeah, it looks like a house may be found for us soon, which is good. I'd really like to see if I can move my computer over there, even if we end up having no Internet (which is a possibility, so if I disappear for absolutely ages, that's why :(), but we'll have to see about that when it becomes a thing. Our entire roof is gonna be replaced, apparently, so it n looks like everything on the top floor os gonna be moved temporarily elsewhere regardless.

Nym smiles at the sight of people holding out bowls and dips the ladle into the stew, bringing it out full.

"Here you go!" she says happily, plonking the contents of the ladle into the nearest bowl she can reach. "If it tastes bad or it's not cooked right, I can fix that so just let me know!"

She continues serving up stew to anyone with the capacity to accept it.
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 13:45, Sun 06 May 2018.

OOC: Wishing you all the best for getting house troubles sorted out soon.


"Looks like they went that way" remarked Meri, pointing off into the woods.  "Should be easy enough to track them if they don't come back soon."

She looked back at Sarah, as she asked about the bear, the dark blue lenses of the goggles holding an odd 'sparkling' effect that only made her eyes seem stranger looking, even without their usual blue luminous appearance.
"I imagine it may have been a normal bear once.  It's been altered in some way I don't yet understand, although I recognised the feel of its magic just before it appeared.  I've encountered such power somewhere else too, and I'm definitely curious as to what it's doing here."

She moved off in the direction of the bear corpse, flicking down two of the smaller lenses over one of her eyes as she went.
"I think the bear was the dragon's first target.  Then it became fixated on destroying someone else.  Unfortunately for it, that someone was under my protection."


OOC: So unless someone stops Meri, she'll go off to examine the dead bear-monster-thing.
Trying to figure out whether it's a natural creature that was exposed to some kind of weird magic, or if it was originally just something weird that happened to live near here.
Not sure if that would be Arcana or Nature...  Or even Dungeoneering, since it looks kind of aberrant...
I'll try Arcana and Nature first anyways:
Arcana: 29 (15 + 14)
Nature: 10 (3 + 7) - Ick!
This message was last edited by the player at 22:50, Fri 04 May 2018.

As always Nym, if you spot an edit in your posts, it's because you missed a "/" in your colour wrap around :D Otherwise 'enjoy' your temp accomodation! Note phones can be good wireless hot spots if you have to connect your computer temporarily. Not for this game, just in general if you need internet on your comp.

Jessah happened to be first to offer a bowl to Nym. While still deep in thought, she seemed o wan to at least fill the awkward silence with something. "Thank you," she said. "And thank you for making the dragon go away."

It seemed to set the precidence, where all the other guards, while shuffling forwards uncomfortably, respectfully thanked Nym for her help one way or another.


Farren seemed to have also dug out a makeshift bowl - a very knawed and haphazard looking wooden thing - from his pack. As he walked towards the cauldron, andnoticed that Many was dithering around. Many seemed happy about food and people, but also interested in the bear - if a little frightened. Meri then mentioned protecting someone else, and Many's eyes went wide.

Farren offered Many the bowl, and after failing to magically lift it, Farren instead motioned as if to balance it on Many's head. Many nodded, liking the fact it also covered him frm direct view. After acouple of attempts to keep it stableby physically using his eyestalks, he seemed happy enough to drift across to Nym. "Food, plea-sah?" said the floating bowl to Nym.



Meri was left to investigate the bear on her own, perhaps due to her matter of fact pronouncements on protecting someone from a dragon. Eyes did start looking around the camp, but no one seemed to look to Many. Especially Farren, who deliberately did not. Some seemed to look to Nym, as if wondering if the oddly detacthed wild mage was the one meant. Some also looked to Farren with more suspicion.

Edit: Yeah, this mutant bear might just be an aberration as well as a beast. Still, you rolled well in arcana, so don't worry about it!

[Private to Meri: As for the bear itself, the creature was distorted so much that it was hard to tell much about its previous nature. Other than, it had had a previous nature, as was turned inside out by a magical effect. Instead, the signature of the magic radiated all to clearly and was the thing that stood out. The magic felt exactly like the other magics enountered before to do with the shadow's release, like Many's and Goodwin's. More importantly, as faint as it was, there was some form of 'trail' to it coming off the bear. Already it seemed as if the echoes of that trail were increased not decreased as they left the bear. Meri was sure she could probably, if pushed, track the bear back to where the incident happened, even though that would have been weeks ago. Perhaps whatever this bear had been in contact with, and had converted it, had been the real target of the dragon. That may well mean that the original targer would be destroyed though, and the bear just traced afterwards as a loose end, or unwanted witness. Perhaps Many had simply been a co-incidental target, a mistake. Perhaps.

All that was certain previously was that the shadow's magic had changed things when it came in to contact with other magic. Whatever had resulted in this bear being tranformed was - or had been - something magical itemself. Perhaps powerfully so.]
This message was last edited by the player at 19:22, Sun 06 May 2018.

Ah, yeah...probably likely to make a few more mistakes than usual since I'm typing on my dad's tablet. It's a bit of a pain in the arse to use but at least it means I can post :P.

Nym giggles at the floating bowl and ladles some stew into it.

"Oh, here you go." she says, cheerfully. "Enjoy!"

Meri frowned slightly as she looked over the bear, seemingly either not noticing or not caring about the effect her words had created in everyone else.
As she squatted down next to the corpse, Timur shuffled around behind her and clambered down into the depths of her pack again, as if responding to some unspoken request.

Meri looked over the bear's body, her gaze, apparently enhanced in some way by the lenses of the goggles she was wearing, pausing on the more unnatural looking parts of the creature, and then on the wound inflicted by the dragon.
On her back, Timur clambered back out of her pack, carrying a couple of small vials of some alchemical substances, and one of the numerous crumpled sheets of parchment Meri seemed to leave littering the inside of her pack, along with a quill and ink.

Reaching back, Meri detached one of the tips of her staff and took one of the vials from Timur.  Holding out the staff tip, she gathered some of the blood from the bear's wound on the end, then poured a few drops of the vial's contents over it.
The blood immediately dissolved into a bright red mist which dissipated upwards into the air.  Meri's gaze followed the trail with a thoughtful look.  She placed the staff tip aside, took up the quill and parchment and noted down some kind of formula and a strange diagram of intersecting lines that seemed to make sense only to Meri herself.
Returning these to Timur, who clambered back down into the pack with them, she reattached the tip of her staff and glanced around the body, adjusting the smaller secondary lenses on her goggles into a new configuration.
Whatever effect this had on her vision, she seemed to become fixated on something invisible on the ground near the bear, her eyes following some unseen trail off into the forest where the creature had first appeared from.

Rising to her feet again, she raised the goggles back onto her forehead and stood there, peering off into the trees, seemingly thinking something over, as Timur emerged from her pack again and returned to his perch on her shoulder.
"I wonder how many more are out there.  Just how far did that go out to?" she murmured quietly, seemingly addressing that remark only to Timur...


OOC: Hmmmmm...

[Private to The Altweaver: Very tempted to follow that trail out of curiosity now, see if there are any remnants of whatever was there...
Would Meri have any idea how far away that was?  As in, is it possible to get there and back in one night? :)]

[Private to Meri:
The problem with the magical effect was that it happened three weeks ago, and everyone seemed remarkably surprised by the references to bears - even thinking Sarah made it up. So it's very possible that the two bears have been moving in this direction in a perhaps more haphazard manner, but for the same rough distance, as Meri and Nym. So maybe not something that can be tracked for half the night in dark woods :)

On the bright side though, the trail seems to be tied to the bear. So perhaps taking a small part of the bear - like a tooth or claw - will give Meri an innocuous talisman that might still contain the trail. So either she'd still have the means to come back later, or perhaps even find out that the trail is leading directly back to the source, not just indicating the pattern of the bear's travel.

And in that case, then Meri could use the starting trail now, and the indication later, to perhaps tringulate an area if she could get a map.

Anyway, so either it would might be a major detour now (as in tomorrow onwards) rather than doing Thirdgate, or perhaps it might be something that can be planned for later, once you have more maps, etc. Or perhaps something will happen in the meantime...


Something else that Meri might recall and realise. Whiel the effect of the portal opening might difuse over distance, still, it is very possible that a wide, wide area of small and large effects has happened all over the region, maybe country, maybe continent, and for all you know througout the world!

The Shadow did say it was a mechanism to 'warn' the gods, and more importantly the followers of the gods - if they knew how to look - that something had happened.]


Maggrath and Diamond finally return, Diamond with some bowls balanced awkwardly, Maggrath holding a folded piece of cloth with some cuttlery poking out inside. Maggrath gestures for Diamond to go distribute the bowls to whoever needs them. Diamond looks as if he is about to argue, then with a sigh heads off to Geekaar's retainers to distribute the bowls. Desmine stops him briefly to get a fresh bowl, having already given the previous filled one to Elias.

Farren takes the opportunity to perloin two more. He briefly walks over to Many, who is now strugling to bob around with a full bowl. The full bowl is lifted and placed on the ground, and soon three little rodents and one happy and careful beholder happily share the food. Many is in fact a little disadvantaged at trying to eat liek that, and it is Ee-Ee who shyly pushed little nuggets of food higher in the bowl for Many to grab with his tongue.

Farren chuckles then walks over with the two bowls to Nym, apparently trying to get in before the second rush. Maggrath is standing near Nym, and gives Farren the evil eye regarding having two dishes.

"How's the food?" asked Farren to Nym, ignoring the stares.

At Farren's query, Nym looks at him, then glances around at everyone she's served food too before looking back at him again.

"Umm, well, no-one's said anything bad about it so far." she says. "So I suppose that means it's okay."

She grins and continues dishing out food, but keeps eyeing the contents of the cookpot as though eager to sig into her own share.

Phew, sorry about the delay. The tablet didn't have a lot of charge on it last night abd I didn't get round to checking my forums for the few nights before that. But I have it all evening tonight, with the charger too, because Dad has gone out for the evening and won't be back till like 1am or so. Anyway, in other news, we just about have a house sorted. I imagine we'll get moved in pretty quickly once it's all been approved or whatever, and I am gonna bloody well get my computer up there even if I have to lug it up piece by piece in my arms :P. And I'm sure we'll get Internet set up too so if that all happens then it'll be back to business as usual as far as my online presence is concerned, Hooray!

OOC: Wishing you luck in getting the house situation sorted out.  Would have let you stay with me if I lived near enough.  Although, like Meri, I live in a place that resembles an indoor scrapyard.  You'd probably have lasted a couple of days before you got fed up tripping over things! :)


Meri returned her gaze to the bear, looking oddly indecisive about something.
After a moment, Timur, seemingly responding to some unspoken request, dived back into the backpack, eventually returning holding a small saw.
Taking this from him, Meri stooped down beside the bear and reached out to one of its paws...


[Private to The Altweaver: OOC: Will pinch one of the claws as a talisman then.  Leaving the action incomplete, just in case the thing isn't actually completely dead yet (or is zombiefied!)  I am becoming familiar with the Way of the Evil GM! ;)]

No worries Nym - and sorry for waiting to reply until now! Good luck getting your temp set up done.

Maggrath has quickly gone across with the bowls to Geekaar's retainers, before coming back. Still with an evil eye to Farren, she then takes a bowl and gestures for Nym togive her the ladel. "A cook should take the time to enjoy their own work. I can go serve the rest."

It seems the retainers are still a little nervous. Perhaps understandably, they too saw Nym make a dragon run away, but unlike the Blackwood's guards, they don't have any sense of Nym being on their side. At least the guards know Nym was highlughted as being a friend of Celendara, meaning a friend of the village.

Farren nods a head towards where Meri is, and pointedly says, "I was going to take one these over to Meri to see how - and what - she is doing. Want to come along?"


The bear's corpse did nothing apart from vent a tiny amount of bodily gas from one of the rents in its chest as Meri touched it.

[Private to Meri: Go ahead and call your new talisman a Mutant Bear Claw. Nothing happens with it nor the body. Advanced Evil GMing is to have you now relieved and even happy about getting this thing, rather than wondering why I forced you to take something so icky, and indeed what evil thing might happen because you now have it :p]

Still in the hotel for now. Our stay's been extended yet again, for another two weeks. Hopefully should be set up in the temp house by then. I'll keep you posted!

"Oh, yay, thanks!" says Nym in response to Maggrath, scooping herself a helping of the stew n into a spare bowl and handing over the ladle. "If anyone doesn't like it, I can make it taste better or whatever. It's no trouble!"

At Farren's suggestion, Nym looks over toward Meri and wrinkles her nose slightly.

"Eww, not really. It looks icky." she says, instead looking about for a spot she can plonk herself which looks comfortable.

There would be cushions beside the younger guards, the older guards, the more experienced guards, or by Dott. Or sit on the grass near Many :)

And two weeks is a little annoying, but at least the temp house is still on the table!

Seemingly unaware of any notice anyone else is taking in her activities, Meri was busy sawing off one of the mutated bear's large claws, for reasons known only to herself.

Eventually returning the saw to Timur for replacement back among the tools in her pack, she pulled the goggles back down over her eyes and studied the removed claw through them for a moment before pushing them back up onto her forehead and looking back at the bear.
Her expression seemed as unreadable as ever, although, anyone looking closely enough might have noticed a faint hint of something approaching sadness in her eyes, gone almost immediately.

Turning away from the creature, she moved back towards the middle of the camp again, still looking at least partially lost in her own thoughts...


[Private to The Altweaver: OOC: So would the talisman take up an equipment slot, or could it be tied to Meri's staff with a piece of string or something?  :)  If I'm going to attract evil stuff, may as well do it properly!]

[Private to Meri:
It won't take up an equipment slot, but you can hang it around your neck or on your staff as you desire :)]

Farren seemed to have wandered over, and offered a bowl of hot stew, steaming softly in the cooling air of approaching evening.

"Find anything interesting?" he asked, looking between the removed paw and the bear corpse with amused curiosity.

Meri eyed the stew with a slightly wary look in Nym's direction before shrugging and accepting it, sitting down on the ground near the cushions and placing it aside.
Timur had returned from the depths of her backpack with a small corkscrew-like tool and a piece of string.  With these, Meri proceeded to make a small hole through the bear claw while replying.

"That used to be a normal bear, like the first one that came through before it.  But something changed it, the same power that affected other magic, other things in other places.  I didn't think it could have reached this far, but perhaps it wasn't the same source.  The place we found before probably wasn't the only portal, and that could be problematic.  It's possible that Blace knew of another portal and went looking for it, I can't be sure without knowing exactly what she knew."

Carefully, she took the piece of string and threaded it through the hole in the claw, tying it onto her staff where the object dangled like a hook on a fishing line, clinking softly against the metal with her movements.

"I may be able to track the residual traces of that magic back to where the bear came from.  It's likely that the dragon was sent to destroy whatever was there though, so there may be nothing useful left.  Also it means going off-course quite a way, and I did say I'd get you to Fivespears, didn't I?"
She smirked slightly at that.
"Anyway, I know a way I could find the trail again afterwards.  So perhaps this is something to investigate another day.  Or perhaps I won't need to.  Time will tell, it usually does."

Handing the tools back to Timur to return to her pack, she propped the staff against her shoulder and picked up the stew, sniffing at it cautiously before taking some...


OOC: Hoping this doesn't turn Meri all rainbow-coloured :)

Well, Meri has seen Nym heat food before, or change its flavour, and it no effect on whomever was eating it. So I'm sure it's fine ;).

Nym looks about, then goes and plonks herself down on a cushion near Dott.

"Ahh, time for yummy food at last!" she says, and starts eating.

Luckil for Meri, the stew is probably what you'd expect from something that should have been slow cooked and instead had to be quick cooked. Imagine it like a microwave meal :p

Farren looked to the bear thn Meri with a sardonic gaze. "Gods are bringing forth trees from the ground and dragons from myth. I would say that whatever the effect that was generates, I doubt it was subtle. For all we know the entire world could have felt its effects. That's a whole lot of broken islands and a mythical continent that could still be echoing from it. I would be curious to trace down the origin of the bear, but I agree we should go to Thirdgate as quickly as possible. Not for my own needs, or at least not just for them. It is starting to feel as if the very gods are pressing their gaze down on us - I would like to get the blessing of at leats one of them if that is the case."

Farren made the comment regarding gods as a joke, and seemed to almost smile to himself at the foolishness of it. [Private to GM: Little does he know :p Or at leats want to know!]

He looked up at the sky through the small breaks in the trees, and looked around. "I suppose blundering around in the night to get there would be foolish though. Still, I would prefer it if those guards would hury back with at leats one horse, so we know we had the option."

He then looked around to the other guards, Geekaar's guards. "I wonder if they will stay like that all night? It's.. disconcerting, to say the least."



Meanwhile, over by the retainers, the older ones looked uncomfortable by Nym being so near, and Samel looked embarrassed. Dott seemed oddly happy to see Nym, perhaps more relieved. "Do...does... will... is it often like this?" he asked the wild mage. "Do... are... have you... is there always magical creatures that follow you around?"

He seemed to consider something looking up to the sky, then asked, in a hushed tone. "Do you think you can make a dragon be friendly? Friendly enough to ride?"


I decided that maybe Dott has gone all the way through terror and out of the other side. I mean, after all, he's probably been threatened by being kicked by a horse at some point, and Nym's even made Geekaar's horses friendsly enough. The sky is the limit! Maybe literally! :D

Meri frowned slightly at the taste of the stew, but then seemed to accept it as it is and continue eating.
"Definitely not subtle" she replied thoughtfully.  She seemed to hesitate a while before continuing, as if still uncertain of how much to reveal.

"The being within the portal called himself Magic.  As in possibly the original source of the powers that exist in nature and that arcanists study every day, and the gods were the ones who locked him away, maybe out of fear that mortals could grow too powerful.  I can only assume, in the absence of any other information, that Tiamat sent that dragon to clear up some of the remnants of that power, in the form of things that were changed or created by it, like the bear.  I can't help wondering if other gods are causing similar purges in other places, which makes me wonder if..."

She trailed off there, looking a little disturbed.  Her gaze moved in Nym's direction for a moment before she continued.
"Whether all the gods have placed their usual rivalries aside to band together against what they see as a common threat, or whether some are acting on their own for their own reasons, I'm uncertain as yet."

Pausing to take another sip of the stew, she continued.
"Back there, when I did that little fire sword job in Blackwood, this backpack was one of the items I gained as a form of payment.  It contained a hidden item of some value that the sergeant claimed to have found on an adventure in her past, a symbol of Tiamat.  It has a strange aura that seems to attract draconic creatures to it, and I feared at first that it had drawn that dragon to the camp, although it soon proved that wrong.  At least the symbol had a nicely distracting effect on the dragon, otherwise it might have caused more damage than it did.  I planned on taking it to a priest of Bahamut, to see if that aura can be removed, whereupon the item could be safely sold or used for something else.  Perhaps they would know more about the dragons too."

Meri fell silent again for a short time, eating more of the stew, while Timur clambered back up out of her pack after returning the items to her stash.

At the question of the guards, Meri glanced in their direction.
"Maybe they were left behind to make sure no-one ran off with Geekaar's wagon.  Or rifled the hidden stash he keeps in there" she remarked casually.  "Or maybe they're not really 'alive' as we would understand it, without him around to command them.  They might simply be living automata, like the Warforged, for all we know. Hmm."

As if intrigued by that theory, she placed the stew aside and got up, taking up her staff and approaching the nearest of the guards, taking care to stay some distance outside of sword range and stopping facing him.
"Do you know where your master is?" she asked, watching the guard cautiously, her staff readied to try to parry any sudden attack aimed at her.


OOC: *poke poke* (Metaphorical poking of course!  At least for now)  :)

Also, I can totally imagine Nym as a Dragon Rider.  Albeit a weird rainbow colour-changing dragon!  Maybe Ryn can change into one at some point! :)

[Private to The Altweaver: Disturbed look was Meri wondering if Stonebridge was likely to get attacked in the same way to make sure no-one went poking around in the portal caves.  Then deciding not to mention that in case it upset Nym.  We don't want the walking arcane atom bomb to get upset, do we?  (O.o)']
This message was last edited by the player at 20:21, Tue 22 May 2018.

Lol that'd be cool...there is actually a draconic familiar (though it's not one that I picked among my list of possibilities to roll for when Ryn changes form each day), but like all familiars it's just a little dragon-thingy...helps with Arcana checks, if I remember rightly, and automatically grants its master knowledge of theh Draconic language. But Nym on a colour-changing dragon is certainly a cool thought :D. I mean, a colour-changing dragon in general would be interesting, really...but chromatic or metallic? Hmmm...
[Private to GM: Muahaha...little does she know >:). Okay so a couatl isn't really anything to do with dragons but they're still kind of reptilian (or at least, serpentine), right? ;)]

As Nym starts eating her stew, Ryn comes over almost as if on cue at Dott's question about magical creatures. Nym giggles and gestures to indicate the multi-coloured mass of fur now sitting near her feet.

"Well, Ryn's very magical." she says. "I mean, I'm pretty sure she's made of magic. At least, more so than anyone else. I mean, I don't think I ever met anyone made of magic..."

She seems momentarily thoughtful, then blinks and looks around to gesture at Many.

"And of course there's Many. He's got lots of magic! As for dragons...well, I'm sure some of them are friendly, right? I mean, they must be, surely? There's nice and not-very-nice people in all the races, I think, so why not dragons?"

She shrugs and carries on eating.

Farren knotted his brows with an unusual display of deep concern. He whispered, very quietly, "So, something trapped by the gods very noisily escaped, creaing chaoic magic all hroughou he regions, and now he gods are so scared he direcl move? In ways unheard of before? Melora creates a new world tree, Tiamat summons a mythical dragon from who knows where, and all I see is the Raven Queen, in a way I am certain no one else has ever reported." He looked to the ground concerned. "Unless a giant ruined city was where this portal was, The Raven Queen's message was not against you. Though of course I do not know exactly why Blace and I ended up entangled with you. And Melora did not seem to wish to harm... our little friend there... whenhe was in her grasp. Still..."

Farren looked with more thought to the ground, then looked intently to Meri. "I had worried you might decide to stay, or go back to Blackwood, given the occurrences here. I think if the gods are involved, we can't stay here. The villagers of Blackwood hold to nature not gods. We need the nearest town, and the nearest temple, and we need to speak with them urgently. Obviously the Raven Queen for myself, though Bahamut may serve you better for what we have just seen. This feels terrifyingly large. The Gods do not act this brazenly in the world. Even if they act now, how quickly before one oversteps their bounds, and some great war begins?"

Don't worry, I'm sure it's all fine.


Farren left Meri to her investigations, clearly lost in his own dark thoughts. The guards did not look to Meri as she approached, and the guard she chose to address did not react any more than his counterpart when directly interacted with.

Both seemed to be breathing, and vaguely looking upwards. The eyes were glassy, their breathing shallow. It was almost as if they were dormant, or commatose, but they were stillwell armoed and there was still the fear they may well spring in to action at a moment's notice. Still, they did look like living people, oddly young men now they could be observed for a lengh of time with their smoothed out expressions.

For the moment, absolutely no reaction. The comparison to an automaton seems valid :)


Dott looked around, hen looked around again. Then said to Nym quietly, "There were lots of normal stories of dragons, Myths. Them all being terrible, and just giant unthinking beasts that destroyed things. World demons, that looked like mountains and lakes and forests until riled. But... but I spoke to some priests once. Of...some religion from the east. Your east. I mean.. here. And ... and they did say that dragons thought, and were children of their gods. And... and I once heard a drunk dragonborn say that in the legends of his people, the dragonborn were the children of dragons. And... and they could ride on the backs of their ancestors in to war. He... he was ver drunk. But...well..."

Dot looked miserable but hopeful. "That creature that attacked us was evil, and terrifying, and terrible. But...not all people are bad. Maybe.. maybe not all dragons are bad?"

Meri eyed the guards closely, raising a hand to pull her goggles down over her eyes and flick down a couple of the secondary lenses as if searching for something in the face of the nearest guard.

[Private to The Altweaver: OOC: Trying Arcana check to see if Meri can figure out if these guys really are some kind of living construct or just under some kind of controlling effect tying them to Geekaar or something.  18 (4 + 14) - Ouch, glad I got rid of that roll at least!]

After a few seconds, she raised them back onto her forehead and slowly edged away from the guards again, returning to where Farren was.

"There could easily be more than one portal" remarked Meri quietly, as if there had been no interruption to the conversation.  Although her voice was now lower than before, as if wary of the guards overhearing her.
"And I think he would have preferred to remain hidden from the gods, but the Chained God somehow transported me to his domain.  A mortal soul in a place it should never have been able to reach, the Shadow claimed this would have drawn the attention of the gods to him and thus forced a confrontation.  I don't know whether or not I can trust anything he says, for all I know him and the Chained God are one and the same.  I hope to find somewhere I can research this further."

She heaved a sigh, glancing over at Nym.
"This was never my fight to begin with" she muttered.  "I was content to simply remain where I was, surrounded by the tools of my trade, things I understood, and to just fade away from the world quietly.  I could just return there, but I suspect the gods or whoever represents them would just come looking for me now that they know I'm involved.  Not like they cared about me when I once asked for their help..."


OOC: Meri cares not for the gods and the path of hero types, she just wants to be left alone :)

[Private to The Altweaver: (Wonder why she was willing to help Celindara wipe out the Blight then...) ;)  hehe.]
This message was last edited by the player at 23:14, Mon 04 June 2018.

Hehe, I think Nym cares little for that sort of stuff either, but more because it's all too serious and boring and all that. Gods aren't fun - they spend all their time fighting each other and making people do stuff. Booooo!

Nym shrugs.

"Well, what's people, anyway? I mean, why can't dragons be called people too? Maybe they are. Who knows? Maybe we should ask one if we ever find one. A nice one, I mean. Not one that's all big teeth and...and burny-fire, or whatever. Hmm...this food's okay, isn't it?"

She glances around at those who've been served stew, as though trying to gauge whether anyone might need any amendments to flavour or temperature.

Gods are like player characters, they don't really know what's going on but they'll act tough anyway and kill everyone around :p
[Private to Meri:
You sort of got the gist of them last time I believe, but that of course ages ago. I'll just confirm it again and have maybe Farren weigh in...]

The guard did not react much to Meri looking him over. He seemed docile, almost comatose. He was definitely alive, a living person, just... any will appeared completely absent.[Private to Meri:  It was as if something had either takenhis personality away, or was suppressing it to the point that his body was barely functioning passed breathing and standing upright.

OOC: It's like those Tiger Warriors really - either empty shells or hollowed out. The question, of course, is what has taken their place / suppressing them, why is it now dormant, and is it still in there? And what would make it come back to take control?]

Farren looked concerned when Meri came back. "I know of no 'chained god', and I feel I should know many things. What is it, and when did it transport you?"


Meanwhile, Dott looked sullen. "If the.. dragon... was a person, why didn't it just speak to us? Why did it attack us right away?" He said the next part quietly, "Master Geekaar seemed to always talk his way out of things. If it had talked... maybe he wouldn't have run away."

It seemed that at least one of Geekaar's older retainers heard this, and it caused a few glances around. Darasee stood up, and walked over to Nym. "If you would, I would like to take you up on your offer. The food is fine, but if you can make it anything... can you make it like the sky to the east? A taste to remind me of a broad starlit sky, after a hard day's travel. A hot day starting to cool pleasantly. And the scent of the grasslands southwards, mixing with the salted earth of the trails. Venison and goat have never tasted better than on evenings like that."

Heh, a little bit of an esoteric challenge for Nym. :D

"No idea what he was" replied Meri quietly, leaning back and staring up at the sky.  "A god, or more likely a demon.  The Eye in the Elemental Chaos, the Teacher...  The 'chained' part is probably just metaphorical too, for all I know."
She smirked at that, glancing briefly in Nym's direction, as though enjoying some kind of inside joke with herself.

"Hopefully if I can find a temple or library or somewhere else I can do some research, maybe I'll find out something useful.  Especially if he has a weakness, if there is a way to destroy him or seal him away from the world, chain him up for real.  It might have to come to that before whatever has been set into motion is over and done with."

Nym seems a little confused at what Dott is saying, and shrugs.

"Well, not everyone talks Common, do they?" she says. "I mean, you have to speak a bit of horsey-language to get them to like you, right? Even if it's just moving around the right way and not actually saying anything out loud, that's still talking. Sort of. I mean, it's making language so that someone else understands you..."

She looks over as Darasee comes over and looks almost in equal parts bemused and interested in the challenge of making something taste like an evening.

"Hmm, well...um...I don't know if I've ever been in quite that kind of situation to know what it might taste like," she says, "but maybe I can have a go..."

She gestures toward Darasee's food.

"Umm...try that, maybe?" she says.

Nym has basically just tried to think of some time when she was sat somewhere on a nice evening, after a busy day doing stuff (which to be honest is probably most days, in her case ;)), and now sat somewhere quiet with probably trees and stuff around as the sun's going down. And she'll think of that as she Pretidigitates the food. And then we'll see what happens :D.

"The Elemental Chaos?" said Farren, but didn't elaborate, perhaps not giving further informaiton given that his second question on Meri's 'disappearance' had been ignored.

In case this is player mistake, then Farren wasn't with you when you and Nym were confronted with The Other and Meri mentally checked out. So he does't know when you were taken. In case you have told Farren about this, and I'm not recalling, then I apologise for DM memory lapsing. But I don't believe you did, so it sounds to him as if Meri physically disappeared to some strange realm of an evil god and now isn't answering questions about when it happened :p

"Anything powerful enough to attract the eyes of the gods is a worry, and anything cunning enough to push those eyes to you instead is dangerous. Thirdgate would have at least the temples you seek, but at the moment we have some small issue of getting there quickly. And some would argue, safely..."


"Not bad, but not quite right," says Darasee after a moment. She does not sound disappointed, and indeed now seems very curious. "So how did you do that? How did you even get in the realm of what I asked for?" Darasee looked to Nym speculatively. "Have you been to the freeholds of the east before?"

Nym looks somewhat pleased that Darasee seems reasonably happy with her efforts. She shrugs at the question.

"Umm, no, not that I know of." she says. "I just sort of...thought of how it might feel in the situation you were talking about, all nice and peaceful in some nice trees-y place when it's nearly night time, and then I sort of...pointed it at your food. I mean...normally if I'm changing how something tastes I just think of the flavour and point that at the food or drink. But this wasn't really a flavour as such, more of a...feeling? So I just thought of that instead. I've never really done it like that before. I'm glad it seems to have worked okay!"

Meri nodded, still looking up at the sky.
"When I closed the portal we found, I took away a piece of the arcane 'lock' that was used to open it.  While that wouldn't prevent anyone with considerable magical knowledge from reactivating it, it certainly wouldn't make things easy for them.  I also told the locals there that it would be safer to collapse the caverns and bury the place, but I'm not sure they listened to me.  Still, they can't say they weren't warned.  And if I do ever get to return home, I may pass by there and figure out how to destroy it myself if they haven't."

She sighed and shook her head.
"Anyway, perhaps due to its associations with the portal and the magic that powered it, that fragment still holds a connection to it, and after we met Celindara, I was contacted briefly through it by a being I thought was the Shadow.  He told me of the Thrak'i, and the nature of the Blight, and warned me about another being who was kind of a dark twin of him that he referred to as the Chained God, the Eye in the Elemental Chaos."

She frowned slightly, looking down again and clearly digging deeper into her memory of that short conversation.
"He said he was the one who cast the first seed into the Abyss that gave the demons home.  I had already seen his name, briefly.  In a library that the Shaman who opened the portal had looted, some of the books had been burned by him, and the name appeared briefly on a burned fragment that crumbled away almost instantly.  I didn't know what it meant at the time, and I suspect he was hoping I would speak that name in the portal room and release him from the portal.  The Shadow warned me that names and meanings had great power in that place.  But I had other things on my mind at the time, specifically figuring out how the portal mechanism worked, so I could undo the ritual and close it again."

She looked back at Farren then.
"When the Chained God transported me to the Shadow's domain to force a confrontation between the Shadow and the gods, he claimed he didn't recall telling me all of that.  So I suspect that either one can perfectly imitate the other, or that they're both one and the same, feeding me misinformation so that I'll act in a way he wants me to.  My only defence against that is to find my own path, seek information that isn't tainted.  If I find portals like that first one in other places, I'll try to destroy them if I can.  Not much else I can do for now though.  I almost destroyed the portal fragment I had with me, but then took to wondering if that connection can be used to my advantage in some way, especially if it can be used to disrupt or close other portals..."


OOC: That bit actually slipped my mind, so not like Meri held back that information on purpose.  She is deliberately not telling him the exact location of that first portal though.
(And this is usually the point where Nym cheerfully provides that withheld information anyway, hehe) ;)
This message was last edited by the player at 13:45, Thu 14 June 2018.

Farren seemed to relax slightly in some ways around Meri, while his brows knotted in more worried thought. "Well, I know - somehow - the name of the Elemental Chaos, though I suspect I am not the only one. It is the evershifting realm where the Great Elementals hold sway. [Private to Nym: Nym might, even if she isn't consciously listening, feel her senses prickle. Whether it is a split second and gone unnoticed, is up to you :) ]But I have never heard of that swirling infinity of a storm possessing an eye. I have heard of the Abyss. Many have, even if I suspect many think an abstract realm. It is the black depths where every dark power and demon has laid a claim." Farren chuckled. "I seem to know, many, many stories of how it was formed. Indeed, I believe every ruler of every layer has a twisted story of how they were the one to form all of it." Farren then sobers up. "Though if this Chained God has the eyes of the gods upon him, so much so that mythical flora and fauna rise up at his suspected freeing... perhaps it has a little more credibility than some..."

Farren considers something, then continues. "There is one powerful denizen of the abyss I have, apparently, heard tales of. A god to some." For some reason he looks over to Many, then looks back to Meri. "Her name is the Great Mother. A being so vast that she might be a layer of the abyss all herself, or simply is hard to tell from it. Her eyes are everywhere, it is said, no matter how deep you go in the tunnels of the place." He paused, then said quietly, "She is the mother of all beholderkin. It is said there is no sky in her domain, that the sky of that layer is her all seeing eye looking down..."

[Private to Meri: Meri would probably be right to feel that this isn't quite right, but maybe explains why Farren hesitated when Meri wasn't more explicit before. After all, where did Many come from really, and had Meri actually got the little beholder from the abyss... Obviously, the answer is no. :) Or is it? Nah, probably not, but it's always best for the NPCs to have their own wrong hypothesis, given you players can get lead down the wrong path yourselves :D ]

Farren shrugged to get himself free of the thoughts. "If your Shadow and Chained God cannot be told apart, then that is a difficult matter. Are the gods set upon you because the Chained God has taken advantage of external problems to his advantage, or is this being in fact creating the problem for you and disguising the fact?" His brows knotted further. "I hope you are very wrong about them being one in the same. I cannot fathom why he woulduse such a strange manner of deceipt, and if it was true, it would mean he does not care whether you act oneway or another. Oh,and let us not forget that would mean your Chained God was not as chained as he should be."

I mean, I wouldn't put it passed me to offer you a choice of two people to believe in, and have them both be ultimately the same being messing with you. But odd you thought in that direction :)



Meanwhile, Darasee sat closer to Nym, sitting crosslegged on the grass rather than on one of the pillows. "It is very good, but seeing you get so amazingly close, I wonder if you could get closer?" Darasee seemed to think about it for a moment. "I suppose the moment is like.... have you ever been still? Very still? Aware of how big the world is, and how small you are, and just been very still?"

Lol, who knows why Darasee is interested in capturing the exact moment and memory with food!

Nym seems to glance around for a moment, but then looks back at Darasee. She giggles idea at the thought of being still.

"Hee hee...no, I don't think I could be that kind of still." she says. "That's boring. I have to be moving, at least a little bit, because moving is changing. Staying still is being the same, and I don't want to do that. I want to see all the world, all the things, meet all the people and make many friends! And...well, that's it, really. But the world is so very big and it's so full of people who are always changing all the time, with old ones going and new ones showing up, that I'll never be able to go everywhere or meet everyone. So I'll never be bored or run out of things to do!"

Meri frowned slightly at the mention of the 'Great Mother', but didn't seem particularly troubled by that.

"I presume he must want something from me, or Nym, or both of us.  Otherwise, why bother contacting us at all?  Unless the destruction we inflicted on the centre of the Blight singled us out for his special attention.  He certainly didn't seem all that angry or upset about it when we encountered him."


OOC: Well, I was going by Meri's likely train of thought there.  She had no particularly compelling reason to trust the Shadow in the first place.  And with the confusion over whether it was actually him she spoke with in the visions, or 'The Other', that makes it even harder for her to trust him when she can't tell the two apart.  So she'll probably feel it safer to assume that they're both potentially trouble and trying to mislead her for their own reasons, at least until she learns more and figures out enough to determine if they're separate entities or not.  Knowledge is power, and she's currently set on gathering more of it before figuring out her next move.
Meri definitely has trust issues and has had enough of a tough life in her backstory to initially be a little sceptical when some mysterious magical guy pops out of a dodgy looking portal and says he can grant her greatest wish with no strings attached, hehe :)

Darasee seemed to consider the answer for a moment. "Ah, but if you have to go everywhere, why go anywhere? If everything becomes a blur, then can you say you saw anything? Isn't there an infinite amount of interest in how even one species actsand reacts and behaves? Wouldn't remaining as one thing for a while allow you to experiences a depth of many, many things rather than bredth?"

For some reason, Samel looked uncomfortable with the line of questioning her aunt was undertaking. She got up from her plac, and despite perhaps the slight oddness in her recent relationship with Nym, Samel seemed to get up the courage to walk over to Nym.

"Could... could you make mine taste like, well, like the last intersting meal you ate?"

For some reason Samel breaking Darasee's questions caused anodd amusement in Darasee.


Farren looked confused. "Wait, which did not seem bothered by the Bliught being destroyed? This 'Shadow', either one, or the Chained God himself?"


Mysterious powerful figures who were trapped being suspicious? Meri being naturally suspicious anyway? Who knew this would lead to such baseless suspicions :p

Nym is looking more and mor bemused by the increasing complexity of Darasee's questioning, but looks up at Samel's approach and gives her question some thought.

"Hmm...interesting meal? Well, I suppose all meals are interesting. I mean, if they weren't then I'd make them interesting by making them taste nice. But we had some yummy food when we were in Blackwood Village - I'll make it taste like that."

She wiggles her fingers at Samel's food.

Since I seem to recall that we ate quite a lot of different foods at that restaurant place (didn't the guy running it just give us loads of everything because Nym was so interested or something?), Nym will just kind of make Samel's food taste like bits and bobs of all of it - like, a mixture of flavours as though she's eating lots of different-tasting things at the same time. Well, she did ask to make it taste like a meal rather than a specific individual thing ;).

"The Chained God himself I believe" replied Meri thoughtfully.  "He didn't seem to be trying to hide who he was at the time.  It was after we'd destroyed the Blight and a huge tree had grown from an altar of Melora that Celindara had purified in the centre of the place it had once inhabited.  And it was after he'd had that little chat with us that he sent me to the Shadow's domain, allowing Nym to return.  I think it was the Shadow who sent me back, assuming that was the Shadow and not another trick to try to direct me onto a false trail."

She frowned again, looking around at the encampment.
"As I said, I need to learn more about his nature, and any weaknesses I can exploit against him.  It's part of the reason I wanted to travel to Fivespears, a place likely to have temples, libraries.  If the gods fear this demon or whatever he is, it stands to reason they may have enlisted mortal followers of theirs to watch this plane for his activities."

A thoughtful look crossed her face as she looked back at Farren.
"The Shadow claimed to have followers of his own, though told me that the followers of the Chained God would disguise themselves as them, then later told me I should seek them out.  This does lend some proof to the idea that they are separate beings with one perfectly imitating the other, but it also means I can't trust either of them for fear of speaking with the wrong one and obtaining bad information and instructions that would only further whatever schemes he is planning.  Perhaps that's what he wants of me and Nym, our contact with the Shadow gave him what he thought was a means of manipulating our actions.  A Teacher trying to direct new Students perhaps..."


OOC: Chilling thought...

Speaking of chilling thoughts...

Farren's expression seemed to fall for some reason, and he gave a very stark reply at the mention of the god's fear. "The gods fear losing influence. The gods fear each other, so much that they have managed to stall in to an unsteady truce, so much that until recently, I believe anyone who is not me could well simply believe there are no gods. An entire people, it seems." Farren gestured with apparent jealousy at Geekaar's retainers, and even the Blackwood's villagers who seemed ot revere nature above gods. "Even demons as powerful as gods stay in the abyss willingly, creating their schemes and plans against thegods and each other. Free in some ways, yet just fearful enough of the gods to make to overt a manoeuver. Only someone as powerful as Lolth has clawed their way to godhood." Farren shook his head. "No, I do not think we should underestimate the sheer, unbridalled terror this 'chained god' must have caused, that gods and demons must have worked together to bind this foe. Despite the precident of binding something powerful, despite the sheer unlikelihood of those we think omniscient and omnipotent ever working together." Farren himself looked scared. "Such a being would need to be dangerous, dangerous to existence itself, without possibility to be reasoned with by gods or usd by other demons. Of not even considering serving them for power. Such a being must either be powerful beyond believe, or insane beyond the definition of that word, or both. And that's the being that has set its sights on you. And that has now roused the gods to start paying attention, and acting in this world, despite the danger that might provoke in the delicate balance."

Farren considered Meri's other musings. He laughed darkly. "So, we must do epxlicitly the opposite of two opposite things all the time? And defeating his acolytes or lackies may well be something he is happy with? Well, then it is easy." With the blackest humour, he said, "Presumably, the only action left to us is to free this being. I doubt he would have begged you to free him, and I doubt either Shadow wished him freed. It seems the only action that doens't play in to their hands!" Farren didn' evn bother to laugh at his own joke, it almost seemed to have a hopelessness to it.

Farren shrugged, still looking none to happy despite the attempt at nonchalance. "I do not even know if seeming the gods maybe a good thing, if they fear so much. But in my case I can't not. It is the only thing I know for certain, is The Raven Queen's existence and will. Everything else is just smoke and sand."

See, nothing to worry about...


Meanwhile, Samel took a tentative bite of the food. She seemed to be trying to place it at first, and just when recognition dawned on her face and she tried to give an encouraging pale smile, her eyes widened. Something seemed wrong, and it took her a moment to understand what was happening. She kept eating with a confused look, taking her time. Clearly, it was a strange piece of food that made you experience an entire, varied evening meal with eachrepeated bite.

"That's... I've never experienced that before..." Samel said, and for the moment gingerly took tiny little bites, as if to try and experience individual parts of a meal by taking smaller nibbles.


[Private to Nym: Time to throw you some passive insight stuff I guess. Samel seems to be genuinely trying to make a connection, though of course nervous with it. Understandable, as her disagreement with Nym was to do with fearing Geekaar's reaction, and now he's actually gone and abandoned them to a dragon. I'm not sure what more he could do that would be worse :p So she is maybe chagrinned about that.

Darasee's questions seem odd, as does Samel's reactions. In a way, it does feel like Geekaar's method of speaking and questioning, perhaps trying to probe more in to who Nym is. It doens't feel as off and greedy as When Geekaar did it. There does not feel like there was any malice too it. But it might be understandable that Geekaar's once spokeswoman and opening negotiator in the past might have a similar leanred manner to Geekaar in terms of trying to get a handle on the unknown.

It would be up to Nym if she wants to try and reassure / inform Darasee more, or simply leave her to herself :)]

Nym giggles slightly at Samel's reaction.

"I don't think I've ever done that before, either." she says. "But people normally want stuff to taste like just one thing, rather than lots of things all at once."

[Private to GM: I think Nym just got a bit confused by Darasee's question, getting all existential and whatever, but now she's been distracted by Samel she can put off worrying about it for the time being ;).]

Meri didn't reply to that for a while, having gone back to looking up at the sky.
"I've always found fear to be a rather pointless emotion" she remarked quietly, her gaze still fixed on a seemingly random cloud formation above.
"Certainly there are things that are dangerous in the world, and fearing them keeps people away from them, but if you're forced to deal with those things directly, fear tends to be more of a weakness than anything useful.
Many people in villages fear goblins, most likely from having encountered goblin raiders or heard stories about them.  Yet, apart from a few exceptions, I found them easier to get along with than elves or humans, and one of them taught me most of what I know.  The people here feared that dragon that attacked us, probably with good reason, but are all dragons so aggressive?  People fear death, yet those who follow the Raven Queen see it as a part of life, the other side of the coin so to speak.
I don't fear death, after all I once went seeking it willingly.  I suppose once that fear is removed, there is little else that can inspire fear any more.  Maybe that's something of a flaw, or perhaps it gives me an edge in dealing with those who like to use fear as a weapon.  I don't know, not something I've ever really considered until now."

She trailed off there, looking thoughtful.

Then she looked back at Farren, shifting a little closer and saying something else.  This time her voice was lowered further as if deliberately ensuring her words wouldn't carry beyond the two of them.
[Private to The Altweaver: "So, if you had the power to destroy the gods, or otherwise remove their influence over this world, would you do it, trusting that the world would be a better place without their infighting and power games affecting it?"]


OOC: Fate definitely tempted, in style! ;)

I can't imagine why you would say that...
[Private to Meri:
Just out of interest, is Meri in any way, shape, or form, deadly serious bout that? Or just asking a hypohetical question? You know, say hypothetically if Farren were trying to roll Insight against Meri, what might he think she was asking? I mean luckily you haven't said 'I wish' before that, but would say Farren become afraid that she might? :p]

OOC:  *tries hard to look innocent...*

[Private to The Altweaver: Hypothetical.  She's not quite ticked-off enough at all of the gods to be serious about it.  Maybe one or two she'd happily see dead, like Tiamat for just trying to have them turned into dragon munchies, and Tharizdun, if he really is a god and not a demon (assuming those aren't the same things basically!)  That list will doubtless grow though if more of them decide to mess with her ;)
But she's nowhere near angry enough at all of them yet.  Melora in particular actually has gotten on her good side with the tree thing :) ]
This message was last edited by the player at 18:39, Sun 24 June 2018.

Farren nodded to Meri's first comments. "Fear is dangerous itself. Especially when from the gods. Rather than face this 'Chained God' directly, they instead trapped him. And now that fear has come back. One could laugh if we weren't apparently in the crossfire."

However, then Meri whispered something to Farren that appeared to catch him by surprise and show something like anger. He hissed something in reply to Meri.

[Private to Meri: Farren's face looked as if Meri had hit him in the gut, but his anger seemed as much turned inwards as anything. "You ask the wrong person," he hissed, not looking to Meri. "When a God's face and voice is all that you know, you cannot help but be compelled to love them. Even if you despise them for what they have done to you." He looked pained at Meri's question and his own conflicted answer, seeming shaken at his helplessness. "There is only one place I can go to ease this pain, and I doubt when I go there the answer will be to free me from this burden."]


Samel nodded in slight understanding, and picked at the food gingerly, clearly needing time to digest all the various tastes. Though finding it not entirely unpleasant an experience.

Eventually though, she looked to Nym. She spoke up so the others could hear. "So... what do you think we should do next? After eating, I mean? What... what is your plan?"

Meri's expression didn't change at Farren's reply, although she gave the merest hint of a nod.

"Well, it's not something I'd consider trying, even if I had the power" she remarked after a moment, her voice back to its previous low tone.  "Just sometimes I like to follow a path of thought to its inevitable conclusion, out of curiosity to see where it goes.  Though last time I did that my head kept itching."
She smirked slightly at the last part.

She glanced idly towards Nym and Samel, seemingly drifting off into her own thoughts for a few seconds, then looked back at Farren.
"I've never cared much for the squabbles of the gods before.  In my naive youth, I called out to one revered by the elves once in a moment of the deepest despair.  And when that plea wasn't answered, I turned to your goddess to escape, yet it seems that call too went unheard.  If it taught me anything, it's that we can only depend on ourselves, on our own strength, our own power.
I suppose we can't help but follow gods in one way or another.  Neither my former master nor myself ever paid homage to Moradin, yet some would argue that in pursuing our craft, we follow his path at least partly.  Does my search for knowledge and the means to perfect my skills unwittingly honour Ioun?  And I freely admit there have been times when I've shared Tiamat's fury for vengeance."

She grinned at that, then shrugged.
"Maybe I'm just overthinking things again though.  I'm sure there's a deity for that as well!"


OOC: A little hint at the kind of things that go through Meri's head when she's being all silent and brooding :)
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 00:48, Mon 25 June 2018.

Nym gives a nonchalant shrug at Samel's question.

"Well, I suppose then I'll want to go to sleep." she says. "It's been a busy day and all, what with all the travelling and cooking and meeting new people and all that, so I think I'm probably a bit tired. So sleepy-time will probably be quite soon. And then tomorrow I suppose we keep going toward...um...whichever town it was we were heading toward? Five-three-spear-shields...thing."

[Private to Meri:
Wait, the last time you had odd thoughts your head started itching? And when you mentioned getting rid of the gods I asked you if you were serious, even though clearly Farren was not actually paying attention to Meri's intentions and was just reacting. Hmm, odd, wonder why I cared then... and why I even mentioned it just now in conjunction with the itching...]

"This Chained God seems to be the God for overthinking," said Farren, "but whether that's his downfall or ours remains to be seen." It was at least an attempt at humour from Farren, trying to recover from his dour mood.


Meanwhile, Samel seemed to be caught a little wrong footed. "I...suppose we should rest..?" she said, looking back to the others. It did seem as if Samel nor Dott weren't sure what to do next, nor the guards - though at least those of Blackwood had the option to just walk back to Blackwood and take the loss of their one day's pay. The older three retainers, though, all gave each other hooded looks, but seemed oddly resigned yet unwilling to speak of any plans.

"I... don't think I want to sleep out in the open..." said Dott at large, pointing to the starting of the camp they had made, and the wagons beyond. While it could have been the darkening sky, and constant rain falling that was the culprit, the fact he jumped at the first rumble of thunder perhaps spoke at the more obvious reason being out of the woods was no longer a consideration.

[Private to Meri: Farren leaned in to Meri and whispered something. "We should find those horses. Alone. I don't mean to sound heartless, but the sooner we are at Thirdgate the better. And all of the rest of them here seem to be a little short of ideas and will to do anything. I doubt we want to have to be the ones to look after them. Not with the lead Blace apparently has on us, after all. And Geekaar, for that matter."]

[Private to The Altweaver: OOC: Was referring to Meri's train of thought with the fire sword causing The Itch :)
(If that was a god caused that, he/she/it might be aware that he/she/it has only piqued Meri's curiosity further by blocking her way.  When it comes to perfecting her favoured craft, she's relentless, hehe) ;)]


A faint hint of a smirk flickered briefly across Meri's face at the attempt at humour, although she didn't comment further.

Something Farren had whispered to her seemed to provoke a surprised look from her though, followed by a glance back at the others before she replied in a low whispering tone.
[Private to The Altweaver: "So you think we should abandon the others?" she asked, her expression unreadable.  "Are we close enough to Thirdgate now to reach it in one go?"]

"Well, um...is there anywhere nearby that you might know of that might be more sheltered?" asks Nym, seeming unconcerned about any possibilities of returning dragons or any other predatory creatures that might show up during the night. "Maybe...some kind of cave, or something? Otherwise maybe we can just sort of...I don't know, put the wagons all close together and sleep in them, or put them in a circle around us so it feels like being inside somewhere? I mean, apart from the fact that there's no ceiling..."

What happened to the horses, btw? Did they all run off when the dragon went for them? I can't remember now...

Four of the horses should still been around and safe, albeit run off somewhere in the forest (yeah, you lot saved them from dragon attacks). Two of the more experienced guards had left to find the horses,they were being subtle about it so Nym probably didn't notice. I wonder where they all are now?

Obviously Geekaar's retainers had no idea regarding the countryside. The Blackwood guards had been eating mostly in silence, with the occasional low discussion between each other. "I don't really know the surroundings, and I don't think many of of us," said Jessah unhelpfully, as if simply to say something. "There might be caves or something else, but then they would be deeper in the dark woods and there might be more bears. I mean if there were two bears, there might be more!"

"Or dragons," muttered Elias, but he had the good grace to say it very, very quietly, and still look chagrinned when Desmine shot him a filthy look.

"The wagons are all stretched out over there," said Stark, "without horses we'd just be out in the open."

"There's enough of us to move the wagons without horses," said Sarah.

"Scrambling in the mud?" asked Stark doubtfully, but Diamond coughed meaningfully, as if to point out that there were a few more senior guards than Stark who might still have a say.

"Are we even on duty?" asked Young Gibb to Elias then Desmine. Apparently he meant it as a sincere question, but the senior guards gave him a mix of filthy or embarrassed looks. They were all on their own time,and their paymaster had disappeared. Who was in charge was and should be listened to became far more a case of personal dynamics than an enforceable chaoin of command.

"The others should have been back by now," muttered Pill to his brother regarding the two other guards, but perhaps a little too loudly.

So NPCs being as helpful as possible again. If you have ideas to inspire them, make the mud less muddy, explore easily, etc,I'm sure they'll be all ears.


Farren leaned in closer to address Meri im reply to something she had asked, after briefly looking across. [Private to Meri: "We are that close, if we're not dragging a set of wagons with only a few horses. Clearly Geekaar thought he could rest here early and still push his full wagon there tomorrow. But with this more defeated group, uncertain what to do, possibly wanting to wait or take all the goods to Thirdgate despite being underpowered? Who knows. And presumably we might not have a full compliment of guards coming with us. So we'll be very slowly plodding along as an easy target for any bandit. With the added benfit of us personally attracting the attention of the gods, in the formof a rabid dragon. Perhaps the gorup needs to have us out of the picture, withthe horses, so they allmake their way as one to Blackwood. Geekaar's retainers can get the help they need and some perspective, and we don't lose days while we do it."

Farren still looked to Meri speculatively, perhapsaware that she might not be convinced, but not pushing the matter now he'd said his piece.

Wait, The Itch kept making you lose your train of thought when you were having interesting,creative thoughts? Huh, why would the gods ever want to keep you in your place like that. Doens't sound like the gods we know and love in fantasy :p]

"Hmm, well, let's see...how can we become not-wet-and-muddy?" Nym asks of no-one in particular, and starts rummaging through her pockets. She pulls out her grey rain cloak and looks at it, but then looks around at how many people it would have to cover and shrugs, putting it back again. She then pulls out the "master" stone that was used to clear the Blight away back in Celindara's forest.

"Maybe this will help clear some of the mud...?" she muses, and gestures in an attempt to clear any dirt and grime from anyone who happens to be within range.

Think this magnifies the cleaning effect out to five squares, right? So maybe I can at least clean some people up a bit. She can remember the portable campfire next, if we don't get distracted ;).

Meri whispered something back, her gaze wandering briefly in the direction the guards had gone to find the missing horses before.
[Private to The Altweaver: "Possibly" she remarked.  "Although I'd rather not leave Nym and Many behind."]

She looked as though she was about to add something else, then shrugged and looked back at the others.

"You lot decided what you're doing next?" she called over to the rest of the group.


OOC: May as well check in :)

I'll let Nym weigh in rather than the NPC chorus :)

Did the AE Prestidigitation work? I imagine most people were pretty grubby after stumbling about everywhere trying to run away from a dragon, right? ;)

Nym looks over on hearing Meri call out in her direction.

"Um. Sleep?" she suggests. "That was what we were just talking about, anyway."

[Private to Meri:
"Nym and Many are both lightning rods in their own way," Farren quietly replied, "I wouldn't wish to nor wish you to abandon either of them." Farren then seemed to be chagrinned regarding speaking of lighting while the storm was still going. Apparently, it hadn't been a conscious nor ironic comment.]

The fact that the group's clothing and some of the dirt in the grass disappeared seemed to temporarily stop the guards from muttering amongst themselves.

"That might work..." said Jessa, noting what had happened, "...I mean we'd still need to keep the rain off us to stop the flooding and the muding, I mean remudding, but maybe with planks and enough people pushing in solid earth we might..."

Jessa's voice seemed to grow smaller as she looked around, still talking away form the group as she seemed to be looking around for what items were in view and they had available.

[Private to Nym: Obviously, how to stop the rain constantly getting on people if it's still raining by the time they want to look to the wagons is another matter, but the stones would work to keep the mud from being such an impediment.]


Was waiting for Meri to answer Nym, but can answer Nym's question and show what the NPCs are doing, which is being cowed in to temporary silence by Prestidigitation :) I mean, it is a bigger effect than they might be used to, after all, even if they've seen anyone do it before :p

OOC: oops, didn't know it was me you were waiting for...


Meri seemed a little puzzled at the mention of sleep, as if she'd completely forgotten about the idea with everything else that had happened.

"Maybe" she replied with a distracted look, as if something else was on her mind.
She looked back at Farren, whispering something to him.
[Private to The Altweaver: "Lightning rods?"]

Nym doesn't seem too bothered by the fact that Meri seems distracted.

"Well, it's a bit rainy, though." she says. "We'd need to build a roof or something to stop everyone getting wet. Or maybe find one. Um. I mean, there's probably not a little empty house around here that we can all fit inside, is there?"

She glances around, almost as though expecting to see some random small house that up till this point had somehow remained unnoticed by all present.

OOC: Not sure if Meri could build some sort of rudimentary shelter out of wrecked tent remnants or debris from the fight or anything else laying around...
This message was last edited by the player at 12:34, Sun 08 July 2018.

[Private to Meri:
"Poor choice of words," Farren replied, "But the dragon was after Many, and who knows what ire Nym might invoke then seem to shrug off and ignore."  ]

Only the central fires, etc were really disturbed. Funnily, the Nym/Meri tent is fine, and the rest didn't really get their stuff up yet. So no debris. The issue is protecting an area temporarily to get wagons unstuck, really. A large canvas square would be fine, if it's held above the worsk area. I'm sure several applications of the 'make whole' ritual could seemlessly bind the canvases from some of the wagons. If the contents don't mind getting wet.


No random houses had sprouted up, just more rain. The canopy was still thick enough that the rain wasn't hitting the group too badly yet, but the group did have to cuddle closer, and there was the occasional tsssss on the fire.

The sky had darkened more, making the night seem later than it undoubtably was, though the atmosphere was too close and cloying. A flash in the sky and rumble of thunder startled mostof the people around the camp, and no one really laughed in relief after. Simply looking out to what they could of the sky.

And then there was a noise, in the woods. Something echoing, something growing louder, something rhythmic, now something closer, and now something identifiable.

It was the dull thump of horses hooves, and then the horse became visible. It was one of the wagon horses, and it seemed terrified. It had light makrs on its flank that hadn't been there befor,e as it emerged to the side of the fireside and in to the light. It sped passed in to the clearing, knocking up a spray of leaves and dirt.

Something was bumping and rolling in the ground behind it, being dragged along. It took a moment to spot it as a human form, a guard. One tangled in reins and other entanglements. It was hard to identifying which of the two guards it was. The body, for it was definitely a body, was missing anything above its shoulders. Anything appart fromobvious, ragged teeth marks.


See, horses are fine. Well, one is. Physically. Sowe're all good. Feel free to do whatever calm thing it is you'd usually do when stuff like this happens.

Nym, who has started nosing through her pockets and pack once more, is distracted by the approach of the horse. She glances at what the creature is dragging and gets a somewhat vague expression on her face. She blinks a few times and looks to the horse instead.

"Oh, hello horsey!" she says. "Hey, now, you don't seem very happy..."

She carefully tries to go toward the horse with her hands out in what she hopes is a calming motion, looking over toward Dott as she does so.

"Umm...?" she asks.

Hmm, dead body and we're not in combat? Hmm...nope. Gonna have to go with "no" on that one. Dead what? Who? Where? Ooh, look, a horsey! Yay, horsey-friend! No dead, bitten-in-half humans around here! Yay!

What you players are currently in, what the characters are currently in, and what the character understand they are currently in are three differen and disinctly fluid things... :p And hey, no bitten in half humans around. Just a headless one, with a little bit of a ragged, toothy shaped neck. But yeah, Nym canunderstandably focus on the horse and not the rider with no issues. At least, no issues enforced on you by your kind and benevolent DM...


The horse isn't really stopping, so Nym will actually have to run towards it while yelling a Dott to help.

That would be a Diplomacy check at -10 to encourage people to come help right away, and not that we're in combat or anything, but it would be a double run action to run aftre the horse. Feel free to go extra fast by stating you're using an action point. Not that you're in combat or anything, so why I'd ask you to use up an action point is really weird thing for a DM to ask. I'd refuse to use one up if I were you!

And I'd say a Diplomacy check at -5 to get the horse to at least react to you, or an Acrobatics/Atheltic check to try and slow it down by grabbing it.


Remmeber Meri has ways to help you with rolls, if she wants. And you may still have Inspiration to use if you want to use it up too.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:33, Mon 09 July 2018.

Hmm no, I just checked and I don't have Inspiration any more - I think I used it relatively recently, maybe at some point during the fight we just had? Not sure. Anyway, I'll ty and sort of run toward the horse then, try and attratc its attention, maybe? And hope that Dott will come and help since he knows about horses and maybe will want to not look at the headless guy either ;).

So I'll try the Diplomacy check...I mean, even with a -5 penalty I'm still at +5 ;). Total is...meh, a not-very-good 10 :(
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 16:57, Tue 10 July 2018.

Meri narrowed her eyes and seemed about to reply to something that Farren had whispered to her when she caught sight of the horse and its rather mangled ex-companion.

"This may be trouble" she muttered, quickly rising to her feet and gripping the staff, its crystals crackling with energy and the recently-acquired bear-claw-on-a-string decoration clinking against the metal with her movements.  Her gaze glanced towards Many, as if checking on his position.

She reached up and pulled down the goggles, flicking down several magnifying lenses over both eyes and peered in the direction the horse had come from...


OOC: Perception check to see if she can spot any signs that whatever used that guard as a chew toy might be following behind the horse...  26 (12 + 14).
Also can she gain any hint as to what it might be from the tooth marks?  Dunno if it's natural or aberrant or something else yet.

I think Nym can benefit from Knack for Success to get a +4 to her skill check there, not sure if Meri has to do anything in-character to trigger that though, or if she's just somehow an inspiring presence or something...  Somehow!
This message was last edited by the player at 23:27, Thu 12 July 2018.

I'm delaying a little in terms of posting because I know what comes next so know I couldn't really start anything until the other side of the weekend. Also needing to chill a little on the week days :)

Knack for success is just a 'to know me is to be inspired / I've been doing little things to help

While Nym had rushed out, no one else seemed inclined to risk it. Some were reluctantly unsure, at least, and looked embarrassed by their hesitation.

Farren shook his head at them, apparently not Meri's narrowed eyes, and started moving to help Nym, although he was further back and less able to catch up.


The horse, unfortunately, only noticed Nym's presence enough to steer away from her, although it was towards the large tent Geekaar had prepared for Meri and Nym, and so would be a small impediment.


Yeah, not quite hitting a medium success there, so yo've sort of steering the horse away. At least it's a start. Try something else, suggest something for Farren to do, etc. Don't forget to spend those combat resources now for clever stuff rather than later! :p


[Private to Meri: Meri, meanwhile, thought she could faintly hear something. Something very strange, a low rumbling whisper. Something rhythmic, like speech, but no speech she had ever heard before. It was low because it was being hissed at some distance, but rumbled because whatever was far away was clearly large. And the sound was slowly rising in volume.

So, you know, that could be anything.Hey, good knews,whatever can talk is intelligent! Andso can be...reasoned with.... if you understood the language... and why it was talking at a distance right now... ]

"Oh no, horsey!" calls Nym. "Be careful - you might crash into the tent and hurt yourself!"

She flicks her fingers and causes a sudden small burst of light in front of the horse.

Heh "combat resources"? Well, I mean, unless I want to blow the horse up, I'm a little low on options there ;). But I had a look anyway and about all I can come up with is using Prestidigitation to do what I just did - make a sudden little poof of light in front of the horse to maybe startle him/her into stopping or something. Nym doesn't really know too much about horses - that was why she was looking to Dott ;).

Meri moved closer to the direction the horse had come from, pulling her goggles back up onto her forehead and holding her staff defensively across her chest.
Although she seemed to be half-listening to the chaos surrounding the horse, she seemed more intent on whatever it had run from...


[Private to The Altweaver: OOC: Can Meri tell what language that is?  Especially if it's similar to the Underdark that Farren and Meri were speaking before.]

The small burst of light at least twisted the horse away from the tent, but put it back on to the original path of charging simply directly away from the woods. Still, Nym had been able to keep running diagnoanlly towards the horse while the horse zigged and zagged, and the bouncing  ... item.... behind it was starting to become a twisting liability for the poor startled animal.

Farren was trying to catch up, but seemed to be using all his efforts to pull close to Nym, simply wheezing out a 'what's the..plan...' from a distance behind her.

You gained a couple of squares on the horsie,and Farren is still about 6 squares away from you. Wait, squares? What an odd turn of phrase, why would that be useful...

[Private to Meri: Meri can't make out the language, however...]

Whatever had pulled Meri in to looking to the woods had transfixed her for a moment, and some of the guards started looking around too.

Therefore, they too saw the sudden flash that appeared in the distance, and the hot white streak of retina-burning light that grew as a jagged sphere, aimed perfectly at Meri.

A sphere of lighting.


Hey Meri, just for fun, got an tell me if 22 is 2 or more higher than your reflexes (2 higher due to your perception roll a moment ago). If it is, then for no good reason, take 18hp of damage from lighting. If it's not, then 'only' take 9hp damage.

Also, both of you feel free to roll me some of those Initiative checks I've heard good things about. 

OOC: Yep, 18 damage...  I'm starting to think you took the pushing of Sun Snake's buttons personally...  :|  hehe.


Meri reeled back a step, cursing in what sounded like the Goblin tongue.
"We're under attack!" she shouted in the direction of the guards to try to warn them.  Then she steadied herself, gripping her staff tightly and glaring in the direction the attack came from.


OOC: Initiative: 20 (17 + 3) - Meri definitely wants to be first to blast this thing now! >:)

Oh, um...yay? We fend off a lightning-dragon and then get attacked by more lightning. He's not back for more, is he? Hrmm...

Anyway, Init roll, let's see what I can get...hmm, welp...at least a botched roll on Initiative doesn't do anything - total is just 8 for me :P. Mind you, I think it might not be an entirely bad thing if everyone else has maybe dealt with whatever this is by the time it gets to Nym's turn. Because I'm sure you can all do that, right? I'm sure it's not the dragon come back or something even worse...right? ;)

Yeah, funny how if you humiliate a newly woken up mythical creature that thinksitself superior, it doens't just run away forever to lick its wounds :p

I mean, sure, usually any NPC with a brain would want to escape and stay escaped, so perhaps this one is a little bit more arrogant or stupid than is healthy for it.

Good thing you both are together and prepared for this :)


And hey, if I took the Sun Snake stuff personally, there's something far more breath weapon-y Meri could have been attacked with :p


Anyway, good news! for some reason, maybe poor initiative rools, maybe something else, Meri IS the first to apparently react after the 'surprise' round. So... how would Meri like to act? Umm, I meant the character, not trying to refer to the player in the third person. Please don't do that, it would be weird!

OOC: Hmm, can I tell where the attack came from?  (As in if I'm close enough to return fire at that square?)

You can roll me another Perception check, your previous one could only stretch so far :)

OOC: Perception: 29 (14 + 15) :)

Yay, using up all the good rolls! I mean... eh, it's alright...Wanna use up an Inspiration etc in order to get a better roll? :p

[Private to Meri: Meri will be able to tell that the dragon fired from distance (20 squares), but willhave therefore noted that it can't use it's wider breath from that distance (its breath was about 10 squares). She will be able to notice an odd dancing light, whichfor some reason appears to be in the direction of the dragon. As if it is giving off illumination. However, there is some odd dullness in the forest that makes this harder to see. There appears to be some unnatural gloom slowly encrouching too.

The rolling voice is getting louder all the time, but obviously stoppedwhen the attack happened. It has the cadance of speech,and seems to be the dragon. It appears to be speaking to you. However, since the distance is great, and you obviously don't undertand it, you might suspect that this is more like it's talking at you not to you. You know, like the stream of words you might give a printer or computer that's annoyed you one too many times and whose daysmight be numbered... :p

So assuming 20 squares is too far away for anything, then Meri can ready an attack or delay. The dragon does seem to be stalking closer, and the forest cover is such that it can't fly anywhere. It is definitely coming at you from that direction, and from the ground, and while maybe snaking slightly, is definitely getting closer!]

OOC: Haven't got any.  Also used up Knack for Success on Nym's roll a moment ago :|


[Private to The Altweaver: Does using Meri's "Impart Energy" feature to recharge a magic item use up an action?  If not, I'll recharge the Forgemaster's Gloves and spend a Minor to activate them.

Will ready Spike Wire (Standard Action - Range 10)
Attack: 27 (18 + 9) vs Fort. - Got at least one good roll left :)
Damage: 8 (3 + 5) Force damage - Also if it hits, any attack on it before the end of Meri's next turn deals an extra +4 damage.
If the Forgemaster's Gloves are active, that attack also deals an extra 6 fire damage

May as well open with the big guns (at least the biggest one I have left after the last round!)
Though this move does depend a lot on Nym being close enough to follow it up with a good hit or two...]
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 19:41, Wed 18 July 2018.

Well good! And we can soon fix having those pesky encounter powers aswell :)

There was an odd oppressive gloom that stretched out from the forest, not as tangible as mist but as as eerie. However, a ball of lightning pierced in termorarily, a little too dull until it found Geekaar's retainers on the edge of the new campfire, and exploded causing them all to scream and throw themselves around.

Dott, who had been hesitantly moving away form the camp as if to follow Nym, was therefore outside of the main blast and seemed more shocked by the painful crash in to the ground. The others though, were all caught by the jagged explosion of lightning and were down, in an unknown state but certainly not a good one.

[Private to Meri: However, Meri could see that there was an answering flare and snap as her tanglewire was delivered with pinpoint precision as the sinuous bulk of the dragon came close. The glow, though dulled in the gloom, was still noticeable. There was something wrong with the dragon. Tiny flicks of lightning seemed to shoot from the barely distinguishable shape of its body.

I'll check, but I believe the power is a free action, and can be now. So yeah, gloves are rechargedfor extra damage. ]

Deep in the forest, something roared in frustration, then a throaty string of echoing grunts and growls flickered around the trees announcing the return of the dragon, if the lightning had been too subtle.


Nym, you're a few rounds away at normal speed from the camp, and if you stop  following the horse then you're leaving it to Farren's whim to stop it.

Obviously, up to you which way you want to go, and if you want to use up any extra actions, etc either way. There is no dragon visible in the woods yet, and in fact the whole camp seems really gloomy and hard to see. And not just because it's startedto rain and so is also dim to Nym's eyesight anyway :p

Well, with my terrible Initiative roll I suspect I'll be going last or close to it, so might as well wait for everyone else to act before I post. I don't think there's much I can do right now anyway, with no dragon in sight to start shooting at and me probably out of range from chasing the horse.

Everyone else is delaying, effectively, having just been attacked by a dragon. You're up next.

Nym looks around at the rather distracting sound of the rest of the group being hit by some kind of lightning attack. She pauses for a moment, blinks a few times, then sighs and starts walking back toward the spot the lightning came from. As she goes, she reaches into her cloak and pulls out her staff with one hand, and her recently-acquired fang-like dagger with the other.

So, just gonna move as far as I can back toward wherever that attack just came from, and use two Minors to draw both my weapons. Can't really do too much until Mr Dragon decides to show himself, but when he does... >:)

Sorry, thought I'd posted.

Nym, you will take a round to get within range of anyone again. I'll let you know when you can jump in. Remember that you can only use one of the weapons to attack with each attack, but obviously can choose which you channel through each time.


Farren was caugh wrong footed, but after a moment's consideration carried on for the horse.

The woods seemed unnaturally dark, even accounting for the starting of the heavy rains. The flares of light from back at the camp seemed dull, and far away, despite the noise saing otherwise.

Nym you are welcome to roll Arcana to work out why things look so dark.

Geekaar's guards had suddenly exploded in to life, but all they did was move towards Geekaar's retainers. One stood defensively in front of the group, while he other moved mechanically around the fallen to see their condition.

Meanwhile, in the woods, another ball of lightning flared, this one driven towards the cluster of younger guards trying to go for their weapons. The first explosion had caught them wrong-footed too, and none of them could work out if the should spread out or move faster. Instead, what happened was their packs were blown to pieces. Diamond had been about to put his hands to his weapons, and instead took the brunt of the explosion, blown backwards and twitching. Jessah had likewise been quick, and upon realising he danger had frozen a moment too long, being blown sideways painfully. At least she groaned inpain, but seemed badly hurt.

Stark had stopped himself, and shot out a hand instinctively to his sister o stop her too. However, it stopped her from reacting to the explosion, and so she caught the tail of it painfully when she had been about to dive to safety, ironically protecting her brother from the effect of it. Stark's eyes went wide in horror as he released Sarah and she fell to one knee in pain,grasping a burning arm.


Meri, your previous readied action means you now go just before the dragon properly moves. but after his early extra attack. So the dragon is still 10 squares away, even though Meri will know the dragon is continuing forwards with no intent on slowing down.

The initiative order currently looks like:

Dragon gets extra early attack
Meri's actions
Dragon's actions
Nym's actions
Guard/retainer NPCs ineffectually flail around
Farren tries to stop the horse from escaping

Eel, lots of NPCs getting raosted here :(. Since a skill check doesn't use an action and to save time, I figure I might as well make that Arcana check now rather than waiting till my turn and having to spend extra time waiting for a result then in case it affects my actions. Wondering if the dragon has cast some kind of darkness-inducing spell or whether it's more than coincidence that thigns seem specifically...Shadowy...
Anyway, Arcana, here we go...okay it's only an average roll but that's still a total of 20 given my high skill level there :D.
Oh, and I am aware of the "can only use one weapon per attack" thing, I just wanted to have them both out so they're available and it seemed a good idea to draw them when I actually have the actions to spare to do that since I didn't yet have anything to spend my Standard on attacking ;).
Also, I can't remember exactly where Ryn was last, whether she went back to being Passive and has been on my shoulders this entire time, or if I had her still poking around in the camp/sitting near Nym when she was eating...

So I've already taken a turn, or has it come back around to me again?
Will also queue up an Arcana check on that darkness effect and the dragon itself if possible, see if Meri can figure out why it's gone all 'sparky' like that: 28 (14 + 14) - Damn, wish I'd saved that for an attack roll!

Is the dragon headed towards Meri, or does it seem to be aiming for something else?

Back around to you.

The dragon is snaking towards you all, you'd need an Insight check to figure out exactly who it's next target is, with a -5 since it's...you know... a gian t lizard whose language you don't understand :)

Insight: 6 (2 + 9 - 5)
Yep, probably fumbled that one...

Think Meri will just assume by default it's out to get Many again, since it was after him last time.  Where abouts is he?

I mean, it's a reasonable presumption, so Meri clearly doens't consider any other options with that roll :p And the dragon is 10 squares from you, snaking around.

[Private to Meri: The lightning seems like it is internally generated, coming out of any wound. Meri would not be able to even guess what kind of combination of magic and nature allows a beast such as this to be able to breath raw lightning without end, nor without hurting itself. However, whatever does allow it to do that - it seems to have been relaxed, and so its lightning is less harnessed and starting to flare out of it.

Of course, it didn't seem to be doing that when it left you last time, so that must have happened afterwards. Given it's come back so soon, and is attacking you far less than tactically, it could well be it's being punished a little, and driven to act. You know, as if something divine, perhaps, has some measure of control over its biology, or at the very least can affect it negatively as a reminder of who it serves. :)

It seems like if you got too close - say 5 squares - that lighting would affect you too, damaging you. Maybe to the tune of 5hp's worth. Whether you can use its state against it is less certain. It doesn't seem to be getting damaged by the lighting, nor weakened, just in pain. It's more an indicator that it is being co-erced, but perhaps powerfully so, so it's a far harder to task to disuade it from not attacking you. Not impossible, but you are missing some basic tools liek the ability to understand it!]

[Private to Nym: Yeah, for a 20 you know it's a magical effect, but not how to banish it. The effect  - while being most likely generated by the dragon or for the dragon - seems to be independant of its movements. From what little you can make out of them. So its not centred around the dragon, and any attempt to affect it can be done by attacking the darkness itself, and wouldn't require targetting the dragon.

What is apparent is that as its a magical darkness, it won't make any difference getting closer, it's not distance based. Nym will find it hard to see the dragon to attack it no matter what. That's -5 to attack rolls outside of the darkness, and still -2 to attack rolls inside the darkness.

Any night vision would get around this effect, so if Nym has a way to generate that herself, or can get it from Ryn, then now would be a good time to get it!


As for Ryn's location, she would be beside Nym, I'll let you choose whether she's in being in active or passive mode. I can't imagine that the horse, and Nym running after the horse,would not have pulled attention, so Ryn can't be back over at the camp all this time.]

I meant can I see where Many is at the moment?

Yep, silver lining is that I just got rid of what would probably have been an embarrassingly fluffed attack roll there :)  hehe.
"You trip over a rock and stumble into your own line of fire, take 13 damage!"

I'm going to assume back in the pack, even though he came out before I think. So yeah, Meri can totally assume the dragon is going directly for Many again, but ... who knows who it's actually going for, if Many is well hidden...

OOC: Assuming Nym can see me again, I'll make my moves visible this time...


"Retreat!  Get out of here" Meri shouted to the others.
As she spoke, she seemed to be taking her own advice, moving back further into the forest out of the dragon's path, glancing briefly around as if to try to work out where it was going.

As if obeying some silent command, Timur had scrambled down into her pack and re-emerged holding the vial of grey-green dust she had taken out during the dragon's previous attack.  Meri herself seemed to ignore this for now, instead charging up a brightly-glowing energy on one of the tips of her staff, causing it to crackle and smoke alarmingly while glowing slightly red with the heat.

Pausing in her slow retreat, she raised the staff and spun it around to point the crackling tip at the dragon, unleashing a blast of energy that exploded violently around it...


OOC: Okies, I'm nearly out of attacks that can actually hurt this guy. (Apart from alchemical weapons, the only non-lightning based attack I have left is Thundering Armour, and I'm not really in a hurry to get into melee range of something that could probably bite me in half!)
So now I get to be really annoying and constantly trying to inflict status effects on it to make it easier for Nym to plink at :)

First of all, Lightning Sphere aimed at one of its squares (area burst 1 attack targeting enemies so doesn't matter which).
Attack: 26 (17 + 9) vs. Fort - So glad I got rid of that 2!
Damage: 8 (3 + 5) Lightning damage - Also if it hits, the dragon grants Combat Advantage until the end of my next turn.

Also moving 6 squares diagonally away from it and deeper into the forest, just to see if it changes course to chase Meri or keeps going in the direction it's heading in already.
Also shouting to the NPCs to get out of there 'cos I ain't got much healing left in me! :)


[Private to The Altweaver: Does make me think though...  I'm not sure if blue dragons are completely immune to lightning damage or just have an insanely high resistance to it.  If it's already getting jolted by just enough lightning to make it feel uncomfortable, I'm wondering if Meri can overload its resistance by firing more lightning into the mix...  *crosses fingers* :)]
This message was last edited by the player at 19:49, Thu 26 July 2018.

[Private to Meri: Meri noted that the blast of her lighting was mostly deflected harmlessly, but a scale at the edge of one of the wounds did blacken and curl...

Yeah, the dragon has resistance not immunity. Your 8 alone wouldn't be enough to reveal that, but you gave yourself a +4 damage boost this turn too (not just other NPCs too busy scrambling around) so not a wasted effort. 10 seems to be the magic number for its resistance.

So yeah, if you can find a way to manipulate or increase the lighting, it will become harmful...]

Most of the group seemed to heed Meri's warning. Elias, Desime, and Gibb were at the back of the camp, and already moved back further. Jessah staggered painfully up, basically dragging a barely conscious Diamond behind her. Propp came from the side and helped move his brother.

Samel stopped to help Darasee, apparently needing to pause a moment to get the older woman back to consciousness. One of Geekaar's guards simply lifted and carried an unconscious Sirrecco and moved i nthe direction of Maggrath and Dott, while the other guard stood in the same spot as before, neither running nor rushing in to the fray.

For Sarah and Stark, however, the warning came too late. The dragon moved in the shadows, and even as it launched at the two guards it was hard for them to see it. Sarah, on a knee anyway, could at leats painfully turn her stance in to a roll, the dragon's backhanded claw racking across her back. It was Stark, still for a moment stunned from the previous attack, that took the dragon's claw full in the chest. The dragon seemed more intent on smashing the guard out of its way than killing the guard, but Stark's chest was still bloodily torn, and he fell painfully. The dragon's lightning wreathed it in a terrible miasma, and even Sarah found errant bolts of lightning peppering her and she landed. Stark simply arched his back and screamed in agony, no more conscious thought possible.

The dragon though, seemed simply happy to have made the immediate area cleared. Its mouth twisted and turned, deep rhythmic utterances pouring across the camp like strange words. However, its head turned quickly to follow Meri's path, and with a long, deep breath, it then opened its maw to turn words in to a loud, bellowing raw. And solid lighting followed.

Well, for one reason or another, yes, the dragon is looking to attack Meri right now. More importantly, moving away has both established that fact and made sure its breathe didn't catch anyone else. Just Meri :p

So, Meri, you have a choice. Not in taking damage, unfortunately its roll was good enough that you are taking 21hp nomatter what. Sorry! No, the choice is whether Meri is insane enough to take the opportunity to study the source of its lightning up close with this fantastic oportunity!

If Meri would want to do that, in however narratively she'd do that while getting roasted, please roll me an Arcana check. You need a 23. If you do this though, and fail, Meri will take additional lighting damage, 1 point for each point rolled under. So roll 18, take 5hp extra damage.

Interested? :P


Nym, you're free to act. The dragon is 10 squares from you now, and the gloom starts at 5 squares (but is still rolling out). Note there seems to be lighting coming out of the dragon, so if Nym is within an aura 5 of the dragon, she'll take 5 lighting damage.

Also, for this turn, the dragon is granting combat advantage.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:12, Fri 27 July 2018.

Woo, that's a lot of stuff. Okay then, Mr I'm-Resistant-to-Lightning...>:)

"Nope." mutters Nym as she walks toward the dragon that is attacking her allies. "Nope, nope, nope..."

She raises the dagger and a sort of pulse seems to ripple along it, causing it to glow faintly with an ever-shifting light. Then a different kind of pulse happens, this one a pulse of lightning which crackles down Nym's arm and along the blade of the dagger, where it seems to pick up some of the newly-conjured aura and from there leaps straight toward the dragon, lightning against lightning.

Okay, so if I'm already ten squares away then I don't need to move (I don't think there's anyone else near me right now, is there? I don't want to be close enough to anyone that they might be caught in a blast if I get attacked).
I'll use a Free action to trigger the effect on my Wyrmtooth Dagger, meaning any attacks with it ignore the resistances of any enemy within ten squares for the remainder of the Encounter. So Mr Dragon's ability to resist Lightning is suddenly completely useless as long as I'm casting a spell with this dagger >:).
And then I'll lob a Pinning Bolt. So if I've got this right, I'll take a -5 to hit for the darkness being in the way <insert joke about not having Magic Missile here> but that's reduced to a -3 due to having Combat Advantage, right? Which means my attack bonus for this roll will be +5 instead of the +8 I would get with no external modifiers. So let's roll that and see what happens...AHA! Crit! Woohoooo!! Okay so that's auto-max damage...is the dragon Bloodied? I seem to remember we hurt him a lot before. The damage totals I have on my character sheet are done using the staff but not the gauntlets, so the base damage will be one less since I'm using the dagger for this one, so 21 Lightning damage (2d6+9 instead of 2d6+10). And whatever crit die I get...okay an extra 1d6 <rolls>, okay that's a four. And he loses all resistances (save ends) :D. And then there are the other effects of Pinning Bolt as well...
So, to sum up, a total of 25 damage (type technically doesn't matter as I'm ignoring resistances). Unless he's Bloodied, in which case +2 damage for a total of 27 (gauntlet effect). Also, knocked Prone. Also, Slowed till the end of my next turn. Also, loses all resistances (save ends).
Boom >:).

Meri's eyes widened slightly at the lightning coming towards her.
As Timur ducked back into her pack, she dug one end of her staff - the other still smouldering from the charged shot she had fired earlier - into the ground in front of her, and reached for an object tucked into her belt, similar to one of the small crystalline rods in her toolkit.

Moments before impact, she pulled her goggles down over her eyes and pointed the rod directly towards the oncoming lightning.
Then she was lost to sight in the storm...


OOC: Asking if Meri is crazy enough to attempt something?  Of course! :)
(Rod thing is narrative fluff, not suitable for use as an implement.  Probably even had a warning sticker to that effect on it before Meri burned it off trying something like this!)

[Private to The Altweaver: Arcana: 29 (15 + 14) :)
Also now knocked down to Bloodied status, if that affects anything on anyone else.

Oh, forgot to check, how far away is the dragon from Meri now?  Think I need to get into that risky 5 square radius to hit with alchemical weapons...]
This message was last edited by the player at 13:49, Fri 27 July 2018.

Wow, that was also a lot of stuff Ms 'I'm Going To Strip 'Mr I'm-Resistant-to-Lightning's  Resistance Then Lightning Him In The Face With A Crit' :p Yeah, the dragon started bloodied from your last combat, so that's 27 damage and prone and lost lightning resistance.

Nym is in between everyone right now - Farren is still playing with horses and the NPCs are still around camp. The NPCs might run back to Nym, but if she's unconsciously try to stay clear of them, then I can warn you if they try to come close and let you move away appropriately.

Everyone close was startled as Meri seemed to quite calmly stand her ground in the dimness, and no one was quite sure they could see things correctly - in the dull glow of the dragon's breath, it seemed as if the artificer was simply raising a small rod and drawing some of the breath towards it. [Private to Meri: The rod gouged a large circle in the white bright breath, allowing most of the burning jagged lighting to bounce harlmlessly off of Meri's runic leather armour. Unfortunately, there was nothing that could stop the sheer physical pain of earthing that much raw magic and electricity directly through her body to the ground, and the pain was clease to enough to black out her mind. Still, Meri stayed standing, in now smoking boots, with a clearly understanding of this particular dragon's essense.

Ok, so you managed to not only avoid any bad effects of being bloodied, and extra damage, but you now have some mechanical benefits! Paint the knowledge and ability how you wish, but mechanically if you get within 5 squares of the dragon - you'll need to use a move action to get a little closer - you can spend a minor each turn to stop its lighting arua affecting anyone in range. So basically pushing the lightning in to the dragon's body. And, for a second minor each turn, you can intensify that lighting to being 10hp strong. Now, normally this would not damage the dragon, but clearly narratively is on the limit of its ability to withstand, so would give you lots of leverage in terms of pushing it around, bargaining, etc.

But, thanks to Nym, until it gets back its lightning resistance, it will take hp damage a turn anyway, and you using a double minor would increase that to 10hp a turn! Which is pretty killer. Oh, and your lighting powers are back online again for at leats the next round. So if you have an action point to spare, I would use it to both move/double minor the dragon's aura, then shoot it. :)]

The dragon was amongst those apparently startled at Meri's reaction, but for the dragon that was short lived. Despite the gloom surrounding the area, Nym's attack struck the dragon perfectly. The dragon screamed as once more the lightning it took as second nature was used against it. It slammed painfully on its side, squirming and thrashing around as the magical bolts pinned its wing to the ground.

The dragon's head snaked around, and with some perfect instinct it flashed off a jagged lightning sphere. The bolt was delivered more with angry pain than with confident derision, but it managed to strike Nym as perfectly as she had struck the dragon, exploding in a giant ball directly in front of her.

Well, I think I mentioned before that slow and prone are the two conditions the dragon can't shrug off of all the movement/action limiting ones! And yeah, stripping it of its lightning resistance was a really perfectly timed move! I'm not having its lightning aura be voluntary and so it affects it. Without resistance, that means it's taking 5hp.

Bad news, it rolled a perfect 20 for its extra early attack, directed against Nym, so maximum damage which on this wildly variable thing is 25hp. Oof.

The good news, aside frm that previous good news, is that I rolled ahead with some of its recharge/save rolls, and that was where it's luck ended. For now...

Anyway, new combat round. Meri's turn again right now. Then if the dragon's still alive the dragon's proper turn will occur. Then after that Nym can kill the thing and wear it as a hat :p I can't really see this battle going any other way at this point, dammit!

OOC: Cool!  Blue Dragon Hat!  I hear they used to be quite stylish.  We can revive the trend! :)


The lightning cleared to reveal Meri somehow still standing, although possibly much of that was due to leaning on her staff.  The crystal rod was now glowing brightly, the glove on the hand holding it noticeably charred and smoking, along with Meri's boots, much of her clothing, and a significant portion of her exposed skin.  The foliage around her feet had also been reduced to charred dust, where the massive lightning strike aimed at her had earthed into the ground.

As Timur reappeared on one shoulder, she seemed to gather herself again, looking at the glowing crystal in her hand.
Then she began to move quickly back towards the dragon.
As she got close, the crackling lightning wreathing the creature arced out towards her, only for her to neatly catch it on one of the tips of her staff.

Twirling the staff around, she pointed the opposite end at the dragon, touching the glowing crystal to the metal surface and diverting that gathered energy, along with the dragon's own power directly back at it in a bright shower of sparks and crackling lightning.


OOC: Okies, moving to within 5 squares and using a double minor action to turn its own aura back on it with a bit of a boost.
No action point though or I could have taken another zap at it too.  Still, can soften it up a bit and give Nym a chance to earn her new hat!

[Private to The Altweaver: By the way, can Meri tell if Sarah and Stark are both dead?]
This message was last edited by the player at 15:07, Fri 27 July 2018.

Weeee, quick moving combats!

[Private to Meri: I'll answer that question in the story itself...]

The guards and Geekaar's retainers had all moved to the edges of the camp, out of the way of both the dragons and the terrifying mages who, once again, seemed more than willing and able to best the monstrous and mythical fiend. And Meri even walking closer to the screaming foe!

Sarah had managed to recover and rush over to Stark, dragging her brother up. He did not look too good, but at least could stagger along with his sister under his own locomotion. Over on the other side of the camp, Samel had seemingly noticed Serricco unconscious over the guard's shoulder, and gingerly tried to administer some aid to the green robed man once the guard stopped with the others.  The elder did stir, showing that while badly wounded he was at least not dead.

[Private to Meri: Stark is above zero, and Samel has the other in hand, for now. I'd worry about yourself...]

The dragon painfully ripped itself up while the magic still assaulted it. Seeing Meri come towards it, it made a half hearted lurch in her direction. Meri's power seemed to push down the lighting that had been rolling around its body, and all its wounds now clowed brighter and brighter, causing it to howl. However, her enemy was still a long necked beast with wickedly sharp teeth, and its head shot out with alarming speed to attack her directly with its maw.

Umm, so if 23 is enough to hit your AC, and I believe it is, then I'm afraid you're taking 23hp damage from being biten/gored cause I rolled really well with damage. Funnily, this was me being 'nice' and rewarding the action of stopping its lighing for a turn, because its lightning attack is auto hit, with a lower threshold for taking full damage, while this melee attack goes against your AC with no better bonus, and can simply miss. Oh well, sometimes things go ridiculously your way (like auto hitting with a pinning bolt) and sometimes you get bitted!

Still, that dragon is taking 10hp from its own aura this turn, and hasn't shrugged off the resistance stripping effect (despite a bonus to saving throws) so it's still vulnerable to its own aura next turn.

Assuming it lives that long...


Nym, you're up already!  Dragon is no longer prone, which means you don't get penalised if you fire ranged things at it anymore. The dragon is 2 squares away from Meri, as it has a an extended melee range. In case that matters for area effect attacks, etc.

OOC: Yep, that reduces me to exactly zero HP.  Looks like it's down to Nym to finish this one.

Eek, nasty bugger. Let's hope I can finish this quickly and one of the NPCs can get to Meri before she has to make too many Death Saving Throws :O. That one blast from the dragon took just over half my health away (so I'm now Bloodied - hope he doesn't get any bonuses or anything against that) so let's hope I can finish this guy pretty quick...though I do have the slight problem of now having only three damaging powers left, and of those three, two of them require me to be close enough that I'd be inside the dragon's aura when using them. Which at least means it's an easy choice as to what to do this turn ;).

Nym lets out an inhuman shriek as the lightning hits her, the dragon's energy crackling against her own. She changes shape, seemingly on instinct, becoming a lithe, human-ish-looking figure with skin of various different colours splotched around and blended together, her hair somewhat wild and similarly multi-coloured, but in a darker shade to her skin (which is mainly pastel hues).

"No, no..BAD DRAGON!" she yells, raising her staff and channelling along it a small bolt of energy which shifts constantly in colour so that staring at it too long threatens to give the looker a headache. The bolt sails toward the dragon.

Okay so, Minor action to use Changeling Shift because I figure she's not gonna stay a furry kitty-looking-thingy when she's just been zapped by lightning. Also, it was getting trickier and trickier finding a character portrait I liked (most of the female ones seem to be a case of "Look! Boobies!" or just look stupid, like elves with stupidly long ears and stuff), so I'm just gonna change to this one and stick with it - when Nym changes shape I'll provide a description and then just repost that as an OOC note every now and then (I'll do the same for Ryn) so we don't all forget what she looks like at any given moment ;). Also gives me more freedom with her appearance without feeling like I need her to vaguely resemble one of the portraits on here :D.
Anyway, if Mr Dragon has moved at all (don't think he has?) I'll move so that I stay ten squares away, which is the furthest I can be and still use my power - Chaos Bolt, yaaay...

Oooh I just realised I forgot something last turn...no wait, two things - Chaos Burst and Unfettered Power! Dammit, I did briefly remember the former when I made the attack roll but completely forgot the latter. Not sure if it makes a difference but I'll just work it out here - so the total roll for the attack would've been 25, so an odd number for Chaos Burst would give me a Saving Throw. Okay so that doesn't change anything since I didn't need it anyway. Then for rolling a crit, Unfettered Power triggers and would have Slid the dragon one square and knocked him Prone (after resolving all the effects of the power that triggered it)...but he'd already been knocked Prone and I don't imagine I can knock something over ever moar!! So it's just the one-square Slide. Can I just have bashed him into a tree or something? I know that won't deal any damage but I'm sure Mr Dragon wouldn't have found it very comfortable ;).

Anyway...this turn now...Chaos Bolt...here we go...and I think I'm back to a -5 attack penalty since he's not granting CA any more, is he? So my normal attack bonus for this power is reduced to a +3 from its usual +8...really hope this hits...ohh ffs. Really?! Okay...so...um...that's a botch :P. Technically the full attack roll total would therefore be four, so that's an even number and gives me +1 AC till the start of my next turn (I would say "I think I'm gonna need it", but lightning doesn't tend to target AC :P) via Chaos Burst. And then Unfettered Power gets to trigger its opposite effect from last time, but all that does is Push all creatures within five squares of me one square, and I'm not sure anyone is within that range so yaay...let's hope Mr Dragon rolls low on his next attack or I think we're screwed, guys...

...Actually, wait, I have one more thing I can do - Action Point!

As the chaotic bolt spins off wildly, completely missing the dragon, Nym seems to barely hesitate before firing off another one, then conjuring from the tip of one finger a tiny particle of ever-shifting energy, like a seed, which she flips into the air where it shatters, causing particles to rain down...though rather than drifting straight down to the ground, they instead seem drawn to one particular combatant...

Okay, so, naturally I'm using that Action Point to fire off another Chaos Bolt...urgh, with just a +3 to attack that's only a total of 9 vs Will. Chaos Burst doesn't trigger again as that's only on my first attack each turn.
Anyway, because I used an Action Point to attack, I can trigger Seed of Chaos (which occurs after the triggering attack has been resolved), rolling a d6 and depending on what I get, applying a minor buff to myself or debuff to the target of the attack (the narrative "rain of chaotic stuff falling down" will be on either myself or the dragon, depending on which of us is affected by this)...okay, that's a one. So I gain +2 to attack rolls till the end of my next turn. Assuming I survive long enough to have one, I suppose :P.

Did you use a minor last turn?  Doesn't your helm let you get the hp of a bloodied critter you attack? You can always retcon that if it is available.

The only NPCs with healing either just used it on downed NPCs or are playing with a horse I'm afraid! :D

Hmm no, I didn't use my Minor last turn...or my Move, if I was already at ten squares. This turn I used it (my Minor) to Shapeshift, though. It might be nice to see how nearly dead this dragon is, but even if I know the total all I can do is keep pinging Chaos Bolts till he's dead (or runs away again, or something) - the only other two damaging powers I have are Close Burst 5 and Close Burst 3 so I can't really use either unless I want to get in close, and one of them is my other At-Will and does less damage than Chaos Bolt anyway. Just have to hope he doesn't hit me with as much damage as before (or even slightly less than that) or I'm going down as well...at which point it's down to whatever NPCs aren't dead/mortally wounded/unconscious/panicking to use whatever crappy weapons they have to try and do the job.
Then again, the thought has occurred that there is one NPC who could help us due to presumably having healing abilities due to their class...but maybe it's a bit meta-gamey to start getting into that ;).

OOC: Yeah, that's why Meri told the NPCs to get outta there.  I got the impression that for them trying to fight this thing would be like a bunch of midgets trying to kill a T-Rex armed only with those plastic forks they give you in chip shops.
(A T-Rex with a Tesla Coil strapped to its back and wearing scale-mail!)

Anyways, is the death thing here just like it says in the player handbook or is there a house rule or something here?
This message was last edited by the player at 10:27, Sun 29 July 2018.

The dragon is a solo of your level, so technically should be a challenge for five players, though in reality usually you need other critters around to stop the solo getting ganked. That said, I obviously had and have contingencies in place in case it knocks both of you unconscious, and not just the guards bashing it to death in your absense to save you. Fun as that is, and not that you haven't earned it by inspiring them with your previous showing. Still, last time you did very well, and with NPC help got it down to almost dead. The NPCs are staying out of it more because, you know,scary relentless draon, but also because I think you both have this. It should be staying away, so the fact that it's back and being very 'chargy' and reckless should tell you it's perhaps being compelled against its best interests. There would be ways to force it away, etc, but I don't think you're positioned to do that right now. Probably defeating it is the easiest.

Nym, you can use retroactively one of those 'minor' slots from last round for the helm effect [Private to Nym: (the dragon is currently at 25hp,and since it won't regain resistance until at least the next round, it will be at 20hp by the start of your next turn)], and one of those minor slots to drink Cure Light Wounds potion (I've said a few times I've collapsed the take/drink to one minor action not two, though in this case that's not necessarily an issue, as you'll see...)

There are two NPCs that have auto healing, and I did mention their status. Neither are in a position to do anything really, but there are other ways to heal you both.

The dragon's lighting sphere attack is pretty much guaranteed damage each turn, though its against reflexes for half damage. So you do need to either find ways to be a damage sponge or spread the damage around. Or limit it's ability to use an move/attack, like with the prone effect. In this case its burned up its own APs quite quickly to be able to act during a turn, it can't do that again. Luckily Meri healed a lot of the NPCs of their previous damage, and your strong showing last time means it's not out of character for the guards to at least try and help once they get more co-ordinated.

[Private to Nym: While Nym had been firing her chaotic bolts, there was an odd sensation in her side. As if a small squirming sphere had mysteriously appeared in one of the pokets of her robe. The sphere edged up, and suddenly a small potion appeared out of the pocket, held very, very precariously by tiny eyestalks gripping the neckas tightly as possible.

So there you go, Many has delivered to Nym a Cure Light Wounds potion. Uses up a healing surge but only does 1d8+1 healing I'm afraid. Stll, better than nothing, right! :) This is at the tail end of last turn, so will use that last remaining Minor from that turn.]

The bite the dragon gave Meri was vicious, and the artifier appeared to fall unconscious on the ground. The dragon roared, though whether still in pain or gloating was hard to tell for many reasons. Strange snarls and bellows came form its throat, directed all around and even to the sky.

Nym's magical bolts peppered the area around the dragon without striking them, for once their chaotic nature maiking them seem haphazard. The dragon bellowed in Nym's direction, but the lack of further damage seemed to give it a moment's respite.

Samel and Desmine seemed particularly affected by Meri's fall. Samel started yelling at the caravan guard closest to her, trying to pull him away from hovering over Serricco, and even kicking the guard in the direction of the dragon. The words she said were obviously in her native tongue, and were just as obviously very vulger and angry. It appeared to be to no avail, and she rushed over to the other, pushing the stoic man towards the dragon. This at least appeared to work, as the guard kept moving further ahead to block Samel from getting ahead of him, and provide her with cover.

The dragon noticed the display, and with a bellow spat a glowing ball of lighting towards them. It was haphazard at best, and exploded near the guard. The light burns the guard got did not seem to phase it, and while the guard seemd to have shielded Samel from the worst, when he moved to react to the attack, he caught Samel on the temple with the pommel of his blade. She had been trying to skirt around the guard after the dragon blast, and the unlucky timing knocked her unconscious. The guard suddenly seemed dumbstruck, and did not move from his stance, looking down as if not comprehending.

Desmine, meanwhile, had regrouped with Elias and Gibb now near Nym. They had managed to get hold of some weapons, but it seemed hopeles to challenge the dragon. Desmine looked around to Nym. "We'll distract it!" she said, perhaps braver than she might feel, and moved sideway, yelling and waving a halberd. Elias and Gibb looked less certain, but moved around - thoughless distance - to spread out and similarly cause a distraction. Gibb didn't have anything but his short short sword, and Elias tried to push him back - away from the other two guards, but still away from Nym.

As if in answer, the rolling darkness had carried on, and combined with the rain, a pall settled on the area. The cries of challenge sounded muffled and uncertain, and it was hard to make out the guards.

So there you go Nym, meat shields causing a distraction! Worry not, they have a lot of health between them, Meri saw to that from last time. Note that the rolling darkness is now basically around Nym, so attacks against the dragon will only take a -2 penalty.


[Private to Meri: The moment the dragon's maw came near, everything went white. Then black. Meri had no real appreciation of her surroundings, only that they were ostensively dark. There was some dull agony in her body, presemably caused by the odd clawed hand wrapped around her. Its middle digit was burning white, though clearly jagged like lighting, and the whole hand sparked and glowed. However, the left most figners were harder to see, and seemed to be getting lost to some encroaching gloom. It made the next finger look tinged in green and the thumb almost black. The ring finger was less bright, looking bluish in its glow. And there seemed to be something in this darkness, something red off in the distance to Meri's right somewhere. It's glow made the little finger of the clawed hand red tinged, but she could not,for some reason, turn her head to look to the red item.

A strange, gutteral language was being snarled and roared all around her, billowing her hair despite the stillness of the air. Unfortunately, it was all but impossible to focus on any words or sounds. Not because of their loudness, nor because of the dull pain. No, it was instead because the itch in her mind was insessant and overwhelming.


So, welcome to being down to 0 life! Luckily your previous actions mean you don't get any further lighting damage from the aura this turn. Note that you only die if a) you fail three death saves, or b) you take further damage that puts you to half your life again as a negative. I'd have you roll a death save now, since you don't usually have any actions when you are unconscious, but luckily you have tiny friends closeby...

In the real - but no less strange - world, Many was darting around in a panic in Meri's backpack. He had already fished out one healing potion and disappeared from Timur's sight. He came backthen his eyes widened in alarm as he seemed to somehow realise what had happened to Meri.

He was a little better at grabbing another small potion, though instead of trying to float it, be simply gripped it as best he could with his eyestalks and wobbled quickly over to Timur.

"Tim-eh! Meh-reh! Quh-ick!" was all he said, shaking, pushing the potion in to the homonculus's body.

The rules as written I believe have familiars also disappear when a player goes unconscious. I believe I already said that I'm happy for the famliars to keep acting when the players are down in this game, at least while they are still alive just unconscious. In fact that's definitely the case, as Timur went and studied the dryad grove while Meri slept ages ago.

So, you can have Timur use a move action to get to Meri (technically Meri could have had a move action too, except she's unconscious and can't do anything), then Timur can use Meri's minor to administer the potion. I mean, assuming you want to do that, and rolling Death Saves isn't more fun in your opinion :p

That would leave Meri coming awake with 1d8+1 hit points from the Cure Light Wounds potion and losing a healing surge. Oh, and delete both Cure Light Wounds potions from your inventory. And still with a Standard Action left!


With that Standard action, you could either attack the dragon (its currently still lost resistance, and fasthands would let you use an alchemical attack), but realise it will very likely blast you again in retaliation, you could use Second Wind for more healing and +2 to defenses, or you could just do the 'pushing aura' effect again to keep you safe from its aura next turn.

Feel free to react to the weird 'dream' first, of course.
]

As Meri fell to the ground, both the now darkened and inert crystal rod and her staff fell beside her.
The glow in the staff's crystals flickered once and went out, leaving them looking dark and lifeless.

Timur had been in the process of clambering out of the pack again, dragging the vial he had had before, but suddenly the glow in his eyes went out and he fell down beside Meri.  One of the smaller blue crystals set into the staff seemed to spark briefly into life for a moment, flickering erratically, but hinting there was some some residual power within it.
Timur seemed to be trying to reach towards this with one last effort, but collapsed again, this time not moving.


[Private to The Altweaver: In the darkness, Meri clenched her eyes tightly shut, trying to ignore the sounds and the itching.
"Leave me alone!" she snapped, trying to struggle against the grip around her.

"Can't understand you...  Too much itching" she muttered.  "Where am I?"

Quickly she tried to focus her thoughts elsewhere.
Nym...  What happened to Nym?  And Many?


Forgot I had those potions left actually...  If you're curious, the one Timur kept going for was the Ungol Dust, which Meri was holding back as a weapon to use if she could get close enough to throw it.

As for bringing Meri back for one more attack...  Not sure.  Does it look like Nym can't win this one alone?
Rolled a 5 this time, so, yeah, Strike 1 there.
Might try that next round then.  Can't resist making Ameena worry a bit ;) hehe

Can Meri tell what's causing the itching at all?  Not sure if there's any way she can force herself to look at mysterious red thing (which I'm suspecting might be Tharizdun), which probably means Tiamat is in league with him.
Currently trying to focus her thoughts on Nym and Many to see if that eases off the itch, since she knows it seemed to react to her thoughts before.]

That's unforunate...
[Private to Meri:
Nym's got powerful attacks, but has a penalty to attack. Meri can ignore the gloom effect because of low light vision, while Nym can't. There's lots of NPCs still with decent health since you helped them during and after the fight, so they can tank some damage for a few rounds...

Ungol powder seems a very good idea, especailly given the half damage status.

The glow dulled a little to Meri's words, and the The Itch fell away. It seemed as if the roaring, hissing, snarling wind appeared to be louder in answer to Meri's yell too, though no less intelligible. It was clearly manevolent though.

When Meri tried to look towards the red light, her head could barely turn,like a person half waking up unable to move their limbs. The reluctance was soon drowned out by The Itch again, coming back stronger and stronger any time Meri even though about trying to look towards the far off glow. Thinking about anything else, especially Nym and Meri, made The Itch disappear.

However, the howling hand seemed to sense Meri's thoughts, and grew angry at both of them - in different flavours it felt. The anger at Nym was the same furious anger directed at Meri, the anger at Many seemed far more the anger evoked from frustration and fear.


Whatever The Itch is, it seems to want to stop Meri investigating the red glow and nothing more. Whether it is Tharzidum, and whether The Itch is being helpful or not isanother matter. After all, there are many things that might to control Meri's actions and block good things as wellas bad things :)

Tiamat, or at least her dragon being influenced by her, seemed to be going after Many and other magically changed things, soit's a good bet that this is a reaction to 'eradicating' traces of Thrazidum's possible escape. It's very likely Tiamat would be opposed to Thrazidum, being that all of the gods seemingly trapped him, as she would want to rule not be under someone else's rule.  Stranger things have happened of course, so Iwon't rule it out ... ]

OOC: Not quite...


In Meri's backpack, a brief movement could be seen, most likely from Many, nudging at Timur.
After a few more nudges, a blue spark ignited briefly within the tiny metal man's eyes.  As if briefly restored, he inched forward, touching the still-flickering crystal on Meri's staff.

A sudden jolt of energy leaped from the staff into him, causing his eyes to glow brighter, but still unsteady.
Staggering to his feet, he reached for a vial that Many seemed to have pushed to him and reeled towards Meri's face, removing the cork and letting the contents of the vial trickle into her mouth.

Then, apparently losing power once more, he slumped back to the ground...

Suddenly, Meri's eyes opened again, a gasp escaping her.
Her eyes were back to their usual pale grey, having lost the blue luminous appearance they usually had, though she seemed alive for now.
Coughing weakly, she reached out for her staff, the crystals sparking once more into life as her hand closed around it.

Spitting some blood to one side and taking a deep breath to steady herself, she raised up on one elbow, looking back at the dragon and dragging herself and Timur away from its crackling aura.  At the same time, she reached out to grasp the vial of grey-green dust that Timur had dropped earlier.
"Looks like Farren's goddess still doesn't want me" she muttered to herself with a wry bloodstained grin...


OOC: Okies, so Meri is still ticking...  Somehow!
Got 6 HP back from that potion, also spending Second Wind to restore myself to 19 HP, so still one hit away from a return trip to Death's Door.
Using a move action to try and crawl as far away from the dragon's aura as possible.  Might actually be able to hurt it a bit next round and distract it from Nym for another round before it kills me again.  You're welcome!  Don't mention it! ;)


[Private to The Altweaver: As to the dream:
"I can't understand you, so shut up and let me think!" snapped Meri back at the voice.
Closing her eyes, she tried to turn her head in the direction of the glow, intending to open them again once pointed in the right direction, struggling against whatever force was preventing her...

Trying an Arcana check to see if she can understand whatever forces are messing with her head like that better now that she's apparently much closer to their source.  30 (16 + 14) - Where was that one earlier? :)]
This message was last edited by the player at 18:17, Sun 29 July 2018.

[Private to Meri: I see you went with the recovery. Let me know in PM if you wanted to explore the 'dream' a little more :) ]

The dragon did not appear to notice the movements happening beside Meri. Desmine and Elias's challenge from across the camp provoked a warning roar and hissing retort in the rolling draconic language. However, Samel's fall provoked the other guard to imediately rush forwards, apparently to try and pick up Samel or guard her aswell.

The dragon's head twisted around, and the dragon almost choked out a ball of lighting painfully from its throat. The ball sailed and perfectly caught Geekaar's second guard in the chest, pushing the man back from his forward movement.

Cool, I was playing a little loose narratively with the turn order to let Nym take her turn as soon as she was available, but since we've resolved Meri's actions properly now then I've also fully resolved the dragon's main action. The includes knowing the dragon is still not resistant to lighting, which I am frankly surprised about given its +5 to saving throws :p

Anyway, Nym, you are now definitely up next :)

Ooh, healing potions - didn't think of that as I don't have any liste don my sheet, just that dragon breath potion which I seem to recall is pretty much the same as my Burning Spray power. It's possible I was given a potion at some point and forgot to add it, though. Also I'd forgtten we have two Ardents because I forgot about Samel. Not that she's currently able to help much, it seems :(. And I'd also forgotten about Second Wind...but that uses a Standard Action and I want to shoot things :P.

Nym momentarily looks rather surprised, distracted from the dragon by a movement at her side - looking down she sees a potion vial being pushed toward her by a set of eyestalks. She takes the potion, drinks it and discards the empty vial, her attention once more on the dragon as she hurls another small bolt of energy at the creature.

So you said the healing potion was 1d8+1 hp...was that +1 from my belt giving me a bonus or was it from elsewhere? Just need to know if I need to be adding another +1 onto that from my belt if you didn't take it into account. For now I won't, I'll just take the 1d8+1 and will add another if needed. So that's...5hp back. Well, it's something, at least - I'm no longer Bloodied.
And then we have another Chaos Bolt...urgh, getting just a string of crappy attack rolls here. So that's a total of 15 vs Will (and I had only included the -2 penalty but then remembered I have a +2 bonus from using Seed of Chaos last turn, so they cancel each other out). Hmm, that's in the mid-teen grey area of "might just be good enough to hit" so I'll roll damage anyway, just in case...ooh wow, well, I hope that hit because I just rolled max damage - total of 21 Psychic damage :D. [Private to GM: Which means Mr Dragon is dead if that hit - I can has soul plz into magical headgear of doom plz thx :D.]
And Chaos Burst gives me a Saving Throw since that was an odd numbered attack roll, so once again I don't need it. I'm sure one day we'll meet some horrible fucker who's throwing out DoTs and status effects left, right, and centre, and I'll be very glad I can potentially trigger a Saving Throw every time I attack ;).

Meri and Nym have linked inventories now, so it Nym absentmindedly puts her hands in a robe pocket she can pull out whatever co-incidentally might be cool. Andvice versa. Thelist of stuff is on the 'Bes friends forever sharing thread!' for you both to see what's what, and also note down when you 'borrow' things.

The potion is 1d8+1 on its own, so you can add any further bonuses after that.

I also wanted to change the second wind power to being a move action, since in agame like this having 50% of the players lose an attack to heal during a round is more of a punishment that 20%, plus is generally not as fun. I then noted that actually I've already done this in the pastand wrote it in the house rules. So a reminder to us all - your second wind is a move action in this game.


The magic number you need to hit is 18 I'm afraid. Dragons are not notoriously dim-witted, after all, even lower level ones :) If you can double check your math, check for any Inspiration I may have overlooked (I have been evilly trying ot get you toburn all these things), and also see if Meri has any bonuses from powers she can help you out with, then yay! Otherwise, boo :(

OOC: Already spent Knack for Success before, so all I got left is Augment Energy which gives you +2.
I keep forgetting I've got that, so give me an OOC nudge if you want one.

Also just to check, how far away from the dragon am I now?  Forgot how far you can move while prone.

I don't think being Prone affects your movement speed - it just gives you a +2 bonus versus Ranged attacks but people trying to hit you with Melée attacks get a +2 bonus. But it uses your Move action to stand up unless you have, say, the Leap Up Feat which lets you do it as a Minor (or Free? I forget...) action.

Anyway yeah, I added another +1hp for the healing bonus from my belt. Sadly I don't think I can squeeze any more bonuses to the attack roll - the +2 I granted myself via Chaos Seed just cancels out the -2 penalty for the creepy darkness-cloud-thingy. I already used my Inspiration a while back, possibly when we were fighting this guy the first time around? I'm not surprised a dragon has high Will and another +3 is a relatively high number of points I need to get from somewhere to make this attack hit. Poopy bums :P.
For some reason I also realised I was working out the damage bonuses with the dagger rather than the staff where there is no reason to use the dagger on this attack. Not that it matters because it didn't hit but if I did use the staff it'd be another +1 damage. But it didn't hit. So, ugh...never mind, lol.

The dragon was 2 away from you, as it had a melee 2 attack. It hasn't moved since then that I recall, Nym's push effect was just before that. I just answered the prone quesion in the ooc thread, but you're reduced to a crawl, which is half movement.

Ttake advanage of Meri's augmen energy next time Nym, sorry this time wasn't the deal closer. Still, you are very close and Meri is back moving too!


Nym's chaotic bolt homed in on the dragon this time, but it seemed its dark words and the odd dark gloom confused the flighty magic of Nym's attack. The dragon still narrowed its eyes and flared its nostrils at Nym though.

Desmine and Elias started creating more shouting and movement, trying ot distract it andperhaps not picking up on the factthat the dragon seemed far more intelligent than a mere beast. However, this proved a benefit. Elias was still trying to move to protect Young Gibb behind him as well. The distracted distraction seemed very suspicious to the dragon, and it concentrated its next assault on the unfortunate guard.

Elias's own distracted state proved almost fatal, as it lef thim perfectly centred on the spat sphere of lighting aimed towards him., Some strange instinct meant he threw the weapons bag he still had gripped in one hand in front of him while diving. he force and might of the explosion instead demolished that, and turned what could have been a fatal attack in to merely a painful one.

Welp, bad news is Elias went from full health to bloodied in that one hit, good news is that he was at full health thanks to Meri, and even with a nat 20 he's not much passd bloody, so he's fiiiiiiine. Mechanically. Narratively, I'm sure he's a little shaken by the near death experience :)


Anyway, that was the dragon's extra attack. Meri, you're up next. 

Oh, Meri, you're close enough to realise that Nym's original effect to strip the lighting resistance still hasn't faded yet from the dragon.

Meri pulled herself to her feet, aided mostly by her staff, picking up Timur who seemed to be reviving too.
He was still holding onto the vial of grey-green dust, and now Meri grabbed this from him and drew back her arm, hurling it with whatever strength she had left at the dragon.

Gripping her staff, she activated one of the blue crystals, surrounding herself briefly in a shimmering blue aura, seeming to recover quickly for someone who had nearly died only a few seconds ago...


OOC: Okies, move action to stand up first.

Then a standard to hurl the Ungol Dust vial at the dragon:
Attack: 18 (14 + 4) vs. Reflex.
Damage: 14 (3 + 3 + 5 + 3) poison damage + ongoing 5 acid damage (save ends)
(Curiously enough, it says that if anything is killed by the damage from this stuff, it's up to the DM whether it actually dies or is left unconscious and permanently scarred).

Then a minor to heal myself so I'm less likely to drop dead again next turn :)
(And also just noticed I should have been getting an extra +2 HP from my healing surges since I hit level 6!)

The dragon's head snapped around the instant Meri moved, but that was the extent of the aid its agility gave it. The dragon was such a large target that even trying to roll itself painfully out of the way, lightning flaring wildly, the powder perfectly exploded on its flank.

The giant foe has many open wounds, make worse by the lighting, and the powder managed to waft and drift easily in to them on the warm air. The dragon howled an inhuman, pained howl and smashed itself repeatedly on the ground. It seemed driven insane by pain, trying to grind the powder away but only succeeding in spreading it more. Perhaps it was speaking words, or perhaps it was just screaming, but the air was echoing with its possibly final words. And still dangerous, as now the lightning flicked without care left and right, potentially hitting those still alive and those fallen.


Me get to decide if it dies or not? Yay! Let me think about it...

[Private to Nym: Heh, or perhaps you would like to decide. The dragon will 'die' before Nym's next turn, but that just means it's technically unconscious but still sparking and twitching and seeming very much alive and evil. And I'm happy to let Nym hit with any attack she might make. So out of character, if Nym would still attack it, or if you would like to kill it rather than let it be alive and unconscious, you can attack and kill it and get its soul. Did I say soul, I meant 'souls', as it's such a mythical powerful creature it seems only fair you'd get like...5...nah, let's make it all 7 gems worth of soul energy.

Did I say soul energy? I meant magic. The helm is syphoning magic. Not souls.

So, kill the dragon? Let it live? You can decide!]
This message was last edited by the player at 18:43, Tue 31 July 2018.

Nym seems strangely frustrated and lacking in the usual childlike happiness that comes with battle but fades just as quickly afterwards. She points the tip of her staff directly at the dragon and unleashes one more bolt of chaotic energy...

[Private to GM: Okay so...if I get a free hit does that mean I don't need to roll anything and this will just auto-kill it? While Nym would normally not kill something if it stops being a threat (eg Crass, waaay back in Old Stonebridge), this critter has done so much damage to her allies and is also now clearly suffering so badly that it seems a better idea to just smite it in the head and put the poor bugger out of his(?) misery. And yeah, another thingy for my head-gems to keep company the one I've been carting by itself for a while would be nice, right? ;)]

[Private to Nym: Yep, I'm not even using coup de grace rules, just free kill no roll and have six souls then to fill your helm. Essense of dragon magics I mean. Not souls. :p

And an interesting end to her mood. Should we be worried?]


If the group as a whole had horrified by the attack on Meri, then awed by her ability to shrug off said horrific attack, they were about to find both emotions topped. As the dragon was wrything in agony, and it began to dawn on those assembled they may once again win, Nym's powerful attack left no doubt.

The chaotic bolts of energy had been distracted and inneffective before, but for some reason with the shift in Nym's mood they became focused rather than playful, the twists of them spiralling inwards, making the patterns deep and intricate. The bolt hit the dragon square in the head, and its body arched.

The lighting flares out of all its wounds, it opened its maw and screamed white light rather than sound. Oddly, the darkness intensified the more the white light burned. The lighting started lashing out, but the darkness was retracting and growing more and more intense. It pulled the lighting back, making it strike the dragon's body again and again - though the creature seemed unconscious now, or perhaps even...dead?

Without the living will controlling it, it seemed as if the electricity i nthe dragon's body was trying to get out, but the darkness pulled inwards, more and more. The lighting flared all the harder, trying to escape, breaking out of the dragon's body and snapping scales, but it was now so hard to see. And them, as the darkness pulled back to a perfect sphere around the dragon's body, the very, very dull white light around and inside the dragon reached a fever pitch. It was an odd swirl of rainbow colours, barely visible on the edge of the white light being blocked by the gloom. [Secret to Meri: It was easy to imagine there were colours other than white tinging the blackness - shades of blue, red, and green. ]

There was an impossibly powerful and bright explosion, made muffled and dim by the black cloud, contained harmlessly in the sphere. With some small sparks of electricity, the powerful smell of ozone, and a sound liek the ripping of silk, the dragon vanished leaving nothing but a greasy smear on the ground, and the evaporating of the darkness. The normal gloom of the oncoming night tok its place.

Screams them came, smaller and numerous in answer to that strange sight. Geekaar's guards, with the dragon dead and gone forever, leant their heads back and foul mist lashed out of the mouths in to the night sky, dissipating in mere moments. The two guard's bodies fell backwards, seemingly dead.


An odd silence fell upon the woods and the damaged camp. Rain drummed on the ground, barely heard.



And with that - VICTORY! You've now just killed a dragon! A blue one! And somehow Geekaar's odd guards too. No great loss :p

So, you gain 625Xp for that successful battle - which is 312XP each, which I am assured puts you over the line to LEVEL 7! YAY!

Level 7 is pretty easy. Gain 5 extra hp, recalculate your healing surge and bloodied value, and gain a new shiny level 7 encounter power! Meri may already have a head start here...

Oh, and as you've had two successful fights, you gain an Action Point! This may normally be redundant this close to sleep, but I figure for defeating a dragon, this action point will stay with you overnight, so you should wake up with 2AP each tomorrow morning :) Assuming you wake up... or aren't attacked overnight...


Anyway, congratulations!

Meri squinted, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the explosion of light in front of her.
As both the dragon and Geekaar's strange guards collapsed, she slumped to the ground again, allowing the staff to topple over to rest beside her and Timur to drop to the ground next to her where he looked over at the space the dragon had occupied only seconds ago.
Although her clothing was now torn and bloodied and burned in several places by lightning discharges, she seemed less likely to drop dead at any minute now.

Shrugging off her backpack, she opened it up and peered inside.
"It's ok, it's gone now, for good this time" she said wearily.


OOC: Yay!  Dragonsplosion! :D

[Private to The Altweaver: Just checking, is 14 the right surge value, and 28 the right bloodied value for 57 max HP?
Not so good with calculating halves and quarters, hehe.  Got a calculator on here, but is it just dividing 57 by 2 and 4?]

Woo, ding seven :D. I'll do my levelling up and update my character sheet shortly. Phew, that was a tough one...I hope we don't get attacked any more, and not just because I think we're both pretty much completely out of decent attack powers.
Also, "dragonsplosion" - hehehe :D. [Private to GM: Ooh and I thought you were joking about filling up my headgear all the way - cool :D.]

As the dragon is consumed by darkness and lightning and finally disappears altogether, Nym just sort of stands there, staring at the place where the dragon used to be. She seesm to have forgotten about the things she's holding and both staff and dagger fall from her hands to thud onto the ground as she blinks several times and uddenly seems incredibly confused and disoriented.

"Oh. Was there a thing? I think I did a thing? Did a thing happen?" she asks, speaking somewhat slower than usual.

She turns her back on the mess and starts vaguely wandering away, seemingly with no particular destination in mind. On her shoulder, Ryn starts chattering away in her ear.

[Private to GM: Will just wander slowly away from anything resembling carnage, blood, injured/unhappy people. Not sure if that will take me over toward the wagons? If it does, Nym will pick a random one and sit in it. Otherwise she'll wander a little way into the woods, where she can't hear anyone who might be making pained noises as a result of being zapped/clawed/bitten by the dragon, and just kind of sit down on a random log or against a tree or wherever seems vaguely comfortable. And she'll do so with her back to where she just came from.
Yeah...she really isn't going to have it easy any more when combat finishes. That one was particularly bad since there was so much obvious damage to various allies, what with them getting blasted all over the place and stuff...and Meri went down (however briefly). I wonder if she might start getting worried if it seems like combat might happen in future, if she has some vague memory of this one. Seems quite timely that this one levelled her up, I suppose - her powers becoming stronger as the risk of her becoming aware of their source starts to prickle...]

I can certainly promise you both you won't get attacked for the next five minutes, so you're welcome to take that as a short rest and restore your encounter powers, spend healing surges, etc etc :D

The guards and Geekaar's retainers seemed to take a while to fully comprehend what had happened and react to it. It was understandable, given that the whole original dragon attack and Geekaar's flight had been strange to start with, and they had barely settled down before the grizzly interruption and the new assault. Each group seemed to stay clustered where they had been, tending to each other in relative quiet, not really asking any questions or disturbing the quiet.

Jessah and Diamond were still being tended to by Propp, Sarah was looking after Stark, and Desmine had rushed over to check on Elias,with Gibb hovering. In each case, the downed guards seemed fine if shaken, their burns and bruises being taken care of with normal means. Elias in particular seemed to have managed to escape physically well considering, though he was clearly shaken to his core which in turn had shaken Desmine and Gibb.

Serricco was quiet and being tended to by a very worried Dott, and a less worried Maggrath who apparently felt the green clad elder was going to recover. She had cast a less than happy eye over Darasee as the woman staggered over to Samel. Slowly Maggrath followed. Neither seemed to care about Geekaar's guards, nor the strange displaythat had happened with them. Both guards seemed lifeless now.

It was Samel's lack of movement that seemed to worry Darasee, and then Maggrath and both women realised something.

"She's...she's alive, but I can't make her wake up!" stammered Darasee, shaking the younger woman. Maggrath gently pulled Darasee aside, but the older cook looked very concerned as she checked the head wound of Samel and the palour of her skin.

Meri, Samel was reasonably close to you and thedragon during the fight, so you'd be able to notice this if you want to.
[Private to Meri:
Yeah, your maths checks out :)]

Meanwhile, inside Meri's backpack, a small set of eye stalks followed by a large eye attached to a tiny beholder emerged. "Ih...Ih..zit...sah-feh? Did we wih-neh?"



Meanwhile, as Nym wandered away, there was a dull thumping sound. A muddy and determined Farren, riding the horse Nym had chased after, emerged from the rain and awkwardly steered the nervous horse to a skittish halt. With some false starts he managed to steady himself to speak to - at at least towards - the distracted Nym. The grizzly headleass previous rider seeemd to be oddly absent.

"I tried to come as soon as I could, but I don't seem to be needed?" he asked in Nym's direction, looking to both the mage and Ryn then the giant space where a gloom-protected dragon had been. "I also have some good news. Perhaps. Not as good as a dead dragon, but not just that we still have a horse if we need one..."

[Private to Nym: Up to you if Nym or Ryn would address Farren, or not notice him. There's no body for some reason, and in the rain the horse's wounds at the back wouldn't be noticeable.

And heh, if you do me the favour of getting rid of the evidence that there was ever a dragon, giving you a full set of gems is the least I can do :p

We'll try not to break Nym, but the world is full of dangers. I mean, you can always try and talk through problems and battles more, and turn things to skill challenges. That would depend upon Nym gaining a bit more awareness of her 'hehehe, playing!' funny turns, and perhaps trying to actively not have them happen and instead calm down the situation. It's a fun dynamic to see how it goes!]

OOC: There was a thing.  Nym did a thing.  A thing happened! :D


Meri nodded.
"Well, let's just say that particular enemy won't be troubling us any more" she replied, glancing up at where the dragon had been.

She reached down and cupped a gentle hand around Many.
"Thanks for the help back there" she added.

The sound of voices of the people examining Samel drew her attention and she looked up briefly, then back at Many.

"Well, time to check the damage"
She then slowly stood up and groaned softly.
"Gonna be sore in the morning" she muttered, lifting the pack, along with Timur who had clung onto it again, onto one shoulder and propping her staff over the other and wandering over to see what was going on.


OOC: Hmm, will see if a Heal check can tell me anything...
14 (2 + 12) - Meh, maybe not.  Safe to assume Meri isn't 100% focused right now.

Do I get a bonus for the 6000th post?  And the "Hellboy" reference? :)
This message was last edited by the player at 23:50, Fri 03 Aug 2018.

Nym, sitting against a tree at the furthest point of the clearing, and sitting against said tree so that it blocks her view of anything anyone might be doing, looks vaguely up at Farren. She seems about to say something in response to his first statament, but as the words "dead dragon" are spoken she seems to go blank again and vaguely waves an arm behind her.

"Oh. There was...a thing. I think? Horsey..."

She goes back to staring ahead of her, while Ryn continues chattering into her ear.

Yeah, I saw that - 6000 posts, woo! :D

[Private to GM: Well the happy-fun-playing-games part is when the magic kicks in to distract her from what she's doing. Since she just got attacke twice in fairly quick succession she hadn't really recovered from the previous combat in time to have the same reaction at the dragon's return. Plus, as mentioned previously, it's gonna be harder for her to shut it out anyway, now she's levelling up more and becoming more powerful, ie her natural abilities are starting to show more as her disguise slowly starts to break down (at least mentally, even if her mortal form is holding together well enough physically). We'll just have to see what happens, I suppose ;).
Oh, also, I went into the level-up thing after my past post and picked my power - I found the BEST ONE, thematically :D. It's called Spark Form -  I've added it to my sheet but forgot to do any of the other levelling-up stuff (like hp), so I'll do that later. I suppose it's okay to wait until we actually rest anyway, which presumably will be quite soon.]

I mean sure, if you're going to quote Hellboy and get the 6000th post, why wouldn't I give you the extra +1 to make that check? I mean you could have asked for Inspiration for both of you, APs, etc, but a +1 to roll seems fine too :p

Yay, 6000 posts! Please both of you refresh your Inspiration :)
[Private to Meri:

The blow to her head seems to have created a pocket of blood pressing on her skull. Meri could have done some impromptu stabby stuff to releive that presure and stop Samel making Death saves, but providing Meri has a healing surge left, some healing magic will also remove that wound and recover Samel enough to also wake up. If not, then she can stabalise Samel and someone like Farren canthenprovide the actual healing magic :)]

Many squirmed his way out of the pack, and and after seemeingly being reassured by Meri's words, hovered over to Nym. "Nyhm? Nih-meh?" he called in a singsong voice, trying to catchher eye and looking to Ryn worried.
[Private to Nym:
Cool. I did look over the options, and Spark Form seemed fun. Like a brief glimpse at Nym's elemental nature, a good 'I'm in trouble' encounter power to get you away from danger, but also lets you do damage to multiple opponents as you do it too if you can :)  Level 7 is easy otherwise, just 5hp added and recalculate your surge value/bloodied value. It's level 8 that has a bit of work to do. ]


Meanwhile, Farren looked equally concerned at Nym's lack of response, but clearly needed to tell the others something. He continued on to stop near Propp, dismounting awkwardly.

He looked over the guard as the guard stood looking on disapprovingly, Farren for some reason letting his eyes roam over the man's armour. He looked to the other two guards near, then nodded to himself. "Well, unless your friends who went in to the woods are terrible at the upkeep of their armour, and like making patchwork suits out of all your rejects, that wasn't either one of them on the horse. I'm going to guess a bandit. I can't say your two friends are definitely alright, but at least there's still hope they didn't get in the path of the dragon. Though I'm not sure we should go search for them in the dark withbandits confirmed in those woods..."

Meri wandered over to look at Samel, stooping down to examine her closely.
"Looks like she just got bashed in the head too hard, nothing that can't be fixed.  She'll need to take it easy for a while though, I haven't got enough energy left to do much more healing."

She brought her staff around and held one of the tips directly over a particularly nasty-looking bruise on Samel's head, tapping on one of the glowing blue crystals which immediately went dark, its energy discharging into Samel and causing the injured part to assume a slightly more healthy-looking colour.

"Anyone else badly hurt?" she asked, looking up at Maggrath and Darasee.  "Got enough for one more person, maybe a little more for someone else if they get close enough."


OOC: No surges left, and one more infusion until Meri gets a proper rest, but might be able to give a little extra thanks to a magic item effect (which will probably roll up 1 HP or something now that I used up a lot of good rolls in the fight! hehe).

If we're going to get attacked by bandits next, have to hope they're the wimpiest weakest minion bandits in the world! :)

Ha, almost a pity we evaporated the dragon. Otherwise, can you imagine..."Ha ha, travellers! Hand over all your...um...wait, is that...is that a dead dragon? Umm...heh heh...no, wait, um...we just, er, got lost. Yeah, that's it. See? No need to point those staves and stuff at us. We were just...um...leaving. Yeah. Um...bye!" <cartoonish "zoom" noise of someone zooming off in a cloud of dust>

Nym glances vaguely in Many's direction. She seems to brighten a little while Ryn also looks down at the little beholder.

"Oh, hello Many!" she says. "I feel like I haven't seen you for a while. Um. How are you?"

[Private to GM: Pff, who needs to "recalculate" (or even "calculate") anything when I can just click the level-up button and copy what the new character sheet says in the wonderful Character Builder program? :D But yeah, I'll sort the hp when we rest and I get them all back, I think. Level eight will be an increase in skills and stuff as the half-level total goes up by one. Not sure if we get a new stat increase/Daily power but I feel like we probably get one of those. Can't be arsed to open the Builder or a PDF and take a look - I'll find out when we get there :D.
Also, level seven...this is the level where I get my next magic item, right? My flying rainbow snek friend? I mean, I can't imagine that's gonna be happening any time soon, given the current situation. But, you know, it's one more thing to look forward to :D.
Oh, and yes, that was pretty much what I was thinking with Spark Form - a subtle hint as to her origins, plus a handy "argh I'm surrounded...<runs whilst zapping everything>" power. Just have to be careful not to move through allies when I use it ;).]

Lol, what's this 'we'? I seem to recall the dragon was thrashing it's way in to unconsciousness... :P

Yeah, you guys having a dragon captive would have been fun. You guys explaining about fighting a dragon with no evidence? A different kind of fun!

[Private to Nym: Spark form only hits enemies, so either Nym will be able to control moving around her friends, or it's just plot convenient that her friends dive out of the way! :D

And yeah, next magical friend is pencilled in for some point this level! ]


Samel groaned and half woke up, clearly groggy. Maggrath knelt down and encouraged the young woman not to move - especially when Samel jerked awake startled, recalling the fight. However, Samel's colour had improved and Maggrath did not seem as worried when she was administering to the psychic.

"Those two," nodded Maggrath to Serricco still leaning against a tree, and Darasee who was standing tottering, and looking to Samel still worried.

Yeah, both of them are actually ok-ish, like 1/4 of their hit points left. So it's more narrative 'healing their narrative wounds' than stopping them form dropping dead stubbing a toe :) So feel free to lead Darsee by the hand back across and do you two-for-one thingie!

Farren looked at some of the others, speaking with the guards more regarding who was healthy and what to do about the missing guards. Diamond and Startk had seemed the worst affected, and Farren used whatever he had learned from Samel to try and relieve them from their aches and pains.


During this time, there is movement from the woods. Not anything being stealthy, nor threatening, just the noise of movement. Before to long, a horse is visible, being lead by both of the female guards that had left.

"Tesse! Jynne!" yelled out Diamond in relief, then clutching his chest as clearly the strain of yelling had hurt.

Propp pointed to the other horse. "This one bolted out earlier with a dragon in tow," he tried to say lightly, but clearly all the tensions were present from everything that had happened. "We... we beat the dragon... destroyed it, in fact..." he said, voice straining a little at the words 'we' and 'dragon' and certainly 'destroyed'. He looked around with a mixture of awe and fear to where Meri was quietly ministering to the fallen, and Nym was distractedly speaking with Many.

"I got the horse," said Farren flatly, trying to keep Diamond from moving any further, and then trying to keep Jessah from speaking, since she too still looked in a bad way.

"Well, two isn't bad," said Tesse jovially. She thenhad a haunted look. "A group of ... I guess thieves or bandits... were trying to calm the horses when we came along. I suppose the noise of us trying to get the horses back when the bandits were aggressive in their ownership claims attracted the .... attracted the thing. Didn't care too much when it realised who we actually were, I don't think. Bandits panicked and tried to scare it off, but it just barrelled through the bandits like they were nothing. Then it just kept going going rather than rounding on us."

Tesse trailed off and shuddered, and said no more about the matter, and Jynne didn't even start. Facing a mythical dragon flaring lighting and evicerating others, while leaving you alone for no good reason, definitely had a psychological effect.


Many meanwhile, was looking nervously to Ryn then gave an uncertain smile to Nym. "Ahm fine!" he said brittly. "You?" He then considered something. "You hah-veh-teh told meh any more mah-*jik* yeht! New trick-seh?"

Many seemed both proud of himself at the attempt at a distraction, and also as if he'd sudden;y realised he really had been denied learning any new tricks for a while.

OOC: Not bad, I'd definitely thought we'd have at least a few dead NPCs on our hands after tangling with a dragon twice in a row.  Maybe they're not quite as squishy as they look :)


"Ok, this way" said Meri, taking Darasee over to where Serricco was.  "Stand next to him for now, I can't do much for you with what I have left, but it's better than nothing."

This time she propped her staff on the ground, tapping several of the smaller crystals on it and holding her other hand out.
The remaining blue crystal's light went out as an aura of blue energy leaped to Serricco, vanishing into his skin.  Some of the energy seemed to be channelled down the staff into Meri's arm where it was absorbed into the white bracer she was wearing.  This glowed brightly, followed by its twin on the other arm which released a white glow into Darasee...


OOC: Okies, so Serricco gets 20 HP back, and Darasee gets 8 HP back - Maxed the roll, yay!  (But also not-yay, 'cos that could have been a killer damage roll at some point!  Ah well) :)
Anyways, I'm out of heals now, have to get Farren and Samel to finish patching up!

Well, hopefully those bandits shat themselves so badly that they won't be back any time soon, especially not if they saw one of their number being decapitated. I'm sure it would be understandable for them to think that nooone could defeat such a terrible creature and that these woods are now super-dangerous and not worth coming back to any time soon ;). Actually, I suppose they really are super-dangerous, just not in the same way as when the dragon was here. Because, you know, the individuals who killed the dragon are still here... >:)

Nym tilts her head slightly to one side in thought at Many's question.

"Tricks?" she repeats. "Hmm...well, maybe..."

She looks down at her hands and wiggles her fingers a bit. A few little sparks shoot out but then she looks at Many and shrugs.

"Oh, sorry." she says. "I think I'm a bit tired right now. Been a busy day, and all that. Maybe we can just talk about things instead? Something fun..."

[Private to GM: Spark Form hits "creatures", not "enemies", so yes, I could harm allies if I steered myself through them ;).]

Yeah, the lack of NPC deaths was quite impressive to me too. This second time Samel actually came pretty close (because you needed the fight to end to heal her, really, though stabalising her was still a possibility). I don't recall anyone in the first attack that was in as bad a place for too long.

All the NPCs were 3rd level creatures, with the non-guards having the worst stats of Samel. The guards had some useful attacks that helped you in the first fight, pinning the dragon. Still, they had no natural healing surges and only Samel and Farren had healing abilities, so really it was only the robust stats of 4th edition and player intervention that kept them alive. And kept them around to be meat shields in the second fight :p

The guards who wondered off were sort of in limbo, as you let them go but had healed them earlier, so with the lack of NPC deaths from the dragon, I knew they'd be safe. If everyone else was just dropping dead that second fight though, then two more guards wouldn't have mattered as much :p


As to the bandits.... well, who knows.... But yeah, if they poke their heads out, they'll likely to lose them for different reasons that dragon bite. But still lose them.


Serricco looked far less pale, though he started loudly protesting his lack of ability to move until he received a glare from Darasee. She looked still a little pale, but was clearly recovered enough from her previous injuries and recent exertion to at least gather some items to make Samel comfortable.

[Private to Meri: Serricco seems pretty close to full health, Darasee is tottering around bloodied/nor bloodied, so they'll be fine even narratively despite any realistic touches. So good job. :) Samel is out of the woods, just we'll see narratively how long it takes her to use her powers. Or maybe she'll use them on herself, of course :D ]

Maggrath looked around. "Should we try to move everyone back to the shelter of the woods?" she asked, not sure. "The rain is getting heavier. And I don't think we'll be moving wagons tonight."

Though even as she was mentioning the rain, it did seems as if the area they were in was a little... more sheltered than perhaps it should have been.


Feel free to roll a Perception check while responding, Meri :)


Many looked a little panicked at being the one to drive the conversation about fun things. He then looked at Nym's robe and darted one of the pockets. "Look! Tree! Meri hahz a treeeee ihna her pack! And you cah-neh see it and pickeh things from iht!"

I forget if Nym checked this out before, but Many hasn't shown it personally to Nym and was having as much fun as possible given dragon attacks in there, so, you know, he's happy to show it off! :)

Nym glances down at her cloak.

"Oh, yes, the staff thingy grew into a tree, didn't it?" she says, becoming a little more animated now. "Is it really big now? It's a bit difficult to stick my head into my own pocket, so I can't really see. But maybe I can feel a branch or something..."

She sticks a hand into her pocket and feels around.

"I wonder if it'll get so big I'll start having branches growing out of my pockets." she muses, and giggles slightly. "That would be silly..."

Meri lowered her staff, bringing it around to rest on her shoulder again.
All of the light normally present around the crystals on the staff had dimmed to the point of nearly going out, as if the object - or whatever it drew its power from - had been almost completely depleted.

She directed a slight frown and a shrug at Serricco before moving off.
(OOC: And now she's wishing she'd spent the actual infusion on Darasee and just let Serricco get the slight heal so he'd actually have something to complain about!  hehe).

Her attention seemed to have switched to the bodies of Geekaar's guards as she moved over close to one of them, reaching out to prod at the body with her staff as if checking for any remaining signs of life.


OOC: If anyone gets a proper look at it, the tree-thing inside the pack has grown a little bit more now.
Doesn't seem to be getting taller, but more branches have grown out and the wood surface has grown a rough bark-like texture, so it looks more like a tree and not just a staff half turned into a tree, with the uneven floor around its base showing hints of more roots extending outwards under the 'ground'.
The larger branches seem to be reaching out towards the pockets, the way a plant leans towards the sunlight, although their growth seems to halt at the point beyond where they'd start getting in the way, and the top of the tree points directly up at the opening of Meri's pack.
Still no actual leaves on it yet, but it's probably still growing.

The trunk of the tree is also displaying odd markings, like patterns of lines and spiralling shapes (think sort of Celt-style artwork, like something out of the Feywild).  These glow with a faint green luminescence that keeps the items scattered around the base of the tree clearly illuminated and visibly hints at the magic that sustains the tiny pocket dimension inside.


[Private to The Altweaver: Trying a Heal check to confirm if the guards are actually dead or just 'switched off' and maybe see if there's any hint of what actually killed them.
24 (12 + 12)

Also Arcana check to make sure they don't have any kind of lingering magic about them, so not about to explode or try to possess me and turn me into some psychotic automaton like them.
Assuming the Arcane Trapsmith's +4 bonus to checking for traps or hazards would apply there, ignore the extra +4 if not:
27 (9 + 14 + 4)]
This message was last edited by the player at 20:04, Tue 07 Aug 2018.

Poor Serricco, don't forge he's been dragged on his smaller excusion wih Geekaar raher han be lef in charge in Thirdgate, been attacked by a dragon not once but twice, and also had his employer run away and leave him for dead. He can be forgiven for maybe wanting an excuse to take it easy :p

Serricco had the good grace to look embarrassed and be less vocal in his suffering. Maggrath seemed suitably impressed with the recovery of the two older retainers. She gestured for a nervous and reluctant Dott to come over and stay with Samel as the young psychic recovered. The cook then walked over to looked ot the guards too, keeping a respctful distance from Meri to let Meri work. Maggrath did not seem to surprised with the state of the guards, however, and more simply seemed resigned.


[Private to Meri: Yeah, the guards are both dead. And Farren can confirm later the other two guards by the wagons died at the same time in the same way. The bodies are still warm, so they were certainly 'alive' in some way, shape or form up until whatever was inside departed. Their bodies seem depressingly normal now, so it is very, very likely that they were simply normal young men who were - willingly or not - entirely possessed by some other entities that granted them their slightly supernatural gifts. It also seems likely, given the nature of the guards actions, that without Geekaar's constant presence, they were only obliged to fullfil the spirit of his last commands. Which seemed to be stop the dragon from coming after him (the other two) and protect the retainers from the dragon (these two). The moment the dragon died, it appeared whatever bond was forced on these controlling spirits was broken - they had no further orders - and so were freed. While it could have been that the actual guards had long since 'died' in that their will could not sustain their life, the reaction to their bodies does seem more that the shock of the spirits' departure killed them.

There is some strange residual magic on the bodies that will mean they not alter nor decay. This might be a side effect of some magic to keep the guards strong and healthy, or it might perhaps be a deliberate effect needed due to the possession. Either way, it does mean the guard's bodies could be transported elsewhere for burial, etc. It depends upon the nature of their relationship with the retainers and Geekaar, of course!

There is no other magic - harmful or otherwise - attached to the guards' bodies. Nor is any of their gear possessing any magic, even though eachhas a strange little anulet around their necks with a crude representation of an animal. The amulets are small, iron, and already appear to be corroding as if from sudden aging in terrible coditions.

Oh, and arcane trapsmith, and swapping to the intelligence bonus, is absolutely appropriate for this sort of thing. Luckily, nothing to worry about! :)]


Many giggled with glee as Nym appeared to be more engaged again, and darted in to one of her other pockets. There was then a muffled sound of an exicted beholder barely managing to explain about how Nym's giant hand was now dominating the little landscape, yet Many seemed a normal size when he tried to help guide Nym's hand from inside the pocket to some odd little twig feeling item. That, somehow, seemed to have a small folded telescope. Many was trying to guide Nym's fingers to the telescope with some of his eyestalks.


I imagine it works like this. When being observed, the tree will look normal, and there's all the items at thebottom, etc as Meri has previously described. However, whenever anyone actually needs something in a hurry, the item will mysteriously be perched in the highest branch, to be grabbed. Obviously this will be only if Meri is trying to take a Nym items, or Nym is trying ot take a Meri item. Nym's robe will function 'normally' when she's trying to get one of her own items from it. Maybe. If she's concentrating on wanting that item, at least :)

Perspective and proportion will also be strange. To Many or Timur or Ryn inside a pack, the area is as Meri has described it. Seeing a hand enter, it will be some oddly giant hand coming from high in the sky. Yet when getting closer, the hand resovles in to a normal size, that just so happens to be really close to one of the branches. Hey, it's magical,a little bit mind bendy, and I can't wait for it to develop in to some weird pocket dimension people live in at some point! :D 

Meri poked at the guard's body once more, this time pushing aside the clothing around his upper chest.

Crouching down beside him, she placed the staff to one side and reached down cautiously to examine a small corroded amulet that was now exposed.


OOC: One of the high level Wizard powers has an effect like that.  Creating a small extradimensional space for everyone to rest in, with infinite food and water (though anything taken outside of the space into the normal world just disappears).  Though it only lasts for something like the minimum time needed for an extended rest I think before it vanishes and dumps everyone back outside.
Maybe a variant of that, requiring a spell or item or something to let everyone enter or leave that space once it's fully 'grown'.  Ideas are happening! :)


[Private to The Altweaver: OOC: Can I tell if that has any magical power about it?  Wondering if it's the source of that preserving magic, kind of a Dorian Gray thing, like the amulet gets old and corroded and decrepit instead of its wearer.
Not going to remove it yet in case that's actually the effect and it makes him crumble into dust or something.]
This message was last edited by the player at 13:00, Wed 08 Aug 2018.

Hehe well, in my case it's quite literally a "pocket" dimension :D. As I see it, whatever item I want, an opening appears inside said dimension next to it when I stick my hand in the pocket, so if observed from inside if I'm reaching in repeatedly and taking multiple items they'd see my hand constantly entering from different locations, taking an item and retreating into the "wall" (as opposed to Meri's pack which always opens looking down from the top). But when Nym isn't really sure what she's looking for then I suppose the opening will just materialise near a random item, or the one that most resembles whatever she was just thinking about (however vague the similarity might end up being ;)).

Nym giggles at Many's antics and lets him guide her hand to the folded telescope. She grasps it and pulls it out for a look.

"Ahh, a thingy." she says, and tries to unfold it for closer inspection of its features. Ryn, meanwhile, is still sitting on Nym's shoulder and leans her head forward for a closer look.

Yeah, one of the vague ideas is to address Nym's wanderlust versus the possibility of Meri wanting / needing to settle to do something artificery somewhere, etc. A space Nym can keep coming back to, no matter where she is, that is linked to Meri, is one possibility...

"Yeah! Yeah!" Many danced around the small rattly telescope, bopping around Nym's hand. He was clearly trying to get at least one eyestalk up to the looking end of the telescope, while simultaneously trying to encourage Nym and Ryn to do it instead.

"Hello there!" came a jovial voice, sounding quiet but booming, as if coming from quite a distance. Or as if some naval jovial voice, but coming from something currently small.

Feel free to roll a Perception check if you want to try and work out why the telescope is talking to you suddenly.

Meri, meanwhile, had been intently studying the guard and the amulet around its neck. [Secret to Meri: And therefore, the heavy blow to the back of her neck came as quite a surprise.]

[Private to Meri: So, leaving aside that last little bit, to answer your previous questions. The magical effect to prolong life is either a lingering effect form strengthinening magic, so the source would have just been a spell. Or there are spells that explicitly prlong life/bodies. Not just for necromancers wanting to keep bodies fresh for ceremonies, but also adventurers, etc use it to keep fallen comrades alive long enough to get to a temple to ressurrect. So the effect just occurs after the source has gone, and would last for a decent amount of time or until actually dispelled.

Whatever power the amulet had - most likely holding the spirit, bonding with it, controlling it, allowing communication, etc - has gone. The amulet won't crumble to dust right away, but clearly it will keep degrading over the next few hours / days as it cools down, until it will be otherwose worthless.

Anyway, feel free to react to being slammed in the back of the head by something quite heavy from above - like someone large just punched down at you.... then check out the spoiler text below to see what has actually happened.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Meri has just been hit by a descending coil of rope. It has come straight down from the sky, and the other end seemed to disappear in to.... nothingness?... i nthe sky?

---

]

Meri seemed to quickly lose interest in the amulet, at least before her attention was completely diverted by the blow to the head, pitching her forward and making her throw out one hand to steady herself.

Her eyes seemed to flare blue for a second before she quickly spun around, one hand swinging around in a backhand blow, trailing a purple energy which exploded out into the air behind her with a concussive crack.
In the same movement she reached out to grab her staff...


OOC: Just slung a Thundering Armour attack at the adjacent area immediately behind her, thinking someone just tried to jump her from behind :)
After being attacked twice by a dragon and nearly killed, Meri is definitely in 'shoot first, don't even bother with the questions' mode.

Since she put her staff down before examining the guards, I'll have her fire that one off without it.
[Private to The Altweaver: Dunno if I need to roll for the attack and damage?  Did getting clouted on the head do any damage to Meri or knock her prone or anything?  Might edit that if it did knock her prone.]
This message was last edited by the player at 23:20, Wed 08 Aug 2018.

Nym jumps slightly (though not literally, given that she's still sitting on the gorund beside a tree) at the sudden voice. She seems to want to look in all directions at once to figure out where the voice came from, without being sure in which direction she should look first. Ryn seems similarly mystified, her head tilting around quizzically.

Oh gawd...please don't say we're under attack again...Perception check is a relatively terrible 11 (2+9) :P.

Depends how you define an attack really. Just your DM playing a nasty trick behind a secret message on Meri :p


Maggrath stumbled backwards, luckily having given Meri quite the respectful distance that apparently the artificer deserved.

Everyone was on high alert, and after a moment of seeing the nature of Meri's sudden react, were perhaps far less on guard and more...bemused.

It appeared that a length of rope had descended from the sky - attached to nothing, it seemed - and had managed to catch Meri on the back of the head. Several more descended at the same time, in other odd locations dotted around, similarly from nowhere those not managing to catch anyone else.

Nym, for that Perception check, feel free to have not noticed the ropes yet if it amuses you more. Nor something else even more interesting for the moment...

Meri, I did ask if you wanted to roll Perception a while ago. Feel free to roll on now if you like. Or Arcana. Or both :)


"I say, hello? Can you... can you actually hear me?" came the voice again drifting towards Nym from somewhere.
[Private to Meri:
No damage, no being knocked prone, just the end of a heavy coil of rope making its surprising presence known.]

Meri quickly grabbed up her staff and backed away from the rope.
"Ok, that's new" she murmured to herself.
Pulling down her goggles, she peered up at the sky where the rope vanished...


[Private to The Altweaver: OOC:
Perception: 21 (7 + 14)
Arcana: 15 (1 + 14) - Fumbled it.
Horrible rolls, hope the skill bonuses can carry this one through...]