Day 4 - Torture

Feeling much better now, and for some reason I feel like I could drink Acid. I'm not sure what that's about. Everyone is rested and eager to start searching again, so we go through the obvious door in this room and we're in...

A cave. Great.

This looks connected to the first room we fought in as well as the big crater we found outside. We abandon it immediately to go back to the room with the broken lockpick in the door that Shintauro still insists he knows nothing about. One crowbar and three people manage to break the door down, and we find...naked chicks.

Naked goblin chicks, to be precise. They've been beaten and stripped naked and Gods know what else, so I tell them their clothes are outside and they should get dressed and escape. I'm not sure they even heard me, but we don't have time to shepherd them out of here, so we head down to the big hall and search everything else.

Searching everything else starts by leading us down a hallway to a torture chamber. There are seven gnolls torturing some poor, tiny goblin who would be singing like a canary if he had anything of value to say. Or if, you know, the gnolls were even bothering to listen.

Linnea (she insists I start using her name after she read part of the journal, so this is how we'll be referring to Water Elf Fish Girl for a while, until I decide I don't care) checks the door to see if it's locked. It's not. She immediately removes herself from danger and hits the back of the line. So, we're back to Water Elf Fish Girl. Fantastic. That didn't take long.

There's much debate about who should go in, Knought isn't sure he wants to since he's concerned we may leave him behind, and after a brief scuffle the Sergeant steps up and enters the room, immediately garroting one of the moron gnolls. The rest haven't noticed us yet, so Knought joins the fray, taking a wild swing at another one and missing. This is when I have to go in and throw my magic around.

Pretty soon everyone's joined the battle, and these guys go down without too much trouble, though Knought and Sgt. Shintauro take the brunt of the damage, as usual. I need to teach them to be smaller.

Eventually all the gnolls go down, though, and we're left with Grupay, the goblin prisoner. He tells me they didn't even ask him questions, they just like torture. He says Taz was with them when they got here, but they took him somewhere else when they brought him here.

After a brief farewell during which he casually mentions that the gnoll slaver's leader is a guy named One-Eye, who has a gem stuck into his forehead. Apparently this is how he got the nickname "One-Eye". Though Frazzle points out that "Three-Eye" would be more accurate. Gnolls are not good at counting. Anyway the poor bastard's on his way, and I tell him to stop and get the girls, but the chances of that happening are probably nil.

We move on. We find a guard room with a bunch of keys in it, and then right across the hall we get to use those keys to free a bunch of prisoners who stopped cowering as soon as they realized we weren't gnolls. They tell us the gnolls are planning on selling everyone to the Humies, and that Taz was taken away from all the others.

God gnolls are annoying.

Not much left to do but head down into the cave. We start by ignoring all signs pointing to Voodoo Taz and go the other way (this has become our usual way of doing things, so far).

Here we find some sleeping gnolls, with a couple on guard, and we're planning to take them out. Actually I should stop writing and help...



NIFTY QUOTES FROM THIS SESSION


Travis: We should split up. But our side is taking the healer. You can have the paladin.
Eli: (Singing) He will lay his hands on yooouuu.....
Travis: For the record, I should point out that he totally doesn't have that ability.
Farone: For the record, I should point out that he will still lay his hands on you...


***


Renee: Is that door 2 wide?
Todd: Too wide for what?
Renee: No, two. Like two spaces. Two wide.
Todd: Oh.
Eli: She just likes a tight fit.
Todd: I thought she just had some very specific form of agoraphobia.


***


Todd: Should I target Tony in this attack?
Farone: Er...I don't know. How hurt are you, Tony?
Tony: I'm fine. Go ahead. I have 5...something. Extra hit points. Temporary hit points!
Todd: Hm...who thinks I should go ahead and include Tony?
Eli: I'll give you an action point if you do it.
Tony: Do it. I have my 5 extra, whatever.
Farone: Well, he said to do it.
Todd: Fine...
...
(Later)
...
Travis: Who should I throw this dagger at?
Todd: Tony. He has 5 temporary hit points he's trying to get rid of.
Eli: I'll give you an action point if you do it.


***


Todd: Wait...that's not the minotaur.
Farone: Hey! That's me! And NO!


***


Farone: This combat is going well so far.
Tony: We're still in the surprise round.
Todd: Still...
Farone: I was counting my blessings. Plus, from now on, we should only have surprise rounds.


***


Dave: You need to be where I'm at. But you go before me.
Renee: (sneering) I guess I could defer...
Farone: Not with that attitude.
Renee: What? I learned a new skill!
Dave: What? Contempt?


***


Tony: ...we should triangulate more often.


***


Travis: I step in and garrote that dude right in front of me.
Eli: Him?
Travis: Er...no...the other guy right in front of me.

Day 3 - Laundry

The hallway is cleared and we're looking for where to go next. There's some alcoves on the sides of the hall, but Frazzle looks them over and decides they're just where the gnolls keep trash. That's remarkably organized for gnolls.

Meanwhile Shintauro finds a door, opens it and heads up a set of stairs. Opening doors willy nilly is probably a bad idea, but he makes a fair point: anything that was behind that door surely heard the battle royale that occurred just seconds ago, so if it didn't come out it's probably something we can kill easily.

So, yeah, there was nothing behind the door. Well, not nothing. Just some stairs. I asked Frazzle where he thought those stairs went and he told me he didn't think they went anywhere, they probably just sat there. Fair point.

So, up the stairs we go, and that's where we find...the laundry. Seriously, a room filled with nothing but dirty clothes. Dirty women's clothes...something odd about that, I think. There's a door in the laundry room and a door at the end of another hallway.

Shintauro assures us he can pick the lock of the door in the laundry room, but no, in fact what he does is break a lockpick off in the lock. Good job, sergeant. We head for the other door. Opening it quietly we find a group of gnolls having some kind of meeting.

Knought rushes them, and after a moment's debate about whether or not we should just shut the door and bail we decide to run in and help him out.

Another. Huge. Battle. The Paladin gets netted, I almost get killed, and Shintauro comes even closer to death than I do. Thank the Gods Tree guy and his panther are vicious fighters and water elf fish girl is helpful. Once we've taken them all down we decide to close that door and get some rest.

I know we need it...

NIFTY QUOTES FROM THIS SESSION


Eli: You're going to take some damage
Todd: Well, I'm going to ignore 12 of it so try to do...11.


***


Todd: Everything adjacent to Tony is now marked.
Farone: Including you?
Todd: Um...yep. I have to attack Tony on my next turn.


***


Dave: 14 vs. Reflex?
Eli: Miss.
Dave: Can I use an action point to reroll that?
Eli: Sure.
Dave: Ok...20. Crit.
Eli: Wow. That may be the first time that's ever worked.
Farone: Usually we just burn an action point and miss again.


***


Renee: How does Dave communicate with the panther?
Eli: Through interpretive dance. Like a bee.


***


Renee: Can I roll to get his lockpicks out of the lock?
Travis: You need a "Lock Repair" skill for that.


***


Tony: I run in the room, surrounded by gnolls and do 40 points of damage to that guy!
Farone: Now's our chance to slam the door shut and run.


***


Farone: One of these guys has an unused net, right?
Eli: You could have been picking up all the nets they used this whole time!
Farone: I...don't know how to use a net.

Day 2 - Delicious Spiders and Angry Gnolls

So after we finished off the gnolls I was feeling energized, and felt like it was time to do some more exploring. There's three exits from here, counting the big hall that looks like it surely leads to that crater we looked at earlier. There's also a small tunnel that looks muddy and wet, and a bigger tunnel that looks like it leads into the Temple that's sinking into the swamp.

We go with the muddy tunnel, which the Water Elf Fish Girl was all for at first...

Sgt. Shintauro took the lead with the Water Elf Fish Girl following him, but she can't read the military signals, so I have to come around the corner and interpret.

He messages back "Skittering"..."webs"..."around the corner"...

Probably spiders. This is all fine and good for me, but Water Elf Fish Girl apparently has a thing about spiders because she's now freaking out and wants to go back. I tell her spiders are delicious and stop being silly.

Further down the tunnel we find the spider's lair. Its covered in webs, cocoons, bones of humanoid creatures. And egg sacs. Wriggling, delicious egg sacs full of spiders. Sarge bull rushes the big spider we see hanging on the wall, and I go over to deal with the babies. It seems to end pretty quickly, but then more babies start falling from the ceiling, along with two more giant spiders.

Overall they weren't too much trouble, but the Water Elf Fish Girl didn't think those spiders were ever going to stop dropping from above. There wasn't much else in that tunnel, aside from a little treasure, so we backtracked and headed for the Temple.

Much better stonework here, things look like they were carved on purpose, but the floor was shifting due to the entire place sinking into the swamp. The hallway opened up and got brighter, since there were torches on all the walls.

For some reason the Water Elf Fish Girl decided to look for secret doors, and wandered into the middle of the hallway where she stepped on a string that no one noticed and apparently set off a warning bell.

That's when the Gnolls showed up. Eight, maybe ten of them, and the first set started tossing javelins at us. I dropped a vial of darkness to give us some cover, and the crew spread out and got ready to fight.

*Things to remember for later: Look up tactics and how to use them. We have none. Tactics that is. We tend to fight as a disorganized mob, with little care given to what's going on around us. I had to burn through some of my more powerful magic, and still took a pretty good beating.

The gnolls were much better organized, though fighting in a tight group like that did leave them vulnerable to some of our more potent area attacks. Fish Girl did well, hitting a lot more than I think she did in the first fight. The Half Ogre held his own, as did the Plant Guy and his Panther, though Plant Guy did get netted for a while. So did Frazzle, for that matter, but again, he held his own in the healing department. Sgt. Shintauro did what he usually does, which us bull rush things and hit them. No complaints on that front.

But now we're in the middle of the Temple Hallway, we've made Gods know how much noise, and anything could be coming towards us. And after that fight we need some serious rest, but I'm not sure where or how we're going to get it...


NIFTY QUOTES FROM THIS SESSION


Travis: We both have the same magic bag.
Farone: Well get your own bag!


***


Renee: Can I perception stuff?


***


Renee: I'm gonna sneak out there and look for secret doors.
Eli: She steps on a rope and a bell starts ringing...
Travis: You suck! This is why we let the cows sneak!


***


Eli: Javelin for 21 points of damage!
Group: Ooh! Aah!
Renee: Do not Ooh and Aah for him!


***


Tony: Wow, that's 27 damage you just took!
Renee: Did you just do math for him? Don't do that!


***


Renee: One of the gnolls critted on it's initiative?
Eli: Four of them, actually.
Renee: What?! You can't roll once for four of them!
Eli: I'm the DM! I can do whatever I want! You now have syphilis and can't fire your bow!
Todd: Wow. That's a very specific form of syphilis.


***


Todd: Is that guy a bad guy?
Farone: No. That's Travis. So, kind of.


***


Todd: I'm gonna drop this vial of darkness, so now we're obscured and they can't see us.
Renee: Thanks! If the healer's not going to help it's good to know someone is.
Farone: You're making me less and less inclined to help you.


***


Travis: If she got together with the Half-Ogre and the kid was a male that had Tony's prowess he'd be a quarter pounder!
Group: <Groan!>
Travis: I just did two points of damage to the entire party.


***


Travis: So you'd be half elf, half kracken, half ogre, and half something else.
Todd: So, quarter elf, quarter kracken, quarter ogre...
Dave: You're much better at math than he is.


***


Renee: Can you heal poison?
Travis: I don't know. How much damage has the poison taken?
Farone: I can't heal poison, but I can give it temporary hit points.


***


Todd: We're not scared of spiders! I'm a goblin. We ride giant spiders around like horses! Are you scared of horses?
Renee: Yes!
Travis: Do horses have fangs and poisonous bites?
Todd: Yes. Well, the ones I've seen have...I've never seen a horse. Except in goblin paintings. So, yes.


***


Eli: The spider leaps onto this column and spits webs out it's butt covering Tony and Travis!
Renee: See? I told you butts were important.


***


Travis: Do you have two of those?
Renee: I have three...
Farone: Let's say four.
Todd: So...seven?


***


Eli: Who's keeping up with all the treasure?
Travis: Me! I'm the rogue. I keep the treasure.
Renee: I'm the rogue!
Todd: You're a ranger.
Renee: Rogue!
Travis: Ranger!
Renee: On my character sheet it says I'm a rogue.
Farone: She has selective classing...


***


Travis: How are you not immune to poison?
Farone: Shut up! I am immune to poison. As far as Eli knows.


***


Travis: I enjoy being hit on.


***


Renee: Did my charisma go away when you made me a rogue?
Farone: It went away when you opened your mouth.

Day 1 - The Letter

We all seem to have gotten the same letter. Reading it I'm trying to figure out who this guy Tarzan Yard-Lick is, then I realize it's actually Tazrian, or Voodoo Taz as he's better known, the mad genius goblin wizard. That's good, I like that guy. He's crazy. He wants to pay us to almost get killed or something, and this sounds reasonable to me.

Let me describe my companions so I can remember who they all are.

First of all, of course, is my ever present Minotaur Commando, Sgt. Shintauro, the stealthy bull. He keeps his hooves wrapped in cloth so he can walk quiet. Pretty good at it too. Nobody I'd trust more to have my back than Sarge.

Then there's the Wilden, guy's like a walking plant. He's pretty good at nature, and tracking things, and he's a helluva fighter, charging things and smacking them down.

Then there's the Water Elf Fish Girl, calls herself Linnea and has a bow that shoots arrows made out of water. That'll come in handy later when we need to put out fires. We always end up setting something on fire.

There's the Half-Ogre Paladin, calls himself Knought. Seems nice. He's tall as a small building. Quiet like a building, too. I'm not sure he's not a building...

Then there's Frazzle. Frazzle's a warforged, some kind of automaton. I have a feeling he used to be a kobold and had his brain put into the war-forged body, but he swears this isn't true. It's also possible a dwarf rogue had something to do with putting him together, but we haven't quite gotten his real story yet.

ANYWAY, the six of us make our way into Bogskunk. City built on a swamp. Kind of thing only monsters think is a good idea. The first thing you see in Bogskunk is the Airship, hovering over the town entrance. Frazzle wants to check this out so me and him climb the stairs to talk to the guy standing up there. I want him to give us a ride to the tower, but the guy is rude (and ugly) and threatens to call the city guard. Frazzle says his airship isn't that nice anyway, so we take off before any trouble starts. I think this might be the only time that's gonna happen.

When we get back downstairs we find that Water Elf Fish Girl has wandered off on her own. I find this odd as having talked to her all her problems in life seem to have stemmed from wandering off from the group. But there she goes like a magpie that's spotted a shiny in the tall grass.

She's trying to convince this big, fat orc behind the bar to let her have a Gutbuster Beer, but she doesn't have the 3 copper he wants for it. It's odd, we seem to be a copperless bunch all over. We need some cash. Maybe Voodoo Taz will hook us up.

Hanging out near the bar though is a goblin guard, Private Plinket, who's guarding some gnolls in cages. Plinket tells us that the gnolls raided the town and kidnapped Voodoo Taz. Well, this is no good. No point going to the tower now, since he's obviously not gonna be there, but Frazzle's Dwarf Rogue thinking kicks in for a minute and we consider just robbing the tower. In the end we deviate from that path. Instead we take the goblin's advice and go to see Warchief Krazzic, who pretty much runs this town.

We find Krazzic at his barracks, hanging out on the front porch with two giant Ogres. Krazzic seems old, senile maybe, and he doesn't seem too upset that Taz has vanished. We tell him we'll take the job to bring Taz back and he acts like he doesn't want anybody to go get him. He tells us, "The only person that'll pay you to rescue Taz is Taz!" This guy seems suspicious. Or maybe he's just losing it.

We head to the Tower at any rate to see if maybe we can find some clues to what happened. Maybe the gnolls left a note behind telling us where they took the goblin wizard. Instead we find a mess. Taz doesn't keep his place too orderly. There's alchemy equipment and junk scattered all over the place. Taz needs a maid.

Turns out Taz DOES have an apprentice. A little fey goblin named Lupik, who asks us to help get his master back. He tells us Krazzic is old and crazy and that's why he doesn't care, but the group is standing by our "seems suspicious" angle. Lupik gives us a bowl with a feather in it that points to Taz's location. We take the bowl and head out to look for our mysterious would-be benefactor.

Outside one of Krazzic's bodyguards is watching us from a nearby building, though he's trying desperately to look like he's NOT watching us from a nearby building. I try to use a little deception (always a good idea in wartime) and pretend we're not going North to look for Taz, but Frazzle sort of fails me spectacularly in that regard, and now I'm pretty sure the ogre's going to tell Krazzic we're on Taz's trail.

Sure enough, just outside of town we see a lizard fly by with a note, no doubt Krazzic warning his gnoll buddies that we're coming. The Water Elf Fish Girl takes a couple of shots at it, and now I'm not sure she's ever fired that bow before.

Plant guy sends his pet Panther after the lizard and for the life of me I don't know how I didn't realize until that moment that he had a panther. Thing's huge. It's taller than I am. How did I miss that?

At any rate the panther can't fly (not without the help of a catapult...heh heh, CATapult...) and it comes back without having had a lizardy snack. We follow the gnolls tracks, and the bowl with a feather seems to agree  with where we're headed, and after a bit of walking we hit some ruins.

This used to be a monster town, kind of like Bogskunk, but it's all sinking into the swamp. There's a big temple roof that's hanging down as the Temple sinks, and a couple of holes in the ground that are probably entrances to the gnolls underground lair. Someone told us the gnolls bring people here before they sell them to the humans.

There's also a giant crater, and me, Sarge, and Plant Guy go check it out. There's some smoke billowing up over there and the ground's starting to crumble under our feet. There's something moving down in the crater so we head back to the tunnel entrances and sneak into one.

Not twenty feet in Sarge signals me from up ahead: there's some gnolls hanging out, waiting to kill anyone that comes inside. Finally, something to fight.

Sarge climbs up onto the ridge where the gnolls are and a few of us sneak down to the other side where there seems to be a ladder. But somebody makes some noise or something and the gnoll watching the hallway takes a shot at us.

Now it's on, and everybody goes nuts. This crew can fight, that much is for sure. Frazzle does some nifty healing, Sarge does some nifty stabbing, Fish Girl actually hits something with her bow, Plant Guy snatches some gnollls and throws them to the ground, the panther bites a gnolls face off, and I show them how sorcerous magic can tear through gnoll flesh with ease. Oh, and the Half-Ogre/Half-Building even drops the hammer on a couple of them. Literally a hammer, and it's brutal.

So, we've taken these guys out, and even kept them from ringing their gong for help, so we're going to rest here until we figure out where to move to next...

NIFTY QUOTES FROM THIS SESSION


Renee: I was gonna heal that guy!
Eli: The bad guy?
Todd: See, this is why we're always trying to kill you.
**
Travis: Shoot that guy.
Renee: Should I hit this guy? Or this guy over here?
Travis: Either one.
Eli: Just do something.
Renee: Let's take a vote-
Travis: JUST SHOOT HIM!
Eli: KILL SOMEBODY!
**
Todd: So you're a robot.
Farone: Warforged.
Dave: You're more like a golem.
Farone: I'm not a golem. I'm a warforged.
Eli: (Trying to find a mini for him) What weapons are you carrying?
Farone: Staff and an orb.
Dave: Is that orb like a power source?
Farone: I'm not a robot!
Todd: You're kind of like a robot.
Dave: But more like a golem.
Eli: Here, this one has an orb and a staff.
Renee: He's holding that orb like a skull in a Shakespeare play.
Farone: (Shakespearean Soliloquy) "OH, HORATIO....How I hate these f*cking people..."
**
Tony: So...I did my job. Good.
**
Renee: (To Dave) Oh, I'm so glad I didn't heal you.
**
Todd: The fact that he wanted to hit that gong means we DON'T want to hit that gong.
Travis: I'm a minotaur. We hit gongs.
Farone: What? No you don't!
Todd: Minotaurs have nothing to do with gongs.
Farone: Yeah! You're thinking of Dryads...
**
Todd: Who are you?
Eli: I'm Lupik. Taz's apprentice.
Todd: WHAT are you?
Eli: I'm a goblin.
Todd: No, I'm a goblin. You're way smaller than me.
Eli: I'm a Fey Goblin.
Farone: We didn't ask about his orientation, nor do we care.