Chat Summary for 15 September 2000 - the Slaver Party Version

DM’s Note: Truth Seekers - you shouldn’t be reading this unless the scene with the other party has been completely resolved. There are several spoilers in here.

Lurkers - This is the chat summary from the perspective of the Slaver party that the Truth Seekers run in to. While this combat goes on I’ll be posting summaries for both sides.

Slavers - this is what happened from your perspective. Don’t act on any knowledge unless it is shown here. If you have a question about something let me know.

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The Situation:

The party, which we’ll call the Others for now, has just recently received a nice payment for delivering a group of slaves to the City of the Glass Pool. They are now making their way towards the surface. They are accompanied by two drow who have their own agenda, but who are paying well to travel with the group.

As their standard procedure the party’s thief, Prentyss, is out scouting ahead of the party. She makes a great scout being able to move silently, having a ring of invisibility, and better yet, a ring of invisibility detection.

While scouting ahead of the party Prentyss notices a lone kenku making his way down the tunnel. He is invisible and trying to move silently. Prentyss quickly returns to the party and informs them of what she has seen. Faranayel, the party leader, gets the party into position, using a lure they have used many times before. They call it “Look out, the wookie is loose”, although nobody is quite sure what a wookie is.

Faranayel turns herself invisible and takes up position above the party, using her message spell to keep everybody coordinated. Prentyss hurries ahead, spotting the kenku as he approaches. She informs the party that the kenku is watching them, so they put on their “oh, woe is us, we’re good guys with slavers as prisoners” show. The kenku watches for a while and then retreats.

The Others wait for the kenku to return. And wait. And wait. Finally Faranayel calls Prentyss back and the party decides to move forward, cautiously. They keep their disguises on, just incase they run into the kenku again.

Sure enough, after traveling for about a half hour Prentyss sees something strange. It appears to be a human, but wearing the exact same clothing the kenku had worn. The human is invisible and is accompanied by an invisible cat and invisible bat. She hurries back to the party and tells them what she has seen. The Others decide that setting up the rest-break scene again would be too obvious, so they put the hoods over Thump and Venom and proceed on.

As Prentyss moves forward to scout she finds something very strange. In an area of tunnel she had just been through she sees a camp set up, complete with five adventurers. Again she returns and reports. The party quickly concludes that it is some kind of illusion.

Ready now, the Others move forward again, coming into view of the illusionary party. A “fighter” steps forward to hail them, but Crystenna isn’t having any of that, calling out to the others that’s it’s all an illusion. Shortly after she yells this the illusion winks out.

While this is going on Prentyss is scouting the tunnel beyond the illusion, but can’t seem to find the invisible human in kenku clothing anywhere.

The Others move forward a little more when a telepathic voice calls out to them. Dac takes the lead, playing the “good guard”, while Crystenna continues calling out from behind him, playing the ‘bad guard”. They manage to get the speaker to come out. It proves to be the original kenku that Prentyss spotted. He tells the Others his name is Sane, admits that he is an illusionist, and claims that he is the leader of a group called the Truth Seekers. The Others recognize the name as a group of adventurers that the powers in the Glass Pool would really, really like to have captured.

Dac drags the scene on for a while, convincing Sane that the Others are a good party which had been attacked by slavers, and that their three “captives” are slavers. He also emphasizes that several in the party are injured, and can the Truth Seekers help with healing.

Sane calls others from his group forward to help. An elven ranger, a human fighter, an elven female who appears to be a mage, and a halfling female come forward. Behind them Prentyss sees a human female take up position about 200’ away and ready a bow. She also knows there are several others another 100’ away.

While all this is going on Faranayel casts several preparatory spells, including detect invisibility and haste on herself, Thump, Haragswarld’s flesh golem, and Groznyj.

The elven ranger, Castinar, moves forward to try and heal Grozyj. Thump has been listening for this as his “cue” to go nuts. It’s still a little early for Farayenel, but once Thump starts he has no intention of stopping. He “breaks his bonds”, pulls off his hood, and looks for the nearest dangerous looking fighter. Matar is the obvious choice, so he heads towards him.

That’s when the combat starts. The Others manage do draw out the Seekers a few more phases, but by the end of the round the illusion is up and the Seekers know they have been had.

As Thump reaches Matar the human injures him quite badly with his katana, but the hasted trollkin still gets his full set of normal attacks and does considerable damage to the human.

Groznyj, Dac, and the flesh golem hold back, waiting for Quadrennian to cast his power spell. He does so, slamming the Seekers with an ice storm. However, before he can get the spell off the elven female mage in the party gets off a spell of her own, and is apparently unaffected by the hail.

Shortly after Quad’s spell goes off Harag casts a Hold Person spell. It only effects the fighter, Matar.

Faranayel watches as the kenku turns invisible and starts flying away. She quickly takes to the air, her haste spell helping her to catch up with the birdman. She uses a cantrip to create a dot of light at the kenku’s location. She then calls for Crystenna to lightning bolt the light. Crystenna, who had still be acting, has to recover, so she’ll have to wait until next round to cast the spell.

Castinar, the ranger, moves forward to apparently attack the drow male, who was “struggling to free himself”. Not wanting to let the ranger get any cheap shots in, Harag has his flesh golem intercept the elf and attack. He also drops his sack of bones and sticks as he does so, setting himself up for several spells in coming rounds. The golem hits Castinar a couple of times, but the ranger retaliates, getting a good shot in on the golem.

Groznyj finally gets into position and gets a satisfying strike in on the elven mage. Dac helps him out, pumping two slugs into the woman.

Further ahead in the tunnel Prentyss watches a dwarf run past her far faster than any dwarf should be able to. She also watches as the human female archer starts shooting into the melee. She has to admit, the woman is skilled. But Prentyss has and idea. She sneaks over to her and gets into position to cut her bowstring next round. Just as she arrives behind the archer two others come running towards her, but they end up falling to the ground. They are both females, one elven, one drow.

That’s where the combat ended. Here are the current situations:

Thump: injured, but in better shape than his opponent. He is in a semi-berserker rage right now and is unaware that the human is held.

Prentyss: about 10’ away from the archer, dagger out and ready. She’s the only one aware of the two elven females on the ground near her.

Dac: guns out, away from the general melee.

Farayenel: invisible and in slyph form, flying after Sane, keeping him highlighted with a cantrip. She is concerned that the kenku will pull away from her.

Groznyj: in the elven female’s face.

Crystenna: just starting her spell. The way I work things if a spellcaster decides half way through a round to cast a spell they cast it the following round with an initiative bonus.

Quadrennian: Fairly pleased with the ice storm. Is supposed to cast Prayer next round.

Haragswarld: Happy as a bug in a brain. The golem dumped the bones and sticks last round at about C7c, so Animate Dead and Sticks to Snakes are both ready. The golem took a pretty good blow last round.

Drow Male: Free, has his swords out, looking at Castinar with murder in his eyes.

Drow Female: Free, looking around intently.

As far as the Seekers here is what you know. The letter of their first name is the letter they are on the map, except for Amber who is R and Shadow who is H.

Matar (human fighter): injured and held, Harag and Quad are probably the only ones who have watched enough to realize he is held.

Katrina (human female archer): still has bow out, kneeling

Sane (kenku): flying away from the combat, blissfully unaware of the light showing his position.

Shadow (elven female with bow): on the ground near Prentyss

Ariessus (drow female): also on ground near Prentyss

Diana (elven female mage): wounded and looking very concerned

Castinar (elven ranger): has long sword out, attacking flesh golem

Amber (halfling female): attacked Thump with her staff but missed, also looks concerned

Thengal (dwarven fighter): he just ran up to the melee on what have to be boots of speed, ready to fight.

I realize some of this is new for you guys, especially those who aren’t playing in one of my other games. But I appreciate your help and solicit more help as the battle continues. You each have a character, so let me know what you want that character to do in the next round. Crystenna’s is the only character who is really committed to an action at this point.

A map is up at http://www.xmission.com/~saif/night/combat2.gif showing the locations of the party members. The map the Seekers can see is combat.gif. It doesn’t show Faranayel’s or Pretyss’ location. Also your battle grid is up at http://www.xmission.com/~saif/night/nbsgrid.htm . That shows current spells running, hit points, etc. The chat log for the main window is at http://www.xmission.com/~saif/night/c/091500.htm and the log for what happened in your window (#DM) is http://www.xmission.com/~saif/night/c/091500x.htm .

Let me know if you have any questions. If not, what do you plan on doing next round?

Also if any of you can make it to next week’s chat session I would love to have you. Last night ran a little slow, with a lot of discussion. Next week should be all combat. I suspect the battle will rage for three or four weeks.

Later,

Saif