Shaziro's D&D Group Stories Thread

[FakeGod]

There ain't nothin' wrong with gunnin' down monsters you come across in the woods

Ain't nothin'

[Shaziro]

When we last left our heroes, a hulking monster of some manner was sloshing its way through the muck at them, roaring mightily as it advanced. They readied themselves for the beast atop their relatively slender wooden pathway, prepared to hold their ground. As the beast approached, the two fighters took to the front lines with an out-of-game agreement to bash this thing back into the muck with their superiority dice and the revenant's magical prowess. The revenant was especially excited, having figured out a new spell that fit his frozen zombie very well. As the creature came into full view despite the darkly shaded, late evening swamp, it was made clear that this was none other than a rather large and furious ogre!

It stepped up and took a swing at the armor, its attack going wide as the armor then retaliated after a brief buffing from the pixie hidden within his chest. A mighty blow from a swung sword sent the brute back into the muck and prone, easy pickings for the firebolts from the sorcerous kenku and the new spell from our undead friend. The revenant reeled back a hand and, with a quick murmur of an incantation, a frozen knife appeared in his hand. He went for the throw...when the blade slipped and was sent flying off in the wrong direction due to a rolled 1. Worse yet, the dice again betrayed him and sent the blade straight up in the air, giving the group one round to react before it returned. Why, you may ask, the entire group? Well you see, the ice knife is not only a thrown blade of ice. It also explodes on impact in a smallish burst of icy shrapnel, which is -not- what they wanted to deal with right now.

Fortunately, there was plenty of room for them to manuever without provoking attacks of opportunity, and more fortunately still a lucky crit on a firebolt and a good slicing and dicing from #7 saw the ogre off neatly. It began to slowly sink under the swamp, but my group is nothing if not adventurers. As we all know, adventurers -must- have their loot! So, using a block and tackle, some rope, and the pixie's flying capability, they set to hefting the body of the brute from the swamp's grim muck. With some cooperative effort, they lifted it up, and the pixie moved to search it. As he did, however, a rather large reptile (they never really stopped to discern if it was a crocodile or an alligator) lunged from the muck to grab the corpse and attempted to pull it back down. 7 and Artur were -not- messing with it, and simply released the rope with the corpse attached and, along with the others, left the creature to its meal. They did, however, ensure they stayed out of the muck for the time being.

They continued down the path towards the strange pink glow, and as they came close enough to see clearly the walls of the city, they noted two things. Firstly, the city was actually built in the middle of a cleared portion of what appeared to be deeper, more watery muck. It was built on a huge wooden platform with massive logs serving as stilts to keep it above the gunk, if only barely. There was maybe a foot's clearance between the platform and the swamp. The second thing they noticed was a buzzing noise, growing increasingly loud. Then, Vital felt a sting on his neck. He swatted at it, and discovered a very large mosquito (which he immediately recognized as a Stirge), trying to make a meal of his blood! Initiative was rolled, and weapons were drawn.

The stirges were a fairly simple fight for our motley crew, blasting them from the air with fire and a much more well aimed Ice Knife cast while 7 julienne'd two with his blades. One, however, found purchase on Vital's back, and his proboscis found blood when it impaled the back of his neck. It was cut down, leaving the lower part of its needle-like mouthpart still jabbed into the kenku. A successful medicine check reminded Grix that it would, in fact, likely be barbed and painful to remove. Thus, 7 opted to treat it like removing a band-aid and simply tug it out very quickly, letting Grix heal the wound magically immediately after.

With this out of the way, the heroes found their way to the entrance to the city, and found the gates wide open. Artur checked for the direction of that which he sought, finding it to be below the city some distance. With no obvious way to such a location, they opted to head in and see what they could find. They disguised themselves as best they could before entering, Vital wearing his hooded cloak, Artur doing much the same, and 7 concealing Grix within himself and simply keeping his faceplate down. Upon entry, however, they found themselves beset upon by a pair of hounds wearing harnesses, which began sniffing at them and inspecting them. A pair of guards, one on either side, observed the hounds to see how they reacted. One of them set to snuffling at Artur, and almost immediately sounded off.

Artur, however, is no fool. He quickly came up with a plan, reaching into his pack and producing some of his rations. He dropped them, looking to one of the guards and simply saying "Must be hungry, huh?". The guard, however, was also no fool. He approached, offering an apology and saying that he needed to check anyhow, just to be safe. Almost immediately, when Artur's hood was removed, weapons were drawn. After all, he was fairly obviously an undead. He, however, simply held his hands up in surrender while trying to explain his situation.

"No no, calm down! I'm just a leper!" he said. Immediately, the guard took a long step back, looking between the other visible members of his group. "A leper? Are you crazy! You can't come in here!" he cried, apparently convinced despite Occam's Razor. After some convincing, the group eventually settled on being allowed in and jailed until the morning, when the priest could come to cure the "leprosy" and let them into the city proper. Convinced they could clarify their situation to the priest and, worst case scenario, fight their way out, they agreed. They were brought to a single cell to share, one which was effectively a wooden box with an iron bar door. The gaps in the bars were enough that, should he desire, the pixie could likely squeeze his way out. Inside was a single, hard wooden bench which was appparently how they were meant to sleep, and a metal cup with some water inside. A man was sitting on a bench nearby, armed save for his helm and sword which both sat beside him. He had clearly been assigned to this guard duty specifically for them by the disdainful glances he shot at them every so often, and the complete lack of anyone in any of the other cells. He was playing some manner of peg-based game, in which a triangular wooden board with several holes was used (Yes, like the ones in Cracker Barrel restaurants). He apparently wasn't very good at it.

Now, my group is also nothing if they aren't mischievious. The pixie decided he was just about done getting the stink-eye from the man, even though he was concealed within the armor and therefore not even one of the recipients. He turned invisible and slipped out of the armor and then further out of the cell, carefully flying his way over and then purposefully making some noise on the bars of another cell. When the guard left his game to inspect, the pixie simply flew over and simply stole one of the pegs from his game. He then retreated back into the cell. Shortly afterward, the man let out a frustrated grumble and began searching for his missing piece on ground beneath the bench. At this point, the armor decided he was going to have a go at harassing him, and simply dumped the water out of their small cup, lifted it, and set to dragging it across the bars slowly and repeatedly. The guard demanded he stop, and surprisingly he did. For all of five minutes. Before starting up again. The guard knew he couldn't actually -force- the man in full plate to stop...and then with that realization realized that they hadn't actually taken any of the gang's weapons or gear. Rather than draw their attention to this fact, however, he simply opted to sit and glare until relieved for the shift. When he was relieved, the armor stopped, and the new guy was left unharassed.

When morning came, a guard came by, pounding on the bars to awake the sleeping kenku and revenant. He told them that the priest was nearly there, and that he would probably charge them for the curing of their disease but could do it for them. They prepared themselves, and the priest arrived. Almost immediately, he gasped and stepped back, channeling divine energy into his hands and readying himself. "Who sent you, undead fiend?!?" he demanded...but what happened next is for next time!