Post by Zyraen on Dec 3, 2019 23:59:03 GMT 8
CHRONICLE OF DARKEST NIGHT
"We live... because those who were already dead, kept on fighting."
Characters
Abacchus (Enjun)
Abeille (Esabel)
Shinobu (David)
Shura (Nick)
The Mark (Travis)
Ursa the Bear (Bee)
======
Mission Brief
One of the hunter-scavenger teams of the Last Settlement of Zion has fallen foul of an elven warband while heading into the Underdark (blanket name for all underground areas, with the area above ground called the Overdark). The Zionist mage Oerth knows this because his brother was with the team and he scried. Knowing the warband would shortly investigate the passage to the surface and start a systematic search of the area to locate the settlement, while keeping the elven commander informed of their progress, the heroes are tasked with the seemingly impossible task of venturing deep beneath the earth to find the elven outpost, slay the elven commander and destroy his maps and notes of the area, so they would have to remap the Underdark and this area also. This would buy the Last Settlement a few to several months to relocate to a site further from this part of the Underdark that the elves have taken over.
============
12 Nov 2019
The heroes set out into the cold blizzard, but the terrible weather proves a blessing in disguise. The Mark critically stealths past dozens of undead stalking the mountain side, identifying them and guiding the party past them. Despite suffering somewhat from the cold, they find the cave the elves are in and with Shinobu's stealthiness, manage to succeed in surprising them by attacking in the middle of a blizzard. Surprise and strong initiative carry the night as the elves only muster one meaningful turn before they are overpowered, and the undead nearby are just 1 round too late to aid their masters. Interrogation turns out futile against the stoic fatalism of the elves, who give absolutely no information to their tormentors.
The heroes venture into the Underdark towards the directions given to them by Oerth. The Mark disables an elvish alarm trap, and with good tracking they determine that the former dwarven stronghold likely is not a new base for the elves, pressing on towards former dark elf outpost as the map they were given. They stealth well, unfortunately setting off a Flameweb glyph across a bridge. The hitherto unaware elves have not had time to summon their undead, but the large cavern with the underground stream running through the area seems disadvantageous. Even as the enemy opens fire at their exposed position and uses fireball and green entangling vines at them, the heroes wisely beat a hasty retreat.
==============
19 Nov 2019 (AFK - Nick/Shura, not fielded at GM's decision)
Amidst the sound of rituals as elves are summoning up undead, the heroes decide to skirt the area and find an alternate way through the Underdark. They make good headway but run into serious danger from the monsters below ground (roll of 1 on d6). A Purple Worm bursts out from below and attempts to devour them. The opening round seems all right, but then a run of bad fortune sees the heroes struggling to keep themselves from death in the worm's gullet, time and again, with Abacchus on one occasion climbing the beast then diving into the worm's maw to save a fellow party member from certain death. Eventually the worm devours the entire party and burrows back to its lair, but its complacency proves its undoing. With the brief respite, Abeille digs into her determination to use another Mass Heal and the whole party eventually manages to kill the worm, but almost all are badly injured from the acid. Cure Salves are used, while Abacchus manages to distil strong drink from the worm's acidic remains.
The heroes try to navigate the Underdark from where they have been, and with good fortune and instinct, manage to find their way to the elven outpost. After initial success getting past a warded gate that was left ajar and ambushing two skeletons before they could raise the alarm, a series of missteps draws the attention of many nearby undead just as the heroes are closing in on the tower in the centre of the outpost.
===============
26 Nov 2019
Before four gossamer dual-level dark elven tent-like structures, the heroes battle with undead while elven archers rain arrows down upon them. They decide to try to clear one of the structures, but the elven archers and an elven spearman keep them busy long enough presumably for their warband's necromancer to escape via a Teleportation Circle in the basement, which might yet prove to be the heroes' way out. They take a hasty rest within the shelter while it seems many of the warbands in various places are summoning up more undead, and Shura creates icy steps up to the second floor of the secured structure from the outside, to facilitate a retreat to the Teleportation Circle without entering via the door, then they hurry to the main building where they believe the elven commander is.
After unlocking the double doors, heroes enter into the ground floor of the tower, and find themselves drawn into a place of great beauty. It is seemingly a scene from a clouded sunny day way before the nightfall event, within a lush verdant greenery around them, a babbling brook cheerily wending its way at one end, and a circle of stones surrounding a sarcophagus at one side. Examining the stones they realise they are grave markers with the names of what are presumably elven heroes. The Mark deciphers that sarcophagus is warded and rather than being a tomb, opens up to the next level, and attempting to open it will activate guardians of some sort whether or not he disables the wards.
He manages to disarm it well, even as elven wraiths surprise most of the party as they charge out of the standing stones around. The heroes quickly realise they are out of their league as the wraiths drain their Reserves, prove difficult to kill and have a life draining aura about them. Ursa the Bear, weary from all the effort to get to this point, tells those around her she will be going to rejoin her clan as she activates her Rift Band. The heroes flee as her body is consumed to power the rift band, and while the wraiths are able to avoid the growing rift by following the others up to the second floor, the damage it causes to the stone markings and wards cause the tethers that bind the wraiths to the realm of living to break, releasing them from their guardianship to the restful afterlife.
Even as the remaining heroes are still taking a breather from their ordeal, they had hardly even a minute to rest before three figures in withered robes, with grey cracking skin and long tentacles hanging from their heads arrive from the upper floor to deal with the intruders.
===============
03 Dec 2019 (AFK - Travis/The Mark, played by Nick)
Shura manages to identify the creatures as Alhoons, undead mindflayers with mindblast, dominate and various psionic abilities, as well as being able to consume the brains of grabbed, dazed, stunned enemies to kill them. They seem to have some sort of soul link to each other also, and the characters quickly spread out. Abacchus courageously rushes in to reposition an Alhoon closer to the other so that Shinobu can take advantage of it, but his valour draws the enemy's ire as he and Shura are dazed by Mindblast and he is dominated. Though dazed, Shura rushes between two Alhoons to keep them from engaging his allies, but finds himself mindblasted once more and then the heroes can only watch with horror as the most injured Alhoon proceeds to pierce its tentacles into their friend's skull, sucking out his brains with twisted dark pleasure. Shura proves to have the last laugh, managing to will his Rift Band to fully active as all becomes nothingness. Two of the Alhoons are not able to escape the burst, but Abacchus, who just managed to shake off the Dominate, is not able to either. In an act of final defiance, he takes one last swig from his flask and activates his Rift Band to enlarge the rift just far enough to be right next to the last Alhoon. Determined to make his comrades' sacrifice worthwhile, though dazed by mindblast, The Mark spends his last burst of determination to manuever the last Alhoon into the expanded green Rift powered by Abacchus.
Only Abeille, Shinobu and The Mark remain, taking cover in a side room as the two Rifts run their course, even as the one on the first floor subsides and they can hear the sound of many shuffling undead coming in, only to be consumed by the one on this floor, before likely holding their ground. They rest a while and head up to the next floor, to find the elven commander seated behind a desk, reading some notes and expecting their arrival. The Mark identifies the pale elf as a vampire, even as he draws near to them and quickly batters them with Freezing Winds, taking Shinobu out and subsequently dominating the Mark and draining him to heal. Abeille first manages to dazzle him, and realises that he could not Mist Form if he was struck by radiant attacks, and only then would activating the Rift Band be able to destroy him. Shinobu managed to do so using her radiant blade, and also immobilise him, before The Mark seized him and activated his Rift Band. Abeille is also grabbed by the desperate vampire, who is determined to take as many of his foes with him as possible, but she manages to struggle free at the last moment, spending the last of her will power to flee to safety, and Shinobu willpowers her immobilising ability to ensure the deed is done, before the growing Rift consumes The Mark and their loathed enemy.
Seeing their objective achieved and the hordes of undead below them and on the ground floor, Abeille considers going out with a bang, but Shinobu persuades her to take the Teleportation Circle out, after all there were two potions of Protection from Undead and they had both halves of the Portal Sigil. Together they avoid the undead, and while the way to the structure with the Teleportation Circle is blocked by undead, unnoticed they clamber up the icy wall left by their comrade and access the building from the balconies / shooting galleries on the second floor into the basement where the teleportation Circle is and make good their escape.
They find themselves unexpectedly in the wintry cold, but largely sheltered from it by towering tall trees, which are dead and leaf-less nonetheless in the endless night, even as dilapidated unoccupied structures are about them, within the trees and bowers as of an abandoned elven city. Shinobu quickly realises the now consumed Portal Sigil likely located the oldest location used on the teleportation circle and brought them here, especially since it was costly and took many days to make a teleportation circle active, it was eminently unlikely the Zionists had even had time to make one close to their contingency settlement site, if they even had such a location determined beforehand. But for now, they are safe, in a skeletal forest and a dead city above the ground, with little more than the momentos of the fallen.
"We live... because those who were already dead, kept on fighting."
Characters
Abacchus (Enjun)
Abeille (Esabel)
Shinobu (David)
Shura (Nick)
The Mark (Travis)
Ursa the Bear (Bee)
======
Mission Brief
One of the hunter-scavenger teams of the Last Settlement of Zion has fallen foul of an elven warband while heading into the Underdark (blanket name for all underground areas, with the area above ground called the Overdark). The Zionist mage Oerth knows this because his brother was with the team and he scried. Knowing the warband would shortly investigate the passage to the surface and start a systematic search of the area to locate the settlement, while keeping the elven commander informed of their progress, the heroes are tasked with the seemingly impossible task of venturing deep beneath the earth to find the elven outpost, slay the elven commander and destroy his maps and notes of the area, so they would have to remap the Underdark and this area also. This would buy the Last Settlement a few to several months to relocate to a site further from this part of the Underdark that the elves have taken over.
============
12 Nov 2019
The heroes set out into the cold blizzard, but the terrible weather proves a blessing in disguise. The Mark critically stealths past dozens of undead stalking the mountain side, identifying them and guiding the party past them. Despite suffering somewhat from the cold, they find the cave the elves are in and with Shinobu's stealthiness, manage to succeed in surprising them by attacking in the middle of a blizzard. Surprise and strong initiative carry the night as the elves only muster one meaningful turn before they are overpowered, and the undead nearby are just 1 round too late to aid their masters. Interrogation turns out futile against the stoic fatalism of the elves, who give absolutely no information to their tormentors.
The heroes venture into the Underdark towards the directions given to them by Oerth. The Mark disables an elvish alarm trap, and with good tracking they determine that the former dwarven stronghold likely is not a new base for the elves, pressing on towards former dark elf outpost as the map they were given. They stealth well, unfortunately setting off a Flameweb glyph across a bridge. The hitherto unaware elves have not had time to summon their undead, but the large cavern with the underground stream running through the area seems disadvantageous. Even as the enemy opens fire at their exposed position and uses fireball and green entangling vines at them, the heroes wisely beat a hasty retreat.
==============
19 Nov 2019 (AFK - Nick/Shura, not fielded at GM's decision)
Amidst the sound of rituals as elves are summoning up undead, the heroes decide to skirt the area and find an alternate way through the Underdark. They make good headway but run into serious danger from the monsters below ground (roll of 1 on d6). A Purple Worm bursts out from below and attempts to devour them. The opening round seems all right, but then a run of bad fortune sees the heroes struggling to keep themselves from death in the worm's gullet, time and again, with Abacchus on one occasion climbing the beast then diving into the worm's maw to save a fellow party member from certain death. Eventually the worm devours the entire party and burrows back to its lair, but its complacency proves its undoing. With the brief respite, Abeille digs into her determination to use another Mass Heal and the whole party eventually manages to kill the worm, but almost all are badly injured from the acid. Cure Salves are used, while Abacchus manages to distil strong drink from the worm's acidic remains.
The heroes try to navigate the Underdark from where they have been, and with good fortune and instinct, manage to find their way to the elven outpost. After initial success getting past a warded gate that was left ajar and ambushing two skeletons before they could raise the alarm, a series of missteps draws the attention of many nearby undead just as the heroes are closing in on the tower in the centre of the outpost.
===============
26 Nov 2019
Before four gossamer dual-level dark elven tent-like structures, the heroes battle with undead while elven archers rain arrows down upon them. They decide to try to clear one of the structures, but the elven archers and an elven spearman keep them busy long enough presumably for their warband's necromancer to escape via a Teleportation Circle in the basement, which might yet prove to be the heroes' way out. They take a hasty rest within the shelter while it seems many of the warbands in various places are summoning up more undead, and Shura creates icy steps up to the second floor of the secured structure from the outside, to facilitate a retreat to the Teleportation Circle without entering via the door, then they hurry to the main building where they believe the elven commander is.
After unlocking the double doors, heroes enter into the ground floor of the tower, and find themselves drawn into a place of great beauty. It is seemingly a scene from a clouded sunny day way before the nightfall event, within a lush verdant greenery around them, a babbling brook cheerily wending its way at one end, and a circle of stones surrounding a sarcophagus at one side. Examining the stones they realise they are grave markers with the names of what are presumably elven heroes. The Mark deciphers that sarcophagus is warded and rather than being a tomb, opens up to the next level, and attempting to open it will activate guardians of some sort whether or not he disables the wards.
He manages to disarm it well, even as elven wraiths surprise most of the party as they charge out of the standing stones around. The heroes quickly realise they are out of their league as the wraiths drain their Reserves, prove difficult to kill and have a life draining aura about them. Ursa the Bear, weary from all the effort to get to this point, tells those around her she will be going to rejoin her clan as she activates her Rift Band. The heroes flee as her body is consumed to power the rift band, and while the wraiths are able to avoid the growing rift by following the others up to the second floor, the damage it causes to the stone markings and wards cause the tethers that bind the wraiths to the realm of living to break, releasing them from their guardianship to the restful afterlife.
Even as the remaining heroes are still taking a breather from their ordeal, they had hardly even a minute to rest before three figures in withered robes, with grey cracking skin and long tentacles hanging from their heads arrive from the upper floor to deal with the intruders.
===============
03 Dec 2019 (AFK - Travis/The Mark, played by Nick)
Shura manages to identify the creatures as Alhoons, undead mindflayers with mindblast, dominate and various psionic abilities, as well as being able to consume the brains of grabbed, dazed, stunned enemies to kill them. They seem to have some sort of soul link to each other also, and the characters quickly spread out. Abacchus courageously rushes in to reposition an Alhoon closer to the other so that Shinobu can take advantage of it, but his valour draws the enemy's ire as he and Shura are dazed by Mindblast and he is dominated. Though dazed, Shura rushes between two Alhoons to keep them from engaging his allies, but finds himself mindblasted once more and then the heroes can only watch with horror as the most injured Alhoon proceeds to pierce its tentacles into their friend's skull, sucking out his brains with twisted dark pleasure. Shura proves to have the last laugh, managing to will his Rift Band to fully active as all becomes nothingness. Two of the Alhoons are not able to escape the burst, but Abacchus, who just managed to shake off the Dominate, is not able to either. In an act of final defiance, he takes one last swig from his flask and activates his Rift Band to enlarge the rift just far enough to be right next to the last Alhoon. Determined to make his comrades' sacrifice worthwhile, though dazed by mindblast, The Mark spends his last burst of determination to manuever the last Alhoon into the expanded green Rift powered by Abacchus.
Only Abeille, Shinobu and The Mark remain, taking cover in a side room as the two Rifts run their course, even as the one on the first floor subsides and they can hear the sound of many shuffling undead coming in, only to be consumed by the one on this floor, before likely holding their ground. They rest a while and head up to the next floor, to find the elven commander seated behind a desk, reading some notes and expecting their arrival. The Mark identifies the pale elf as a vampire, even as he draws near to them and quickly batters them with Freezing Winds, taking Shinobu out and subsequently dominating the Mark and draining him to heal. Abeille first manages to dazzle him, and realises that he could not Mist Form if he was struck by radiant attacks, and only then would activating the Rift Band be able to destroy him. Shinobu managed to do so using her radiant blade, and also immobilise him, before The Mark seized him and activated his Rift Band. Abeille is also grabbed by the desperate vampire, who is determined to take as many of his foes with him as possible, but she manages to struggle free at the last moment, spending the last of her will power to flee to safety, and Shinobu willpowers her immobilising ability to ensure the deed is done, before the growing Rift consumes The Mark and their loathed enemy.
Seeing their objective achieved and the hordes of undead below them and on the ground floor, Abeille considers going out with a bang, but Shinobu persuades her to take the Teleportation Circle out, after all there were two potions of Protection from Undead and they had both halves of the Portal Sigil. Together they avoid the undead, and while the way to the structure with the Teleportation Circle is blocked by undead, unnoticed they clamber up the icy wall left by their comrade and access the building from the balconies / shooting galleries on the second floor into the basement where the teleportation Circle is and make good their escape.
They find themselves unexpectedly in the wintry cold, but largely sheltered from it by towering tall trees, which are dead and leaf-less nonetheless in the endless night, even as dilapidated unoccupied structures are about them, within the trees and bowers as of an abandoned elven city. Shinobu quickly realises the now consumed Portal Sigil likely located the oldest location used on the teleportation circle and brought them here, especially since it was costly and took many days to make a teleportation circle active, it was eminently unlikely the Zionists had even had time to make one close to their contingency settlement site, if they even had such a location determined beforehand. But for now, they are safe, in a skeletal forest and a dead city above the ground, with little more than the momentos of the fallen.