Smokem if you gottem
The_Potty_1
Member Posts: 436
Smoke glared moodily into the fire, and let her hands get on with the mindless task of putting a brutal edge on her sword. Also a point. Points are good.
It had been an eventful couple of days, and everything she'd taken for granted her entire life was like a dream she'd been rather rudely woken from. On the other hand, everything that had happened, felt as if it had happened to her thousands of times before. The people she'd met, she recognized, and turned away from. Khalid and Jaheira, no I've never met you, but please don't talk to me. Xzar and Monaron, I feel like I've taken your potions and then backstabbed you a hundred times. This time I saw you on the road, and dived into the bushes.
Not everything gave her this unnerving feeling of deja vu however. There had been a brooding half-orc in the friendly arm inn, where her .. second sight ..? expected a void filled occasionally by a low-budget time-lapse of barmaids. He had been curt and altogether unpleasant, and she kept wanting to talk to him some more. That was never a good path to go down, so she'd headed South, down paths as familiar as the scratches on her armor. Armor she'd looted off a hobgoblin this morning.
Beregost was a blur, she felt like she'd bumped into another wierd void-filling person, and then died in flames. Then it got strange. Deaths seemed to pile up, no matter what she did, until finally all she remembered is that she'd gone the other way around the building. None of it happened. She was losing her mind.
She'd stolen all the gems from a warehouse guarded by a surly dwarf, bumped into a farmer called Marl in the pub, bought a book to read, and crashed in Flamebeard's house for the day. As soon as it was night, she'd headed further South, practicing her backstabs on a pair of half-ogres on the way, but somehow resisting the call of .. shoes? .. to the west.
Finally, Nashkel. Her new armor fitted like a .. well a large insect carapace, but who was she to challenge a decade of having worn this. She glanced over at the monk, who appeared to be in a trance. He was certainly odd enough for both of them, but at least he didn't make her feel even more crazy than she clearly was. She gave the sword a final polish, and went to bed.
It had been an eventful couple of days, and everything she'd taken for granted her entire life was like a dream she'd been rather rudely woken from. On the other hand, everything that had happened, felt as if it had happened to her thousands of times before. The people she'd met, she recognized, and turned away from. Khalid and Jaheira, no I've never met you, but please don't talk to me. Xzar and Monaron, I feel like I've taken your potions and then backstabbed you a hundred times. This time I saw you on the road, and dived into the bushes.
Not everything gave her this unnerving feeling of deja vu however. There had been a brooding half-orc in the friendly arm inn, where her .. second sight ..? expected a void filled occasionally by a low-budget time-lapse of barmaids. He had been curt and altogether unpleasant, and she kept wanting to talk to him some more. That was never a good path to go down, so she'd headed South, down paths as familiar as the scratches on her armor. Armor she'd looted off a hobgoblin this morning.
Beregost was a blur, she felt like she'd bumped into another wierd void-filling person, and then died in flames. Then it got strange. Deaths seemed to pile up, no matter what she did, until finally all she remembered is that she'd gone the other way around the building. None of it happened. She was losing her mind.
She'd stolen all the gems from a warehouse guarded by a surly dwarf, bumped into a farmer called Marl in the pub, bought a book to read, and crashed in Flamebeard's house for the day. As soon as it was night, she'd headed further South, practicing her backstabs on a pair of half-ogres on the way, but somehow resisting the call of .. shoes? .. to the west.
Finally, Nashkel. Her new armor fitted like a .. well a large insect carapace, but who was she to challenge a decade of having worn this. She glanced over at the monk, who appeared to be in a trance. He was certainly odd enough for both of them, but at least he didn't make her feel even more crazy than she clearly was. She gave the sword a final polish, and went to bed.
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Rasaad and Smoke had returned to Beregost, stopping only to backstab a hobgoblin who had been wearing some really stylish boots. As Rasaad commented, served him right for wearing them on his head. A pair of ghasts had also been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Smoke had been getting more and more annoyed with Rasaad for walking so fast, but despite repeatedly agreeing to match her speed, he seemed incapable of remembering to let her scout ahead. He did however seem to be getting better at sneaking. Smoke resolved to give him the boots if she were to find some boots of speed, say. Not that she had any idea what the boots actually did.
Back in Beregost, the duo had a surprise encounter (Really? Really really?) with some spiders, then went to investigate the 'void person'. Smoke had tried to set a trap just west of the person, but failed. However, Rasaad and Smoke managed to take out the mage before he got his flame arrow off, and then killed both goons before they killed the strange person, who appeared to be a mage. Rasaad was heard to shout 'stand back, I really don't know what this thing does', and then launched a brutal punch at the mage that pretty much laid him out.
The mage decided to tag along, so Smoke handed her the scroll case she'd been given by Firebeard in exchange for the book. Neera inspected the scrolls, and said, I think I need a potion of intelligence to make full use of this, so the trio headed up to the friendly arm inn, and bought one. They had a rest in the inn, and Smoke checked all of the rooms for lost gear. Some of the people in the rooms seemed to have tried quite hard to make sure the gear didn't become lost, but Smoke managed to get most of it. The spider corpse also turned out to be of value to a gnome there.
Another trip south followed, this time to find a powerful mage rumoured to be in the area. Some more scrolls were bought, Neera drank the potion, and learned the lot. The group was still keen for adventure, so Smoke led them further west.
After a day of uneventful travel, Rasaad and Neera decided actually they weren't keen for adventure anymore, but while searching for a campsite, they bumped into a nereid. They only realised it was a nereid because it became rather grabby with Neera, and killed her. Smoke started positioning for a backstab, but Rasaad convinced her of the error of her ways without actually killing her, and she raised Neera.
At this point an ogre mage turned up, and cast sleep on Rasaad. Smoke ran and hid, while Neera with 2 hit points just ran. The ogre cast invisibility, and went to ground. Smoke took a while to hide, but finally managed, so Neera went to draw out the ogre. The ogre obliged by blasting the sleeping Rasaad with a lightning bolt, killing him. Smoke backstabbed, but didn't do much damage. The ogre meanwhile seemed not to know what to do next, so Smoke switched to her bow, and Neera dug through her scroll case for spare damage spells. Magic missile seemed to cast at level 10, and flame hands did nice damage too.
By the time the ogre fell, Smoke was in a foul mood. She glared at the prone body of Rasaad, and then at Shoal. Without a word, she hid, crept behind the nereid, and gave vent to her anger the best way she knew how. Neera finished the job with her second flame hands scroll.
The duo returned to Beregost, found the temple to the east, and raised Rasaad. As it was nighttime, Smoke then poked around in the smithy, and left carrying an armload of blades. Smoke declared the next day a rest day, so Neera memorised 6 identify spells, while Rasaad poked through the pile of swords Smoke had dropped. Finally he wielded the katana dropped by the ogre mage, and pronounced himself happy.
The last couple of days had been .. actually it's pointless to say eventful, because this seemed to be the default state since she had left Candlekeep. Perhaps Candlekeep was just a really boring place?
The three of them had headed South to investigate the emerald situation in Prism's gem bag, and had been waylaid by bandits. So far so peachy, although they had each independently pegged their chances of surviving the fight at somewhere near zero. Enter the brooding half-orc from the friendly arm inn, who easily turned the fight in their favour, and then offered to join them.
Thus reinforced, they had relieved Greyhawk of his sword, and Smoke had pounced on it with unseemly amounts of glee. Prism duly completed his work, and they grabbed the emeralds. A snow wolf pelt followed, and the group headed west, where they found a scroll of cloudkill, which Neera felt she might be able to cast as .. and I need to stress this point .. a LAST RESORT.
A lost .. hellhound .. was returned to his .. actually Smoke didn't want to think about that any more, or ever again. The fastest dart thrower in the west then had an unfortunate attack of backstab, and then they met a group led by an obnoxious .. well in truth just the name Sendai seemed to drive Smoke to thoughts of blood and murder. Nice armor though.
The group returned to Naskel, sold the loot, and finally decided to investigate the problems in the mine. Smoke felt strangely limited by the others, even though Dorn mowed down everything they met with ease. They exited the mine with Dorn brushing bits of cleric off his chitin plate armor.
Three tombs later, they met some loony mage, but managed to separate him from his jellies, and wiped them all out. A rest in the last tomb gained Smoke a second heal ability, which came in handy, as they were running low on healing potions.
Yes, the potions. Dorn had been .. well .. he'd looked like he wanted to shout and kill, but he'd been firm, logical, .. and unwavering. Running around carrying only the potions you had managed to loot may work in whatever fantasy adventure you may think you're in, but we're a group, and we need proper gear. Then he'd marched her to the temple in Naskel, and made her buy their entire stock. 2000 gold. Every phantom Smoke who had ever lived seemed to be going berzerk inside her head, but Smoke couldn't see the actual problem. It was like a revelation, the voices in your head might be wrong. Or imaginary whispering caused by wind in the trees. Neera and Rasaad hadn't said anything, but Smoke was certain they completely agreed with everything Dorn said. Sometimes you need to be a little evil in order to get stuff done.
It had started well, and actually, ended well too. They had seen the amazons a mile away, Smoke and Rasaad had stealthed and positioned around one of the archers, while Neera readied a glitterdust spell. Dorn then greeted the leader, which rather predictably ended in tears. Tecla never knew what hit her, and Dorn disrupted one of the clerics with his special ability. He did catch quite a lot of hurt in the process from the second archer. All three were then blinded by the glitterdust, and the second archer died soon after. The clerics took some work to kill, the glitterdust wore off, and they both saved against the blindness spells, however they had wandered apart so could be engaged 4-1.
[OOC] Pretty much cleared out all of the southern areas, although we aren't quite ready for Durlag, didn't bother to rescue Dynaheir, skipped Ulcaster, and jumped to the end of the Firewine maze through Gullykin. Bought the neutral archmagi robe for Neera, stealth armor for Smoke, xbow +1 attack for Dorn, and the poison dagger for Rasaad. It's a good 80k XP total before anyone gets another level, so I might as well do the bandit camp.[/OOC]