Arabian Knights
FrdNwsm
Member Posts: 1,069
Feeling an odd urge to go slumming, MC told his crew to take a week off, donned his "Big Al" disguise, and dug up the old Bad Boyz crew (in Hexxat's case, "dug up" was an appropriate term). Now, Hexxat had informed him that, with the trip to China finished, good old "L" had the urge to collect a burial shroud from Arabia. She neglected to mention, however, how she planned to get there. Hire some camels, maybe?
It wasn't until he hit the graveyard (to collect dear cute Viconia) that Hexxat suddenly remembered that "Oh, right! This is where we leave from!". (In retrospect, MC should have realized this, since Hexxat does the crypt walking thing instead of flying tourist, but his memory is poor). Poof! The party was teleported into a crypt (naturally), where they encountered the spirits of 4 gals who were long deceased, but were still seriously gossipy. The four Chatty Cathys proceeded to relate, in great detail, a deviously convoluted, appallingly tragic, and excruciatingly LONG tale, about a prophesied leader. We can omit the details; suffice it to say the prophecy was never fulfilled because his mom was murdered before he could be born. It was his burial shroud that "L" wanted Hexxat to collect.
What the Hell? Even MC suspected that "L" had sent Hexxat on a wild goose chase. If the child's mom died before she could give birth, the kid was never born and should not have any burial shroud in the first place! Unless they did a post-mortem C-section on the gal and buried the fetus separately? Given the odd burial practices MC had seen in the past, this possibility could not be ruled out, but he really didn't want to think about it too closely. Ick.
Pressing onward, the group rounded a corner and encountered some overweight ("bloated" was the term used to describe them) spiders. They had some sort of odd ranged attack which was pretty effective, so the group ducked back out and called up the old standby skeleton crew to deal with them. MC speculated that the spiders were bloated because they were pregnant; when killed they delivered a bunch of smaller spiders. Jaheira superciliously informed him that this could not possibly be the case, since arachnids DO NOT BEAR LIVING YOUNG!
Fine, so they're magical spiders ... happy now, Ms. Know-it-all Druidess?
Hexxat was given the Boot of Speed and designated as forward scout, looking for traps. Heading down the corridor, the group went past a group of 9-10 statues which, to the amazement of all, did NOT animate and attack. There was, however, a patch of ground where undetectable and non-disarmable traps started going off and damaging the party, despite Hexxat's vigilance. Here is where the group's experience in the Vampire lair paid off. Gee, there weren't any traps at all; the ground had simply been seeded with caltrops, just like in the blood room of the vampires. The only thing to do was run past them and take the hits.
[I complained then and I'll complain now; that misleading messaging just makes you stop and look for traps, which aren't actually there, so you end up taking extra damage for no good reason]
Having reached the far end of the mined area, the party refused to waste any healing spells, and passed around the ring of regeneration. OK, it took a while but saved spells; MC was heard to mutter "if they can cheat, we can cheat".
Meanwhile, MC also suddenly remembered that there was some sort of chest in the Chatty Cathy room, so he send Hexxat back to investigate; after all, she could regenerate any damage from running through the land mines behind them. Inside the chest, she found a piece of cloth, a magical scimitar, an Oscar with no inscription on it and an oil lamp. She promptly glommed onto all of them and ran back. At this point things got weird.
It wasn't until he hit the graveyard (to collect dear cute Viconia) that Hexxat suddenly remembered that "Oh, right! This is where we leave from!". (In retrospect, MC should have realized this, since Hexxat does the crypt walking thing instead of flying tourist, but his memory is poor). Poof! The party was teleported into a crypt (naturally), where they encountered the spirits of 4 gals who were long deceased, but were still seriously gossipy. The four Chatty Cathys proceeded to relate, in great detail, a deviously convoluted, appallingly tragic, and excruciatingly LONG tale, about a prophesied leader. We can omit the details; suffice it to say the prophecy was never fulfilled because his mom was murdered before he could be born. It was his burial shroud that "L" wanted Hexxat to collect.
What the Hell? Even MC suspected that "L" had sent Hexxat on a wild goose chase. If the child's mom died before she could give birth, the kid was never born and should not have any burial shroud in the first place! Unless they did a post-mortem C-section on the gal and buried the fetus separately? Given the odd burial practices MC had seen in the past, this possibility could not be ruled out, but he really didn't want to think about it too closely. Ick.
Pressing onward, the group rounded a corner and encountered some overweight ("bloated" was the term used to describe them) spiders. They had some sort of odd ranged attack which was pretty effective, so the group ducked back out and called up the old standby skeleton crew to deal with them. MC speculated that the spiders were bloated because they were pregnant; when killed they delivered a bunch of smaller spiders. Jaheira superciliously informed him that this could not possibly be the case, since arachnids DO NOT BEAR LIVING YOUNG!
Fine, so they're magical spiders ... happy now, Ms. Know-it-all Druidess?
Hexxat was given the Boot of Speed and designated as forward scout, looking for traps. Heading down the corridor, the group went past a group of 9-10 statues which, to the amazement of all, did NOT animate and attack. There was, however, a patch of ground where undetectable and non-disarmable traps started going off and damaging the party, despite Hexxat's vigilance. Here is where the group's experience in the Vampire lair paid off. Gee, there weren't any traps at all; the ground had simply been seeded with caltrops, just like in the blood room of the vampires. The only thing to do was run past them and take the hits.
[I complained then and I'll complain now; that misleading messaging just makes you stop and look for traps, which aren't actually there, so you end up taking extra damage for no good reason]
Having reached the far end of the mined area, the party refused to waste any healing spells, and passed around the ring of regeneration. OK, it took a while but saved spells; MC was heard to mutter "if they can cheat, we can cheat".
Meanwhile, MC also suddenly remembered that there was some sort of chest in the Chatty Cathy room, so he send Hexxat back to investigate; after all, she could regenerate any damage from running through the land mines behind them. Inside the chest, she found a piece of cloth, a magical scimitar, an Oscar with no inscription on it and an oil lamp. She promptly glommed onto all of them and ran back. At this point things got weird.
Post edited by FrdNwsm on
4
Comments
Lastly, Hexxat was stuck and couldn't move; it was as though her feet had been nailed to the floor. Now what? Taking stock, it looked as though Hexxat, despite her prodigious vampire strength, was ... weighed down? It was the damned Oscar statue, which now weighed over 1,000 lbs!. Lose that sucker!
We all put our heads together and tried to figure out exactly what had happened; apparently the whole episode started when Hexxat ran past the spiky bits in the floor with her loot. Without the boots of speed, any thief would have been trapped in the middle of the spiked area when the statue suddenly gained weight, would be unable to move and soon dead! A sneaky and nasty plan indeed. The lamp then summoned a Djinn, Oscar animated the statues, and the scimitar supplied them with weaponry. (Each statue, when defeated, left a magical scimitar behind). We could see no point to the piece of cloth; it didn't look like a burial shroud, but who knew for sure?
In the very next room, the group encountered three dudes in a large Library, involved in an argument over who was the biggest and baddest of them all. Being totally unable to comprehend their foreign names, MC mentally dubbed them Moamar, Saddam and Khomeni. Engaging them in conversation, MC attempted to be the voice of reason, and, flattering them all outrageously, managed to get them to stop bickering. Just as it seemed things would go smoothly, Hexxat blurted out that we were here to grab the Shroud of the Unproved. So much for subtle stratagems. The fight was on, but it didn't amount to much. Our advance scouts were positioned for an immediate attack, and although the foes had magical tattoos that acted like spell sequencers, they had no counter for Jaheira's Insect Plague.
On we pressed; Hexxat found a way past a trapped bridge (which involved walking on air in spots), after which we heard the sounds of our advance scouts beating up on some more bloated spiders. That fight was over before we ever got in visual range of it. We were left in front of yet another one of those annoying doors that are proof against any external force, while a great metal face told us to "stick your hand in my mouth". Yeah, sure. How about biting my head off, too?
We HAD to be close to the shroud! We searched the area for something resembling a key, even going back over old ground, but came up dry. OK, maybe Mr. Mouth was indeed the key to the solution?
Well, it was "L's, to be more precise. Hexxat crypt walked us back out, and promptly disappeared again to make the delivery. Meanwhile MC recruited Yoshimo to take her place, and then went to check on his keep. There he found yet another financial crisis! An antiquated dike system had burst and the farmers had been flooded out! The harvest was lost, starvation loomed ... and of course, the Lord of the Manor had to do something about it. 7,000 gold to repair all the damages and lay in food for everyone. Selling off the magical scimitars we took as loot from the crypt statues didn't cover even half that amount.
Ad in the Athkatla Times: Slightly used Keep for sale, complete with Temple. Some upkeep required. No reasonable offer refused.
But this was the third scenario involving Hexxat, and I would have expected the enemy to be more formidable than the second. Now, part of this was the fact that because of the odd sequence of events, the statues didn't trigger until we were past the spiked area, which made them easier to deal with. But they were also, as a whole, weaker than the guys we fought in Hexxat #2.
As for not using Insect Plague ... there is NO logical way to justify such a tactic. You are faced with some dangerous spell casters; not utilizing your best weapon against them is indefensible foolishness. If MC had turned to Jaheira and said "Let's not use Insect Plague, I want to give them a chance", she would have figured he had gone as crazy as Yakman and cast her Heal spell at him.
What I AM saying is that, since we are pretty much expected to have access to such tactics and abilities at this point, the scenario should have been designed to minimize their effectiveness. Supply the 3 mages with a screen of half a dozen melee types, for example, as a support element. A combined arms force is harder to defeat since it has more options open to it. Look at the final Temple battle in the Rasaad storyline; that one was seriously difficult. Why? Because the foe had multiple threat venues available to them. Had the statues, the Djinn and the three mages hit us all at once, the fight would have been an order of magnitude harder.
Now, if there is in fact some reason that the magic guarding the Tomb objects to someone taking the items from the chest, those 4 should have also objected and attacked. That would have been more logical, and added to the difficulty of the level.