Random Encounters

Kingmaker continues at a good pace. Played last Sunday, with much more exploring.

No spoilers, but I did run a 4 boar encounter which the group didn't seem to have too much problem with. A good bit of xp there.For the most part, random encounters are few and far between though, which makes them a bit more manageable.

Also, they decided to buy food rather than forage as that takes less time, and time is money and food is cheap.

I've got to read up a little bit for the next part and get my ducks in a row, but I don't forsee any problems.

We continued our kingmaker adventure path yesterday, finally having random encounters. Unfortunately the random encounters we're a bit over the top but I ran with them and I think it turned out okay.

Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path

After listening to the Strand Gamers on RPGMP3.com and their Kingmaker game, I had a feeling that I would be running it someday. I ended up buying the first adventure in the path, Stolen Land, a couple of months ago. When my Kalamar campaign got somewhat derailed by Barbed Devils, it seemed like it was time for us to move over to Pathfinder from 3.5.

A quick DDO Post.

If only My.DDO was updating correctly, this would appear with correct stats:



But it isn't, so you'll just have to trust that he is level 15 now and thinking of picking up a tower shield for more defense.

In other gaming news, I'll be DMing tomorrow, where the PCs bring the battle to the red dragon Khyrastryx.

A brief update

I realized that I hadn't updated the chronicles of Vorian, Chamele, Aldoran and Kascannia recently:

The group entered the underground ruins, in pursuit of the green dragon. They meet little opposition, and found the dragon lying in wait. A fierce battle ensued, with the gold dragon aiding in the attacking, destroying walls and potentially collapsing the ruins.

Just as the green dragon was vanquished, the gold dragon turned on the heroes, who were already exhausted from the battle. Upon his death, the dragon's hue changed, revealing him to also be a green.

"Petty dragons," comments Chamele. "They must have been having a fued, and this one thought to use us in its dispute, and then dispatch us to add to his horde. A good thing it underestimated us."

They then looted the small hordes the dragons had collected, and continued to explore the ruins, looking for clues as to the location of the lost tomb of Kruk-Ma-Kali. Unfortunately, they ran into another beholder, which killed Vorian before it died.

Chamele used her new found magical abilities to teleport the group back to Geanavue, where they both have a keep and a powerful cleric resides, who was able to raise Vorian from the dead.

In the city, they learn that the fire giants are demanding more and more tribute. The heroes intend to meet with the leaders of the city to learn what they might do to assist with these troubles. Aldoran also thinks that he might be able to divine the path to the lost tomb, possibly saving time and energy in their search.

How to run away from demons and find refuge with unicorns

After killing the beholder without much difficulty, the group continued it's search of the underground structure, searching for possible clues of the great valley and the lost tomb of Kruk-Ma-Kali. A literal maze of cooridors, there was some disagreement as to which way to proceed.

"We should go north west from the room with the beholder in it. The beholder didn't just come here for no reason. Someone put it here to guard something. We should focus our search on rooms connecting to that room," says Vorian. Everyone agrees that this sounds just as good a plan as any, and systematically open the doors in that room to see where they go. One room has manacles on the wall, chains on the floor, and a large chasm. They also see a pile of plates in the corner of the room, along with a razor, presumably a make shift eating utensil. The group circumvents that room, and continues past it, suddenly coming upon a gold dragon taking up the entirety of a room, leaving no way for the group to enter.

" I was wondering when someone would find me down here," says the gold dragon in deep, somber tones.

"Well, yes. We just happened to be searching for dragons, as it were," says Casandra the bard with her usual wit."

" I find that hard to believe, but no matter. Perhaps there is something you could help me with nonetheless. I've been trapped down here for several days, trying to evade a green dragon. These cooridors are too small for either of us to travel normally, but if I shrink myself to attempt to escape, I fear he will find me and pounce on me in a larger form, giving him the advantage. But with your assistance, we may be able to slay the evil dragon and I would free from his harrasment."

"Fighting a dragon by ourselves may be too much. Can you assist us?" asks Vorian. The dragon nods, and then casts a series of spells, shrinking down to humanish size, but keeping his dragon form.

"Very well. Let's move quickly. These spells won't last long."

The now smaller gold dragon directs the party from a position in the rear, telling them to go towards the central room of the complex. Inside, they hear a scrapping noise. Aldoran listens but can't identify the sound. "Could that be the green dragon inside?" he asks.

"I am not certain. It sounds like it could be," responds the dragon, as the slight scraping sounds continue. Vorian prepares himself, and busts down the door, charging into the room. Inside, he is confronted not with a dragon, but three bebliths, large spider like demons. Vorian stumbles slightly, wondering as to the sagacity of his original plan.

Aldoran begins casting a spell upon seeing what is inside, but well before he is finished, the bebliths attack. Vorian thinks he may have to face off against only one, as they are too large and the room too small for them to bring attacks to bear. However, the first one to move climbs up onto the wall and approaches that way, presenting as much of a threat as one on the ground. It bites Vorian, causing a small wound, and Vorian feels a poison enter his body. The second one bites him as well, but it's poison is much more potent, and Vorian visibly shakes and stubmles under it's effects. The last one flings a web at Vorian which hits him soundly, immobalizing him.

Chamele responds by changing Vorian into a spider through use of the polymorph, which enables him to escape the web (I think stricktly a freedom of movement effect would be needed, which a spider eater has but is a supernatural effect and not granted by polymorph. In the end, I thought it would make sense to allow it though. Alternatively, he could have been transformed into an ooze and the acid would have eaten through, or some sort of fire magical beast to burn his way out.)

The dragon begins casting a spell, and then speaks in Abyssal, "It would be best not to fight us or interfere, lest you risk the ire of your superiors in the abyss." After speaking, one of the spider like creatures disappears.

Vorian, in spider form, moves out of the room, and then shortly after that a tiger appears, pouncing on one of the remaining spiders, but failing to do any lasting damage to it. Aldoran then chants, holding onto his wooden holy symbol, and reaches out, causing the stone wall to fill in where the door used to be. He then casts a delay poison spell on Vorian, still in spider form.

"That will keep you from getting worse for a couple of hours, but I fear that in your weakened state the poison will be more effective against you and more deadly. Without some sort of treatment, you may very well die. Let's get to the surface and see what I can do."

The group moves cautiously back to where they entered the complex, and they reach the surface after a short climb.

Aldoran, upon reaching the surface, casts a spell, and a unicorn appears. Aldoran speaks to it in Sylvan, asking for it's aid. It touches it horn to Vorian, but his appearance remains unchanged. "The poison is gone, but the damage it has done remains," says Aldoran, and then the unicorn disappears.

"I can reverse the poisons' effects, but I will need to wait until dawn, which is still several hours away."

"That will take too long. If we are to defeat the green, we must act quickly. I will take Vorian to a town where he can get his healing and return," says the gold dragon, who upon reaching the outside changed into his normal size.

"A bargain is struck then. If you take me to the town, I will vow that the green dragon will be destroyed," says Vorian.

Vorian and the dragon leave and return, taking about four hours. Vorian brings scrolls and potions of lesser restoration, as well as several vials of antitoxin. "In case we run into any more of those creatures," he explains, distributing them from his pack.

The group then reenters the underground complex, going back to the room with the demons. Upon opening the door, they see that it is empty. They travel from that room, and in the adjascent room, they see the green dragon, lying in wait.

Shadows of Undrentide

Well, last night I finished the first expansion for Neverwinter Nights 1, Shadows of Undrentide. Yes, it took me a very long time to get around to actually finishing it. Apparently, the last time I had played was back in 2008, and even then, just briefly.

I remember it being my game of choice for a short time when I was home and Mr Bebop was napping. So that would have been late 2007 and early 2008. Nowadays, I'm usually too tired to do anything other than nap when Gabe is napping too, so I hadn't been playing too much. That, and the fact that it is on my external hard drive makes it very unportable to play on the mac laptop, which is the version I have.

Anyways, enough excuses for it taking so long to finish. Overall, it was an enjoyable expansion. I think I was a little spoiled though. I had played through the original campaign with both expansions installed, so I had access to all the prestige classes, spells, crafting, and cloaks, so there was nothing new for me there.

I had a character concept in mind, a halfling rogue/ranger who took advantage of two weapon fighting and sneak attack to deal more damage. Unfortunately, this didn't work out well on several fronts:

1. Because NWN 1 is based on the D&D 3.0 rules, weapons have size categories and using two weapon fighting as a small character meant using a small weapon in the main hand, and a tiny weapon in the off hand. This meant short sword and dagger for most practical reasons. But all the cool weapons are either longswords or double swords, all of which are two big for a small character to use.
   
2. The interlude and chapter 2 have tons of undead or creatures otherwise immune to sneak attacks. Add on top of that the interlude has a door that can only be opened by a Paladin as far as I could tell, and ranger is looking like a poor choice.
   
3. The skill implementation is poor, meaning keeping certain skills trained can't be done, even per the 3.0 rules. So I found myself wanting in certain skills that I would have wanted in my character concept.
   

Deekin the henchmen was the best of all of those available, as I didn't much care for the dwarf or the half-orc. If I were to play through it again, I would try it with one of them instead, but after experiencing their AI in Chapter 1, I was eager for a change in the interlude and chapter 2. But considering I've got plenty of other games available, I don't think I would play through this module again.

As has been said before, the ending was quite anticlimactic. After watching the end game cinematic for Final Fantasy IX, the end video for Shadows was horrible. Perhaps not a fair comparison, but considering the time frame, and that Final Fantasy came out in 2000, and SoU came out in 2003, it was a little sad. Also, even though I had the graphics turned up to the max, the game seems to be showing its age.

I'm thinking of skipping Hordes of the Underdark, which just seems to be an excuse for a high level campaign, and move on to Neverwinter Nights 2. Luckily I have the Mac version which is supposed to have fixed some of the major bugs from the PC version.

Bodak and Beholder

April 9th, 2010.

I'll just give a brief description of the battles, and then a small discussion.

Luckily, these weren't encountered together. Without a cleric, the undead Bodak seemed to pose a real challenge, even if it was alone. With damage reduction and energy resistance and immunity, it was quite an interesting monster. The save or die effect caused everyone to try to avert their eyes to circumvent the gaze attack, which nobody succumbed to. This was a random encounter that followed (Kobold, Desert), which actually made things interesting. They had camped near the nomadic kobolds, and it was their dying in the middle of the night that alerted the PCs to the Bodak's presence.

Once they got to the ruins, the next big battle was against a beholder. They had never fought a beholder before, and it was interesting how things turned out. When it came down to it, Kascannia the elf fighter made all 10 saving throws vs the eye stalks, which I'm certain she was thankful for. The arcane trickster was able to get two lightning bolts cast, which hurt the beholder the most.

So, my question to you is: what do you think of save or die effects? In this case, it was all save and no die. It could have gone the other way around, but for a group of level 12 PCs, I think a beholder in some ways doesn't pose much of a threat. And the damage reduction of the bodak was easily overcome by brute force. A group of either of them would have posed a more serious challange I think.

Manticores and You

March 12th, 2010

We stopped our last session just as the manticores were attacking, sending their spikey spikes of doom into the front line fighters, and the wizard casting obscuring mist in order to protect the entire group from the missiles.

This made the combat quite a bit more exciting in my opinion, as everyone had to stay inside the mist, forcing the monsters inside. The 20% miss chance due to concealment made melee combat a little longer, and let the druid's summoned monsters help a bit more than usual.

By the end of the combat with the four manticores which I gave 10 more hit dice (from 6 to 16), I decided to end it. While we could have progressed with the story, it was already later than I had hoped and I was already feeling tired.

On another positive note, the spaghetti and sauce I cooked up was pretty good. Perhaps next time we game we'll be back to our normal fair of pizza.

Random Encounters

Normally, I write about the progress the group has made and what they did in a narrative format. I'm going to depart from that today, mainly because I decided that a long journey from point A to point B would best be served in one of two fashions. Either a narrative, where the group travels through some hardships and gets to their destination relatively unscathed, or a series of random encounters.

I decided that random encounters would be appropriate in this case, as it would serve two purposes. Number one purpose was combat. I wanted a session with some combat in it, as the last session was completely narrative, and I didn't award any XP, though I plan to at some point as a story award. The second purpose was to show that the terrain in this area isn't very forgiving. One of the reasons it's called the lost tomb of Kruk-Ma-Kali is that it hasn't been found. If anybody could just walk north from the city and find it, it would have been found long ago.

As a synopsis, the group bought some equipment, traveled north for about 8 hours, and when they were getting ready to set up camp, the druid detected undead nearby, heading for their location. In about an hour, half a dozen large zombies reached the group, which they had no trouble dispatching. During the night, a group of manticores came across the group, and attacked them. Chamele cast obscuring mist to prevent their aerial assault and we stopped there for the evening.

At this rate, the group might find it difficult to rest long enough to replenish their spells which could have a seriously detrimental effect as they counted on Aldoran's spells to protect them from the harsh climate.

Gaming tomorrow

Well, we are continuing our Kalamar game tomorrow.

Even when I plan on doing a random dungeon delve, I like to have some things worked out in advance so that it goes smoothly, and I don't have to look up a bunch of stats in the middle of a game. However, I don't have time to do that. So, I've got a map, names of monsters that go in rooms, and a plot (*gasp*). So, the monster manual will be my friend.

I'll also be using the Fat Dragon Games paper models and the nifty ceramic walls I got from my secret santa last year. I thought about using dungeon tiles, but I couldn't find an easy way to incorporate them. I'll think I'll have a better chance to use them next time around.

Arrival in Dijishy

We played our ongoing Kalamar game on January 22nd, 2010. It's been a couple of months since our last session and more than a year before our previous one.

The rest of the trip from the coast to Dijishy was uneventful. Walking through the arid but not quite desert conditions towards to city were acceptable, but as they approached the city, they realized that it was hospitable only by it's unique location between the Elos Desert to the east and the Elenon mountains to the west. Skirting between these two easily identifiable landmarks, reaching the city-state was not difficult.

Found on the edge of a cliff, with a man made ramp leading up to it from the ground below, it is easily defensible. Boasting an almost homogeneously human population of 6,000, with dwarves being a small minority.

The group enters the gates, which are guarded by two humans, who regard them with disinterest. They quickly find an inn, and waste no time trying to gather information on where the tomb might be located, but in a circumspect way. As they entered the inn, the only group that seemed different than the local populace was a high elven female wearing plate mail, with a sword at her hip and shield on her back, surrounded by three human males, one also wearing plate mail, one wearing plain white robes, and the last wearing leather armor.

After finding their own table and ordering food and ale, Chamele and Kasandra approach the four at the table, and strike up a small conversation. Chamele says they have been hired to find a more southern overland route to Brandobia that avoids Pel Brolenon and their slaver trade, and asks what the other group is doing in the city, at the edge of nowhere.

They said they were currently unemployed and looking for work, but the location suited them, what with Kalamar to the east and Pel Brolenon to the west, Dijishy was looking pretty good for an elf like her. But she did say that the Great Sanctuary might have some maps or other information about the local area and might be a good place to start their search.

So a short while later, the group approaches the library, where Vorian says to a librarian seated behind a large desk at the entrance that he would like to peruse their collection, and is told it is 10 gold for the day. He hands over 10 gold and is given a large, red metal disk with a hole in the center. He goes to hand it to Kasandra, when the librarian says, "Sir, entrance is not transferable. If she would like to enter, she must pay her own fee."

"What?" asks Vorian incredulously. "I said I would like to peruse your collection, not that I was. I was paying for her."

"Your statement, plus the exchange of coinage implies that..."

"You can infer all you want! In that case, I want a refund."

"There are no refunds."

" Then I want to speak to your superior."

"Very well. He won't have anything different to say to you, but...," and with that he nods to one of the many assistants behind him, who goes walking off.

After waiting about a minute, Vorian looses patience and says, "So where is he?"

"Patience, sir. Some things take time."

"And some things take less time, for example, me losing my patience," attempting to intimidate the librarian.

"Let me see what I can do," and he nods to another attendant, who walks away briskly. "Perhaps you should realize that all things happen for a reason and in their own time." As he is talking, several men come back through the entrance to the library. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"No, I'm staying right here until you give me my money back."

"Then we'll have to remove you bodily," says the librarian, as two of the men approach Vorian.

"Coward! Sending your thugs after me instead of doing it yourself," says Vorian, scowling as he walks out of the entrance alcove.

After Vorian leaves, Chamele walks forward and says, "Me and my acquaintance here seek admittance," motioning toward Kasandra and handing over two platinum coins."

"Very well. No weapons are permitted inside. You can leave them here and they will be returned to you when you leave."

Chamele and Casandra then begin their search for information on the lost tomb of Kruk-Ma-Kali, spending 5 days in the library. They returned each morning, given a disc of a different color, and left each evening. Towards the end of their search, they found a promising book, The Journal of Niemallion Laebrinoia. Chamele spends some time, and copies out to be what appears the most interesting parts of the journal. As she is copying the book, she sees out of the corner of her eye a librarian, who appears to be smiling slightly as he walks away.

During this time, Aldoran had been flying around the environs in eagle form, trying to get a feel for the land. On the 4th day, he begins to travel north as far as possible before returning. He make good progress, and notices a fortress ruin amongst the mountain passes. Before he can inspect further, he notices a manticore. He decides to fly back to the city, out distancing it before it could present a threat.

With that, the group feels well prepared to travel north to explore the ruins and than farther northward toward the Great Valley.

Finished Final Fantasy IX

I finished Final Fantasy IX last night.

I'm glad to have finished it. I might come back to it later to try to beat two optional bosses: Hades and Ozma.

Here's the ending movie:

To Dijishy

November 13th, 2009

Having recovered from the tomb of horrors and finding a credible report of the location of the lost tomb of Kruk-Ma-Kali, the group of adventurers traveled toward Dijishy, first by boat and then overland through the Elos desert.

On the way, they encountered a lone traveler, presumably a merchant, riding a pony. Unfortunately, he was attacked by flying, fiery beings.

His pony was attacked and knocked unconscious, and he was killed shortly after. But Aldoran used his bow to draw one of the two of them away, and it began approaching the group at full speed. It was killed quickly, and the other one was dispatched by Kascannia, who used her frost rapier and fighting ability to good effect.

Next Week

Haven't gamed much lately, except for computer gaming.

This Sunday, Settler's of Catan! We've got the 5-6 player expansion too, so that the 5 of us can play.

A week from today, should be playing Kalamar.

Game ending

Well, I think one of my groups is pretty much done with the current roleplaying campaign. We may pick it up again later, but that isn't likely.

So adieu to Darwin, Jelena, Ember and Raizix.

The other game is just picking back up with DnD 3.5 in Kalamar, so I'm still running a DnD 3.5 Kalamar game, just with a different group...seems that is what we keep going back to. It'll be once a month on the 2nd Friday of each month.

In other gaming for me I recently finished disk 3 of Final Fantasy IX. That means I'm on the last disc, which is essentially wrap-up and a string on boss battles. I'll see how it goes.

DDO

So, I won't go into it much here because talking about video games isn't anywhere near as fun as playing them, but I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons Online, ever since it went Free to Play (f2p).

I've added my xfire account information to the blog here, so you can just how much I have been playing it.



It's also on the right hand side.

Anyways, it's good considering that it does capture some of that PnP feel, and with less time available now to game face to face, this is a somewhat good alternative, especially since I mostly play with members of my PnP group anyways.

HackMaster Basic has ended, DnD 3.5 has resumed

Well, I said I would try to get character sheets posted of the HackMaster Basic game we ran. So without any additional preamble, here they are:

• Bella
• Crispin
• Geronimo
• Veria

And last week, on Friday, October 9th, we resumed our Kalamar DnD 3.5 game. It has been more than a year, which I found surprising. We had a little bit of an introduction back into the game, with our last game ending in the Tomb of Horrors.

Aldoran reached Geanavue safely, and spoke with the head of the House of Solace. He urged the immediate destruction of the skull, in an attempt to free the trapped souls of Chamele and Kascannia. By placing the portable hole in a bag of holding, both the items and their contents should be destroyed, with the by-product of opening a gate to the astral plane.

They protected against the gate opening by casting a dimensional anchor spell in the room before attempting to place the portable hole in the bag of holding. When this occurred, the skull was destroyed, and the souls of Kascannia and Chamele were allowed travel into the outer planes.

Aldoran sacrificed some of the magical weapons and artifacts found in to the tomb of horrors in order to true resurrect both Kasca and Chamele. After a couple of days, Vorian also reached Geanavue.

In the meantime, Kascannia and Chamele saw two female fire giants enter the city, apparently part of an envoy from the fire giants. Also, Vorian, Cassandra and Aldoran saw a human ranger leaving Shyff as they arrived. His large lizard-like companion almost attacked Aldoran's dire wolf, but were controlled by their respective humanoid companions.

After re-situating themselves in Geanavue, the party plans to travel towards the lost tomb of Kruk-Ma-Kali, somewhere north of the city of Dijishy.

The end of HackMaster?

Friday, September 18th, 2009

We finished our previous HackMaster Basic game last week.

It went very well for the adventurers. Even though two kobolds went after the Mage, she countered with another scorch spell, killing the. The other continued the fight, but the mage's thick robes protected her.

The dwarven fighter eventually regained his feet, and helped the human thief dispatch the kobold leader. The Mage finished off the last kobold, holding her quarterstaff across his neck until he died of asphyxiation.

Well after the kobolds were dispatched, the cleric recovered from the original blow he received early in the fight. They gathered up the lead and glass jars they had been commissioned to find, and took the other items the kobolds had gathered as well.

Afterwards, they decided to investigate the cabin on the other side of the lake. En route, a kobold trap was sprung, dumping two hungry and annoyed snakes from an apple tree.

The thief killed one immediately, and the cleric knocked the other one senseless. They then continued on to the cabin, and found an elderly woman knitting on the porch.

She invited them in to stay the night and tended to their wounds, talking about her late husband, the daughter that visits once a month, and gossiped about the goings on in the area.

The adventurers left in the morning, and returned to the village of Vew. The villagers rejoiced that the kobolds had been dispatched, and Bellipar that his lead had been recovered. Unfortunately, the reward money was not with him, and they would have to accompany him to Frandor's Keep.

With that, our brief foray into HackMaster Basic is finished. Once Frandor's Keep is available, I'll buy it and review it.

One of our players now has scheduled time off on the second Friday of each month, so we will be gaming then, instead of our previous schedule of once every three weeks. Also, because of less game time, we will be returning to the Kalamar DnD 3.5 game exclusively for our Friday night group.

With great power...

Sunday, August 23, 2009

The group wakes up, having camped outside the house of Joseep the woodcarver. Having protected him from werewolves while he was suffering from belladonna poisoning, he was grateful for their assistance and wished them good luck on their travels.

Travelling during the day was uneventful. There were a few additional farms farther north of Joseep, including some cattle farms, but this eventually opened up into the Skarna plains. Some sparse woods were spotted here and there and Jelena and Raizix were able to get track some game.

That evening, however, proved to be more eventful. Raizix, during his watch heard a buzzing noise and alerted his companions at once. A swarm of 13 stirges quickly flew into the torch light.

Most that approached Raizix were killed straight away, but two landed on Jelena and one was dangerously close. Darwin dispatched them with bolts of magical energy, and Raizix cut in twain the remaining airborne stirge.

After returning to sleep, and then waking the next morning and breaking camp brought another surprise. A dozen riders on horseback were approaching their position, with weapons drawn and a menacing appearance. Raizix responded first by firing an arrow from his new longbow, and Jelena followed likewise. The range was not easily overcome however, and they both missed their targets.

Darwin didn't have a similar problem, and downed five riders and their horses with a fireball. All the horses were apparently dead, and all but one of the men was either killed outright or unconscious.

Reacting quickly, the remaining riders split up, moving left and right, with only the apparent leader of the group riding straight for them. Two of the riders slowed their horses and turned around to aid their fallen comrades.

Ember slowed the leader by causing the very grass to grab the ankles of his horse, slowing and eventually stopping it.

One of the rider, not wearing armor and clad in bright clothes shouts out over the din of battle and charging horses, "you'll pay for that, wizard!" and methodically shoots his longbow and Darwin, narrowly missing with each shot.

Two of the riders that were now in the lead were obviously not human in their appearance as they did not wear helmets. The group could make out orc like features in the face, and were reminded of the half-orcs that attacked them recently in Zoa that were in the wizard Daresh's employ.

Using arrow and spell, one of the half-orcs was killed at a distance, but the other made it to Raizix from the south-west only to be deterred in his attack by Deekin who commanded the warrior to flee, and in his haste to depart opened himself to a fatal attack.

At about the same time, a human approached the group from the south- east and announced, "Surrender yourselves and face the charges of crimes committed in Zoa!" with no response, he charged toward Jelena but his horse pulled up short before he could slash at her with his blade.

Darwin seeing that the riders who had turned back were approaching again, targeted the wounded but conscious man and his benefactor who had brought him up on his horse. This second fireball blast was lethal to him, but the other rider remained lucid and landed on the ground, not far from his now dead companion and horse.

The brightly clad man then shouts again, "Wait! We surrender!" He backs up his actions by throwing down his bow, and the remaining men do the same, save one.

"I'm not paying you to surrender! Attack them!" Realizing the futility and precariousness of the situation he was in, the rider turns his horse around and rides back south.

Raizix pulls the nearby rider from his horse and pulls up Darwin behind him onto it. Ember takes the mercenary towards the remaining group. The leader shouts out again, "the one on horseback isn't my man! Permission to tend to and aid my fallen comrades-in-arms?"

"Granted!" shouts out Raizix, spurring his new mount toward the remaining rider.

Darwin, not intending to wait, says, "slow the horse." Raizix complies, and shortly thereafter Darwin intones the words again to cause a small bead of fire to race towards the rider and erupt in a fiery explosion. The horse falls dead on the ground, and the rider quickly stands and continues running.

He eventually slows, choosing to face his opponents directly. Darwin casts another spell, causing the man to stop, unmoving.

Raizix disarms him, and then pins him on the ground. While atop of him, Darwin intones once again, and upon touching Raizix, causes him to grow to much larger proportions.

The man starts to move in a short time, and twists his head around to get a better look at both Raizix and Darwin. Spying Darwin out o the corner of his eye, he growls and attempts to break free of Raizix's grasp. Raizix begins punching him in the face, until he falls unconscious. He then ties him up, and he drags him back to the waiting combined groups.

"Who are you and why did you attack us?" asked Raizix of the unarmed and unarmored man.

"I am Treon and these are my men. We are from the mercenary guild of Zoa. We were hired by Xeff, the half-Orc over there to track you down and bring you to justice."

"What crimes did he allege we commit?" asked Raizix.

"He said that you freed several prisoners and left several guards dead in your wake."

"That couldn't be farther from the truth. Have you heard of the wizard Daresh?"

"Indeed I have, but I fail to see..."

"We have been attempting to stop Daresh and her quest for power. Even now she is amassing an army here in Skarna to attack Zoa and perhaps attempt to take the entire region. Xeff must have been one of her minions."

"Do you have any proof of this?"

"No, I don't, and I don't need to explain myself to one such as you. Gold is the only reason you need."

"That's not true. Me and my men aren't evil. We choose our contracts. We don't relish fighting or killing," Treon says, looking at Darwin. "So, are we your prisoners?"

"No, you may return to Zoa, but we will take the horses. What will you say when you get back?"

"Keep the horses. Xeff paid for them. When I return I will tell three widows that their husbands died under my command, and for that I am grievously sorry."

"If someone asks, we were headed east," says Raizix, handing the man a bag with 50 gold coins inside.

"If someone asks, I'll tell them to burn in the nine hells. We don't take kindly to being deceived. Farewell and good luck."

With that, Treon takes his men aside, and they make shallow graves for the three dead men and the horses. They then leave on foot, not once looking back.

The group then waits for the human to wake, intending to question him. He eventually awakes, and finds himself tied to a tree, and a hood over his head.

"Who sent you?" starts Raizix.

"Daresh, as if you didn't know."

"Where is she?"

"It doesn't matter. You can't stop her."

Raizix hits him on the side of the head with his armored fist. "I said, where is she?"

"Castle Triumph, to the far north, in Natfal."

"Now, do you look forward to death's sweet release?"

"Daresh will punish failure, even after death. No, death is no release."

"Very well," and Raizix nods to Ember, who draws her dagger against his neck, killing him almost instantly.

They begin to mount up, and Deekin joins Raizix on his horse. "Raizix? Deekin is concerned...Darwin is becoming scary. Deekin thinks it is the coin."

"Perhaps. But he's our only chance against Daresh."

"Just make sure the price isn't too high," warns Alafarus, the intelligent short sword hanging on Raizix's belt.