HOME | DD

Description
Two updates in as many days! AMAZING!

---

When last we left our intrepid heroes, Rylan had just discovered a plot to ambush (and possibly murder) a wealthy merchant, take his money and do nasty things to his son and daughter, all coordinated by the local thieves' guild. Upon mentioning to the rest of the party that we should try to stop the thieves (killing things that can speak Common is wrong), Panda got all -–ahem-- excited that one of our party had moral fiber.

So in order to foil the ambush, we decided to catch up with the merchant's caravan and kind of insert ourselves into their traveling group as bodyguards, whether they liked it or not, just so we could be in the way when the ambush came. The caravan was guarded by a near legion of personal troops, with three extra guards they hired in town. The three mercenaries were the ones we focused on, as they were the most likely to be thief plants. The first mercenary was really non-descript; he had dull clothing and armor, and was kinda silent the whole way. We'll call him "Captain No-Face." Then there was a guy decked out in well-worn, kinda piece-meal plate armor with a big scar on his face. He looked like he'd seen his share of battles, so we called him "Captain Badass."

Then there was this guy... Covered in absolutely pristine, sparkling full-plate that was three sizes too big, and a sword that would make Cloud feel inadequate, this guy was barely able to stand with all the weight. He was obviously trying to go for the "intimidating wealth" style of combat, but since he couldn't see out of his helmet, it wasn't working too well. We called him "Private Fancy-Pants." (And yes, that's a Mulan reference in the caption. I couldn't help myself.)

As the caravan neared the quarantine wall, we saw a giant plume of thick black smoke rising through the air... The quarantine wall was on fire! Immediately, we all thought to rush to the wall to help extinguish the fire, but we decided to split up; Antonious, Kaleon, and Othar raced to the wall to help with the fire, and Rylan, Panda, Skylarr and I stayed with the caravan in case this was a distraction to lure the guards away from the merchant. Antonious cast Air Walk, while Othar wild shaped into a gryphon, scooped up Kaleon, and sped off.

The Merchant's personal mage also went to the quarantine wall with that half of our party, but not before casting
haste on all of them. With the gryphon-Othar's speed doubled, he and Kaleon rocketed towards the wall at 320' per round (with a "round" equal to 6 seconds, that ends up being about forty miles per hour. With no windshield.). The fire-crew at the wall was then met with a shining cleric of Pelor walking on air, a noble gryphon, and a very flappy-faced Favored Soul of a Brass Dragon.

While first impressions are important, Kaleon's actual skills pretty much saved the day; as a Favored Soul, he casts spells spontaneously, and since he knows Create Water, he was acting as a free-range fire hydrant, running all around the fire, spraying water everywhere he could. Othar, however, had no such spells, but with a basic understanding of the physics of electricity, he became quite heroic. Othar walked right into the fires and cast Call Lightning to bring lightning bolts down on himself, using the vacuum created by the lightning to suck the air away from the fire. Every five feet, Othar would bring down another lightning bolt on himself, slowly extinguishing the flames while ravaging his own body.

Antonious, on the other hand, had neither water creation nor lightning spells, but did have Endure Elements and Clairvoyance. Antonious was able to see that there were people trapped inside the wall, and that section was threatening to collapse at any moment. With a quick application of Endure Elements, Antonious burst inside for a daring rescue... and promptly lost a fight with the stairs. However, with some quick thinking and creativity with Stone Shape, Antonious was able to lift the rubble that had trapped the guards inside. However, the wall was rapidly crumbling, so with a hasty Dimension Door, Antonious made his exit with the guards.

~~This next part isn't wholly illustrated (yet!), as it was quite dramatic and involving, and was paying attention more to acting than doodling at this point.~~

Meanwhile, back at the caravan, since no normal human being can ever actually see Rylan, we discovered that the fire was, in fact, a diversion. Rylan caught the merchant's son whispering something like "The diversion is working. Proceed with the plan," into the ear of Captain No-Face. As Rylan ran to warn the others and me, he heard gruesome gurgling sounds from the guard wagons, and found that most of the guards had been murdered already. Half of the merchant's guards had been bought off by the thieves’ guild and had dispatched almost all of the loyal guards, including the captain. That left a few guards, Captain Badass, Private Fancy-Pants, and Panda and Skylarr (our two squishiest party members) to fight off the turncoats in the grand melee that ensued. Rylan and I ran to the merchant's wagon to defend him and threw open the door at the same moment that the son plunged a sword into his father's neck, pinning the merchant to the wall of the wagon!

I let loose a bestial roar and swatted the son away, sending him crashing into the opposite wall and knocking him out cold. Rylan immediately went to tie him up while I looked to the merchant. He was bleeding profusely, but even worse, the sword, buried in his neck almost up to the hilt, was also suffocating the poor man. Focusing my draconic healing energy, I placed a hand on the merchant's chest and gripped the sword. With a deep breath, I admitted, "This will hurt," and pulled the sword free while pouring all of my healing energy into the merchant. The bleeding slowed and finally stopped as the wound closed and the merchant gasped greedily for breath, crumpling to the floor.

Before Rylan could stop me, I charged out of the wagon to look for the merchant's daughter when I nearly bowled into Captain No-Face, who was attempting to nonchalantly check up on the son's deed. I grabbed him and demanded to know if the daughter was safe, but the only response he gave was a glare and an iron grip to match mine. While we stood deadlocked, Rylan snuck up behind the mercenary and tried to whack him with a blackjack to knock him out for questioning later, but he was foiled by the guard’s helmet (sigh). The guard used his free hand to grab Rylan by the throat, and then held the two of us in front of him.

The mercenary glared at Rylan and tightened his grip. But because he diverted his attention, I was able to surprise him with a different draconic power of mine; I coughed loud to get his attention, and when he turned to me, I unleashed a blast of acid breath into the mercenary's face (at this point, “No-Face” became a literal description)! Blinded and in considerable pain, the mercenary dropped the both of us. Rylan seized the opportunity and drove a dagger into the mercenary’s thigh. At this point, the merc began to panic, and swung his weapon in a wide arc, attempting to slash us. He missed me completely, but hit Rylan hard across the chest. I charged, taking full advantage of my foe’s blindness and battered him relentlessly with my mace, punching through his armor, while Rylan circled behind him and deftly carved a deep wound into his side with his short sword, drawing a spurt of blood and a loud curse from the mercenary. Unfortunately, No-Face used Rylan's last strike to estimate his position, and once again scored a nasty hit on Rylan's chest. Rylan doubled over and retreated, but launched another dagger through a seam in the mercenary's armor, piercing a lung!

Blood spurting from his mouth, No-Face fell to his knees and clutched his chest. I finished him off with a crushing blow to the base of his skull.

---

And I think that’s where I’ll end this one. I’ll leave on a lighter note, though; Othar’s electrifying performance in defense of the border guards impressed us all. His heroics while fighting the fire left us all with a twinkle in our eyes.

G’night everybody!

Description
Two updates in as many days! AMAZING!

---

When last we left our intrepid heroes, Rylan had just discovered a plot to ambush (and possibly murder) a wealthy merchant, take his money and do nasty things to his son and daughter, all coordinated by the local thieves' guild. Upon mentioning to the rest of the party that we should try to stop the thieves (killing things that can speak Common is wrong), Panda got all -–ahem-- excited that one of our party had moral fiber.

So in order to foil the ambush, we decided to catch up with the merchant's caravan and kind of insert ourselves into their traveling group as bodyguards, whether they liked it or not, just so we could be in the way when the ambush came. The caravan was guarded by a near legion of personal troops, with three extra guards they hired in town. The three mercenaries were the ones we focused on, as they were the most likely to be thief plants. The first mercenary was really non-descript; he had dull clothing and armor, and was kinda silent the whole way. We'll call him "Captain No-Face." Then there was a guy decked out in well-worn, kinda piece-meal plate armor with a big scar on his face. He looked like he'd seen his share of battles, so we called him "Captain Badass."

Then there was this guy... Covered in absolutely pristine, sparkling full-plate that was three sizes too big, and a sword that would make Cloud feel inadequate, this guy was barely able to stand with all the weight. He was obviously trying to go for the "intimidating wealth" style of combat, but since he couldn't see out of his helmet, it wasn't working too well. We called him "Private Fancy-Pants." (And yes, that's a Mulan reference in the caption. I couldn't help myself.)

As the caravan neared the quarantine wall, we saw a giant plume of thick black smoke rising through the air... The quarantine wall was on fire! Immediately, we all thought to rush to the wall to help extinguish the fire, but we decided to split up; Antonious, Kaleon, and Othar raced to the wall to help with the fire, and Rylan, Panda, Skylarr and I stayed with the caravan in case this was a distraction to lure the guards away from the merchant. Antonious cast Air Walk, while Othar wild shaped into a gryphon, scooped up Kaleon, and sped off.

The Merchant's personal mage also went to the quarantine wall with that half of our party, but not before casting
haste on all of them. With the gryphon-Othar's speed doubled, he and Kaleon rocketed towards the wall at 320' per round (with a "round" equal to 6 seconds, that ends up being about forty miles per hour. With no windshield.). The fire-crew at the wall was then met with a shining cleric of Pelor walking on air, a noble gryphon, and a very flappy-faced Favored Soul of a Brass Dragon.

While first impressions are important, Kaleon's actual skills pretty much saved the day; as a Favored Soul, he casts spells spontaneously, and since he knows Create Water, he was acting as a free-range fire hydrant, running all around the fire, spraying water everywhere he could. Othar, however, had no such spells, but with a basic understanding of the physics of electricity, he became quite heroic. Othar walked right into the fires and cast Call Lightning to bring lightning bolts down on himself, using the vacuum created by the lightning to suck the air away from the fire. Every five feet, Othar would bring down another lightning bolt on himself, slowly extinguishing the flames while ravaging his own body.

Antonious, on the other hand, had neither water creation nor lightning spells, but did have Endure Elements and Clairvoyance. Antonious was able to see that there were people trapped inside the wall, and that section was threatening to collapse at any moment. With a quick application of Endure Elements, Antonious burst inside for a daring rescue... and promptly lost a fight with the stairs. However, with some quick thinking and creativity with Stone Shape, Antonious was able to lift the rubble that had trapped the guards inside. However, the wall was rapidly crumbling, so with a hasty Dimension Door, Antonious made his exit with the guards.

~~This next part isn't wholly illustrated (yet!), as it was quite dramatic and involving, and was paying attention more to acting than doodling at this point.~~

Meanwhile, back at the caravan, since no normal human being can ever actually see Rylan, we discovered that the fire was, in fact, a diversion. Rylan caught the merchant's son whispering something like "The diversion is working. Proceed with the plan," into the ear of Captain No-Face. As Rylan ran to warn the others and me, he heard gruesome gurgling sounds from the guard wagons, and found that most of the guards had been murdered already. Half of the merchant's guards had been bought off by the thieves’ guild and had dispatched almost all of the loyal guards, including the captain. That left a few guards, Captain Badass, Private Fancy-Pants, and Panda and Skylarr (our two squishiest party members) to fight off the turncoats in the grand melee that ensued. Rylan and I ran to the merchant's wagon to defend him and threw open the door at the same moment that the son plunged a sword into his father's neck, pinning the merchant to the wall of the wagon!

I let loose a bestial roar and swatted the son away, sending him crashing into the opposite wall and knocking him out cold. Rylan immediately went to tie him up while I looked to the merchant. He was bleeding profusely, but even worse, the sword, buried in his neck almost up to the hilt, was also suffocating the poor man. Focusing my draconic healing energy, I placed a hand on the merchant's chest and gripped the sword. With a deep breath, I admitted, "This will hurt," and pulled the sword free while pouring all of my healing energy into the merchant. The bleeding slowed and finally stopped as the wound closed and the merchant gasped greedily for breath, crumpling to the floor.

Before Rylan could stop me, I charged out of the wagon to look for the merchant's daughter when I nearly bowled into Captain No-Face, who was attempting to nonchalantly check up on the son's deed. I grabbed him and demanded to know if the daughter was safe, but the only response he gave was a glare and an iron grip to match mine. While we stood deadlocked, Rylan snuck up behind the mercenary and tried to whack him with a blackjack to knock him out for questioning later, but he was foiled by the guard’s helmet (sigh). The guard used his free hand to grab Rylan by the throat, and then held the two of us in front of him.

The mercenary glared at Rylan and tightened his grip. But because he diverted his attention, I was able to surprise him with a different draconic power of mine; I coughed loud to get his attention, and when he turned to me, I unleashed a blast of acid breath into the mercenary's face (at this point, “No-Face” became a literal description)! Blinded and in considerable pain, the mercenary dropped the both of us. Rylan seized the opportunity and drove a dagger into the mercenary’s thigh. At this point, the merc began to panic, and swung his weapon in a wide arc, attempting to slash us. He missed me completely, but hit Rylan hard across the chest. I charged, taking full advantage of my foe’s blindness and battered him relentlessly with my mace, punching through his armor, while Rylan circled behind him and deftly carved a deep wound into his side with his short sword, drawing a spurt of blood and a loud curse from the mercenary. Unfortunately, No-Face used Rylan's last strike to estimate his position, and once again scored a nasty hit on Rylan's chest. Rylan doubled over and retreated, but launched another dagger through a seam in the mercenary's armor, piercing a lung!

Blood spurting from his mouth, No-Face fell to his knees and clutched his chest. I finished him off with a crushing blow to the base of his skull.

---

And I think that’s where I’ll end this one. I’ll leave on a lighter note, though; Othar’s electrifying performance in defense of the border guards impressed us all. His heroics while fighting the fire left us all with a twinkle in our eyes.

G’night everybody!