Friday, November 7, 2008

Favourite pastime

Uvye was looking down at the group of adventurers. After guarding a bridge for hundreds of years, you start to enjoy every distraction from your daily schedule. And those adventurers were fun! They had been talking to Gyrial before sunrise and now seemed to argue with each other again about what to do.
He noticed movement in the corner of his eye and saw two eagles flying towards his lookout. He stood up and quickly removed the chair to create some clean space. A few moments later the eagles changed into the mistress and the leader of the emerald tower guards. Uvye knelt and bowed his head in front of the woman. "Welcome to my lookout mylady! How can I be of service?"
"Raise, Uvye! We have to talk!I just caught a druid who told me a story about barghests attacking villagers outside the valley. The druid claimed that they are coming from the valley! It seems that there is more going on than we thought!"
"Mylady, I have never seen barghests crossing the bridge in any direction! I would have reported them to you of course!".
"Don't worry Uvye, not even I can easily detect barghests if they don't want to be seen, but we need a plan to find out whether the information is correct! Barghests can choose to be invisible or even jump to the ethereal plane to travel if they are experienced enough. We have to find out what they want outside!"
Tarok the guard rose to speak. "Mylady, we have no reports about barghest attacks in the valley. Why do they not attack the villagers inside the valley?"
"I do not know, yet. Barghests are growing stronger the more they feed on victims. Perhaps they want to get stronger without drawing our attention. I say it is time to keep some barghests from entering the valley. I'm going to stay here and watch the bridge, perhaps we can teach them a lesson! Uvye, I know you are using alarms to detect creatures near the bridge; if you adjust them they might pick up barghests as well! This would at least give us an idea how many there are"

"Your wish is my command, mylady!"
Tarek, who was looking into the valley turned round. "What are we doing about the group of adventurers? What are their intentions?"
Uvye turned to Tarek. "They seem to be harmless! They didn't attempt to enter the valley yet and I will be watching them closely since they woke me last night!"
The woman looked interested "What did they do? The white guard kept them from crossing?"
"No mylady, it seemed they were fighting one of the creatures near the bridge! I could hear fighting and saw a magic storm and lightning bolts. I checked the area after the battle, they don't seem to have killed the creature, though."
"They were fighting one of them? It seems they are not as useless as it appeared at first. I know there is a mediocre druid among them."
"Don't overestimate them mylady, they don't appear to be too brave. It might have been luck this time. I can remove them if they are a nuisance for you!"
"Let's wait and see, Uvye! Barghests first! Let's see if we can adjust your alarms."

9 comments:

Charlie Stilton said...

Don't confuse good manners for a lack of bravery ;-)

Also, can't wait to see Wer's response to being called 'mediocre'!

Hedzor said...

I agree with Chen.

It wasn't a lack of aggression or confidence, but rather our unwillingness to kill unnecessarily.

Bodush wasn't there!

Also, I'm still not sure (aside from being told I can't) why we even want to go into the valley?

My only real problem is how we can catch and kill the children eating Barghests.

They seem intelligent, capable of great speed, can see in the dark, can't be tracked, can become invisible, are very tough to hurt at will AND can teleport from place to place!

As for the 'mediocre' insult...

Hell has no fury like 'half' a woman scorned

RoboGeek said...

Fine story - tells us more about what the giant was doing at the bridge and a little about the green lady - but there is no clue here that will help us cross. It only tells us that we were right to try and contact one of the witches - but maybe we chose the wrong one.
Anyway - the giants still aren't going to let us cross.

If it is only the Barghests we need to deal with then our only sensible option is to camp in sight of the bridge and wait for them to come through. When they do we try to kill them.
The giant's extra alarms may help us, but that is all. In fact he may try to help us directly.

I for one don't want to go into a fight with a stone giant who can turn invisble or a cloud giant with a magic harp without a really good reason.

Joebroesel said...

Ah, I love it :)

You are suddenly in a situation were the party is not the strongest player anymore and have to try and get on with the quest in between the big players with bigger problems.

Some ways to get over that bridge are in the story. Since you've closed some doors already by your actions, there are at least 3 possible ways to get over that bridge. And there are hints to all three of them. You were so close to others....

But the story is dynamic and depending on what you do, the possibilities might change. There will be more posts about the other players before next adventure!

Hedzor said...

It's worse than that; we seem to be the weakest!
Also, you're still missing the point. We have no reason to attack the giants or Druids.
I only want to kill the Barghests but seem incapable of it.
Clues? I'll reread your posts.
I admit though that you've got my brain working.
:)

Joebroesel said...

I never said you have to attack the giants or the druid :) It is one of your options as you can attack everything from darkness to giants but definitely not necessary :D

And yes, compared to all the creatures you've met, you are by far the weakest. I can already see you killing everything that appears to be weaker, just because you can ;-)
But there would be creatures to kill on the other side of the bridge....

Hedzor said...

But what's my motivation Mr Demille?
Actually I'm just frustrated by my lack of ability to save the villagers from the Barghests.
Mendez is used to fear, not failure.
How wide was the bridge again?
How far to we think the Barghests can teleport?

Joebroesel said...

Your motivation is to finish the quest you got from the villagers (and of course in your case money and fame :) )

The bridge is 15ft wide and 80ft long.
You saw the barghest teleport itself over roughly 60ft. That's so far all your knowledge about its teleporting abilities....

Charlie Stilton said...

I think Assif id on to the right idea. We could approach the giant who placed the wards on the bridge and ask him to tell us when barghests come over.

We'll (try to) take care of them once they're on our side and promise not to interfere on the other side.

Next steps will be to
1) Find out how to see the barghests
2) Find out how to slow the bastards down!