Hell’s Rebels #20: Mission Impossible

In missing chapter of our tale, the rescue party failed to rescue Malcolm and Taka. The government now has every member of the party — except one — captured under Hocum’s Phantasmagorium. The lone free party member, Narkwood, writes today’s chapter. –GM

29th of Desnus, 4715 AR

Narkwood

My companions had proven themselves incapable of doing anything without my assistance. It was a routine jailbreak. Easier than routine, in fact, because the jail in question was the basement of a library that wasn’t designed to hold people in captivity. Yet somehow they failed, and to top it off managed to get captured themselves. Thus it was up to me and two of our burglars – the only people you can trust these days – to free the rest of the team.

There was only one monk guarding the entrance, who we easily knocked unconscious. The common folk made quite a fuss and called the guards while we searched the monk for any valuables. When the guards came, one of the burglars dashed away from them carrying the monk’s small pouch of silver. The guards, mindless fools, ran after said burglar without a second thought. During the commotion, the other burglar and I walked to the back of the building and set it on fire.

After about 10 minutes the fire was large enough for our friends downstairs to smell, so they sent up a small party to deal with it. Haha, did I say a small party? I meant more than a dozen of their goons. Luckily for us they didn’t know how to fight – no one in this damned city knows how to fight – but their fire-infused weapons gave me quite the bruise. The other burglar, having evaded the guards, caught up to us while we were slitting the goons’ throats.

 

Hell’s Rebels #18: This Is a Bust

The party’s kobold ranger, Kib, continues the party’s tale. They venture beneath the museum of oddities, hoping to stop Asmodean cultists from rewriting history. –GM

28th of Desnus, 4715 AR

The party left off in the room of the displayed sets of bones, the piles of white dust a sign of their victory. 

“What now?” Taka asked. His feathers still pricked on the side of his neck, afraid another skeletal monkey could just pop out at any second. It was quite a jump scare; all of them were left shaken preparing for another one to jump out. Well, almost everyone. Narkwood, calm as always, was lying against the wall with a blank expression as he stared at the door they had not yet explored. 

“We keep exploring,” he replied. “ We can’t wait for ’em to come to us. We gotta bring the fight to them.”

Taka had always admired his ability to be calm under pressure, or at least he sure as hell looked like he was.

“Can we at least rest first?” Malcolm whined “I can get my spells back.” He looked up at Nark. Taka nodded in agreement. The two never really saw eye to eye; there were constant arguments and such. Kib and Posol exchanged glances as the two had always put them in these awkward situations often leading to them taking a side. It was a true deadlock.

Nark grinded his teeth in frustration and finally spat out, “Fine.” So the party took a short rest to regain their strength. In the morning, they set out to explore the rest of the Phantasmagorium. It took much strength for the party to open up the old creaky double doors, however, inside the next room. It was worth the extra effort. The long, straight room spanned from end to end with countless wonders, from fish skeletons to mummified mermaids. However, in one corner there was an especially realistic statue of a spider, a huge one at that.

“Whoa, look at that one!” Taka exclaimed as he trotted across the room. “It’s so life-like!” He reached out and touched it. But then a creature inside its mouth snapped upward and bit Taka, who crumbled to the ground in pain. Then the smaller spider jumped on top of Taka, its mouth dripping with poison. But before it could land another blow, Kib placed an arrow through its heart and it collapsed onto the floor. Taka, unconscious from the poison, lay still on the ground. Just then, four more giant spiders launched out from the dark, ignoring Taka and going straight for the rest of the party. Kib reloaded his crossbow, Posol formed their arms into blades, Narkwood drew his axe, and Malcolm the oracle prepared their spells.

 

Shattered Star #13: The Portent

Dekkar receives a fortunate warning of a bleak future, and a hobgoblin ranger and leshy barbarian sent by Sheila Heidmarch join the party’s quest for the next Shard. –GM

8th of Desnus, 4712 AR

We were all injured from our previous encounter but I had no recollection of what happened. I was hurt badly after a Dero had wrapped its lasso around my neck and threw me to the ground knocking me unconscious instantly. Nithral healed us a bit and we prepared to chase after the Deros that had attacked us before. After assembling around the door to where a dero fled, I was chosen to open the door. I opened it up and immediately was plunged in darkness. The icy black abyss stared back at me as I fumbled to open and chug an elixir that would rid me of this affliction. As soon as I was done drinking the putrid concoction, I was able to see an amalgamation of several creatures shambling towards me.

 

Rappan Athuk #69: Jurassic Bark

Kung Fury don’t need no anger management. (-GM)

25th day of Sarenith, 4720 AR

Our mappers decided we should continue to go back through the dungeon covering every corner of every level we could find. We found ourselves staring past a river and up a large cliff. We decided to fly up (Madrik, Kung Fury, Shia and I) to see what was up there. Taking a quick flight up, I saw 9 large cat creatures. Seeing nothing special about them besides their hostility towards us, I threw out a superheated fireball from my energy reserves. The spell struck and nothing was left of them except the stench of burning fur. We explored the rest of the cavern finding nothing else of interest there.

We found a small hallway that led up to a door with a strange symbol with 4 diagonal lines with little ends coming out at 90-degree angles. Kung Fury had a look of wild rage in his eyes as he told us that the symbol on the door was a Swastika, the symbol of his ultimate enemy Kung Führer. He burst open the door but to Fury’s obvious annoyance, there was nothing of importance besides a wight. We did discover however that we were on the level at the bottom side of The Well.

Madrik the Spell Thief and Shia then decided we should go back to the level with Damien the wererat for there was a water passageway we somehow never went through. We went down a level and found the temperature to be rising significantly. We came upon an open chamber with a large iron barred gate with a door that looked very strong. But the real danger was obviously the humongous vicious-looking dog in front of us. It had three heads and was at least 15+ times bigger than any of us…

 

Age of Worms #16: A Really Long Battle

Our last session was unprecedented: a single massive battle that played out in waves in which our heroes almost lost several of their number. Roger recounts what happened. (-GM)

16th day of Desnus, 4741 AR

After Mr. ‘God Emperor’, as the late Hans Grüber called him, retreated back into the fancy opera house and his cronies started attacking the protesters, I realized that I should get to a distance where those thugs couldn’t club me. I used my good old rope of climbing, attached to an arrow, to rappel up to the roof of the palace.

While this was happening, I felt the air crackle with power and my ears popped. I turned to see Hans’ hand’s enveloped with lightning, his sword pointing threateningly towards one of the thugs whose nose had started bleeding. That poor man looked like he had some regrets about serving as a guard. I jumped onto the roof, and arrowed a guard about to whack the tortoise Herbert. Herb then bit off his foot and screeched indefinitely. I admired his fighting spirit.

Suddenly, a shadow fell across the battle. I saw a large bird-like creature dive out of the sky and bite an arm of a guard, who started screaming and fell over. The bird’s rider had a long, magical pole topped with a wicked-looking blade, and he used it to ventilate the chest cavity of the guard in front of Hans. Hans seemed to trip, and a loud popping noise was heard: Hans had fallen into the fountain and electrocuted himself. I shook my head. This is what happens when one is not careful when using magic. I personally stay away from spells and the like, and only use it to enhance my bow and armor.

Hans seemed to trip, and a loud popping noise was heard…

Anyway, Noway and Sunaki were hacking away at the remaining guards, while Ensorcella’s beautiful hands had turned into sharp claws, and she was slicing and dicing them quite well. This, combined with regular passes from our new bird-riding warrior and a hail of arrows from yours truly, turned it into a rout. Suddenly though, two more guards with heavy plate armor stepped out of the palace and charged our party. A combination of arrows and the large claws of the bird were enough to take out the first, but the second attacked Noway. More came out, and it turned into a general melee, with the crowd scattering more by the minute. We were winning the fight against the armored soldiers, even though they were proving to be quite tough.