Season XI Finale - 07/12/2021 - A Kavel Perspective

Fort Ettin

I warmed up and stretched well. Disappointingly no one else joined me in Kavel’s Corner to prepare their bodies for combat. Hopefully this will not impede any of my comrades from achieving success in their tasks.

Back in the main hall, everyone here was split into teams and teleported to their various locations. I knew most of my assigned team members already, except for the dwarf, Felix, who was new to me. Felix was present the day Faust fell, which meant we would have no trouble identifying one of our targets.

Other teams were sent to destroy a part of an overall machine in various locations. My team was sent to deal with the chaos reigning in Daring Heights. Langston and Jack, the owner of the various machines, were the people responsible for the trouble in the city. It appears the very experienced magic users can duplicate themselves, and Langston and Jack had ‘simulacrums’ of themselves in the city, causing trouble away from the machines that needed dismantling.


Daring Heights

Stepping out of the portal, we were met with the unnatural sight of a river flowing through a main road of the city, held aloft magically. This magical river was not bursting through the side roads and on to us, as we walked towards it. The mass of water reached up to the rooftops. There was debris riding the top of the river. This unnatural, and massive amount of water will do irreparable damage to the buildings if it remains in place for too long.

A pink tabaxian, Rosethorn from the Academy and a human, Theo from the Watch met us as we arrived. They told us they had a hell of a time dealing with Langston’s simulacrums, and there was one left, which we could hear in front of us, riding the waves on a surfboard, enjoying himself in all this chaos. The man was wearing a cowboy hat and a very tropical looking shirt.

“Farstep!” shouted Felix at the man.


Surfing Time

Upon seeing Langston, Dwirhian magically removed the water below Langston Farstep’s surfboard, making him fall, lose his footing and come off the surfboard. He managed to keep hold of the board though. Without pause, Dwirhian leapt into the magical river up towards Farstep. As the flow of the magical river refilled the void of water Dwirhian caused, Farstep and his board regained position at the top of the river, parallel to the rooftops - this is where I joined him as I quickened my breath, warmed my body and entered a battle rage. I jumped into the river and swam up to Farstep. I was maybe ten feet away from him as he was remounting his surfboard. I took advantage of him facing away from me and the length of my poleaxe and bashed him in the back. A hint of wild magic sparks emerged from him. Hmmm. This could be annoying. As Langston regained his footing, a bolt from Felix’s crossbow hit him in the shoulder, and with surprising haste, the dwarf jumped up into the river and was parallel with me. I would not have guessed from his stout frame, but this dwarf was a powerful swimmer.

Langston began to surf away from me and Felix. We both ceased the opportunity to hit him in transit. Unfortunately we missed. Farstep attempted to whip Felix as he surfed away. But, as his attention was split between surfing and whipping, Felix easily avoided the sting.

I looked to my left and Anwyn had joined me and Felix. Together we were quite an athletic swimming group. Over half the group clearly value strength. This was unusual, but very pleasing for me. But, where was Gerhard?

As Langston surfed away from us, Dwirhian swam to the nearby rooftop. Feet on solid ground - or roof - she cast a spell at Farstep, which Felix reinforced with his own magic, and Farstep looked like he had been blinded, as he squatted a little on his surfboard with his arms spread out to hold his balance. Dwirhian saw this too, as she ran across the rooftop and jumped onto the back of Farstep’s surfboard. Woah! My monk-trained comrade demonstrated great precision and balance in that landing. Her core muscles must be very strong! I am impressed.

As I swam towards the rooftop to follow Dwirhian, something I couldn’t see was holding my leg. I managed to kick it off, and swim to the roof. As I stood on the roof, I yelled as a warning, “something is in the water!”

At that moment, Felix had found a barrel in the water to perch on. Farstep in his sight, I saw him cast a powerful bolt of lightning at Farstep, expertly hitting him, and avoiding Dwirhian. I saw burn marks and smoke emanate from Farstep. Damage was done. Wild magic shot out from Langston Farstep, but to what end I did not know. Langston, blinded by Dwirhian’s magic, tried to push her off of his board to no success.

As I stood on the middle of the roof, Anwyn ran past me towards the end of the roof. Langston and Dwirhian’s board had ended up right next to the rooftop, and Anwyn, greataxe in hand, brought down a mighty slashing blow on to Langston, cutting him open, as wild magic shot out from him at Anwyn, and their scales turned into a vibrant shade of blue. Wild magic… I continue to see demonstrations of its uselessness.

An arrow flew straight into Farstep’s shoulder from behind me. As I turned round, of course, it was Gerhard with a fine shot from far behind me. But he was panting hard. He looked exhausted. He clearly climbed up the building. I stated a fact for his benefit, “you didn’t warm up!”

Up ahead, from behind Langston, Dwirhian, an unexpected passenger on Langston’s surfboard, battered him with her monk skills. This resulted in more useless wild magic from Langston as - give me strength - my female elf comrade grew a long beard of feathers. But, I feel I have to give Wild Magic some credit. The next wild spell that randomly emanated from Dwirhian as a result of hitting Langston, was tactically beneficial for him. I saw a cloud of fog spread out from Dwirhian in a 20ft radius and it reached the space before me on the middle of the roof. “Sorry! Think that was me. We’re still here!”came some reassurance from my team mate.


Surf’s ‘Up’

“Okay! I’m going in!”I said to Gerhard far behind me. I did my best to reach the corner of the roof where I remember combat was taking place. I trod as carefully as I could whilst running on the rooftop, sight compromised by the fog. I had luck on my side. I could hear Langston wrestling with Dwirhian, and I had the lighting that accompanied Anwyn’s attacks to guide me through the fog. I managed to smash my poleaxe straight into Langston’s shoulder. I managed to reign heavy blows down on the cowboy surfer three times in succession. The sound of his screams told me he was not likely to survive more punishment if he stayed cornered like he was. Of course, wild magic shot off from Langston into me. I would not stand for this wild magic nonsense. Shimmering in it’s glowing light, the light focused into my hand. I threw my hand backwards towards the centre of the fog cloud and the wild magic flew away behind me. I could hear Gerhard from the other side of the fog inform us he had been magically poisoned… it was probable that these events were connected.


The fog was dissipating a little. It gave me enough time to dodge the crack of Langston’s whip in my direction. It also gave me sight of the invisible thing that held on to me earlier! I could see it thanks to Felix burning it magically and Gerhard sticking it with an arrow. At the same time, Anwyn delivered another mighty blow from her axe, critically slashing Langston. His wild magic shot out at Anwyn, and if this was a demonstration of wild magic proving useful, it was too late, and also careless, as a fireball centred on Anwyn hit all four of us by the surfboard. This was the final blow that killed Langston. I will strike my last comment on wild magic off the record. I spoke too soon about a positive effect it may have had. If the end result is you are defeated by your own wild magic, then we can conclude that not only is wild magic frivolous, it’s detrimental too.

“Not cool dude”, said the cowboy surfer as this simulacrum dissolved into a snow-like matter. Was he referring to us, or his own useless wild magic?

But, no sooner did he dissolve, a much stronger blast of magic burst out at my team. This multi-coloured light burnt through the remaining fog, and we were teleported away!


Another Cowboy To Deal With

As the technicoloured light withdrew, we were no longer in the streets of Daring Heights. We had been teleported to Fort Ettin. I was unsure, but I think this teleportation spell wasn’t the result of naff wild magic. It must have been Rosethorn and/or Theo who were following our fight, and must have known that with the Langston simulacrum defeated, they could send us to our next fire to put out. We were now in Port Ffirst, and on top of a nearby building was an unusual hexagonal, machine creature with octopus tentacles and eyes near the end of those tentacles. Some of these tentacles held tools at odd junctions. Some tentacles also wore cowboy hats - so I assumed this was Jack Modron and those tools were for a machine we didn’t want to see finished. Although there was no magical river in the streets of Port Ffirst, there was chaos nevertheless, as civilians ran away from where Jack was centred.

Once again, Dwirhian was first to react. But, whatever spell she attempted, Jack shook off. Despite the setback, she ran to the side of the building Jack was on, and started scaling it with haste.

I followed my high-elf comrade, and began climbing up the wall as best I could. I managed to reach the top and was close enough to hit Jack with my maul. But at that moment, Felix cast his lighting bolt spell at Jack. For a second it seemed like Jack might avoid the brunt of the bolt, but a last second adjustment from Felix, or an error in positioning from Jack, and Jack took a severe strike of lighting damage that burnt a darker shade of metal onto his body and singed his tentacles. Unfortunately, it seemed we had not put wild magic to bed with Langston’s simulacrum’s demise. No. Jack’s own simulacrum before us was also familiar with the frivolous school of magic. Sparks of wild magic returned through Felix’s lightning bolt at him, and he appeared to teleport away.

Down below on the street, to my surprise and delight, Gerhard had some magic of his own - useful magic! Gerhard cast something on Anwyn and she vaulted past Dwirhian and landed opposite me on the other side of Jack. I’ve never seen leg day cheated like that before.

Anwyn swung their greataxe. A miss on their first swing, but Jack did not anticipate the direction of the follow up swing as it landed clean on one of Jack’s tentacles cutting deep. A wild magic return from Jack to Anwyn, and suddenly, despite my usual confidence in my conditioning, I began to feel like piercing strikes would not be good to receive. If this was wild magic’s doing, I refuse to claim this as a plus point towards it. No. I have every confidence that this useful effect was entirely unplanned.

Jack chose to put some distance between us and rolled off the roof to the street. As he departed, both me and Anywn gifted him with the end of our respective weapons. Damaged, Jack reached the street regardless. From there, he shot a chaotic bolt of energy at me, which my conditioned body shook off without much concern. Well, some of the attack I did not shake off exactly. As well as being hit by magical force damage, it seems Jack fired dagger-like shards from his own body at me. These were stuck in my body. Problematic for anyone else, but for me it was of little concern.

I chose a less graceful way of reaching the ground than Jack. Relying on my conditioning, I ran across the roofs to a lower roof nearer to Jack and leapt off. My body took some damage from the descent, but it was negligible. As I closed the distance between me and Jack, Dwirhian’s attempt at a spell on Jack turned his attention away from me. Distracted, I hit him hard with the hammer of my poleaxe denting his metal body. The usual defensive wild magic riposte was felt, and it appears I have leaked a great deal of grease onto the ground below mine and Jack’s space. It’s slippery, but I remain standing. Jack’s odd little legs that he stood on rather than his tentacles did not retain his stability. He fell over prone, slipping on the grease. Gerhard, who did not join as on the roof, which in hindsight was probably best given his performance at scaling a building in Daring Heights, ran closer to Jack and lined up his next loose of an arrow at the prone Jack flailing in the grease - my grease, I guess. Gerhard was sweating the poison effect he received from Langston’s reactionate magic. Gerhard took his time to line the shot up and not let his poisoned state affect his aim.

At this point, I remembered, as I looked at my archer comrade’s arrow point, I was feeling unusually worried about pointy weapons. But, looking at Jack’s many eyes as he saw Gerhard aim an arrow towards him, it also seemed like he too was concerned about thrusting attacks.

Gerhard’s breath was steady, as the fingers in his left hand that held the string released their grasp and let the arrow fly. For the second time today, wild magic proved the undoing of the caster, as I witnessed Gerhard’s arrow penetrate deep within a metal chassis and almost came out the other end. The Jack simulacrum dissolved to snow. Felix had reappeared, surveyed the battleground, and suddenly Gerhard didn’t look poisoned anymore, and once again we were covered in a multi-coloured, magical light and teleported away.


Back at Fort Ettin

At this location where my comrades teleported into, there was no disaster to deal with. Other teams were teleporting back as well into the great hall of Fort Ettin. Despite some battered looking individuals, there were smiles on people’s faces. It seems all the returning groups had come back successfully.

I did not understand much of what Cole said about all the magic stuff and gods. But, it seemed like we had successfully completed our missions. The real Jack and Langston were dead.

A colossal face appeared in the sky above us. I asked my comrades if this was more wild magic bullshit, but they assured me this was serious magic. This was the Lady of Pain’s doing. . A giant image of her face took up a large portion of the sky. She had daggers circling her head. These daggers appeared in all our hands. One each for each adventurer who battled today. This was her gratitude for our job well done.

Rosethorn and Theo joined my team as we all took a look at our souvenir daggers. Our coordinators presented us with the whip surfer Langston wielded. They retrieved it. It was a very long magical item, which they had split into several different, but still effectively lengthed whips. It turned out the shards I had embedded in me from Jack, were also magical weapons to be considered booty. More daggers. I pulled them out and wiped them clean. I took one of the Chaos Whips on offer, and left the other one and the Metallic Chaos Shards to my comrades.

Cole generously announced the drinks tonight were on him, as a well earnt, rowdy party followed.

In the morning, all sense of dread about piercing weapons had subsided. I was back to my normal self. No hangover too, despite my heroic drinking efforts. A well conditioned body does not suffer the poisonous effects of alcohol like others do. Ha! While wild magic has no argument for it’s utility, strength and conditioning, on the other hand; does!