S13 Finale: Death From Above! - 05/12/2023 - Mendal

Vorsthold - Death From Above!

My first trip to Vorsthold was not what I expected! In my mind I would have been on some diplomatic mission from the Dawnlands and would have found the perfect time to give General Manteen the dagger I made in appreciation for the one she gave me (courtesy of my old pal Archie).

Instead, I was on an emergency war mission from the Dawnlands, because Vorsthold called for aid - for the first time in its long military history! Since it was an emergency, there was no time to pack the gift dagger before we were teleported to the dwarven fortress in the far south of Kantas.

The Dawnland Adventurers were split into groups and sent off to different parts of Vorsthold. One group had to deal with an Infernum mind-flayer controlled red dragon. When I told Kavel about this he became lost in thought, thinking back to the time he and others made a deal with Infernum for support against the Githyanki invasion and their red dragons. Part of the problem was looking like another of his adventuring fuck-ups!

My group were sent to the plaza to support Vorsthold units fending off an invasion of paratrooper mind-flayers and their intellect-devourers. Those mind-flayer bastards are nasty little fuckers. Kavel’s right about mind magic - it’s cheating! They got me a couple of times! I was frozen in a stunned stupor at one point, and then charmed under their control later on. I witnessed some fellow dwarves’ heads explode under the psychic pain the cheating fucks unleased.

My team came to my aid to help with the mind-fuckery I was under, and of course to defend the city. We fought the hovering head-tentacle creeps right back, and the remaining living ones had no choice but to bugger right off back to Infernum. I smacked a bunch of those fuckers with some solid, lethal hits from my Spiritual Weapon and crisped them up good with my Sacred Flames and Wall of Fire! My allies were pretty killer too.

I think Carric and Nevarra will be pleased with my efforts. I’ve been crafting a lot recently, and finally fighting. Although, I fucked up the halberd a little last week, and I never used them - the hammers - per say during the battle, but I battled. Good enough, right?

Our efforts prevented many Vorstborn deaths. A few casualties of course - war after all. Unfortunately, one of our own too - Voss.



The Plaza Defense Squad!

Voss - Only met the lad that day. Glaive wielding maniac. He hit the plaza in a frenzy and everywhere a mind-flayer appeared out of the sky they landed right in Voss’s reach. They couldn’t move without catching Voss’ blade as they moved towards him, or even away from him! Voss killed a bunch of the opposition with his crazy skill, then sadly had his brains sucked out. Rotten luck. He took a one-two battering from a mind-flayer then an intellect-devourer; incapacitated for one, and then brain-devoured for two. Nothing I could do for him. I had the Revivify spell prepared. But, even with a million diamonds there’s no bringing someone back who’s missing a brain. You need more potent healing magic for that.

Calla - Good armour, good magic, good ally! Didn’t have much time to tell her how I’m getting on with Carric and Nevarra, must update my fellow armourer soon. She’s a great jack-of-all magic, that girl. Great Eldritch Blasts, great powerful construct summon, great zippy and lethal blade and teleportation spell too. Does come up with some dodgy magic solutions though. Perhaps, to be fair, polymorphing a mind-devoured and hijacked Voss into a rabbit, only for Voss’s rabbit head to explode, did mean we didn’t have to suddenly face an ally with crazy, dangerous glaive skills.
Also, I had to show some gratitude to Calla’s weirdo flying pangolin creature, Mal. The little swine was being weird on top of my head. But, it helped bring me out of the mind-flayer’s charm spell.

Fog - Tall, blue, goth, likes make-up. Also rather nifty with a longbow and has some pretty tasty magic too. It was all magically enhanced, deadly archery from Fog. And then all of a sudden, courtesy of my firbolg ally, a 20ft square of darkness with milky white tentacles sloshing around inside start attacking the other tentacle lot - have at thee, ye brain-eating fucks! Good stuff!
Fog also had a magical summon, an undead one, kind of like Archie’s creepy undead summon. I think Fog has an undead summon cause it fits his gothic vibe. Not sure what Archie’s excuse is? Part of his research into longevity, but demented? Twisted old goat.

Frigus - Another great archer! Also blue-ish, this time shorter. The little one with him was also short - not a summon though, I think. Frigus is much shorter than me. I’m 4’7”, which is tall for a dwarf. Frigus looks to be under 3’. Little fella’s got some legs on him though. Reckon he can outrun me in a 100 yard dash, what with the way he darted around the plaza loosing arrows into intellect-devourers and mind-flayers alike. He’s got some nasty plant magic in him too.
When little Waffles, that baby wyrmling of his grows a bit, it could be useful to borrow it for the forge - I reckon drake flame could speed up and maintain high degree forges brilliantly!



Voss - Vorsthold Defender in Death

When everything wound down, we gathered Voss’s brain-less corpse and checked his pockets for gold - I’m not contributing to powerful healing spells without payment! What?! Voss had 1,024gp and a fancy, magical cloak.

As I mentioned earlier though, it didn't seem like there was much I could do myself though. So, we took Voss to a medical tent where there were some clerics with higher magical acumen. We had the Speak With Dead spell cast, and learned from Voss’ animated spirit that he was okay with death. Sounded a bit weird, I felt. Each to their own though. The Vorstborn and Voss both said they’d be happy to have their Necromancers add Voss’s corpse to their Undead Defenders unit though… Undead Defenders - what the fuck?!

Turns out, and it makes sense, if you get endlessly attacked by underworld threats, it can be very useful for your dead to still be able to defend you. So, there you go.

To give Voss a bit of dignity in death though, I used the power gifted to me by Moradin, the divine artisan’s blessing, to take Voss’s coin and make him a very expensive and frightening looking, fully enclosed helmet to cover up his mostly missing head. I wonder if Carric and Nevarra consider Moradin’s artisan’s blessing craft-cheating? Bloody isn’t! It may be holy magic, but it’s still based on my talent! I did a great job of course, and captured Voss’s likeness with a menacing grin on the face plate. In order for the helmet to fit properly on Voss’s half-head, I took Voss’s fancy cloak and stuffed it into the helmet. The helmet sat perfectly on top of Voss’s corpse’s empty head nicely. It was all a bit macabre, but we thought Voss would be happy with this. Funny thing in all this gloom, I told Kavel about Voss dying in the big battle and he had the strangest deja-vu about Sylvia, which strangely made me feel like I was having deja-vu!