You Kant Stop Us! - Varga - 15/03/22
Mar 26, 2022 13:37:46 GMT
Velania Kalugina and Marto Copperkettle like this
Post by Varga on Mar 26, 2022 13:37:46 GMT
The Adventure of the Easiest Siege,
In which adventurers find a place that is less protected than Fort Ettin, a wizard is met with balls (orbs, technically), and a barbarian gets a two-weak squad.
We went to see Veridian's dad. He was somewhere in Gehenna, captured by the people known as Philosophers. Sounded like a fate worse than death, but we didn't know half of it.
Before we went, Oziah threatened NOT to bring me back to life after she kills me if I let anything happen to Delilah. I promised her nothing was gonna happen to her girlfriend. After all, we were with Veridian, which meant everyone else was pretty much automatically safe.
It took all of five seconds of travel for the world to prove me right. Myself, Wren, Heret and Delilah (wearing her Tinuviel veil) were standing on a slope, looking around. Veridian was sliding down the slope towards a fiery abyss between two floating landmasses.
Heret and Delilah, if not worried or surprised, at least acknowledged that as an occurrence. Me and Wren, of course, knew better after last week.
"Get the rope ready, maybe?" Wren suggested impassively, watching as Veridian was failing to cast a teleportation spell and neared the cliff at an increasing speed.
I sighed and made a lasso out of my rope.
"We've been here for five seconds. Literally, five seconds," I grumbled a bit as I was hauling him in.
Veridian looked like he had just discovered a new way to hate places and was actively implementing it on everything around him.
Eventually, we were all in one piece again and saw that we were in fact missing out as a glorious battle happening on the adjacent landmass. A large triangle-like fortress protruded out of the ground, and hoards of insect-like beings were storming it, with defenders holding off against seemingly unstoppable mass of creatures.
While I was feeling nostalgic, others were arguing how to get to the fortress. Our landmass was jutted at an angle to the other, larger one, and the cliff was about 300 feet. After his teleportation fiasco, Veridian wasn't sure he could cast Flight on us. And the group was split on whether we should go through the front gate or through the roof. That was all well and good, but the discussion was taking a while.
"Listen, let's just jump off a cliff and then think how to approach the fort!" I suggested. Honestly, it was just reasonable. I jumped of a cliff like this when I was five, it's not that bad. Climbing back is a bitch, but I could've climbed back up in the time it took us to agree.
Delilah put Wren in a bag of holding. Veridian tried to cast Flight on all of us, but it didn't work.
"Wren, get out," Delilah sighed, opening the bag.
"Did we make it?" They asked hopefully, and their face fell when they saw the same landscape as they appeared out of the bag.
In the end, Veridian cast Flight on me, and I carried Wren to the side of the fortress. Veridian and Heret joined us soon after, flying over with Delilah who looked a bit like she was carried away by a huge kite.
Up close, it became clear that the Philosophers were very lucky they were attacked by a bunch of idiots. Because whoever built the fort was also an idiot. Why would you build a triangle fort on a 45-degree slope? Did nobody learn geometry? You don't even need a trebuchet to get on the roof, just a nice uphill jog. Those insect-like things at the bottom of the hill were sorely lacking leadership. Or maybe their commander just wanted all of them dead. To be fair, the fort defenders did pick out a couple of gargoyles that tried to fly to the roof. But what happened to a good old-fashioned ambush? They literally explain it with shoelaces for kids… Or at least, our Military Tactics teacher did: "This little almiraj jumps on the right hill, this little almiraj jumps on the left hill, and then they jump at the fox in the middle and disembowel it with their sharp horns for the glory of Bahgtru; the end." Well, somebody there clearly flunked school.
A huge dragon landed in front of the gates to join the fight. And they are supposed to be smart. Defenders sent a giant shade guy to fight it. It was a shame to miss such a glorious fight, but we had a job to do. Delilah made sure we don't make a lot of noise and led the way to the roof.
A big shiny celestial was standing on the roof, the stairs down into the fort. I hoped Veridian would also turn into a celestial and we would have some fight, but he preferred to negotiate. We lied our way in through omission, and walked through some dark corridors. They didn't seem to be strictly needed, architecturally speaking, but apparently Philosophers really wanted everyone to know they were evil, so of course their fort had a long dark corridor. Either that or it was supposed to be a hospital before the Philosophers took over.
Delilah scouted the rooms we came across. One was a mess hall, another – barracks. Heret pointed to the third door. A young guy with a facial tattoo was peeking out of it, staring at us. I got a divine inspiration on how to react to that.
"Hey, you!" I said in my best Warlady voice. "The attackers completely destroyed the shade dude. Just obliterated him! You're needed at the front! Get everything you have and go there!"
The guy ran back into the room, and we followed. He and his friend were fumbling with some sort of a steam engine, and failing miserably. Wren gave me a judgemental stare for scaring them. Fair.
"Okay, you're useless," I acknowledged looking at their laughable attempts at operating the machine. "You're going to get everyone killed. Starting with yourselves. Go hide in a mess hall or something."
They obeyed, and ran out of the door. On their way out, Wren asked if there was anyone else in here.
"The professors," the boys pointed at two large balls on plinths.
The orbs flew up and approached Veridian. One introduced itself as Kevin. Another turned out to be Veridian's dad. Beats Delilah's dad situation in my opinion, but not by far. Veridian started catching up with his father, Delilah and Heret hit the books to find a way to make him human again, and Wren went outside to find loot. I like them more every day, honestly.
I looked at my loot – the engine. Honestly, not something immediately useful for me, but cool looking. All metal, on metal spider-like legs, with a place to sit in on the inside, and two huge sharp claws. That brought in mind the tree-cutting operation south of Daring Heights. I glanced at Heret. He was too busy getting all the Philosophers' library into Delilah's bag of holding.
The sounds of battle were growing closer. Wren returned, with the two idiots in tow. Yeah, we wouldn't leave them there. Veridian could teleport a group of people, but not items. So the engine had to stay. I decided to show him how you treat loot during a raid, and hauled the entire thing on my shoulders. It weighted at least quarter of a ton, but the weight of guilt leaving it here would have been harder to shoulder.
We went back to Fort Ettin. The two boys were immediately employed by Coll at the kitchens. I gifted the engine to Heret. Veridian gave me a very pretty dog statuette as a compensation for the last time. All niceties, honestly.
I asked the Kevin orb about the tattoo Rahmiel gave me. He could only decipher words 'Heralds', 'Blade' and 'Ash'. Another dead-end. Yeah, no shit a bunch of zealots are into blades and ash, and of course they are heralds for their god, that's the whole point. That didn't answer any of my questions though. At this point, I'm not really sure what my questions are…
In which adventurers find a place that is less protected than Fort Ettin, a wizard is met with balls (orbs, technically), and a barbarian gets a two-weak squad.
We went to see Veridian's dad. He was somewhere in Gehenna, captured by the people known as Philosophers. Sounded like a fate worse than death, but we didn't know half of it.
Before we went, Oziah threatened NOT to bring me back to life after she kills me if I let anything happen to Delilah. I promised her nothing was gonna happen to her girlfriend. After all, we were with Veridian, which meant everyone else was pretty much automatically safe.
It took all of five seconds of travel for the world to prove me right. Myself, Wren, Heret and Delilah (wearing her Tinuviel veil) were standing on a slope, looking around. Veridian was sliding down the slope towards a fiery abyss between two floating landmasses.
Heret and Delilah, if not worried or surprised, at least acknowledged that as an occurrence. Me and Wren, of course, knew better after last week.
"Get the rope ready, maybe?" Wren suggested impassively, watching as Veridian was failing to cast a teleportation spell and neared the cliff at an increasing speed.
I sighed and made a lasso out of my rope.
"We've been here for five seconds. Literally, five seconds," I grumbled a bit as I was hauling him in.
Veridian looked like he had just discovered a new way to hate places and was actively implementing it on everything around him.
Eventually, we were all in one piece again and saw that we were in fact missing out as a glorious battle happening on the adjacent landmass. A large triangle-like fortress protruded out of the ground, and hoards of insect-like beings were storming it, with defenders holding off against seemingly unstoppable mass of creatures.
While I was feeling nostalgic, others were arguing how to get to the fortress. Our landmass was jutted at an angle to the other, larger one, and the cliff was about 300 feet. After his teleportation fiasco, Veridian wasn't sure he could cast Flight on us. And the group was split on whether we should go through the front gate or through the roof. That was all well and good, but the discussion was taking a while.
"Listen, let's just jump off a cliff and then think how to approach the fort!" I suggested. Honestly, it was just reasonable. I jumped of a cliff like this when I was five, it's not that bad. Climbing back is a bitch, but I could've climbed back up in the time it took us to agree.
Delilah put Wren in a bag of holding. Veridian tried to cast Flight on all of us, but it didn't work.
"Wren, get out," Delilah sighed, opening the bag.
"Did we make it?" They asked hopefully, and their face fell when they saw the same landscape as they appeared out of the bag.
In the end, Veridian cast Flight on me, and I carried Wren to the side of the fortress. Veridian and Heret joined us soon after, flying over with Delilah who looked a bit like she was carried away by a huge kite.
Up close, it became clear that the Philosophers were very lucky they were attacked by a bunch of idiots. Because whoever built the fort was also an idiot. Why would you build a triangle fort on a 45-degree slope? Did nobody learn geometry? You don't even need a trebuchet to get on the roof, just a nice uphill jog. Those insect-like things at the bottom of the hill were sorely lacking leadership. Or maybe their commander just wanted all of them dead. To be fair, the fort defenders did pick out a couple of gargoyles that tried to fly to the roof. But what happened to a good old-fashioned ambush? They literally explain it with shoelaces for kids… Or at least, our Military Tactics teacher did: "This little almiraj jumps on the right hill, this little almiraj jumps on the left hill, and then they jump at the fox in the middle and disembowel it with their sharp horns for the glory of Bahgtru; the end." Well, somebody there clearly flunked school.
A huge dragon landed in front of the gates to join the fight. And they are supposed to be smart. Defenders sent a giant shade guy to fight it. It was a shame to miss such a glorious fight, but we had a job to do. Delilah made sure we don't make a lot of noise and led the way to the roof.
A big shiny celestial was standing on the roof, the stairs down into the fort. I hoped Veridian would also turn into a celestial and we would have some fight, but he preferred to negotiate. We lied our way in through omission, and walked through some dark corridors. They didn't seem to be strictly needed, architecturally speaking, but apparently Philosophers really wanted everyone to know they were evil, so of course their fort had a long dark corridor. Either that or it was supposed to be a hospital before the Philosophers took over.
Delilah scouted the rooms we came across. One was a mess hall, another – barracks. Heret pointed to the third door. A young guy with a facial tattoo was peeking out of it, staring at us. I got a divine inspiration on how to react to that.
"Hey, you!" I said in my best Warlady voice. "The attackers completely destroyed the shade dude. Just obliterated him! You're needed at the front! Get everything you have and go there!"
The guy ran back into the room, and we followed. He and his friend were fumbling with some sort of a steam engine, and failing miserably. Wren gave me a judgemental stare for scaring them. Fair.
"Okay, you're useless," I acknowledged looking at their laughable attempts at operating the machine. "You're going to get everyone killed. Starting with yourselves. Go hide in a mess hall or something."
They obeyed, and ran out of the door. On their way out, Wren asked if there was anyone else in here.
"The professors," the boys pointed at two large balls on plinths.
The orbs flew up and approached Veridian. One introduced itself as Kevin. Another turned out to be Veridian's dad. Beats Delilah's dad situation in my opinion, but not by far. Veridian started catching up with his father, Delilah and Heret hit the books to find a way to make him human again, and Wren went outside to find loot. I like them more every day, honestly.
I looked at my loot – the engine. Honestly, not something immediately useful for me, but cool looking. All metal, on metal spider-like legs, with a place to sit in on the inside, and two huge sharp claws. That brought in mind the tree-cutting operation south of Daring Heights. I glanced at Heret. He was too busy getting all the Philosophers' library into Delilah's bag of holding.
The sounds of battle were growing closer. Wren returned, with the two idiots in tow. Yeah, we wouldn't leave them there. Veridian could teleport a group of people, but not items. So the engine had to stay. I decided to show him how you treat loot during a raid, and hauled the entire thing on my shoulders. It weighted at least quarter of a ton, but the weight of guilt leaving it here would have been harder to shoulder.
We went back to Fort Ettin. The two boys were immediately employed by Coll at the kitchens. I gifted the engine to Heret. Veridian gave me a very pretty dog statuette as a compensation for the last time. All niceties, honestly.
I asked the Kevin orb about the tattoo Rahmiel gave me. He could only decipher words 'Heralds', 'Blade' and 'Ash'. Another dead-end. Yeah, no shit a bunch of zealots are into blades and ash, and of course they are heralds for their god, that's the whole point. That didn't answer any of my questions though. At this point, I'm not really sure what my questions are…
