Conversation With Friends - 02/06/2022 - A Kavel Perspective

Glint In My Head

I was learning carpentry on the job. Anton Thames, my carpentry teacher has me helping out with cart and wagon repairs to help the civilians evacuate the city. I was also allowed to work on ballista construction too.

As I was fixing a wheel to a merchant’s wagon, I heard my diplomatically versed comrade’s voice in my head. I stood up and looked around to find Glint. But I could not find him. Yet I could still hear him perfectly well, and then I realised I could literally hear his voice in my mind. Glint had a short message for me, he said he was given permission from Harnash to interrogate the githyanki mage we captured in Gadenthor. Harnash would like their city back, and it is believed that the captured mage has information on how to make the city move. Glint said he’d like me to come along for muscle in case of a fight.

“Sure. No problem,” I agreed to join my comrade.

I hadn’t seen comrade Glint in a while now. The last time I saw him was in fact during the mission where we captured the gith mage. I was glad he was being given the opportunity to interrogate the captive, it was his idea to keep the mage alive as a prisoner. Glint is also very intelligent, so I’m sure he’s right for the task. However, he is very combat-averse, so I’ll be happy to be his muscle, in case I’m needed.

Glint takes a very diplomatic approach to challenges, whereas I rely on strength for everything. I sometimes worry his methods will prevent me from contributing effectively towards solutions. But, to my benefit, if we are dealing with an asshole, diplomatic attempts at finding a solution are quickly exhausted and strength based solutions are then openly explored.

I felt Glint’s magic leave my head after I replied to him. So, I went back to my carpentry and wondered who else would join Glint and I on the mission?


Trecorvum via Fort Ettin

Glint said to meet for teleportation at eleven o’clock at Fort Ettin. So, I stayed overnight at the Fort to get up early for a good warm-up session at Kavel’s Corner with my Iron Strong Bros. Always take care of your shoulders and lower back before adventuring!

Warm-up done, I went over to the meeting point. I first noticed the tallest figure there, comrade Derthaad, the blue dragonborn, City Watch Investigator. But, as soon as I saw my human sister, the sneakiest and quickest ranger I have ever seen; I went over and gave her a hug.

Also present were comrade Celina; a tiefling who makes extremely delicious, but also deadly apples, and comrade Tayz; a crow aarocokra who is very versatile in combat - projectile spells, healing spells, and he flies.

“Comrades. I am here,” I announced, greeting everyone.

Comrade Tayz, who hadn’t seen me in a while complimented me on my well maintained, powerful physique, and even used the now current term, ‘thicc’. That word has gotten around.

Tayz and I discussed that when Glint is around the group always tries diplomatic ways of resolving problems to avoid killing everyone. But, usually the diplomatic approach doesn’t succeed, because our enemies are terrible, so we have to kill them anyway. Tayz and I laughed about this. Glint disagreed with our assessment, but then Tayz opened a notebook he kept and listed all the times he’d been on a mission with Glint and had to kill the enemy. Considering the evidence; I wasn’t sure if I’ve been overstating Glint’s diplomatic capabilities.

Sorrel brought up a period of her life where she took part in interrogations for the House, and her preferred method of interrogation involved skinning, which she reported to have an eighty percent death rate. Glint was not partial to this idea. I could have told my sister skinning would not be on the agenda. Skinning is more adjacent to fighting than it is diplomacy, and at most Glint would employ magical, but non-lethal, forms of interrogation.

We went to the teleportation room where Jenna was waiting to send us to Trecorvum. Teleportation procedures adhered to, and in the blink of an eye, we were no longer in Fort Ettin.


Return to Trecorvum

Garia, the most stealthy of orcs I had the pleasure of joining on a mission before, greeted us, and briefed us on her plan. Garia was accompanied by a lady centaur called Berenar, who had a different plan for the interrogation, which involved her polymorphing into a creature that can crawl into the body and cause all kinds of pain - this idea was closer to Sorrel’s skinning idea than Glint’s methods. As it turned out, Garia’s own idea for the interrogation was more aligned with Glint’s.

Garia brought up a problem though. The captive mage was being held in a cell with an anti-magic shield to prevent her being able to teleport away. Garia wanted one of us to magically enter the githyanki mage’s mind and subtly procure the knowledge on how the floating city of Gadenthor moves. However, the problem is that for Garia to perform the magic to allow someone to enter the mage’s mind; the anti-magic shield needs to be lowered, which will allow the mage to teleport away and escape. Garia suggested; we enter the cell, knock out the githyanki mage, then Garia will teleport us outside the city, and then we can go through with the plan to enter the githyanki mage’s mind. However, a secondary concern will be present now that we will have taken the mage away from the secure cell; a rescue party will come for her. This is why Garia wants us outside the city - to restrict city damage and civilian casualties, when the rescue party arrives.

I asked a clarifying question, “are you going to go into the gith mage’s mind, Glint?”

Glint said it would indeed be him. Garia is only able to send one person into the gith mage’s mind, which is a shame since Derthaad would no doubt be useful in the task of magically investigating the enemy’s mind. But, Glint is best suited for understanding the functional knowledge we need to extricate from the mage.

Berenar will be on close guard duty for; Garia, the prisoner and Glint during the operation. All three will be occupied in a manner that will leave them vulnerable. We are all charged with protection, but mainly the rest of us will engage the enemy, when they have scryed and discovered their ally’s location, and arrived to rescue her.

Though combat-averse, Glint does have some excellent support magic, so if/when a fight ensues it will be a loss to not have his magical support. But, we have comrade Derthaad’s magic in the field, and my other trusted companions; Tayz and Celina. Furthermore both Sorrel and I are veterans of fighting in Hell, so I was confident in the field team we had, as well as the mental infiltration team.

“Do we need to carry the prisoner? I’m not really that strong,” asked Celina.

“I’ll do it,” I naturally volunteered, and then I looked at Garia who was looking me up, and I did likewise to her, and was reminded about why I generally like Harnash; it has a culture of strong physiques.

“We’ll manage,” Garia responded.

Before we left, Glint was able to exercise his diplomacy skills covering for Tayz’s surprisingly forward questioning about remunerations. Despite Garia pointing out that the mission was mutually beneficial to both Harnash and the Dawnlands, Tayz pursued a reward. Glint paved over the unpleasantries suggesting that the magic we would use today, does unfortunately come with financial costs that need covering.


Prepping the Prisoner

We went down to the cells. There was a tabaxi wizard concentrating on the anti-magic shield around the githyanki mage’s cell. We looked through the iron barred door at the mage, who recognised both me and Glint - she spat in our direction. Part of me wanted Sorrel to demonstrate her interrogation style.

Together; Garia, Berenar and the tabaxi wizard coordinated their actions. The wizard lowered the shield, Berenar casted a spell to knock the mage unconscious, and Garia directed me to carry the prisoner as she prepared the teleportation spell as we all gathered in the cell, and then magically vanished.


Outside and Away from the City of Trecorvum

We appeared in a clearing in the jungle, in a dip with ledges to our left and right. Tayz had blessed us with divine health, and Glint established a telepathic link between us, one stronger than the one he used to contact us for the mission.

I put the prisoner on the ground with her back up against the left hand ledge. Glint sat beside her with a bowl of magical liquid that Garia prepared for him to hold, as she dabbed the liquid content onto both the prisoner and Glint whilst performing a ritual. Glint’s eyes eventually glazed over. I gathered from Garia that Glint was communicating with her via telepathy about some hallway with expensive looking, but distasteful decor in the gith mage’s mind. But then all of a sudden, there was a loud tearing sound as a large red dragon appeared in the sky with a githyanki rider and two accompanying githyanki knights.


Githyanki Rescue Team!

The enemy approached from our right, and landed on the right hand ledge some sixty feet away from us. Comrade Derthaad was first to react, summoning his Draconic Spirit, his own large gemstone dragon, Ulhar. Ulhar flew over to engage the red dragon, swiping with its front claws opening up bloody gashes in the red dragon and following up with a thunder breath that would have woken anyone from slumber in the surrounding mile radius.
The gith with an ornate helmet vanished, and was reappearing by Sorrel, who had positioned herself on the right hand ledge before the enemy descended.

“Farstep!” I heard Sorrel shout while holding her Halo Knife, and the materialising gith barely spent a second in front of her before re materialising back where he started. Angered, the gith ran over to Sorrel, but before he could get halfway there Sorrel let loose three arrows at him, all penetrating between the gaps in the gith’s armour, the first of which was one of her lightning arrows. The gith was moved backwards with the painful impact of the arrows piercing between the gaps of its armour, and Sorrel used the moment to retreat and regain some distance.

As this was happening the less ornate soldier teleported to Derthaad, having seen him summon the gemstone dragon and slashed him with a sword cutting him deep both on his chest, but mentally too, as I recognised the signature of a psychically enhanced attack. I would not let this gith be a nuisance to my comrade as he is busy concentrating on his summon spell, so I pivoted my stance and started to run over to his aggressor. But, before I could get there the red dragon and rider appeared before us and unleashed its fiery breath at my comrades. Burned feathers and scales for my comrades Tayz and Derthaad. But the prone Glint and Celina both share a racial trait that makes their bodies robust against fire; they fared better.

Sorrel had just reached a position behind Tayz, as the dragon reared up again, and took to the sky, for another breath attack. Celina with evasive movement leapt away from the blast completely, simultaneously hurling her heavy apples up at the dragon and rider smacking them hard in their faces. Sorrel was singed, but Tayz was now smoking and comrade Derthaad, was down - Ulhar, the gemstone dragon was gone.

I ran towards Derthaad’s aggressor, cursing that the dragon and rider were too high for me to jump and attack them, but I could do something for Derthaad, and that was the most immediately important thing. From behind the gith aggressor I clubbed my left forearm around his neck and wrapped up his left arm with an overhook grip with my right arm, and spun the gith around and dragged the foe away from my comrade using my Stonehand Fighting grappling skills.

“Dragon!” Celina shouted seemingly towards the prone Glint. I gathered Glint must be communicating telepathically to Celina. I guess he could still feel the source of external warmth on his body even though he was mentally elsewhere.

Tayz was a crispy aarocokra right now. But he was not out of the fight. From the cloud of smoke I could see his feathered arms casting the somatic components of a spell directed at the flying dragon and rider. The red dragon almost vanished away but shook off my comrade’s attempt at banishing him. The rider, however, vanished.


Dirty Boxing!

The gith knight I had grappled was not happy within my grip and managed to free his sword arm enough to slash my left side. I scoffed a little at the cut the knight opened up, but I did not laugh so hard at the follow through of psychic impact. Fortunately, I remembered my high level, Stonehand Fighting Technique for psychic retaliation! Whilst reeling with psychic pain, I launched my head forward at the knight. I delivered back some of the psychic damage with my own psychic headbutt. Ha! No way he saw that coming!

The other gith knight, the one that Sorrel had loosed arrows into, was near Celina and took a swipe at her with his sword. As the cut landed, Celina turned invisible and teleported away. Sorrel, saw the confused gith knight as it watched his opponent vanish, and ever the opportunist Sorrel loosed another two arrows his way, piercing under the chin and into the right eye, killing the gith knight. The gith knight fell to the ground dead. Sorrel casted some protective magic on Glint, before moving to the side of the floating dragon and off centre of a potential flame breath.

Tayz had taken to the sky, like the red dragon, and retreated back into the trees to escape assault, but the red dragon - now without rider - and with eyes on the person that tried to banish them flew straight towards Tayz, missing with its jaws but slashing my already quite injured comrade with its claws.

Behind my grappled foe, the tip of a rapier pierced their vulnerable side, as Celina reappeared from her invisibility. I took advantage of the foe’s preoccupation with their pierced and bleeding side and delivered a knee into the centre of his chest as I pulled down with my collar tie grip and followed through with a right uppercut to the face. I looked back behind me and over the left hand ledge towards Tayz and the red dragon. The blasted dragon moved, and I wanted a piece of him, but did not wish to let go of the gith knight. So, I started dragging my grappled foe up the ledge towards the dragon. I looked down at my prone comarde Derthaad too, and yelled out, “somebody wake up Derthaad!”

I turned to my right hand side, and saw Glint’s glazed over eyes looking into the bowl in his hands. I hoped he was doing well. I noticed Glint began to glow, but then so was I, and Celina, Sorrel and Derthaad. I was feeling a bit more robust, and the source of this feeling reached me and my allies like a wave from behind me - it was comrade Tayz. Face to face with a red dragon, and he found the time to support his allies. Tayz appeared from over the ledge and hovered down to comrade Derthaad, who had regained consciousness, and had a little pep to him.

“Thanks Tayz!” My dragonborn comrade said in gratitude to our cleric comrade, “Kavel!” He continued, “you want to try something stupid?!”


Sorcerer Assisted, Sky-High Elbow Drop!

“Sure!” I replied, though I wasn’t sure what comrade Derthaad had in mind.

I saw my sorcerer friend use his own Halo Knife’s Misty Step capabilities to teleport over to me. Derthaad then touched my shoulder and we vanished with thundering force exploding from our unoccupied space bludgining the body of the gith knight that was in front of me. Comrade Derthaad and I reappeared a hundred and seventy feet up in the air, but not above the gith knight, but above the red dragon!

“Okay, smash the dragon good comrade!” Derthaad instructed, as he began floating gently to the ground, while I obeyed the non-magical laws of the land, and began plummeting towards the ground.

With little time to react, I tensed my body, made sure my back was facing the ground, and let a hint of my right elbow push out lower than my back so it would impact the dragon first. I turned my head a little to monitor my hurtling descent towards the dragon and I focused on a spot between its wings. I quickened my breath to ensure my batterage. The red scales were getting closer and closer, as I kept falling. A split second before impact I exhaled hard to absorb as much of this crash as safely as I could. And suddenly - impact!

“GRAAAAHHRGH!!!” The red dragon’s wings extended up as the tip of my elbow and then my entire back smashed into the centre of its back. I heard some cracking noise from under my body, but it wasn’t my body making that noise, it was the now unhappy dragon.

I heard the thud of an arrow accompanied with the sound of fizzling.
“Can you smell what the gith is cooking? His own head!” I recognised my sister’s voice, and another arrow darted in this direction and pieced the neck of the red dragon. Woah! Sorrel is quite far away and still hit the red dragon. Good stuff!

The dragon was pissed off. It started to fly. I had to hold on, gripping scales. It managed to get twenty feet up in the air, and back towards the ledge overlooking my comrades. Unable to shake me off, the dragon breathed fire down at my comrades. This time Berenar got caught in the blast, while Celina once again defied speed and completely evaded the flames. Tayz, once again not so lucky, as he began to fly away the dragon’s flames scorched his back, and the gith rider Tayz magically banished reappeared on the ground amongst my comrades.

Celina catapulted more apples at the dragon from below with magical force, and sent her Dancing Rapier up to pierce its hide. But, the dragon was having none of it. It felt it had had its share of damage already, but it was wrong. I switched my grip and wrapped both arms firmly around the red dragon’s right wing where it emerges from its back and made it extend straight up, robbing the dragon of its use. Also robbing it of flight - the dragon, with me on its back, fell to the ground. Not as big a crash as me falling on it from earlier, but damaging nevertheless. The dragon was having trouble getting back on its sprained legs. Now on the ground, I walked up the dragon’s back, crouched down and punched my right fist into some exposed hide on the back of its neck. This buckled the unstable dragon. I then ran and jumped as high as I could over the dragon’s head. No assistance from Derthaad this time. But, I had enough height to deliver another elbow drop onto the dragon’s head, drilling my elbow with crushing force down onto skull, and causing bone fragments to break open, and blood to squirt out of the dragon’s mouth down the ledge. With Stonehand Fighting Techniques; I killed the red dragon dead.

I stood up, raised my hands - impressed with myself - and turned to face Derthaad back at the treeline, and gave him a thumbs up for his big, crazy assist earlier.


Glint Woke Up Not Quite in Time and Needs a Cloth

I slid down the ledge to face the remaining gith - the formerly banished dragon rider. As I came down the ledge, I saw an awoken Glint with a face full of dragon blood. Oops, that’s my fault.

I went up to the dragon rider - sans dragon, and said, “I killed your dragon.” The remaining gith knight snarled at me.

“I’m sorry about this,” Tayz said as he launched an enormous Guiding Bolt at the gith knight, smacking her with tremendous, radiant force. Tayz does try not to be a killer. As damaging as his Guiding Bolt was, the hurt gith knight was still up.

From above the ledge, Derthaad had ran back from the treeline, and struck the gith knight with his Psychic Lance spell, making her reel back with mental pain. The gith knight then looked around at her fallen comrades, snarled one last time at me, and vanished with the same tearing sound we heard when the giths first arrived.

We looked around, but she was gone, and Garia insisted we get back with our prisoner while she’s still unconscious.


Debrief Back at Trecorvum

The prisoner was now back in her cell, secured in a field of magic dispersion.

Comrade Glint successfully secured the information Garia and he were after. Berenar was disappointed her interrogation method was now unnecessary.

Garia had managed to provide us all with a hundred and fifty gold pieces from a discretionary fund.
Glint debriefed us on the information he had gathered and how the infiltration occurred, and afterwards Garia teleported us back to Fort Ettin.


Stone for a Rock

Back at Fort Ettin, we hung out at the Great Hall for a meal and some drinks.

Sorrel announced her interest in learning to speak giant. Ha, ha! This is very sweet of her. I’ll try and help my sister out as much as I can, but I hope Tim, Sampson and Kruger would also be interested in teaching her.

Discussing matters with Sorrel, I remembered I had a gift for her from my last adventure. I produced the moon rocks I gathered and put them on the table. I explained that she should take one for her and the rest can be donated to the Temple of Selûne. Sorrel asked if Gerhard took a bunch of us back to the moon.

“No. Derthaad teleported me to the moon, and then I fell back down to the Dawnlands,” I responded with a reference to my earlier dragon battering glory, with a big, silly grin on my face.