Flight of the ElectroZephyr

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Campaigns: Slaadi Invasion | Northern Strife | Heroes & Traitors | Hollows | Black as Pitch | Air Islands of Nack | BUFD Wars

Air Islands of Nack: Flight of the ElectroZephyr | Malevolence in Pursuit | Rousing the Dragon Flight of the ElectroZephyr (DMed by David W.) After stealing the ElectroZephyr from the wizard Selubrius, Lilhani and her newfound companions go in search of adventure and find that a war has begun! In this first arc of the Air Islands of Nack campaign, the adventurers begin to discover who might be behind the sudden and brutal dragon attacks throughout the region.

If you would like to read about the second and third "seasons" of this campaign, visit the Malevolence in Pursuit page and the Rousing the Dragon page.

For character information, go here.

Episode 1: “Two Jobs, One Trip”
Date: SH 670, October 20-23

Okay, so there's this massive sky-city called Namara. It's full of airshipping docks and winding passages and shenanigans that we won't go into yet. There's an adventuring group that has a ship known as the ElectroZephyr, a rare balloon ship made from the bladder of a blue dragon. They've returned to Namara to meet up with their contact, Gruber, a jovial, red-headed dwarf who always has a job for those willing to do it. This time, he's only got one: there's apparently some magical amulet deep in the Tomb of King Raylin that he could sell to some high-and-mighty noble. Problem is the noble is leaving town in six days! The tomb is two days away. Shouldn't be a problem, right? Fly to the island of Mastik, cut through the jungle, into the tomb, and get that dumb amulet and get back for the money! The elf of the group, Naïlo Enna had different plans on top of that though. After talking with a guy representing some elf princess named Vlaya, she took on another job. This princess needs to get to her hometown of Sparinon before her royal wedding, and her previous escort has deserted her and her two companions. No problem! Just take her to her hidden elven city (which happens to be on the way to the tomb), then get the amulet. Back in time for supper on the fifth day!

Here's where things get slightly sticky. Once the adventurers take flight across the Cirrus Strait, some random pirate ship decides it needs to take them down. Probably take them hostage, you know? Who knows what they'd do if they got their hands on these poor adventuring folk?! No way that was gonna happen though. Lilhani and Naïlo got it covered! They steer the ship in all the right ways while Halcyon and Ping take them down with ballista javelins.

Two days pass and they've easily dropped off Vlaya and company (Vannon and Stir for those who care to know) and managed to get in the good graces of House Skyflower while they were at it. They seemed like nice people. At least, the dude who represented the family seemed like a nice guy. Not like the princess was above speaking to some lowly demi-elf peasants after all.

It takes another day to get to Mastik, and they park the ElectroZephyr in the center, where the tomb supposedly is. By now, it's been like 3.5 days since they left Namara. I'm betting Gruber's starting to get a little antsy. Climbing down the massive jungle trees to the floor was pretty cool. Lilhani cast a spell to make friends out of big ol' apes that seemed to be a little too handsy for comfort. Halcyon uses his super-duper learnin' from Boar Herpes to find out that Raylin wanted to be buried by a volcano, or something like that. Whatever. It means that Halcyon's smart enough to get them to the right place -- I think Naïlo helped out too. And why not, Lilhani and Ping did their parts too at some point. Don't want to leave anybody feeling left out!

So they get to the tomb after a few hours, and it becomes this whole event just trying to open up the damn door. There's a system of pulleys and having to wedge some piece of a tree in there to assure that the door opens and stays open. Too complicated for some summary -- talk to the characters if you need details, dammit!

Inside, it's just a muggy, wet mess of black puddles, viney walls and skeletons! After bashing some heads in, ripping out spinal cords, and playing the ribcage xylophone, the group continues ever downhill. Turns out it's more of a hassle than they first thought! The damn stairwell is flooded deep below. Having the biggest boo- erm... lungs, Naïlo is elected to swim and find a way through. It gets even more ridiculous though! There's like, two pathways and stairs going up and down, and then the stairs shift when you're not thinking about it! On top of that, the stairwells seem never-ending! Smarty-pants Halcyon casts a spell to detect the magic in the area. Turns out there's both transmutation and illusion magic in play on the stairwells back there!

Stay tuned for the next episode to find out if the adventurers roll a natural 20 on their figure-it-out checks or if they decide to go home without a magic amulet and without all that precious gold everyone seems to love.

Notes: Lilhani has been conning everyone she can since day one: fake potions, forging documents, and the like. So far nobody has caught her. Naïlo made sure to note that House Skyflower still owes them fifty gold pieces, and she has a habit of charging first and asking questions later. Usually those questions are something along the lines of "which baddy had the best loot?" Ping has proven to be the overtly sympathetic type and has been particularly defensive of the nasty axebeaks they ran into on Mastik. Halcyon has been taking notes of every useless thing he can think of -- who knows if it'll actually turn into some work of art or not.

Episode 2: “The Amulet and the Crown”
Date: SH 670, October 23-24

Footsteps... footsteps echoing in the dark! The adventurers could hear someone coming from the entrance of the Tomb of King Raylin. Some punk-ass tiefling just walks through the doorway with his hands up and his blade sheathed. "Greetings!" he says, "I am Korderas, thief extraordinaire!" Now I'm not actually sure he said that, but why not? He's a criminal! (But the others don't know that). He was also sent by Gruber to search for the amulet -- Gruber's back-up plan in case the others failed. Makes sense to send in someone solo whose primarily skill is tomb-raiding. Either way, they did the normal meet-and-greet with a little flair: Ping was overly enthusiastic in sharing every detail of their mission while Naïlo was forced to cover Ping's flapping mouth to prevent saying something they'd all regret. Either way, they banded together and continued raiding the tomb: beginning with the freakin' moving/illusion staircases. Turns out there was a magical glyph on the floor of the junction (see the map of the tomb here) that Halcyon conveniently found beginning at the second session. The glyph revealed that there were two hidden levers embedded in the walls and covered in vines at the top of the southern stairwell. After being creative chicken-shits, Naïlo and Halcyon used vines and ropes and such to pull the levers without putting their hands into the obviously trap-ridden crevasses. And wouldn't you know it? the stairs stopped moving!

So they decided to follow the western corridor, which led to a simple stone door with an elegant mural etched into it of King Raylin and thirteen of his counselors. A plaque next to the door read, "King Raylin Shall Be the Last to Remain." Upon opening the door, the group could see another door twenty feet down a hallway with the same mural. After opening that door, the same damn thing! Of course, the lovingly brash and naive Ping opened up door after door, until the hallway spread out a hundred yards with seemingly no end in sight. Smarty pants that they are, Naïlo and Lilhani both figured out one of the doors depicted the same mural, but this time with twelve counselors instead of thirteen. It didn't take long for the rest of the group to recognize the pattern. After closing and opening doors with murals each depicting one less counselor, they eventually opened a door depicting a single figure, King Raylin himself in his crowned glory!

The door opened... and a pool of black filth rested in a large room in front of them. A doorway to the east caught Ping's eye, so he decided saunter over there at a leisurely pace. Suddenly crocodiles! 'Nuff said. People almost died, people! And in the meantime Ping decided to make a run for it through the door and into a dark hallway with a circular glyph glowing in the center. Without hesitation, he ran straight through it and into a mysterious, pitch-black room. All this happened while the others were trying not to get their asses kicked by some punk-ass crocodilios. Korderas almost died! But they killed one in the end and the other simply submerged back into the black gooeyness.

After some slow and deliberate research concerning the glyph in the hallway, the others decided to go into the teleportation circle with ropes tied around everyone to make sure they were getting back. Of course it didn't work the way they wanted it to, and they all teleported into an enclosed room with ropes around their wastes, looking like chumps. The room had an extremely conspicuous sarcophagus in the center, glowing with a purple light from the cracks. Can you guess what happened after they lifted the lid? If you can't, then you should stop reading this right now 'cause you're just wasting your time.

After the fight, they found the amulet! The AMULET! It was around Raylin's neck. Also, Lilhani took the crown 'cause why not? He was also wearing some cloth-of-gold vestments as well as some magical potions. After all that, they teleported out of the tomb altogether and made their way back to the ElectroZephyr. Naïlo could sense a red dragon hovering above them! But it didn't seem to take any interest in them. Obviously! Otherwise they would've been toasty, tasty critters before they'd even realized it. Once they got back to their ship, however, that docile red dragon suddenly reared up and began an epic chase. Even though she completely sucked it up a few days ago when they fought off a pesky pirate ship, Naïlo completely kicked ass when it came to out-flying a freakin' red dragon! Within a minute, the dragon had already given up the chase and returned to Mastik. Now safe, the adventurers began their voyage back to Namara, hopefully in time to sell the amulet to Gruber and make a decent amount of gold.

Tune in next time, folks, to see if the gophers make it back in time to sell something! It's like a UPS drama, but better!

Notes: Ping is a dipshit, but at least he makes things interesting. Nobody trusts Korderas. Lilhani actually tried to rip Korderas off. Halcyon is still a nerd being played by a nerd. And Naïlo actually made up for her bad rolling last session.

Episode 3: “Dragons at Boar Herpes”
Date: SH 670, October 24-30

So the heroes are doing their hero-thing and heading back to Namara to return the magical amulet to Gruber for some mulah when BLAM! Lilhani and Halcyon find a she-elf stowaway, clutching a shawm and looking like a punk. Turns out she had been doing some "research" on Mastik and, after getting lost, decided to hitch a ride on the ElectroZephyr express. She introduced herself as Silaqui Amastacia, a sagely bard in search of knowledge (particularly concerning demons and their ilk), adventure, and a whoppin' good story. Of course, the others had no choice but to trust her and take her in, despite the bad first impression. And with no player input for the characters Naïlo and Ping, Lilhani and Halcyon decided, "Screw Namara! We're going to Boar Herpes Academy, bitchez!" So they took a sudden right and headed off.

Three days passed, and on the fourth day they came across some small flying lizards that they quickly evaded. Don't know why I even bothered to write that part in here, but whatevs. And on the fifth day they arrived to the outskirts of the island campus of Boar Herpes. A ring of clouds surrounds the school, so it's a little hard to see what's going on there. But Lilhani, Halcyon and Silaqui all noticed that there were dozens of dragons (gasp!) attacking the school! Upon closer inspection, they even noticed that both metallic and chromatic dragons were fighting side by side. Never in all their years combined had they ever seen metallic dragons (mostly good) and chromatic dragons (mostly evil) fighting together! This was just absolutely ludicrous. And there was no way in hell the trio would just fly into that mess. Luckily, Halcyon remembered he had the coordinates for invisible teleportation spheres located several miles off campus.

Of course this led to the obvious pocket dimension that Boar Herpes uses to dock their ships for field trips and such. The dock had two other empty ships and a vast wall full of doors that led to different rooms in the school. After some discussion, the trio headed into the main conference room where the dean and a few advisers were hurriedly giving orders to defend the school from the dragons. The dean, also known as headmaster Prodiga Skylight (who happens to look like a 12-year-old girl) told Halcyon and the others of their plans for evacuation. The school was just being whomped by all these dragons. One of the advisers, an old librarian lady named Maege Stormrider (ask her about her last name!) told them that they had many of the children hidden in the library, while other freshmen were hiding in the first floor classrooms. The trio decided that libraries were boring and children were useless, so they headed straight for the first floor. On the way there, they ran into some nasty kobolds and a freakin' wyvern who didn't seem like he was willing to play nice with ANYBODY! After killing/avoiding those baddies, they managed to reach the first floor.

The transmutation professor, Dr. Fiona Herdeba answered the door after a few knocks. Lilhani immediately ripped her a new one for answered the door in a lock-down situation. Apparently that completely goes against protocol, as any gnome with half a brain knows. Anyway, with fifty good-for-nothing students to evacuate the school, Lilhani had the awesome idea to have Fiona polymorph the students into teacup pigs (awww!!!). Now, with an exhausted schoolteacher and a sack of fifty teacup pigs, Silaqui used her one-time escape code to get directly back to the pocket dimension dock. Now that they safely got a good number of students away from the dragon-induced chaos, the trio decided to wait for their adventuring companions to actually show up to a session before they decided what to do next.

Notes: Lilhani freakin' stole a teacup pig! She is fully aware that the pig will transform back into a student, but her dumbass gnomeass couldn't help herself. I guess we'll just chalk this up as another one of those things that will never, ever, ever have any far-reaching consequences. Silaqui proved to be very useful, now she's a pro D&Der. And as always Halcyon managed things with an extremely professional demeanor, like the champ he is.

Until next time!

Episode 4: “The Enticing Lord Diovax”
Date: SH 670, October 30 - November 5

Yay Halloween-themed session! I wonder if anyone even got that. Whatevs. After the teacup pig Lilhani stole transformed back into a snobby rich boy named Atticus Buchanan (what a turd-munching name), the kid begged to be kept aboard the ship. He wanted to be a great adventurer! Nevermind this magic-casting weakling bull. He wants to swing a sword! And what better sword than the infamous Sword of Dragon Slaying?! According to ol' Atticus, this special sword can be found among other magical goodies in an old castle on the sad little island of Spatera. And what a coincidence, the adventurers were gonna go there for no particular reason anyway! They stopped by a shit-town called Helmar which the guys aptly named "Hellhole" because they're meanies.

Anyway... one thing led to another and the heroes found themselves crossing through a haunted cornfield with haunted scarecrows and such. Ping of course paid no heed to any of the dangers that were stalking around (there's a nice pun there, but I think it's too subtle for my hard-of-thinking readers so I'll spell it out for you: stalking, like sneaking, right? And the stalk, like corn stalk! When I see that little light bulb flicker in your head, I know that I've done good in the world today.) A scarecrow pops out of the corn (see?! there's another pun!) and spooks the piss out of Ping. Paralyzed with a paralyzing fear, Ping is subsequently sliced and diced to death. Bahahahah! Killed by a scarecrow... what a chump. Meanwhile Lilhani, Halcyon and Naïlo book it back to Helmar to regroup.

Lo and behold, a rugged and mean-looking half-orc carrying a massive maul joins them. He goes by the fierce name of Elizagerth, and he's ready to partay! Parley? This time around, the group decides to just burn the damned fields. Lilhani casts burning hands and they all get experience points for handily killing a hundred scarecrows. Now they're all level 15 (jk!). Eventually they come up to the hill and castle, just like something from Transylvania but better! There are gargoyles gargling oil and unscared crows flying all about. It begins raining, the lightning strikes, the moon is full... you get the picture. After fighting some shadows and a solitary gargoyle, Lilhani picks the lock to the front door and a creepy vamp broad with bleeding eyes greets them candidly. She introduces herself as Valosine (not to be confused with vasoline because it's pronounced "Val-oh-see-nay", duh) and promptly brings the group to her master after Naïlo holds back the heedless Elizagerth from attempting to lob of her head with a maul.

Deeper in the castle, after a lovely dime tour of the kitchens, the dining areas, the museum-like atriums and such they come across a terrible evil.... a blonde guy!!! He calls himself Diovax, the vamp guy, and he is willing to give away a few of his collected treasures in exchange for the leader of the Namara Thieves Guild who goes by Hiruvorn. Geez, I'm beginning to introduce too many names here. Wish the players had something useful to remember all this stuff... I dunno, like a wiki or something... whatevs. Where was I? Oh yeah, Hiruvorn! After some nice, enticing roleplaying and conversation and such, the heroes reluctantly agree to bring back Hiruvorn alive. Diovax made it clear that he must be alive and still have use of his tongue, his eyes and his ears. Everything else isn't necessary. So keep that in mind, gents! A thievy guy can't be so thievy without hands. And a running man can't quite run without feet! This is getting a little bit gory! Yay!

Notes: First character kill of the campaign! Only four sessions in! I can't tell if it's a good thing or a bad thing... or if it's just okay. Either way, I'm excited that scary-themed sessions can and will result in player death. It makes me giddy inside. Naïlo seemed all too eager to do things for Diovax. Doesn't she realize this dude's evil?!?! Halcyon healed peeps while Lilhani rolled horribly all night. Her husband-DM decided to let her slide on one poor roll so she could open a door...

Until next time!

Episode 5: “To Kidnap a Thieves Guild Leader”
Date: SH 670, November 5-10

So the heroes are flying along in the ElectroZephyr, on their way to Namara to kidnap a thiefy lord of theify peeps, minding their own damn business when CRASH! A purple-ish blimp-ship with a spiked nose jumps out of its invisible cloak and rams into the hull of the Zephyr! The majority of the crew immediately recognize it for the Grape Marauder. Its captain Bruno demanded that the heroes abandon the ship and leave Lilhani for other reasons. Of course, the heroes did the hero-thing and decided to say, "ATTTAAAACK!" ...and attack they did. Grape crew members fell off into the sky below left and right and eventually after some massive heroics (especially from Elizagerth, we'll talk about that later), the Grape Marauder retreated into the white abyss... probably to come back again more prepared. No matter! They'll be forgotten soon enough by the adventurers.

Once in Namara, a pair of unlikely allies appeared on the docks. You know how the conversation goes:

"We are looking for an adventuring party to adventure with!"

"Oh certainly! We have not even met each other until moments ago, but we all trust you implicitly and would be delighted to split our hard-earned loot with y'all! Tally-ho!"

These new additions to the party were named Lats Boldengrin and Freia: One a gnomish master of the monkish arts, the second a half-elf with an aptitude for SORCERY! Now back to the damn story!

Umm... its complicated and it happened a few weeks ago so I'll sum up the summary that normally would've written: they went into the building where Hiruvorn slept in the penthouse (the Steel Manor!). Big plans! People on the roof, people in the alley, people walking through the front door. Three plans end up combining! (sort of) There are really fat merchants somewhere. There's a halfling named Bop that nobody wanted to talk to for some reason (except the players). End up getting into Hiruvorn's room eventually. He stabs with a poisoned blade! No use! Naïlo rolls a nat 20 on the knock-out attempt. Pisses me off to no end. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH TIME I SPENT PLANNING THAT FIGHT?!?!?! DO YOU?!?!

They drag his unconscious body through the daylight streets of Namara -- apparently nobody notices (this would've been a perfect time for a twist in the plot, but I'm a dumbass). They make it back to the ElectroZephyr and begin their journey back to Lord Diovax, the Sexy.

Notes: There were actually a lot of people who showed up to this session! We had... (Shan, Jamie, Steph, Vos, Carrie, Matt, Danice, Jordan) 8 players! And 1 DM... Elizagerth absolutely killed it in the battle with the Grape Marauder. He jumped from the lookout deck on the ElectroZephyr and used his spiked maul to tear a hole in the balloon of the enemy ship. He then hung on a rope and swung back to the Zephyr. It was... EPIC. Everyone else did cool things too... I think Silaqui shot like... 3 arrows! And Halcyon did... something! It was amazing. There was an inordinate amount of roleplaying coming from Freia and I'm sure Korderas did something too! "Woah, Black Betty! Amber lamps!" Oh yeah, he played smooth jazz to represent the bard's music.

Episode 6: “To Vamp or Not to Vamp?”
Date: SH 670, November 10-14

WHOOOSH!! The ElectroZephyr speeds along its way through the Cirrus Strait and to Castle Diovax to return their pet prize, Hiruvorn. Apparently Diovax took him later to torture him. Is he dead? I dunno. Anyway, BACKTRACK! Freia heard some strange noises coming from within the big blue balloon of the ElectroZephyr. Calling the others to investigate, the group went inside. A big-ass cylinder with lightning crackling all about made up the engine of the supership, but otherwise there was nothing nobody saw until CRACK! (I'm really enjoying the old-school Batman onomatopoeia right now), a thick bolt of lightning ripped through Lats and Elizagerth. The others looked up to the source of the bolt and saw a baby blue dragon! AWWW!! *googly eyes* As they were fawning over the dragon's cuteness, it swung up and around, clawing and biting at the wimpy Freia. Poppy and Lilhani jumped in and did their thing. Shrugging off her injuries and ready to deal a world of hurt, Freia unleashed a scorching ray with astounding accuracy and fried the poor, poor baby blue dragon.

Curious about how a dang baby dragon could end up in their balloon, the group climbed up into the cylindrical engine to discover a nest of eggs. WTF?!? Many of the eggs were cracked or malformed, with only two or three eggs that seemed healthy. But where's mama!?! Using his super-duper intelligence (isn't it like only a 14? *sigh*...) Halcyon theorized that the engine itself, what with its immense magical energy derived from the mana-bladder of an ancient (and thankfully deceased) blue dragon, might be spontaneously forming eggs. Since the magical process isn't assisted by the natural reproduction of dragons, that would explain why most of the eggs are malformed or destroyed! GASP! The group decided to keep the eggs since, you know, DRAGONS! I mean, they could seriously raise these guys at birth, and then pet them and groom them and feed them and love them and eventually ride them and destroy all enemies!

Moving on! They get to Castle Diovax with Hiruvorn the Unworthy in tow. No issues getting to the castle this time -- the cornfield was already burnt down, remember? Anyway, Lord Diovax is mighty pleased with the kidnapping of the Thieves Guild leader and is more than happy to give the reward. He leads him to his treasury, lined with glittering and ancient pretties and gives him cool stuff! Like... a cloak of elvenkind, an animated shield, alchemy jug, ring of protection, and of course the sword of dragon slaying! Even more, the kind and generous vampire lord Diovax offered a gift greater than any sparkling treasure... the touch of vampirism! GASP! He let the adventurers sleep on it. The next morning, Halcyon and Poppy (and Lilhani for a moment) decided they would become vampires because it's friggin' awesome. Doy. Diovax led the first adventurer, Halcyon, to the side of an open grave Valosine had so graciously dug for them the night before. Whilst standing within the open coffin, Diovax slowly wrapped his fingers around Halcyon's tender neck and proceed to brutally rip out his throat whilst quenching his undying thirst for living blood! Suddenly, it seemed as though all the niceties of vampirism were washed away in a gushing river of blood. The next day, Poppy had also done the deed. But Lilhani, after seeing the true effects of the transformation, decided against this life-altering decision. She could see that even though both Poppy and Halcyon were elated with their newfound power and ability, they were also unwittingly enthralled by their new master, Lord Diovax. Lilhani's independent spirit would have none of that shit!

Along with the normal caveats, vampires must either be confined to the land surrounding their resting place (i.e. their grave or coffin) or otherwise bring their resting place with them. Now both Halcyon and Poppy must needs bring their coffins with them everywhere they go (at least during the day) or otherwise risk a true death! Now here's where it gets hilarious... When the group trekked back to the ElectroZephyr, both Poppy and Halcyon realized they could not walk aboard the ship! One of the rules of vampirism states that the owner of any property (usually homes but also applies to inanimate vehicles) must allow access to the vampire before the vampire can enter. After realizing this little rule, they asked Lilhani, the owner of the ship to allow access. "Of course!" she said. But to no avail! The vamps still couldn't get on! Turns out that the ship never truly belonged to Lilhani -- and her backstory suddenly came into the mix. (God, I love it when stories start to overlap like this! Seriously, it's one of my favorite things in the world!) You can read her background here. Turns out a wizard named Selubrius actually owned the ship. And he lives on the small island of Bruya. Other than finding him and convincing him to allow some vamps onto his stolen ship, he would need to be killed. In the meantime, they have decided to use Korderas' two-man ship during the night and strap the coffins to the underside of the ElectroZephyr. A likely plan...

In the meantime, Diovax has given several missions to his new vampire underlings. They can go search for a missing vampire spawn in Runeterra, look for an ancient and magical suit of armor in the hidden island of Sweetwater, or exact a debt from House Waterlight for Diovax. On top of that, many of the adventurers want to take the blue dragon eggs to Boar Herpes to be examined. Lilhani also secretly plans on getting to Boar Herpes to find a way to break the enthrallment Diovax has over Poppy and Halcyon while still keeping their vampiric abilities. That's like... FIVE different things to do! How the hell am I supposed to plan out something for that? Ridiculous!

Notes: Dragon eggs have certain qualities about them that determine at what point they are ready to hatch. Depending on the color (and therefore element) of the egg, anyone in possession of it has a few options to determine when the egg should hatch. If a blue dragon egg is kept in an area of much static electricity (the engine of the ElectroZephyr for example), the eggs are likely to hatch in much less time. However, if the eggs are buried in sand or some other grounding material, their gestation period is significantly prolonged. NEATO! Oh, also, vampire spawn get awesome strength, agility and health -- even to the point of constant regeneration! If they play their cards right and become true vampires, they can also turn into bats, misty poofs, charm peeps and even summon packs of wolves and swarms of bats! Isn't that wonderful? However, sunlight truly sucks for vamps, even within the boundaries of the rules. I don't think any normal vampire would even survive more than two minutes in direct sunlight. They can't enter an owned establishment without the owner's permission. They also should avoid running water, 'cause it hurts too. (I never heard of that one before, but it's in the rules so why not?) Oh yeah, and a wooden stake through the heart while they're asleep will kill them outright. Keep that in mind, folks! Happy holidays!

Episode 7: “The Radiant Tower of Selubrius, Part 1”
Date: SH 670, November 14-18

The group decides to pay a visit to Lilhani's old mentor Selubrius a visit on his little island of Bruya. The three-day journey starts off really pleasant and blue skied and all that good jazz... But on the third day... KAPOW! Thunderbolts and lightning! Very, very frightening! And on top of that, they end up nearly running into another ship that is aflame and going down. The ship nearly crashes right into the ElectroZephyr but Freia manages to steer the ship away. On the sinking ship, people are jumping off into the air below as they burn alive from the liquid flames. A few survivors still manage to cling onto the ship, and Freia steers the ElectoZephyr parallel to the other ship. It's totally epic. I mean, imagine a ship that's pointed roughly 30 degrees downward, on fire, and basically falling out of the sky. And then another ship comes in next to them, matches speed, and manages to get the few remaining survivors on board with ropes and epicicity, epicociousness, epicality!

The only three survivors were part of a pirate group that no longer exists (they're all dead, duh). They introduce themselves as: Morgan Godbolt--former captain and commander of the pirate gang, Lina Sunstorm--fighter extraordinaire with an uncharacteristically good moral compass, and Alba Ashdown--a truly unique and possibly terrifying member of an elusive and largely unknown tribe of Catfolk. Since these folks are already seriously indebted to the adventuring party, they have no choice to but accompany them to Bruya and confront Selubrius.

They get to Bruya and wait until nightfall because dang Halcyon is a dang vampire now so everything needs to be in the dark. It's quite obnoxious having a vampire around. I'm beginning to regret Diovax's decision to let him be a vamper. Instead of being even minutely clever, these buffoons decide to waltz straight through the front door. Of course, they're beset by several monsters -- mainly a manticore named "Monty" at the front door and and slew of mephits in the first floor. Oh yeah, and Morgan began right away by opening closed doors inside of a wizard's tower whilst trespassing. The inherent danger in certain locations can sometimes be lost on certain adventurers, and Morgan has quickly proven himself to be one of the sort. A shatter spell triggered and gave him a ringing in his ears that lasted for ten minutes -- not to mention he took substantial damage by trying to open a door without first considering the consequences of his actions. Nevertheless, rooms were raided, treasure was plundered, and onward and upward the crew didst go!

Morgan was a quick learner! He decided to throw apples at doors to see if anything happened to them first before trying to open those doors. On the second floor, Morgan did just this on an unassuming door in the hallway. After hitting the knob, the door began to "tick, tick" as if counting down to something. Assuming this to be yet another explosive spell triggered from the throwing of the proverbial apple, Morgan and the others ran for cover around the corner. After about of a minute or so of ticking, a soft "pfftsh" echoed through the hallway. The adventurers moved forward only to discover that this particular door had melted and sealed itself magically after the ticking and tocking. 0 for 2 for Morgan Godbolt!

Up to the third floor, the group discovered a large padlock covering the door to the south and went to investigate. After trying to quickly pick the lock, it suddenly bursted out in anger at them! The padlock, also known as Paddy stated that mere picks will not open him and requested that a story be told to him. Lilhani swiftly went in to a regaling story about a padlock (ironically named "Locky") that saves a princess from a tower. Brought to hypothetical tears, Paddy said that he opens whenever someone pours a potion with any magical properties down his keyhole. Lilhani, not wanting to skimp him, poured a potion of fire breath down the keyhole. He burped a bit of smoke and promptly opened up, revealing an alchemy lab filled to the brim with magical potions of all sorts. The other room proved to be a little more difficult to enter. After the handy thrown-apple trick finally worked relatively properly for the first time, the exploding glyph on the door only managed to damage Morgan a moderate amount. Upon entering, the group discovered a naked nymph in the old wizard's bed -- it was his sleeping quarters. The nymph who called herself Calista was scared and shy of the intruders. She admitted to being the wizard's bed slave but had no ill feelings on the matter. It was clear to the group that she was under a strong enchantment as she refused to help them in their cause and was unable to leave the room.

We end here on the sharp edge of suspense as the group decides what to do next! Will they go upstairs? Will they go back down??? Will they kill the old wizard or only give him dirty look and a "tsk, tsk"?!?! Tune in next time to find out!

Notes: Morgan has proven to be a brash and hazardous adventuring companion. Alba seems to like to steal every little trinket available, even from her saviors! Lina is much too goody-two-shoes for this ragtag band of shady folks with a splash of vampirism. It'll be interesting to see how she handles dealing with situations that aren't always so black and white.

Episode 8: “The Radiant Tower of Selubrius, Part 2”
Date: SH 670, November 18

Played by Alba, Freia, and Halcyon

It's already been three stories in this tower and still nothing really juicy has happened! After talking with the nymph bed-slave Calista for a while and getting her to open the treasure chest in the room (which amounted to not much altogether), the group decided they could only do one thing in a tower they were climbing: go up to the next floor. Floor four: the floor of fours. Not really. It was a pretty empty room, to be honest. Just another spiraling stairwell on the other side of the room. Something wasn't right, though. Alba could smell it. It was just too fresh in this room that should've been stale. The cat-lady went to inspect the walls and quickly discovered they were all an illusion of some kind. Her hand went straight through! Suddenly, mephits, ice mephits everywhere! The wind! A wind started a-swirling in the room. Gusts so bad that it was hard to stand up or stay still. The mephits had no problem dealing with it, of course. After a tense battle, the heroes remained and the mephits melted into water.

Going up, the adventurers found themselves in some sort of guard chamber. Four solemn metal statues stood within crescent-shaped columns stretching sixty feet high. An eerie red glow emanated from the statues. Something was alive!!!! "Turn back, or face the wrath of the four!" A deep and solemn voice echoed throughout the room. "No! Never! You can't make us!" said the three adventurers in an uncanny unison. "Fine! You're puny anyway. We'll just have one take the three of you down!"

BATTLE ONE: FIGHT! Seriously though, this battle took forever. What seemed at first to be an awesome duel between a flying suit of glowing red armor and three puny adventurers turned out to be a WWE smackdown. Halcyon felt enticed to grapple, grapple, smack with hammer, grapple some more. Alba would run up, miss, back off, rinse, repeat. And Freia kept pew-pewing with ray of frost and running up with her shocking grasp a few times. Seriously, there were so many misses, it felt like watching stormtroopers shoot at each other. Anyway, one thing led to another and the heroes came out victorious... as usual. (I've really gotta just TPK the hell outta these peeps one day, that'll show 'em!)

Moving up, they came to a small circular room with a locked door. After doing some magical detection, they found elvish script inscribed into the door, reading: "Here lies the chamber of fun, home of the Radiant Tower Mage Selubrius. Speak 'FRIEND AND ENTER'." Now understand, I thought this was a fun little trick as a DM. But I should've known that in practice, it wasn't nearly as entertaining. I felt like I had to explain it to them without sounding like a "gotcha!" kind of guy. But after explaining it, it just seemed like a moot point. Either way, Halcyon spoke "Friend" and "Enter" but not "Friend AND Enter" so I decided to let the door's sleep spell trigger nonetheless. After putting both Alba and Freia to sleep, Selubrius burst through the door and cast a magic circle around the undead Halcyon. With nowhere to go, they were forced to... CONVERSE! *gasp*

The rest that went down is pretty random, so I'm gonna summarize the summary: Selubrius explains that the Dragon Shipwright's Guild is behind the massive dragon attacks throughout Nack (just like they attacked Boar Herpes back in Episode 3) and have begun what the townsfolk are calling the Dragon War. Turns out, they've been breeding the dragons from the eggs that their ships spontaneously create. These dragons grow super fast, and are under control of a powerful guildmember... Jayce Borgas. Wow, way to summarize man. It's hard to get it all out in just one or two sentences though. Either way, Selubrius has commanded Halcyon (and by default, the others) to find Jayce in Bandle City and retrieve the Orb of Dragon Command, which of course commands dragons. Do this, and y'all will save the world of Nack! Or something like that. They agree to the task, primarily because Selubrius magically commanded Halcyon, but that's neither here nor there.

Notes: So apparently, Selubrius said that Boar Herpes fell... like the entire island fell, beneath the cloud canopy. Don't know what Halcyon thinks of that. There's a whole new history that the wizard has revealed to the group.

Halcyon also ended up getting his hands on a Deck of Many Things and drew some cards from it for no damn good reason. Here's what happened with that (each bullet represents a single draw): So the take-away from all this is: Halcyon is no longer a vampire, he is more powerful though anyway, and now he has a lot of enemies out to fucking slay him. This should be fun!
 * Flames: A powerful devil is now out to fucking slay Halcyon! Yay!
 * Rogue: A random once-ally NPC is now out to fucking slay Halcyon! Double yay!
 * Knight: A half-elf knight appears from a void and vows to protect Halcyon for life. Cool!
 * Rogue: Another random once-ally NPC is now out to assassinate the cleric! WooT!
 * Jester: Halcyon gains two levels! (Not sure how fair this is, but whatevs)
 * Eurayle: Halcyon is cursed, getting a -2 to all saving throws permanently, yay!
 * Moon: Halcyon can cast the wish spell! He uses it to draw Moon again. What a chump.
 * Moon: Whoopie! Two more wish spells! First wish, he summons up his goddess Runsted from the moon itself and has his newfound knight sacrificed in order to remove his curse. Wish granted. Second wish, he asks for his connection to Lord Diovax to be severed. While the wish was granted, he found that both he and Poppy are both no longer vampires. (Poor Poppy! She never really got to see what it was like being a vampire!)

Episode 9: “The Journey to Bandle City”
Date: SH 670, November 18-27

Played by Essence, Freia, Lats, and Umer

So it turns out Selubrius had a couple of mercenaries on retainer just in case he ended up needing to send people he sorta trusted to hang out with people he sorta didn't trust. Don't ask me why -- Selubrius is a weird cat. Metaphorically. He's a human wizard.

Anyway, Essence and Umer join the group and keep an eye on things while they travel to the island of Runeterra and the city of Bandle in search of an individual named Jayce Borgas and his Orb of Dragon Command. You can read more about the back-story of the Dragon War and the Dragon Shipwright's Guild to attempt to get a better understanding of who the puppet masters really are and why they do what they do. You can try... and fail! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Moving on! The flight of the ElectroZephyr from Bruya to Runeterra takes four days. On the night of the second day, just before dawn, two sad chaps pedaling hard on their little one-manned, winged bicycle-ships are spotted by Essence. Waving their little white flags, Freia moves the ElectroZephyr closer to allow them to land. Poor little fellas are about to die of exhaustion! Just as they're preparing to land and Essence begins to wake up her companion Umer, a massive grappling hook bursts through the doors of the cargo hold and digs in deep into the inner hull! The invibility cloak of a massive ship dissipates to reveal an old enemy -- the Grape Marauder!! Pirates immediately start to board the ship from all sides -- through the cargo doors and on the top deck in their little bicycles. A fight breaks out! One by one, the heroes manage to slay their foes, push them off the edge, set ropes on fire. Freia even managed to create an explosion of butterflies and flower petals! And Lats even dealt his first finishing blow! It was epic. And at the end Bruno, their old friend, swore vengeance would eventually be his -- and his attacks would get deadlier each time, until he took the ElectroZephyr as his prize and all of its crew were dead!

The next two days of flight were uninteresting. Due to the nature of the location of Bandle City in the mountainous island of Runeterra, the crew had to land at a smaller river town called Pashen. After anchoring down and paying for a ground crew to watch after the ElectroZephyr, the group promptly approached a missy named Kimmek in order to rent a canoe. After talking with some of the townsfolk, the group realizes that there is a mysterious creature known as the Weird that allegedly drowns outsiders it deems unworthy of entering Bandle City. After resting the night at the Midland Inn, the group thinks it best to higher a local dwarf to accompany them in order to circumvent an encounter with this Weird. The only one willing to do the job is a drunkard named Jomorel. He's a hoot.

Roughly twelve hours into their trip the next morning, the Weird appeared! OMGOMGOMG! The serpentine creature made only of water approached the canoes in silence, "sniffing" at the non-dwarves. Jomorel, who had already told others that he pissed into the canoe, told them to be super-silent and not to speak out of turn. He was astonished to actually see the Weird. Never actually seen it before! After an intense couple of minutes, the Weird submerged fully into the river and disappeared, indicating that it would let the outsiders pass. Whew! Turns out the canoe-pissing drunk was worth it all along!

Once they docked in Bandle City, the group began asking around about Jayce. About... several hours later, they found out that they could possibly gain an audience with the queen of Bandle City, Myrtle Alfansire. They first had to speak to another hardened dwarfette named Lura Stonethrow. After some deliberation concerning the true nature of their mission, Lura had scheduled a meeting with the Royal Council in two days.

Some stuff happened and then two days later the meeting began! Queen Myrtle began by questioning the adventurers on their intent. After Umer described their entire situation, a half-elf on the council, Renauld Swift began whispering sweet nothings into the dwarf queen's ear. After some muffled giggling, Renauld stood and revealed that he knew the whereabouts of one Jayce Borgas, but he was certain that the Orb of Dragon Command belonged in this man's hands and would therefore not reveal his location. In response to this, another council member, one Margrun Alfansire revealed that she had seen in her divining prayers to Alfan Skystone that this Jayce Borgas was not the right person to possess the Orb and that if he continued to command the dragons, it would spell the doom of all of Nack!!! *GASP* At that, Renauld began to curse Alfan, saying that he was just a superstition and no god at all. Myrtle had to assert her authority to prevent the council meeting to devolve into a bar brawl. She decided to have the council reconvene in two days hence. Meanwhile the adventurers will be kept within the palace walls, in the guest quarters under guard...

Notes: While waiting for the initial meeting with the Royal Council, the alchemist's shop in the Silfdor Merchant Square in Bandle City had an accident. A ton of alchemist's fire began spreading through the courtyard and setting nearby buildings alight. Umer jumped into action and asked the shopkeeper, Falimea, what he could do to help. After dumping some fog-milk to douse the alchemist fire, Falimea turned on Umer and demanded 100gp for damages! After going back to Lura and a day of investigation, the city decided to pay for the damages and Umer owed nothing after all -- what a joke!

It also seems like there's a strange relationship going on between Renauld and Queen Myrtle. Even though he clearly disrespects their dwarven god Alfan Skystone, the queen still seems to trust this half-elf more than her own kin.

Episode 10: “Renauld and the Orb”
Date: SH 670, November 27-30

Played by Essence, Lilhani, Naïlo, and Umer

If you have to be imprisoned, it might as well be in the guest quarters of the Royal Palace, amirite!? In the two days spent under house arrest, the heroes decided to speak with a few members of the Royal Council when they were available. First, they spoke with Margrun, the high priestess of the Church of Alfan Skystone. She confirmed that the Orb of Dragon Command must be somewhere in Bandle City, but she could not get a more precise location from her divinations. Then they spoke with the rather rude Renauld Swift in his offices. After going back and forth about who the rightful owner of the Orb is, Renauld produced a small, ebony egg and began to rub it in one hand. The egg began to glow red from within as he spoke in the language of dragons, Nrukianak. Both Umer and Naïlo could understand the complex language that seeped through Renauld's lips. Naïlo's elf ears couldn't hear this time, but Umer could make out what the half-elf spoke: "Let the magic of the original dragons come down upon us, and those of untrue blood become subservient to those who hold the ancient power." As he spoke, the stony egg in his hand began to glow ever brighter, and a "snap" in Umer's head caused the dragonborn to step back a moment. However, he quickly overcame an inner temptation to move closer to the orb. Pissed off, Renauld just froze for a second -- apparently something hadn't worked out as planned! Lilhani quickly caught on that this egg may very well be the Orb that they've been searching for all along. Using table-talk out-of-game and a superhuman telepathic understanding that only forest gnomes and wood elves share in-game, Lilhani and Naïlo quickly devised a plan to both distract Renauld and pick the egg right out of the man's pocket (once he pocketed it, of course). The ruse worked, of course, because these peeps are righteous! And Renauld is clearly evil! And the DM clearly rolls badly all the time! After pickpocketing the egg, the group scuffled out of the office and hurriedly scuffled into an unoccupied room a few hallways away. They looked at their prize, but it no longer glowed. They said the words Renauld had said, but nothing! Stupid egg! Naïlo pocketed it for good measure, nonetheless.

A couple days later, Queen Myrtle summoned the group to the second meeting with the Royal Council. Of course, Renauld Swift didn't show up! That coward. Without his input, the rest of the dwarves and the elf and human emissaries agreed to search for both Jayce Borgas, the man who supposedly had the Orb of Dragon Command in his possession, and to search for the Orb itself. Myrtle, in all her supreme wisdom, requested that the Orb be brought to her instead of Selubrius. Of course, an artifact of such seemingly immense power should belong in the queen's hands, not some mad wizard's in a lonely island-tower! The group quickly agreed to do all this and such and left the palace with their belongings. They were clearly befuddled because they hadn't the first clue as to where Jayce could be hiding. As they wandered about the Forge District aimlessly, BOOMS and CRASHES and RAWRS began echoing through the caverns of the city. Bandle City was under attack! By dragons, no less!!! The group quickly sprung into action and began heading toward the Docks of Nommak. As they climbed the stairs leading to the Silfdor Merchant Square, the group was beset by kobolds on all sides! A battle broke out! Essence smacked down like, half of them with her trusty mace like the badass cleric she is. Lilhani stabbed kobolds in the back all sneaky-like. Naïlo slashed and stabbed. And Umer got his ass kicked by a green wyrmling that swooped in, spewing poison breath and dealing a world of hurt with it's baby-sized claws and teeth! Naïlo, with her trusty sword that she got back way back when in the campaign, the Dragon Slayer, attacked the wyrmling head on, and in a few quick slashes, she slew the dragon where it stood... EPIC! After that moment, the egg in her pocket began to warm furiously (it was already getting hotter the closer she got to the dragons at the dock) and as she held it, it began to glow -- the same glow that Renauld made it do! She realized that now that she slew a dragon, she was capable of using the Orb of Dragon Command. Now, nobody ever told the group that this indeed was the Orb, but they logically deduced that this was indeed what they were looking for all along. A-doy.

Shortly after discovering this newfound POWER she quickly sent away all the dragons attacking the city, which made her physically and mentally exhausted. At that moment, Naïlo was being groped by an invisible force! She swung her blade and spilled the blood of the invisible figure trying to steal the orb from her hands. The others caught on quickly to what was happening and stabbed and smashed in turn, causing the invisible creature to fall unconscious. The spell on him faded and the creature was revealed to be Renauld Swift himself! The group quickly gagged the bastard and dragged him off to the Royal Palace to show Queen Myrtle. On the way there, Renauld let slip that he was Jayce Borgas all along, and Renauld had been an alias he had been using for decades. He was gagged afterward and was presented to the queen. The queen, shocked by the sudden revelation of Renauld's trickery, demanded he be ungagged and speak his defense. When ungagging him, he quickly apologized to the queen for his betrayal, and cast a misty step spell which allowed him to teleport away, effectively escaping their grasp! BWAHAHAHA... he'll be back, of course. After everything had finally died down, the queen had requested that the group still search for Jayce and retrieve the Orb of Dragon Command -- she didn't even know they had already found (and lost) Jayce, and that the Orb was in their possession! Sneaky heroes...

After they left the city and paddled upriver back to the quaint town of Pashen, they began to pack up the ElectroZephyr and get ready for a long trip back to Bruya and Selubrius. Before leaving however, the group decided to test fate as Halcyon once did and draw from the fabled Deck of Many Things...

Notes: Apparently one has to slay a dragon in order to use the mysterious power of the Orb of Dragon Command! The group had raided Falimea's Alchemical Sundries for various potions and concoctions and the like during the dragon attack just because they weren't too fond of Falimea... what bastards! Below is a list of the cards drawn from the Deck of Many Things and the corresponding consequences for each character who drew:

Umer drew first, declaring two draws:
 * Idiot: Umer's intelligence was dropped by 5 points, down to a lowly 7! He's a bumbling, fumbling idiot now! That should be fun to roleplay!
 * Sun: To make up for the idiocy, Umer became Uber (see the pun!?) and leveled up a whopping 7 times instantly! I've now completely derailed the entire campaign by giving out the Deck of Many Things waaaay too early in the game! He also ended up getting a Portable Hole for drawing this magnificently fortuitous card.

Lilhani decided to declare three draws, being the maverick she is:
 * Fates: The very useful get-out-of-death-free card! She can take back any life-altering event once before she dies. That's pretty freakin' cool.
 * Rogue: Now like Halcyon, Lilhani too has some random NPC out to slay her in the back! Yay!
 * Gem: BILLIONS of jewels appear at her feet! Okay, maybe not billions, but a lot of jewelry and stuff worth an insane amount of money appears. Now that I think of it, have we even bought anything in this campaign?!?! Everything's been stolen or found in some dungeon somewhere! I really have to rethink how the economics of Nack really work out...

Naïlo, effectively one-upping Lilhani, declares four draws:
 * The Void: DISASTER! Naïlo's soul is sucked out of her physical body and contained within a phylactery of sorts! This container is guarded by powerful beings! GASP! And there's no way of knowing where it is! GAAAASP! For all intents and purposes, Naïlo be fuckin' dead! But don't worry, her twin sister (unnamed as of yet) will come out of the woodwork ('cause she's a wood elf, get it!?) and will have the unwavering mission of finding and rescuing Naïlo. I actually don't know if this will happen, but I'm planning on it -- Naïlo will be in the depths of hell somewhere... OOOOOOHHHH maybe the devil out to slay Halcyon now has Naïlo!!! Oh, oh, oh! Okay, don't tell anyone! BTW, she didn't draw anymore cards because that's life. Deal with it.

Oh, and after seeing what happened to Naïlo, Essence said "HELL NO!" when asked if she wanted to draw some cards. A wise choice... a very wise choice indeed... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Episode 11: “The Search for Sweetwater”
Date: SH 670, November 30 - December 11

Played by Halcyon, Lats, Lilhani, Morgan, Poppy, and Silaqui

Uneventful flights abound as the adventurers sail back to Bruya to return the Orb of Dragon Command to Selubrius. Once they get there, they decide to spend a few days to rest and recuperate and resolve what route they should return to. With no real plans and no backgrounds to really work off of, Selubrius decides that they should continue working for them as gatherers of items most magical. After all, that's definitely one of Selubrius' favorite pastimes! He suggests that they go in search of the mythical Sweetwater Island and the sepulcher that allegedly houses a fantastic suit of plate armor. This is all merely from old books that Selubrius read once. Those books also said that the water there is purple and that unicorns live in abundance there -- so how much are we really to believe? Eh? EH?

Either way, Morgan decides he also wants to collect the mountain lion that is due to him now that he's a fully fledged beast master and all. The only island on the way that might have mountain lions is the elven island of Sparinon. Of course, they'd have to cross the dreaded Cirrus Strait in order to get anywhere of import other than the stupid dwarf island of Runeterra. So whatevs, they decide to fly to Namara first to exchange their ridiculous amounts of copper for gold and such and buy a few things. Before they get there, freakin' Atticus Buchanan, the "blood bitch" that's been piddling around in the cargo hold for weeks now, sneaks into Halcyon's quarters at night and lights him up with several magic missiles! Everyone jumps into action as they quickly overcome the young wizardling. When Halcyon finally puts two and two together, he realizes that Atticus must be one of the Rogues after him after he drew the fateful card from the Deck of Many Things! GASP! He gets the poor sap in a room alone and cleanses him in radiant fire. He was cleansed all the way... He died! Jeez! Nothing else happens and they get to Namara.

Remember, Lilhani drew the Gem card from the Deck of Many Things so she had 50,000gp burning a massive hole in her pocket. She ended up buying some pretty impressive weaponry! (Read more in the notes about that crap). After spending a day in Namara, the group heads out across the Cirrus Strait to reach Sparinon.

It gets snowy, 'cause you know, December! As Morgan, Halcyon, and Lats are looking out, tiny red hands appear in the grey clouds ahead and the greys begin to bleed and tear into reds. Reality itself begins to be torn open, revealing a hellish landscape of molten volcanoes, flowing magma and skies that rain fire. Immediately, Halcyon radios to Lilhani to halt the ship as he attempts to turn the ElectroZephyr starboard. Lilhani does a fantastic job of bringing the ship to a stop, but Halcyon really fumbles with the wheel -- jeez, I mean how hard can it be?!?! The ship turns roughly three degrees right as a horde of imps begin to flow out of the tear in reality. Thinking quickly, Lilhani climbs to the forecastle and casts a sleep spell on a bunch of the devils. Three of them drop out of the sky as the rest wink out of existence and blink back right as their claws tear at the heroes! Lats sneaks and stabs at the critters while Poppy swings her trusty Whomper, batting them off the ship. Up on the lookout deck, Morgan looses bolts from the built-in ballistas and skewer the creatures one at a time. As it seems like the tide of the battle is finally turning, Lilhani sees that even MORE imps begin pouring out of the rift in space ahead and quickly jumps back down into the helm to accelerate the airship. Halcyon heads back to the rudder and this time doesn't screw it up! The ship turns and slowly begins to take off. A couple more imps are destroyed as the ElectroZephyr finally reaches its top speed, flying faster than the imps can catch up. Looking back, Lats sees the rift slowly close. Of course, Halcyon has NO idea why something like THIS would happen! That's when a disembodied voice shrieks in his ear that, "Egon the Lustful sends his regards! HEEHEEHEEHAHAHEE!!!" Halcyon realizes yet again, it must be the Flames card he drew from the Deck of Many Things! GaGASPPPP! This does not bode well for the evil-ish cleric of Runsted. Nothing else happens and they get to Sparinon.

Once they reach the coast of Sparinon, Morgan realizes that the group needs a freakin' permit to enter the woods without the fear of being shot down by stupid territorial wood elves! Gadammit! Anyway, they pay the measly fee and begin hunting for the ranger's mountain lion and soon-to-be beast companion. Oh yeah, did I mention that the half-elf townsfolk warned them of wandering displacer beasts? Oh, well don't worry about that, no biggy. Anyway, Morgan's failing horribly at tracking -- what a dumb ranger! And he gets lost! They come across a ridge and he spots a beasty in the bushes fifty feet away... it's a... you guessed it! DISPLACER BEAST! He fires an arrow at it and it leaps out and attacks! Right then, Silaqui is walking along in the flank minding her own business and fiddling with her shawm when she looks over to her left and dramatically says under her breath, "Clever girl..." as a SECOND displacer beast pounces on her. The rest of the group jumps into the action as they struggle against the beastly duo. It's really starting to not look so good since the stupid displacer beasts are so hard to hit! (Go look them up yourself if you're interested in what they actually do, lazy bums!) Just as it seems hopeless, a fluffy mountain lion leaps out of NOWHERE and bites at the neck of the clever-girl-displacer-beast! Encouraged by this, the rest of the group fight through to the bitter end. Morgan takes the next 24 hours to slowly tame the mountain lion, whom he plans on calling Cisco.

The adventurers eventually trek back to the ElectroZephyr and decide to draw from the Deck of Many Things...

Notes: Lilhani purchased the Covetous Rake and the Giant's Hair Crossbow from high-end merchants in Namara. Halcyon killed one of the Rogues from the card from the Deck of Many Things. And the list below details the results of the next round of draws from the Deck of Many Things.

Lats drew first, declaring two draws:
 * Idiot: Lats' intelligence dropped by merely 2 points. What does a monk need intelligence for? Nothing! That's for those book-smart losers who don't spend their childhoods in monasteries gazing at their navels! Pfaw! It also made him draw an extra card.
 * Vizier: The first of the Vizier cards in the game -- this gives Lats the answer and the know-how of any question he feels like asking within a year. I'm sure it will prove useful... perhaps in searching for a specific island or something...
 * Flames: Yet ANOTHER devil is out to get Lats now! Is it the dreaded and mysterious Egon the Lustful? Or is it someone entirely NEW?!?!?! (probably the second one)

Morgan drew second, declaring two draws -- same as Lats:
 * Vizier: Another Vizier card?! Well good riddance. Now everyone will know everything they ever wanted to know.
 * Donjon: Morgan's body (minus his equipment) is instantly transported to an extradimensional sphere! Now he can use the Vizier card to know where he's at but it's not like he can tell anyone... I wonder if anybody cares enough about the pirate to go searching for him? Maybe Alba???

Silaqui went next, drawing yet again two cards:
 * Comet: ooooooOOOOOHHHH!!! The next monster or group of monsters the party encounters, if Silaqui chooses to fight them on her own, WITH NO HELP FROM OTHERS, and wins, she gains a level automatically! That'll definitely make up for her lack of participation in this campaign!
 * Key: After drawing this card, the mythical Oathbow appears before Silaqui. Now she can use this badass bow to mow down her enemies! Well, let's hope it's a single enemy 'cause the bow works a lot better that way... and might as well make sure that the next enemy is first seen a long way away, like... 600 feet. Yeah! That'll even the odds for sure!

Poppy drew last, again, two cards:
 * Vizier: Jesus Haploid Christ! How many Vizier's do we need?!?! Poppy was clearly a bit disappointed after drawing this card. I still think it's gonna come in handy someday.
 * Ruin: Of course, the character who doesn't have anything magical loses all her possessions. Even the short-lived weapon Whomper dissipates into nothingness.

Thus ends the first "season" of the Air Islands of Nack campaign. To read on, visit the second arc of the story, Malevolence in Pursuit.

Sections: Main | Campaigns | Characters | NPCs | Locales | Culture | History | Artifacts | Maps

Campaigns: Slaadi Invasion | Northern Strife | Heroes & Traitors | Hollows | Black as Pitch | Air Islands of Nack | BUFD Wars

Air Islands of Nack: Flight of the ElectroZephyr | Malevolence in Pursuit | Rousing the Dragon