Longest Road

Description

Continuation of Alpha-Bravo, under new GMship. What exactly is going on? So far, who knows. There's some sort of objects, or maybe objects, that some fiends have. And they grant them some kind of control over dragons. The dragons were a bit vague on it . But being brave and intrepid adventurers, they're off to the Abyss to save the day.

The Longest Road (as one might guess from the name) is a Planes-trekking adventure with our dear old friends from Alpha-Bravo. Characters are beginning at 14th level, with ECL figured into that. And what a crazy assortment of characters they are...

Game Master 

Zahnnie

Characters

Jeralyn 

Morrigu

Mia (Portrait) 

Kit (when she comes home)

Michael (Portrait) 

Nybble

Sil (Portrait) 

Aurora

Ezel 

Chadius

Ellowyn 

Ratri

Querca 

Rykilde

NPCs

Oraine 

Zahnnie's old PC before she took over GMship.

Thame 

Oraine's incredibly good looking brother, a ranger type of some sort.

The Old Man 

A very old elf, more than a little crazy.

Evathyth 

The party's guide to the planes. A (previously) retired raptoran Guide.

Saula 

A mercane merchant in the Plane of Air. He has a cousin, too.

The Bauriars 

Goat-taur warriors of GOOD, who champion and defend against EVIL! And make songs.

Silara 

Sil's mom. A gold dragon of some renown.

Mirenuth and Seth 

A mated pair of silver dragons who recently had their egg stolen (and returned).

The Lillend 

Possibly the only creature prettier than Ellowyn.

The Inevitables 

Clockwork creatures that could pwnz Ezel.

Run Notes

Someone should keep notes! Fine, I guess I will!

Run 1 -- 3/19/2005

The run opened with a slight jump in time: the party spoke to the Queen, who had no idea what to do with Michael's mom. She sent them to see That Old Man, who evidently knew about researching odd things. The party did a little shopping and was on their way out of the capital when they saw two people approaching on the back of a phantom steed. What a coincidence! And that was when a glowing green square dropped a living holocaust on their heads.

After battling the raging fiery doom, which actually wasn't that bad except it picked up the mages and tossed them about 200 ft in the air, they heroically rescued some children from a burning building. Possibly a boxful of kittens was involved. Remarkably, the two magely types just happened to be looking for them! Sent by the Old Man! The party returned to the capital to spend the night, as Ezel would be able to teleport them there in the morning.

And so he did, with no problems. The party entered TOM's hut (which was bigger on the inside, strangely) and saw a giant spinning cube. Being smart adventurers they didn't even touch it a little, but when TOM waltzed into the room he certainly did, accidentally setting off a trap that sucked the whole party inside the cube. They dodged some spikes and played in zero gravity before punching their way out (a surefire winning solution). TOM was muchly embarrassed, for a few minutes until he forgot about it.

The Old Man sent the party to go speak to a lady in the mountains above where (Ratri's char) grew up with elves. There was an object she wished to have retrieved, but TOM was very vague about the details. That rascally old fellow! Since the teleport machine hadn't been there before they had to travel. On the way they encountered and smacked down a horned devil, which had half the party fleeing in terror and the other half either invisible, kanchoing, or both. What a lark! And onwards they went to the elven village.

A peaceful and boring village however... Sil and Michael got smashed with some elves, Sil told some wild lies, information was drunkenly gathered, and some people actually slept. (Bah!) In the morning they headed up the cliff with some helpful fly spells and entered a Big Mysterious Caverny Tunnel. It went down and down and at the bottom was a very unnaturally smooth wall. Michael knocked on it before Ezel pointed out that it was an illusion, and was actually gold scaled flesh. Much to Michael's embarrassment... The "wall" rumbled, pulled away, and a very large dragon face looked at them with irritation.

The dragon took on the form of an elven woman to converse with the party and it eventually came about that this was Sil's mother. Though it took some people longer to get it than others. She told the party about the Wailing Night and the way the planes "broke" in a way, and how the fiends had gained control of several items important to dragon-kind, artifacts with the power to control them. She quizzed them to see if she could trust them, then took most of a day to ponder it. Finally she made up her mind and told them that the sphere was located in the Abyss, somewhere on the first five levels. She then asked them if there was anything they needed that she could supply them with for their quest (omg hoard) and thus the run ended.

Run 2 -- 12/12/2005

Run summary, anyone?

• Presents from Sil's mom
• Zip back to Capitol
• Start travel towards raptoran village (for guide)
• Meet Thame, who was waiting for Oraine
• Side-trip- find Oraine & Querca battling a shator
• BATTLE! (Michael gets hilariously snotted)
• Introduction of peoples, Thame leaves after heated debate (someone raises an eyebrow!)
• On to next town (dark), Oraine & Sil stay up drinking as per usual
• In morning, Sil goes to get her kama identified - hilarious episode of unwise sorcerer!
• Continue on to raptoran village, through orchard, when - DEATH FROM THE SKY!
• El's SUPER AWESOME DIPLOMACY BOMB saves the day
• Taken to village, where people (nocturnal) are asleep, Sunspeaker Gararae and little brother show around village while Michael plays with the Storm Talons
• Run ends as evening falls

I suppose I should write this, I have all night anyway. Unlike those sleepers...

Sil's mother gave us gifts to help prepare for our journey. Sil received a kama that works well on evil creatures (oh great, another weapon for Sil to slice with) and a ring (an even better way for Sil to implode the universe.) The others mainly got more instruments of destruction of some sort, and I received a staff that would protect us from scrying during the night. Good, I don't have to cast that spell every night. Sil couldn't think of much to say to her mother, so we left early. I don't really understand the mother-child relationship, but it's just like how I don't understand scent.

Anyway, I teleport people to the capital and we head out towards the raptoran village. There is a guide who can get us to the place we need to go to get the item we need.

Part-way up the road, we meet a panther of some sort. Well, more like a Mhunntir. It was actually Thame, Oraine's brother. He was looking for her for over a day, and seemed quite worried about it. Brother-Sister love, now THAT I understand. We decided to help him.

And then I saw the problem. A shator was attacking Oraine, and what looked like a tree with armor on. A shator, of all things. Disgust incarnate. Its tiny wings cannot support its hide, and it likes to summon Faratsus (more filth!) and spit slime on everyone. The spit is paralytic, and it weighed Michael down to the ground. It also nailed Ellowyn, but he was OK.

Once Sil, Jer, and the rest of the Murder Brigade arrived, we cleaned things up rather quickly. Hmmm.... why are so many powerful demons and devils appearing across the land?

The tree's name is Querca. She likes to curse in Sylvan (tied in wussiness with Celestial) very slowly. She is also one of those druid types, who believes in the forces of nature, hates arcane studies, and hugs cute puppies. Her grove was under attack by demons, and she is coming with us to study them. Ah, the search for intelligence: THAT we can agree upon. Thame and Oraine had a rather heated argument before Thame left. Hell breaks loose when a Mhunntir raises an eyebrow.

We reached a town by nightfall and spent the night there. I sat next to Querca (she planted herself in the courtyard...interesting) and I read my books. Sil came back from the mage guild, excited about having her new shiny weapon identified. She was halfway up the stairs before she ran back down, mad as a hornet. The mage tried to cheat her out of her weapon. First he lied and claimed it was cursed. Sil, naturally, relied on brute force to squeeze the truth out of him. When she stormed back in, she demanded...you know, she was real bossy. Luckily the sorcerer was a fool, so he got what he deserved.

Anyway, we travelled and saw a cliffside village. As we approached, we were attacked by raptorans. More specifically, it seems we came at the worst time possible: The village military was on training exercises, and they thought Michael (the winged one, sheesh. Don't they have good eyesight or something?) was under attack. They also don't like werewolves, so Jer received the blunt of the war chief's opening charge (quite impressive, really.) At any rate, El, Michael, and I managed to call out for a ceasefire (Ellowyn really. He's quite the speaker. Sorcerers...)

The raptorans are a nocturnal race, so we spent the day with their sunspeaker, Gararae. He was an excellent tour guide, and I learned many things about the raptorans. His little brother was poking around (almost knocked my hat off...) but El managed to entertain him (*sigh* sorcerers...)

We are currently resting in the waiting room. We can speak to the guide later tonight. I really don't know how we're going to survive in the Abyss. This group enjoys to smash first and ask questions later. And I'm sure Michael will blend right in with the demons.

Run 3 -- 2/2006

This time I shall be keeping notes on our travels, as opposed to lich-boy. This group needs more of a non-animal-centric view anyway. Ahem.

Well, another exciting outing with my new allies. This time I was mercifully not covered in demon excretions. No, we just decided to take a merry jaunt across the planes.

Perhaps I should go back a bit.

We spent a day with the raptorans. They sure do have nice orchards and groves. Very decent people. After a short rest the guide we'd been sent to find met us. We managed to convince him to lead us to the infernal plane where we may find this whatchamacallit that the dragons have misplaced.

Well, at least I shall be able to gather the knowledge I need while there.

Anyway. Evatheef or whatever his name is pulled out this twirly shiny thing with many rings and used it to plan our route. Ezel looked like a bee spying an apple blossom. Magi. I ask you. After deducing the best path, we set out and soon were on the Astral Plane. The lich (did I mention Ezel is a lich?! Because he is. At least he hasn't tried to...do any lichy stuff..yet.) and the sorcerer were having a grand old time zipping around like bloody dragonflies, until this great big pirate ship came out of the clouds. A Githyanki pirate ship.

The ensuing battle was unremarkable, but I feel I must mention a handful of things:

• Do not bother Sil if she ever seems overly grumpy. Well, more grumpy than usual.
• The same goes for Jeralyn.
• Liches are good for herding.
• I love spell-casting in the astral plane!
• Next time I summon an ally in the astral plane, it should be smarter and therefore more than a glorified burning target for siege weaponry.

And of course Evatheef spent the whole time hovering at a safe distance, with those red-and-gray dyed wings of his spread wide. I suppose that guides have inter-planar neutrality... Must be nice.

So now we had ourselves transport. Ellowyn used his charm on the ship, which is actually some semi-intelligent construct, and took over as its captain. He's named the ship 'Kevin'. Despite that, his mind must be something amazing, because we just sped along to the next portal. I spent the journey healing us all, then trying my best to repair the wounds of battle with my woodcarving kit. The rest of these people went exploring in the hold and found some valuables. Sil was very excited about the gold, and Ezel had himself a nice time with a bat cloak. We parked the ship in this... thing... I am not sure what it was, exactly. A mass of three rocky bodies in repose. Evatheef says that they are the remains of dead gods. Creepy as anything, but the ship'll be safe.

And with that we entered the plane of air. Leaf and bud, I hate this place. There is no down, and nothing growing, practically! I think I was nauseous the whole trip to this... little blob of dirt and rock. Thankfully, it had grass. Lovely lovely grass. I hugged it.

You know... if all the planes are going to be like this, my spells to call nature to our aid are not going to be of much use. What a pity...

We were having a nice rest on the grass when Sil and Oraine ran up and informed us there was a green dragon with many shiny things. Well, of course there are shiny things, it's a dragon. At any rate, we all got ourselves together and destroyed this evil creature. There were shiny things to divvy up, which was nice I guess. I however was mighty pleased with some delightful scrolls... Mmm... Ahem! Sil found an silver egg in amongst the green dragon's clutch. If I didn't know better, I'd say her maternal instincts just became active.

And after all this excitement, we set off for whatever passes as a proper settlement in this benighted plane. I hope we can finally get some decent rest there.

Run 4 -- 4/16/2006

Everyone needs to know this: Dragon eggs are cute. Like, really cute. Shiny and cuddly and just cute! They're just the right size to hold in your arms and feel like there's nothing else in the world that matters ... I guess that'd be my maternal instinct waking up. Freaky. Dad never mentioned how cute I was as an egg. I guess I had to stay in the fire, being all fire based and stuff, so he didn't get to cuddle me until I hatched, but still! I expect that when I have kids, I won't have eggs. Damn. Eggs don't scream and cry and eat and poop. I think humanoids get screwed in this regard.

Anyway, away from what was once the green dragon's clutch (those eggs were not nearly so cute or shiny) and on to a trading post. Merchants everywhere! But no shopping just yet. We had a couple of immediate concerns: little Silvery's parents. I know we should find them--they're probably worried sick about this little one--but I also want to hold on to her (I think it's a her, but maybe I'm just projecting) for a little bit longer. So, to the inn! Seriously, most of the fun of coming back to civilization is right in front of a nice bar. Again with the bonus points for having eggs! No mixing of the circulatory system. I'm not sure I can picture how much I'll have to cut back on drinking if I ever decide to have a little one. Bah.

So Ezel went to hide with his books, Quirky took root in the courtyard, Jir tucked himself into a corner (duh) and Oraine drank with me. Also, Mikey and Ell went out to hit the town, hopefully not literally. Much drinking ensued, as is our wont. I kept the little one with me. Eventually the two pretty boys came back with a bunch of singing goat-taurs who were happy to join us in our attempt to run the bar dry. It was awesome. I told them some great story about single-handedly defeating a set of five chromatic dragons and rescuing a whole slew of gold and silver eggs. They set it to song. I wish I'd taken the time to write it down. Huh. Maybe Ezel did.

Also, Evath knows Draconic drinking songs and taught me some. He rules.

The next day, I tucked little Silvery into bed with a big pile of gold coins to keep her company and we all went off to try to barter some new stuff and information. Apparently we have some big sword that's awesome but no one wants to use. Meh. But fear not--I kept careful track of how much is in our party treasure pot and who gets what share. It's good.

Saula, the tall merchant guy, spoke Celestial and Draconic but not Common, so Jir was moody ... but then again. Yeah. Anyway, he had so many awesome shiny things! Damn I want to spend my share of the pot... maybe on the way back. Oh, so shiny. Ezel and Quirky got some scrolls, and then the concept of "protection from evil" came up. You know, 'cause we're going to the Infernal Plane (woooOOOoooo.) Yeah. What a thing. But really, I got a sweet prot-from-evil ring. Saula was pushing the dragon stuff at me, but damn can I not resist anything shiny with a dragon theme. It's sad.

So we start putting all this stuff together and he pulls out this deck of cards with a "wanna play? 100 gold a pull." I drink--I don't gamble. I know what a deck of many things is, and I'm not taking the risk. Mikey and most of the others were similarly not tempted. Jir pulled a card--whoops. Maybe we should've told him what was going on, but he moves fast too. It didn't really seem to hurt him, though. He still looked grumpy, but handed over 100 gold when it was done, no argument. I guess that was kinda weird.

And then, Oraine. Oh, that fool. She pulled a card, and POOF! No more magic stuff. Wow, that sucked. I smacked her one for that. There went her share of the treasure, re-equipping her. I swear, sometimes... at least she looks guilty, knowing she's costing so much cash.

We sold one of the Githyanki swords in the back room in trade for a bunch of stuff--Saula was impressed with it. Didn't tell him there were two more--no ones business but ours, right?--and he sent us off to his cousin to get weapons and armor. Wait, first we asked him about silver dragons that might be missing eggs. He took a small down-payment and said he'd find me the information. I took that out of my share of the treasure. Silvery is my responsibility for now.

More shopping. I like shopping, even if it is for stuff I'll never use. The big awesome sword of awesome got traded in for a few holy weapons and new armor for Oraine. We saw the goat-taurs again. They're heading out for some grand adventure, slaying evil, something like that. They said they wouldn't be able to party too much that night, and I was a bit let down, until they affirmed that it would be just like the night before. Good enough for me! With luck I'll be meeting silvery's (real) parents tomorrow so I might want to be mostly sober. So, back to the inn for a nap on my treasure and then more drinking that evening. I like those guys.

Saula came through the next day. He gave us directions to a pair of silver dragons that had lost an egg and were close by. We traveled most of the morning and got there with almost no interruptions. There was one little air elemental, but Mikey gave it some feathers and it went away. Mikey's really liking this plane of air thing. He zips around like a hummingbird. It's kind of cute, actually. Quirky is not liking it so much, but then again, she's a tree. I can't really blame her on this one.

The silver dragons live in this big castle. One quick flash of the egg to the front guards and they came bounding up, loudly. It was their egg. They're young adults and she's their first (they think it's a girl too, though they'd be just as happy with a boy) so they were weeping with joy when we gave her back. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Then they fed us. Oh, dragon feast. Meat, booze, more meat, more booze... it was good. Very good. So we got to talking about our quest...

Turns out that the orb we're after is not the only one missing. There are 10 of them--one for each chromatic and metallic dragon kind--and they're all missing. Yipes. We're after the gold one (thanks, mom) but you can use that to find the other one. Mirenuth and Seth (Mommy and Daddy Silver Dragon, respectively) mentioned something about an expansive library and Ezel was so gone. I didn't realize that undead mages could move so fast. One would think the combination of being both a skeleton and a wussy little mage would equal "slow" but apparently not when there are musty books involved. Reminded me of Zahn for a minute.

Back on track, though. Apparently, Mom was the one guarding the gold orb about 200 years ago. I'm guessing that the big war that landed her on dad's doorstep was what lost it. Each orb can be used to control dragons of the corresponding type, and the holders of the orbs can communicate with each other. We're not sure yet what it'll do to half-dragons or other dragon relations, but I'm pretty sure we're going to find out.

We had a mildly amusing discussion about what would happen if I were being controlled by some fiend through the orb and turned on the party. I suppose it would be more amusing if it were purely hypothetical. This is probably why Mom sent me instead of going on her own--she knows that she can be controlled by it, but doesn't know if I will. I really hope not. With the weapons she gave me, there's a decent chance I could chop someone's head off, and then I'd feel horrible. Well, except for Ezel. He could just put it back.

Actually, he's undead. I'd just smash him into fine dust with my fists. Eeesh...

I really need to get these disturbing thoughts under control. Maybe more meditation ... on top of the big pile of treasure! Mir and Seth gave it to us as a reward for bringing little Silvery back to them. I wouldn't have asked for it, but it would be rude to turn it down. I really hope that we come back this way when we're coming home and that she's hatched by then. I want to see what she looks like.