Deserts, Dungeons and Dwarves
Summary
Adventure: Deserts, Dungeons and Dwarves
GM: Helen Saggers
Session: Summer 807 wk
Night: Thursdays
Level: Low
- Party - We have room for another low player.
- Menolly the Pacifistic Earth mage & her dog Briar; Party Leader & Scribe
- Sooty the fire mage; Mil Sci
- Sau Rus
- Barendar
- Cassie Kris
- A Character/Player
Mission
- Problem
- The Settlers of Paradise want to find some Dwarves and open trade with them.
- Obstacles
- Another has a the monoploy on the existing trade between the Dwarves and Humans.
- The Settlers don't know where the dwarves are, how many there are, what sort of reception strangers may get, or what else is out there in the desert.
- The Settlers might be mages but they are not adventurers, the few people that they do have with the skills for this job, are needed elsewhere.
- Solution
- Hire adventurers from The Guild, to find the Dwarves, and open Diplomatic Relations in preparation for future trade.
The Adventure
(as written in Menolly's diary journal)
Summer - Meadow - Day 1 Hired today by Fred and his brother, Ron, from Paradise to travel to Sol to locate where the trading dwarf comes from, and where his source of goodies comes from. They are especially interested in the metal goodies, and hoping to find someone with skills in mining and refining metals, and making things so Paradise can gain some new skills. They are also interested in what's out in the world. The usual explore and report back. I think it will be fun exploring a new part of Sol, and hopefully I can earn some more time to learn from the folks in Paradise and maybe a new puppy :) Briar needs a companion, not to mention the puppies I need. (a doodle of Briar's head) Anyway, we went to one of the Guild meeting rooms and so did some other Guild members I hadn't meet before, and some I had. There is SauRus, with his dead things. There is Sooty, who likes setting things on fire. The two new people are Barendar, which also likes setting things on fire, especially swords apparantly. And Cassie Kris, who can do things with her mind. Fred and Ron explained their job, and that the ship The SeaDragon would be ready to take us to Pasifika in the early morning. The also explained how the trading dwarf goes through a bunch of portals, on his back from the place Paradise people meet him now to trade. And according to the camels that travel with him (camels and mules) that he goes into through a desert, they travel with him for that bit, and then at the other side the camels are left by a river and the dwarf heads off with just the mules. Hmmm, it seems no-one talked to the mules to find out what they knew. Anyway, so we need to go through this portal, travel the desert, and then see what we can find. So that means we will need desert gear, and none of us can create water... fun! So we will have to carry it all. We will also need winter wear gear again to go through Frigidia, via Palaeolithica, via Pasifika, to get to Sol. Much carrying of stuff. I'm so going to need to train Briar to carry doggie saddlebags when we get back. He's big enough for them. We then sorted out jobs and gear and enchantments we would need to this job. Hehe no-one wanted the job of Party Leader, so I'm it... blimey. I hope things go ok. My journal notes will also be the offical Scribe Notes again. I really must finish copying those other journal entries and give them to the Library, I keep forgetting. We then went shopping for desert clothing. I also went and got a Greater on me, and one on Briar. The others got one of the Guild to do theirs. All packed for our trip tomorrow. Anyway, night time.
Day 2 I hate early starts, at least I can slack off a bit on the boat, there isn't much to do really. We have about 16 days worth of sailing to do, so we will practise some military moves for if we end up in combat, Sooty is a hard task master in that respect. And Barendar is going to help us all learn a bit more Dwarf, just incase we need it. Always useful I guess. Much water...
Day 3 More sea, more training. Gave Briar a good walk around the boat a few times. We practised some commands of "follow" and "stay" but I don't think he sees the point yet. He keeps wanting to know why, which is fair enough. I guess it would work better in a real situation. He ended up with his head hanging over the edge of the boat, enjoying the breeze as we sailed... he looked so silly. (doodle of dog drooling over edge of boat, with ears flapping in the breeze)
Day 4 to 17 More of the same, more training, more watching water, more yacking dwarf. We can see land ahead so will probably make Pasifika tomorrow.
Day 18 Yay, land at last. We arrived tonight at the port on Pasifika. The palm trees have grown a bit since the last time I was here, and more greenery everywhere. Looks nice. Poor Briar was a bit wobbly on his feet when we got off the boat. Looked drunk, silly dog! We follow Sooty and Fred to an Inn they know, as it was getting late and would be better to head to the portal in the morning. A nice bed, that's not moving. I so need a proper bath...
Day 19 We headed off to the portal hill, I vaguely remembered the direction from last time, but was good to have Fred and Jon along. There are a number of stone arches on the hill, and our one is the one with the 13 standing stones and an arch. Briar didn't like the portal at all, he said it felt yucky. Interesting, I'll have to look at the arch when we come back to see if there is anything weird about it. Anyway, we popped through, arrived in Palaeolithica, their portal is also 13 standing stones, although not all are standing. And it's weird how the grass in the circle is short, and there is nothing there. But outside the circle the grass is really long, I mean people high, would lose Briar very quickly... also means there are many things that hide in the grass. Last time I was here they told us about huge cats with big teeth, nasty sounding. Our plan is for Sooty to cast a bunch of wildfire spells on us, I think that's what it's called, where we can run over the top of the grass really fast. And he's going to ride this fire thing, and carry Briar with him. Sound like fun, I can't run really fast at the best of times, so this will be interesting. He's sitting in a bonfire atm so we have to wait till he's ready before heading off. Wow, that was very cool. We ran most of the way. Had to pause while a couple of the spells were recast and then off we went again. We arrived at the river where the island with the other portal is, and over we went. That was pretty fun too. We have decided to wait here tonight, and then head through the portal in the morning. Last time I was here we had a huge Rhino come visit. I wonder if anything will visit us tonight? Sleep time.
Day 20 I hate being cold. Brrr. We went through the portal this morning to Frigidia, travelled along the tunnels, through the cliff, up over the glacier, through more tunnels, past that dubious other portal, the one that's all blackened,(doodle of the Stargate-like portal) and more tunnels. Get to that hidious cliff, we had to haul poor Briar up on ropes, and climb up ourselves. More tunnels, then that dodgey looking rope bridge, that was not fun, more tunnels and finally the cavern with the portal to Sol.(doodle of the square shaped portal) We found some bones in the cavern with the portal, was abit odd so SauRus and I had a look to see what we could see. Seemed the bones were from the Omega Plane and belonged to some dwarf-like people, might check that out on the way back. We headed through the portal and ended up in Sol. Yay, nice and warm. I checked with Briar about the portals we went through today and asked if he disliked those portals too, but he said they were fine, didn't feel like that other one. I even perved at the portals to see what they look like, aura-wise, didn't notice anything weird. But at least I now have something to compare to the one on Pasifika to see what is different. We talked to Fred and Jon about needing some trading gifts to take with us, so Fred and Sooty went into Paradise to grab some things before we head back through the Sol portal to where the desert is. They grabbed some wine, so more liquid to carry, yay... not... we decided we will head off tomorrow so made camp. I wonder if I'll see any unicorns again tonight. They were very cute.
Day 21 We get all summer/desert geared up, and load the waterskins up, note the return address on the portal so we can get back here, and speak the "travel passage" words and press the "sandplace" button. Portal works and we don't get jumped... always a good start. The portal is near an oasis, I guess you could call it. To the west is all sand, and to the east there is greenery, and water signs.
Day 22 Travel over sand.
Day 23 More sand travelling.
Day 24 more sand travelling.
Day 25 more sand travelling. Quote from Sooty "I'm considering adding to the breeding stock of the lizards!". Find dung from grass eaters, maybe camels or mules, we are heading in the right direction... we think.
Day 26 Crystal Ball, see village at edge of grassy area, not that far from where we are, end of desert, yay. See birds circling, go to investigate, dead ponys, small people halflings? tracks of others, seems an ambush, dropped rocks on travellers, follow tracks, Sooty gets shot at. Follow Halfling tracks, find their camp, we make camp nearby, we palay, find out others are probably goblins, we ask about dwarfs, they agree to let us travel back with them.
Day 27 Travel togheter, come to rocky oasis, halflings argue about way around, short way through caves, long way a week around rocks. Caves have big bugs... we offer help in fighting off "big bugs", discover big bugs are scorpions... we prep everyone for combat, Sooty and Barendar do lots of flamey things, we head in, 10 halflings, 6 of us, get most of the way through, hit really big scorpions, Sooty's firey swords used by halflings seem to work, we fight, we win (some halflings hurt) and we make it out of the caves and collapse, make camp, and heal up.
Day 28
Day 29
Day 30
Day 1 of Breeze
(to be continued)
Party Information
Watch Order
Provisional
Based on who's likely to be doing more daily casting.
Cycle 1
Menolly(Hour or so before midnight), Sooty(Over midnight), Cassie Kris(Few hours after midnight)
Cycle 2
Barendar(to just after midnight), Sau'Rus(from just before midnight)
Daily Spells
Strength of Stone(Rk 6); Sau'Rus, Barendar
Armours of Earth(Rk 6); Sau'Rus, Barendar
Fireproofing(Rk 9); Sooty
Regular Combat Powerups
Weapon of Flame(Rk 0 or 7); Barendar, Others as Required.
Fire Armour(Rk 6); Barendar, Sau'Rus
Marching Order
Standard order for travel and combat
Travel
Sau'Rus
Cassie Kris; Menolly; Sooty
Barendar
Combat
Sau'Rus; Barendar
Sooty; Cassie Kris
Menolly
