Fengate/ Piedmont/ Rosewood or a long ass drive....
Larping, it's cut.
This Thursday was yet another step towards my long road on insanity. Thursday Chris met me in Columbus and we loaded up my car and headed out to Zanesville to pick up Mike. The car was nicely jammed and it was getting toward sunset as we headed south on 77. I've driven this route before and it's gorgeous. The VA mountains remind me of pictures of Scotland. Unfortunately we didn't get to see to much of the scenery being all dark like, I was introduced to the comedy of Lewis Black on the trip though. Traffic was light though and I was good driving the whole way down.
We got into Derek's about 3 am (after a few wrong turns) and crashed. I was up early, silly internal clock, and we all got up an on the road by noonish and stopped off at Derek's office to say hi to Lew and pick some stuff up. We were thinking about putting some of our stuff in Lew's car but he had a full load of people. I did get to see his and Al's place and meet their roommate. :-)
We headed south by about 4 and got on site about 6ish. The site is small, this is not a bad thing at all. There is a tavern building and 4 cabins with beds plus a bathhouse. The first night since the tavern was "burned" down we tarped off an area outside and the tavern was the mod building. Nothing was very far away, tired me approves! (and the lazy me)
Friday night mercenaries attacked the town, all humans. We captured and interrogated three of them and I recruited them to the Korenia Black information acquisition association. There were a few frustrating moments between the ward and the circle. Malak kept an iron grip on the ward
key IG and occasionally wandered off with me inside the ward unable to get out. Eventually everyone got out and I released all of my birdies off in the wild to report back. Malak and Koren got caught up on some of the politics and progress and ran into Blue who was happily intoxicated and hanging on Dorian's arm. They didn't want to purify her so Koren helped get her to bed.
In the mean time Sir Roc was planning a assault on the guard tower in the city. Malak ended up off with Blue in the ward and Koren joined the second ranks of the shield wall. It didn't last, we had a few people attacking the flanks and rear so I ended up helping on that side and dodging death spells. Blargh. Dead is bad. We were fighting around a firepit (and had a scare when someone hit their headed and called for a medic. I do not fool around on medic calls, I ran and fetched the medic. It was handled by the time we got there, (sorry to have woken you up Chris). We finally fought to a standstill and what we thought was a bewildered victory. I went off with Shiva and Ifrit to check for traps and ran into more soldiers. We were out of life spells nearly so retreat was the word of the night. We walked back to town and found the orphanage
burning. After a quick assessment that letting it burn wasn't going to set the city on fire we checked for survivors and beat down a few Rosewoodians then Alric and Koren tracked orphans down and got them out of the city to the shanty town. Koren was determined that she was not letting those kids have to fend for themselves on the street, especially in a war zone.
It was late when she get everyone rounded up and no one in the ward would wake up. I slapped on my head band and dropped my character sheet and stuff next to Alric with the IG threat of bother me in the night and I will rip limbs off, and went to bed oog. Thus ended the first night.
The next morning I managed to quelch the 7 am's and sleep till 8-9ish. I showered and IG got let into and out of the ward by MOM. Koren decided to check around the city and walls. I hid my weapons and made my self up all peasanty (I forgot the black licorice to make my teeth look bad though, silly little details) and went off to listen and NPC for a while. People were upset that the adventurers had failed to hold the guard tower and saying that both sides had allowed people to use chaos. I set some counter rumors up to spread good PR and reported my findings to Roc and Malak.
Meanwhile Malak's Guildmaster came in and had a mission for him. We needed to go through the labyrinth of catacombs under the city and find a key. The reped it by putting a maze in a wooded area and telling us to find the maze. Rosewood soldiers were out in force so we had some hard combat as well but we found it and charged through the maze. Tovolia spotted the box and off we went to town fighting the whole way. It was a battle. We forced their hand as long as we could keeping to the wood where our footing was firmer and keeping them on the sand but eventually it was both parties in the full sand with the chaos that entailed. Must get more dodges! (After finishing the 3 masteries Koren is working on... thank the gods rogues are built to be broken).
After that it got stupidly hot. I have done faire in 90+ temps no ac for hours but after the last battle I gave up and admitted, I was getting overheated. Arie/Blue suggested swimming. I brought my new one piece suit (and that is a whole 'nother rant. Seriously when did the only bathing suits for woman that need more then a Band-Aid become the ones with skirts? Took me ages to find a suit that nothing would bounce out of when I ya know actually swim. /rant) Swimming was good and the overall cool down helped later in the day, although the huge bruises from catching my self on the pier corner getting into the water was less amusing.
We got back from the water and waited about a bit. While waiting a shady figure came in who offered to sell us papers to make false lineage documents. Malak and I got him off a bit and I waylayed him and liberated the paper. We dropped a forget on him with a you were compensated with some information for Vivian and proceeded to muck about to find out how to get a copy of papers that we could forge from. By the end of the night I had duplicated Malak's papers with a sister's name and they were set except for the seal (no issues on that one) and the signature. I would have finished the signature except it was too dark in the cabin to see the trace impressions. Koren's doing up a whole set though just in case. The evening's plots gave plenty of incentive for that.
We had dinner then raided the guard house again. This time we had an advantage. The key we pulled from the labyrinth could open portals in the city. We launched a strike force from below the guard house using my rope to haul people up and took them by surprise. We pushed them outside of the door (I was barefoot for this battle because the sand was playing merry hell on any footwear I wore, which is where the hand scrap and foot bruises came from). I ended up on the right flank side and we had pushed out of the doorway. I spotted a hole in the defenses and got behind the entire enemy front line and proceeded to start backstabbing the heck out of it. I think I smacked on three then the battle was done for the moment. We formed a shield wall at the door (I wanted to trap or wizard lock it but the latter was vetoed by the biata and the former by the Rosewoodian's not waiting for me to have enough time to trap it. How horribly rude. :-) Victory was ours though and we held the line through the second wave. Lord Flynn of Rosewood jogged past us with troops following and we had won the day. Yay! Back to town to rest up and eat strawberries.
As it cooled down I changed to my charcoals and got back into the armor (although eep I ripped another fricking hole in my linen capris! Must patch it soon.) Malak had invited me on a raid to get a book from the library. It was a sneaky mission and OOG I was nervous since Koren's been a loaner character till lately and people don't tend to ask me to do this sort of thing. It went well though. I toed it (damn hard boot heels) and we pulled it off quietly. There was a touch of a bad moment there when we had objective one but not two and one member wanted to hare off alone. We ended up with both objectives met and no one the wiser. Evidently the muttering "stupid Rosewoodian" guard was one of Koren's flock, although I didn't end up close enough to see. Not sure that it would have made a difference or not.
With the book and key Malak and crew had a good path to the city and were able to turn the cities defenses on so to speak. Lord Flynn came in and informed us that they needed us to strike at the citidal in the center of town. He made an impassioned speech about not killing Vivian and letting him talk to her first. Earlier we had clues that there was another traitor besides her in the mix. Flynn's speech made me extremely suspicious. There were a few moments in the battle going up to Vivian's that I stuck myself behind him just in case. Things got nuts in the end and I lost him in the press of people since the back had a sudden influx of shadow creatures.
Vivian was able to escape and Malak, Alric and I (and someone else) got Flynn's troops. We headed back into town where waves of undead came out and Lord Flynn cloistered himself in the tavern alone. He was writing a letter. Just about 2:30ish something came up the path. It was a panthergast and Koren decided (yeah I'm dumb) to see if it was a human one. 1 Arcane death later I learned it was. Things got nuts after that. People were screaming I caught a "get out of here" so I ducked behind the tavern where I knew there was another group of adventurers. I let them know what was going on and they looked at me and said well nothing we can do and didn't move. Great. And the Panthergast was following me. I tried to make a run around the tavern back to the people I knew, the NPC who was playing the Pathergast... Ryland aka Calipher. I am surprised I made it to the corner. I got hit with two imprisons, the second one hit (dodge on the first) as I was tripping in the sand. I ended up imprisoned looking down at the sand. Ryland told me OOG he was sorry (of which there was no need, stupid should hurt and it was a fair battle he won.) and drew a circle in the sand. He cast a COP and waited. Once there was a scrap of audience (from what I could hear) he killing blowed me and started making demands. Everyone had to back away from the circle. He wanted Flynn. I was about 3 minutes into the death count when they worked it out that he would drop the circle and Flynn would enter it. He did and the panthergast lifed me. Flynn looked at me and told me not to move and to follow a noble order. Koren was able to slowly stand up and I think Ryland could see the murder in her eyes. He paralyzed Koren and obliterated Flynn. Koren watched him dissipate knowing if she could just move she could life him with the potion on her pack. Argh... so frustrating. Before Flynn died he shoved a letter into her pouch. Once he dissipated and reformed the Panthergast let the circle down and moved away. Someone unparalyzed me and I grabbed my weapons and took off. Koren was furious with herself and it. Screaming rage which she took out on anyone that got in her way. Poor Ifrit, he kept trying to keep her alive and she was in all out "what ever it takes" blind rage.
The panthergast ended up in a COP outside the cabin we were at and Koren did what she does best, she grabbed the ballista and hauled it out side. It was futile IG, it wasn't magic and I couldn't make it magical with out the cantrip but for useless dramatic gestures... oh yeah. (And hopefully slightly humorous). After the panthergast went down, mostly due to Akron and Dorian and the Count, I remembered the letter and Malak and I read it. I was right Flynn was the traitor and he confessed to it. We brought the confession to the Count and then dissuaded the mystics from trying to bring him back off the long road. They carried the body to fire pit and set some pine straw and twigs on fire to make a good illusion. I was delayed go there because I was talking OOG with Nate and Michelle (Glowing glowing glowing I had a wonderful event!) but came in time to cut off a token mourning lock (like a dozen hairs where it wouldn't show in the back 'cause I am not totally dumb OOG) and added it to the pyre.
Koren's in an odd head space again. Flynn sacrificed himself to save her, but he was a traitor. She isn't sure what to make of that. She blames herself a lot. She was already lost coming in and looking for something to wreck vengeance on since the Vershonrae are gone and she was not able to exact revenge on them herself. Her goals were to free Rosewood from the siege so she could get the rest of Malak's mind back together. Malak's presence being needed for that. Now she is not sure. Getting Malak's mind back together will dispel that obligation and give her some freedom to wander again. But Vivian is out there and Koren wants her dead, blaming her for the choice right now. It's a muddle and one that won't be quickly solved. But now I am past time to pack up my computer and start moving to my mother's house. Adieu and farewell and if you need me in the mean time... call my cell. (Oh ye gods I'm hook line and sinker now).
This Thursday was yet another step towards my long road on insanity. Thursday Chris met me in Columbus and we loaded up my car and headed out to Zanesville to pick up Mike. The car was nicely jammed and it was getting toward sunset as we headed south on 77. I've driven this route before and it's gorgeous. The VA mountains remind me of pictures of Scotland. Unfortunately we didn't get to see to much of the scenery being all dark like, I was introduced to the comedy of Lewis Black on the trip though. Traffic was light though and I was good driving the whole way down.
We got into Derek's about 3 am (after a few wrong turns) and crashed. I was up early, silly internal clock, and we all got up an on the road by noonish and stopped off at Derek's office to say hi to Lew and pick some stuff up. We were thinking about putting some of our stuff in Lew's car but he had a full load of people. I did get to see his and Al's place and meet their roommate. :-)
We headed south by about 4 and got on site about 6ish. The site is small, this is not a bad thing at all. There is a tavern building and 4 cabins with beds plus a bathhouse. The first night since the tavern was "burned" down we tarped off an area outside and the tavern was the mod building. Nothing was very far away, tired me approves! (and the lazy me)
Friday night mercenaries attacked the town, all humans. We captured and interrogated three of them and I recruited them to the Korenia Black information acquisition association. There were a few frustrating moments between the ward and the circle. Malak kept an iron grip on the ward
key IG and occasionally wandered off with me inside the ward unable to get out. Eventually everyone got out and I released all of my birdies off in the wild to report back. Malak and Koren got caught up on some of the politics and progress and ran into Blue who was happily intoxicated and hanging on Dorian's arm. They didn't want to purify her so Koren helped get her to bed.
In the mean time Sir Roc was planning a assault on the guard tower in the city. Malak ended up off with Blue in the ward and Koren joined the second ranks of the shield wall. It didn't last, we had a few people attacking the flanks and rear so I ended up helping on that side and dodging death spells. Blargh. Dead is bad. We were fighting around a firepit (and had a scare when someone hit their headed and called for a medic. I do not fool around on medic calls, I ran and fetched the medic. It was handled by the time we got there, (sorry to have woken you up Chris). We finally fought to a standstill and what we thought was a bewildered victory. I went off with Shiva and Ifrit to check for traps and ran into more soldiers. We were out of life spells nearly so retreat was the word of the night. We walked back to town and found the orphanage
burning. After a quick assessment that letting it burn wasn't going to set the city on fire we checked for survivors and beat down a few Rosewoodians then Alric and Koren tracked orphans down and got them out of the city to the shanty town. Koren was determined that she was not letting those kids have to fend for themselves on the street, especially in a war zone.
It was late when she get everyone rounded up and no one in the ward would wake up. I slapped on my head band and dropped my character sheet and stuff next to Alric with the IG threat of bother me in the night and I will rip limbs off, and went to bed oog. Thus ended the first night.
The next morning I managed to quelch the 7 am's and sleep till 8-9ish. I showered and IG got let into and out of the ward by MOM. Koren decided to check around the city and walls. I hid my weapons and made my self up all peasanty (I forgot the black licorice to make my teeth look bad though, silly little details) and went off to listen and NPC for a while. People were upset that the adventurers had failed to hold the guard tower and saying that both sides had allowed people to use chaos. I set some counter rumors up to spread good PR and reported my findings to Roc and Malak.
Meanwhile Malak's Guildmaster came in and had a mission for him. We needed to go through the labyrinth of catacombs under the city and find a key. The reped it by putting a maze in a wooded area and telling us to find the maze. Rosewood soldiers were out in force so we had some hard combat as well but we found it and charged through the maze. Tovolia spotted the box and off we went to town fighting the whole way. It was a battle. We forced their hand as long as we could keeping to the wood where our footing was firmer and keeping them on the sand but eventually it was both parties in the full sand with the chaos that entailed. Must get more dodges! (After finishing the 3 masteries Koren is working on... thank the gods rogues are built to be broken).
After that it got stupidly hot. I have done faire in 90+ temps no ac for hours but after the last battle I gave up and admitted, I was getting overheated. Arie/Blue suggested swimming. I brought my new one piece suit (and that is a whole 'nother rant. Seriously when did the only bathing suits for woman that need more then a Band-Aid become the ones with skirts? Took me ages to find a suit that nothing would bounce out of when I ya know actually swim. /rant) Swimming was good and the overall cool down helped later in the day, although the huge bruises from catching my self on the pier corner getting into the water was less amusing.
We got back from the water and waited about a bit. While waiting a shady figure came in who offered to sell us papers to make false lineage documents. Malak and I got him off a bit and I waylayed him and liberated the paper. We dropped a forget on him with a you were compensated with some information for Vivian and proceeded to muck about to find out how to get a copy of papers that we could forge from. By the end of the night I had duplicated Malak's papers with a sister's name and they were set except for the seal (no issues on that one) and the signature. I would have finished the signature except it was too dark in the cabin to see the trace impressions. Koren's doing up a whole set though just in case. The evening's plots gave plenty of incentive for that.
We had dinner then raided the guard house again. This time we had an advantage. The key we pulled from the labyrinth could open portals in the city. We launched a strike force from below the guard house using my rope to haul people up and took them by surprise. We pushed them outside of the door (I was barefoot for this battle because the sand was playing merry hell on any footwear I wore, which is where the hand scrap and foot bruises came from). I ended up on the right flank side and we had pushed out of the doorway. I spotted a hole in the defenses and got behind the entire enemy front line and proceeded to start backstabbing the heck out of it. I think I smacked on three then the battle was done for the moment. We formed a shield wall at the door (I wanted to trap or wizard lock it but the latter was vetoed by the biata and the former by the Rosewoodian's not waiting for me to have enough time to trap it. How horribly rude. :-) Victory was ours though and we held the line through the second wave. Lord Flynn of Rosewood jogged past us with troops following and we had won the day. Yay! Back to town to rest up and eat strawberries.
As it cooled down I changed to my charcoals and got back into the armor (although eep I ripped another fricking hole in my linen capris! Must patch it soon.) Malak had invited me on a raid to get a book from the library. It was a sneaky mission and OOG I was nervous since Koren's been a loaner character till lately and people don't tend to ask me to do this sort of thing. It went well though. I toed it (damn hard boot heels) and we pulled it off quietly. There was a touch of a bad moment there when we had objective one but not two and one member wanted to hare off alone. We ended up with both objectives met and no one the wiser. Evidently the muttering "stupid Rosewoodian" guard was one of Koren's flock, although I didn't end up close enough to see. Not sure that it would have made a difference or not.
With the book and key Malak and crew had a good path to the city and were able to turn the cities defenses on so to speak. Lord Flynn came in and informed us that they needed us to strike at the citidal in the center of town. He made an impassioned speech about not killing Vivian and letting him talk to her first. Earlier we had clues that there was another traitor besides her in the mix. Flynn's speech made me extremely suspicious. There were a few moments in the battle going up to Vivian's that I stuck myself behind him just in case. Things got nuts in the end and I lost him in the press of people since the back had a sudden influx of shadow creatures.
Vivian was able to escape and Malak, Alric and I (and someone else) got Flynn's troops. We headed back into town where waves of undead came out and Lord Flynn cloistered himself in the tavern alone. He was writing a letter. Just about 2:30ish something came up the path. It was a panthergast and Koren decided (yeah I'm dumb) to see if it was a human one. 1 Arcane death later I learned it was. Things got nuts after that. People were screaming I caught a "get out of here" so I ducked behind the tavern where I knew there was another group of adventurers. I let them know what was going on and they looked at me and said well nothing we can do and didn't move. Great. And the Panthergast was following me. I tried to make a run around the tavern back to the people I knew, the NPC who was playing the Pathergast... Ryland aka Calipher. I am surprised I made it to the corner. I got hit with two imprisons, the second one hit (dodge on the first) as I was tripping in the sand. I ended up imprisoned looking down at the sand. Ryland told me OOG he was sorry (of which there was no need, stupid should hurt and it was a fair battle he won.) and drew a circle in the sand. He cast a COP and waited. Once there was a scrap of audience (from what I could hear) he killing blowed me and started making demands. Everyone had to back away from the circle. He wanted Flynn. I was about 3 minutes into the death count when they worked it out that he would drop the circle and Flynn would enter it. He did and the panthergast lifed me. Flynn looked at me and told me not to move and to follow a noble order. Koren was able to slowly stand up and I think Ryland could see the murder in her eyes. He paralyzed Koren and obliterated Flynn. Koren watched him dissipate knowing if she could just move she could life him with the potion on her pack. Argh... so frustrating. Before Flynn died he shoved a letter into her pouch. Once he dissipated and reformed the Panthergast let the circle down and moved away. Someone unparalyzed me and I grabbed my weapons and took off. Koren was furious with herself and it. Screaming rage which she took out on anyone that got in her way. Poor Ifrit, he kept trying to keep her alive and she was in all out "what ever it takes" blind rage.
The panthergast ended up in a COP outside the cabin we were at and Koren did what she does best, she grabbed the ballista and hauled it out side. It was futile IG, it wasn't magic and I couldn't make it magical with out the cantrip but for useless dramatic gestures... oh yeah. (And hopefully slightly humorous). After the panthergast went down, mostly due to Akron and Dorian and the Count, I remembered the letter and Malak and I read it. I was right Flynn was the traitor and he confessed to it. We brought the confession to the Count and then dissuaded the mystics from trying to bring him back off the long road. They carried the body to fire pit and set some pine straw and twigs on fire to make a good illusion. I was delayed go there because I was talking OOG with Nate and Michelle (Glowing glowing glowing I had a wonderful event!) but came in time to cut off a token mourning lock (like a dozen hairs where it wouldn't show in the back 'cause I am not totally dumb OOG) and added it to the pyre.
Koren's in an odd head space again. Flynn sacrificed himself to save her, but he was a traitor. She isn't sure what to make of that. She blames herself a lot. She was already lost coming in and looking for something to wreck vengeance on since the Vershonrae are gone and she was not able to exact revenge on them herself. Her goals were to free Rosewood from the siege so she could get the rest of Malak's mind back together. Malak's presence being needed for that. Now she is not sure. Getting Malak's mind back together will dispel that obligation and give her some freedom to wander again. But Vivian is out there and Koren wants her dead, blaming her for the choice right now. It's a muddle and one that won't be quickly solved. But now I am past time to pack up my computer and start moving to my mother's house. Adieu and farewell and if you need me in the mean time... call my cell. (Oh ye gods I'm hook line and sinker now).