Session 16 Recap: Enlisting the Elves and Octavia's Onus

Picking up where we left off, the party marched valiantly into the Forest Temple to claim the Fairy Bow kill the basilisk in order to win an alliance with the elves. It was clear that the area surrounding the Forest Temple used to be a respectable city, though only the foundations of ancient buildings remain. The entrance hall was mostly bare save for six columns ensnared inside tough, climbable vines, so we used them to set about exploring. The first room yielded only Squirrel Plans #4, but the second room surprised us when a troop of lemurs greeted us with puzzled stares. One of them carried a Killer Rune like a trophy, so we captured the little creature with a combination of tiny vine-woven nets and empty treasure chests and claimed the rune. Taking pity on the creature, Daisy quickly carved a little lemur statuette to replace the lemur’s lost “treasure”, and its fellows were all very impressed. Bidding farewell to the lemur ball, we proceeded to the third room and fought a tribe of rabid zombie baboons.

Speaking of statues, we eventually came across a room full of statues, all elves save for one human. They all looked as though they had been turned to stone long ago, as some were cracked and damaged and missing various limbs (or their heads). They still had some armor that we could use, so after prying that off we followed a secret passage that Royce spotted and found two more statues in much better condition. These were both elves and similar enough in face to be brothers, standing together with bows drawn in a vain attempt at staving off their fate. Kuarjav’s spells could do nothing for them, but he theorized that he might be able to develop an antidote if we could get our hands on some of the basilisk’s venom. Royce took the Mirror Shield hanging on the far wall, though we realized he probably wouldn’t need it since he and Vasuki are immune to status effects (like Stone) so long as they stay close to each other.

The party stumbled across a rabid zombie deer-monster in another room and slew it quickly, with Harold getting the kill. The walls of this room were covered in engravings depicting ancient elvish history, some of which might even be beyond the memories of the remaining elves. A Counter Rune was found embedded in one of the carvings, so we took it with us.

Finally, Royce found a bare room with a single statue standing in the center, clad in attractive leather armor. The dragonrider quickly spotted a doorway leading to the final unexplored room and realized that the statue was probably placed there as bait to lure the unsuspecting into the monster’s line of sight. Trusting in his bond with Vasuki, Royce led the charge against the basilisk and the boss fight was on (scary boss fight music!). Royce drew most of the monster’s attacks and ire with his mysterious immunity to its power and habit of throwing himself in front of his comrades, giving Kuarjav time to discover that the creature had a weakness against Earth magic. We all did our part, dealing damage and protecting our comrades, until finally the beast was slain.

A basilisk fang in hand, Kuarjav returned to Liberty Castle and worked diligently to brew the antidote. In no time at all we were able to return to the temple and restore the statues to life, about a dozen of them in all. Those statues that could not be repaired before restoration did not survive, but most of the people were saved. The lone human turned out to be a human adventurer who called himself the Great Garth who traveled the world way back before the time of Harmonia, and he wondered how his (now extinct) homeland of Aronia was faring. We sent him back to our castle to get up to speed and recover from his long sleep, as he had nowhere else to go. As for the gaggle of elves, we took them with us back to Xavier’s village to reunite with their own kind.

The two archers were brother named Elric and Elmdor, frozen over two hundred years ago. They were disturbed to hear that so much time had passed, but eventually decided to join our army in thanks for saving their lives. Their sad tales can be read in more detail in the Detectives Investigations section.

Xavier was astonished to see us return, not only having bested the dreaded basilisk, but with so many survivors as well. The elven leader was old enough to remember when the city of the Forest Temple still stood, and made no secret of his joy at seeing the return of so many elves thought long lost. Leader Xavier, along with many of the newly awakened elves, promptly joined our army, and we will be able to count on the help of the elves from now on.

Taking advantage of one mission’s completion, Daisy talked her companions into giving the Beast Village another visit. The wild town was unchanged, with one glaring exception: Royce spotted an old man named Steve in the window of the inn, and this villager did not run from us. We filed inside and chatted amiably with him, trying to get any information we could about the village, but he insisted that most of the villagers had been killed or taken away by Harmonia some time ago, leaving room for flocks of wild animals to move in. Interestingly, he said that many animals were drawn to the village because of its ancient connection to the Beast Rune, which was stolen by Harmonia many years before and subsequently lost. Old Steve would not stray from his story, even when Daisy told him flat out that she could change shape and snuck the name Octavia into the conversation. Giving in for the time being, we had dinner with Steve that evening (Recipe #51 “Steve’s Soup”) and spent an uneventful night.

Dawn found Daisy pounding on Steve’s door, where she found, to her mild surprise, that he was still there. She checked both his arms (a tad aggressively) for a Totem Rune like hers, but could find none, and so the party said goodbye and left the inn. As Daisy slowly realized that Steve had left some kind of flesh-tone makeup behind on her hands, Royce called out that there was smoke coming from a different chimney. They rushed over and surrounded the house, which was clearly lived in, but when Daisy broke down the door they found that the inhabitant(s) had turned into some sort of rodent and escaped through a hole.

Increasingly frustrated, Daisy growled that she should just burn the place and stomped back to the inn. She and Royce pinned Steve on the floor and Daisy wiped the makeup off his left arm, revealing a Fish Totem Rune (which explained why he alone could not flee). Daisy declared that the jig was up and she wanted to see Octavia; luckily, the woman in question appeared at that moment, flanked by two guards. A hostile but controlled Daisy demanded an explanation from the shaman leader, who eventually explained that there was an ancient legend foretelling the birth of a Totem Rune-bearing child not of the Beast Village. This child was destined to take over the village and lead to massive destruction and death. The story left Daisy feeling dissatisfied, but she came to the conclusion that the only way she could live in peace with the likes of Octavia was if she promised to leave the village alone and not try to assume leadership of it, which she had no intention of doing anyway. Octavia agreed to her plan, but as they teleported away, Daisy was left with serious misgivings. Octavia had come across as deeply untrustworthy, not least because of Steve’s obvious terror in the shaman’s presence. And it felt wrong to Daisy to leave behind a place with such strong connections to her, even if her relation to the village was not through blood. But it seemed that there was no choice, for now. The last thing the team noticed about Octavia was that Octavia’s totem is that of an owl, while she kept a lion and a tiger for guards.

A surprise awaited us back at the castle, where Flik and Viktor were just returning from their voyage to Toran. Their mission to secure the help of the Toran ninja village was a success, and the ninjas Diaz and Cassie joined our castle. It will difficult for ninjas to take us by surprise again.

Lastly, the crew went up to see Caesar to figure out our next move. The Wingers of Wreckmar ask for our help now in attacking the castle of Witchport, which is defended with powerful magic. Caesar suggests using krakens in the assault as they are largely magic-resistant and spraying the castle walls with an aphrodisiac in order to draw them in. Kuarjav, now the leader of the army, expressed his hesitation with the plan, and we decided to give some more thought to our next move. The plan is risky, but then some say that “every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.” – William Tecumseh Sherman.”

Next time, one way or another, we go to Witchport castle! Will we be able to recruit the ever-mysterious Jeane, or will her new alliance with Harmonia prevail?

Recruited: Xavier, Elric, Elmdor, Diaz, Cassie

Investigations: Xavier, April, Phoebe, Elmdor (bonus: Elric!)

The updates be BACK!

Hey all! The updates are indeed back! I've added  Miner Marco, Great Garth, Cassie, Diaz, Percy, Xavier, Elric, and Elmdor to all pages. I've also added your investigations with a BONUS free investigation. Because I can. I also added 11 new comment box additions, several new editions to the paper, and redid the castle to reflect Pearl is missing (and not DEAD....yet! MUWAHAHAHA!!!). So yea, stuff is updated. Check it out!

Eulogy: Pearl

(And as always, this week's Eulogy is performed by The Ever Loving Harold)

Pearl was a woman of great wisdom
Who always had a plan for the occasion

Of Noble Birth, Beauty and Heart
She at first was quite the sport
(Of Harmonia that is!)

She excelled in all her passions
And she fit all the world's fashions

But one day she felt a knot
And quite soon after she caused quite the riot!

With friends such as Damien, Jonah and Luther
she declared "Harmonia must fall!"

She raised a great army for liberty
the foundation of such unity

And indeed, with the Union Army
She did much for her land

But as she has now fallen
now too will others will rise

So lament the fall of Pearl
Lament the fall of her grace

But do not lament the death of the union
for it does riseth ever greater than before

Do not compare it to a phoenix
for there is no death in this army

Rally around the image of Pearl
Rally around the passion of Pearl
Rally around the injustice of her death
And Rally around Kuarjav!

Together we shall rise
Together we shall fight
Together we shall win!

For everlasting glory!

Session 15 Recap: Given Away by Grant

Obeying Caesar’s orders to infiltrate Falfax Fort dressed as Harmonian soldiers, much to Daisy’s obvious discomfort, our small group flew to Sanadia province and made our way through the sewers of the fort. There was treasure to claim and rats to fight (one big monster rat got away) in the very strangely designed sewers, until finally we spotted a ladder heading upwards and found ourselves up on the ramparts of the castle. Our intention was to sneak into the large central building and set fire to Camaro’s provisions before they could spot us. But to our surprise, there was a rather important meeting going on in the courtyard at that very moment.

General Gregory, Queen Diana, and a girl with a bow, a female dwarf, and a robot were assembled on one side, and on the other stood Rodin Relos himself, a priest general of Harmonia and Kuarjav’s personal enemy. We were unable to resist hiding in the shadow of the building and eavesdropping on their discussion, and we heard enough to learn that Relos was secretly plotting to aid Camaro’s attack against the Crystal Valley (whether he was really betraying Harmonia or just fooling Camaro for his own reasons is still unknown). It didn’t take long for one of the Camaro sentries to spot our little gang and sound the alarm, at which point most of the Camaro and Harmonian forces retreated in order to protect their respective leaders.

Our disguised party had a few frantic moments of debate as to whether we should still try to carry out our mission or just retreat, but in the end we decided to set everything on fire like we’d planned and then flee. Inside the main building, we found huge piles of supplies which Royce gleefully burned to a crisp while Daisy searched the side rooms to make sure no soldiers would die in the blaze. Harold ran into a man named Percy from Dunan, who was thoroughly lost and confused (he thought he was in Liberty Castle) but delighted to see his old friend Harold. While Daisy found treasures like Old Book Vol. 5, Harold quickly talked Percy into joining us and meeting up back at Liberty Castle.

To everyone’s surprise, the next person we stumbled across was Grant, the last member of our Unity Rune party. He explained that he (somehow) couldn’t find us after our first battle against Harmonia and thought we’d all been killed, so he had stayed with the Camaro Knights to help them conquer Harmonia completely. He refused to listen when we tried to explain what we were doing and even had a duel with Harold, who beat him soundly. Daisy argued with him and tried to convince him to come with us, fully intending to knock him out and carry him home if she had to, but he managed to run away. This was terrible news for us for more than one reason, and the repercussions of letting him get away would be felt far too soon. Grant had deserted the Union Army.

Our escape from the castle was hindered by only a few guards, as most of them had fled when the smoke began to billow, but the most dangerous were the Camaro soldiers Hilda the dwarf and her robot Gears. Harold loudly claimed to be his arrogant, racist brother Henry Windamier and we all joined in, still hoping to make them think that we were Harmonian soldiers, or even acting on Relos’ orders. Insults were exchanged and the Camaro pair mocked Sun Crystal’s construction, so it degenerated into a fight in which Daisy got inordinately pissed at Gears but Sciath and Sun Crystal ultimately got the finishing blows. The victory allowed us to escape while Hilda and Gears retreated, and once outside we teleported directly back to Liberty Castle.

There wasn’t much time to rest, so after a quick trip to the inn for some and the hot springs for others, we reported back to Caesar about the mission. While the supplies were destroyed as we’d planned, there was little chance that Grant wouldn’t reveal to everyone who we really were and blow away our plan to disguise it as a Harmonian attack. This could bring both Relos and the Camaro forces down onto the Union Army in a killing blow we could not yet withstand. Daisy resisted the urge to say “I told you so,” for it was obvious that hard times lay ahead for us now. The rest of that day was spent bolstering our castle’s defenses, with Daisy training recruits, Kuarjav directing the placement of medical supplies and Harold “supervising” from behind his rose teacup.

Unfortunately, our new defenses were put to the test all too soon. Alarms sounded in the middle of the night and we found ninjas attacking in every part of the castle. We saved Bernadette and Caesar and were about to split up to cover more ground when a scream shot out of the war room, where we found our leader Pearl being attacked by none other than Yuber himself, the legendary demon of war. Remembering that his services were currently in the employ of Camaro, our spirits sank even as we charged, for Camaro had made their statement plainly enough: they knew who and where we were, and our sabotage would not go unpunished. It was a very close fight, but thanks to everyone’s efforts and Kuarjav’s expert healing, we managed to best the monster. At which point he drove us all back with a mighty blast, knocked Pearl out with a punch to the gut, and disappeared with her.

Caesar was quick to discuss the consequences with us. Casualties from the midnight ninja raid were minimal; Yuber had made it plain that he only sought Pearl, our leader. Camaro and Harmonia would be forced to resume fighting each other thanks to Camaro’s weakened state, but losing our leader would deal an equally heavy blow to the Union Army. We would still operate democratically, of course, but there had to be someone at the top for the troops to look up to, someone to rally around. “An Army is a collection of armed men obliged to obey one man. Every change in the rules which impairs the principle weakens the army.” – William Tecumseh Sherman. It was unanimously decided to elect Kuarjav as the new temporary leader of the Union Army in Pearl’s absence, both because of his age and experience and because he is the only member of our inner circle who is actually a Harmonian citizen. (As for the rest of us, Harold turned down the job due to his status as a Dunan diplomat, Daisy would have gladly taken the role but felt Kuarjav might be a better fit, Sciath remained silent and we all agreed that Royce would probably get the castle burned down within the hour.)

With that matter settled, Caesar proposed a few different ways to proceed. Since we knew ninjas were now involved, he thought it wise to try and recruit some ninjas of our own from Rokkaku village in Toran (which will be a job for next time). Our mighty Silverberg also decided it was high time to approach the elves again and ask them to join us, so our little group teleported out to the elven village. This time, Harold introduced Kuarjav as the head of the Union Army and asked the elves to lend us their aid. Xavier said that Kuarjav had kind eyes that had seen much, and agreed to join us on one condition: we had to destroy a monster that had been terrorizing the elves for centuries. We agreed to his terms and an elf guided us to the Forest Temple but refused to go inside with us. Next time, we will be searching our first temple to hunt down the boss, and then perhaps it will be time for ninjas.

Recruited: Percy

Investigations: Bernadette, Serena, Dexter, Kuarjav

Session 14 Recap: Routin' Reuben and Recuitin'

We jumped right into battle this time, following another of Caesar’s ambitious schemes. He ordered some of Reynaldo’s architects to sneak into Fort Elbridge in Greydell and sabotage the construction going on there, causing massive flooding in the castle. Once that was done, a group of dwarves served as decoys to draw all of General Reuben’s forces out of the castle so we could ambush them. The plan went just as expected, and we cut off their retreat. Royce’s rival Felicia was defeated once again, and Harold’s brother Henry fled when Reuben surrendered after Daisy’s attack (many thanks to Harold’s battle advice and everyone’s combined spells and skills). Marcus came with us to help convince his old mentor to defect, and eventually join us he did, albeit reluctantly. Reuben was a major Harmonian strategist who trained half the current Priest Generals, so this should come as a major blow to our enemies.

We discovered upon our return to Liberty castle that many of the major construction projects had been completed during our mission, and the place was starting to shape up into headquarters we could be proud of (i.e. Castle Level 2). With so much extra space to work with, we knew it was time to look for more people and launch another recruitment drive to liven up the place. We returned to Westhollow and found that Farmer Zelda had finally finished her chores, so she agreed to join us (she seemed surprised at our enthusiastic recruitment efforts, clearly not realizing how much we truly love our vegetables). With our farmer recruited, we turned next to Gloria’s request that we find her old crew. Our search began and ended on Dreidred mountain, where we first met Gloria during our short-lived partnership with poor Miles. Gloria’s #2, a fancypants-turned-bandit named Byron, was still there along with a few dozen bandit soldiers from Gloria’s old gang, and they all happily joined our army for Gloria’s sake.

To our surprise, a female Winger was waiting for us back at Liberty Castle. She introduced herself as a traveling saleswoman named May and asked to know who was in charge of this magnificent castle. Daisy took the credit (with much protesting from Royce) and invited May to set up shop at Liberty Castle. She readily agreed and mentioned that she was traveling in order to make a name for herself far away from her annoying brother… right before Daisy and Harold, both from Dunan like her, asked if she knew Chaco. Poor May appeared a bit disgruntled that even way up in Harmonia she can’t get out from under her brother’s wing.

Acting on a tip from Ramza, we teleported up to Prymount city and stepped into an explosion of color. Harold spotted his fancypants friend Roxie, who we ran into a while back in Coldwall castle harassing some soldiers for their fashion sense, being dragged away by the city guards for her graffiti. Her bail was 5000 potch. Royce tried without success to bribe the guards with a free dragonback ride, so we just paid the bail and took Roxie away from there. Never one to pass up recruiting a fellow fancypants, Harold offered to pay her to decorate our castle for us. Overjoyed that someone actually wanted to pay her to decorate as opposed to paying her to go away, Roxie rushed straight to the castle.

We happened to stop by Snowview on our travels and heard some commotion coming from the village of the dwarves. A human man was ejected bodily from the blacksmith’s to shouts of “You’re the worst blacksmith I’ve ever seen! Get out!” Poor Massa explained that he tried very hard to be a good blacksmith but had a tendency to get clumsy and make mistakes (in this case, he “accidentally” broke a sword over a dwarf’s back). Daisy suggested that he might not be cut out for this blacksmith thing, but he insisted that he had to do it because his father did it, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather… Taking pity on him, we offered him the chance to work at our castle and gave him the Brass Hammer to help get him started.

Since we were in the area, we decided to finally check out the mountain path near the dwarf village. The team stumbled across a few nice treasures and, strangely enough, a penguin (with a face!). Daisy patted it on the head and then hugged it, followed by Sciath and most of the party. With no way to communicate with it, though, we had to say goodbye and continue exploring. At the end of another path was a lone dwarf fighting a group of goblins and losing, so we jumped in and saved the day. Miner Marco explained that he was been checking out the dwarven guardian statue at the end of the path. It was apparent from his surprise at our story that he’d been in the away from the dwarven village for some time, so he left to join his fellows back at Liberty Castle.

A sad scene was playing out over in Lorin village, where a crippled woman was being harassed by a group of bullies. As we watched, one of the bullies kicked her crutch out from under her and we saw that she had only one leg. Royce came roaring to her rescue with his fire-breath and spear (we still don’t know what he did to those bullies). Serena thanked us for our help and said that she was once a first-class citizen and an adventurer, but the loss of her leg reduced her to less than nothing in Harmonian society. Daisy pointed out that (with the possible exception of Harold) no one among us was exactly a good fit for Harmonia’s idea of first class society either, and she accepted our invitation to go to the castle. Since she could no longer be an adventurer (though we hope the healing springs and bath house will do her some good), she opted to open an appraisal shop instead.

Finally, another rumor led us back to Merridwell castle, where Daisy led the way to the bar. A woman named June was running a game of Chichorin and attracting a crowd of gamblers. A woman back in the small village of Marid once told us to keep an eye out for her missing daughter June, so we asked if it was she. June agreed to tell us anything we wanted to know and even go set up shop in our castle if we could win 5000 potch from her. Harold lost some and won it back, and Royce lost a few potch too, but Daisy got lucky and won the required amount. June went to our castle as promised, but she still doesn’t want to go see her mother.

The party returned to the castle to finish up a long day of recruitment. Massa upgraded the weapons for Sciath and Kuarjav, since the Brass Hammer lets him go to Level 5. We dropped off our seed collection with Farmer Zelda and Royce made sure to stock up Rosalita’s bar with Dwarven Ale. Daisy found she’d developed a taste for gambling and won another 18,000 potch from June on a lucky streak.

Caesar had important news for us as well. Spies reported that some sort of peace deal was apparently struck between Harmonia and the Grasslands and allowed Harmonia to reallocate their troops, but even that wasn’t enough to win against Camaro. The knights of Camaro were in serious danger of crushing Harmonia’s forces and taking over the Crystal Valley in the near future, which wouldn’t give the Union Army enough time to grow and gain support from the people. Caesar proposed that a small unit disguised as Harmonian soldiers go cut off the Camaro supply line to buy us more time, and though Daisy wasn’t happy with the idea of turning on people who once helped us, everyone agreed to the plan in the end. Next time, we will be undercover agents on a secret mission. Better brush up on those acting skills!

Recruited: Reuben, Zelda, Byron, Roxie, Massa, June, Serena, May

Investigations: Reuben, Massa, Roxie, May

Yet More Updates!

HA! My updates are up before the recap!!! Muwahahha!! You have EIGHT new characters added to the site, and had your castle upgraded to level two. Nearly all pages were updated because of this, so be sure to check it out, and let me know someone is reading this ;)

More Updates!

Ok, the site is updated from last week's adventures! Check out the new stuff! Or else!