| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Auragongal |
Posted - 13 Aug 2012 : 00:28:59
Alright, first things first, these stories are made from scratch, and not based off of any campaign sessions, mainly because I've never been in a FR campaign session in my life. This is just going to most likely be a series of vignettes, and there won't be an overall plot most likely. With this in mind, here is the first story, enjoy!
The Mad Wizard's Assistant
Outside the town of Port Llast, just near a small, ordinary farm, two beings had arrived through the use of a Dimension Door. Both of them were male, one being a human with red hair, pale skin, and wearing a red tunic over a gray shirt with brown pants, leather boots, and a simple silver amulet around his neck as he looked around with tired, almost dead looking blue eyes. The other one however, was of all things, a drow with very short, white hair and silver eyes, while wearing a glowing yellow robe, a few rings on his fingers of various metals and colored gems, a golden bracelet with a clear purple stone, and a bag of holding slung across his right shoulder. The drow then walked ahead of the human and whistled before his companion spoke up.
"Master Kinder." he said, causing the drow to stop and look at him with interest.
"What is it Martin?" he said, wondering what was going on as he saw the human start to shift uncomfortably and taking a deep breath.
"Master Kinder," Martin began again, "I'd like to give a complaint."
"About what?" Kinder asked, honestly confused. Unfortunately, the human then started yelling as before the wizard could defend himself, he was punched in the face, and found himself on the ground.
"About Everything!Ever since I became your assisstant, hoping to learn magic from you, it's been nothing but trying to survive that crazy tower you call home! I had to face 2 mimics, an intellect devourer, gods know how many gelatinous cubes, not to mention that evil rabbit and that... that... that thing you call a son trying to scare me to Kelemvor just by popping out of no where!"
"Hey! Leave Barnaby out of this! He is a good boy, despite how he looks. He may have been created while I was drunk and using magic, but he does mean well. As for Mister Killywinks and Nibbles, they were only playing you know." Kinder said, feeling his eye start to swell shut from the punch.
"O-Only playing?! You idiot! They were trying to eat me! And all of that was only my first two days on the job! The rest of these past two months were filled with lab accidents, dragon dung, cleaning up your ridiculously huge room on the fifth floor, and trying hard not to get destroyed by the wards when I try to clean up around that safe in there! You never told me where the godsdamned wardstone was that would protect me!"
"Okay, so I'm a little absent minded in the lab... and my room is large for a reason, I'm not fond of small spaces. And if you called me when you got near my safe like I told you to when you took the job, you would have known that the key to bypassing them was tattooed on my backside." That last comment earned a confused and disgusted look from the angry assisstant for the drow wizard, who simply rubbed the back of his head.
"Why in the Hells did you tattoo it on your ass?!" Martin then yelled, only to get a grin from his employer before hearing the man's answer.
"Well, wardstones can get lost, stolen, and then copied by theives if you think about it, so I figured why not tattoo it on my ass instead? Sure an arm or a leg would work, but they'd get cut off in my sleep if someone managed to get past my security measures and with the right plants and poisons, can make it painless so I wouldn't notice until the next day. Putting it where I did simply makes it more difficult for would be thieves to get off of my body, and who would be crazy enough to grab a wizard's ass just to get to their powerful, and possibly dangerous, magical artifacts?"
Instead of an immediate answer, the wizard Kinder recieved a kick in the stomach from his assisstant before he yelled again, causing the drow to cover his ears this time in pain. "You are insane! You've had 346 assisstants in the past, and after I did a bit of digging, I learned that you caused most of them to die or end up on another plane by accident in your experiments! You're not going to get me killed you mad man! I quit! You hear me? Quit!" The human than started laughing madly as he started running towards the farm, a stunned Kinder sitting there and watching as he got further and further away before suddenly, the farm went up in a surprise explosion, and the drow flinched as he heard him scream in pain.
"Ussta haren... jiv'undus..." he muttered to himself before reaching into his bag and pulling out a rather thick book, a quill, and an inkwell. "Well, I did not expect that to happen on a simple shopping trip for supplies, not to mention that explosion was even more unexpected. I could have sworn I told him I was insane when he took the job. Well, better add him to the list." he said, before opening the book and talking to himself as he wrote.
"Let's see, being that hates me number... 407, Martin Scorchaty, human, age 24? Yeah, pretty sure he's 24. Reason for hatred being that I apparently drove him crazy with my daily life while he acted as my 347th assisstant, lasted only two months, ran toward a farm that then randomly exploded, causes unknown. Going by the screams, he may have rolled a 3, and might ha-" he was then interrupted in thoughts as a scorched arm making a rather obscene gesture landed infront of him. "Okay, scratch that. Martin rolled a one, and is dead as a doornail. Most likely way of him trying to kill me is by becoming a spirit, wraith, or something similar, will need to beg Bethany to add anti-apparition wards to tower defenses when I get back to Riftwood."
After that, the wizard then flipped through the book until he found a list of supplies he needed, and read it outloud. "Alright, I needed three thousand blank scrolls, two thousand empty bottles, three hundred pounds each of beef, pork, chicken, grains, vegetables and fruit for the kitfchen, zombie brains for Mister Killywinks, thirty gallons of milk, new books to read to Barnaby, healing kits, new lab equipment, and to add to the list, a new assistant, elemental resistant robes and... a new beastiary for the library, mine is severely out of date." With that, the wizard closed the book, put everything back in his bag, and walked down the road to the town, whistling all the way like nothing happened. |
| 5 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Auragongal |
Posted - 15 Jan 2013 : 01:04:52
Er... whoops. Sorry about the wait, again. School overwhelmed me back in September, and I sort of forgot about this place until now. Buy anyway, here is a new story.
Bragging Rights
In a forest somewhere in Faerun, a lone adventurer wandered the woods, muttering to himself as he used the amulet around his neck to light the area infront of him, and read the map he had "liberated" from an old man inside a tavern in Daggerford. But, after two months of traveling and nearly getting himself killed, he was almost at his destination, a lone ruin rumored to hold a few powerful weapons inside.
"Once I find this place, and face whatever horrors lie within," he said to himself, moving a strand of his brown hair out of his face, "I'll be rich from selling any weapons I can't use, and be unstoppable with any I can. Yep, soon Faerun will have my name, Byron Ders added to the history books!" The human then laughed, but then froze when he heard something, or rather, someone coming towards him from his left.
"...I'm telling you Khrima," he heard the voice say, noting it sounded like a young man, "this is the last time I take a 'job opportunity' from a centaur that has two replacement legs." As Byron turned to see the speaker, he was surprised to see it was a drow with long white hair tied back behind the head with a blue cord and braided, silver eyes, and wearing a white shirt under a blue vest, brown pants, black boots and belt, and around his neck was an amulet depicting a black opal and gold griffin with topaz wings. Unfortunately, there were a couple of things incredibly strange to the human about this stranger.
For one thing, the man had three weapons on his belt, a dagger on his right hip, a rapier on his left hip, and a second dagger on the back of his belt. Another thing off about him was that he had horns and a pointed tail like a devil, or was it demon? He wasn't sure of the difference some days. Third, there was a sky blue, bird like tattoo around his left eye, which, if the drow was an assassin, seemed like a very poor life choice since it'd immediately mark him if he was caught. Those last three things, however, paled in comparison to the main thing that was off about the drow, and that was the fact that while he acted like he was talking to someone, no one was there.
Oh sweet mother of Cyric,Byron thought to himself, as his eyes widened in shock, he's a looney. I heard that drow that leave the Underdark to escape Lolth weren't right in the head, but I didn't think it'd be like this. All the human could do now was watch as the stranger continued his onesided conversation, at some points flinching and saying ow as if something had hit him in the head.
"Geeze partner!" he said, "I know you weren't happy about what happened in Suzail, but how was I supposed to know that the woman who hired us was really a man?! Yeah, yeah, I know that since my mother is a reverse case, and Grandpa Derik was like him, but that guy was a dwarf for crying out loud!" Grumbling, the stranger then turned his head and looked over at Byron, before blinking in surprise.
"Uh... hi." the human then said, while the stranger's tail moved lazily around. "Do you... often talk to yourself like that?" The question was answered with a laugh, before the stranger spoke again.
"Oh right! I didn't notice you there, sorry about that. My partner Khrima and I were just having a small arguement on our way to some ruin in the area. Heading our way mister...?"
"Byron Ders, a fighter from Baldur's Gate... and yeah... I heard there were some powerful weapons in there."
"Nice to meet ya Byron, name's Killik, from Riftwood. I'm a rogue, a fey-ri, and I can see the beings of the astral plane."
"Right..." Byron then said, and started walking away. Unfortunately, Killik decided to follow. "Killik doesn't sound like a drow name, and I thought I saw it on a gravestone once, for a halfling bard rumored to have been brought to the city by some masked druid."
"Hm? Oh yeah, that Killik was a former lover for my mother. Killed by a basilisk, and Baldur's Gate was the closest city to go to." Killik then said. For the next couple of hours, there was an awkward silence from Byron, who wondered if "Killik" was really telling the truth, and just where the hells Riftwood was, and why, if not how, a drow would possibly be from there. Soon, they made it to their destination, the lone ruin they had been searching for looking imposing as the full moon shone behind it. As they both went inside, Killik spoke up again.
"So, what do you plan on doing with whatever you find here?" the fey-ri said, before kneeling down and disabling a trap.
"Eh, what do adventurers usually do? Go out, fight monsters, become famous, get wenches." the fighter said, letting Killik lead and keeping an eye on the ceiling and walls for hidden threats. "Yourself?"
"Eh, just find the damn ring my employer lost here once, return it to him, and then maybe continue to go out and try and make a name for myself as a rogue called The Blue Phoenix, steal most of what has been deemed impossible to steal, and avoid any targets that hit "suicidal" on the difficulty meter for rogues, like for example, something belonging to a deity, or something out of Candlekeep."
"Candlekeep? Why is that place suicidal to rob?"
"I heard it was guarded by the ghost of a silver dragon that destroys thieves or something. Either way, I'm not going to take a chance there myself, but if anyone else wants to try it, I ain't stopping them." Killik explained, before stopping Byron by holding an arm out infront of him to avoid walking into a hole that took up half the hallway. "Of course, the day someone successfully robs that place and lives to tell the tale, is the day I meet Elminster's ghost, and he pulls out a card that squirts cider in my ear."
Byron laughed at the mental image Killik had described, and then a giant spider dropped down from the ceiling in front of them. Drawing his long sword, Byron attacked it, and saw Killik prepare for battle as well, the rapier in his right, a shining, mirror like dagger in his left, while the other dagger, a wicked blade that seemed extremely sharp edged was gripped in his tail.
"You fight with your TAIL too?!" The fighter said as he hit the spider in the abdomen from behind, and then getting a face full of webbing as a result.
"Yep, if I can grab things with it, why not fight with it like an extra arm?" Killik replied, cutting off one of the spider's legs and licking his lips. By the time Byron got the web off his face,the spider was dead, and Killik was holding out the now bundled together legs which were then covered in a flash of blue fire, and the exoskeleton blackened like it was being cooked.
"Woah, how did you do that?!" Byron said when the flames disappeared, and then felt a little sick as Killik started to peel the outside off one of the legs, and eat what it had covered.
"I didn't." the drow said between bites, "My partner Khrima did. I can't just see him, but interact with him as well, and he can interact with me as well. I asked him to cook the legs up into a meal, and he did. Want a leg? They taste like crabmeat when cooked right." the rogue then offered a leg to the fighter, who politely refused.
"No thanks... I thought drow considered spiders sacred, not... lunch... and what exactly is Khrima, anyway?"
"Eh, the Lolthies consider the spiders sacred. I'm an Erevanite from a house full of lunatics, so for me, this is normal. Of course, Gramps did survive three separate encounters with a dracolich, while mother's a blue skinned druid that once broke out of a mad man's dungeon on the back of a black dragon the ass imprisoned on the sixth floor." Killik said, taking another bite of spider leg as he started moving through the ruins again. "As for Khrima? He's a spirit phoenix."
"You're making that up!" Byron then said, quickly following. "There's no such thing as a blue skinned druid, or spirit phoenixes!"
"Byron my friend, one thing you should learn about adventuring early on is if someone mentions something that seems impossible, a rumor, a warning about a monster, or just plain crazy, there is a very, very high chance that somewhere in the world, it exists, and there is a chance you'll end up encountering it during a quest."
"So... by that logic the thing you said about Elminster could happen?"
"Nah, even if I did meet Elminster's ghost, if he hasn't crossed over yet of course, where would he even get a cider squirting card anyway? It's about as likely as an illithid having tea with a were shark wearing a tophat and a semi aquatic troll calling himself a duke and wearing a monocle."
Byron didn't respond for the rest of the dungeon trek, once they reached the center of the ruins, the two were greeted by the sight of weapons lining the walls, a treasure horde piled on the floor, and laying on top of the horde, was a very freshly killed red dragon.
"That's... odd." Killik said, before tilting his head as if he was listening to something. "According to Khrima, someone killed the dragon, and then teleported out before we arrived."
"Indeed." Byron agreed, "well, it seems the treasure is still here, might as well take what we can carry, and leave."
"But, aren't you curious as to who beat us here, what they were after, and why?"
"Nope." Byron said, before scooping a few handfuls of gold into his bag before looking among the long swords just lying around. "I believe this might be one of those things in life we just don't question, and move on."
Sighing, the rogue helped loot what he could from the horde, found the centaur's ring, and both adventurers left the ruins and went their separate ways deciding not to speak of the let down at the end ever again. |
| Auragongal |
Posted - 24 Sep 2012 : 12:25:05
Alystra, he luckily only does that for stubborn psychos like Darla, but yes, pit traps are hard to disable, so I figured that would be the best thing to use on a person with a little rogue training. Also, I hope the fact he was a drow was as much as a surprise as I intended it to be, but I'd still like to know what you thought about that little reveal.
I'll have a new story up later today at the earliest, or sometime this week, with Saturday being the latest if I include the possibility of design class giving me a lot of work to do... again. |
| Alystra Illianniis |
Posted - 18 Sep 2012 : 20:40:57
Talk about girl-troubles! No wonder he keeps his helm on. Poor guy- I'd start setting pit-traps too, in his palce. |
| Auragongal |
Posted - 17 Aug 2012 : 22:30:30
A Funny Thing Happened at the Temple of Tymora
"Alright, alright, so there I was, hanging on the dracolich's spine while my party was busy fending off the demons and burning zombies helping it at the bottom of the cliff." The rogue said, his head hidden by a simple helmet. "while it was trying to throw me off, I used my dagger to steer it to it's phylactery, and got it to smash it with it's foot while it was distracted! While the bones fell apart, I sheathed my dagger, held on to the spinal disk I was on for dear life, and right as it hit the slope leading up to it, I used it as a sled and ended up killing the sorcerer that was raising the dead and calling in reinforcements when I hit him from behind!Once he was gone, the demons vanished, and the remaining undead were destroyed when Roy threw his bag, filled with vials of holy water at them! After the battle, my employer came out of his hiding place in the bushes, and he had been so scared,we could practically smell the mess he made in his pants!"
The halfling warrior laughed as his friend told his story, their corner of the Pigsticker Tavern getting some very strange looks as other patrons stared, anyone who overheard the story figuring it was too crazy to be true.
"Sweet Mielikki Derik! That is the third story you told me that had a dracolich in it! But really, flaming Zombies? How do I know you're not stretching the truth a little, eh?"
"Now Calcifer, whatever gave you that idea? I assure you all my stories are the complete truth!" Derik said, feigning being hurt, "So, how did it go in Riftwood with 'Psycho Darla'?"
The halfling groaned before taking a long drink from his mug and putting his bald head against the table. "She whined the whole time about not being with you while we were there, that by the time we made it to the elven village there, the local cleric had the leader of the ogres in a head lock while the rest of them were either dead, or fleeing for their lives and screaming like babies. I never knew an elven woman could be THAT frightening while we were stuck with helping to clean up after Darla got into a cat fight with her when she mentioned your name... care to explain that one?"
Derik flinched at the question and after a few moments, giggled. "So that's why that crazy woman wanted to talk to me at the temple of Tymora later! I'll tell you what Cal, I got a plan..." The helmed rogue then raised his helmet enough that his mouth was exposed and whispered in the halfling's ear. The warrior grinned and nodded, before both of them left the Tavern laughing like madmen.
Later at the temple of Tymora, Derik arrived alone,and a pretty, young, blond human woman in a simple yellow robe was tapping her foot impatiently before she ran over and hugged Derik tightly.
"Hello sweetie!" she said, smiling before her expression became more serious, "that was very rude of you to keep me waiting like that, you were at the Tavern with Calcifer again, weren't you? I don't like that halfling... he looks like someone that would stab you in the back when you least expect it."
Derik groaned and pushed the woman away as hard as he could, before crossing his arms and giving her a glare through his helmet's visor. "Darla, I told you thousands of times I'm already married, and I'm not interested in you. So don't pull this on me thinking you can get away with it. Cal told me about what happened in Riftwood, and how when my name came up, you and the local cleric got into a fight. Care to explain why you attacked her?"
The woman flinched at the accusation, before standing up. "But Darling! Why would you accuse me of such a thing? I simply told her how you would have beaten those ogres single handedly, and she struck me first when she had the gall to claim you were her husband! I had to defend myself, didn't I?"
"You idiot, I am her husband! Ever since you and I met, you've been under the delusion that I was attracted to you, and even though I said, point blank, that I'm not interested, that I didn't return your feelings, and 3,967,997 times now, that I am already married! But do you listen to me? NO! Instead, you just tune me out, keep flirting with me, groping my ass, and you also tried to force your way into my room, and my tent so many times, I've had to set up pit traps around my tent whenever we have to work together on the road anduse a few items to summon elder elementals to guard my door every night so that you don't sneak in, and try to force your way into my bed like the deranged psycho you are! Hells, I bet you are so delusional about our fake relationship, you don't even know what I look like under my helmet!"
The woman looked on in confusion as the rogue yelled at her, and when he brought up his helmet, she spoke up. "Well, you're too tall to be halfling, gnome, or dwarf, and to thin to be an orc or half orc. I... I think you are a shy human or half elf who must be so handsome, that if you don't hide your face, you'd be overwhelmed by women! Besides, I don't know why you keep denying it, we were meant to be Derik, if you really loved your wife, why did you even leave her? She was quite attractive when I saw her, probably not anymore after I punched her in the face." she said, her tone becoming dark.
"So you did strike Bethany first! And my reason for leaving her, was because if I didn't, her brother would have killed my kid when they were born! You want to see why?" he then reached for his helmet, and took it off, showing the woman his face, her black eyes widening in fear as she looked into his silver ones, while his white hair tumbled to his shoulders, the coal black skin of his very feminine faced contrasting it greatly as he yelled in anger. "It is because I am a drow!"
Darla stood in shock, not expecting this at all. The thought of Derik being a drow never even crossed her mind as she thought about how he acted, spoke, or anything. Of coure, before she could say anything, the drow rogue snapped his fingers, causing Calcifer, and one very, very shocked priest of Tymora to appear after being invisible, possibly for the whole conversation. The halfling stared in surprise at Darla, before looking at Derik with sympathy.
"Wow, I thought you were being paranoid when you started setting those traps up in our room when we escorted her Derik, but this? Bhaal's Balls man! Our boss is going to have a heart attack over this!" Cal said, before moving to restrain Darla's hands behind her back. "I'll keep our little sorceress friend from casting spells, you go back to the Pigsticker and get some rest."
Derik nodded and put his helmet back on and returned to the tavern. Later, Edgar Dercap, a half elf who was the leader of their mercenary company, the Golden Fangs, had the Sorceress, Darla Marisu, removed as a member. The reasons, as Calcifer told Derik later, were due to being apparently mentally imbalanced, more dangerous to the company than anything they were hired to face in the past, and being disrespectful to the family of a senior member. The halfling and the drow, along with the priest to apologize for making him an outside witness for them,and laughed as they swapped stories about the other women they met in their lives, and the trouble some of them got them into. |
| Alystra Illianniis |
Posted - 17 Aug 2012 : 01:15:13
Great story, and quite funny! Can't wait to see what else you have in store. Great writing. |
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