Thursday, June 11, 2009

A Letter to Tristan

Dear Tristan,

How's life, since the Valentians kicked you out of their embassy? I have to say, I was disappointed to find you gone on my last night in town.

Yes, I have indeed moved on in my travels, and for once in my existence, have found a place to stay for a while. I am currently in a tavern in the "mythical" kingdom of Alesia, which does, in fact, exist deep beneath the Western Wastes.

As it turns out, the worship of Olidammara has long been neglected in this fair city, the temple relegated to obscurity, the faith's last two adherents (delightful gnomes named Bip and Bop) left passed out at the altar... Naturally, the god has commanded me to revive worship. I have already begun training Bip and Bop in the subtle nuances of being a cleric of Olidammara (namely: high alcohol tolerance, some basic dance technique, and a loud voice), and the faith's first public orgy is scheduled for next week. Not that I haven't already... er....

Anyway, I would love it if you came to town for the orgy. It's going to be a good one. Plus, they have some seriously great liquor here, as well as a lot of amazing antique weaponry. Let the awesomeness commence.

Yours (not exclusively),

Aranel

P.S. Have a new wand you might enjoy. But only if you let me touch your sword.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Proof that you can, in fact, avoid the Inevitable

Aranel here.
I just woke up from a drunken stupor and realized that we have not shared any of our recent adventures! I would rectify the problem and tell you everything that's happened in recent months, but I'm afraid my memory isn't what it never was.

Instead, I will tell you what happened just a few days ago.

The gang was on the way to finding a sunken city in the Western Wastes, a town of glorious art and high culture that one day mysteriously vanished from the face of the earth... Wanting riches, prestige, and all the various other benefits of uncovering lost cities, we promptly hired ourselves out to a scholarly dwarf (Matthias) and the gang of thieves he was working with. Together, we hope to uncover the city and untold riches.

We stayed one last night in town. I went in search of my latest obsession/sex toy--Tristan, a scarred, muscled, surly fighting man. Unfortunately, he was kicked out of the Valentian Embassy (his temporary home) for squatting in government offices.

Highly disappointed, I got drunk and went to a medium for shits and giggles. Unfortunately, she told me that, for some reason, the universe is highly angry with our group. Then she demanded payment, which Cloak paid for me, since I was feeling peeved about incurring the ire of the universe, and we left.

At the sound of horse hooves, which generally bode ill for both our group and Matthias, we left in the middle of the night, ripping Twitchleaf from the arms of her current lover, the King of the Thieves.

We galloped into the night and were ambushed by a very incompetent group of thieves, two of which we slaughtered, after lighting the forest on fire, the rest of whom ran away crying. Pussies. We advised a change of career. If you can't play with the big boys (i.e., badasses like us), don't play at all.

Then we rented an airship/mountain-climbing machine from a sarcastic halfling, who fit right in with our group. We headed for the northern mountains at the edge of the Western Waste, hoping to reach the sunken city...

Alas, the universe had other plans.

Turns out, us fucking with the order of the Law Plane, Mechanist, a few months back was a very, very bad idea. The universe demanded justice. But it wasn't our fault! we cried. We didn't do anything! Well, except for slaughtering some guards, freeing official Mechanist prisoners (including, apparently, a serial killer, who we thought at the time had only run a stop sign), and robbing the guard tower. Hey, we're a highly chaotic group. What can ya do?

Once the bureaucracy figured shit out, they sent an Inevitable after us. As in, a big, scary, unstoppable metallic centaur with wings, determined to send us to our dooms.

I sent all my chaotic spells at him and, once he was close enough, our group could attack him, but apparently he had a strange resistance to both physical and magical damage. So, I withdrew my anti-Law weapon, a badass heavy mace that affects Law creatures, and performed Air Walk, determined to do epic battle in the sky.

Or maybe not.

Neither the Inevitable nor I could hit each other. For an eternity. Instead, we swiped uselessly at each other. The fire elemental I summoned, Hwuairth, had a little better luck, but things were not going well. Meanwhile, our climbing machine hit a few hidden mines in the mountains, although Sienna's sharp eyes helped us miss most of them, and eventually the airship tumbled to its doom.

We all died.

Ok, not really. We didn't die. Weren't even injured. Meanwhile, someone killed the Inevitable (Not so inevitable after all, huh? Suck on that, Mechanist!), although that person was most definitely not me. The person with the most effective anti-Law weapon had a bad day to rival any and only struck one blow, although the spells were fairly useful.

"There!" Matthias cried, pointing past the glittering corpse of the inevitable towards a hole in the cliff. "I think we've found the entrance!"

To be continued...