Hey, we're on "Game On with Cody and John"!

Brian's email appears at about 17:30 in Episode 37, in which he describes our long-standing custom of including eBill and iMike via webcam.

Of Tunnels and Trolls

8 February 2010-

After last week's send-off into the underground lake/sewer/likely monster breeding ground, we proceeded along the only likely avenue of progress- a single high tunnel leading from whatever water source feeds this town into this underground lake. We were even making some progress when we heard voices up ahead crying for help, and a strange hammering sound. Rounding a bend, we found four dwarves on a ledge, trying to escape from something which seemed to be coming through the rock towards them. One of their number charged into the tunnel from which they had come (presumably to buy the others time) and was immediately mulched and thrown back out (he bought about 1.2 seconds), while the rest jumped onto our boats below.

Khavi (the centaur) used her Walk on Air spell to move up into a covering position, as did eMichael's ellyllon Azyl. What emerged was a pair of creatures which reminded me of D&D umber hulks, and were every bit as friendly. They seemed to emanate some sort of confusion spell which made fighting them hard, and they were as strong and resilient as iron golems. They came after us, and we hit them with everything we had, from Azyl's Stone Missiles to Arcturus's Flame Jets and Gus's Lightning Bolts. Jeff's half-giant hit the things repeatedly with his magical battle axe, Khavi scored a few hits with her morning star, and even eBill's archer got some action with his few Knockback arrows, which at least kept the things off-balance enough to ruin some of their attacks. After putting a few hundred points of damage into them, we did finally finish them off, but one of them nearly killed Khavi with one hit, and Jeff's shield will probably never be the same.

After we killed them, the mages healed Khavi enough that she's at least ambulatory, although they're about spent themselves. Next week we discover if saving those dwarves was worth it.

Problems at the Brothel!? We're On It!

18 January 2010 & 1 February 2010-

Sorry to roll two sessions into one summary, but I have quite obviously not made the appropriate sacrifices to the computer gods, and I've gotten to see my supposedly-protected system crash- again. Fume!

Anyway, after the previously-noted session, we cleaned up our gear, slapped on some band-aids, and sent Jeff in search of Arcturus, Kevin's long-absent fire-mage. On thier return, Jeff was approached by local citizens who knew of our reputation and alerted us to a crisis at the brothel (insert any joke here- I'll wait). Jeff returned and got the rest of us, who all felt the need to rescue the innocent (?) civilians from the Red Zombie menace. When we got there, the place was engulfed in a Mystic Mist, which we've encountered before, and which is a royal pain in the butt to overcome, since it is both magically unnerving and disorienting. After a short reconnaissance, we decided that our only viable option was to just go in through the front door, which is never an enviable tactical option. We were worried about reports of a tough group of mercenaries partying there, and suspected that they might have been zombified- which would explain the crisis.

Of course, the screams from inside convinced us not to dally for long, and we went in like a fantasy SWAT team, hanging on to Bruce's centaur's harness straps to keep together in the mist. eBill couldn't make it in, but the mist would have nullified his missile abilities anyway, so it was all up close and personal. We got our first action in a doorway, where Khavi was ambushed from both sides. She and Arcturus bashed and burned one of the bad guys, while Jeff and eMichael did similar bad things to the other guy. That, of course, is when their mage opened up with disturbingly familiar cannon-sized Stone Missiles, which certainly got our attention. We split into two teams, pushing through the mist to find their mage, until eventually Khavi found him and crushed his skull with one near-perfect morning star hit. Crude, but effective.

Once we got cleaned up and healed, we collected ourselves for a well-deserved rest, but we were awakened the next morning with a request for aid from the mayor. It seems that they want us to go into the sewers (and attached underground lake) from which the red mold that makes people into these Red Zombies seems to be emanating, and find the "Scarlet Lord" who is evidently planning to use this plague/curse for his come-back. Obviously, this will be dangerous and unsupported, and the underground area is likely to be chock full of all sorts of zombified critters- and we even get to go in boats (Oh, joy!), so that we can traverse the underground (and undoubtedly giant zombie marine creature-infested) lake. I wonder what zombie cave fish will be like?