We're Gonna Die! We're Gonna ... Oh, I Guess We're Not Gonna Die.

This last session marked the end of our Castle-in-the-Clouds adventure. When last we left our intrepid adventurers, we were facing a very large, very vast, very powerful demon who was laying waste to the front ranks of our party. Also, Craig's lizard had been charmed into attacking Mike's Dwarf, who was suffering mightily from the abuse. Three party members were on the ground, our wizards were about out of energy, and aside from Jeff's boom-stick (since used) it wasn't clear we could actually hurt the massive demon threatening to turn us all into snacks.

Luckily the wizard's apprentice we had just freed, who had very few spells of his own, had a rather powerful anti-magic grenade stashed. He lobbed this into the middle of the fight, which immediately banished the massive Caxathros-demon and dispelled all of the other various magics in its radius - including the Charm spell holding Craig's lizard to the other side. This made things immediately better, although the enchantress supposedly running the show teleported away when Brian tried to run her through with his sword.

We immediately formed ranks, did a little quick healing to get mobile again, and then set off to find said enchantress and finish her off. She wasn't in her "throne room", or in her quarters - though we did find the castle's butler on the way, who helped us out with a few additional magic items (mostly potions & a scroll). Failing to find the evil sorceress, we decided to go around collecting the colored jewels which, when reassembled, would restore the castle's "engine" and hopefully free the incredibly powerful wizard who had built the thing. This involved a brief but rather punishing fight with a large bronze statue (now much the worse for wear), and a short and extremely terrifying encounter with some kind of spider-demon that Bruce was able to (barely) outrun with the help of a Hawk Flight spell.

Having gathered all of the colored gems, we returned them to the central "engine", put them back in place, and proceeded to free the wizard. Grateful for being released from captivity, he was willing to overlook the various things we had damaged along the way, and allowed us to rest, hang out, and (most necessary) heal. He also rewarded each of us with a magic item granting some bonus or characteristic particularly useful to each. Well-fed and well-compensated, the party is now getting bored floating around in a giant My Little Pony set, and will probably return to the ground soon to get back to killing things.

Next week, we're back to Supers - run by this chronicler, so somebody else will have to write the updates!

Raising the Next Generation

It was very good of Bill to come by on Sunday afternoon to kick a few games around with my son Henry and me. We tried out one of the Lego Heroica games, which is now a likely part of Bill's sons' future. Then we may have set the record for swiftest defeat at Forbidden Island. Then I introduced Bill to Roll Through the Ages, the civilization-building game that you can play at a bar. Finally, Henry rejoined us for Incan Gold. Four games in two and a half hours: a well-spent afternoon.

Engineering a Hostile Takeover of Desirable Real Estate

This post will cover several sessions - it's been a while since anyone's had time to update this. Apologies for dropping details along the way.

At the end of the previous battle on the ground, we had wiped out most of the invading force and were looking up at a suspicious-looking castle in the sky. Our few remaining live prisoners were happy to tell us how they got down, and how we could get back up - a method involving holding a rainbow-colored rock and reading what may be the lamest magical-trigger poem in history (not reproduced here, in large part because I've blocked it from my brain).

Using this gizmo, we were in fact able to whisk ourselves up to the cloud on which the rainbow-colored, crystalline castle sits (think Superman's hideout, crossed with just a touch of "My Little Pony"). There was no welcoming committee to greet us, and so we waltzed in, figuring that: a) whoever lives here sent the raiding party below, b) the raiding party were bad, c) therefore the people living here are bad. Moreover, having a flying castle seemed like a cool idea, and so we decided that a change of management would be in order. At various points along the way, we've been measuring for curtains, discussing decorating options ... but more on that later.

Once inside, we followed our never-failing mantra: Always Go Left. The castle is arranged as a ring of octagonal spires surrounding a large central spire, so this seemed to make sense. We first encountered some nasty gargoyles who apparently live on the roof - Brian ended up wearing one as a hat for a while, but we dispatched them and moved on (note for later: must call pest control about the roof...) We found an empty library, an empty magical lab, a lone guard who, taken by surprise, was happy to consent to being tied up instead of being filleted, and a room full of more guards practicing. These we had fun wiping up, and in the process we picked up a wizard (Kevin's new character) who swore he didn't want to be there and therefore wanted to join us. We still don't entirely trust him - especially since he seems to be a necromancer of some sort, and may have a multiple personality disorder to boot (now there's a fun combination!)

We also ran into more of the frog/dog-like demon things, and discovered that they can teleport. Our first encounter wiped out one, but two disappeared. Our next encounter with three of them wiped out two, but not before the teleported behind us and dropped both Bill and Jeff. A third got away, guaranteeing that the castle's owners (a sorceress named Irinia and her demon-summoning sidekick Caxathros - never trust someone with an X in their name) knew we were there.

We discovered, after the second demon battle, an imprisoned wizard's apprentice. We let him out, and he preceded to tell us how the castle had been stolen from its creator, a very powerful wizard who (because the castle's "engine" has been broken) is now trapped somewhere in another plane (we're voting for the Semi-Elemental Plane of Ranch Dressing). He told us that if we can put the engine back together (by gathering the various gemstone pieces from around the castle and reassembling them in a pedestal at the center of the castle) we may be able to bring the creator wizard back. Though we had really been looking forward to owning a large flying crystal castle, we have reluctantly agreed that this is probably the best strategy.

As we started to plot how to take down Irinia and Caxathros, they brought the fight to us. Two demons showed up, opened a door at one end of the room, and then slammed it shut, closing off that end. Then three more popped into the room and started causing havoc in the middle. As we turned to deal with those, Irinia and Caxathros themselves showed up at the other end. Caxathros transformed in a very large, VERY scary demon-like thing. We don't quite know what Irinia is doing yet, but Craig's lizard-man has apparently switched sides and has been putting large holes in Mike's dwarf.

At the point we stopped, we'd put down three or four of the frog-demons, and (thanks to Jeff's boom-stick) managed to put one hole in the big Caxathros-demon. But a lot of us are pretty serious hurt, and we're running out of both energy and options. Maybe we should have brought the powerful creator-wizard back first...