The game started with our characters -- mine, Korendir's, The Immortal's, and Re-Roll's-- working in the fields outside our small village. As young men in the village, this was our duty. (It should be noted that Psionics, in this universe, are terribly arrogant people. Their High Stat is Charisma, and I'd rolled a 17 for mine. My character also had a fervent belief that he wasn't really related to any of these people, that his real parents had just dropped him off here and would be back "soon" to pick him up.)

(At this point, let me explain the other characters: my character, essentially a Zero Level at this point, had leanings to mental powers; Korendir's character had a tendency to sneak between buildings and pick locks; The Immortal's character liked the woods; and Re-Roll's character seemed religous.)

One of us managed to look back and noticed smoke coming up from the village. Believing this was a Bad Thing, we went back to check it out. We discovered the village had been pillaged, and the people were either missing or dead.

We explored the town to see what may have caused this -- also looking for survivors -- when we'd encountered a local beastie that had come to investigate the fire. They were called crangers, or something like that: cat-like beasts that, as a first attack, attempted to frighten their prey by receding the skin from their heads and screaming a hideous wail. We managed to kill them, but my character was hurt. Some potions were found in the hut of the "witch", but we didn't know what they were. The others wouldn't let that stop them and poured one of the purple vials down my throat.

It was a polymorph. My character turned into a chicken. Fortunately, this meant that a drop from the gold potions we found in the cleric's hut would do the equivalent of a full vial for a human.

We were doing this when we noticed a very red man with dogs exhaling fire walking through our village. The dogs were on leashes and were eating the corpses of the townsfolk. Re-Roll's character sensed great evil form it and cowered in the corner like a little girl.

Once the bad thing was gone, we got together as much stuff as we could, finished burning the bodies of the townsfolk, and headed off towards the Twin Cities to the north.

The first few days were uneventful, but on the fourth -- I think -- night, we were forced to make camp at a crossroads. The ranger in the party noticed that it was also the summer solstice. Two terribly auspicious signs.

We didn't like this idea, so we continued on for another hour. After that hour elapsed, we encountered another crossroads. This one had fresh tracks, though. While we pondered this, we heard an oncoming group of travelers. Taking cover, our thief went out to see who it was. After he came back, some time later, he told us that it was us he'd seen.

To shorten this bit of the story, all of our characters that night had an encounter with a being. The thief encountered a satyr-like being calling himself Natasha. The ranger encountered someone who looked suspiciously like Herne. I had a voice in my head, and the cleric was found -- in the morning -- in the middle of the crossroads, in the center of a scorched circle of protection. Nobody knew about the encounters of the others, with the exception that we all knew about the cleric. After my encounter, I felt compelled to change my character's alignment from Lawful Neutral to Chaotic Neutral.

We got to the city and Korendir wasted no time starting to pickpocket. The Immortal managed to get into an alley fight with three thugs from a local gang, The Jets. This got him free membership into a different gang: The Sharks. My character managed to spot the most beautiful green-skinned woman in the city, and followed her back to the theatre where, I found out, she was going to be performing that night. I made my way back to where we were staying and convinced The Immortal to lend me 10 Zeni Coin (everybody uses GP, don'tchaknow) so I could see the show. (OK, well, truth be told, he was perfectly happy to lend me the money; one of the psi powers I started with was Charm Person.)

The show was great, and, after speaking with the manager, my character managed to get a date with the green-skinned woman three weeks later. Upon my return to the rest of the party -- smile on my face and green woman on my arm -- she informed us that she was going to have another show in a city up the coast in six months, and I had to be there. (Obviously, she fell for my character's charms.)

We spent some time in the one of the Twin Cities -- this one was a mix of human and dwarf, the other was primarily elf -- doing jobs for The Sharks, and Korendir was doing jobs for the Thieves' Guild, which he'd recently decided to join, once he heard about the great offer they had for him. Eventually, though, the Thieves' Guild had a mission for us: a robber baron going by the name 'Lord British' was stealing from travelers and not giving his cut to the Guild. They wanted him out of the picture.

We managed to track him and his droogies back to their camp. His three associates were killed in the combat, but my character'd been KOed, and Re-Roll died. Subsequently, he rolled up a new character.

After I'd been revived, we managed to trace British back to a small nearby town, specifically into a bar. When we caught up with him, he was in mage robes and was attempting to hire the services of some thugs. Korendir went in first and overheard him talking to them, telling them that he'd been accosted by bandits and wanted an escort back to the big city. He dropped 600 Zeni Coin on the table, 100 ZC for each of the hired people.

Korendir went right up to the table and dropped a bag of something grungous -- 6000 ZC, or something like that -- and told them to get lost. British jumped up and yelled that Korendir was one of the bandits that was trying to kill him. Three of the six decided to step back, but one of the other three was, we later OOC discovered, Lawful Good. He believed British and attacked Korendir.

The Immortal and I came in shortly after that. One of Korendir's weapons was a dagger with a neuro-toxin on it; save or die. British didn't save. Re-Roll's new character, another cleric, happened to be in the bar. Seeing an apparent mage just get murdered, he did an alignment check: a Lawful Good and two Neutral Good fighters were facing off against a recently changed Lawful Evil thief, a Neutral Evil ranger, and my character, a Chaotic Evil mystic. Being Good, Re-Roll was forced to go over and heal the LG fighter whenever The Immortal damaged him. (Korendir spent his time fighting the other two, and I attempted to control one of the other three who was coming my way.)

Korendir was shortly KOed (reduced to 0 HP), but he got right back up shortly after that. This worried many people. Eventually, he got KOed again, and -- for good measure -- one of the fighters broke his neck. It was at least three turns before Korendir got back up yet again.

Unfortunately, the constabulary eventually arrived and arrested us. Korendir was going to be executed for witchcraft, The Immortal was going to be tried for banditry, or something, and I was going to be tried for practicing unlawful sorcery on the townsfolk.

We were taken back to the temple in the Twin City we were in before, awaiting out sentences. This was when Natasha showed up and told us that he could help us get out. If we wanted his help, that is. The Immortal and I didn't like the idea much, but staying in the prison was an even worse idea. The temple eventually burned down, but we were nowhere to be seen.

After we got out, we made it back to another place and they decided to train us. After out training was over, they decided to test us, to "see how evil we really were". (One of our trainers was a female balrog; previously in the game, Korendir had actually managed to steal something from her, thanks to Natasha's assistance.)

(Re-Roll had a *new* new character by this point, a Halfling Barbarian. Neutral Evil, I think he was.)

We were teleported to a school filled with elvish children and teachers. We were given three fire-bombs apiece. We were told to kill everyone.

We took our positions: The Immortal went in through the front door, and Korendir and I went in through the windows on each side of the building. Re-Roll stayed back, keeping an eye out for those that might try to escape.

(A note: The Immortal has an amazing ability as a player: he has an uncanny ability to manage to kill me by fumbling his rolls. It got real old real quick, but that never stopped him from fudging his rolls.)

My first attack was to throw all three of my firebombs at the door. There were kids back there, but more importantly, The Immortal was back there. I had two teachers on each side of me, and managed to take one of them down fairly quick. The other was doing a good job trying to kill me.

Once she was dead, my character -- being the depraved individual he was -- made sure to grab a hold of one of the students for his own.

Most everyone else was killed either by fire, weapon, or Re-Roll's character eating them. The only ones that survived were two that were teleported out by the head teacher, and the one my character took. We then teleported back and were looked at disapprovingly because of the two that got away.

The female balrog gave my character two items: a Bag of Familiar Holding, and a Collar. My character was barely able to get the collar around her neck before he was suddenly surrounded by five elvish paladins and a titan paladin.

The room, previsouly filled with many people and demons, was suddenly very, very empty.

The titan had a deal for me: give them the girl, the collar, and the bag, and they'll give me a two-day head start. After careful mental deliberation, I decided his offer was an acceptable one and promptly handed over the requested student and items. They left, and so did we.

We made our way northwards and eventually came to the city that the green woman had mentioned previsouly. It was an Arab city, and Korendir felt rather at-home there; lots of theives. (At one point, Korendir fumbled his pickpocket roll and the person engaged him in combat. By the second round, Kor could see two more thieves sneaking up behind the guy that he tried to pickpocket.)

Xador -- acting as my character's subconscious -- mentioned a goal my character suddenly had: kill the green woman's manager, take his Ring of Human Influence that I'd seen him use earlier, and take the woman for my own. This seemed like an acceptable course of action for my character, so I agreed.

Surprisingly enough, Korendir and The Immortal also got the idea of killing the manager. So we formulated a plan: he already knew me, so I'd go meet him again and distract him while the others came up from behind and did the deed. This was done with a minimal amount of difficulty, and we promtly looted as much as we could immediately afterwards.

They headed back to the inn where we were staying, and I headed down to the dancer to let her know of the accident that had happened to her manager, as well as to console her. Weeping, she let my character lead her back to the inn.

Once we were all alone, her tears stopped like a lightswitch and she demanded the ring. Befuddled, we stammered. She told us not to BS her, that she knew we killed him, and that she wanted her ring back. She went on to tell us how she wasn't really green -- she was actually a drow -- and how he had dominated her, got her to buy the ring for him, and used that to his own advantage.

We gave her back the ring, and she took us back to the theatre house. She asked The Immortal to kill someone. He did. Upon asking why, she said that she'd never liked him and just wanted him dead.

We went backstage and got a wardrobe, as well as a chest. There was lots of clothing in there that could change its appearance, and we took those for our own. She gated us to a hill outside the city, and she went back with Korendir. They went up to the manager's room and found more stuff that he'd hidden in his room: a part of a staff, and a ledger that explained that it was part of a much greater artifact.

Not wanting to get caught, we all headed north to the capital city to lose ourselves. Upon our arrival, we noticed that this city was flat-out the largest city we'd ever seen. We looked around for ways to advance ourselves, and I found it in a psionic who owned a shop. His name was Abdul and his shop was The Mad Arab.

The Mad Arab showed my character more than he'd expected. While he managed to learn all of the psionics for the level he was able to cast, he also learned about the great evils that exist, evils greater than the ones we'd previously seen. After all this learning, my character's alignment was changed from Chaotic Evil to Lawful Neutral with Good tendencies.

My character was so astounded by this that he told the others to see the Mad Arab, too. They were reluctant, but a single wave of the hand convinced them that it was what they should do. The Immortal's character returned to his True Neutral alignment, and Korendir switched to Chaotic Neutral with Good Tendencies. The drow, who was now going by the name Gibríel, was curious and went in of her own accord to see what was up with this so-called Mad Arab. She came out missing the spider tattoo she previsouly had on her forehead and with a Neutral Good alignment. Re-Roll's character also got the Neutral Good. We all also now had a distinct *lack* of an aura, something usually reserved for corpses.

We also got the handy ability of being able to resist magic or psionics that would control a person, including, but not limited to Charm Person, Hold Person, etc.

After all this was done, The Immortal slugged my character. Korendir liked this idea and did so, too. Re-Roll also decided to do it, as everyone else was. The Mad Arab joined in, too, seeing a new custom being born: Make A Deal, Strike The Psi. (I eventually began hiring myself out for parties and bargainings at 500 ZC an hour.)

After wandering around the marketplace, Gibríel told us that she needed all of our equipment for something she'd found: a staff. After looking at it, we agreed and she traded for it. (Korendir was going to come back later and liberate our stuff anyways, so it was all fine by us.)

Korendir, The Immortal, and Re-Roll went to get our stuff back. (My character was busy trying to get rid of his cursed alternate form, that of a satyr. We had accumulated a lot of polymorph potions, so in an attempt to get rid of the satyr form, I drak all of them and made an attempt to control my form. What I actually managed to do was gain the ability to Shapeshift.) One of the items we got earlier was a ring of Fire Immunity; The Immortal had that equipped and was later to make use of it.

They got up to the door of the shop and saw some writing they couldn't read. Korendir wasn't about to attempt picking the lock of a door with strange writing, so he used one of the items he got earlier: a Chinese style hat with a cylindrical tube pointing forward. He fired off a shot at the door and it exploded inward. On the other side was an ifrit.

The three of them fought it out with the ifrit, but it exploded when it died, catching the storehouse on fire. The Immortal, who had the ring of fire immunity, ran through the store with a Bag of Holding throwing whatever he could find into the bag.

(We'd gotten these items from a heist that Korendir pulled in the marketplace earlier that day. He encountered a mage with a djinn who was very angry with the shopkeeper we'd bought the Staff from. Apparently he wanted the Staff. So, Korendir was able to tell that the djinn was just an illusion and the human wasn't. [We later learned he was a githzerai.] Kor managed to steal the Bag of Holding off of him, but not without fighting him for it. Inside was the hat, a matching pair of boots, the ring, and other things.)

It didn't take long before the city guard showed up to investigate the fire. Korendir, with only 3 HP left, decided that it would be a good idea to Hide. The Immortal ran through the fire to other shops and avoided the guard. Re-Roll wasn't so fortunate, and had to try to fight his way out. He didn't succeed. So he rolled up a new character.

The Immortal wasn't able to get our stuff back, but he did get a lot of other stuff that we found useful. He also got a journal that the shopkeeper had, and in it we read about a plan to kill the Khalif and the Vizier. (The Khalif's daughter had just gotten married, and the new prince was the one behind it all.)

We decided that, instead of skipping town, since we were all good-ish characters now, that it was our duty to bring this to the Khalif's attention. We got in touch with the Mad Arab, and he was able to get us an audience.

In the courtroom, while we were explaining things to the Khalif, we gave the book to the Vizier and when he saw the pertinent bits, he showed it to the Khalif. (We also showed the body of the gith.)

The Khalif wasn't happy about this and summoned his daughter and son-in-law to the court. (The Khalif's personal guards were summoned, too.) The Khalif begain the questioning by throwing the body of the gith in front of the prince and demanding an explanation.

The prince sighed and agreed, changing into the form of a large fire demon. The princess turned into a succubus. Four additional demons were summoned by the prince. The Vizier, to counter the demons, summoned some air elementals.

And the battle commenced.

In the end, our side lost the personal guards and the Vizier, and the other side lost everyone but the succubus. (The prince was killed by the Khalif once he managed to overcome his shock of seeing his "daughter" change into a demon: he threw his mithril scimitar and hit the prince right between the eyes.)

The Mad Arab was summoned after the succubus pleaded for mercy, and he put a geas on her to return the princess. The Mad Arab was appointed the position of Vizier and was also charged with healing the princess of any mental trauma she may have endured.

The Khalif was so thankful for our assistance that he insisted one of us marry his daughter. I put on my biggest grin, but Gibríel claimed that I was spoken for. This shocked me a little, and it left it to Korendir and The Immortal to decide; Re-Roll's new character wouldn't show up for a few more scenes.

Korendir seemed to like the idea, and The Immortal seemed to shy away from it, so naturally Kor decided to try to make The Immortal more uncomfortable about the situation. Eventually, though, it was decided that Korendir would become the new Prince of the Realm, though we dubbed him the Prince of Thieves. The Immortal was bestowed with the title of Defender of the Realm; Gibríel was appointed Court Sorceror; and I was given the title of Plenipotentiary -- because of my natural charms, no doubt.

The Khalif, though, was worried about my celebrity: specifically, he was worried about any illegitimate heirs to the throne. He had his own ideas about rectifying this thought. Gibríel assured him that the matter was nothing to be concerned about, as did I. He seemed to accept this and left my character be.

It took a few weeks for the Mad Arab to repair the princess' damage, but when he suceeded, the preparations for the weddings began. (Apparently my character and Gibríel were also to be wed at the same time as Korendir and Princess Daphne.)

Before that time, however, the Khalif had a job for us: there were tales of sea devils terrorizing a costal town, and we were to be sent there to investigate and, if the rumors were found to be true, to remove them. We were at this time introduced to Re-Roll's new character, a bipedal, 8' tall dinosaur fighter.

We ventured out to the town and found it devoid of life. After searching, we managed to find a locked door leading down inside one of the buildings. I tried Knock, but it quickly re-set itself. Re-Roll decided to rip the door off and was rewarded with four crossbow bolts to his chest. (Fortunately, he didn't die.)

We quickly realized that these were the survivors, and they informed us of what had happened, what was doing it, and when they usually acted. One man there actually managed to escape the sea devils' underwater living area and told us of what he saw: no more than 50 of the things had some of the townsfolk down there. While the folk weren't dead yet, the devils were slowly eating them alive.

We decided that a good way to get them out -- since the townsfolk said they were attracted to commotion -- would be to have a bonfire going on the beach. Which was sucessful; they came out in droves.

We ended up using up all of our healing potions, but we'd managed to take out half of them. I was also the unfortunate victim of a curse placed on me by one of the females; they're all clerics, of a sort. Dawn was coming soon, and since they seemed a nocturnal race, we decided to wait until day to go into their lair. Well, me specifically. With my shapeshifting, I'd best be able to infiltrate their lair and get the people out.

This page last updated on Saturday, 08-Mar-2003 10:47:36 CST | webmaster @ infiniteshadow . net