Ep 1101: We get sent to the Misty Woods

Last week was a wrap up/set up for next leg of journey thing so not a lot happened, other than Elle spent a small fortune on a very important spell component. There is a spell called Contingency that basically does a "if X happens do Y", but it requires a 1500GP statuette carved in the owners likeness and covered in gems. Way more flashy than Elle is but she bought that and has loaded it with Dimension Door (short range teleport) with the rule of "If I fall over 10' then Dimension Door safely to the ground." Figure she's been spending enough time in the air on dragon back, having something in place if she falls would be a good idea.

A little role-play was tossed in as well, we can't seem to get away from that (which is what makes this game so fun). We also leveled up to 11th level, which means more hit points and spells/abilities can change.

So now our brave band of adventurers are on horse heading out to the Misty Woods. See, there's been reports of incursions by a green dragon and dragon cult members there and it's not going well. All villages except the one we're en-route to have been totally wiped out, this one has miraculously survived. So we're to report to the village leader and see what's up and what we can do about it. And as we started doing many moons ago, Elle is riding backwards on Magnus' war horse. Partially one less mouth to feed/keep safe and partially keep an eye on the rear of the party.

And let's face it, Magnus' war horse has to be at minimum Friesian sized to haul a 6' muscled full plate armored human around. Adding a 90lb elf is barely noticeable compared to all that. Also of note, Paladin's war horses are a special called creature that are actually celestial based, not equine based. They do not have the food and rest requirements normal horses do, and are quite a bit more intelligent than average.

On the second day of travel as the trail/road curves around some trees we came upon an entertaining scene. There was a pair of trolls fighting a pair of hydras over the carcass of something edible (to them anyways, trolls ain't smart). So what do we do? Well, attack, of course. Evil things must not be tolerated to live (OK, that's not Elle's standpoint, but she's in need of more funds and it's fun).

Itanis goes first and does this mesmerizing do-dad spell that stuns 3 of the creatures into submission. So Tsedek wades in to beat on the one creature that was not stunned. Magnus steps up to haste Leovan. Leovan proceeds to start machine-gunning arrows at the creature. And (everyone frankly) told Elle to not fireball things because they wanted to kill the bad guys one at time. :pout: So she stands up on the war horse circus style and slung acid instead. Then Itanis added a scorching ray chaser and the first troll went down.

So Tsedek waltzes up to the second troll and just lays into him hard. Leovan machine-guns away at the second troll and it went down. So Magnus strides right up to the first hydra and smites away, and Elle added a firebolt chaser. Itanis did more scorching ray. It wasn't dead yet though, so it decided to wake up its buddy from the mesmerizing do-dad spell.

Which means it's game on for fireball!!

Another round of beating on creatures happens, Tsedek is quite dangerous with his dual daggers. Magnus is in his element smiting creatures, Leovan is on fire with his 3 bow shots a round doing quite a lot of damage.

And Elle, oh ever chaotic Elle has been feeling a skosh too cooperative lately. And Leovan has been acting twitchy around her, convinced she's going evil. So Elle does fireball directly on Magnus, who is oh so helpfully standing right between the two hydras. The visual is Elle casts a spell that causes a 20' radius explosive ball of fire to appear right on Magnus.

Thing is, Elle is an evocation wizard so she's allowed a certain number of exemptions from her damage spells so she always excludes party members. So Magnus and Tsedek are safe, while the Hydras failed their save and took full (40 points) of damage.

Elle's successfully freaked Leovan out. Again. Because it's fun to mess with him. Hopefully he doesn't shoot her instead of the hydras next round.

And then we ran out of time to finish the combat. So, in two weeks (next Monday is Labor Day), we shall resume the battle.