Saturday, May 18, 2019

Lark's Landing, Episode 67

Colonial Caerdia: Lark's Landing is a story being told through a 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign I'm running at a local hobby shop called the Devil's Bench. If you aren't familiar with this ongoing story, you can follow this link to Once Upon a Tabletop on YouTube to hear the start of it or read the brief summary I wrote when I switched from video to blog.

You can find the previous episode here.


6th of Waning Fall, 1AL

Having taken a rest in their secret room down below the castle, after Patrick having alerted the entire building to their presence, the group that has gone out tell T'Zaric and Fiaeorri about their findings. T'Zaric is very interested in the Book of Raim that Quib has bonded with, but he accepts the group's decision to not give it to him as they don't know what's going on with him right now. It doesn't help when he briefly becomes his smoky self in an attempt to negotiate for the book to be given to "the vessel", but even that part of him accepts no as an answer.

The talk turns to safely getting out of the castle. Between T'Zaric, Quib, and a magical cloak Patrick found, they believe they are able to teleport everyone out of the castle, but first they need to know where the ground is so they don't accidentally teleport themselves into the ground. The best solution they have is to go back to the library - which had windows - and they want to do that anyway to retrieve more books.

T'Zaric gets sent ahead to stealthily scout the way, with Quib going with him up into the circular room to point the way. However, when they open the door, they discover that there are orcs already waiting for them - and orcs begin pouring down the stairs and into the room from the other door as well.

Hearing the ruckus up above, Patrick grabs Logan and tries to teleport out - but he miscalculates the height and merely injures them, which means it is now impossible to get everyone out. Extang and Logan rush up to join the fight, and Extang turns them both into giant apes to hold off the orcs. They whittle down the numbers, but there are so very many of them, and more coming.

T'Zaric flies back down the trapdoor, grabs Fiaeorri, and teleports out - aiming high in the air to make certain they make it safely. He lowers her to the ground, then begins flying back towards the castle, guessing from positioning that his friends are in the central tower - but he isn't certain he'll arrive in time to be of any help.

Patrick and Quib work towards keeping everyone alive, and Patrick comes up to join the fray - but the ape forms are whittled down, and the group is starting to get hurt. Desperate for an escape, Quib pulls out one of the spell scrolls they found and makes a passage out the north wall of the tower. Beyond appears to be some sort of overgrown greenhouse - but there are still orcs between them and the hole. So he casts a spell, dazzling nearly all the orcs in the room, and Patrick as well, before running out - followed by Logan and Extang pushing the dazed Patrick ahead of him while hitting the room with a fireball as he reaches the exit, incinerating most of the remaining orcs - but not all. Those that remain close in on him - with more rushing in from the door - and take him down to unconsciousness.

T'Zaric arrives back at the castle just in time to see his friends emerging through the wall into the space below the glass dome - and to see a gigantic bird rising from the overgrown foliage below the broken glass covering the greenhouse area. He hits it with some magic missiles, drawing his friends' attention to his presence, but the bird doesn't even seem to care. It shuffles over to the group, unable to spread its wings in the space, and takes Partick down with a snap of its beak while slashing a talon across Logan's armor.

Quib revives Extang, apologizes, than grabs Patrick and teleports up onto the roof beside T'Zaric. Terrified of this enormous bird and acting purely on instinct, Logan jumps into the air and casts a spell that blips him up onto the glass above - which cracks, but doesn't break. Extang staggers to his feet, blasts the circular room with another fireball, clearing out the remaining orcs inside - though there are still more coming - and runs back down the trap door, closing it behind him and barring it with the immovable rod.

Up on the roof, Quib says he's going back for Extang and T'Zaric offers to go along. Patrick is revived and Quib casts featherfall on him and Logan, telling them to regroup with Fiaeorri and get away from the castle - which they do. Then he teleports himself and T'Zaric down into the secret room below the tower, where they need take a good long rest before they're able to teleport all of them out and join the others, who have stopped to wait a couple miles away.

While Quib and Extang are sleeping, T'Zaric stealthily swipes Raim's Book of Secrets from Quib - then vanishes.


And that's the end of this week's exciting game session. Where has T'Zaric gone and what will Quib and Extang do when they wake up to discover the missing book? Find out next week in Episode 68.

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