Tormeron's events: the Stories

It's happy hour, the alcohol is flowing. It's time to pull up a tankard of ale, bottle of wine for the ladies and regail tales of heroism and grandeur.

Topic/Postby Gergel » 03 Oct 2014, 17:41

The Cathedral again. What is it with me and the Cathedral in these recent days? There is a curious sensation about the building, however. The air does not itch quite so much.

There is Adrenus, over there. Looks like he has picked up a quite large group tonight. I recognize Chepi, Aroona, Tessliana, Serendipity, Equanimity. Syrah and Avalerion, I have met them briefly but am still unsure of them. Claraa. She has not been around for a while. A new face. Death knight who calls herself Arya. I do not have any information about her allegiances nor intentions, best keep an eye on her for the time being.

Adrenus seems quite agitated. Something has hit close to home, it seems. The assumption is correct: with urgency in his voice he explains how masses of the undead have recently started to try to push their way out of the Cathedral crypts. The more powerful priests and paladins are away on a mission, Pandaria or Orgrimmar, no doubt, and the remaining forces are in over their head. Can we handle the situation? As if he needs to ask. I will go in alone if need be.

We move into the Cathedral. Someone tries to stop us. The gnome priest, Equanimity, takes it upon himself to talk them down. He talks too much. I would just announce myself as an Argent Crusader and move in. Still, it is good that there are others to do the talking. Can we just not head to the catacombs already?

The other death knight appears agitated as well. Looking for a battle? Or just not enjoying the presence of the Cathedral? Even inside, the sensation of holiness is dulled. Something evil is nearby.

Masses of undead have been pushing out of the basement since this night, says one of the priests. The defenders maintain a holy shield but it is uncertain how long it can last. Curious. The priest explains that there has been a sensation of unrest ever since a draenei priestess fought a great darkness in the Cathedral some weeks ago. That certainly sounds familiar.

The gnome has finished talking. These delays are annoying, to say the least. We can finally move in now. I observe the priests: they look tired, on edge. A few notice my insignia. Is that relief I see in their expressions?

A glowing golden shield blocks the stairs from the basement to the crypts. It does not look very strong. A huge mass of reanimated corpses is pushing against it. They burn, screech, and keep pushing. Mindless. Countless. My work is cut out for me. Some of my companions look uneasy. Others, like myself: ready to charge in. The death knight called Arya stands beside me with a spear. We are about to determine where her loyalties lie.

We instruct the priests who are maintaining the shield to drop it. A mass of undead pushes out. We push back. My runeblade whispers its glee into my mind as we strike down the trash in great sweeps. They are pitifully weak. Ripped apart in a single swing. Their clawing is futile against my armour. Arya is advancing at my side, she appears to be enjoying herself just as much as I am. My suspicions about her are decreasing. Others behind me are shooting and casting spells, these whizz past me and scatter the limbs of the advancing animated corpses. For a brief moment I am in pain: a holy spell strikes me from behind. Equanimity apologizes profusely, I let it pass.

There is brief silence, a lull in the battle. Every enemy in sight lies still on the ground. This does not last. Such quiet moments never last. A whirlwind of bones begins to swirl in the corner, it moves past me, attempts to pull in Equanimity. I grab the gnome by the scruff of his neck as he flies past me, screaming and flailing, and toss him back away from the vortex. In turn, he uses his Leap of Faith spell to remove Claraa from the path of the whirlwind.

This is not something I can fight with my runeweapon. Fortunately I came prepared. I offer a silent thanks to Lilandris as I draw my holy sword. My hands are both in pain and numb at the same time. I slash at the vortex.

Two white orbs, eyes, open on top of it. They whisper to me: "Join me!" Why do such evil beings always try to cajole me to their side? A death knight, they think, surely she must be evil to the core. I give my response by striking directly at them with the blessed blade. The phantom screams and bleeds, an ethereal white substance that dissipates just as it appears, and then it flees.

We follow. There are more undead in the way. Nothing to be concerned about. Skeletons scatter in every direction, ghouls fall into pieces. Then there is something fast and small, gnome sized, charging at the group with surprising speed and agility. It swings at Tessliana, dodges out of the way, then comes charging directly at my face. Bad idea. I extend a fist. Argent plate armour against a squishy gnome zombie is not an equal match. It falls aside, gets up, attacks again. I use Death Grip and pull it directly at my sword. The zombie is incredibly agile, it manages to swerve even as my power yanks it towards me. Not agile enough. It misses my sword but impacts on my armour, I barely feel it, but the zombie's head just splatters.

Free of distractions, we move down the stairs. Yet more zombies are surrounding the injured entity that has fled behind them. The zombies are casting spells; I bring up my Anti-Magic Shell and charge at them. My entire body feels ablaze with power. One attempts some type of a banishment spell on me. Might as well try to dam a river with a pebble. The zombies go down with incredibly satisfying crunches. Then it is just the ghostly entity and I.

Except not. The entity is gone. Its power, however, remains and apparently decides on a more subtle attack. The world seems to recede from my senses. My companions' voices are distant and quiet. Their forms change. Skin peels off, bodies rot, they look like the undead. I close my eyes, calm myself, draw upon other senses. I smell their blood. Still the same humans, elves, gnomes. It is as if undead shapes are an overlay on top of their true forms. I force myself to look past it, see them as they are.

Claraa, it appears, is also affected but not doing as well. She is looking around in confusion and apparently only seeing the false undead forms. She stabs Adrenus. Then Serendipity. Screaming at the undead that she believes are surrounding her. The smell of blood is thick in the air. I force down an urge to strike her down where she stands, put away my sword and grab ahold of her from behind, hold her down. She is strong, I do not know how long I can hold her.

Fortunately a divine intervention is on the way. A familiar presence. Lilandris rushes down the stairs with her weapon drawn and holy fire in her eyes. We might still come out of this in one piece, all of us. Ignoring Claraa's struggling I pin her arms to her body. Lilandris' holy power strikes whatever is affecting Claraa, rips it out of her. I toss Claraa aside: she is free of the influence now. The holy sword is in my hand, I swing at the entity Lilandris just removed from Claraa. It charges at me. Unwise. My truesilver sword is in the way, the phantom impales itself on it. Screaming, bleeding yet again. The entity escapes through the wall. There is nowhere for it to go, a holy shield is surrounding this place. Lilandris is by my side, we charge after it. Almost as an afterthought I notice that Claraa is injured, Equanimity and Adrenus are healing her with their spells. Serendipity and Adrenus himself are already looking better. How convenient, having access to holy healing magic.

More zombies in the next room. I switch to my runeblade and charge at them. They try to fight back. Futile. Their feeble scrapes glance off my armour. The unholy entity is there, cowering before me. Just one more step and it will go down.

But of course no, it will not be as simple as that. It lashes out in despair. Bodies of entombed human knights stand up, now warped in undeath, corrupted to attack us. They seem to take a liking to Lilandris. I slash at them, try to draw their attention, and yet they ignore me only to charge at the priestess. This allows me to strike with relative ease, but it is almost impossible to keep them from injuring Lilandris. I hit harder, cut one of the knights down. My runeblade slices through his armour and finally ends his attack. Then the other. Spells and arrows fly around, my companions have been busy, but I do not have time to notice their efforts. The second knight is destroyed by a combination of my sword and Tessliana's arrow through his skull.

The knight melts into a corrosive unholy ooze that is flowing towards me. Fortunately we are both standing in a recessed area of the floor, and all I need to do to bring me to safety is step to higher ground. The ooze attempts to follow, but is promptly vapourized by the holy spells of Lilandris as well as Equanimity and Adrenus who apparently have caught up with us.

Then only the unholy phantom is left. It looks injured. Time to die. I draw my holy sword. The entity makes one final effort to dissuade me, it assumes the forms of familiar souls. I glimpse Lilandris. Tirion. William. Why would such a display stop me? I know that they are either still alive, or already long dead. I know that it is merely the entity before me. And I strike it down. The holy blade burns in my hands as it sears its form, its spirit. It screams a threat, a warning, a plea, and then it is gone.

Is it over now? The battle is complete. The overbearing sense of unholiness around the Cathedral is gone. The Light is once again pricking my body and my soul.

Everything goes dark. Only Serendipity's tiny magical lantern companion is visible, barely. I sense some of the group members trying to cast various spells of light with no success. Fire blazes in the ceiling and dies instantly. Holy glow flares and dissipates. Someone yelps, another person cries out. I feel something rush past me. A voice I identify as Equanimity begins to shout urgently. I ignore the darkness and charge towards the scent of his blood in the air. Then there is light again. A large rat has attacked Equanimity, and is now charging towards Chepi. I attempt to strike it down, but the gnome woman is swifter. She swings her scythe and bisects the rat neatly.

Is it over now? No. More rats pour out of the dark corners. This, at last, is not my battle. I take a step back and allow the group's magic users to get their chance to shine. Fire, ice and the arcane fall down from the ceiling. The mass of rats is torn apart.

Is it over now? No, still not. I feel a rumbling through the soles of my boots. Something is coming out of the floor. Something big. Bigger than a human.

The largest rat I have ever seen comes out of the ground. Tessliana shoots an arrow at it. I draw my runeblade and strike. It squeaks and attempts to attack us. Compared to what we have faced tonight, it is nothing. I bury my blade up to its hilt in the rat's body. A faint pulsing sensation runs into my hands through my sword. I channel my power back towards it. The rat's heart bursts, and then it is dead.

Is it over now?

Yes.

It is finally over. No more rats. No more undead. No more phantoms. No more illusions.

We survey the battlefield, pick up the pieces, and depart the Cathedral. The tired, scared priests bless us tearfully.

A night well spent.
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Gergel
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Topic/Postby Gergel » 08 Oct 2014, 09:58

"I thought after so many missions to help save the world we should take it easy in nature..." Adrenus told the people who gathered near the northern entrance to Stranglethorn. "A nice hike sounds nice about now, doesn't it?"

So naïve.

"There will be ogres," the others nodded. "Possibly undead. Trolls. Crocolisks. The Venture Company. An ancient voodoo curse. Panthers. Raptors."

Adrenus went "Aaargh!" Why couldn't anyone just accept that there was going to be a simple enjoyable hike which would end with everyone being happy and perhaps having a picnic...

Aroona confidently bet: "Ten gold we run into trouble inside of ten minutes." A new companion, a rogue named Mantella, promptly raised that bet to "I say five minutes."

Determined to prove the doomsayers wrong, Adrenus led the group down the path into the waiting jungle.

"The bridge will break!" Chepi suggested when they reached the first rope bridge. It did not.

"We'll be eaten alive by hungry tigers..." was Lilandris' optimistic prediction. They saw no tigers. "Or raptors. Or cannibals. Or gorillas. Or pirates."

Or maggots. There was the corpse of a large maggot near the road. Seeing a corpse was not unusual in itself, so they paid little attention to it and proceeded deeper. But shortly there was another maggot corpse, then three more, then lots and lots. That there was becoming curious.

Curiosity turned into annoyance and then worry when they came across a pile of very-much-alive maggots after the next bend. These were busy consuming a tiger corpse, but promptly decided that a human would taste better and began to try and crawl all over Claraa. One of the poor rogue's boots got eaten, for a moment it seemed that Claraa would be running around half-barefoot for the rest of the journey, but fortunately Equanimity was able to provide her with a spare shoe.

Spare shoe or not, there were quite a lot more maggots by that time. What had been an amusing annoyance became a danger. The maggots were relentless: no matter how many were stomped, stabbed or scorched to death, there were always more coming up from the ground. They also upgraded their arsenal by starting to spit acid.

Still, it was not yet too horrible. Horrible was about to emerge. It did, in the shape of a bloody huge giant acid-throwing ground-melting colossus of a maggot. A close-range attack was problematic because of the acid. Long-range attacks it shrugged off fairly easily. Deciding to ignore the splatters, Thelarwen went in for a kill anyway, but did negligible damage. Things got even worse when another huge grub burrowed out behind her. She was caught between these two. Both took aim, horked up an impressive amount of acid, and let fly towards the death knight.

She ducked, rolled and jumped out of the way. Gobs of acid passed each other in mid-air. The volley of the first maggot hit the second, and the second one's shot splattered on the first. And that was that: neither grub appeared to be externally resistant to the acid and both melted with horrible blurbling sounds.

Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, the hikers hurried down the next bridge. The end behind them was quickly covered in maggots who began to melt the rope bridge. The group barely made it across... only to encounter another giant maggot, bigger than anything they'd seen that day. It hissed, blurbled, threw acid around from its mouth, skin and just about everywhere else, and began to turn the ground into muddy, acidic splotch of doooooooom.

As it was impossible to get close to it (because of the acidic ground that surely would have eaten their feet), it was time for spells, Tessliana's arrows and Lilandris' shotgun slugs. These did little damage: the maggot's skin was quite resilient and its acid melted most physical attacks before they could even do damage. But when Chepi dropped a rain of fire all over the muddy area of the road, things heated up. Literally. The acid was quite flammable, suddenly there was an enormous "whoooomph!" and a "boooom!" and for a moment everything was on fire. Including the giant maggot. The situation improved marginally, although instead of giant acid-spraying maggot they now had a giant acid-spraying maggot that was also on fire.

At that point most of the group decided to cut their losses and run away. Thelarwen, Aroona and Claraa, however, refused to accept defeat. There was a lot of stabbing and pecking, the dying maggot lost its eyes to Claraa's daggers and Thelarwen's sword. The death knight finally managed to get a proper blow in and buried her sword in the maggot's face up to its hilt. The dying creature sprayed her with all the acid it had left. Thelarwen's runesword was unharmed thanks to its magical nature, but her armour got a massive splash. She escaped mostly unhurt (the acid failed to penetrate her armour), however her gauntlets and hands inside them got burned quite badly. The maggot on the other hand got a taste of its own acid through the stab wound that Thelarwen had given it, and slowly melted from the inside.

Aroona in her druidic flight form picked up the distressed and injured death knight and flew her to a nearby river. Being dropped into deep water while wearing heavy plate armour would have been dangerous to most, but as the death knight did not really need to breathe all that much, it was a minor inconvenience. And on the other hand it cleaned her from acid quite thoroughly and quickly. Aroona's nature spells also managed to heal the worst of her chemical burn wounds, while Lilandris watched concernedly from the side and refrained from using her holy magic for obvious reasons.

The rest of the group had wandered off by that time towards the coast. I must admit I am somewhat hazy as to what happened at that point. Several cows ran out of the forest, almost trampled the group, and then charged into the sea. On the other hand, several fish in the sea turned into cows and charged out of the ocean. What the hell. Did the group just... wander into a cloud of hallucinogenic swamp gas or something?

Well, things normalized shortly. As much as "normalized" could be used for the situation. Just as Aroona, Lilandris and Thelarwen caught up with the group, several naga emerged from the ocean. "You've invaded our shoresss. Begone sss. You've ssss.... destroyed peaccccce... You plan to kill usssss, peacccceful sea naga... yousssss.... sssshall paysssssss." and the naga began to advance.

Not wanting to engage yet another battle, everyone just gave up at that point. Any attempts to talk to the naga and point out that they had not done anything hostile were utterly futile. The group retreated into the forest, still trailed by the naga. "Your kind seekss nothingssss but warsssss.... we naga never had a desire to fightssssss...." and at that point they really really looked like they were going to attack.

Thelarwen sighed, raised her sword in her hurting hands, and pointed out the obvious: "Very well. Attack us, if you dare. But know this, you will be making the first move. You, who claim to be peaceful, you will be the aggressor. The hypocrite."

Perhaps the naga finally came to their senses. Perhaps they were just slightly afraid of the wet, grimy, pissed-off looking death knight. But they gave up the chase and retreated back into their ocean.

At that point everyone had literally had it. Maggots. Acid. Cows. Naga. Enough was enough. "Screw this," they essentially said, and just flew off to Booty Bay where many many drinks were had that night. Except for Thelarwen, who doesn't drink.
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Topic/Postby Gergel » 15 Oct 2014, 08:26

The group that gathered near Andorhal last evening was quite a big one. Fourteen people, Adrenus had not led a group that size since the fateful incident with the three-headed fire-breathing murloc deep under the roots of Teldrassil. And that had been such a horrible experience that he had blocked it out and no longer even remembers it himself.

"Why are we here?" was of course the question on everyone's mind. No one really had an answer for that, but an Alliance death knight took advantage of the situation just then and tossed a few suggestions their way.

A large group of undead had just left Andorhal, heading for a nearby farm. The farmers would be in danger and would need protecting. Alternatively a priest of the Light had been seen heading south towards the chapel.

Would the group be split in two, one half to go help the farmers and the other to look for and protect the priest? Nope, splitting was out of the question. Adrenus held a quick poll to determine which way to go, and with the massively overwhelming majority of... er... seven against seven (I counted six votes plus Adrenus himself earlier), it was decided to head towards the farm. On the way the group mysteriously shrunk, as several people suddenly and inexplicably discovered that they were altogether in the wrong place and with the wrong group of people, and slunk away, tails between their legs. (Most of them, for some reason, were indeed worgen). Luckily Serendipity showed up just then, replenishing their numbers (and one Serendipity is definitely worth five random worgen).

The advancing army turned out to be not just the undead, but more precisely, the Forsaken. With their vastly overwhelming numbers and firepower they promptly attacked the group, forced everyone back towards the buildings, set the cornfield ablaze, followed by torching the buildings as well. This forced the distressed adventuring party back even farther, behind the buildings and into the forest.

A small group of Forsaken stealth troops apparently decided that merely forcing the Alliance farmers and adventurers back would not be enough and decided an assault was in order. There were a few scuffles, Serendipity was stabbed... only for the Forsaken to discover that she had learned from her experience with Clara and taken to wearing reinforced robes. The only damage was to Serendipity's pride, as the force of the stab knocked her on her arse, but otherwise she was quite unharmed and gleefully happy about the situation. The Forsaken were quickly put down.

Just then an Alliance battalion happened to ride in from the north. Wait, west. No, they came from the west, except from the group's perspective it was north. Y'know, just forget it, they come from *waves hand* over yonder.

Would the tide of the battle now be turned? Surely this group of warriors would gladly lend a hand in the ever-present Alliance-Horde conflict. Nope, "I'm afraid we cannot help you," and they began to ride away again.

Even the Forsaken were disgusted by this. And so a sniper decided to blow the battalion's leader's head off. There was much rejoicing. Well, not really, but no one was too sad either. The remaining battalion moved to the south to chase the sniper, and that was the last we saw of them.

At that point the more hot-headed members of the group decided to do one last push against the Forsaken and returned to the battlefield of scorched corn. There was a quick scuffle which was ended by a Forsaken of rather low intelligence, but equipped with a rather large explosive device. When the bomb went off, it took out most of the undead while only marginally harming the adventurers who were, in most cases, either quick enough to get away or armoured (and far) enough to just weather the blast.

Except for poor Adrenus who was too close to the explosion and got his face burned and his right eye scorched for his trouble. While Aroona's quick healing spells managed to save most of Adrenus' face, the eye was badly damaged and only time will tell if it will heal, or if Adrenus will forever be doing his best one-eyed pirate impersonation from now on.

The rest of the Forsaken ran off, and since no one was really feeling up to giving chase, everyone took Dippy's advice "We could be in the pub!" and went to the pub.
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Topic/Postby Tormeron » 28 Oct 2014, 12:22

Letters preceding the following event:

Adrenus letter wrote:Greetings ,

I hope I find you in good health and fit for battle for it seems I have received this letter from someone in trouble, whatever this creature is, we must stop if from killing anyone else.

Adrenus


Teleported Letter wrote:Greetings,

In light it coated itself until the very last moment, It's attacks couldn't be seen due to the strong light emanating from it.
I fear my life for it comes for us.
We can see it as clear as day ravaging the lands beneath us, Men women and children died at the hands of this foe.
Hurry for it's our final hours before what shield we could muster against it fails completely.

Lilandris wrote:Liandrix' words not mine, but Tormeron is a god apparently. Probably a bit like Loki.

serendipity wrote:Reason: Potato.

Events stories, Torm's events thread Suggestion box
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Topic/Postby Gergel » 31 Oct 2014, 13:28

The village high up in the mountains between Feralas and Mulgore was an idyllic place once. Its residents ignored the long-winded ongoing conflict between the Alliance and the Horde and lived together in harmony: humans, elves, trolls, tauren. But simple life tends not to last on Azeroth.

As indicated by the letter that Adrenus held, something was attacking. An unstoppable creature made of light (but not the Light) that killed men, women and children without remorse.

It was quiet for the moment when the group of Adrenus' champions gathered. The locals were barely maintaining a shield spell over their village. Upon being questioned, they pointed the group towards an old troll woman at the edge of the village.

The attacking creature was unstoppable and unkillable. Or so the troll said. "We disagree," the adventurers argued. They had probably seen worse. The old troll did not argue much, merely offered them advice and bits of voodoo magic to assist them. Even though the creatures she described existed partially in the mundane spacetime, to fully communicate with them it would be necessary to enter the "ghost plane".

This sounded very familiar to those who had been present on the night of the excursion into Stormwind Keep and the following visit to the Cathedral.

The troll handed each person a crystal whose magic, she explained, would transfer them to the ghost plane. The effect would be brief, she cautioned, and each person could only enter the plane once. She then directed the group towards a small gap in the mountain wall where a path curved towards Feralas. Without any better ideas, that was where they travelled.

It didn't take long before the first sign of trouble: a terrifying inhuman screech which sounded like a multitude of voices shouting in unison. Just beyond the range of the failing shield was an indistinct shapeless creature. As it approached, coldness fell on the group. Whoever tried to touch it or even go near it felt the chill of death. Even people's innate magic was flickering.

The creature did not appear to be hostile, however. It made no threatening movements, merely stood and screeched at the rather disturbed adventuring party.

"Maybe we would hear them better in the Ghost plane?" Tessliana suggested. It was as good a time as any to use the crystals given by the old troll.

Lilandris was the first. As expected, once in the ghost plane the screeching became entirely understandable speech. Once Lilandris' minute was up, Thelarwen followed, then Aroona. Their brief discussions with the mass of souls that made up the creature can be summarized thus: the creature itself had not attacked the locals, the souls within it desired to leave the worldly realm but were afraid of a "he", who would be found back at the village, and that they very much desired the destruction of "him".

With that, the creature disappeared and the adventurers hurried back to the village. Their fears were confirmed when they saw a fire and smelled the overpowering stench of death. Bodies were everywhere. Only one villager was still alive although badly injured: the old troll woman.

The group's healers did their best to heal her wounds and stabilize her condition. They could not have foreseen an entity of darkness emerging from the troll and taking control of her body. Speaking in two voices, she laughed at the possibility of being defeated, manifested dark conjured swords and armour, and proceeded to attack.

Aroona, Thelarwen and Xailla met the attacks at close range, while most of the rest of the group fired their weapons and cast their spells from behind them. It was a battle much like any other battle, until Lilandris was hit by a shadowy bolt of energy and struck down.

That enraged Aroona, who promptly shapeshifted into a stag and rammed the troll/entity into a nearby totem pole with her horns.

Seeing the close contact with the freezingly cold entity begin to injure Aroona, in turn made Thelarwen abandon caution and physically tackle the troll's body away from Aroona. She grabbed ahold of the struggling entity, ignored the freezing cold (not much of a deterrent to a death knight who uses freezing spells, including Icebound Fortitude, in her everyday arsenal), and turned its immobilized body towards the rest of the group so they could shoot it with all they had.

They received sudden and unexpected help from the creature comprised of souls they had interviewed earlier. Apparently having lost its/their fear of "him", it/they also charged the entity inside the troll. The onslaught finally tore the dark spirit from troll's now-lifeless body.

The dark entity turned its attention on Lilandris and attempted to overpower her. Its touch chilled the Lightmancer and numbed her body, she barely escaped being consumed or possessed, but this effort exhausted her to unconsciousness. Aroona and Thelarwen leaped in to help. To everyone's relief the creature began to dissipate and die. And with the damage Lilandris had done earlier, and the final efforts from the rest of the group, it was finally destroyed.

In the aftermath, everyone could see the souls from the "soul conglomerate creature" swirl around them and ascend into the sky. There were no sounds, but it was clear that they were incredibly grateful. Lilandris woke up from her unconsciousness, but was strongly affected by the experience and shaken for several days.

And finally, unexpectedly to everyone, a man emerged from the wreckage of the village. Apparently he was the one who had summoned them there, and profusely thanked everyone for their help at saving them... even though they had utterly failed to save the rest of the village.
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Topic/Postby Gergel » 03 Dec 2014, 10:56

Re: Tormeron's events: the Stories

The reason Adrenus summoned his associates to Redridge was a fairly simple and straightforward one. Gnolls had recently started to attack the town of Lakeshire. There had thus far been no casualties, little property damage, and mostly just food stolen. Nonetheless, Adrenus suspected that something more sinister might be at work.

A few minutes' walk away from the town the travelers came across their first gnolls. Aroona quickly captured one that was running away in panic. In broken and halting Common, the story unfolded.

The gnolls' territory had been conquered by a "big bad". The creatures were now desperate for food and thus had no choice but to raid Lakeshire and steal humans' food. Thelarwen inquired about the "big bad" in a surprising show of kindness, swearing to destroy it if the gnolls promised to leave humans in peace once they had regained their homes and food.

The group proceeded north. Signs of destruction aimed at the gnolls were everywhere. A hillside with burned gnoll corpses strewn around. A pack of imps that were fighting with a small group of gnolls, and winning. Thelarwen leaped into the fray and cleared the demons before they could completely destroy the gnolls, thereby once again earning their groveling, almost pitiful, gratitude.

An encounter with two doomguards became the first proper battle. One fell quickly to Clara's backstabs. The other raised a quite powerful shield of fel magic, and it took some time for the group to punch through it in order to kill the demon. During that time something managed to possess Jarec in an attempt to change his perceptions and make him see everyone else as demons. There was a brief mental struggle, but the druid's own willpower combined with a healing spell by Aroona suppressed the influence. For now.

Just at the border of the Burning Steppes the group found a badly injured old woman lying on the side of the road. She, too, was being possessed by a demon, just like Jarec. And like Jarec, after a helpful spell from Aroona she had the willpower to suppress the influence for the time being. The demon responsible for the possessions, she explained, was itself a weak being, but controlled a number of minions. Its main party trick was apparently demonic possession. As the old woman explained, there would be many people and creatures trying to block the way to the demon lord. Not all of them would be truly evil, just possessed by a demonic minion. To truly free them, Jarec and the woman herself, it would be necessary to kill the demon lord behind it all. And then she directed the group towards Blackrock Mountain.

A few brief encounters slowed the group's progress towards the demon lord's lair. First a man in Stormwind Guard uniform, who demanded that the adventurers turn back "by the order of the king." As the man was clearly being influenced and controlled, Thelarwen spent little time and effort on attempting to reason with him, instead opting to simply pull him from the horse and knock him unconscious with a quick, careful blow to the head. Aroona did the same trick to an armoured gnome who attempted to stall them by challenging Equanimity to a duel. Now free of interruptions, the party finally proceeded to the gates of the Blackrock Mountain.

Their path was blocked by a huge massive fat demon. The battle was fierce. Thelarwen tore into the enemy with her swords (the holy blade to destroy the demon's tiny bat-like minions as well as its fel shield spell, and the runeblade to cut bloody swaths into the demon's flesh), Aroona went into bearform to shred the demon's legs. Equanimity turned out, surprisingly, to be quite good at firing various holy offensive spells, as well as protecting himself and the entire group from the demon's magic blasts with blessed shields. Chepi blasted the demon's entire leg apart with a well-aimed and powerful chaos bolt. As the demon's shield dropped, Clara did what she does best (stabby-stabby!) on the demon's back. Oh and Adrenus was there too.

And after an extensive and bloody battle, which everyone surprisingly survived more or less intact, the demon was injured sufficiently badly that it tumbled over the edge of the walkway they were battling on, and fell to its doom into the Blackrock lava. Splurch.

It was clear, however, that this demon was not the weak but manipulative master the old woman had been talking about. Finding this master was a goal that was still ahead of them.

(To be continued next week. However the assumption is that there is actually no week-long delay in the event and it picks off immediately where this week's event left off, with the party proceeding deeper into Blackrock in search of the demon lord.)
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Gergel
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Topic/Postby Gergel » 16 Dec 2014, 10:18

After having watched the big demon burn to a crisp in the Blackrock lava and enjoying the wonderful smells of burning fat, Adrenus and company pondered what to do next. "Let's go up!" "Let's go down!" "Let's go to the pub!" were a few of the options presented, but since pub-goers were a clear minority, it was decided to proceed. A few imps tossed almost-harmless fireballs at them and then ran away. It was an obvious trap and an attempt to lure the adventurers to their doom. So they did what any self-respecting adventurer would do and followed the imps in order to spring the trap.

Their trek down one of the massive chains that hold up the island of Forgewright's Tomb in the middle of the cavern was wrought with peril and fireballs. Admittedly, quite small fireballs that didn't even particularly inconvenience Thelarwen, who was at the front. And the group of imps that tossed these fireballs was promptly dispatched by a rain of fire mixed with a shower of ice cast by Chepi and Haldren respectively.

Once at the relative safety of the rock platform, the group reassessed their plans: whether to go deeper into the caverns, or back up the chain and out of the mountain. Their pondering was interrupted by a strange dwarf who attempted to climb up the rocky wall of their platform.

A true son of Ironforge, he appeared to pay no mind to the danger, heat or strangers, and promptly requested their help with hauling up his "treasure": a huge metal casket. It took all of the strength of several people, but finally the coffin was up and the dwarf spent no time in attempting to open it. Glowing runes all over it were a clear warning to everyone, except the dwarf. As Adrenus and his company carefully stepped back, the dwarf tossed all caution into the wind and broke the locks and fire-warding runes.

Then there was quite a big explosion and a gust of smoke which briefly hid the dwarf, the casket and whatever was emerging from it.

When the smoke cleared, the dwarf was lying on the chain quite far from where he had been standing. He had burn marks on his clothing, and he was concussed and unconscious, but alive. The occupant of the container was out and standing before it.

A statue or a golem, twice the size of a man, glowing orange and clearly looking at the group expectantly.

"Identify." it stated. Haldren the mage quickly attempted to take control of the situation, and the golem, by instructing it to "Obey." This did not go over so well with the golem, who calmly stated that it had no intention of obeying the human, only its creators. The good news was that it didn't immediately attack. That was actually somewhat unexpected (considering the behaviour of most creatures Adrenus' adventuring parties usually encountered).

Its creators, apparently, had been Dark Iron dwarves in a fairly recent history. Its original purpose: the destruction of Ironforge. But something had changed. It was no longer in contact with the creators. The orders were no longer valid. And apparently it was expecting new orders and a new purpose.

"Your new purpose... is to hunt demons with us!" Clara suggested.

The golem pondered, but its decision was made for it by a lone imp who just then decided to pop up from where it had been hiding and throw a fireball at the golem. The golem being a superheated construct of stone, the fireball did no damage whatsoever, but it did switch on a self-defence program of some type. It fired a single beam of green energy which struck the imp down instantly.

Thelarwen switched to a simple command language: "Designation: demon. Classification: target."

The golem did not appear to disagree, so the death knight continued: "Targets: additional demons. Mission objective: search and destroy."

"Objective... acceptable." responded the golem and took off in the direction of the northern entrance. The group followed with considerable excitement. The golem could prove quite useful.

As it turned out, the golem did not prove particularly useful at all. A large huge-headed one-eyed black-scaly-skinned demon landed in front of the group in Searing Gorge just outside the mountain. The golem's reaction was to merely say "Interesting specimen", and "Computing how to destroy specimen; impervious to beam attack".

That merely meant that it was time for the adventurers to do what they usually do in such situations: which is to say, smash, slash, shoot fire and ice, and perform other similar dangerous moves directed at the demon.

The demon in turn did its best to distract everyone. It was not a good fighter, in fact it was not much of a fighter at all. It barely defended itself and its attacks consisted of various attempts at mind control. Thelarwen saw imaginary butterflies and birds flying all around and through her. Poor Clara was once again mind-controlled to attack the group, but in this case (probably because the squishy Serendipity was unavailable) she unwisely decided to target Thelarwen and Aroona, who shrugged her attacks off (and eventually Aroona simply sat on top of Clara to keep her from moving around). Chepi had a strange sensation of growing really big then shrinking really small. Adrenus was blinded.

But these distractions failed to save the demon. Aroona, Haldren and Thelarwen proceeded to pummel it with physical and magical attacks. The demon fell, but was not yet out for the count -- instead intensifying its mind-control attacks.

At that point the golem returned to action. It pointed its arm at the thrashing demon, fired a blue beam of frost, and maintained the attack until the demon seemed to implode upon itself and was nothing more than a ball of frozen scales floating above the ground, which Haldren ripped apart with an ice lance.

The golem, having exhausted all of its power, managed to say a final confirmation: "Threat... neutralized."

Then it shut down completely.

No one seemed to care or particularly even notice. Except Thelarwen, who surprisingly had developed a kind of a rapport with it over the past few hours.

Had the one-eyed demon been the lord they had been hunting? The question was quickly answered by a hollering cry of pure joy from several gnolls that were dancing on the rocks nearby. Thelarwen quickly turned into the target of a gnoll group-hug, which she did not even seem to mind so much. The Big Bad had been defeated, and the gnolls had better uphold their end of the bargain and stop attacking Lakeshire, or they would have to deal with Thelarwen the Great Smasher.

Presumably any and all mind control the demon had been maintaining (over Jarec, the old woman, Stormwind soldiers and whoever else) had also dissipated.




No one was concerned with the fate of the disabled golem.

Later that night, once the group had split up after having a victory drink, Thelarwen made her way back to the mountain. The inert form of the golem was still standing where it had shut down. It took considerable effort but the death knight was relentless. She dragged it all the way back through the mountain, across the giant iron chains and to the lowest levels just above the lava. Thelarwen ignored the withering heat and compensated with her own frost magic.

"Rest well," she said quietly to the lifeless statue. Then lowered it into the depths of the lava.

As funeral pyres go, a volcano makes quite a magnificent one.
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Gergel
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Topic/Postby Gergel » 26 Jan 2015, 10:11

January the 13th.

Everything started out quietly as usual with Adrenus proposing a peaceful nice picnic near a lake on top of Teldrassil. Of course everyone who knew anything about such happenings laughed mirthfully and predicted that various monstrosities would be showing up, each worse than the other.

A moment later, indeed, a mysterious letter found its way into Lilandris' hands. A sentinel was asking privately if the group could look into mysterious thefts from Dolanaar and Shadowglen. Because the group clearly looked very trustworthy. So the decision was to wander towards the location where Adrenus had planned the picnic, and to also keep an eye out on anything suspicious.

Such as the injured night elf that stumbled into their arms. Apparently he had been stabbed by an unseen assailant on the road outside Darnassus. Very fortunately his wounds were not deadly, and with a few stabilizing healing spells, the poor man became strong enough to travel the rest of the way to Darnassus alone.

Meanwhile the group of adventurers obviously decided to look into the stabbing. It was easy to follow the blood trail. The trail led them to a discarded leather pouch with clear Dolanaar markings. As they found no other clues, the next destination, then, was Dolanaar.

The group was viewed with strong suspicion in the populated areas. They talked to the merchants and guards, and eventually managed to look sufficiently trustworthy to be able to hear the locals' story. Items had been gone missing. There were rumours of a dead merchant. And worse, rumours of orcish infiltrators. No one could point at anything specific, except for one official who mentioned that a suspicious elf had been seen using the mailbox recently. As Aroona sniffed around, she felt the distant scent of a strange perfume in the air. And in the mailbox was a similarly suspicious letter which said simply: "To Djuryin. Contacts engaged, no suspicion. Local populace fearful. Suspicion none, undetected as of yet." Not particularly helpful.

Finding no other clues, the group then moved away from Dolanaar and towards Shadowglen. Everything would probably have ended in a very unsatisfactory manner, with the group finding nothing whatsoever, if the mysterious culprit had not all of a sudden made a very stupid mistake and simply stood in the middle of the road (albeit invisible), thus allowing Aroona to simply bump into her.

It turned out to be a night elf in very fancy clothes. Except not a night elf but instead a blood elf, after her illusion was removed. There was a bit of "diplomacy" being used, which consisted of Aroona sitting on top of the hapless blood elf and everyone threatening her (the elf) with doom, gloom and weasels. Eventually the elf and the group come to an agreement: she would tell them what they want to hear, and in exchange they would let her go if she swears never to return.

The elf's plan turned out to be a bit on the silly side, although what can one expect from a blood elf? She was planning to steal supplies (leather, wool, cloth) and mail them to Silvermoon, thereby depriving Darnassus of much-needed materials. This lack of a few pieces of wool would for some reason send the city into utter chaos, and thus allow blood elves to move in and conquer Darnassus. Except, well, one blood elf and a few packages here and there, versus the massive needs of an entire city? Does not compute.

In any case, after the elf had told all about her nefarious plan (and everyone had a good laugh at it silliness), she was indeed released and promptly teleported away to lands unknown. Happy end.
What kind of sick individual burns a book full of perfectly good dark arts?!
- Darkscryer Raastok
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Gergel
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Topic/Postby Gergel » 26 Jan 2015, 11:32

(January the 20th)

Another visit to the Stormwind Cathedral crypts. It did not look like masses of undead this time, fortunately. Merely strange blue lights flickering in the darkness. The priests were considerably less on the edge as well. Still, the small group that had gathered on Adrenus' bequest did not take any chances. Thelarwen led the excursion down the stairs with her sword at the ready.

Instead of a gibbering undead monstrosity (or a thousand) they found only one person. He was quite alive, and did not gibber much. Although he also did not appear to be fully in possession of his faculties, as he appeared to believe that he was currently in the Blue Recluse bar. Because the man did not look like he would be a danger to neither himself nor others, the group left him behind and proceeded deeper into the crypt.

The blue light was emanating from what looked like two discarded staff-head-crystals on the floor. Without much in the way of "caution", Aroona picked one of these up, and shortly thereafter Thelarwen did the same with the other. Both immediately fell under the same illusion as the man -- that they were, all of a sudden, in the Recluse bar. While confusing, the illusion appeared to be quite benign and caused no harm or desire to attack anyone (except booze in Aroona's case). And also it dissipated quite rapidly, with Aroona, Thelarwen as well as the unfamiliar man regaining their senses in a few minutes.

According to the man, he saw an unfamiliar female draenei death knight in the crypt shortly before he found a glowing staff head and fell under its illusionary influence. The name that immediately cropped up was "Malleena".

There was little else to do in the crypt (all glowy staff heads were used up by that time) and so everyone proceeded back up into the city to look for the draenei death knight. They found her near the Blue Recluse.

Malleena was as unhelpful as usual. After a bit of prodding she admitted to having been in the crypts but did not have any ideas about the staff head crystals (she had also found one and picked it up, but it had apparently failed to affect her in any way).

She wandered off. Then she wandered back in order to inform Thelarwen that there was a bounty on Thel's head. She declined to elaborate (or just didn't know) why there was a bounty, or by whom. But it was not an official Stormwind or Alliance one, clearly. The best guess among the assembled people was that it was a private bounty, only for a small group of mercenaries.

In any case, no one was feeling particularly worried. Thelarwen is not exactly someone to run away and hide in fear. Usually it was the other side doing that. "Wanted: dead." Well, a bit late for that. Florence Silsbury wondered if she could collect the hefty bounty by grabbing the undead Thel by the hand and dragging her to whoever posted the bounty and declaring: "See! Dead! Now gimme my money!"

But that was a matter for another week. Malleena did mention that she would look Thel up (eventually) and provide a bit more concrete information about the bounty. Perhaps a week later, as these things are wont to happen.
What kind of sick individual burns a book full of perfectly good dark arts?!
- Darkscryer Raastok
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Gergel
Gergel Cosmic Smash!
 
Posts: 1995
Location: Estonia

Topic/Postby Gergel » 29 Jan 2015, 10:16

More trouble in Teldrassil. Things must have been serious because Adrenus clearly stated that they would not be going to a picnic. Someone had clearly not been too happy about the snooping and blood-elf-capturing that the adventurers had done a few weeks back. Adrenus had received a letter which claimed to be from the Sentinels, stating:

"Greetings,
"We've seen some of you in the woods of teldrassil and your handling of the blood elf.
"We do not approve of your methods of aprehending the suspect and not giving her to the local authorities.
"We suspect that you might be involved in some illegal dealings with some rogue elements in the teldrassil area.
"We ask you not to interfere anymore with our inner affairs!
"Yours truly,
"The Sentinels"

However, when Adrenus had made inquiries, the Sentinels denied ever having sent such a letter. Clearly it had originated from a person or a group which did not appreciate someone meddling in their leather-stealing-plans.

A few steps out of Darnassus' borders there was an incredibly obvious trap on the road: a pile of leaves and twigs. Which Aroona promptly stepped on and then fell into the pit below. She barely escaped falling onto a set of sharpened spikes by shape-shifting into her bird-form and flying off.

Two sets of footprints led away from the trap. One set down the road towards Dolanaar and another off into the woods. In an incredibly convenient fashion, it turned out that there were two people in the group who were both prepared to lead a few people off along one of the two trails.

Ajulae, Aroona, Lilandris and Tessliana went into the woods. Many horrible awesome adventures happened.

Adrenus, Chepi, Clara and Thelarwen went down the road.

The trail of footprints disappeared quickly. After all, one can only carry so much mud on their boots. But on the other hand the group then encountered a weeping night elf woman. Her husband, she said, had departed from Dolanaar that morning and never returned. Local Sentinels merely dismissed the report with the claim that the husband was just late, but the poor woman was quite beside herself with worry. This immediately derailed any plans the group might have had, and everyone hurried down a dried-up riverbed towards where the woman claimed her husband had gone.

As soon as they were out of sight of the woman, there was a gunshot, a scream, and when everyone hurried back to where the woman had been, they found her dead and decapitated. A bloodied note was stuffed in her mouth saying simply: "You meddled." At which point they decided to meddle some more and follow the trail of blood.

The trail led again back along the riverbed that they had already travelled once. A bloodied dagger was stuck in the ground very close to a small lake, and that's where the assassin's (or assassins') trail ended. A scent of demonic magic was in the air and clearly noticeable to Chepi. It led closer to the lake.

And another thing that was close to the lake was not a thing at all but a person: a badly wounded night elf man. He was clearly terrified and pointed a loaded shotgun at the party. While Thelarwen attempted to talk him down, he just ended up fainting from blood loss. Fortunately Adrenus was able to stabilize his condition for the time being. He would still be needing aid soon, but his life was no longer in immediate danger.

An application of water brought him back to his senses temporarily. He narrated how he had been attacked by two night elves (or what had looked like night elves) and left there to die. The man handed Adrenus a small bottle of water which needed to be delivered to Dolanaar as quickly as possible. There was something terrible in the lake, and the water needed to be analysed.

At which point the "something terrible in the lake" conveniently showed up in the shape of a small mana wyrm which quickly flew off into distance. Followed by a much larger mana wyrm, which decided to stick its head out of the water at the end of a small pier and have a look at the people at the lake shore. It appeared to be slightly peckish, maybe interested in a bit of gnome, and so made a move as if wanting to dine on Chepi. Chepi, of course, was not particularly fond of the idea and reciprocated by tossing an explosive into the water. There was a "boom" and the bottom half of a mana wyrm floated to the surface. Group versus wyrms - 1:0.

Thelarwen reached out to grab the two-meter-long wyrm tail from the water. Another wyrm showed up just then and was clearly not happy with what had happened to its companion, so it popped its head out of the water and dragged the death knight into the lake. Thelarwen would probably have been eaten alive (although that would likely not have actually hindered her in any way), but Clara did not seem overly fond of that idea and jumped into the lake after her. While Thel kept the wyrm busy by wriggling, struggling and using her freezing aura, the rogue sneaked up behind the serpent and did what she does best. Which is to say, stabby-stabby and slashy-slashy. It only took a mere few minutes for Clara to cut the poor wyrm in half. And that was the end of that. Group versus wyrms - 2:0.

And after Thel had washed her armour clean of a pile of wyrm guts which were ever-so-decoratively wrapped around her, the group picked up the unconscious night elf and headed towards Dolanaar. There the man was handed to the care of local healers. Aroona and Lilandris were already there, looking a bit shaken and disturbed.

They had encountered mutated or malformed creatures, discovered several vials of unknown liquid, met a very uncooperative satyr, and then Aroona had eaten it. The satyr. Not much of it, just nibbled on its face peckishly. Then attacked Lilandris, some furbolgs, and was generally being a horrible mindless furry machine of destruction. Nothing unusual. Except the "mindless" part. Until she regained her senses, remembered none of what had happened, and then just generally felt very awful. Must've been the satyr disagreeing with her...

Ajulae had already taken the mysterious vials to Darnassus for further study. So, with nothing more to do, the night was wrapped up.
What kind of sick individual burns a book full of perfectly good dark arts?!
- Darkscryer Raastok
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Gergel
Gergel Cosmic Smash!
 
Posts: 1995
Location: Estonia

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