OOC: We last left our adventurers in the room at the bottom of the prison of the giant. They had killed the water elemental and were wringing out their armor or basking in the sun. The idea of basking in the sun doesn’t appeal to Drow.

The fourth elemental (in case your powers of deduction are less than stellar, the only one left is Air) was the same old, same old. Orbs, Five seconds, “Where is Master?“. I sink an arrow into the center of one of the smaller elementals. The large one hits the Naga hard. I am again happy that I choose to stay back away from the action. The smaller elementals go down quickly.

Salacious lands a huge hit on the larger elemental. It shoots jets of smoke at at us. The wind picks up the naga’s mace and throws it across the room. Name and the naga get pulled into the whirlwind. This looks familiar. The whirlwind becomes a tornado and the two of them are swirling up in the air. Twenty feet of snake swirling round and around.

“I… hate… ele….mentals!” he says.

The elemental moves back towards the center of the room. I hit it and feel the tornado trying to pull me in, but I hold my ground. It keeps pulling at me. Salacious gets off a spell and the tornado disappears and its captives fall to the ground.

Salacious walks over to the gnoll. “So your holy quest is to destroy this giant?”

The gnoll looks a bit scared. “… kill the prisoners,” he grunts.

Salacious shows the gnoll his ring. “Destroying this giant will be my holy quest too. I’m either right or I’m dead. I’ll do everything to help you in this holy battle.”

The gnoll thanks him awkwardly. “Good fighting. Thanks for saving our butts.”

We make camp for the night. I am nervous about fighting this giant, but eager to see something beyond this hole.

The morning starts with the gnoll dragging the prisoner to the room we had been using for our waste products. “Poop-i-torium,” he says.

Meanwhile, Hakim is smearing warpaint on his body. He puts on a tribal mask – ivory and red with feathers. He looks pretty fearsome for someone so short.

We take down the ramp to prevent the giant from escaping and then take our positions at the four points of the circle, with Name and the Naga in the center. The gnoll pops in the five orbs. A huge black giant appears, covered in full plate armor and wielding a giant axe. A cloud of black smoke surrounds him.

“You… freed me…” it says, looking a bit disoriented.

“You talk,” the gnoll points at Salacious. “You! You! You!”

Salacious begins to stutter uncontrollably. “So you’re…. you’re… you’re….”

Hakim strides forward. “Prisoner of the dragons, you’ve bee trapped here thousands of years and now we’re going to execute your sentence – DEATH!”

He shoots and the arrow sticks just over the giant’s eye. “You are mine!” Hakim shouts.

The giant smiles. “Breakfast.” It reaches into a pouch and pours dust over itself.

The gnoll creates balls of fire on his paws and throws one at the giant. It sails past, missing. I cast Faerie Fire on the giant. Perhaps we’ll hit it better if it’s glowing purple.

“I am the vengeance of a millenia of oppressed people!” Salacious screams. What? I have no idea what he means by this… or why he’s fighting a giant.

The giant reaches into his pouch again. This time the powder he sprinkles on his axe causes it to burst into flames. Great.

I sidestep along the wall and shoot again and again. Hakim sinks an arrow deep within the plates of his armor. The Giant takes two strides towards Hakim, shaking the ground as he moves. He swings his greataxe, barely missing Hakim. I feel the force of the wind and am hit with the dust and gravel it stirs up from the ground. I cast Darkness to encompass myself, Hakim, and Name. With a swing like that, I don’t need him being able to see us.

I feel the wind again as it makes another mighty swing at Hakim, missing again. I hear the Naga cry out in pain and smell burning flesh. I shoot from out of the darkness. Hakim steps out of the edge of the darkness and the giant makes a swing at him for a third time and almost drops his axe.

I hear fire crackle through the air and the giant howl in pain.

The kobold scuttles into the darkness in front of me and drops to his knees. “Thank you Siberys,” he prays. “Thank you.” I think I smell a hint of urine. I continue to shoot at the giant as the kobold does a joyous dance in his soiled loincloth. I try not to gag.

I hear the sickening sound of an axe cleaving through bones and flesh. Then there was a great cry from the giant and a thud that shook the ground. I come out of the darkness and see the gnoll, split in two, his lifeless body lying next to the giant’s.

We stop for a moment and look at the gnoll’s body. His quest was complete, but he wouldn’t see the results of his work.

Hakim cuts out the giant’s heart and breaks off one of its ribs.

“I’m gonna make a bow out of this,” he says.

We cut the armor apart to salvage usable parts. The naga takes the axe, which is a bit too big for him.

We bury the gnoll under the dryad’s fallen tree. It’s where he would want to be. I sit by his grave and pull a mango from my bag. When no one is looking, I kiss the mango and place it by his grave. Goodbye, gnoll. You really stood for something; you had something to fight for. I have nothing.

We hear the roaring sound of fire approaching. The airship flies low over our heads casting a dark shadow over us. The prisoner snickers and says something in a snide tone of voice.

“Bring it,” Hakim says to him. “I’m not afraid.“

OOC: We last left our adventurers in the room at the bottom of the prison of the giant. They had killed the earth elemental and were taking a breather after a tough fight.

While the gnoll, the naga, and Name go up to the surface to do some hunting, I take the book from the kobold and sit down to read. It’s comforting to read something that’s not in Giant, even if I don’t glean any information we don’t already know form the book.

Salacious comes over, his sissy-boy hair shining from a recent grooming.

“I seem to remember… a mango… being thrown at my head. Remember that clearly.”

I raise an eyebrow.

He continues. “Can we call a truce? We need each other to survive this.”

I agree that we need each other, but point out that I don’t have to like him. He mutters something under his breath as we walks away. I go back to the book and read until nightfall.

The next morning, we gear up for the fight with the water elemental. An argument ensues about whether the water elemental will disappear through the holes in the floor and whether we should spend three days sealing the floor with tree sap before the fight. Let’s just say I’m glad we didn’t.

Name and the gnoll pop in the orbs.

In five seconds, the elemental will be free.

Water rises out of the holes in the floor, creating a large puddle in the middle of the room and four small ones around it, one right under Hakim’s feet. He stabs at the floor, misses, and tumbles out of the way. Salacious blasts one of the smaller ones with a spell and it dissipates immediately.

The water covers our feet and is moving towards the hall. A thin metal slab is rising up from the floor at the door. At least when it closes the room, I’ll be on the outside. I shoot arrows at the smaller elementals, getting a few good hits. The kobold backs up and stands behind me. He’s such a wimp.

The naga slams his massive tail down over the door, trying to stop it. Hakim jabs his sword into the gap where the door meets the ground. Neither effort stops the rising door.

Salacious puffs out his chest and shouts at the elemental:

“I’m a never-ending font of arcane energy! You’re a fool to mess with me!“

I nearly lose grip on my bow when I double over in laughter.

The kobold is splashing about in the water next to me, screaming in Draconic. “Door’s coming up! Door’s coming up! Door’s coming up! Oko’s gonna die!” I slap him upside the head. He stops for a minute and then resumes the same spiel in Giant. Great, now he’s annoying EVERYONE. I slap him again.

The water is up to my knees and the door only slightly higher. I look up and into the room just in time to see the Naga get sucked down into a whirlpool.

“Anyone who breathes air, we are LEAVING!” Hakim says.

The gnoll is biting the water like an angry dog and gets engulfed in the whirlpool with the naga. The kobold pokes his head over the door and looks at them swirling around. “Um guys?” he peeps. “What are we gonna do?“

Hakim, Name, and I continue to shoot at the elemental. Salacious levitates high into the air over the whirlpool. The Naga stabs at the whirlpool and right where the dagger sticks, the water splits and begins to flow away. The orbs plop into the pool of water and sink the ground. The door stops rising.

“My pants are wet,” Salacious whines. “Do you know how much this suit cost?“

I ponder estimating the cost in number of salacious deeds done on giants, but I don’t bother. The kobold tosses off his robes, jumps into the room, and takes a swim.

“I’m going to go bask,” the Naga says, and slithers away. Basking is not on my agenda. I head back to the lower chamber, where I wring out my armor as best I can and dry off.

OOC: We last left our adventurers in the room at the bottom of the prison of the giant. They had released and defeated the fire elementals and had to go to sleep because their players had wasted most of the gaming session arguing about level-appropriate encounters. (Don’t worry, the argument continues in this session… and is given some ground to stand on!)

Last night wasn’t very sleep-conducive, to say the least. The gnoll and the naga were arguing on whether or not to untie and “walk” our prisoner so his muscles didn’t weaken too much. The gnoll was growling menacingly at the human and caused him to wet himself. Eventually, the gnoll allowed the naga to partially untie the prisoner. They spent most of the night in a three-way conversation translating Common to Halfling to Giant and back again.

The Sulatar and the kobold were having storytime in the corner with the book. The kobold is pointing at words and pronouncing them in Draconic very slowly and the Sulatar was repeating them. It was the most ludicrous thing I’d seen in a while – the idiots teaching the idiots?

I finally drift off to sleep and when I awaken, the Sulatar is gazing at himself in a mirror and combing his hair. I notice him cast something on himself. Improved Salacious Deeds, perhaps?

“Hello,” Salacious says to the room. “I’m Vin.”

The naga’s head pops up and looks at him. “I’m Gorgoroth, priest of…” something. I don’t really care what he’s a priest of.

“You fight good,” the gnoll grunts. “Thanks for coming. Let’s go kill the thing.”

“I have an idea,” Salacious goes on. “The real enemy is the giant. The elemental forces are not good or evil by themselves.”

An odd thought for a Sulatar. Not that it makes me trust him any more.

We point out that the elemental was trying to reach its master. We can’t risk that happening by releasing the giant first.

Hakim summed it up perfectly: “A devilsaur is not evil, but I’m not going to offer it mangoes.”

Our plan is to repeat what we did last night with the other three rooms, resting between fights.

“It could have been a justice system… or philosophical reasons...” Salacious tries to reason.

“Dryad said kill them,” the gnoll points out.

I toss Salacious an orb. “Go on and get Earth and bring it to us while we do Water and we’ll make Mud, how about that?” He says he’ll go do that if I hold my breath.

“You’ll need another mango,” the gnoll tells Salacious.

We move to the room where the Earth elemental is trapped and the gnoll pops in the orb.

“In five seconds, the elemental will be free…”

“I think I made out the word five,” says Salacious. His language acquisition skills are just astounding.

“Where is Master?” the elemental asks. It is large, spikey, and brown and surrounded by four smaller smooth brown elementals. The smaller ones move forward immediately and try to hit those in the front of our party. (This is why I stay towards the back.) The kobold throws us a blessing and then cowers in a corner.

The smaller elementals do not put up much of a fight. Now that my bow is restrung, I land a few good shots, including one perfectly aimed shot. The small elementals crumble into pebbles strewn across the floor. The larger elemental is seriously injuring Name and it shakes the ground on occasion, causing members of the party to fall to the ground. Name is struck again and is bleeding out on the ground. Hakim shoots arrows at the elemental, which seem to bounce off its hard exterior. Salacious shoots black energy from his fingertips and pulls a wand from his belt and hits the large elemental with a spell.

It turns and glares at him. I am gleeful. In my glee, I do not notice the elemental shaking the ground and I fall. Bah. I get up and throw an axe at it, but miss. Salacious shoots more black energy at it and it rushes towards him. Hakim jumps out of its way. Salacious is pinned against the wall and the elemental pummels him hard.

I pull a mango from my bag, lean against the wall, and take a bite. Then I lob the mango at Salacious’ head, missing by a hair. It splats against the wall behind him. Damn, so close. The elemental misses Salacious, punches the ground, and falls. Salacious runs to the other side of the room and hits it with another spell.

“Master will kill you all!” The elemental cries.

The naga draws himself up taller. “Not if we do first!”

I have no urge to get anywhere near this creature. Everyone that is hit bleeds profusely, and I’m not about to take that risk. I cast Faerie Fire on it instead, giving it a nice purple glow. It charges towards Salacious, who seems to be the only one of us doing damage to it. I pull out my Morningstar and smack the elemental as it passes. The vibration from the impact makes my hand sting. Salacious is hit and falls to the ground.

“Don’t you die on me!” the kobold cries. I’m not sure who he’s talking to.

Salacious stands up and shakes his wand, but nothing happens. His eyes widen in fear and he shakes it again and again. The naga finally lands the blow that crumbles the elemental to the ground. Salacious blasts the rubble with both hands, looking extremely pissed off.

The party is worn out and everyone but me has suffered some sort of serious injury. It strikes me that this would be a good time to kill Salacious with a well-lobbed mango, but seeing as he was the most useful member of the party for this battle, I decide he should live, at least until he is no longer useful to us…

OOC: We spent all night on one encounter. Yeah. All but one of us are level-adjusted (two drow, a naga, gnoll, shifter paragon). Hakim is the only one who is actually level 6. So um, there was much grumbling at our DM. I think we were hoping to kill more than 5 things in one day… especially since they were supposedly the lesser monsters in the prison! Hopefully the next two elementals will not be quite as hard!! Hint, hint. Hint. I’m talking to you, J.

OOC: We last left our adventurers asleep in the room at the bottom of the “prison of the giant”. Mar’Kessa had successfully retrieved an orb from the first room. She’s not happy about having a Sulatar in the party, but has realized that essentially she has kidnapped him, so there isn’t much she can do other than kill him or let him be useful and then kill him. Either way, this is the same gaming session as 16-18, guest starring my geek as Oko the wimpy kobold cleric.

Hakim spends the morning throwing the lever back and forth and watching the ramp extend up and down. We explore the other hallways and find them identical to the first – square rooms with two slots – one with an orb, one without.

It was then that the prison made perfect sense to me. Each room held one orb for a total of 4 orbs. Two orbs must be necessary to unlock each room, since my removal of the orb in the first room did nothing. The bottom chamber had five slots, one of which was occupied by the orb that the gnoll had in his mango bag. (I’m not entirely sure where he got it, but he was all up on the dryad while she was dying, so who knows.)

Four rooms. Four orbs. Bottom room has five slots. In total there are five orbs. It took me a while to explain this higher order mathematics to my party. They begin to argue whether or not they want to release anything, even if the book says the forces are weaker while separated.

While they argue, I begin to work at disabling to slot where the gnoll had inserted the first orb. The “should we / shouldn’t we” battle rages on. I turn from my work and point out that either we release one or crawl out of this hole and find something else to do. The house of Dennith is attracted to power. That’s why they attacked the Siberys kobold village. It stands to reason that there is something equally powerful here and whatever it is, I want to find it before they do.

The orb pops out and I toss it in my bag. The argument continues and now the burning philosophical question is whether we should hide an orb somewhere above ground just in case we fail at destroying whatever primordial force we unlock.

I walk up the ramp will full intention of sticking both orbs into the holes to see what happens. The gnoll follows me, but Hakim throws the lever and we fall to the ground. Or rather, the gnoll falls. I wasn’t sure this ring would come in so handy, but it has.

I conk Hakim in the head with an orb.

Name asks the Sulatar if he knows of any giants that can come help us. (OVER MY DEAD BODY!!) He begins to stutter uncontrollably. Something about reasons, things, situation…. “Short answer,” he manages to spit out. “No, I don’t.”

Perhaps his salacious deeds were not satisfying to his masters. Pity. He has such a pretty mouth.

We go up to the second room and while I am working at disabling the orb, the casters explore the other rooms and try to determine what kind of force is trapped in each one. When they come back, they announce that from bottom to top, the rooms are Fire, Water, Earth, and Wind. I pop out the orb and Hakim runs to the surface to hide it. Hakim is adept at hiding himself, so it stands to reason he’d find a good place to store the orb. (I just hope his squirrel-like intelligence doesn’t result in a case of a missing orb later.)

We return to the first room and prepare for a fight with the force of Fire. As soon as the second orb clicks into the slot, heat begins to emanate from the walls. A ten foot rune appears on the floor and a voice in draconic announces:

“In five seconds, the elemental will be free.”

The kobold’s eyes grow to the size of dinner plates and he retreats into the corner. A large fire elemental appears in the center of the room. It is surrounded by four smaller fire elementals. “Where’s the Master?” the bonfire asks. The gnoll taunts it and misses terribly. He doesn’t fight so well when he’s angry.

My poor fighting skills continue. I manage to kill one of the smaller elementals before the string on my bow snaps. I pull a throwing axe from my bag and hurl it at the bonfire and finally hit. The kobold sidesteps along the wall, shaking uncontrollably as he heals Name and the gnoll.

Name lands the final blow and as the bonfire disintegrates it laments, “I never got to Master.” With two loud clanks, the orbs fall from the holes and hit the ground.

We retreat back to the bottom chamber, orbs in hand, and make camp. All that arguing wasted a lot of time. I hope that the others from the House Dennith are not on the way to find their colleague. I restring my bow and find a place in the corner where I make my bed and sleep. Perhaps when we’re done with the elementals, we can lock the Sulatar in the bottom chamber with the giant and they can live together for eternity.

OOC: We last left our adventurers after their defeat of a couple warforged and a giant tree-cutting construct. Our gnoll remembered it was Friday this time and we had a special guest – my geek boy was in town and played the part of Oko, the wimpy kobold cleric from the Siberys kobold tribe.

We travel two days back to the dryad’s tree, only to find it ripped from the ground by some powerful force. The gnoll drops everything and sprints to the tree, howling in agony. He hugs the tree and cries out in a tongue I don’t recognize. The kobold stands by him, looking concerned and terrified.

It is then that I see the naga approaching us, accompanied by a drow. But this isn’t one of my people. He has the dark skin and white hair, but he lacks tribal markings. He wears a chain shirt studded with a single Khyber shard and does not appear to be carrying any weapons. I draw my bow and aim at him. The others look at me like I’m crazy, but I know what he is and he is not to be trusted.

He holds up his hands. “I’m unarmed… mean no harm…” he blubbers.

The gnoll interrupts our lovely moment by exclaiming, “We must kill prisoners before they are released!” I keep the Sulatar in my peripheral vision and look towards the gnoll. He is shoving something into his mango bag and climbs down a gaping hole left in the ground where the dryad’s tree once stood. I try to convince him that the Sulatar killed the tree, but apparently I am not convincing.

“P-please don’t point that thing at me,” the Sulatar begs.

“If you kill him, I get his threads,” Hakim grins. Indeed, the Sulatar’s shirt would make a fine…. dress for the halfling. I’ll try not to bloody it too much when I kill him.

I accuse the Sulatar of performing salacious deeds on giants and tell him that he deserves to die.

“Don’t you wonder why I’m not with my people?” he asks.

I point out that I’m not with my people either, but that doesn’t make me hate him any less.

“I’m unarmed!” he blubbers. “How can I prove to you that I mean no harm?”

Meanwhile, the rest of the party is heading down the hole and we are the last two on the surface. I gesture with my bow towards the hole. “Go down the hole first.” He grabs hold of the rope and begins to climb down into the hole.

Now I’m not one for wasting energy, so I jump into the hole, bow still pointed at the Sulatar and let my Ring of Featherfall do the work. As I drift down the hole, I ponder shooting him in the back while he is defenseless. But, as much as I hate him, he may have useful information, so I let him live, at least until I get something out of him.

I arrive at the bottom before the rest of the party and rest my arms, keeping the arrow nocked just in case. There is a glowing Eberron shard on the ground which I pick up and toss into my bag. Finders keepers! The hole plunges into darkness and I hear Hakim whimper.

The gnoll, who is furthest down the rope, begins to narrate.

“Still climbing,” he grunts. “Still climbing. More rope. More rope. Still climbing. Ok, ground here.”

Slowly the party reconvenes, except Hakim, who I assume is hiding somewhere being afraid of the dark. As usual. We are in a round room with a rubble floor. There are five round slots in the wall and a lever on the ground. The Sulatar points out that there is writing above each of the slots. Since I am the only one who reads Draconic besides the wimpy kobold, I walk over and read the text out loud:

“This is the prison of the giant.”

It’s inscribed over all five slots. The gnoll has pulled a silver orb out of his bag and is comparing it to the slots in the wall.

“PUT IT IN THE THING!” he shouts.

“Where I come from, we call this the ‘oops method‘”, Hakim warns from the shadows.

The gnoll puts the orb into the center hole and Name pulls the lever. A glowing ramp appears, humming as it stretches upwards into the hole, connecting to four doors that I had not noticed on my descent. Hakim tries to pull the orb from the hole and fails.

“Let’s go up ramp!” The gnoll runs ahead.

“Is the gnoll the leader?” the Sulatar asks. We all crack up into hysterical laughter. The gnoll stops and turns around. “What funny?” he asks. We wipe the tears from our eyes and follow the gnoll up the ramp.

As I take in the features of this place, I realize we are in a prison constructed by dragons. It’s obviously designed to hold something big. I let the party in on this information and the gnoll’s face contorts with an expression of both fear and annoyance. Hakim pipes up, “I’ve always wanted to be a dragon.” I don’t want to ask.

We go through the first doorway into a long dark hall. Our footsteps echo no matter how quietly we attempt to walk. Voices bounce down the hall and Hakim gestures for us all to be silent. The voices are getting closer. Hakim fades into the wall.

A light approaches. The Sulatar hides. I ponder pulling out the glowing Eberron shard and putting it on his body so he’d make an easy target for whatever is coming. The gnoll and Name are still moving forward, so I hang back and wait until they encounter the source of the voices.

We see a humanoid and a giant metal ape approaching us. The humanoid is wearing a glowing pendant. The Sulatar says something out loud which echoes down the hallway with alarming volume, causing the humanoid and ape to stop in their tracks. I knew I should have killed him before jumping in the hole.

The two speak in a language none of us recognize, save the name of the house Dennith, which we had heard the warforged speak of some days before at the kobold camp.

The gnoll charges at them and the kobold throws up his arms to bless us and then scrambles away to hide. The humanoid pulls a wand and blasts the gnoll, hitting him hard. I discover that our resident giant-lover is in fact not unarmed, but is a caster himself. He begins to cast on the ape and eventually takes it down with the help of Hakim. Name brings the mage down, where he lay barely breathing on the ground.

The naga begins to work to stabilize the mage while we tie him up and take off his magic items. We find three wands as well as a brightly glowing necklace. The Sulatar roots through the mage’s bag, pulls out a book, and begins to flip through it.

We try a few different languages, but the mage appears to understand none of them. “Maybe you understand this!” the gnoll growls, kicking the mage, who falls unconscious again. The naga brings him back and we finally find a language that the mage speaks, albeit poorly. Halfling.

He is from the House Dennith and is exploring the ruins to find some source of power. Hakim is convinced that Dennith is a talking house (after all, there was a flying boat). Sometimes I am floored by his utter ignorance of everything.

Hakim asks about the laws of the “talking house” and the mage explains that there are many laws for each house and that the houses are governed by the Council of the 12 in Stormreach.

Meanwhile, the book has been passed from the Sulatar to the kobold. “I can’t read Draconic,” the Sulatar says. He’s going to trust a kobold with the intelligence of a soiled loincloth to read this book? I knew he was a Sulatar, but I didn’t know he was that stupid.

Hakim asks the mage what he knows about the prison and he says all he knows is what is written in the book.

After pulling what information we could out of our prisoner, discussion turns to his fate. The argument lasts forever because half of us want to kill him and the other half want to leave him tied up for later.

“Break all his fingers!” the gnoll exclaims. “He can’t cause trouble with fingers broken. TELL HIM!”

Hakim translates this into Halfling and the prisoner doesn’t look nearly scared enough. Sometimes I wonder about Hakim’s translation skills.

“Where is my book?” the mage asks. The kobold and Sulatar are discussing the book and I hear bits and pieces about primordial forces, giants, and a jail. We travel to the end of the hallway to find it dead-ends into a big square room with slots in the two far corners identical to the slots in the bottom chamber. One slot already has an orb in it. The gnoll tries to pull it out and fails.

Our magic users determine that something is trapped in an astral pocket in the room. We can’t see it, but it is there.

Meanwhile, I have snatched the book from the kobold to read it myself. The jail contains four cells for the four primordial forces and one for the giant. The kobold points out the part that says the forces are at their weakest when they are separated from each other.

I begin working to disable the slot and retrieve the orb. It takes me a couple hours, but I manage to get it out. Nothing happens. I put the orb in my bag and we go back to the central room to make camp, dragging our prisoner along with us.

The gnoll puts on the mage’s lavender robe. It stretches tight across his broad shoulders and the hem reaches to mid-thigh. It gapes open at the center. But the gnoll appears pleased with his new threads and it is an improvement on his previous attire.

I sleep with one eye on the Sulatar and my hand on my bow.

Our new party member is going to be another drow, but not just any drow.

He’s a Sulatar – the ones that stood by the giant slavemasters during the elf uprising. Mar’Kessa’s ancestors were part of that uprising and she grew up hearing about how awful giants were to the drow. The idea of a drow worshiping giants disgusts her to no end. The new guy is an outcast from that tribe, but Mar’Kessa has no plans on giving him a chance to explain himself.

At the moment, I don’t plan on Mar’Kessa talking to this other drow, helping him, or listening to him. If he’s seriously injured, she may look at him, but only to laugh and maybe spit on him.

I am also pondering having Mar’Kessa “miss” targets and hit him with an arrow or two. “Oops, did my arrow just go out of my bow at a 90 degree angle? How did THAT happen?” I won’t even roll Bluff because it’ll be painfully obvious that she’s being sarcastic.

Any other ideas for things Mar’Kessa might do to show her utter loathing of the new party member? My DM is all about conflict between party members, and Mar’Kessa is ready to bring it!!

OOC: Same session as Days 8-12. “Magic Fingers” is still MIA, and the adventurers are traveling north to find the source of whatever is destroying the trees in the jungle.

Day 13

I think that now we’re without Frank, all the “crazy” of our party has migrated to the gnoll. Whatever the dryad said to him, it must have been inspiring. We’re only able to sleep when we force him to stop.

Day 14

There’s less and less game the further we travel. There should be larger game here, Name says, but we’re hard-pressed to find anything. No birds, no animals. There are strange noises in the distance that we can’t recognize.

Day 15

I awaken to find Name speaking to a black snake. Its tongue flicks in and out of its mouth. She appears to understand it, so I leave her alone. After their long conversation, we have learned that there are big non-animal creatures that make lots of noise and smoke and that all the other animals have left. This is swiftly become the most useless week I have ever had in all my 162 years.

We continue to move north, even though we hadn’t seen Hakim in a long while. Either he’s dead or doing something useful, I don’t care either way. We finally see him a few hours north. He says there is a group of humanoids and metal creatures and it appears that they are waging war on the forest, chopping down all the trees. The gnoll growls.

There are three tree cutting behemoths, he said. The gnoll suggests that the kobold run back to his tribe to get help because we couldn’t possibly fight them on our own. The kobold refuses and and insists that his orders were to stay with us and heal us. (We could tell he was more scared of traveling alone than disobeying his orders.) The gnoll growls at him, picks him up and shakes him, yelling about the good of the forest and his quest, followed by some phrase in his native language that he seems to say often when upset.

He drops the kobold and tries to hit him with his staff, but ends up hitting himself in the shin. Sadly, that is probably the highlight of the entire week. After much arguing over who was the bigger coward, the gnoll or the kobold, we move on.

Hakim finds us a vantage point high above the clearing where the army was at work. It appears we’re near some sort of temple or other structure, but it is very old and crumbling apart. We watch the three large constructs as they chop and stack the trees on a circular platform in the distance. When a stack was complete, one of the humanoids presses something on a control panel near the platform and the stack disappears.

The total count of the army was three behemoth constructs, 5 smaller warforged, and about 30 humanoids. We watch them work for a few hours and as it began to get dark, they start to assemble on the circular platform. Three large spires with blinking lights grew out of the platform, reaching into the smoke-filled sky.

The gnoll takes off again, running towards the platform, scurrying from stump to stump to keep cover. I stay towards the back of the party with the kobold. “Are you scared?” he asks. “No,” I say. I’m too bored to be scared. “Me either,” replies the kobold. He is a bad liar.

In a flash of light, all those on the platform disappear. Two warforged and one of the titan tree-cutters are left behind. The titan deactivates and its top half slumps over. The warforged chat a bit and then patrol around the platform.

Name casts a spell and roots grow up out of the ground, tangling the two warforged. The titan appears undisturbed and does not awaken. Hakim fires an arrow and one of the warforged falls dead. This is what I like about Hakim – he’s usually out of sight, but when he does show up, he’s useful. The gnoll and I run past the sleeping titan to the other warforged.

Then began the worst encounter I have had since that ill-fated day with my brother. (At least on that day, I killed something!) I fire arrow after arrow and they either barely graze the creature or miss entirely. Miss, miss, miss, miss.

The titan awakens and the gnoll charges at it. I miss, miss, miss. All that traveling has made me a bad shot. I glance over and see the gnoll in a heap on the ground, bleeding profusely. Miss, miss, miss. Hakim finishes off the warforged and we all focus on the titan. Name pulls it back on to the platform where it is entangled in her root spell and they finally kill it. (I can’t say we because I was utterly useless. Even the cowardly kobold with his healing magic was helpful in reviving the gnoll.)

The gnoll was cheered by the death of the titan, and despite his recent brush with death, finds the energy to dance on its corpse. I stay back, staring at my shortbow. What type of bad luck is this that causes me to miss so much?

I help the rest of the group cut the titan into pieces and drag it off the platform. The gnoll attempts to activate the platform using its buttons, but fails. We decide it would be best to camp back at our vantage point and head back to sleep. We’ll continue in the morning.

OOC: We last left our adventurers at the red kobold camp, where they just battled three small warforged who had tried to assassinate the leader of the kobold tribe. They meet a naga cleric, who comes in handy during the battle. Of course, real life interfered and our cleric (aka “Magic Fingers“) was unable to come to the next session….

Day 8

The naga can’t leave the kobold village with us until he clears it with his elders. I wonder if he has to ask his elders permission to eat, sleep, and defecate. If so, he might not be worth taking along at all.

The gnoll finally awakens and we have to explain to him everything that’s happened in the past nearly two days. Frank tries to butt in with how heroic he was saving the kobold leader’s life with his Restoration spell, but everyone knows it was my antitoxin that really saved him. Now I’m down to 4. I had better not regret that decision later.

We have been told by the kobold leader that to the northwest there is an old dryad that knows the area better than anyone. She can tell us where to find the constructs and their companions. Hakim’s eyes widen and he starts spouting off about how he’s not going to deal with any dryads. “Is it any worse than dealing with Frank?” I ask. Hakim ponders this.

Meanwhile, Eko is holding the Daisy staff at arm’s length, wrinkling his nose. He gives it back to Frank, who promises to clean her up and make her pretty. I’m hoping that while doing so he contracts some sort of flesh-eating disease and dies.

The kobold leader suggests we take one of his healers with us as we travel to the dryad and then on to scout out the location of the other constructs. We’re all a bit tired from the big fight, except the gnoll, who proclaims, “I feel great!” I slap him upside the head and he yelps. Stupid dog.

We have been traveling northwest the entire day. I must say, it is nice to travel in relative silence.

Day 9

After a restful night’s sleep, we continue on our path and find two abandoned villages. Name’s nostrils flare as she takes in scents that only she can smell. “Orcs,” she says of the first camp. “Shifters!” she says of the second. Both camps have been cleaned out long ago, at least a couple months.

We sleep well. It’s awfully quiet without Frank.

Day 10

We’re still on the path to the dryad tree. I’m sick of mangoes.

Day 11

Still traveling. At least now that we’ve been away from Daisy a while, I don’t wretch every time I get a whiff of the gnoll.

Day 12

Today we reached a clearing. There is nothing but tree stumps as far as we can see. Name smells grease and oil and we see tracks that don’t appear to come from animals. In the distance, we see the crown of a tall tree. The gnoll bolts across the clearing towards the tree, followed by the kobold. Name and I decide the cautious approach is best in an area with no cover. We turn around to see if Hakim is coming, and he’s gone. Oh well.

We’re only halfway across the clearing when we see the gnoll running back to us. Between gasps for air, the gnoll explains himself:

“Big.”

“Metal things.”

“Kill trees.”

“North in”

“Airship.”

Oh, north in an airship. Tell us something we don’t know! To make matters worth, Name and the gnoll get in an argument about whether they should try to follow the tracks. I take a seat on one of the stumps and braid my hair. If Frank were here, I’d at least be entertained with his stupidity.

The kobold returns to our group and says the dryad will speak to the gnoll now. The gnoll licks his paws and grooms his face. Nasty. When he returns, his face is aglow with excitement.

“I know where we should go! Follow me!”

He runs off and we follow. What choice do we have?

OOC: We last left our adventurers at the red kobold camp, where they were receiving a hero’s welcome. Mar’Kessa had plans to sleep well now that they were back in (relative) civilization.

So much for sleeping! I had such high hopes for some quality sleep, but alas, it was not to be that night. Our clearly inebriated gnoll disappeared into a tent with a couple of the female kobolds. Why they tolerated him when he stank like rotting flesh is beyond my understanding. Then again, he is furry and warm, and they are cold-blooded creatures. Ew. I’m not going to think about that.

We were called into the tent of the red kobold clan’s leader, a white-scaled kobold. The 40-foot high tent towered over the others that were less than half its height. He asked for proof of our conquests and we arranged our stash of paws in an arc before him. His eyes widened with each bag of paws added to the arc.

“Open the armory for them,” he said.

We traded our regular weapons for better ones. When Hakim held up the magical robe of the black kobold leader, the white kobold was very pleased. He traded it for an impressive looking chain vest for Hakim.

We left the tent and waded through the crowds of celebrants to our own tent. I was ready to sleep… but then we were dragged to the bonfire for a toast in our honor. Normally I wouldn’t care to go, but the more we play the part of heroes, the more they seem to want to give us. So we walk out to the center of the village towards the bonfire, just in time to see the white kobold drop to the ground, shot by a poison dart. His guards jump to cover him and we scan the area for the attacker.

Name and I spot it – a short, skinny creature of pointed metal perched on top of the big tent. Its red eyes glow. We shoot at it. A second metal creature appears in the small tent to the right. Name rushes over and guts it with her longsword. It howls in pain – a metal creature that feels pain? Hakim cries out as an arrow pierces his lower back and my focus returns to destroying these creatures. A third creature appears on the top of the big tent. One jumps to the ground and is grappled by the Naga cleric who we had seen in the white kobold’s tent earlier that evening.

Finally the metal creature that the Naga is grappling appears to die. The Naga drags the body into the tent and hurls it at the ceiling. The creature on the roof stumbles, but does not fall. It backs up, pulls out a vial, and applies something to its blade. I’m not about to get poisoned, so I carefully aim my bow and sink an arrow into its throat. It falls from the tent, dead.

Meanwhile, Name is fighting an invisible enemy by the smaller tent. She swings hard and the metal creature reappears just in time to be cleaved in two. I will certainly be keeping Name alive in the future, as she is constantly proving her usefulness.

As the Naga is healing Hakim, I walk over to the kobold leader, who is suffering the effects of the poison dart. I pull a vial of antitoxin from my bag and give it to his guards, who help him drink it. I only have five vials, but he appears to be an ally worthy of saving. He looks better almost immediately and sits up to thank me. His guards help him back into his tent, where I see Frank is ready to help tend to him. Perhaps this would be a good place for Frank to stay. The kobolds worship him, there are no undead nearby, and he can summon all the bees he wants.

We examine the metal creature, which the Naga describes as a construct, similar to one that appeared at the village a week or so ago accompanying a hairless humanoid. They are built of wood and metal. The wood is stiff now, but when we were fighting them, it moved and felt like living muscle tissue. We take their swords, 5 vials of poison, and 6 vials of a black potion.

The Gnoll stumbles out of the tent, blinking his eyes and wiping drool from his jowls. A female kobold grabs him and pulls him back inside. Ew.

The Naga identifies the black potion as a potion of repair and we decide to drag one of the constructs back to our tent and revive it so we can question it. We bind it with rope and pour the potion down its throat. The red eyes glow with life again. My party members try a variety of languages and are met with a blank stare. I mutter a few words in Draconic and its eyes fixate on me. Great. Just great. Now I have to be the translator. Again.

At first, it was reluctant to share anything other than it was under orders from the House Denieth. It begins to lie to us, saying that others will come looking for him in a day’s time. Hakim pulls in the top half of the construct that Name sliced in half. He begins to roll its head around. The construct appears fearful.

“Again,” we ask. “How long do we have before others come looking for you?”

This time the answer is a week. I ask about the Library, the place where the metal creatures from the previous day were from. He knows nothing about a Library, but something about a Foundry. Denieth wants the land of the kobolds. He arrived by airboat. Hakim begins to argue that boats travel by water – not by air – and the creature calls us savages.

It tries to wiggle free of its ropes and Hakim says, “Try that again and there will be less of you to tie up next time.” It’s really a brilliant thought and I translate it word for word. The creature looks terrified.

We continue with our interrogation. The creature had hoped the white kobold was dead. He said that one of his people – the warforged – had traveled to this village last week to ask for the land and the white kobold had killed it. It was time for them to kill the white kobold, but we had stopped that from happening.

At this point, it was the early hours of the morning and we were all exhausted. We secure the ties around the warforged, and as soon as we mention the thought of asking the kobolds to guard our prisoner, a young male kobold pops into the tent and offers his services. He’s a bit young, but eager. Some of the older male hunters join him and we leave to get some sleep.

The next morning we go to brief the leader. We find him in his bed, resting. He’s guarded heavily. Frank is asleep in the corner. I rifle through his personal belongings and find a small leather journal, which I tuck into my bag. Maybe I’ll find some insight into the madness.

We recommend that the tribe relocate to avoid attack by the House Denieth. He refuses. Three generations they have been there, he says. His father, his father’s father. He’s the only white kobold he’s ever seen except his own father. Blah blah blah.

The naga gives the leader some more healing and he is able to get out of bed and push the bed to the side, revealing a trapdoor. The kobold mutters a few words over the door and opens it, revealing a cache of golden Siberys shards, ranging from slivers to giant rocks.

“This is why they want this land,” he says. Indeed. I’m beginning to want this land myself. Maybe we should have let him die. The words of the Khyber kobold leader replay in my mind. “The shards work with their dragonmarks.” I’m not quite sure what that means.

He offers us a reward if we find the members of the House of Denieth and figure out how strong they really are. He hints that we would then have access to storerooms of more powerful weapons when we return.

We go back to our prisoner. We demand to know how to get to their rendezvous point. Hakim shoves a quill in its mouth and asks for a map. We end up untying one of its arms and regret that decision instantly when the creature disappears.

Name stares it down. “I can still see you,” she growls. With a pop, it reappears. “I don’t know where I am,” it claims. After more threats, it admits that the meeting point for the airship is by the river tonight, but there would not be enough time to get there.

We’re pretty tired of this creature, but curious to learn about its kind because we anticipate running into more of them soon. The warforged were made by artificer magic, he explains. There were many of his kind forged long ago, ranging from simpletons to highly intelligent. They are everywhere.

We hear a sound like the roaring of a forest fire approaching, but we don’t smell smoke. We look in the distance and see a ring of fire approaching, growing brighter and brighter. It is the warforged’s airship – a vessel riding a ring of fire through the air, heading towards the river.

As you may know, we have two scouts in our party. Hakim is a full Scout – level 5. Mar’Kessa is 2 Drow / 3 Scout. Both of us currently have Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot as feats.

I’m pondering not going the typical ranged fighter feats (Rapid/Many shot)… but wondering what other crazy things Mar’Kessa could learn to do. Keep in mind, she is NOT fond of melee. She’s come too close to death and prefers to stay out of the main battle if possible.

What else can she do as far as feats? Give me some thoughts, please!