Sunday, May 17, 2009

Rescuing Princess Florissa - ct'd

From the Desk of Lola
From the adventure last Saturday. I've taken a bit of a break as the DM, and now Mrs. Tiki has taken over for awhile.

In her quest, the band of fearless D&D adventurers are on a rescue mission of the beautiful Princess Florissa. The castle boasts many children's story-themed rooms, along with many dangers and mysteries.

Party members include:
Boof the half-orc barbarian (Brent)
Rana the half-elf fighter (Kimba)
Qui the half-elf monk (Capt)
Lola the gnome cleric (Yours Truly)

At this point in time, the party is about to descend (I think) down a wooden staircase. Upon opening the door at the bottom, a large tree is standing in the middle of the room, and Spot checks all around detect branches laden with yellowish fruit. Boof is easily convinced by Lola to eat one of the fruit, and nothing happens. Rana spots footholds at the base of the tree and begins the climb into...

HARPY HELL!

After screaming "No cure for Harpies!" to the others below, Rana enters into combat, taking some claw damage in the process. During this fracas, two harpies fly off and begin an attack on Boof the barbarian and Qui the monk - this ends badly (for the harpies) for a couple different reasons.

1. Although Harpy #1 was able to pull Boof off of the tree he was climbing, she was beaten in a grapple by him, thus resulting in a harpy unable to disengage herself from a meaty 6'3" half-orc. Once she sank to the ground under the sheer heft, she was thoroughly pounded by a really ticked off barbarian.

2. Obviously wanting to get in on the action, Qui cries out, "Where's my harpy?" and leaps off the tree, attempting to grab at Harpy #2, because as he says, "I have slow fall." However, after botching a Jump check, he completely misses the harpy, tucks and rolls, and ends up on the ground, taking minimal damage.

Out of game, I investigate Kimba's apple cinnamon muffins, and find them, in fact, to be free of any mold.

Lola enters the fray in time to heal Rana, who has taken significant harpy claw damage. The frog-Paladin's excellent performance in battle prompts Lola to touch herself inappropriately, but soon the group finds themselves under an enchantment of a fearful sort - the alluring song of the harpy. All but Lola and Justice fail Reflex saves, and the rest wonder why they wanted to kill the beautiful harpies in the first place. Justice saves Rana from walking off the edge of the tree in a harpy-induced daze. Soon, though, battle resumes, and Boof ends the encounter by spitting on the puddle of harpy goo (all that remains of those shrews). Rana instructs everyone to leave, so that she may set fire to the tree. Lola finds 300 gold pieces.

On the other side of the tree are a set of double doors, which disposed of by Boof. A path straight ahead leads to a half-circle room, where seven statues of dwarves surround a green apple, floating on a pillar. A six-foot-wide pit prevents the party from easily investigating, but all party members make the jump easily, even Boof who jumps only after he fails three Use Magic Device rolls in a row (for his flying boots). Qui and Rana recount Asatira lore, and something about a poison apple. Qui adds his own spin, recollecting something about a girl eating an apple, falling asleep, and seven dwarves having their way with her. A brief awkward pause was met after Qui's oh-so-NOT-Disney version of "Snow White and The Seven Dwarves." Boof later eats the apple (Rana had stowed it), declares it an "icky" apple, but doing this activates one of the dwarves, who hands over a key, which Lola pocketed.

Crossing back over the pit, then ventures to the left. A square room is curtained in black velvet...once revealed, the group spends several enjoyable minutes talking shop with a "mirror, mirror on the wall." As it turns out, the mirror will only respond when spoken to in rhymes. Let's recap some of the more memorable pieces of convo:

Boof: "Boof go oof." or "Princess mincess."
Lola: "Before we go, is there anything we need to know?"
Qui: "Would you think it rude to sell people for food?"

Going back into the main room, the party then took a final passageway off to the right. Lola uses the key to unlock the wooden door, and opens up onto a extremely sheer vertical cliff. Lola casts Air Walk and begins to climb. The others, waiting around, notice a strange shape at the top, which is actually a "Rapunzel", who is waiting to let down her hair as a rope. Lola discovers this much too late, as it takes her nearly forever to climb within the parameters of her Air Walk spell. As soon as the party all has climbed the hair rope, they engage in battle with six gnolls. Between Boof raging, Qui punching one in the face, and Justice doing his paladin thing, the gnolls were quickly done away with. Lola and Rana served no real purpose in this battle and so consumed some mango-fruit-thingies while watching the action.

The gnoll room has one exit, and that leads to a room with some water. But first, Rana takes an arrow to the butt from a trap inside, and Lola does a successful Heal check. Several heads bob up in the water after Rana calls for frogs, and Qui figures out these are merpeople. The king is asked for, and OOG, myself and Kimba use the lull in the action to reenact the "Part of Your World" sequences from "The Little Mermaid". Turns out that Kind Trident favors only knights, and the epiphany of the hour is realizing our paladin is a knight, thus lending steam to the adage to "it's not what you know, it's who you know." The king hands over the key, and the resident merpriest heals us, including Rana, who says, "I've got a bad case of the harpies."

Justice uses the key to open the door, to a winding spiral staircase, and a locked door - and the good times roll with four snake-haired Medusas. One medusa's hair attacks Rana, and Qui refuses to punch one of the medusas in the face (he doesn't want to touch it). Mass chaos ensues here, involved many of the following things:

1. Biting snakes
2. Daggers and short bows
3. Baked medusa due to a Searing Light spell from Lola
4. Rana is turned stone
5. Paladin removes curse
6. All other snake-haired fiends are crushed

In line with the four and twenty blackbirds, the party enters a circular room with the birds up high. Feathers began to fly, and a magic feather enables players to "swim" up to the ledge, where another room with treasures await. Qui gives birth to the brilliant brainstorm (in his mind) to building a staircase to the top out of blackbird carcasses. That idea is denied, or really, never discussed after its initial mentioning. Another circular tower and a bunch of blackbirds later, the party comes upon the "Peter Pan" room - a funny little factoid not discovered until later (we didn't catch on to the funky back carpet and the boy statue). The pixies up above drop another key for another door...and the party is exhausted from the day's adventures. Camp is set up in the "Dumbo" room - Feather Room. Friends are bid adieu. Another time, another adventure.