Dragon's Eye

[Gir]

Well how about we end the game your running for me. It might be the characters...i could roll something new up..new guy at level 1 or 5 or something..maybe a more dynamic character...like a fighter..you know someone who can take it and dish it..no crazy rules or half elf theif acrobat fighters with weird skill sets..and no tower guard fighters with crazy ac's

[Still_Pond]

I don't know. I like the richness of the characters we have. I like all of your characters really. I think my problem is a lack of a solid idea or story. I get one, but after months and months, I start to loose interest. I wouldn't mind starting something at level 1 and seeing how far we can get it.

I was toying with the idea of starting a player out as a non-class character, like a level 0 character or NPC commoner template. Then, events in game would guide them into a class. The problem is that those events have to be planned or offered and that means the player needs to know what they want to play anyway, so why not just start them at 1st level class anyway? Liking what I did with Cass's game in the fact that it was rather directionless, I was thinking of running another sandbox game. Not really sure. I liked the idea of making some world and then having the PCs become heroes in it by way of many little mini-quests.

For example, they might need to find a lost child in a cave. Instead of making it convoluted, they just kill the bear and find the child. Quest complete! Level up! move on. Each adventure need not be built on the previous or take months to complete. Anyway, that's what I was thinking.

I wouldn't mind playing out the Codex adventure but if you don't really care about it and want to make a new character, you can. I am good with whatever YOU want to do man.

[Gir]

What i want eh? What i want is a bonified vacation i think. Thinking some place in the mountains with a tent and no internet...sigh..some day maybe..

Till then...I have been enjoying the Sherlockness of the adventure you have codex on. Although i dont do so well with puzzeling out some puzzels you know. So dont be supprised if i miss things.

So i just got my big CFI renewal test done (had to be in by the end of the month) so thats one large stress off my back. At the moment im trying to figure out how to get the fun back into the adventure since it stagnated for the past few months. I have written a few things but delete them as they are rubbish..

[Still_Pond]

As for Dragon's eye, I'm pretty easy to please. The game is still fun for me. I still like my character and the themes you've set up. For example, I still like how he's supposed to be some paragon noble knight of the esteemed DragonBorn order, but he's still unsophisticated and impulsive. Like giving away the fancy relic sword.

It is hard to keep momentum up though, I understand this. I think that's one reason new games are so fun, they are new and shiny. After a few months they start to get stale and, on this site at least, often die. I'm starting to wonder if I care. I mean, they are fun for a bit and then they die and I get into a new one that is fun for a bit. I do care though, as I do like to see my characters develop or see puzzles/stories unfold and resolve a bit. It is fun to plant the garden, but it is also fun to watch it grow and eat the stuff. I don't want to just keep planting new gardens.

Anyway, up to you with all of it really. You can pause Dragon's eye for a bit if you want. Or pause DnD all together if you like.

As for Codex, I'm glad you like the mystery flavor. I'm bad at mysteries too, so it is the blind leading the blind here. It is a half fleshed out idea of mine, so things may not work. I don't care though, I'm just having fun.

We can start new game easily enough though. Either new characters or just the same old characters in a new setting or something. Maybe just one character. Whatever. You know I'd have to do something like this though. "You enter the small magic shop to buy a +1 sword. The merchant greets you and you are quiet surprised that he...it is a construct. The strange metal and flesh golum thing speaks, 'Welcome. I am Codex....'"

-

Oh, and I'm not ignoring your vacation request...just can't do much about that. I feel ya brotha. Don't I know it. I want a kid free time with just my wife...for like a year I think. But, that is not going to happen. All I can offer you is a brief bit of escapism through DnD. I think I want to try to lighten up my games, make them less serious and heavy and more popcorn and bubblegum. We'll see.

[Gir]

(story telling past some of the longer stuff to get the story back on track..also giving you some back info again as im sure you forgot over the time..)

the ringing in your ears seems to echo through the ages. You remember the past, a simpler time, a time of drinking and solitude. You remember being sent from your clan to gather knowladge...so long ago..you struggle to open your eyes but an explosion of light forces them closed again. The far off sound like spoons baning on pots is heard, how you would love to silence them all and get on with the good part of your hangover..the part where you drink more to forget the pain. . must have been quite the night you think.

You move your hand..somethings in it..you grip and realize its a sword hilt wet with something. You struggle to open your blurry eyes and can just make out the wetness is blood..question is..whos..

You dont wait long for the answer as a clawed foot steps over your motionless body. You look up, a large gargoyle made of the blackest rock and with trace lines of energy running down it like the golums and the pyrimid..and the stalf..the cursed dragon eye stalf..maker of dreams..you try to move your head and are punished by pain once again..the items you remember essentially grant several true wishes to whoever holds them..power unlimited on their own..together though..together you feel the very plane could be shaped by the will of one..for better or worse..

The gargoyle steps back over you and you turn your head in time to see Topaz swining a large hammer..you remember a hammer..jacks hammer..Zanfair was its name..a mighty weapon..slow..but you really only had to hit once..*CRACK* goes the hammer as it hits the gargoyle in the chest..a large glowing crack pattern emenates from the strike point and the gargoyle is throwen back against the wall.

All at once topaz looks down at you, you attempt to smile when he takes a vial and pours it down your throat..all at once your body is wracked with pain as bones reset..you cough and taste blood in your mouth..your ribs must have punctured your lungs you realize..vague memories of rushing into the room...being hit by the gargoyles...felt like being hit by a mountain..tumbling for what seems like forever..the feeling of the ground and bones breaking..

YOu gasp again, and clench your weapon, your eyes open again..The gargoyles fight with anbandon..Zef, Elsa, and ker fight them off as topaz leans over you, 'Tau!' he yells for what must be the 5th time your sure, You grip your weapon and get up, 'Tau, were holding them off..make it to the artifact..its our only ho...' his words trail off as the gargoyle pounces into him and knoks him back, for a breif moment you see topaz not as human but as a large creature made of what apears to be rock..two large horns spiral from his head, his fist which is almost the size of his hammer pounds the gargoyle..and for the blink of an eye you think you see him enjoying the tussel..

You get up...the potion is still mending your body..a door is infront of you,, 3 gargoyles to the east of you..the large one fighting topaz and the 2 smaller ones fighting the rest of them..it apears as they break they create more gargoyles..f*ing magic you think..

WIth mixed feeling you run through the door and to your left, you open another door and see a large pedistal at the end of the hallway. a door to the left. The doors shut tight and the room starts to grow warm..the heat you realize is increasing exponentially..You look over the pedistal and see a small circle the right size for a stalf...you smile for a moment and pull out a peice of the dragon eye stalf..place it in the hole..at once the room stops warming..

The folly of the mage was to think that he was the only one in possession of the stalf..hubruis..you chuckle to yourself as you head to the door. A plated area with circles and a door on the other side, You take the stalf peice and hold it out and all at once the tiles of the floor rotate to a nice tile floor. You smile and walk across into the next room..

The room has 4 pillars that have a blue energy cascading from them to a single point, a rod that forms the rest of the dragon eye stalf..The energy you realize is nog coming from the pilliars but is being drawen from the rod peice..you pause a moment pondering what to do

[Still_Pond]

Feeling a little smug at how quickly and cleverly I bypassed the previous traps, I waltz into the room a bit and consider this odd spectacle. I first think that there is some electric shield holding the staff, keeping unwanted hands away from it. As I look, however, I see the energy is being drawn from it. Maybe it is broken, and this is a way to keep it safely rather than having its power blast away randomly?

I circle the room, looking at each point of contact, trying to see what might be going on. (

Dice Roll:

1d20+10

(4)+10

Total = 14

Search for traps?

Dice Roll:

1d20+10

(17)+10

Total = 27

Disable device?)

Something about the shape of the lightning and the rod configuration is familiar to me. A pyramid! Four corners and the apex where the staff is. Maybe this thing is somehow powering the whole complex? Still, how to remove it safely? I slip on my magnetic ring and will it toward the staff and tug on it. Maybe there is metal on it and maybe it isn't held by much force. It is worth a try.

[Gir]

You look closer at the pilliars and the peice. Indeed you realize the energy is making the shape of a pyramid. The pillars on the edge are about 4 feet off the ground and seem to have a large crystal placed on the toop that is that is collecting the energy. The rod peice itself is suspended above the floor by a 20 foot pilliar. The energy streams forth from the tip of the rod like large continous bolts of lighting. A humming sound fills the entire room to the exclusion of everything else.

You walk arround carefully and look for traps but find nothing overt. You wonder if the mage would have even trapped this room..or perhapse the entire room is a trap of a sort as you doubt touching the energy from the stalf would be conducive to your health. Each pillar has 4 small circles in them, the pilliar in the center has fant scratch lines that apear to go up the entier pilliar as well as a small hole about half up.

You walk twords the center pilliar and extend the power of the magnetic ring. At first nothing happens and then you can feel something..like the energy of the ring is being pulled from it..you pull back and as you do a trail of lightning follows the path down to the ring, you manage to cut the conenction before a larger bolt follows but not before you take a nasty jolt to the hand.

[Still_Pond]

I swear as I'm zapped. Smoke sizzles up from my skin. I turn back, listing for the sounds of battle. My allies are possibly giving their lives to buy me time, and here I am with some wizard's puzzle. Always with the puzzles! I'm a fighter, not some gnomish mage puzzler guy!

The circles on the pillars seem important. I wonder if I can poke my rod segment into them. Standing on my tippy toes and being careful not to touch the energy, I try to do this on the tall central one to the hole I see about 10' up.

[Gir]

you walk up to the pillar and feel as if you are being lifted to the hole..fancy bit of magic that is you figure. At the hole you place the rod end in. It fits but you feel like there is more. The mage created a stalf that emulates what the rod does..perhapse the actual rod powers the stalf..allowing the stalf to be an extension of it..perhapse the mage created more objects that..

as your thinking you pull the rod and the pillar down some, when you do thethe whole of the pyramid seems to shake for a bit and then become still, this intrupts your train of thought. You look arround somewhat perplexed and pull down more..nothing seems to happen at first..the energy from the rod peice still cascades to the crystals..then a pulse..and the distorted but breif feeling that you are moving..

[Still_Pond]

Ok. So it moves the whole damn pyramid up and down, or maybe makes it taller or shorter. A fine lot of good that does me, how can I get that rod segment? Is it the dragon's eye piece or something the mage made to augment the dragon's eye piece? If only I had some way to detect the damn things, rather than guessing. I consider the few pieces I do have. I don't know how to make them detect things, I think I need that fork segment to do that. Still, I try to fiddle with them, putting the ring on the staff segment, wearing the ring, hooking things together all while trying to 'will' them to guide me to the other segments.

I really should have figured this all out in camp, but I hate messing with these things. I just want to destroy this cursed thing and be done with all this. Artifacts of this power do not belong down here with us mortals. F-ing Kalfu!

[Gir]

You swear at kalfu under your breath..if not for him you would not be in some blasted flying mage pyramid in the middle of a jungle. Part of you considers knocking him about for his part in this. You stand there and take out the other artifacts and try to peice them together and play with them.
The ring, the stalf segment, the small tear..You hold the ring and place it on..you can feel the power within the artifact and again it scares you..it tempts you to use it..it is as if it is a living thing..you take it off and place the tear in the center of the ring..

The tear quickly snaps into the void at the center of the ring and is suspended there, it moves and floats and you gaze at the beauty of it..All at once you hear a movement behind you. You turn just in time as a bolt of pure energy shoots out of the drow mages stalf and at you. You raise your hand to defend and all at once find the energy being obsorbed by the ring/tear item you hold.

the mage looks at you with wide eye wonder as he realizes you hold other items like his..He grimiaces, 'I cannot let you have the shard! a lesser being would use such power to destroy the world!' He raises his stalf and intensifies the energy beam coming out of it..the item you hold grows warm with power, 'And that..i cannot allow', he raises his hand and pillar plummets to the ground..the lightning streaks upwards to the crystals and you feel a great force pushing you down to the ground as the pyramid accelerates.

[Still_Pond]

I drop down as the floor shoves up. I manage to shout, "Can we talk this over?! You don't know the whole story you black skinned pointy eared..." His insult is cut short by another shift of the floor. "I don't give a @#$@ about your shard, I'm here for the Dragon's Eye artifacts. I am the one guy in the world, no two worlds, that is trying to prevent them from destroying the worlds in the hands of lesser beings!"

I get my balance, and think about options. How I just want to throw this guy into the lightning and use his black body to knock the shard free. I don't think I could manage that however, but the idea is nice.

[Gir]

The drow listens to your words and all at once lowers the stalf some (yes the lightning stops as well) and raises his hand, the pillar holding the rod rises and you suddenly feel lighter for a moment as it does. With a wave of his hand the tip of the pyramid becomes transparent.

You see the darkness of the sky above you and the green and blue of forests and water bellow..you are incredibly high and it makes you quite dizzy, 'Speak then, but know if i drop my concentration for a moment this pyramid will fall to the land bellow like a shooting star...'

(for times sake)

You quickly mention that your freinds are in danger and you will not talk before they are safe..he nods and after a moment assures you they are safe..

you explain what you are trying to do...some about the artifact but not to much..you explain that the item on the pillar is the item you are looking for and need...

he asks about it some and you explain it was created by a wizard named Kalfu thousands of years ago..he spit it apart and sent them to the edges of the 9 realms to keep others from finding them..

He listens to what you say and the weight of what your saying seems to have an effect on him. after a moment he looks up at you, 'I dreamt of equality for my people and the shifters..we were brought here thousands of years ago from a lost continent as slaves..i prayed to the 9 gods of heaven and the 7 gods of hell and one of them delivered me the shard..' you realize hes talking about the stalf rod, 'from it i shaped this new rod, and the pyramid..i shaped protections and i have helped our people find they are not the slaves others think we are.'

you see the others come around the corner, zef looks at you, her weapon is out..you raise a hand for her to pause. The drow looks up at you, you can see the disappointment in his eyes..he has found the tool of his salvation and you are here to take it away..

You look up for a moment as you collect your thoughts..the sight is amazing..you drift far enough above the planet that you can see all three of the moons at once..the stars are brighter than you have ever seen them, and far to the east you can see a line of sunlight slowly moving across the land as the sun rises...

[Still_Pond]

I am a little moved by his speech. I sigh. "A noble thing to do with the power. You are a drow, and while I've not dealt much with your race I know from stories that they are not to be trusted. Forgive me if I don't just accept your story as you tell it."

I hold up my hand to hold any retort from him, violent or otherwise. "I have seen great evil done by those who think they are going good. They think that any means justifies their end. Small evils give way to larger ones eventually. I have also seen good men who possess these artifacts, using them for truly good things, as you claim to be. "


I sigh and rub my head. "You think I don't realize that they are safer with the likes of you, people with protectors, flying pyramids, and a loyal following of people than with one dragonborn like me? People using them to do good things. I know this. At any moment I expect to wake up just to see them stolen from me right before a dagger through my eye ends it all. I've been living with that fear for a year though, yet I am still here. The fact is the end is approaching. The artifacts will be gathered. If not by me than by the forces of Tiamat. I am sworn to Bahamut, and I'd like to see Tiamat stay where she is. Unbalanced as the world may be. Sure as the 9 hells, there seems to be enough evil for all even with that bitch imprisoned.

So, I must gather these artifacts before they do. That means that if you won't part with them willingly, it puts you and I at odds."

I think for a bit in silence. "You say you have done all this..." I gesture to the pyramid, "To help your people. Is there some way you can keep your hard won victory for them and still part with the shard? If your victory for them hinges on the power of one artifact, does that not seem too fragile to you? Should you not seek a more permanent and stable solution? Perhaps I can help you somehow? Maybe together we can do what you alone could not, even with such power."

[Gir]

He listens and nods, 'You speek some truth' he pauses, 'i have found this power and used it to help our people but our peace as it is hinges on me holding the power. In that fact alone the peace we do have is fragle at best and easly changed if one were to take the power for themselves.' he closes his eyes for a moment and palces a hand on his head in thought, you can feel, thought the artifat you hold still in your hand, that he is using the power of the rod.

'There was another here that i feel saught the shard as well, he, unlike yourselvs, has laid waste and killed many of my people before i drove him back' he ponders this and as he does you see the top of the pyramid change..you see jungles and armies marching to destroy him and his people, he uses the artifact to raise more guards and warriors,..eventually..years from then..or now..you see the jungle is ruined, and dogs pick over the corpses of the fallen, a war lord stands on this battlefeild and picks up the drows stalf and the fallen rod of power..then the memory fades and you see the night sky again.

'it is people like him who will keep seeking the power and force me to defend my people to the point that i become a tyrant. Eventually i will fall along with my people' he shakes his head and raises his hand at the pillar. The pyramid starts to decend back to the jungle.

'When we land, the shard is yours, such power corrupts to easily' he looks at you, 'i know not what a more perminant solution could be, for so long i have saught to build our people safety and security through the use of this shard, now i see the folly of such things and for once at a loss of what to do next'

you look out side and see you are the same level with the tops of mountains far to the north, you can just start to make out the trees below. The drow for his part looks to you for guidance.