The Misadventures of the Missed Adventurers

[narf poit chez BOOM]

ooc:[thanks to Jack for post-extending stuff]

a few minutes, and much tension, later...

D "i have there location."

Jack "i'm teleporting now. please fasten your hands together and put your bodies in an upright position. in the case of an emergency, scream as you go down the swirling vortex. please keep your appendages inside the dimensional effect at all times. thank you and have a safe ZAP."

ZAP!

as the party teleports in, they can see a round room with no one in it. and then a loud roar come from behind them.

ooc:[i was laughing while i was doing this. i'm at the weird part of tired.]

[ August 03, 2003, 02:06: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Jack Simth]

At the sound, Jack calmly turns around, and sees what looks like a giant black bug. Its four legs clatter on the ground as it moves its two jagged arms to bring a half-eaten deer carcass up to its clattering mandibles, which make short work of the deer remains. The creature's antenna wave around momentarily, then it roars again. A woman's voice can be heard:

Woman "Oh do be quiet; nobody's here. If someone was, I'd know about it."

At that, the creature stops roaring, as though the voice held power over the creature. The woman steps into view from behind the creature; she is a shapely lass, wearing a fancy blue dress and a silver tiara.

ooc:[Good thing we are invisible to both sight and Psionics, isn't it? I'm thinking a giant black preying mantis, that roars.]

ooc:[Yes, that is a wierd point of tired.]

[ July 23, 2003, 10:01: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

[Krsqk]

[ooc: assuming the psi/pet/hallway/entrance are behind us, I am going clockwise around the room.]

Arthur decides he would rather examine the room than the roar. It appears to be a combination armory and storage room. Next to the party are two sets of heavy, oaken, free-standing shelves. One is filled with comestibles and potables, the other with large cloth sacks. A well and a pump are next to the shelves. Further around are rows of racks for swords, spears, helmets, shields, and crossbows; most are empty, although a few weapons remain. A barred door beyond the racks leads to a cell. Completing the circle is a wooden doorway; the door is ajar and appears to lead to someone's private quarters.

Arthur finally turns to look at the beast, backing up to get a little more room as he does so. His foot catches in something as he turns, and he looses his balance, crashing into the nearest shelf. It rocks wildly, sending a massive keg crashing to the floor and soaking the party. Arthur attempts to stand up amidst a rain of vegetables but slips on the floor, now slick with foaming ale. He falls against the second shelf, which creaks loudly as it tips, then stops on the verge of falling. Before anybody can breath a sigh of relief, a shelf breaks, sending the entire unit crashing toward the party. The bags in the middle are carried with the shelf, which falls out from under the two on the top. Arthur rolls out of the way, while the others quickly step back. As the shelf hits the floor, it flips forward over the sacks on the floor. The two sacks from the top shelf are just catching up, and are catapulted directly at the party. Narp manages to catch one with a large knife and the other with his shield, causing them to burst and spewing flour over the entire party.

Damping flour.

Arthur finally manages to stand up, his foot still stuck in the bucket into which he was teleported.

[ooc: YAY! Time for some real fun! ]

[ July 23, 2003, 22:42: Message edited by: Krsqk ]

[Jack Simth]

Jack hears the commotion, and turns around just in time to see the flour coat him. He looks down at himself, and notices he can see himself.

Jack "Hmm. Well, that's annoying. Ahh well; that's what capacitors are for...."

ooc:[The capacitor was inside his robes; neither the capacitor nor Jack's link to it would have been immediately affected.]

Jack squints, and and the flour on him can be seen to glow a brilliant green as Jack overloads it and the flour degrades into sand. The glow spreads out, forming an tight ovoid around Jack, where it clears considerably, flashing occasionaly as a little of the flour still in the air comes into contact. It quickly becomes clear that Jack is continuously supplying the shield, as it doesn't dim.

Jack "Now for the rest..."

At this point, the giant bug and the woman start to move on Jack, but suddenly find that they have more important worries when Jack casts his next spell; the other party members recognize it as a variation on the spell Jack used to retrieve John's ring. It has the same light bending characteristics, but this one doesn't have a quiet black dot at the center, and doesn't take nearly so long to form. No, this one forms instantly, and has a black sphere the size of a melon at its heart. The sphere forms touching the edge of Jack's shield, and the spell's true effect becomes apparent as everyone feels a strong tug towards the sphere, and everything starts rushing towards it; the swords, spears, helmets, shields, and crossbows from the rack, the comestibles and potables from the shelf, the large cloth sacks, the fragments of shelving, the dust and the very air in the room all rush into Jack's dark sphere. The only one in the room completely unaffected by it is Jack himself, safe in the shield he built.

ooc:[Any other objects weighing less than about 50 lbs that weren't well-secured would have flown into the sphere as well; a good grip (Narp's sword and shield, for example) counts as well-secured.]

After just an instant, the room is cleared, and Jack closes his hole in reality. Air rushes in through the open doorway to fill the void, ripping the doors off their hinges and howling like a banshee for a few seconds. Then Jack calmly turns back and smiles at the bug.

The bug starts to run out the open door, but a look from the woman stops it cold.

Jack "Sorry about that everyone; I couldn't figure out how to get the shielding around you properly because of the flour. Don't worry; we can get everything back; I sent it all to John's workroom."

John "All that damping flour in MY WORKROOM!?"

Jack pounds a fist into his palm.

Jack "I knew I was forgetting something. Sorry about that. I can help you clean it up later if you like."

ooc:[Some of the damping flour would have become ground into the cloth in the room; John, Arthur, and D still have some cleaning up to do before they can cast spells unencumbered by the dust.]

[ July 25, 2003, 18:24: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

[Narf'scompatshop]

ooc:[she's summoning her bandits. and the bug'll have enough flour on it to interfere with spells, for plot purposes. ok, don't post when your ready to fall asleep. gonna fix. ]

Reacting quickly, the psi stands still and closes her eyes for a moment. Also reacting quickly, Narp shoots the arrow which he had nocked. unfortunatly, the arrow is flicked aside two feet from her, into the wall, where it shatters. the peices go flying around the room, but nothing dangerous hits anybody anywhere vulnerable.

Her eyes snap open, and she frowns in concentration. Then, she mentally heaves the bug at the group. Narp is clipped on the upper shoulder and doees two full fips and a half-spin before hitting the wall, Jack is hit solidly on the upper chest and does three-quarters of a flip, ending up face down and somehow not very hurt and the bug hits John at an angle and knocks him flying into Arther, whose legs shoot out from under him. The bucket goes flying off his foot, bounces off the opposite wall and then the ceiling and finishes by landing on the bugs eye.

At that point, the bug rears up and looks for a target. a close target.

The psi appears to be concentrating with her eyes open.

ooc:[she's trying to find a way around our shielding. she can tell something is wrong, since her psi senses are telling her we're not where her eyes tell us she is. the bug is to distract us while she does that.]

[ July 24, 2003, 23:11: Message edited by: Narf'scompatshop ]

[Jack Simth]

ooc:[Of course Jack isn't seriously hurt - he hadn't dropped the shield he used to hold off the flour coming his way and insulating himself from the effects of the wormhole while he eliminated the rest of the flour.]

ooc:[She's concentrating on getting around our defenses? Not for long....]

Jack teleports onto his feet, and then starts teleporting rocks from Arthur's mountain into the room, directly over the Psi's head. Large rocks. Lots of them. The woman notices before they hit, however, and starts throwing them telekenetically. Every time she does, Jack teleports the thrown rock back over her head. When Jack has a free moment, he teleports another rock in. After just a few seconds, the two reach equilibrium; it seems Jack can teleport things in just as fast as the woman can divert them with telekenisis. Equilibrium seems to be five large rocks, each of which gets teleported and telekenetically thrown a few times per second. Jack sweats profusely from the concentration, while the Psi perspires heavily for the same reason.

ooc:[Both Jack and the Psi are at their limit on how much they can handle at once. If the Psi tries something, she'll get hit on the head by a rock, and will be out of the fight. If Jack tries something, he'll miss a rock the Psi throws, and someone will get hit (probably Jack, if the Psi knows who is doing all the teleporting...). In the meantime, Narp, Arthur, D, the bug, and John are available for action; can the four remaining party members take on the bug?]

[ July 28, 2003, 18:31: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

[Krsqk]

Arthur grabs a nearby halberd and waves it in the general direction of the bug. Unimpressed, the bug snatches the weapon from his hands and snaps it in two with its mandibles. D and John decline to offer similar resistance and begin backing away, flinging anything they can find at the bug. All three periodically attempt to burn off the damping flour with which they are coated, but their attempts are fruitless. Just as the bug backs them up against a wall, John quickly tosses a side of pork into the air. While the bug is distracted, he dives under it and plunges down the well. Arthur and D look puzzled for a minute, but quickly decide to follow suit as the bug polishes off the meat. As they disappear down the well, a well-timed arrow from Narp smacks into the back of the bug's head. The arrow snaps, and the bug turns angrily around in search of its tormentor. Narp, across the room, appears to be a willing culprit. The bug begins to stalk in his direction.

[ July 27, 2003, 21:06: Message edited by: Krsqk ]