Time Travelers

Part 2: Homeward Bound

In Game	Out of Character
Interlude Back at the Hallow the group rests and heals, taking advantage of the constant flow of mana to repair their wounds. Adran, having spent much mana healing others earlier meditates for several hours, bathing in the warm glow of essence. As he does, Chaugnar’s eyes pop out of his head and onto their tentacles of their own accord, rapidly scanning the room until they finally focus on the unbroken heart of one of the temple guardians. He studies it closely and realizes that it allows the bearer to walk through stone for brief amounts of time. At the door is a gentle knock. Naxis uses his ties to Life to determine how many life forms, and he learns that there is only one, and that it is quite old and somewhat feeble. They open the door and an old monk in full cassock and hood greets them cheerfully. When he asks where his friends are and is told they were killed for the tome, he turns dour. But then his eyes fall on the Pool of Time and a youthful sparkle appears in them. “What is that?” In the middle of the explanation that it leads to other worlds and possible godhood, the old monk turns and walks straight into it, leaving the party with unanswered questions. So after a modicum of casting they head back towards the igloo / temple on the far side of the cover. Outside the chaos beast corpses remain, and they breathe a sigh of relief that they haven’t been replaced. As they check the door for traps, Arik shifts to Daru form so he can hold his axe one-handed. They entryway is like a small museum, its walls lined with religious paraphernalia, most of it unrecognized by the strangers. But one corner’s purpose is clear, as the visage revered in it is that of a horned demon, similar to Orcus but for the lack of a pig’s nose and his sleek features. They press on. Beyond is a hallway, and from around the corner they hear chanting. They ignore several doors along the way and head straight for a chapel where three monks kneel before an altar and chant to their leader: the man in a suit now bare-chested and sporting a large tattoo of a magic circle across his ribs and sternum. “May I help you? You could have called, you know.” Arik tells him in no uncertain terms that they are here for the book. Suit’s unsurprised response is a simple, “power corrupts.”	The heart is a Girdle of the Umber Hulk, from the Wizard-turned-Swordmage’s wish list. It’s a bit more powerful in this world, as it draws on mana instead of being a daily power. It’s also less useful, since even the buildings that might be considered stone usually have some sort of bracings in the wall that would stop someone from easily stepping through them. The eyeball thing was a manifestation of the warlock’s symbiotic eyes using their powers in this world.
Devil in a Suit The monks roll over in a fluid motion and stretch their arms out to Arik. Cold grey essence of life seeps from his pores and into their outstretched hands. Artesano grabs a grenade while Adran fills the air around Suit with fire, putting the full force of his will into the spell, but for little effect. Arik, on the other hand, charges straight up and drives his axe into the priest’s chest. It doesn’t draw any blood despite his supernaturally strong swing, but it rocks the man back on his feet. Chaugnar’s eyes activate their spirit sight and one of the leaps out of his head and around the corner. For a moment he can still see through it, but he reorients his vision. Naxis walks in and slams a thunderbolt into a monk, charring the man’s robe’s. Suit fills the air with psychic static in an attempt to crush the will of Arik and Naxis, but it is of no use. He also makes haste out of the raging firestorm around him. Chaugnar looks in the room and doesn’t see the tome he is looking for, so he opens a door in the hall and sees a small monk’s cell, with a twin bed, desk, and prayer mat. He summons forth the tentacles again, grabbing the same monk Naxis bolted. Two of the monks cast armor spells on themselves , and the third tries unsuccessfully to escape the writhing purple around him. Artesano steps up and throws his grenade. He misses his mark, but the blast size lets him hit all of his intended victims anyway. Two monks die instantly. Adran draws Fate in and around himself, gaining superlative luck. Arik flies into a rage and hones his anger, moving up to Suit and hitting hard again. Naxis charges, focusing his will into a nasty assault of his own. The Talisman of Orcus speaks into it’s wearer’s head, “Hey Artie! This’ll be fun!” It opens its mouth wide and inhales, drawing the life force out of the Suit. Still bearing an unearthly calm, Suit simply looks at Arik, points at Naxis, and says “kill him.” Chaugnar moves through the small room and into a hallway beyond, and asks his eye to check a different door. In the hall he opens another door to find another small cell. One of the monks tries to hit the artificer and misses. Another steps out into the hall with Chaugnar, coming in from another small cell where he was hiding and casting spells on himself. He reaches out and draws a little of the warlock’s life away. Artesano fires his MP7 into the monk who tried to punch him. Adran again calls down fire on Suit, who counter spells part of it. Arik attacks Naxis, dropping the Genasi instantly, and tearing out a small chunk of flesh at the shoulder. Chaugnar’s eye slithers into the room at the end of the hall and finds another small cell. It reports back “this is dull.” The talisman breathes in again and drain the soul from the last monk in the room. Chaugnar psychically assaults the monk that attacked him and tells his eye to come back. The monk responds by draining a little more life, while Artesano sets his Sharpshooter’s Eye on Suit. Adran’s firestorm is again partially countered, and barely a lick of flame reaches the man. Arik drives his axe into Naxis again, almost killing him, and the eye crawls as close as it can get to its master. The warlock’s psychic assault is fended off this time, and he heads back into the hallway to reunite his vision. The monk runs up and hits Chaugnar with two swift jabs, but they glance off. Artesano tries to shoot Suit in the eye but misses. Adran finishes him off though, as the man chose to stop the slow death of counter spelling wars and risk being able to do something offensive again. Chaugnar’s eye gets back in his head and the monk in the hall drains a little bit more life out of spite before fleeing out of the temple. They search and find the tome inside the altar, and leave to return it to its original hole under the altar of the other group.	It was a 5 damage attack, but while possessed by the Acamoth and buffed with Life spells “Suit” had seventeen health levels. Adran’s fire took away another two, so he was definitely worried. Psychic Static was an area psychic assault similar to the warlock’s. We couldn’t find anything about it, and didn’t want the door to be a turn-ender, so we set the cost to open a door at 2 yards of movement. Explosives in nWoD are nasty. They do automatic damage that’s only soaked by ½ your armor. Superlative Luck will let him reroll eights instead of tens on the next six rolls of his choice. He doesn’t end up using them all. Arik does another 6 damage, and it’s time to break out the big guns. The mind control was originally going to be “Defend me” but Arik’s player argued that it wouldn’t make sense. I pointed out that it’s the example given in the book, but he still didn’t like it, so I conceded and changed the command. Three rounds later Naxis is dead. Suit was almost dead, and counter spelling kept him alive for a while, but because it takes your next turn’s action it was a really bad idea. There was a lot of discussion and digging to find a way to stop Arik’s killing spree, but nobody had the right mix of spheres to dispel it. For some reason, nobody chose to heal Naxis any, and once he started taking a lot of Aggravated damage it was too late. Being one-eyed was putting Chaugnar at -1 die to everything, which coupled with bad luck and a swingy system made him pretty ineffective. At this point I had the second half of the adventure to run, involving the vampires they’d met earlier and a final confrontation with either the head of the Cult of Gibbeth or a piece of Gibbeth himself, depending on how fast they went. But it was plain that a some didn’t care for the system, so they voted on whether to continue in WoD or go back to D&D. There was one vote for “I want to stop sucking” by the warlock, and one for “I can do either” by Naxis’s player (who would have been given an NPC to run). So they went back to D&D. Stats for all of the World of Darkness NPCs are here. Sorry for the ugly format, that’s the default when you save an excel spreadsheet as a webpage.
Home Again, Home Again. Jiggidy Jig On the far side of the pool the cavern was dark, lit only by the glowing auras made visible through the Pool of Secrets. As the party turned to leave, the guardian attacked them. It was a bit of a surprise, as the last time they’d gone through the thing had not attacked Arik as he left. As far as they knew this was the first time a guardian had attacked anyone after they’d bathed. The incorporeal centaur-like phane rushed out of its lair at the party, and before it attacked summoned a duplicate of itself from the past, placing the copy in a flanking position. It touches Arik, shunting the man slightly out of time, and it fires a ray into Naxis, draining time from the Genasi and turning him old and weak. Arik pulls both copies to himself with a Warrior’s Urging, and shakes off the effects of the touch. Artesano’s Spellguard Training converts a ranged power to a close one, letting him use Mithal Spark without risk of a counter attack. He misses the original, and hits the duplicate. Naxis grows large and swings a meteor strike, but even his newfound mastery over time doesn’t help him hit. Chaugnar also misses with a Starless Void, but he pays an offering of energy to Caiphon to keep his boon for future use. Both the guardian and its duplicate miss with their attacks, and the copy disappears back into its time stream. Arik moves to flank and slams the thing hard, first with his axe and then the handle. Artesano fires a skipping shot from his thundering bow. It misses, but ricochets off of a wall to hit the beast in the back. Naxis challenges the thing to a mano-a-mano fight, and they fills the air with sparks before teleporting the two across the cavern to enforce the duel. Chaugnar summons a crown of stars, but can’t penetrate the creature’s thick hide. The guardian disappears for a moment, and when it returns the dazed look has left its eyes, but it can’t seem to hit despite its quickness. Arik moves up and again hits the beast twice (once with his pommel). Artesano misses with a magic missile, and Naxis’s Bane Blade misses as well, but it’s still charged with energy inimitable to the monster. Chaugnar also fails to connect with a Frigid Darkness, and again he offers up his energies to his lord Caiphon. The phane’s sapping touch misses again, but the second attempt hits home. It slides away, but not before Arik smacks it with his axe for daring to take its attention away from him. In fury the beast lashes out a third time at Naxis, but misses and retreats to a corner far from Arik’s futuristic weapon. Arik, slowed by the thing’s touch, moves forward like molasses and prepares to attack the thing if it gets close enough for him to charge. Artesano fires a multi-colored spray from his crossbow, and one of the prismatic rays washes over the phane, its yellow light temporarily dazing the guardian. Naxis moves up and attempts to convert the thing’s blood into acid, but as it has none, the effects are minimal. Chaugnar’s Crown again fails to penetrate the thing’s hide, and the Frigid Darkness would have missed but for a brief vision of the future made possible by their most recent Pool. Again the phane steps in and out of time, avoiding the cascading light around him. It fires another ray and lashes out with a claw, but cannot connect. It gets too close to Arik and the half-giant charges in and crashes his axe into the thing. When Artesano also misses with a Spellguard Force Lash, the abomination heads to the ceiling to regroup. It stays near the ceiling as much as possible, only coming down low enough to attack, or when grabbe by Naxis’s lightning lasso. It zips around avoiding attacks when it can, but the ranged attackers in the group still get a few shots in. After a battle that feels like hours but was less than five minutes, the thing finally succumbs to a blast of force from Artesano.	Naxis came back to life because there was a big battle ahead, it was still early, and I didn’t want his player to have to sit around and do nothing or leave early because of something that wasn’t his fault. So they saved a little cash, and a short stint of -1 penalties as the pool resurrected him. The phane guardian’s touch slows the target and lets it shift four squares before or after attacking. The ray leaves the victim dazed and weakened, with an after effect of being just weakened. The past time duplicate is a copy of itself that has the same stats as the base phane. Artesano changed to Spellguard Wizard in his first pool after FRPG came out. His prior Battle Mage incarnation didn’t fit Artificer well, but had been the best option available at that point. A crit with All Bets Are Off hurts, and he regains the power thanks to Epic Resurgence. Two natural ones in a row made it an interesting, but uneventful, turn for the phane. Everyone else but the fighter also whiffed. A third natural one in a row. Wheee! J When it’s hit, the phane uses an action point to attack with its touch again, getting as far from Arik as it can. I’m abbreviating the fight here, but it really was just more of the same. An insubstantial solo with a weakening attack and flight takes a long time to kill. It was a controller, so its damage was minimal, and the party was never in any real danger either. Only Naxis was ever bloodied, and that lasted less than a round.
Dude! I leveled! Let’s Go to the Pool! In the thing’s cave they find a trove of treasures from past seekers that have died, and gather it up. They have a long discussion about how best to proceed and make it through the Pool of the Elements, and then head out.