Slain by Elf

The way that they were discussing plans you would be forgiven in thinking that the party were trying to break in to the vault of Blackrock Depths, and not bypass a single, bored guard who had a bell in case he needed to raise the alarm. Still, the possible solutions all provided some level of entertainment. Because of the Tinker in the party, the best all involved explosives.

Tizgot explained his most direct route to disabling the bell. His idea was to use a professional alarm bell defuser, which looked suspiciously like a grenade, with the added benefit that the guard would also probably not be able to use the bell should it somehow not be disabled completely.

Some members of the party argued that the sound of this 'defuser' would surely alert the miners in the Gold Coast Quarry, something they were explicitly trying to avoid doing. 'Ah', explained Tizgot, 'but the noise of the defuser is more of a bang than a ring, so anyone who would be alerted a bell would pay no mind to the gre-, I mean, defuser's explosion.'

With two rogues in the party this defusing plan was not tried, opting instead for a more stealthy approach, so whether or not this conjecture was true is not known.

Considering what happened the following day it is probably a good thing the plan was not attempted. When the party was confronted by a malfunctioning harvest golem, on their way back through Westfall to Sentinel Hill, Tizgot was quick to prepare the same grenade, with interesting results.

He stepped forwards, such that he stood directly between two of the party's melee fighters, giving him a clear path to throw the grenade, and set the fuse. Well, he didn't so much set the fuse as short-circuit it (on a roll of natural 1 for the Use Tech. Device check), and all three were caught in a brief explosion, leaving them with a few bleeding gashes.

It's just unfortunate that the harvest golem was not sentient, as any being capable of rational thought seeing a goblin tinker blow up himself and two allies by mistake would turn and run away. Or sit back and watch the fireworks. Either way, it wouldn't want to close in to melee range to attack. But, sadly for the party, that's what the harvest golem did. It was left to see who would prevail.

Our new team of adventurers are in Stormwind City. A cloud of smoke still hangs above a certain area in the Dwarven District, two weeks after a goblin tinker's new invention inadvertently destroys the shop he worked in, and a few other shops nearby, but otherwise it is a bright morning. The adventurers hear that the Stormwind Guard are looking for mercenaries to protect caravans travelling to other towns, and so they sign up, looking to get extra beer money. A caravan carrying weapons is being driven to Westfall, leaving the next morning, and the combined threat of attack and the money on offer is just what the adventurers are after.

So it is the next morning that Wendel Chunderstout, a Dwarf Rogue/Warrior, Metrius, an intellect-deprived Dwarf Paladin, Dase, a Human Roge/Warrior, and Tanavar Staghorn, a Night Elf Priest, meet with the wagon drivers. Oh, and Samael Demonspeaker, a Gnome Warlock with a 'pet' Dretch, who has followed the others wherever they go for a few days now and somehow thinks they are his friends, also tags along. It is there that they are introduced to their sixth party member, a goblin who has been drafted in to helping protect the caravan. He introduces himself as Tizgot Blastshield, but the wagon drivers refer to him as 'Deathcloud'.

Something about the name rings a bell with the charismatic Dase, and it doesn't take long until he realises that this is the same Tizgot who blew up part of the Dwarven District. Tizgot explains that he is on this mission to help pay for the damage he caused, although his efforts aren't exactly voluntary. He also proudly points out that he made all of the weapons that are being transported, even though they are all mundane and don't use steam-power or phlogiston, and points to the weapons lockers, stamped with the initials 'TB'. Dase is a little impressed. 'How did you carve your initials in to all these crates', he asks.

'Ah, I'm glad you asked me that. I used my trusty 'accountant's friend'. It's something of my own invention, and is done with a quick, easy, and safe device.' With this, Tizgot rummages in his backpack and pulls out a handheld device with a push-button at the top and a stamp at the end of a shaft, which seems to be powered not mechanically but by phlogiston. 'Here, this is how it works. All I do is press this button and...'

At this point, I decide that the device has a Malfunction Rating of 2, as it was cobbled together fairly quickly and Tizgot's character probably didn't think something so simple could ever go wrong. The player then makes his Use Tech. Device roll and, as if fate wanted a good introduction story, gets a natural 1.

As Tizgot presses the button on his device, there is a puff of smoke and a bang louder than something that size should be able to make, and the end that should stamp his initials in to objects shoots across the market square and smashes a window and a bit of brickwork. Picking himself up from the floor, Tizgot shrugs, 'There are still a few kinks to be worked out of the design, but I think you get the idea'.

No one is quite sure if they are looking forward to when Tizgot starts to make inventions that are actually meant to be weapons or not.

Having found clues that a mighty sword was being forged, using the blood of the villagers we have been tasked to find to temper it, we set off to find and rescue the villagers, and to prevent the sword from being finished.

It was not a long trek through a few empty rooms before we find a mighty forge and anvil, with evil dwarves working around it, some Drow chanting to help enchant the blade, and a rather large Fire Giant standing-by ready to wield it. And it seems we are not a moment too soon, as it looks like the sword is close to being ready. There is no more time to prepare, the fight for victory is upon us!

The Drow immediately teleport out of the room upon seeing us, clearly having heard of our mighty exploits and fleeing in desperation. The Fire Giant, seeing the Drow disappear, utters something about them being typically mutinous, before drawing his huge greatsword and moving forward to engage us. Grot is up to this challenge, sort of, and is soon Enlarged to make things a bit more even. The Fire Giant gets the first attacks in; three solid blows hit Grot, and he is struck down to a mere 4 hit points from over 70 in a single round! Luckily, our Cleric was prepared for this, and casts a welcomed Heal on Grot.

And now it is Grot's turn to deal some damage. Eschewing Power Attack to give him a better chance to hit, the Hasted Fighter swings, swings, swings, and misses, misses, hits! It wasn't that spectacular, to be honest. Our Archer decides that it is time to show what a bow can do, and fires off a volley of solid hits, which seems to stagger the Giant. He does not drop to the ground, though, much to Grot's chagrin, and he raises his greatsword to strike down our Fighter once more. With an almighty roar, the Fire Giant summons all his strength to be put behind a massive blow, and lands what could have been a mortal strike upon Grot, hitting him for 47 points of damage with a single blow, taking out around 60% of Grot's health. Just as Grot prepares for the second and third attacks, which he felt sure would release him to see his maker, the Giant collapses to the ground. The effort of the attack had opened up the Giant's wounds that much more for the strain to make him pass out. That last attack was the Giant's dying action, much to Grot's relief!

Mind you, the Giant was only unconscious. It took my quick thinking to step forward and lay the finishing blow to the Giant with my rapier for him no longer to be a threat to the party. If only we had a Bard in the party, he would sing for years to come of how I heroically vanquished the Fire Giant. Oh, wait, I'm a Bard; how fortuitous!

Well, okay, I didn't actually do enough damage in the one blow to cause the Giant to die, but as we then dropped out of Initiative I was quick enough to stick my sword in again before anyone else did, so I still get the kill.

'Bards are useless', was the cry from the party as we moved on from a small skirmish. Nonsense, said I, it's just that I haven't found my milieu yet. It was clear I needed to take control of a situation to prove my usefulness to the party. It has been tricky up to this point, dealing with monstrous creatures that have no language, though. Even so, I see an opportunity after only a short while.

Finding the evil dwarves' place of worship, Garrick uses his keen Elven senses to find an evil dwarf, by being ambushed by it. The dwarf shouts out something that the others do not understand, but I am aware that he called out to his lord a warning of intruders, thanks to the Tongues spell I had cast a little while back. The evil dwarf is quickly despatched, being pinned to the stone wall by several of Garrick's arrows. As soon as he breathes his last I spring in to action: I call out, in my best evil dwarf impression, 'My lord, the intruders have been killed. All is safe.' From behind the door the sounds of reinforcements coming forward lessen, and a voice instructs someone to go outside to clean up the mess. This gives us time to get in place around the door and set up our own ambush.

The door is casually opened, and we get the jump on more of the dwarves. Thanks to my bluffing and impersonation skills the tide of battle is turned, and we are able to wreak havoc on our enemies, having the upper-hand for a change. Who is useless now?

Okay, sure, the Bardic Music I started was negated immediately by a Silence spell from the enemy Cleric, and as such I spent the rest of battle hiding under a rug at the end of the room, but my work was clearly done. It was the Fighters' job from then on.

Not only was Grot not present this week, nor was the Ninja's player. However, he was clearly with us in spirit, as Garrick's player took over and managed to capture the elegance the Ninja brings to the game. When fighting another batch of evil dwarves, in the first round of combat the Ninja:

• Moves and attacks with two weapon fighting, before being reminded that he only gets one attack if he moves more than five feet.
• Announces he will use Ghost Step to deny his opponent his Dexterity bonus to armour class, and thus get his Sudden Strike damage, until it was pointed out that his opponent hasn't acted and is thus flat-footed anyway.
• Manages to add an extra +10 to his attack roll 'by accident'.
• Rolls D4s for his medium-sized rapier's critical damage, forgetting that rapiers do D6 damage.

Apart from that, it was a flawless display of rules knowledge.

We fight evil dwarves! Grot steps up to the battle and hacks and slashes his way through the little blighters, until no more are left standing. Well, except for the invisible ones who attack him without warning. Two pop out of thin air and stab him, one of them quite hard. He fights back, with the help of Garrick, and they drop. But again two more appear from nowhere when their swords pierce in to him. Even though the Cleric rushed up to Grot after the last ambush she did not have time to heal him, and the last two blows drop Grot to the ground, blood oozing slowly from his wounds.

'Oops, he's got that 20% miss chance. I'd better roll that for the last two attacks, at least, or Grot's player with kill me', I say, having the honour of playing Grot again this week. But I was smart. Rather than accepting the normal 1-20 roll on a D100 for a successful 20% chance, I nominate 81-100 to be successful. 'The dice will never suspect this. It is a CUNNING MOVE.'

I roll for the first miss chance, and get 06; I roll for the second miss chance, and get 20.

'Okay, so they both hit, and only because of my meddling with the default range. I'm sure Grot will see the funny side. Well, if he gets healed before the dwarves get a coup de grace on him.'

How peculiar. One moment we are chatting to some battle-worn dwarves, then my head goes dizzy and the dwarves are replaced by small, evil-looking angry creatures. I could still see Grot, Shaniqua and Garrick, but Gimp was hard to place. So many small, evil-looking angry creatures, how could I pick him out of that line-up?

Before I get a chance to react, one of the creatures attacks Grot, shouting 'Grot kill fake-Grot!', which doesn't make any sense. Grot is killed in a few quick blows, but when the pieces of his body finally hit the ground they turn in to bits of an evil-looking dwarf. This is most rum. Two evil-looking creatures vanish, another has arrows shoot from him in to what may have been Gimp (it was really hard to tell), despite not carrying a bow, one floats quickly up to the ceiling of the cavern, and Shaniqua attacks another of them.

Feeling a bit confused, I decide to take out what must be the enemy spell-caster. As he is 40 foot up, I have to rely on my powerful spells to despatch him, as even my keen and mighty blade cannot reach that far. Feeling that I have to remove the spell-caster from the fight as quickly as possible, I call upon my most devastating spell. I grab some small tarts from a belt pouch, toss them towards the ceiling, and tell the funniest joke I can think of, for few can resist the mirth of Tasha's Hideous Laughter!

As my tarts bounce off the spell-caster, falling ineffectively back to the floor as he fails to respond to my joke (humour doesn't translate well in to evil-looking angry creature language, it seems), I prepare myself for his riposte. Having adventured with Gimp for a while I know that Mages can have some painful spells in their repertoire, but I reckon I could dodge a falling summoned porpoise fairly easily, so I don't feel too threatened. Better that than facing another Bard with Tasha's Hideous Laughter! What could be worse than that?

'MAXIMISED LIGHTNING BOLT!', yelps the wee creature, as electricity leaps from his fingertips.

Dragging my scorched and smoking near-corpse away to relative safety, to hide under a stone bridge out of sight, I reflect that at least I was right to attack that spell-caster, as it couldn't have been Gimp. Casting an offensive spell was a dead giveaway.

Fresh from our overnight rest, Chain Devils notwithstanding, we head deeper in to the cave network, with our Ninja and Mage at the front scouting. You may think that sending a Mage to scout is a really bad idea, and you'd be right. He completely failed to spot a Bone Devil until it attacked our Fighter, Grot. Feeble pleas from the Mage that the Bone Devil was inivisible and thus hard to detect were ignored, and his reputation as a scout remains as it was.

But at least the devil chose to attack our Fighter, so that we have an advantage from the start! Sure, it may have stabbed him with its scorpion-like, poison-filled tail, and clawed him a bit, but wait until Grot gets his bearings, then we'll see some action. Unfortunately, the action we see is Grot running away in fear, because of the devil's aura. Before we have had a chance to do anything Grot has disappeared in to the gloom of the tunnel. Plan Rescue Grot was put in to action, with even the Mage agreeing that having Grot around would be 'a good idea'. The Cleric has Expeditious Retreat cast on her, and removes the fear from Grot, with the mage running along behind ready to use Dimension Door to get them all back safely.

In the meantime, the rest of us have to placate the devil. Our Ninja steps up bravely, as brave as it is to have an armour class of 33 with the total defence action, and tries to distract the devil, whilst myself and the archer back-off a little. As good an action as this seems, when the Bone Devil creates a Wall of Ice that separates the Ninja and itself from everyone else things don't seem quite so good any more. Still, at least some of us had a nice, protective Wall of Ice between us and danger. The Archer's sense of team-spirit somehow extending towards the wannabe rogue, he hacks a small hole in the wall and the Ninja manages to squeeze through, leaving the Bone Devil behind.

At this point, the other three return, somewhat bemused to have a Wall of Ice in front of them. Grot peers through the hole in the wall and notices that the Bone Devil isn't there any more. The Cleric's knowledge of these devils helped us realise that we needed to overcome spell resistance and damage reduction, but she couldn't recall whether they could teleport. Having a good idea that they could go invisible she decides to cast Invisibility Purge, so that we can see it beyond the wall and fire through the hole.

After murmuring the incantions and making some gestures, the Cleric assures us that nothing can be invisible within a certain range from her. We peer again through the hole, a little cautious that it may be close and will lash out. There is an eery silence as our faces push closer, trying to discern whereabouts the devil had positioned itself. Try as we might, we just cannot see it. At least, not until we hear a snarl, and realise that it does indeed have the ability to teleport, and is right behind us! Spinning around, we have a Bone Devil in front of us and a Wall of Ice behind us: it's time for action!

The Ninja uses his Ghost Step ability and starts to move forward to attack, but then embarrassedly realises that Invisibility Purge means he is still visible. With a 'No, I meant to do that' determination he enters melee anyway, with the total defence action. Grot takes a step forward, Hasted and with a newly blessed weapon. He swings once, twice, three times, and gets three solid hits, one of which is critical! Needless to say, he didn't use Power Attack. Nevertheless, the Bone Devil is cut in to chunks with those three huge hits and drops to the cave floor.

It all seemed a little anticlimatic for all the commotion caused.

As we were getting a bit tired from a day's adventuring and fighting we find what looks like a safe place to sit back and relax for the night, partially hidden away from the main thrust of the cave system's corridors. We still need to keep our guard up a bit, as it is possible some monsters or guards could wander past and notice us, but if we are to continue fruitfully we really need to get some sleep. We sort out a night-watch system and start to settle down.

Of course, this is the time that the hellhounds that have been stalking us decide to attack, along with the Chain Devil controllers. We quickly leap back in to action, shaking off the fatigue and getting our adrenaline going again. Well, most of us. The Archer was still that little bit too relaxed. He didn't quite pull the string back on his bow hard enough to aim for one of the hellhounds, and the arrow ended up in Grot's back. Somehow, the Archer's mumbles of 'the arrow must have been from a hellhound' didn't seem to be convincing, even to a Half-Orc Fighter. I suppose it makes a change from the Mage trying to kill us all.

We found a powerful tome recently. Looking it over, one of our party who was knowledgeable in religion or arcane matters was able to identify it as a being used by spell-casters to gain power to their spells. If someone were to put his hand on the front of the tome and call for the blessing of the godess mentioned therein he would find his fire-based spells to be more potent for some period of time. We had to admit that this was an interesting find, but sadly we could not make use of it. None of the spell-casters in the party had any fire-based spells, so it was likely we would sell the book on when we got back to a town.

Shortly after we made this discovery, some of the party's skills and abilities were improved through all the experience gained from adventuring. Our Mage was able to learn some higher-level spells after all his study during the times we camped for the night, and scribed them in to his spell book. One of these new spells was a particularly potent fire-based spell. What an amazing coincidence.

Oh, and he cast Colour Spray on an ally again, but we tend to expect that these days.