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Author Topic: Posted at the Shack - Assault on Essrantor's Throne  (Read 577 times)

Acacea

Posted at the Shack - Assault on Essrantor's Throne
« on: July 23, 2016, 11:42:53 am »
A notice that appears scratched onto parchment by a drunken chicken.

Despite really everyone's best efforts, Essrantor Arsehat of the Broken Arc is bound still with his stolen magic, and there are so-called Pillars of Aldtorskel yet standing. I have been trying for two lives and many years to copy the runes on the great stones in his throneroom, but such boring, uninteresting, dreary work as breaking the stake pinned through the Al'Noth in the areas has been rather uninspiring to even the friends of magic who have accompanied me in the past, and so! I only have many pieces I am still working on, because it takes quite a bit of time you know and I used to have somebody to translate what I wrote into what it is supposed to look like, but since I don't anymore I have to use shadow making illusions to trace on parchment what is on the stone, because you see the stones are so powerful you risk death to go to near, and also even though he stole his runes from the Losthammers and I made a copy of their work before we gave it back, it's really not intuitive and some may have been stolen from the elves or the cloud giants and anyway.

I have decided I have been going about this all wrong, and so am hiring a team to plant me in the throneroom! I will hide to finish as much as I can before I am discovered! Genius! Cold temperatures, strenuous climbs, long stretches with the Al'Noth silenced around you (but don't worry, I'll be there, at least on the first half, and I am very magical!), very stinky shells of the slaves to the arc that tried to flee the mountains but were struck by the destruction of the one pillar down and are now deaders, lycans, cold, and so on, in an all around exciting expedition.

Depending on success, I may have to be deposited there more than once! Meeting at the crossroads in the valley past the great falls.

((This is a venture of epic difficulty and with significant potential for lag, depending on party size and how the server is feeling that day. Can be broken into parts if desired. After the last many-death trip orth tweaked the last bit in hopes of reducing the lag we had in the future, but to my knowledge no one has been back since. I'm good all this week.))

 

cbnicholson

I will go with you on this
« Reply #1 on: July 27, 2016, 12:29:10 pm »

I will go with you on this voyage, Chimes.  Might I recommend a trio of hearty dwarves, Kurn Blackwater, Zigruum Frostbeard, and Griff Silversand?  I have traveled with these mighty warriors of dwarfdom in the past and found them to be excellent company in all deadly situations.  I would also extend an invitation to the Lady Sala Stonehill and her husband, Jako.  Both are friends of the Al'Noth as you well know.

Daniel

//I'm available this week any night and the coming weekend.

 

"Give a man a mask and he will show you his true face." 

Oscar Wilde
 

davidhoff

//tonight might work for me,
« Reply #2 on: July 27, 2016, 11:43:16 am »

//tonight might work for me, unless its too short notice.  Thurs and Fri are looking less likely but possible.

 

Acacea

//I can do tonight, like the
« Reply #3 on: July 27, 2016, 12:29:46 pm »

//I can do tonight, like the usual 8pm EST? 

 

cbnicholson

//It's a start, I need to be
« Reply #4 on: July 27, 2016, 01:37:37 pm »

//It's a start, I need to be gone by 10 cdt, so we'll need to break it up.

"Give a man a mask and he will show you his true face." 

Oscar Wilde
 

davidhoff

//Well I'll pop on around 8pm
« Reply #5 on: July 27, 2016, 04:10:16 pm »

//Well I'll pop on around 8pm tonight and head to the foothills and see what kind of turnup we get n guage from there

 

Serissa

Jako & Sala can come.  Will
« Reply #6 on: July 27, 2016, 05:07:48 pm »

Jako & Sala can come.  Will need to leave at 10:30 EST -- early appt.

 

Acacea

After the goodbyes but before
« Reply #7 on: July 31, 2016, 11:21:56 pm »
After the goodbyes but before the return of the broken king would summon others back to the tower, she moved to the back of the pillar she'd chosen (the one she'd spent most time on in previous runs, reasoning that a single stone complete had decent odds of being repeated) and changed into a giant to capture the runes at the top while batting at glowing nuisances. Alas, she had not brought a giant-sized quill, so it was really rather tedious for a time with her old griffon feather.
 
It's always easier than people think, when there's only one and that one a halfling. Sure, she had bells on and occasionally forgot herself and started humming as she worked, but waterfalls cascaded through the throne-room and giants themselves are not quiet. And sure, she used a little bit of magic to trace the runes and keep her hidden from the wandering orbs of magic, but the towering stones she hid behind shouted with so much power you could scarcely look at them without becoming dizzy. And anyway, they would not remember her. She was not a dwarf, after all, or at the moment of any name that sounded better as nemeses or were easier for Moustache-types to respect, even if their gods were not so staunch of allies or just as, even if you pushed halflings into the fires for joshing them but let anyone say anything they liked about her. 

Not that she wanted anyone pushed into a campfire just for a jest, that was entirely the point; what a silly thing to take seriously! Oh well. Some gods desperately craved recognition for every act and shook with rage should you seem to have forgotten one, whereas so many others got lost to the shadows. Just as well.
 
She did have to hang off the side of the platform for a bit there, and used a scroll that hid her deep enough to rest some but made the world too confusing to work, but all in all managed to work longer than she'd expected when she was being honest with herself at the outset. It was a good thing the priestess had given her lunches.
 
*****
 
Funny. She would have expected some of the runes to be Arc in origin, like the ones a certain halfling accustomed to blood magic had carved into her skin in the Silence to protect herself from their death runes, the ones worked into beetle carapaces to make them huge and ready for war. Every one of these was dwarven, stolen from the Losthammers. She felt like she'd Forgotten something, and spent some time eating through two lunches from the priestess to think about it. Why were they all dwarven? Well, of course they were, the pillars were the anti-magic bits. They'd been built with dwarven hammers, with dwarven runes. She'd given a copy of her first run at them long ago, before Boyer called for help to thwart an assault -- before the great crack was put into the Deafening Silence, to the Keeper at the Runic Anvil, not that they'd ever acknowledge a gift of magic, of course!
 
In any case, something about those... she sat crosslegged with her mouth full, brooding on the idea that perhaps there had been an easier way to acquire these. Ah! Now she recalled - the Rite of Blood, the vision of the so-called cowardice of a dwarf saving Fenrir's ancestor from the destruction of the halls. King Cainforge promised the tome if they would free the elven lord. Balls. She bet Kobal or Fenrir had had the stupid thing ALL THIS TIME, and even though Kobal said he was pledged to Rofi, he could be more about the destruction of the Al'Noth than any regular ol' Voraxian. Talk about overcompensating. She considered the odds of the Keeper sharing and sharing alike after the various things she'd helped with, not to mention Connor's significant contributions, and decided to carry on as she was. Just in case. Dwarves, you know. Some debts counted more than others, not that they would say that!
 
Come to think of it, whatever had become of the Le'tennodins? Did the widow weep still? Buggggeeeeer. 
 
*****
 
Alas, all good things must come to an end, and it was all Moustache's fault. If he hadn't left her with the pie, she wouldn't have hoarded it for a special celebration treat and worked herself up to Running Out Of Parchment Pie. Why hadn't she brought clay, anyway? Argh, clay would be so much easier. Anyway, if she hadn't been extra excited for Running Out of Parchment Pie, it wouldn't have been so disastrous when she accidentally stepped on the edge of it and flipped it down the side and into the chasm forever, and if she hadn't accidentally stepped on the edge of it and flipped it down the side and into the chasm forever, she wouldn't have shouted, "NOOOOOOO!" in dismay, finally alerting the giants to the mouse in the larder, so to speak. 
 
In the position she was, she had time to scoop up her work and roll them into her sleeve, consider burning a Last One Standing scroll to simply leave and come back, and finally decide the scenery had gotten dull, anyway. "Lucinda says hello," she called brightly as the first charged at her, and then threw herself to one side as she sang. Between the feet, around the pillar, a mocking series of notes self-harmonizing and clashing lashed out at those close enough to hear, and the demoralized front rank slowed to a stop and looked around as though they'd forgotten what they were doing. One behind them struck them both, providing a momentary distraction... 
 
Acacea winked to the ceiling and sang a prayer to the mysteries to keep her company through the end of this experiment. The runes laid into her skin glowed with warding as if in mockery of the marks on the old Arc shamans, and she'd just enough time left to liberate a great working imprisoned in a scroll. The surprised giant nearest her stumbled back as a dragon's tail tried to sweep it off the side, but when Dragacea roared exultantly and pushed her bulk into the air with a flex of powerful muscles and a beating of wings, the blows of the next threw her back into very stone she'd been working on. The humming deepened unbearably and the magic bound into it shook her to the bone. From the ground she snapped out with claws and teeth at their legs, but the dazed ones were quickly shoved out of the way for the rest and so she did not get in the air again.  
 
*****
 
She giggled wet and wheezily just before the stone took her, and so it reminded her she was mortal...
 
((Thanks for dropping Acacea off, had fun on the way and also eventually dying. Since she ended up losing a strand I wanted to write what happened after everyone left to commemorate it... erm... as it were, hehe.))