Happy Birthday GM!

ROLL INITIATIVE!

Happy Birthday to our wonderful GM; creator of worlds, adversaries, friends and kitties.

I know at times we can be as difficult to manage as angry badgers (mega-dex 3, I believe?), but we really do hugely appreciate the time, effort and imagination you put into running our games.

Now you’ll have to excuse me whilst I take this alchemists’ fire: I have vampires to hunt and braziers to kick. Those poor quarters won’t burn themselves, you know.

I'm helping!!!!

… Did it move?

Gert Bowl 2014

I was tempted to take the glorious Strictly Come Wardancing who did so well for me at Cake Bowl a few weeks ago, but equally I’d like to place fairly well in the South-West Tournament Championship so needed to take a different team that I stood a chance with (my attempts with Skaven at ARBBL were, shall we say, pretty poor). I’ve run an Amazon team in league and really enjoyed it (although a blitzer with two stat-ups – strength and movement – probably helps!) so thought I’d give them another go at tournament level (I took them to ARBBL’s Pick’n’Mix event last year but did better the day I took Ogres).

I’d played against Hung’s Amazons at Gert last year using my Dark Elves. He brought along Roxanna Darknail and I completely underestimated her, which was a massive contributing factor to why I lost so horribly to him (he also outplayed me so she couldn’t take all the credit). I was so impressed with her I wanted to field her myself. With the available team value, I could take her, all positionals, 3 line women, 2 re-rolls, a babe and a cheerleader. Pretty shiny.

Skill-wise, Amazons have pretty good access across the board so I opted for 6 basic skills, rather than sacrificing some for doubles or stats: 2 guard, 1 tackle and 1 strip ball on the blitzers, block on a catcher and leader on a thrower. I nearly went for 2 tackle instead of strip ball because, with my tendency to use high agility or stunty teams, I think it’s a powerful skill. It is, however, limited when applied against non-dodging teams so I realised strip ball was probably a better choice.

Teams packed, Puss fed and fussed and we departed to drive to Bristol – actually leaving on time for once!

 ***

DAY ONE

Game One – vs HungDonkeyman’s Amazons

This year, Hung had brought Zara to keep Roxie company, ditching re-rolls to do so (and I have to say, I’ve become a big fan of the ‘re-rolls are for pussies’ play style and found it weird to have them on my roster for this tournament).

In the first half, I scored on turn 2 and he attempted to stall and pitch clear. His Amazons had packed their kicking shoes (a cheeky bribe being awarded as the first kick-off result), but mainly only achieved stuns on their many foul attempts. Both sides managed to crowd surf a few players – the crowd was amenable, merely knocking out the unfortunates. The first half ended with only 3 of my players on the pitch – both throwers and one catcher. The catcher runs in for a cheeky one die block on the ball carrier and knocks the ball free. My nearer thrower moves in to pick it up and it’s his turn. He knocks over the thrower. The ball bounces loose… my catcher snatches it from mid-air and the half ends.

In the second half, a blitz meant I quickly put the score up to 2-0. He scored after that for 2-1 but I managed to hold onto the ball to make it 3-1 and we set up for a last chance for extra points. His Roxanna got the ball and ran down the pitch, forgetting my Roxanna would be right behind her. Sure enough, his ends up in the crowd and I grab the ball to end the game 4-1.

Final score: 4-1 TD and 1-1 CAS.

Game Two – vs Smurf’s Wood Elves

Wood Elves still being just about my favourite team (even if NAF rankings suggest I’m pretty awful with them), I was concerned by this match: I know how good Wood Elves are at the running game and I don’t know how to defend against them with Amazons. Still, thrashing Hung had boosted my confidence and I was expecting a high-scoring game on both sides.

Accordingly, I chose to receive and scored quickly but then Roxie died and it all fell apart for me. Apart from that, there weren’t many casualties – he struggled to knock my players over and I couldn’t crack his armour.

I may have forgotten to make proper notes.

Final score: 1-4 TD and ?-? CAS

Game Three – vs Charon’s Humans

Considering humans are a good all-round team, I don’t very often notice them represented at tournaments. Is it my lack of observation or do they not show up often? It was interesting to play against them with Amazons – my lower armour countered by his lack of dodge – and it’s a match-up I’d like to play again.

Most of the game was closely fought in a mosh-pit style. Roxanna again died early in the first half. We agreed the match was "the right kind of silly”: despite losing quite badly, the game was a lot of fun (yes, I forgot to take notes again. Does it show?) I had bad luck at the wrong moments but also made some silly mistakes – it happens. REMEMBER TO LEAVE SOMEONE IN RANGE TO SCORE IF YOU WANT A TOUCHDOWN!

Final score: 1-3 TD and 2-4 CAS

Other things of note:

• All the hugs and smiles and amazingness that comes from having friends in the Blood Bowl Community. You’re all lovely and shiny.
• I have new pretty dice =D 
• A wonderful, amazing thunderstorm and apologies to Abbie for making her come outside and stand in it with me, threatening to make her glorious pink hair run.
• Failing to practice circus skills on the pull-up bars in the outdoor gym by the venue: wearing a fairly tight skirt (by my standards, anyway) meant I couldn’t manage a straddle mount and slippery bars because of the storm meant my grip wasn’t confident enough for a pike mount (also the bars were too high to push myself into it so was relying on the arm/core strength I don’t have yet).
• A lovely lasagne cooked by MonkeyKungFu’s Missus, a game of Pandemic (we lost – but it was nearly close) and late night chatting. Much better than a B&B. Also yummy egg and sausage roll for breakfast after comfy night’s sleep.

***

DAY TWO

Game Four – vs Carter Caine’s High Elves

This is one of those games that you almost feel guilty for enjoying – Carter’s first ever tournament and only his fourth game with High Elves* compared to my, umm…, many^th tournament and with a team I may have only used at one previous day of a tournament before but have run in a league season (The Amaze-Zings, sponsored by Haribogre), and one that suits my play-style.

The game kicked off with a riot, but a riot at the end of the half meant we didn’t lose any turns. The fans were clearly more interested in fighting each other than watching the match. It was 2-0 at half time, and only not 3-0 because of a double skull.

Going into the second half, he’d used all four of his re-rolls by turn 4 – at least 2 on double skulls. Going into turn 5, he won another on the kick off… and promptly used it. Lady Luck was just not with him.

I think the game would have gone better for him, except the ‘Zons had packed their adamantine armour and would not leave the pitch. Roxie may have forgotten hers – dying on turn 4 – but the rest of the team decided they didn’t need the show-off witch elf and spent a lot of time out-elfing the elves. Turn 15 and 16 (or, due to a third riot, more accurately 16 and 17) did see two ‘Zons fall apart in a squishy manner, but by then the damage had been done.

Final score: 4-1 TD, 3-3 CAS

Game Five – vs Hobnail’s Amazons

I chose to receive, but Hobnail quickly got the ball off me and knocked out my Roxie – so chose to stall out to the end of the half to keep her off the pitch. She did at least return for the second half (hurray for Bloodweiser Babes!)

Going into the second half 0-1 with him receiving was not a pleasant place to be, especially with a riot stealing turns before we’d even begun.

I didn’t write it in my notes, but I think this was the game where I made my most frustrating mistake: the ball held by a blodger, I knew I could break into the cage and get a hit on it. Carefully moved guard assist in so Roxie would still have two dice on her second hit, I then realised my strip ball blitzer was also in range – so which would be better odds to get the ball free: two dice with strip ball or 4 dice without? I figured go with strip ball and the AG5 elf could recover the ball after. Got in there. Threw the block. Pushes – good enough. Except, he reminds me, his blitzer has sure hands! DAMMIT!

Getting towards the end of the half without achieving much (except keeping him from a second TD), it was time for some seriously crazy play. Up jumped Roxanna, and with a dodge, dodge, dodge through tackle zones, she leapt next to the ball carrier to ½ die block it into the crowd. The ball came sailing back to land right next to a blitzer in range to score… who promptly failed to pick the ball up to end the match. Bah!

Final score: 0-1 TD, 0-1 CAS

Game Six – vs Ol’ Dirty’s Chaos Pact

Like Carter, I believe this was (one of) Ol’ Dirty’s first tournaments. It’s always nice to see new faces!

Three big guys was intimidating on paper, but in the first few turns, his ogre managed to both down and KO itself, and his mino both downed to be kicked into the KO box. As the game progressed, he had several turns where either his troll or his ogre (or often both) no zoned – in fact, we both found our luck was either brilliant or terrible, nothing in between.

Towards the end of the second half, I was finally looking to be in a position to score when his minotaur blitzed me. The ball came loose and the damn cow caught it! Which surprised us both! So I snuck in the assists so that my strip ball blitzer could hit him back, and sure enough the ball came loose again, to bounce around and be caught by the troll… Who handed off to the skaven, who ran to the side line with the ogre in the way to stop a surf.

Roxie quickly outlined her plan to the other players: one line woman to dodge round behind the skaven to cancel the ogre’s assist and be in the way to mean the skaven would go into the crowd when Roxie then ran in. With the spread of ‘Zons across the pitch, someone should be in range to collect the ball on throw in and get it to someone who could score. Except the line woman moving first decided to fail her dodge instead.

Final score: 0-0 TD and 3-4 CAS

The weather was a lot hotter on the second day – almost unbearably so. But we did make time for a bit of live action Blood Bowl, where a few of the guys were throwing a kicking a ball around until enough people joined that it was worth pretending to play properly – except it was never announced who was on which team so it was mostly an almost Calvinball-esque free-for-all, in which I mostly just tried to tackle whoever was holding the ball at the time. I’m seriously unfit and now my back, neck and shoulders ache like demons. Worth it, though.

 ***

And the results are in…

Except I don’t have a copy. Sorry! HungDonkeyman managed to get most TD though, and I believe Hawk had biggest-fall-from-grace (his Halflings did very well the first day and about as you’d expect the second).

I placed ahead of Husbit (18^th to his 24^th out of 34), which is all that really matters ;)

UPDATE: Oh wait, I've found results!

Wooden Spoon:  Dreamscreator with Goblins

Most TD's: HungDonkeyman with Amazons

Most Casualties: Ol Dirty with Chaos Pact

Stunty Cup: Loki with ratless Underworld

International Glowworm Award: Charon with Humans

Runner Up: Hawca with Orcs

Winner: Dionysian with Skaven

*I like to do that too, take a team I’ve never used before and have no practice games: if I lose, no big deal and if I win I’m obviously amazing ;-p. More seriously, it gives me an idea whether I’ll enjoy a team for a league season without risking having a season I hate.

Superpowers

If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

Sitting around the kitchen drinking tea with my housemates and some friends in my final year of university this came up, as it does from time to time. Penny told us about her superpowers: she’d had this discussion with another group of friends and each had an amazing superpower with a major drawback, an embarrassing superpower that was useful or a kinda cool power that was less so, and a superpower that wasn’t. Penny’s amazing power was the ability to teleport… to the centre of the sun. Her ‘useful but embarrassing’ power was that she could hide in any small bin, and her ‘power that isn’t’ was to talk to cats. Not to control them, not to have them talk back or even understand her, but she could talk to cats.

I can’t remember what the rest of us came up with from that, except my ‘fun but fairly useless’ power was the ability to roast potatoes with my eyes and I think someone else took the ‘power that isn’t’ as the ability to see through glass.

Husbit likes to tell of a character created by one of his friends, ‘The Landlord’. Only one power, but many, many ranks: teleport other. Straight up. It was known as “Get off my land!” and would put the victim just outside the atmosphere.

I asked Husbit the other day what his one power would be. He said “Alter-Reality Man!” I think that’s cheating; he thinks it’s thinking outside the box.

For me, it would probably be a travel power. I would love to be super-smart or to be able to fit through tiny spaces or to control the weather (Storm was always my favourite of the X-Men) or to either communicate with or shapeshift into animals – or something similar with plants – but I think in terms of what I most want, it would be travel. A lot of my friends live 200 miles away, and even those who are closer can be difficult to get to when I don’t have my own car and am too lazy to go out weekday evenings.

Flight would be wonderful. I would love to soar and loop-the-loop and play in the air à la Jonathon Livingston Seagull. I think it would give me great confidence and help me overcome my fear of heights and I really, really want to be able to fly.

… But teleport is so much subtler. And flight still takes time, but teleport would mean I could show up with my friends in Wales for a cup of tea on my lunch break. Flying would probably mean sneaking out to the New Forest or somewhere so’s not to draw attention to myself and as much as I love the idea of flying to someone’s house and knocking on their window for access, it could end up with my friends being kidnapped by some evil government or supervillain or something.

So whilst flight would be a lot more fun, teleport is probably the way to go.

What about you; what power would you like and why?

Happy Birthday Little E

Happy Birthday Baby Sister!

The story goes, they were bringing round lunches for the labouring women when Erin smelt the sausages and thought "I want some of that!" so came whizzing out, causing Mum to miss her meal. Erin was always a hungry child!

My earliest memory is visiting the hospital when she was first born. They wouldn't let me hold her and my overwhelming memory is the frustration at not being able to make them understand me (something I was just beginning to get good at). Looking back, I think it's more likely they did understand but didn't really want to let their small toddler hold their tiny new born...

She is incredibly fit, incredibly smart and incredibly caring. From army nurse to teacher to surviving a parachute jump where her main chute didn't deploy, I'm eternally impressed with what she has and can achieve (anything she puts her mind to). I'm very proud to call her my baby blister.

A Journey

I initially wrote the following story several years ago when my boss was murdered. It was something I found difficult to come to terms with and this story arose from a mantra one of the pub regulars gave me. This isn't strictly geeky, but when I started this blog it was with a vague idea that I would share some of the fiction I write. 

A Journey

He dragged his burnt body from the wreckage, wincing as the intense heat sloughed the skin from his bubbling flesh, blackening his bones. Each breath was an eternity of smokey, choking agony; razor blades ripping through his mouth, throat and lungs. His raw hands pulled his wretched body from the blaze, far enough that he could breathe and he collapsed limply to sob against the unforgiving landscape. Tears left dirty, sticky paths along what remained of his face. The fire burned no less fiercely behind him, but the tears helped quench the inferno that threatened to overwhelm him from within and after a time he had the strength to rise to his feet.

Dizzy, bleary, he peered ahead to the promised green fields. He couldn’t see them, but kept himself on his feet. The first step to reaching them is to trust. The next step is moving your feet. He shakily did so, lifting his right foot and placing it a few inches in front of where it had begun. A small movement, but a start. Another breath of razor blades and he was ready to try to move his left foot. The underwhelming victory felt overwhelming and strengthened his faith. Another step with his right foot. Another with his left. The motion became a little easier. A gentle breeze threatened his stability as it caressed his singed flesh and he was forced to pause. Beginning to walk again was as painful as the first time but he managed a few steps further before his legs could not take his weight. Would it be easier to give up and lie here? It didn’t seem to be an option – the only option was to continue putting one foot in front of the other for as long as you could. His legs buckled before he had his weight fully on them. Tears stung at the edges of his eyes. He heaved himself instead onto all fours and continued his journey crawling. All around him the voices of survivors: put one foot in front of the other and one day you can look back.

One foot.

The heat and light of the fire behind him masked the darkness as it fell, but eventually he fell from his crawling position and rolled onto his back and looked up to the smoke-filled night sky and he realised he had already travelled further than he thought. There, with no shelter but the smoke of the disaster he was trying to leave behind, he slept. Dark and empty oblivion.

The sun woke him, reminding him of the agony of his broken flesh whilst revealing that the black clouds were beginning to thin. He prayed for rain, but managed to find his feet and continue upright. The broken glass beneath his feet sliced his soles to shreds.

One foot.

The other.

The sun beat down upon his slowly healing flesh, revealing the writhing maggots that ate his injuries clean. The desert was otherwise devoid of life. Even a circling vulture would have offered him some confidence that he was not alone here. Despite the heat, he found he could breathe a little more easily. Perhaps the maggots had already emptied his lungs of decaying flesh. Perhaps he had finally burnt out all feeling there.

The voices of the survivors echoed:

One foot.

The other.

And one day.

He started suddenly, his body jerking and twitching to prevent himself from falling as he realised he had been sleeping. He swung his legs from the no longer comfortable bed and felt the familiar crunch as they came to rest on the destructive surface across which he had been walking. Not a dream then. This was what was real. One day. One foot. But what did it mean? What did they know? You can’t see them, how can they help you? The slap across his face jarred and threatened to stop his journey again as he fell to his knees and sought comfort in tears that would not come. Did the heat come from the day or the distance? Splinters of glass freed trickling streams of blood from his knees and he knew he had to keep moving. Maybe the fields would be in view soon.

He wondered how long it had been since he had last eaten. A lifetime, at the least, and yet he was not hungry; or rather, were he hungry he could not tell nor would he be able to eat. The fire behind him, hot enough that even here he could not escape its intensity, pushed him onwards. He yearned to leave it behind him, wished he had never seen it, wished things could be as they were before but everything had eternally changed. He thought he could smell food, felt the tasteless texture of it in his mouth, yet could draw no sustenance from the illusion. The never ending desert stretched before him and the crawl of maggots was his only comfort and companionship as he fought himself to cross it.

One foot.

The other.

And one day.

And one day what? The green fields are a myth, surely, for he has seen no evidence of them. Even the maggots have left him as he navigates his way through the stifling desert.

And one day.

You can look back.

So he does so, but the blaze still burns so fiercely he can see nothing else, and his heart burns in his chest.

One foot.

He once more puts the wreck to his back and draws a breath into his leg, giving it the strength to take the step which he has learnt offers him a kind of strength he has never known, has never needed, before. Follow with the other foot and keep walking. The broken glass is as smooth as skulls. Keep walking.

That night, it seemed to him that he awoke and the desert was impossibly filled with almost tangible life. For the first time since being reborn into this emptiness, he did not feel utterly and emptily alone. A smile teased the extremities of his mouth when he arose to continue his journey.

One foot.

The other.

And one day.

It was still too soon to look back, and this time he knew it yet couldn’t keep his body from that slow turn. Again, the blaze hurt his eyes and healing body, but it no longer threatened to blind him and he found he could breathe whilst looking at it. When he turned to face ahead once more, he realised that the glass had given way to gravel and there was something in the distance perpendicular to the flat and forbidding horizon. And maybe, just maybe, beyond that he could see a shade of green. A tear fell, the first in many months.

And one day you can look back and see how far you’ve come.

The Capture of Drezen: Pathfinder - The Crusade (Part 4)

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 5

With the help of the alchemists, the gunpowder users and the siege engineers, the walls of the demon-infested citadel Drezen were breached and the Brevic army surged through. Aaron, Keiran, Akaros, Evander, Alexei and I led the charge through the destroyed main gate, quickly dealing with the minor demons foolish enough to stand in our way. Mr Tiddles and Brutus stayed outside with the main army to ensure the demonic forces were thoroughly dealt with and then we progressed into the main building alone.

We came into a room filled with maps of previous battle plans – maybe not useful to prevent a new incursion, but with great historical value and may hopefully give insight into the enemy’s tactics. As we studied these, some minor demons (goat-like, I believe) led by a dwarf attacked: the demons were quickly dispatched. I managed to paralyse the dwarf using a spell I didn’t think would work* and we proceeded to tie him up. We’re just about to attempt to interrogate him, when several minotaurs led by another dwarf (in spanglier armour) charge in – one minotaur aiming straight for the incapacitated dwarf and goring him with sufficient force to end up wearing him as a hat. So much for our questions! We dispatched the minotaurs and the second dwarf: he died rather more easily than anticipated so Alexei did his ghost thing and stepped into the ethereal plane to try and get some answers from the dwarf’s spirit. It was not very helpful, and ultimately dismissed by a scythe-wielding entity far more powerful than Alexei.

Around the neck of the dwarf’s body was a skeleton key that opened, as well as the doors, a chest at the foot of a bed in an adjacent chamber. Amongst the loot therein was the dwarf’s journal, revealing him to be Staunton Vhane (the other dwarf, the one turned into a fashion accessory by a minotaur, was his brother). He was the one who had taken down the Sword of Valour, enabling the demons to capture Drezen all those years ago. He seemed to have been well-rewarded, Lord of the citadel. The journal referred to a succubus who had been held as a heretic in the dungeons until an oubliette had been prepared for her in the Abyss: she had escaped. There was also talk of magic potions brought by a demon lord. Staunton had experimented on various underlings, recounted in morbid detail their grisly demises – the only survivor was the three-headed beast we fought on the bridge – before daring to drink himself. It made him more powerful (and was familiar in story to how my own mythic power awakened within me, albeit more brutal than sharing a drink with Erastil).

The journal also mentioned a forge that enabled the two dwarven brothers to corrupt weapons and armour – one had wanted to use it on the Sword of Valour but the other had refused, so at least we knew the banner was safe. The journal also revealed it to be guarded by a shadow demon in the depths of the citadel. Onwards and downwards, then.

The dungeons below were largely empty but the place felt dark and creepy and magic aligned to good or law seemed sluggish, reluctant to be present within these unhallowed walls that seemed to whisper just beyond the edge of hearing. A group of vampire-lings melted away at our onslaught, although Alexei warned they may have survived and be licking their wounds elsewhere.

One of the cells appeared to be that in which the heretic succubus had been kept: the walls were covered in scratched drawings of butterflies and a prayer to Desna begged for release and freedom, not just from the cell but in life beyond that. Something in the prayer sang to me: I hope the succubus – Aurashalé – is safe and we have a chance to meet her.

But onwards. A brutal torture chamber with a stench of blood so strong it was like bathing in it. Dispatched the demons quickly, and Kieran walked into the side room to see and slay a half-orc… who crumbled to dust. Presumably the sire of the smaller vampires we’d fought earlier. A sealed door behind his seat led to his coffin, which we carefully made uninhabitable to him lest he had survived and tried to return there to recover. The door was well-hidden, so we began to trawl the dungeons once more to seek out others.

Another hidden route led to a forge that Alexei realised was where the dwarven brothers had undertaken their experiments in corruption. He neutralised its effects: relief washed over us as the whisperings faded and our magics returned to normal. In a room beyond, we found the Sword of Valour on a wall in an iron frame. The walls were covered in art work of a demon-god slaying the gods of Golarion in cruel and horrific ways. We approached cautiously, expecting the shadow demon to reveal itself at any moment. Alexei and Akaros reached to remove the banner from the wall: it crumbled to dust and in the same instant Evander was hit by a black flash, falling unconscious such that Alexei could not wake him – he reminded me of how I had felt after being dragged back to life, but this did seem to be different: I had been awake.

I was disappointed that we’d come so far only for the banner to be destroyed so carelessly, until Akaros reminded me that only Iomedae herself could destroy the banner, and then only if certain conditions were met. This, then, was not the true Sword of Valour. Evander was carefully secured to a levitated ladder and we continued on our way.

Following another passageway, we found a giant statue of a serpentine woman with 4 arms wielding viscious-looking weapons. A narrow ledge led passed it, but it struck Aaron as being obviously trapped so he attempted to fly over the pit from which the statue rose – and vanished, pushed down to beneath the apparent floor of the pit as he left the ledge. The actual floor was many feet lower and covered with a grim, green slime that coated him, weakened him. I spotted a switch on the ledge behind the statue and skipped over to it: the gravity field that held him down lifted and we were able to pull him out before the slime sucked the last of the life from him.

There was another door here, so we went through and down a corridor to another small room. Pitch black inside, Alexei alone could see the banner lying rumpled on a ledge. He dispelled the mystical darkness to reveal the hidden shadow demon stood between us and it – an ominous black and grey form, ranging from highlights the colour of shade by trees in spring to the blackest depths so dark the eye could not comprehend what it was seeing.

It vanished. Evander’s limp form fell to the floor and Kieran was struck by a powerful spell that nearly felled him – Aaron shifted into his large Red Mantis form in preparation for a tough fight and started behaving in strange ways that I recognised from the ‘confusion’ spell, babbling incoherently before attacking himself. And I… a splitting headache as half-formed thoughts and unrelated memories muddled at the surface of my mind – the prickle of hay as I practiced kissing with Piotr; a refrain from a song my father taught me when he visited that I thought I’d forgotten; the overwhelming shock I felt when I first met Noleski (and the love and pride when we married); rosemary and fresh bread; my mother kissing a skinned knee better; the suppressed fear when Devin didn’t show up at the coach like we’d agreed – like a fishing net cast wide and pulling up whatever it tangled**. The feeling lasted less than a second; left me in pain and tasting blood. It was time to get out of there. I tried to grab Alexei as I ran, but it was all I could do to manage the out-of-control Aaron. Keiran and Akaros ran, carrying Evander.

We made it outside the room, back down the corridor to the ledge behind the statue. I tried to run from Aaron before his madness shifted and made me his target, but I was too late – pulling him from the room had set me in his sights and it was only Akaros stepping between us that prevented him from killing me. We had to beat him to unconsciousness, when he shrunk back down to his normal tiefling size. About this point, Evander sprang to his feet, going so fast from prone to standing that it seemed he didn’t move but merely was stood. He whipped at Alexei with his flail and the image dissipated. He ran back towards the room in which the shadow demon possessed Alexei’s bird form.

The others ran back to the room with Evander as I attempted to loosely tie Aaron – enough that he would not be able to hurt himself or others whilst under the influence of his madness, but not so much he couldn’t free himself when it passed. The door sealed shut behind them, so I could only hope when it opened again shortly after that it was truly they who stood there before me. Akaros lifted the banner and I knew we were ok. They explained that Evander had spotted and struck the small bird Alexei had shifted into, forcing the demon out for them to battle. The two paladins flanked the demon as Alexei crashed to the floor, bloodied from the strain of housing and releasing the demon. Evander, Akaros and Kieran managed to defeat the creature and we returned triumphant to place the banner in the main hall.

From Kenabres had come 3 representatives with knowledge of the area to help rebuild the citadel and return it to its glory. Irabeth and her wife Aenevia, who had experienced some of the worst days in Kenabres, would oversee the forces stationed here. Between them, they have good knowledge not only of the region but also the demons who occupy it: Irabeth, a fierce paladin half-orc, was the one person who saw through Staunton Vhane before he betrayed Drezen and removed the banner, as evidenced in his journal whilst Aenevia survived the demon-occupation of Kenabres and is an accomplished scout. On the other hand, the person sent to finance the project grated on my nerves. He seemed aggrieved to have been told to help (but couldn’t refuse Queen Galfrey) and spends most of his time boasting about his wealth. A tedious, odious person; very good with money and evidently trusted by the queen of Mendev but not someone I would choose to spend time with.

We will need a few days to lick wounds and clean the place up before moving on to the next challenge – which will hopefully include tracking down the heretic succubus, Aurashalé.

*‘Hold Person’ was one of the first 2^nd level spells I took but I’ve never managed to pull it off before, so that was exciting.

**Alexei’s ‘Brain Drain’ Oracle tapestry power has only worked once before, when he accidentally murdered a child…