BLACKGUARD QUEST - WITH STARS IN HIS EYES - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/17733889

BLACKGUARD QUEST – Vol. 2 – MALIGNANT HOPE - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/17757543

Oh, hey Cheeseman. Your ban got lifted?

Damn, I want to participate but I'm JUUUUST going to buy groceries.

Map of Giangreco, current place of adventure

>>17789484
Yes. Wildly frustrating.

I'll be around... for about 4 hours.

>What do you do?

Finalize enchanting the sword. By that time Sayrala should be back and she'll help enchant our the weapons of our party.
After we finished with enchanting, it will be time to finally start with the job. We should gather some information about the place and the creatures we must kill. Either before or after that we should report to the Prince (or whoever we need to report)

>>17789494
>>17789484
Don't be afraid to bump your thread till someone else comes by.
I'll be gone for an hour or two. The traffic seems shit today.

You lay out the materials, and and prepare the ritual. You meticulously follow the notes in from Oudair's book. You draw out the proper ritual design on the floor of your room in the chalk you bought, blend and mix the reagents into a soup, while invoking the magical alphabet, conjuring great ammounts of energy from the invisible lay lines. Four hours later, it is done. You are physically exausted, but your weapon shines with the feint glow of a magical aura. Your sword can now strike with all the power of a mighty lightning strike and illuminate the darkness on command with the buzzing and crackling of white burning energy. After the act is accomplished you collapse from exaustion and fall asleep. The next day you assist Sayrala in enchanting your companions weapons. Chroi's mighty great ax is now unleashes the power of an earthquake into whatever it strikes, including tearing up fifty feet of earth, forming a trench like chasm when he strikes the ground. Jaynce's blade takes the element of fire, burning licks of yellow magical flame when invoked. As for Sayrala, the two long daggers she wields are granted the ability to return when thrown, like yours.

After the ritual, both of your constitutions are devastated and you fall on each other, as if you were concussed. Hours later, the two of you awake. You smile awkwardly, provide your weapons back to your friends and return to your room.

What do you do?

>>17789598
If we are rested now, then we need to go around the city and ask about the monsters we're being asked to clear out. Also about the place that we need to clear out, information about its structure, anything we should be cautious of, is it trapped or not.

When you feel fully rested, you slip away from your colleagues, put on a hood and take to the streets, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. You inquire around, using the smattering of the local language as best you can, about the problems plaguing the city. After a few hours you piece together thirty different stories, and conclude that under the city a vast and impressive engineering marvel was built, a super water and sewage system. It is stories tall, and runs for miles underground in all directions. But much older than this architectural feat, a vast and elaborate crypt system was built, by a race of people who lived in this location previous to the Mahir. The greatest steps were taken to have the water network avoid the many tiered and elaborate tombs, but after years of disrepair, and meddling rouges, the systems have intertwined. Rogues, bandits lurk in the shallows, establishing thieves' hideouts and caches. While deeper, large humanoids, 'monsters' most often called, have taken up next, and now, after dozens of years, they wander the dark under-alleys, looking for the sleeping homeless, and occasionally, coming to the surface, and pulling a hapless civilian deep into their awful depths.

What do you do?

Well, i think we're done for the night eh?

I'm back!

>>17789915

I think it's time we finally start our mission. Report to whoever we need to report. Prepare for the spelunking, and set out!

>>17790278
Aw, you're done for today?

>>17790282
Ah, also, our companions probably have better experience in such things. I mean what to bring to the dungeon and how to prepare, so defer to them when doing this.

Damn, seems that I was like a minute too late.

>17790282
Alright. Thanks for your patients and dedication.

The palace of the Prince is amazing. Tall, open, filled with exotic animals and plants. Despite being deep in a desert, the palace is alive with an amazing greenery. It is also bustling with activity, merchants from far way lands, philosophers, mathematicians, poets, packs of beautiful women... it is truly the oasis of culture and beauty in this mud colored metropolis. You are greeted at the gate and led into chamber after chamber. You arrive before the Prince, a young, sandy colored man in his early twenties, who wears a thin mustache, loose colorful silks and an inordinate amount of jewelry. He gs you to sit with him and you are served wines and treats by scantily clad women, who are probably from his harem. “Welcome to Mahir, heroes!” He tells you about the problem beneath the city, and how it has affected the confidence of the citizens with his government. Also, the beasts make repair of the sewage and aqueduct system impossible. He would pay you, handsomely, with gold, jewels, slaves and women if you could rid him of this problem.

What do you do?

>>17790294
tonight actually, relatively. I'm in afghanistan, and its 2257. But, I can hang for a few more hours if Anon will. Have you guys participated before?

>>17790390
That's what we came for and that's what we are going to do.... unless any of our companions have anything to add.
Oh, and as a reward can we ask permission to browse royal library for interesting tomes and texts? That would be better reward than gold and gems. We are, after all, interested in everything related to the arcane. Before asking that we should run this by Sayrala first though, who knows, maybe it's taboo to ask?

>>17790413
It's similar time here but I have a free day tomorrow so I can stay as long as you can.

Actually, all those posts were mine. I wanted to bump the thread a bit. Maybe attract someone's attention.

>>17790390

Inquire about the monsters behavior, do they roam in packs and what do they look like?

>>17790436
Well thank you for the support.

Gems, gold... material wealth. To what end? You confer with your companions and ask if you can spare your part of the wealth, and ask to have access to the cities ancient royal libraries. They shrug, in indifference. You ask Sayrala if she thinks its a good idea. “No, that's a stupid idea.” but she doesn't object because of your goal, its because only a fool would turn down the nature of riches you're being offered. You don't care. When asked, the Prince smiles and agrees. He thanks you for your traveling such a great distance to help him. That evening he hosts you to a marvelous feast. Alcohol's from around the world, marvelously prepared and spiced exotic birds and a thousand pastries and candies. There is music, and there is dancing. Oh the lovely Mahir dances, who's hips sway like leaves in a delicate wind. The next day, when you wake up at your warehouse, your head is a little sore from the wonderful boozes you sampled. You ready your things.

What do you do?

>>17790457

You here a gamut of things. From men made of lizard parts, to shambling piles of manflesh, to rats the size of horses. You hear nothing reliable, or anything that you trust.

>>17790498
> its because only a fool would turn down the nature of riches you're being offered.

Bah, we had tons of Dosh and fabulous life back when we were a Rogue. We don't need that much money.
Though I did not mean turning down ALL of the riches, just to make library and knowledge the part of the payment. For all we know we can't even read half of the texts.

>What do you do?
Have a good breakfast. Gather our stuff and collect our party and set of to do the job!

>>17790519
Are we supposed just to kill them all or what?

You spoil your gang with a delicious and hearty breakfast of the local fare. Afterward, you gather up your gear and get ready to go. You notice Jaynce performs a long, elaborate stretching routine before hand. Interesting. In the mid morning you take off, and make for the closest access tunnel to the city water system below. It's not hard to find, except that its blocked off by many carts and impromptu clutter to shield people from going in... or things coming out. You descend into the dark below, using your sword's new ability to act as a light, which cracks and hums with electric energy, to guide your path. You take the lead, with Jaynce behind you, Sayral, and then Chroi taking up security in the rear. You hike for a ways underground, most of the water which flowed through the central canal chamber dried up, leaving only a tiny muddy trickle. The walls are made of hewn stone and the ceiling is low, forcing you to crouch. After thirty minutes of moving, maybe aimlessly through the canal ways, you see a broken wall, with bricks littered around the opening. It seems to lead down. Ahead, you can smell a draft of something awful, ever so faintly.

What do you do?

>>17790619
Scout before. Since we are a rogue, we should be able to do it stealthy. If there is no ambush or whatever go onwards!

down or forwards towards the stink?

>>17790655
First lets check out the stink/

You tell the others to hold position, and advance ahead, using all your knowledge of silent striding. Fifty paces ahead you find a human arm sitting in a pile of rubbish, half gnawed upon, but obviously several days old. Further up the ways you discover that there is another access tunnel, and a small group of homeless wretches, huddled in a tiny camp in the pathway. They don't seem to be the kind of people who would eat flesh... just any thing they can find or steal. You duck back unnoticed, and head back to your group. Chroi has a determined glare, down the hole that you discovered. “Something lives down there,” he whispers. You gather the group back up and descend. Its not really a stairway, but it works as one, and you notice the stone is much different, much older. It twists, and it turns. Along the sides of the walls there are occasional recesses, with a resting body lying there. This must be one of the crypts which intermingle the sewage system. After a few openings into larger rooms, you find another stair system that continues descending. You follow in this pattern for awhile, until you find an unwelcome visitor, what must be four stories below. A man, dressed in local rags, who's jaw is rotten and exposed, revealing tall yellow teeth. What appear to be open, but dried wounds scar his face and arms. He shambles closer to you silently, dragging something like a broken leg.

What do you do?

>>17790762
Looks like a zombie to me.
But before acting rashly, call out to him and tell him to stop if it looks like he doesn't show any signs of intelligence then FUCK HIM UP.
A fireball here, blade swing there and he will be down.
Then study the body. Be careful with that too. I'm not taking any chances, he could have a disease or something.

You call out to this obviously wounded man. No reply. When the light of your sword hits his eyes, they are blank, and featureless. An undead monstrosity. You dive in with a mighty cleaving swing, breaking apart his fragile ribcage. His body collapses to the ground, but still writhes, trying to reach out to you with exposed bone fingers. Jaynce hops up beside you and smashes the creatures skull with his flaming sword. “Zombies...” he whispers. “You have to destroy their skull, or they will keep coming at you. This is going to take longer than I thought. There may have been a plague, like the one that struck Bhueter thirty years ago. Or maybe this is the work of some foul wizard, a necromancer who lives deep in these chambers. Whatever it is, we must act carefully.” You take his words seriously and continue your path. You descend further, breaking into another, much deeper and older water system. In this passage you find five more of these walkers, feasting over a human body. The group fans outs, maximizing space for your respective weapons. Attacking in twos, you single them out, and fell each one. You even summon a rote fireball. After you do so, you look to Sayrala who smiles. Further down the system you encounter another pack of five. This time, you and Sayrala both invoke magic to slay the undead shambling wretches. The path breaks into another crypt system, this one older, much older. The walls are decorated with paintings of crudely drawn men and beasts. You silently dispatch another two, not even bothering to invoke the powerful lightning energies your sword contains. You circle around this crypt system, noting its avenues, clearing each one. All told, your group must have slain forty of these zombies. After you've exhausted all the lefts and rights, you find a stairwell that descends even farther, where from an eerie fog hovers at ankle height, illuminated by a sickly moon blue colored light.

What do you do?

>>17790905
we should keep going, maybe there is a single thing which is raising the undead
anyways, if we go back now our mission will be more difficult tomorrow since I'm sure the zombies will be more alert, they may even increase surface attacks

>>17790905
We're not tired or anything, right? If we are take a short break, like 30 minutes or so. Then we should go down and search for the cause of these things and destroy it

What in the black reaches could this be? You step back a bit and confer with your friends. “Its either the source of the plauge,” says Jaynce. “Or its a wizard who has turned his arts to a twisted cause.”

“I saw before,” offers Chroi, in particularly broken Edagnian. “It wizard.”

You look to Sayrala, she nods in agreement. The four of you work up a plan, turn back to the hole and dive in. You are the first one down the steps, and before you is a dank crypt chamber, illuminated by blue candles. Four large sarcophagi are on the floor of the chamber, with a tall table in the rear. On the table is a recently slain human. The trappings of wizardry are everywhere. Ritual chalk designs drawn on the floor, a few scrolls littered about, and candles. Behind the table is a large pale shirtless man with black hair that hangs in his face, obscuring his features. He lets loose a shrill scream, like that of a tortured yet maniacal little girl and throws his arms back. The lids of the sarcophagi fly open and well armored, reanimated skeletal knights crawl out. You are already halfway through the chamber, and swing wide at one of the skeletons as you pass, breaking its shield in a loud crackling lightning strike.

Your friends engage the reanimated warriors, and you make your way to the necromancer. He throws his head back revealing pale white eyes, with veins blue lines scaring his face. He cackles again like some agonizing masochistic child and calls bolts of blue flame to his hand. He hurls them. From your training you quickly invoke a sort of dispelling ward before you, which makes the blue bolts disappear in a small cloud of grey smoke. Suddenly you are upon the wizard, who is easily as tall, and probably as muscular as you. He is shirtless, with rippling muscles, covered in taught pasty wet skin. You swing your sword over your head in a viciously powerful attack. He tries to dodge and is caught in the upper for arm; which cleaves through the all to human meat, dropping his left arm to the ground with a thump. Black bile spews from his mouth in an angry choke. He reaches out at you, and attempting to cast, from what you can tell of his invocation of the magical language, some sort of weakening spell. Well it is brought short by a quick thrust of your sword that severs most of the fingers in his hand, followed rapidly with a boot to his chest. He stumbles backwards. You hear Sayrala shriek and you turn around to see her in danger from one of the Skeletons. Chroi, who already dispatched his makes his way over to her.

With one hand off the table you throw yourself in her direction, ignoring the spell caster. You bring your sword down in an arc, hard into the skeleton warriors spinal column. The magic ceases and he collapses into a pile of bones and steel. You turn back around to the wizard, who's eyes are filling with the color of blood. You grip your sword handle with both hands and reach back, then swing and release the blade, which soars silently across the room and into the chest of the necromancer. A few syllables of the rote language and bolts of lightning fly from your fingertips, into the hilt of your sword, shocking the shirtless mage. The lightning continues until his chest blackens from an electrical burn, and he crumples to the ground in a smoking mess. All is quiet.

What do you do?

>>17791178
Make sure that the necromancer is dead. Go through appropriate sensory spells to be extra sure. Burn his body.

Look around the crypt for valuables to loot. Take his scrolls, books and anything that looks useful in arcane pursuit. Study his ritual designs.
When we're done here, destroy anything that we didn't take with us. Burn the place if we have to.

Confer with your party. Was this our job? Are there more dangers that we need to clear up? I think we need to search for more before heading back.

You go up to the necromancer's body, and make sure he's dead. He's not of any human race you recognize. Tall, muscular, pale skin, black hair. Maybe some sort of mutant Mahir? You gather up his affects, and put it in a bag. You burn the necromancers's body. You take a few minutes to write down the designs of the necromancer's designs then you and Sayrala burn the whole chamber with magical fire. Chroi and you pile enough loose bricks to fill the entrance to this last room. You make your way back up, and you're tired. Your thighs burn and your spit tastes like copper. You take a different route back, taking your time to clear every water passage way. You find a camp of lizard folk, six of them, and you methodically slay them. Elsewhere you find a pack of thieves who try to rob you. Sayrala tries to talk them out of this poor decision and one makes a move at her with a knife. She leaps back and with a clean slice cuts off his hand. He tries to advance again, fueled by some sort of drugs no doubt, and you sink your lightning blade into his lower back. His friends make a wiser decision and scatter off towards the surface. You find an underground flea market, and a large sleeping camp of the poor and hungry. All said, you spend the better part of fifteen or twenty hours down there. When you emerge, it is the early hours of a new day. The smell of the lake, and cooked food amazing to your nose. Frankly just fresh air is an amazing gift to your lungs. You haul your goods, and your weary, aching bones back to your home and sleep the sleep of the dead.

What do you do, when you awake?

>>17791318

We will have full rest. When we wake up, have another hearty breakfast.
Confer with your party members. I do not think that our job is fully done, we will need to make another trek into the dungeons and clear it up from other dangers. I think this day we should take a rest and set out the next day for another dungeon trek.

Btw, how are our healing capabilities? Do we have healing spell spells? First aid equipment? Is there such a thing in this setting as healing potions?

You take a full day of rest. Eat well, sharpen your blades, stretch, and eat more. At dinner you get together with your friends and ask what they think else could be down there. Sayrala is pretty convinced that the job is complete. Jaynce isn't sure. Chroi however, remains silence. You press him. “What is it Chroi?”
“I don't know.”
Well you recommend that you go back in the morning.
You can see them weigh it in their head, but eventually agree.

The next day you go back in, this time from a different entrance. You've stalked through here yesterday. This time, instead of scanning hallways, you use the skills you learned with the Aetrae and try to read tracks in the dirt. There are many human tracks, but you notice a trail of boot tracks that looks like a group walked in single file. You follow them, and after an hour, it takes you outside the city to the south west. The tracks continue out, over the dunes. It is the midmorning, and the sun is still rising. You follow the tracks more, through the sand, and you curse this desert, for every step takes the strength of three in this soft sand. But after a half hour, you see a camp. Four tents, alone, and in the middle of the desert, away from any of the major roads in or out of the city.

What do you do?

>>17791475
We need to scout them first before doing anything.

Use the mixture of our arcane skills and rogue skills to gather as much of information as possible about them.

>>17791381
There is healing magic, its not reserved by priests or clerics.. like some DnD thing. Although, they do specialize in it. Most of their healing abilities actually come from a study of medicine.

Yes, healing potions work. Alchemy. It easily has that ability. But no, you're not particularly studied in healing magic. Sayrala knows a thing or two about it.

>>17791515
Do we have healing potions with us?
And potions to cure diseases and whatnot?

You move around the camp, trying to identify patterns of life. There are a handful of larger than normal camels. A few pieces of meat hang on a spit in a common campfire. After a few minutes, you see a tall, brutish man in scraps of clothes come out of a tent and relieve himself in the desert. A half orc. A second one joins him, and this one laughs heartily to the other. And then in one hand, lifts a burnt, human foot. He chews on it around the ankle a bit then resumes laughing. After watching for another two hours, in the now blistering heat of this desert sun, you count that there is a dozen of them.

What do you do?

>>17791581
Go back to our group with our findings and discuss our further plan of action.
I think we should attack them but what do others think?

>>17791545
No. Just some emergency aid stuff like tourniquets and bandages. Maybe some ointments and burn salves. .

>>17791656
Hmm... should have bought some... How much do they cost and how widely available are they?

You come back to the others, who are laying low. They've made accommodations for the desert as best they could. Jaynce tore most of his outer shirt, that sits under his armor to make hoods for the other two. You tell them what you've seen. Chroi recommends that these things must attack in the night, so its best to get them now, while they rest. Jaynce agrees. Chroi also suggests that maybe if you collapse the tents, then you and Sayrala do “some magicks” to set the tents on fire, you can kill whoever runs out.

“What if there are innocent people inside?” Jaynce asks.

“I can't detect that,” Sayral follows.

What do you do?

>>17791671
Please dont make this diablo. lol.

Yeah, there are healers everywhere. Fairly expensive, but doable. They dont exactly sit around in stocks, that you go down the grocery store for. They have to be made. Most people dont trust them, cause they view alchemy like magic. Vile wizardry.

>>17791706
Seeing how they eat people it is possible that they have prisoners there which they keep to eat later. We shouldn't risk killing them.
Do we have cooling magic and magic to make water? It would be better if we are feeling fresh when attacking. Either way, drink good amount of water.

We need to hit them hard and hit them fast, and deal with them before they know what hit them. With our rogue skills we should be bale to determine when and where is the best place to strike.
We'll use our magic spells like fireball and whatnot to attack groups of foes while charging with our sword.

Make a plan of attack with your party and when you all are agreed, enact it!

>>17791740
Heh. Okay.
Guess we'll need to learn some alchemy at one point.

You drink some water, and make sure everyone does as well. Sayral takes your waterskins, invokes some words and trembles. You have more water. After she shakes it off, and you've gotten everyone's attention, you begin to make a plan. You decide that you will go in, scout ahead, and try to get a look in the tents, especially if they're resting. Then, you will signal which tent is okay to attack with a blaze of magic and whirling steel. They agree and you set off.

You hear loud, roaring snores as you approach the tent. You crawl up on your belly and look under a flap, from the outside. In the farthest tent, you notice four bundled up figures, laying on the ground. You mark the other three. You look back to the group, who nod in agreeance. You summon a great and powerful fire spell, and you can feel it as it burns inside you, and then through the ether and into your hands, which you throw onto one of the marked tents. You hack at the supports of another tent. Sayrala joins in the magical attack, throwing a bolt of fire at a tent, while Chroi and Jaynce race up, collapse a tent, and then stab everything with a humanoid figure inside of it. You dash into the tent with the tied up people and find two half orcs stirring out of their sleep. They're unarmed. You give them no mercy and slay them both where they stood. In under a minute, your grizly work was done. All told, thirteen killed. The bundled up shapes, were four children. Members of the homeless shelter tribe near the entrance of the sewer complex. You return the frightened children to their parents, after you loot the Half Orc camp for treasures. A few bracelets, necklaces and rings. You do another sweep through the sewers and become fairly certain that you are now the meanest, most dangerous thing in the canals. Aside from the occasional mangy rat. When the day closes, you return to your warehouse, eat a good dinner, and fall asleep.

Well, its 0134, and I have to work at 0700. So I think I'm going to call it. I appreciate your help tonight. And I look forward to jumping back on it tomorrow. Will you be around?

>>17791885
Yeah. Probably at noon.
But I think if you start earlier someone else will join in. Around that time there are more people active.

See you later!

>>17791899
Thanks again kind sir.

>>17791909
Don't sweat it :)

I'm having great fun with it also.