Das Boot - Adventures in Path, the Early Years

Das Boot - Adventures in Path, the Early Years
02 May 2009
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Welcome to the army, kid! A bunch of level 1 characters showed up to take part in the big battle, for a variety of reasons and by a variety of means. Avery the dwarf woke up in the barracks tent after partying way too hard in town. He's still not sure what happened. Nalath the half elf joined to avenge a friend who'd been killed during a Melnibonean attack. Boots showed up after getting arrested by the city guard for stealing, and was given the choice of joining the army or continue his sentence of laundry boy. Nalath is tapped to be tent sergeant, and gets a spiffy badge to wear.
	* Nighttime after a long day of training. Boots wakes up in the middle of the night screaming that the grass is moving. Avery takes exception to losing sleep for what sounds like something completely insane, and proceeds to toss a boot at him. It crits. Boots gains his nickname after he comes to.

So that's why the tents are spaced so far apart.

An aerial attack in the middle of the second night unleashes a storm of javelins from the sky that slice through tent, bed, and occupants.

Boots sleeps through the whole thing. Avery takes a flesh wound, and Nalath is pretty dead. Several other people in the tent are also hit.

From the sounds, more than one such attack had taken place.

A cleric brings Nalath around, and the walking wounded now proceed to the medical tent. Avery and Boots have an ulterior motive, to find ale.

As they near a bonfire, a strange crab lobster goat creature emerges from the flames and charges at them. Boots promptly screams and runs away, conveniently towards a stack of crates. Once there, he stops screaming and proceeds to loot them. Nalath bravely holds his ground. Avery, upon seeing that Nalath will provide a nice distraction, makes a break into a nearby tent, yelling at the occupants to go out and help, and then starts checking the tent for booze. Both Boots and Avery find ale.
The creature is killed, and in the aftermath both Boots and Avery attempt to return to their tent with their bottles. Boots fails to move silently, and the camp guards confiscate his bottles and kick him a few times. Back at the tent, Avery shares his bottles with his tentmates. Everyone rejoices, including Boots who is nursing more bootmarks...
* Nalath, Avery, and the others who were struck by the darts report to the medical tent for observation. Ale is prescribed as a painkiller. Boots feigns an injury so he can go, too. A bigwig named Tim showed up on a horse with a whole mounted entourage. There's a short hooded character that's always right next to him. A demon of some sort portals in and attacks. No respect for a medical tent!

Boots and Nalath go down. A young halfelf and a bunch of guards show up to help out. Afterwards Tim breaks out a potion for everyone to drink. Nalath reacts badly and goes down again. Rest up, for tomorrow is the big battle!
06 June 2009
Avery heads out for one last drinking binge. Nalath and Boots both stay at the tent and decide to get some sleep. Boots says,"Good Night", and all hell breaks loose.

There's a giant furry creature with claws and fangs in the tent attacking people. Boots screams and runs out of the tent. Nalath discovers that fire seems to have an effect on the creature and pours burning lamp oil onto his sword. For some reason, he's trying to subdue the creature, not kill it. The creature bolts outside, away from the fire. Avery is deep in his cups and ignores Boots as he runs by screaming. Shortly after, the creature puts in an appearance. Avery grabs the nearest weapon (which happened to be a polearm), and attempts to hit it. It's finally put down, despite Nalath yelling not to hurt it.

Seems it was a were-rat, and had once been one of their tentmates. Nalath had recognized the clothing. There are similar incidents going on all over the camp. The opposing army is trying to wear everyone down. Boots doesn't say anything as people go back to sleep. * Drake, a cleric, arrives to take the rodenticized tentmate's place.

The infantry assembles for the big battle. Overhead, dragons and gryphons are dueling. Several dragons make bombing runs on the ground troops.

Demons are teleporting in and grabbing people and then teleporting out. The ground ripples, and there are loud explosions and large spell effects everywhere. A particularly big explosion rips through the nearby Briar and creates a huge mushroom cloud overhead. The opposing infantry lines approach each other, and the ground battle commences!
Boots goes down. Avery goes down. Nalath is fading fast. Drake uses him as a meatshield and proceeds to whack at the enemy with his mace.

Fortunately, the Melniboneans sound a retreat. The cleric tends to his fallen comrades, and everyone makes their way back to the tents. The troops are paid for their time and efforts, and are dismissed. * A cleric from the medical tents, Larkin, comes over looking for a few good men interested in making some money. It's a mission to rescue prisoners that were taken by the enemy during the battle, and acquire certain items. The group signs on. *

The group arrive at night by floating platform towed by gryphon. A cryptic riddle on a scroll provides hints as to what to do at the enemy encampment. There are two leaders that are supposed to be killed, a flare that is supposed to be lit, and from what can be seen, two prisoners, a dwarf paladin and a halfelf, to rescue. The halfelf, Rhyo, is the same one that ran into the medical tent to fight the demon, the other day. They're being held in a stockade of some sort with a bunch of Melnibonean slaves. Avery and Boots sneak out to take out some sentries.

Avery crits his target and silently dispatches him. Unfortunately, Boots is spotted sneaking, and Nalath runs in to help out before the sentry raises the alarm.

Drake starts harnessing up some wagons as Larkin lights the flare and tosses it between the tents.

Boots and Nalath are still working on their man. Avery takes out another sentry and again crits. About the time Boots and Nalath finish their target, a huge explosion rocks the camp, wiping out most of the enemy troops in the process.

The two bosses are weakened and are easily dispatched by our intrepid heroes. The prisoners and slaves make a break for it. The guards around the stockade turn out to be undead. The undead are killed, and the remaining sentries decide to head elsewhere. The slaves are long gone.

The dwarf paladin introduces herself as Gara. She and Rhyo had been amongst the many people being snatched by demons during the battle. Rhyo comments that the demon that had grabbed him had really bad direction sense, since it took a whole lot of teleports for them to end up at the encampment.

Larkin points out things to pack into the wagons. Various loot is gathered up and the group heads out towards the rendesvous point. * The group is attacked by metal-eating grubs! Drake loses his mace.

* Continuing their travels, they run across some giant bees and a colorful lizard. As night falls, Nalath spots ruins in the distance.

Unfortunately, the ruins are also the home to some wolf spiders! During the ensuing battle, both Gara and Drake are poisoned, and are paralyzed. Drake blames the loss of his mace for his incapacitation.

What lies in store for our heroes? Will Gara and Drake recover? Will Boots ever successfully utilize his animal and plant knowledge? Will Avery ever acknowledge his drinking problem? Will Nalath stop falling over dead for no apparent reason? What other secrets are in the ruins? What awaits them at the rendesvous point? Stay tuned!
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