Previously on Lost in Navir...

[lurkingcat]

The party plods through the Holtese countryside on the back of an Opatasaurus, following the line of the river Caradine. The fields are full of undead workers but the area is surprisingly quiet considering that the frontlines of the war are within hearing distance.

Dermond is pleasant but guarded. He becomes a little more talkative as we approach the Mournlands but this is mostly to encourage us to get a move on. He doesn't want to be in the Mournlands on the Day of Mourning.

The Opatasaur gets increasingly skittish and the landscape becomes more and more unsettling. Beth has to charm the Opatasaur to get it moving in the mornings.

One morning we come across a particularly odd area of stone and metal laid out in a spiral pattern. Beth scouts ahead but even so the party is surprised when the Ctholoid starfish thing rises out of a trench and starts firing rays at us. The first shot kills Rachel outright and the rest of the party are lucky to escape the same fate.

Drenak charges and gets grappled for his troubles, Laura tries to banish the creature but fails and a disjointed fight takes place. It quickly becomes apparent that this is a fight that the party are not going to win but rescuing Drenak takes a few minutes.

Eventually Laura grabs Rachel's kit and her remains and Carl grabs everyone and moves them into the Plane of Shadow. This is a bit of a surprise since no one knew that he could do this. Inevitably, shifting planes in the Mournland has unfortunate side effects. There is a brief feeling of the presence of the Divine Plane and then...

We open our eyes to discover that we are sitting in a circle in a room. Everyone looks human again. Dermond is clutching a toy dinosaur. There is a man in a suit who is clearly trying to get us to participate in some kind of counselling exercise. From what he says it appears that we are there to talk about Rachel's death and that we are not allowed to talk about The Game. After some awkward silences we are sent off to lunch.

It becomes apparent that both Duncan and Carl have no memories of Navir and believe that we are in some kind of mental institution where we have been since surviving a car crash that happened after the game at Gareth's house.

Several of the other inmates look like people we have met during our travels. These include Aramella Woodspring, Lord Vorguard, Cannith Albrecht and a staff member who looks like a human-sized Lizetta. Those members of the party who still have their memories are a little bit suspicious about this and about the fact that both Matt and Jos have apparently been inmates too. Several of the party keep seeing feathery edges to people and there is something odd going on with the shadows.

We spend some time in the day room during which one of the inmates recieves a visit from their family, who look like Professor Forzan and his wife and children. The news is full of the death of Prince Andrew. Meds are dispensed. Duncan and Carl take theirs without a fuss, Miles and Beth both fail to hide the fact that they are trying not to take their own pills and in the end, Laura (and possibly Dermond but he's stopped communicating entirely so it's hard to tell) is the only undrugged member of the party by lights out.

Duncan, Carl, Miles and Dermond are assigned to one room. Laura and Beth also share a room. There is a confidential questionaire for Laura on the bedside table. She is slightly bemused to discover that is all about whether or not Miles has been harassing her.

Shortly after lights out, everyone except Laura falls asleep. Around about midnight there is an unpleasant wailing noise. Laura opens the door and peeks out to investigate. There something that looks a bit like a Skeksis sitting at the nurse's station. The shadows become more solid and everything else (including Laura) becomes very blurry.

Laura reports all this to Beth the following morning. At breakfast Carl mutters that he is worried about Dermond, who has stolen a knife. Laura quietly asks Dermond (in Zilspra) to be careful because if he gets locked up it'll be harder to get him out of there.

During occupational therapy, Miles discovers that Fatty didn't attack the multiverse researcher here. Duncan point blank refuses to believe or discuss anything to do with The Game and concentrates on not being stalkery at all, honest, towards Cast Shayla lookalike who is teaching people to use the computer.

After lunch we catch a glimpse of a tunnel of darkness leading away from the main door. Duncan and Carl see it too but try to deny it. We also catch sight of the Warder of Dreadhold who appears to be an inmate too.

In the evening there is a film. Beth manages to excuse herself and runs into Cutter Drago who is masquerading as a cleaner and tells her that she needs to get out. Whatever is going on here it is affecting the Divine Flame. He doesn't appear to know that Pietra is no longer in Beth's head. Beth is tired and teary from all the meds but manages to relate all that she has learned to the rest of the party.

Carl is willing to take part in an escape attempt on the condition that once it's been proved that The Game isn't real we won't bring it up again. Miles cunningly persuades Duncan that it's just a breakout to go and buy pickles from the local supermarket and then we'll come back.

The party assembles after lights out. Carl swipes a passcard from the nurse's station and Beth finds the keycode. We open the door and shadows surround us. Duncan tries to take a step back but the rest of the party grabs and starts running.

We tumble out into the Navir again. The Opatasaur returns to it's full size and lands on Laura and Jaik. We are in sight of Argonath and so we look for somewhere safe to camp while we deal with the wounded, replenish spells and pray for Rachel.

Dermond is very suspicious when Beth mentions Cutter Drago in front of him. He disappears off into the forest but returns with a Shifter named Sarn. She offers to perform a Reincarnation for Rachel...

So, are there any amendments to the plan for getting in and out of Argonath?

Comments

[sciolist]

Wing it! (says Carl's wisdom modifier)

[lurkingcat]

I think most of us have limited flying ability now, so we should be okay, right? :)

[shamus]

I can fly rapidly in one (downward) direction. Not sure how well stocked we are for fly potions. Plenty of feather fall tokens though :)

[lurkingcat]

This is what happens when you buy nice boots for your fiancee instead of buying them for yourself ;)

I think we'd better do a quick kit list check before we knock on the front door and claim to be the observation team.

[shamus]

I don't think we can properly plan as such. Instead we need a set of prioritised objectives. Such as:

1. Do not get captured.
2. Get as many bits of the gate as we can.
3. Remove the Preceptor from office.

Then we need to be sure we all understand what tools we have to achieve these objectives.

1. Dimension door, teleport, word of recall, invisibility, mist form, defenestration, glibness, hats of disguise, intimidate, royal signet ring.
2. Gate part detection device.
3. Stabbity stabbity.

And then there are questions that might need to be answered.

1a. If we can't all get out, who gets left behind?
1b. Who doesn't get left behind? I'd say given the ultimate goal you need Laura and a UMD/artificer as a bare minimum.
2. If we can't get all the bits here do we still leave? I say we keep going until rule 1 applies. It has already been demonstrated that stuff can be done without all the parts so we might be able to make do without all the parts likewise. Whereas we can't do anything locked up or dead.
3. We're here for the gate, not cult clean-up so this is definitely an optional extra.

Let me check my notes...

[lurkingcat]

Objectives:
I'll agree with 1 and 2. However, the deal with the High Inquisitor and the rightful Queen of Holt is that we do this without hurting the innocent. Laura's stance on is that it's more important to try and fulfill that requirement than go hunting for enemies. Yes, that means they'll come after us later. That's okay. Hopefully later on our hands won't be so tied by conditions about not hurting innocent but misguided soldiers who are trying to defend a CO.

Tools:
Laura is a 12th level spellcaster now. That plus her Wisdom stat means that she now has two whole 6th levels to cast every day! So, potentially one Word of Recall and one Wind Walk but no options to drop rocks on people/through up a Blade Barrier/kill Undead in a flashy way that day. Both of those spells will cover Laura plus four other people. So, not as useful as they could be because that's not the entire party and also Word of Recall has limitations on designated safe space (in other words we're likely to end up bouncing back to the apartment in Scjaarn for that one).

Any form of fast-talking, disguise, non-lethal but extremely-inconvenient-for-the-opposition spellcasting is good. Clerics don't come with an awful lot of this although there's one or two things that might be useful if we need to hold a corridor/doorway and have ten minutes to spare for spellcasting. I don't think the party as a whole is particularly good at non-lethal damage either.

The Gate component detection device was Rachel's invention. We don't yet know what whether Rachel is coming back. If she is, she's probably got some Very Useful Spells. If not... hard to plan.

Bugging Out:
If we leave just one person behind then there's a good chance that we've lost them permanantly. (Ignore the stubborn Dwarf who is probably frothing about that being his job.)

Agreed on needing to get the Artificier and/or UMD folks out. Not sure about the reasoning behind needing Laura unless it's for casting Raise Dead. The Bard does both healing and UMD, I think, so is probably more useful overall than Laura. But yes, a situation where everyone is either locked up or dead is far less useful than one with some of the party loose and planning a rescue attempt.

Re: Let me check my notes...

[sciolist]

Armed with a copy of the Royal Seal, and paperwork from the High Inquisitrix, Carl can get off Argonath by himself.

It's possible he could do it with you lot in tow, but as a sole agent - no problem. So, if you need to bug out with 5 of you and the gate, leave Carl behind and we'll meet up at a couple of optional rendezvous.

[sciolist]

Whee! Carl has gone up a level, and appears (due to previous ineptitude) to have gained loads of base attack bonus! I wouldn't expect him on the front lines anytime soon, though.