[LP] The Way of the Tiger. (Complete)

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Fri Jul 26, 2013 1:02 pm

The barbarian's voice rises to a shriek of battle lust as he swipes at you, berserk. He cares nothing for your attacks so long as his sword tastes your blood. Subtract one from any damage you do to him. He cuts his sword down towars your head, but you sidestep to the right, twist, and lash your left foot towards his face as his sword whistles down past your back.

OLVAR THE BARBARIAN
Defence against Winged Horse: 7
Endurance: 18 9
Damage: 1 Die+1

If he still lives, he swings his sword from right to left through the point where you are standing. Your Defence is 8 as you hop backwards.

(Avenger's first kick fails, and so does Olvar's counterstroke. Now, with no post-Block attack penalty, Avenger calls on Inner Force! A hit! Even with Olvar's berserking DR, the doubled damage is enough to fell him!)

The Barbarian falls at last, a mass of broken bones. At the end it seemed that he would fight on for ever, but his battle cries will no longer trouble the lands of Orb. Runeweaver's sight has returned and he has been watching the closing rounds of the battle. As soon as Olvar falls dead, he darts in and grabs the circlet with the blue jewel from the Barbarian's forehead.

'I'll take this,' he says, and draws his sword on you.

Avenger, Grandmaster of the Five Winds
Modifiers: Fortune +1
Inner Force: 4/5
Endurance: 2/20
Techniques: Climbing, Disable Device, Poison Needles, Kwon's Flail.
Shuriken: ****
Ninja Tools: Ninja Costume, Breathing Tube, Iron Sleeves, Garotte, Flint & Tinder, Spiderfish, Blood of Nil.
Special Items: Opal Ring, Pouch with 10 Gold Pieces, Essence of Firenewt.

• Fight the man you saved from the bird-men for the circlet?
Or let him go, take 5 gold pieces from Olvar's body, and head:
• Northwest out of the pass to the City of Far Snows?
• Towards the city of Druath Glennan?
• East through the Trollfens to the City of Ionalbion to take ship across the Sea of the Star?

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Fri Jul 26, 2013 1:50 pm

On one hand, Rune Weaver's being a total fucking prick and this whole side quest will be a total waste of our resources if we don't try to kill him.

On the other, we'll probably fucking die if we try to fight him, and we know where we're supposed to go.

If others want to fight him, I'd be down for that, but otherwise I suggest we head to Druath Glennan, since we know the BBEGs are either there or heading there.

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Fri Jul 26, 2013 3:21 pm

Yeah, we can't afford an unnecessary fight at this point. Hopefully that gem thing isn't a key item.

Let's go to Druath. And hope like hell that there's a healer somewhere. Seriously, it seems like they just forgot to put in all the "you gain back X endurance/your leg doesn't hurt anymore" bits.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Fri Jul 26, 2013 3:46 pm

The sea breeze carries the salt spray of the sea to you as you trot along the eastern coast of the Sea of the Star. To save time, you decide to swim across the narrow eastern point of the star-shaped sea and the chill water is invigorating. At last you enter the narrow cobbled streets of the city of Druath Glennan. The houses are tall and thin, built of dark brick save for the wooden balconies which almost touch above, making the streets dark and gloomy.

You are glad to have disguised yourself as a fisherman since the guards are unmistakedly in the pay of the monks who worship Vile. Their red-shuttered monastery runs along one side of the Square of the Gods, faced by a temple to the All-Mother. You notice a poor house in one of the dingy side streets and, changing into the guise of a beggar, you fall in with the drunkards who are supported there by the priestesses of the All-Mother. You are planning to reconnoitre the monastery to Vile, hoping that Yaemon is within, when you overhear one of the beggars telling the story of how he lost his arm.

There is a grimy and bloody bandage hanging loosely from his shoulder. It seems he was once a sweeper in the monastery but was thrown out because of his drinking. Hearing through the grapevine that Yaemon, Grandmaster of Flame, was visiting the monastery, he foolishly decided to throw himself before the arch monk and beg for his job again. Yaemon, surprisingly, received him, but sneeringly told him that even the gutter was too good a place for him.

He had a friend with him, 'a wicked looking man, with a wicked heart. He had the most hideous, soulless red eyes... Manse the Deathmage, they called him. Anyway, just for sport he said he would punish me, and before I know it my arm drops off. I would have bled to death if it hadn't been for the priestesses.'

He gets little sympathy; one of them, his voice slurred by drink, asks him what he expects if he mixes with Yaemon, Grandmaster of Flame, and the Deathmage, the most powerful sorcerer on Orb. You gather from their conversation that Yaemon had been waiting with Honoric, leader of the Legion of the Sword of Doom, for Manse the Deathmage to join them in Druath Glennan. Now they have set out for a castle called Quench-heart Keep, near the Goblins' Teeth Mountains. As it is now late, you decide to stay in the poor-house and set off in the morning.

You are awakened in the night by the smell of acrid smoke. The room in which you are sleeping is on fire and a sheet of flame blocks the doorway and fills the hallway beyond. There are no windows through which to escape. The room is filling with smoke. What will you do?

Avenger, Grandmaster of the Five Winds
Modifiers: Fortune +1
Inner Force: 4/5
Endurance: 2/20
Techniques: Climbing, Disable Device, Poison Needles, Kwon's Flail.
Shuriken: ****
Ninja Tools: Ninja Costume, Breathing Tube, Iron Sleeves, Garotte, Flint & Tinder, Spiderfish, Blood of Nil.
Special Items: Opal Ring, Pouch with 15 Gold Pieces, Essence of Firenewt.

• Leap through the solid wall of flame?
• Tear up the loose floorboards?

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Fri Jul 26, 2013 4:42 pm

No recovery? None? REALLY?

Tear up the floorboards, because it might not kill us outfethingright.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Fri Jul 26, 2013 4:52 pm

Yeah, tear up the floorboards.

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Fri Jul 26, 2013 5:30 pm

Yeah, go for the floorboard.

In addition, should Avenger die from a pulled groin muscle or something, I vote we health-refill and keep moving forward.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sat Jul 27, 2013 7:20 am

The floorboards come up easily, revealing black dirt below. There is a layer of breathable air at floor level, below the smoke, and you set to work burrowing into the earth. When you have made a hole large enough to crouch in, you cover yourself with earth, poking your breathing tube through it for what little air you can get, using your control of breathing to minimize your needs. You sweat and gasp for breath, but the soil protects you from the fire, which dies away when it has consumed the wooden room.

You lie still as a party of monks come to investigate. It seems they had ringed the place waiting for you to emerge, but now they think you are dead. You overhear them talking about the imminent arrival at Quench-heart Keep of Yaemon, accompanied by Honoric and Manse the Deathmage, and how they will be pleased that you are dead. When they have left, you leave your hole and take the road past the Hydra's Heads Inn out of the city and towards the Goblin's Teeth Mountains, before which lies Quench-heart Keep.

On your way to Quench-heart Keep, you come across the tracks of three horses and a camp. You quicken your pace, hoping to catch them before they gain the safety of the castle. Following the tracks across the Wold leads you towards the Goblin's Teeth Mountains, jagged and black, and before them stands a great castle, built out of the same sombre stone.

The gatehouse is flanked by two stout posts which have been driven into the ground. Two Iron-maidens, metal cages lined with spikes, in the shape of a sarcophagus, sway gently in the wind. The corpse inside one is shrunken and rotted, but the other holds an emaciated man whose beard and hair have grown down to his waist. He is too mad even to plead for help from strangers.

Three horsemen enter the gatehouse some way ahead of you, a man in a scarlet robe flanked by two men in black, both tall, but one is thin while the other is built like a bear. For the first time, you have sighted your quarry.

The Great Keep itself rises high above the walls, surmounted by three towers, each of which flies a banner. The most northerly boasts a Scarlet Mantis; the west tower a silver sword hanging by a needle thread, the Sword of Doom; and the third, the black whirlpool symbol of Nemesis. As you approach the gatehouse, two soldiers drag a screaming man to a grille outside the moat.

'Feeding time,' says one, and they laugh as they raise the grille and throw their prisoner down to whatever lurks in the castle dungeons.

• Wait for dark before trying to enter the castle?
• Try to pass yourself off as a minstrel, one of the Seven Ways of Going, so that you can reconnoitre the castle first?

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Sat Jul 27, 2013 11:16 am

I'm gonna say wait before dark. I think the minstrel plan is better but a simple few hours of waiting might give us the few hp we need to complete this mission. Also I actually think if we die we should just restart with new skills and play anew. After all what good are adventure books for if not to pick your way through them after failure seeing what you didn't find the first time.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Sat Jul 27, 2013 12:36 pm

Eh, what does and doesn't restore your health is so arbitrary in this book (which is the only problem I have with it) that I'm not even sure that waiting will actually heal us.

So I suggest we go with the better plan of posing as a minstrel, and hope that our epic ninja skills allow us to heal at some point before the BBEG.

And as for how to handle death, I'll leave that up to angel to decide.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sat Jul 27, 2013 5:11 pm

(Going with the minstrel plan)

When you tell the guard in the castle gatehouse that you are a minstrel and juggler, he says that there is to be a banquet tomorrow night for honored guests, and asks where you last performed.

• 'Ionalbion.'
• 'Mortavalon.'
• Druath Glennan.'

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Sat Jul 27, 2013 5:50 pm

Hmm, Mortavalon is the only place out of those we've been to, and the only one we've never tried to go to is Ionalbion.

I suggest we say our last performance was in Ionalbion, since at no point did our enemies go there, so they won't know who was and who wasn't in the court there.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sat Jul 27, 2013 6:03 pm

We were in Druath Glennan. That's where they set the inn on fire.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Sat Jul 27, 2013 6:26 pm

Never mind, I misread something.

I still suggest we say we're from Ionalbion, since they might put two and two together if we say we were anywhere else.

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Sat Jul 27, 2013 9:24 pm

Ionalbion seems right. Druath is too close and Mortavalon had other entertainment.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sat Jul 27, 2013 9:56 pm

'Ah, yes,' says the guard, 'it is a fair city. I sailed there once in a ship. In you go, then...' You thank him and walk under the portcullis into the bailey beyond.

You saunter across the courtyard towards the Bailiff's office. The two men in black travelling robes, Honoric and Manse the Deathmage, are talking to the Captain of the Guard and a group of his men. You stop to watch at a distance as Honoric, a powerfully-built man with an arrogant and cruel look about him, borrows the captain's weapon and invites the soldiers to attack him. Several do so at once, but there is no way past his flashing sword. He disarms three of them, then beats the rest back – all they can do is fend off his blows, and you know that he could kill them at will.

Seeing this display, Manse grimaces sourly and, pointing, turns the sword which Honoric is holding into a tulip. The captain of the guard cannot resist chuckling at the sight of this huge man, the Marshal of the Legion of the Sword of Doom, clutching a tulip with which to belabor the soldiers.

Honoric turns red with rage and, flinging the flower down, he draws his own great black sword. A chill of horror grips you and the guards cower as a pall of fear descends upon the castle. The wicked blade smokes slightly and the tulip has turned back into a sword.

'Where is your magic now, Deathmage? Your spells will not work with Sorcerak unsheathed,' says Honoric. The Deathmage's eyes narrow and his pallid pinched face seems to whiten still further as he mouths another spell. Nothing happens and Honoric turns on his heel and walks towards the Keep, sheathing Sorcerak as he goes.

As he opens the gate which leads to the Inner Bailey, you catch sight of a tower at the back of the castle which seems part derelict. It would make an easy climb. The Bailiff tells you they have hired 'a real Bard' for tomorrow, but when he has heard you sing and seen you juggle, he says that you can do a turn at dinner that evening.

You are watched constantly, but find time to examine the lock of the gateway that leads to the Inner Bailey and to find a hole in the wall, used for passing food and arms through when the gate is shut. When it is time, you are taken into the Keep itself. The main hall has a large spiral staircase which leads to the castle roof and thence to the three turrets.

You are ushered into the parlour before dinner to entertain Yaemon and Honoric; Manse the Deathmage is nowhere to be seen. Yaemon watches you intently, but Honoric is at ease, pouring wine from a flagon into a golden goblet. The Captain of the castle and his lady sit between them. You sing a Manmarcher song of brave deeds in battle and lost loves, and your juggling raises polite applause. As soon as your act is finished, the Captain signals and your escort, two guards, usher you out of the parlour, just as Manse enters from the door opposite.

• Use a Poison Needle against Yaemon?
• Allow the guards to escort you from the castle?

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Sat Jul 27, 2013 11:06 pm

Yaemon is a master ninja himself, so he probably has Poison Immunity; even if he doesn't, we don't have the Endurance to survive a counterattack by an evil knight, an evil wizard, and six metric shitloads of castle guards (even assuming the two other villains get into another fight with each other.)

Let us be taken away, and hope that we can get into one-on-one fights with the Legion of Doom here.

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Sun Jul 28, 2013 7:45 am

Agree with Darth.

Also I just thought of something. What if this books lack of hp regain is actually an unintentional feature. If the Barbarian book gives you hp like crazy you can fight all the time. If the Ninja book gives you almost no hp regain but gives you tons of tricks to be super deadly when you need to be it could lead to an environment where you have to play to your class. So Sagard can fight over and over again like a drunken lout but this Ninja dude has to pick 3 or 4 encounters to go all out on in order to kill just the right people like a good assassin should.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Sun Jul 28, 2013 8:19 am

Are they by the same people then?

Yeah, we need another chance to strike - esp. as we apparently can't needle Honoric, who has much less reason to be poison immune.

angelfromanotherpin · Sun Jul 28, 2013 12:30 pm

After sketching a map of the castle from memory, you conceal yourself in a hole in the ground, watching the gatehouse and waiting for darkness to fall. The moon is white and full and the night is still. There is not even enough breeze to spread the banners atop the three towers.

• Scale the derelict tower?
• Raise the grille outside the moat and drop to the tunnel below?
• Wait to see if the weather conditions change tomorrow night?

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Sun Jul 28, 2013 2:18 pm

Scale the tower.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Sun Jul 28, 2013 2:54 pm

We have Climbing, we don't have Dropping in Tunnels. We climb.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sun Jul 28, 2013 3:10 pm

As you steal towards the castle moat in the moonlight, on this still night, your acute sense of hearing picks up a stifled shout from the castle battlement. You have been spotted. You lie low for a time, but as soon as you hear the yapping of hounds, decide to run away to the woods. You use your knowledge of woodcraft to throw the dogs off the scent and return to the castle the following day.

You spend the next day in lonely vigil, but no-one leaves the castle. It is still a tenday before the moon will turn red at the conjunction of the planets, and you can see preparations begin in the Outer Bailey. Yaemon, Honoric, and Manse the Deathmage will set out for the Pillars of Change on the morrow.

Your prayers to Kwon for a stormy moonless night are answered and you decide that on this night you will complete your mission or die in the attempt. The wind and the rain and the darkness will make it possible for you to pass into the castle as if invisible. You prepare yourself in silent meditation, and don your ninja costume before staring up at the darkness until your night vision is as acute as an owl's.

Avenger, Grandmaster of the Five Winds
Modifiers: Fortune +1
Inner Force: 4/5
Endurance: 2/20
Techniques: Climbing, Disable Device, Poison Needles, Kwon's Flail.
Shuriken: ****
Ninja Tools: Ninja Costume, Breathing Tube, Iron Sleeves, Garotte, Flint & Tinder, Spiderfish, Blood of Nil.
Special Items: Opal Ring, Pouch with 15 Gold Pieces, Essence of Firenewt.

• Use the skill of Climbing to scale the castle wall?
• Take the easy climb up the derelict tower?
• Raise the grille outside the moat and drop into the tunnel?

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Sun Jul 28, 2013 3:23 pm

We use our ninja skill, that's why we chose it.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Sun Jul 28, 2013 3:26 pm

Manse sounds like a fuck-you character. If we are to fight him, we should only do so in the presence of Honoric. (On the one hand, it sounds like we really shouldn't; on the other hand, that scene was there for a reason, and that reason is most likely not a hint for book 2.)

Don't climb, we'll be seen; either wait or go for the tunnels. slowpoke

Scale the wall like a boss.