THE CAMPAIGN: Chapter 1-"The Dragons in the Desert"

Vire fires a Ray of Frost at the southern ratman, then retreats to the northeast, hiding further behind the barrels.

The monstrous centipede climbs up the roof and, if possible, attacks the northern ratman. Liev moves 10 feet north and attacks the southern ratman; if Vire has killed it already, then she attacks the northern ratman instead.

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Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

Vire shoots the southern ratman on the roof. It takes 3 icy points of damage.

Liev swoops at the same ratman. It takes 1 point of damage.

The centipede rushes past the ratman it's in melee with, provoking an attack of opportunity. It takes 2 points of damage.

The centipede rushes up the wall to the ratman on the roof. It bites him and seems to inject him with it's venom. The ratman takes 1 point of damage.




Can Kyana finish them off?

In order to save the lizard man (Oh yeah, I went there) Kytana fires an arrow at the the ratman nearest to the lizard man, laughing manically,.

Vire retreats behind the barrels.


Kytana scores a critical hit! The ratman falls to his arrow!


The last ratman on the ground moves around his fallen comrade and strikes out at Ehaism. It's a hit! Ehaism takes 7 points of damage.


Then, the northern most barrel bursts open and a swarm of rats escapes from within.



Ehaism, whacha goin do?

The battle couldn't be going worse.

First a horrible giant centipede appeared, but before Ehaism could attack it, it scurried past him. Suddenly Ehaism remembered when this had happened before. About a month ago, Ehaism and Vire were going to rough up a fat merchant who was late with his protection money. Just as they confronted him, a horrible centipede suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Ehaism had bravely destroyed it, but not before the merchant had grabbed the money and run away. And then Vire had the audacity to yell at him as if Ehaism had done something wrong. If Vire was going to summon horrible things he ought to say so first. As far as he was concerned it was all Vire's fault.

That had just been business, and now they were in the middle of a life-and-death struggle, and Vire, in his perpetual insolence had pulled the "summoning" trick again. Was he doing this just to embarrass Ehaism? Didn't he know this wasn't the time for it?

And now Kytana was laughing maniacally. He probably remembered the first incident, and was laughing at Ehaism already. The Bastard!

Ehaism stole a glance to see what Echo was doing. Echo had a hefty arrow protruding from his chest, blood was splattered everywhere. How in hells was he even standing up in that condition? Damned Psionic, who did he think he was showing off to?

It was times like this that Ehaism remembered how much he hated everybody, especially his friends.

On the bright side, one of the filthy rat-men had just hit him again. He felt the impact, and the coolness of his own blood, but not the pain. That would come later. Now he only felt the hungry surge of adrenaline. He supressed his reflex to rage and instead simply hit the rat man back as hard as he could. If that didn't work, he could always bite its face next.

Ehaism sends the ratman to the after life.



Echo's turn.

The sudden rush of pain brings Echo crashing back into the present. His practiced calm and ethereal nature evaporates instantly.



He aims his crossbow at the Ratman on the roof who shot him, not even caring that it's in a melee with one of Vire's minions.



He fires!

Echo's crossbow bolts seems to "echo" the ratman's arrow. Critical Hit! The ratman takes a crossbow bolt strait in the chest. Unfortunately for the ratman, he doesn't have a psionic power to protect his vital organs. He falls over, dead.


The final ratman attacks the centipede in front of him, but misses. He seems a bit wary of the situation.



Vire, the Kobold. Can he do it?

Vire attempts to sense the motive of the swarm of rats. If Vire remains unconvinced that the rats are nonhostile, he unleashes his Burning Hands upon them.

Vire's minions both attack the final ratman. If the wounds don't kill him, the poison soon will.

---

Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

Vire's minions tag team the last ratman and it falls to the centipede's bite.

Vire sees, A squirming squeaking horde of feral rats surge closer. Their teeth glistening in their slavering jaws.

Vire decides to set them on fire. Flames shoot from his fingertips and engulf the swarm, bringing every rat in the swarm to a nice golden brown. Some of the barrels full of garbage, and a ratman corpse catch on fire as well. Needless to say, this isn't a very good smelling area right now.



The battle is won!

You each receive 1350 experience points.

The party finds:
a wand
50 gold
2 gems
8 rapiers
3 short bows
20 arrows
7 ratman rag garments and 1 burned one.

Ehaism wipes his sword clean on one of the ratmen's rags. Then he tries to clean some of the blood off his hands and arms with the same rag. That doesn't work very well, and just smears the blood around. The rag was pretty filthy to begin with. Ehaism tosses it into the flames. The heat of the blazing barrels feels nice to Ehaism's cold-blooded skin. The burning rat smells... pretty delicious, actually.

Vire is uninterested in most of the spoils, but he does pick up the wand. He closely examines it, thinking that he seems to have seen its like before.



Liev descends to his side as the centipede vanishes into the aether.

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Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

kytana takes the arrows and 12 gold.

Ehaism asks the others where they should go next.



Ehaism wishes he could go to the Temple of Itovic. Everybody agrees that Itovic is not a real goddess at all, but the healer-priestesses there give the best massages. But that place is pretty close to their recently raided hideout, and even if it was safe to go back there right now, The Temple of Itovic is really expensive and he would need to take all 50 gold to afford it, including the 12 that Kytana picked up for himself, and that sounds like way more trouble than it is worth anyway.

Echo pants deeply for a minute before regaining his composure.