@Artemis1992's suggestion of Githyanki is quite frankly insane, I just thought making that statement a huge rant rather than a footnote would be redundant, and I mean he made some points about our commitment to dealing with the Githyanki limited to fighting them off a few times with some disproportionate responses, and even IF THAT WOULD WORK which we don't know since they could have hella resources to throw at us, we have no idea, IC, it is an insane idea.
It's like hiring the a thousand Chromatic Dragons to go fuck up Tiamat--technically you might even get some takers since she isn't really well-loved by most of her children, but they're still retarded babies level of asshole to anyone more than two size categories smaller than them.
Eh, going by what info I have on them the Githanky are basically acting as pirates towards most people, which we know how to deal with.
It's only when they take something personal, like having a Silver Sword stolen from them or the mere existance of the Illithide race that they mobilize even a fraction of the ressource they as a political entity united under Vlaakith, ruling in the name of absent Gith, have available.
The gamble would be that they only invest actual effort into killing Squids and then turn it down to the usual raiding and tribute taking that we can quite easily dissuade.
If that gamble doesn't work we have, admittedly, a big problem.
Eh, going by what info I have on them the Githanky are basically acting as pirates towards most people, which we know how to deal with.
It's only when they take something personal, like having a Silver Sword stolen from them or the mere existance of the Illithide race that they mobilize even a fraction of the ressource they as a political entity united under Vlaakith, ruling in the name of absent Gith, have available.
The gamble would be that they only invest actual effort into killing Squids and then turn it down to the usual raiding and tribute taking that we can quite easily dissuade.
If that gamble doesn't work we have, admittedly, a big problem.
This is assuming they have zero real agency and no functioning brain cells. By the time they noticed us rolling up a huge military operation in Westeros, which is SOON mind you, they would see the writing on the walls and know that we are removing HUGE swathes of territory from the board if they make any agreement to back off, informal or otherwise.
They will kill us in the proverbial crib if intelligent. Assuming every planar power is an idiot is bad, not even because we might be proven wrong, but just because it really sucks the all suspense out of things.
I... Really don't get the hate of Githzerai here. @Goldfish, you have my condolences
From what I've read up on them, they are as peaceful and non-threatening to our plans of world domination as it gets.
Period.
So long as we don't help squids, and the chances of that happening, well...
They are, frankly speaking, our only sane(ish) way of ensuring squids have something else to attack while we are busy wit Westeros.
That is, if they are even available in any numbers.
Which we have fuck of an idea about.
Of course we shouldn't trust them blindly, that's moronic in of itself.
But not even trying...
Well, you guys are out-me-in me myself in sheer paranoia and fearmongering.
Good job. Now tone it down, before I lose mine.
Basically, my reasoning for pushing an attack on Shadow Plane fortress of Tiamat.
He other forces that we know of are:
A) Clerics, whom teleporting around we can't stop either way.
B) Dragons, who are way too precious for her to drop at us, for their deaths will diminish her power.
C) Golden Company, which is on the other side of the continent with said dragons.
Fortress though?
That's the sort of shit where most precious, and most likely dangerous, shit is cooked up
And I don't think anyone here, even for a second, thinks she's not building up
everything she can now, just so that she can destroy us.
One good attack there, one less headache for a while longer.
So efficient.
In the end you decide to leave your disgruntled observer to its business. If it chose to remain here then you would be content, for the chamber seems wholly unfit for most life and without anything worth harvesting besides the strange dust itself which Lya takes a sample of in a wax sealed glass vial before the seven of you float gently along the wall leading left and down, where Echo Caller had said the lake could be found.
As you leave the green haze behind the walls prove to be oddly soft and powdery white arrayed in delicate sheets and threads that crumble and cut at the nearest touch. "I don't think the air here is even... air. You couldn't breathe this, so I suppose the walls being made out of things that cut like poisoned glass don't matter much."
"The greater danger is that they will cut you more on the inside than out," Mereth interjected. "I have seen more... fragile beings coughing up chunks of their lungs as they died after swallowing enough of the dust. In smaller proportions the victim can linger in torment for far longer, until every breath is agony." Noticing the dark look Waymar gives her, the Fury sights in frustration. "I did not personally thrust it down the throat of some ill-fated mortal if that is what you are wondering. One of my commanders once deployed the like as a weapon in the War." The way she says it makes it clear that for her there can only be one true war in all the spheres of being.
"Uhm... sorry," Waymar mumbles, even as a strange groaning sound emerges from the spun-glass walls. Something is moving... but the sound soon fades, leaving the Valeman's words still hanging, waiting for an answer.
Through it all you can see the urge to scoff at the quick apology on Mereth's expression, but just as clearly you see her push the impulse back and simply nod, silently accepting the gesture.
The conversation ends soon thereafter as the tunnel opens up into a roughly triangular opening twice a man's height. At the tip beyond you can glimpse for the first time the prize that you had all set off to find, the silvery waves of a quicksilver lake filling a great cavern three leagues and more long and half that across basks in cold greenish light. Looking through the small opening it seems that the ceiling above is forged of the strange glass-like substance filled with fissures and tunnel mouths just like the ones you are emerging from. Some of them are occupied.
"Ugly bastards, ain't they?" Ser Richard proclaims, looking at the monsters, the land sharks that are the guardians of this place. You certainly can't find fault in the sentiment.
Misshapen beasts with with glistening silvery shells opening up into jagged maws that hang above short muscular legs tipped with heavy claws seem to be sunning themselves like lizards on rocks... if one can call it that. A great green one as wide across as the Great Tree of Lys hangs from the center of the cavern, giving off the same harsh light as the chamber you entered through, though thankfully without the blinding haze.
As you watch, a bizarre translucent thing rises from the silvery 'waters'. Beneath its coating of quicksilver the thing seems to be a sort of pink blob the size of an elephant, more like an arrangement of quivering bladders locked inside one another than any mortal creature you have ever seen. It seems to have neither eyes nor ears only delicate pink antennae.
No sooner does it emerge fully from the waters that one of the beasts rips its way up from below and devours it amid a storm of razor sharp thorns, soon joined by its fellows.
"How can something so fragile live here?" Lya wonders as she looks upon the grizzly scene. "Prey generally has some means of fleeing or fighting its predators, and I saw none there..."
"Never mind the giant bugs, look at what happens when the ground breaks," Waymar says urgently. "With more than your eyes I mean..."
As more of the burrowing beasts emerge from the spun glass floor of the cavern you do as he bid. What you see sends a chill down your spine. Every time the walls or floor are disturbed the area is bathed in chaotic power that would unravel most spell-craft... including the protective wards that allow you to even live here.
What do you do?
[] Write in
OOC: Congratulations, it's an alien watering hole with asbestos walls that cast greater dispel magic when broken and burrowing demon-blooded monstrosities. On the plus side once you get through the monsters I'm sure you will find some use for the asbestos too.
Am I a horrible person for immdiately jumping to that use myself the moment I saw asbestos present there?
:C
We can gas a fair damn much of space with amounts that seem to be present here. Finding a decent target is a bit hard though.
Most outsiders don't need to breathe, and people on Planetos...
Yeah, I don't see the thread going that route. Nor Viserys, not really.
OOC: Congratulations, it's an alien watering hole with asbestos walls that cast greater dispel magic when broken and borrowing demon-blooded monstrosities. On the plus side once you get through the monsters I'm sure you will find some use for the asbestos too.
Congratulations, it's an alien watering hole with asbestos walls that cast greater dispel magic when broken and borrowing demon-blooded monstrosities.
Oh, nice encounter setting.
I suggest that everyone Fly, and that Lya and Viserys stay ready to cast Celerity and Teleport. Everyone should stay within arm's reach at all times.
Oh, nice encounter setting.
I suggest that everyone Fly, and that Lya and Viserys stay ready to cast Celerity and Teleport. Everyone should stay within arm's reach at all times.
That's one advantage of having players equipped and buffed to the gills. I can make multi-threat encounters like this without worrying that I will party-wipe accidentally.
OOC: Congratulations, it's an alien watering hole with asbestos walls that cast greater dispel magic when broken and borrowing demon-blooded monstrosities. On the plus side once you get through the monsters I'm sure you will find some use for the asbestos too.
Don't fret though.
Lya's been summoning this entire month and we had yet to get the numbers from
*checks dates*
13th to 28th.
And apparently we also used up all Daemon's True Names we had, although I'm not sure at which point exactly, and seriously hurt their operations. We'll get that 1620HD one way or another.
Then, it's stockpiling again, but for actual "Turn every Weirwood ever into a Fire!Weirwood"-ritual, I believe.
And Valyrian Steel too, but with Uniila in tow, we are never running out of devil names.
First we encounter a kind of dead zone of miasma that doesn't allow you to see. Then there is also the poisonous powder that can actually murder demons apparently. Also, we are feeling watched.
Then we have an ecosystem with an artificial sun, walls that for some reason dispel magic, and made from asbestos.
And in this very place, some harmless critter the size of an elephant comes out of the lake to be swallowed by the current demon landshark population, which coexists with their untainted counterparts.
Gentlemen, this is no coincidence. This is a testing lab or even worse, a cattle farm, made by some obscure entity with access to many resources and high level magic.
