Xander [Quest], Thread Sixteen: The Long (Long, LONG, LOOOONG) Awaited Summer

[skaro]

[x] Get in touch with Altria.
- [x] She has a (magic) cellphone, and Ambrose should know the number.
--[X] tell her to wait for you because your not letting portal to hell open without a backup plan in place: we're going to to be their with our sword and every defensive spell we've got ready to go when the button is pressed so we can nuke everything behind Ambrose when he screws up.

 

[Madfish]

[X] Get in touch with Altria.
-[X] She has a (magic) cellphone, and Ambrose should know the number.
--[X] If she doesn't answer use Sending.
-[X] Have her use it to make sure Ambrose is actually missing and it's not a trick.
-[X] If so then you go ahead and do the horrible thing anyway.
-[X] But not in the house.
--[X] Or in your neighborhood.
---[X] Or anywhere in the town limits.
----[X] Get/conjurer a rubber raft, teleport out into the ocean ~750 miles.
-----[X] Cast every defensive and 'sea preparation' spell we can that will hold while leaving enough for teleport escapes
------[X] Create the beacon there 50+ feet from the raft. We can fish Ambrose out and leave the demons to drown or fish shoot them.

Cordelia might have access to one or know where we could borrow one.

Note I don't mean creating the beacon in the raft, I mean to have it displaced about 50 meters so there's time to fish shoot or teleport back if it's a trick.

 

[Demonic Spoon]

[X] And then you go ahead and do the horrible thing anyway.
- [X] But not in the house.
-- [X] Or in your neighborhood.
--- [X] Or anywhere in the town limits.

 

[arrepio]

[X] And then you go ahead and do the horrible thing anyway.
- [X] Or anywhere in the town limits.
-- [X] Preferably in the ocean; or the desert if the first choice isn't doable. Ask Ambrose for his preference.
-- [X] And you're going to have your sword and every defensive spell you've got ready to go when you start the horrible thing.

 

[SuperSonicSound]

Okay.
Dumping this on Altria is...suboptimal at best.
Merlin's lab should have defenses, but Altria is not a spellcaster, and she is unlikely to have backup.

Not to mention that this is possibly well past her bedtime ; California has a 7-8 hour difference from England.
Asking a sleepy person to handle this is a bad idea.
And we cannot teleport there without burning a hefty chunk of our magic; Greater Teleport is ~750 km per hop I think, and getting to England from Cali would take six to eight hops.
Not something I wanna do before planting a beacon for someone and possibly facing off against demonkin.
And then there's the getting back.

QUESTIONS
To the DnD experts:
1)How many defenses against evil can we put up on a scene before casting a major spell?
2)What/ who can we summon as backup before trying for a planar beacon?
3)What level magic is a planar beacon?

To everyone else,
4)Is this a trick by Ambrose to check out our ability under pressure?
He understands Infernal, so why was he talking to the alleged demon in English?And why did he call the kid instead of anyone of his other allies?
If it's a trick, how should we respond?

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1) Not many, we don't have the ability to use permanency and making a place out in the sticks for an evil death trap is going to be expensive if we wanted to try that there are some spells we can use but it's a little more generic overall.

2) What ever we want to try and summon really.

3) Not a spell in pathfinder I suspect it's going to be fairly high level though. 6 circle or maybe 7th.

4) I suspect it is Ambrose trying to gauge our actual ability level but at the same time I think it's Ambrose just using this situation to learn more about our abilities rather than explicitly created to gain information.

Alright.

I suggest we do not go to Altria.

We should use a single teleport to go to a rural uninhabited area.

then

Plan of action

Throw down a Circle of Protection against Evil. Whilst it probably won't stop the demons chasing Ambrose it should make it harder for them to enter.

Throw down a Web in the area where the dimensional beacon is going down. Web is one of those nice spells where even passing the save doesn't stop it being effective.

Cast Ablative armour ( +2 armour bonus to AC, converts 5 points of lethal damage to non lethal a round.)

Summon the blessed sword.

Cast elemental body II choose earth body type (Earth elemental: As elemental body I except that you gain a +4 size bonus to your Strength and a +5 natural armor bonus.) Does not make us lose the ability to use magic.

Cast the dimensional beacon.

It's some what mana expensive but it really doesn't matter we aren't in a tournament situation and magic is most effective when used ahead of time on long lasting spells.

 

[Madfish]

Greater Teleport is ~750 km per hop I think, and getting to England from Cali would take six to eight hops.
Not something I wanna do before planting a beacon for someone and possibly facing off against demonkin.
And then there's the getting back.

Click to shrink...

Teleport is 750 miles, Greater Teleport is unlimited but required ritual.

QUESTIONS
To the DnD experts:
1)How many defenses against evil can we put up on a scene before casting a major spell?
2)What/ who can we summon as backup before trying for a planar beacon?
3)What level magic is a planar beacon?

Click to shrink...

1) If we go with my raft idea:

• Mundanely:
  • Demons expect solid ground end up dunked in salt water.
    • From a 'Fire and Brimstone' Hell their unlikely to be good swimmers
    • May be elementally aligned to fire and weakened by being dunked
  • Demons have no way to go and know fast way of knowing where to go.
    • Escapees have to make a 750 mile swim.
  • Ease of retreat from non fliers (and magically from fliers too)
• Magically:
  • Circle of Protection: Evil*
  • Circle of Protection: Chaos*
  • Circle of Protection: Law*
    • Best to cover the bases
  • Mage Armour
  • Shield
  • True Seeing
  • Air Bubble
    • Just incase
  • Remove Fear (Clerical, so 3rd level cast)
    • Panicking because of terror effects would be bad
  • Sanctury (Clerical, so 3rd level Cast)
    • Can't be attacked for about a minute provided we don't attack
    • Grants time to fish out Ambrose.
  • A Spell to prevent the raft from tipping or being tipped (Water Element/Abduration/transmutation effect, any one or alloyed)
  • Summon Sharks
  • Improved Invisibility
  • Touch of the Sea
    • Gain a Swim speed (I.e. free movement in water)
  • Obscure Object
    • Prevents a Scry and Die
  • Mirror Image
    • Probably can do a better version of this and duplicate the raft too.
  • Cat's Grace
    • Better Balance
• Magical Trickery:
  • Magic Aura: Holy
  • Alter Winds:
    • Impede fliers
• Ki
  • As previous life or death except full power (Since that eats spells).
    • Don't be looking at the portal that forms.

2) Li-Sensei and Briar, Altria to verify Ambrose is missing. It would cost too much magic to teleport her in.
3) Plane Shift is 7th, can but carries 8 people so level can be whittled down by not travelling and therefore not needing any of the teleport parts. As a DM in my own games I'd say 4th or 5th for a short lived one.

To everyone else,
4)Is this a trick by Ambrose to check out our ability under pressure?
He understands Infernal, so why was he talking to the alleged demon in English?And why did he call the kid instead of anyone of his other allies?
If it's a trick, how should we respond?

Click to shrink...

I think it's possible, and if it is Dunking him as he teleports in is sufficient payback, if not though (and given who holds LA not impossible) best to be fully prepared. Given Ambrose though and the fact he could of contacted Altria I think it could well be both. He seams very much the sort not to waste the opportunity for a lesson.

Talking to it in English is fairly easily explainable as him having a permanent Tongues spell up

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, including dispelling the beacon when Ambrose appears.

With my plan we demonstrate if it is a test;

1. Using mundane methods as effectively as magical.
2. Being prepared for a trap.
3. Taking extreme precautions to protect civilians.

Plan edited slightly and restated

[X] Get in touch with Altria.
-[X] She has a (magic) cellphone, and Ambrose should know the number.
--[X] Use Sending to verify the phone call is legit.
-[X] Have her use her phone it to make sure Ambrose is actually missing and it's not a trick.
--[X] If so then you go ahead and do the horrible thing anyway.
--[X] But not in the house.
---[X] Or in your neighborhood.
----[X] Or anywhere in the town limits.
-----[X] Get/conjurer a rubber raft, teleport out into the ocean ~750 miles.
------[X] Cast every defensive and 'sea preparation' spell we can that will hold long enough while leaving enough for teleport escapes and creating the beacon.
-------[X] Create the beacon there 50+ feet from the raft. We can fish Ambrose out and leave the demons to drown or fish shoot them.

 

[UberJJK]

Teleport is 750 miles, Greater Teleport is unlimited but required ritual.

Click to shrink...

Technically but not quite. While back when we first cast it, start of the Fairy Arc, we only had Summoning C so we had to actually do proper ritual casting.

However as Judge has shown and said time and time again if we're only one plus away (Say C rank magic and C+++ Summoning) we can cast the spell using basically a miniature ritual and pumping more mana in (IIRC) six seconds rather then the one or two would otherwise take.

 

[Unelemental]

[X] Madfish
Not seeing why we would want to involve Altria except to check if it's really him.
Teleporting out of town is easy and finding a remote place(or the ocean, as Madfish suggested) is simple as well.
Any preparations would be probably discussed in our next vote.
(Hopefully the demons aren't aquatic.)

 

[SuperSonicSound]

[X] Madfish
Not seeing why we would want to involve Altria except to check if it's really him.
Teleporting out of town is easy and finding a remote place(or the ocean, as Madfish suggested) is simple as well.
Any preparations would be probably discussed in our next vote.
(Hopefully the demons aren't aquatic.)

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I'm not fond of the raft idea.

Or the swim speed idea that Madfish wants to use. Just like with overland flight Alex had to learn to fly whilst using the spell to be able to fight with it active in the air.

HE will have the same problem with the swimming speed.

I'd much rather go for a mundane area like a desert or forest. He's also dumping nearly all of our mana into prep spells and some of the circle of protection spells are utterly redundant.

Protection against evil is the only one of those three needed the other two will do nothing to assist us and could hamper Ambrose.

Obscure object likely makes it harder for Ambrose as well.

That said there are bits of Madfishes plan I like raft in the ocean isn't sensible though.

 

[Madfish]

Or the swim speed idea that Madfish wants to use. Just like with overland flight Alex had to learn to fly whilst using the spell to be able to fight with it active in the air.

Click to shrink...

It's purely for the freedom of movement if we do get dunked, I did say I'd prefer to treat it as a fish shoot.

HE will have the same problem with the swimming speed.

Click to shrink...

If Ambrose can't teleport himself or otherwise get himself out of the water before we can create something like Tenser's Floating Disk I'd be surprised.

I'd much rather go for a mundane area like a desert or forest. He's also dumping nearly all of our mana into prep spells and some of the circle of protection spells are utterly redundant.

Protection against evil is the only one of those three needed the other two will do nothing to assist us and could hamper Ambrose.

Click to shrink...

We don't know how legit the call is or anything about the Hell Plane. It pays to be prepared. As to hampering Ambrose see below. Mana is a consideration by Briar can refresh our Ki twice with her dust to we can rely on that for offence if needed.

Best case scenario is this is a test, worst case it's not and Ambrose is injured. In that case we need to be able to evac quickly without leaving a bunch of demons in a position to be attacking the locals.

Not some of them like shield and sanctuary are short duration and would likely be cast immediately after the beacon if at all. Similarly Summoning was an example of what we could do not what we have too which was the question I was answering. Besides which we'd likely get Zora instead of a Shark.

Obscure object likely makes it harder for Ambrose as well.

Click to shrink...

Which is why the beacon isn't in Obscure Object's area of effect.

 

[Madfish]

A)Take Moblin
Buff him with spells, and we have something/someone to watch our back in addition to Briar.

Click to shrink...

There's good odds this will end with a dead Moblin, we've never invested time in training him beyond the very basics.

B)Take Cordelia
Queen C is the only member of our crew who has faced violence, and we actually need to ease some of them into this.
Give her the spell we gave Xander/our doppleganger, with a conjured rifle, and she can act as an additional safety blanket.
If we had introduced Tony to Ambrose, I would have suggested taking him instead, but*shrug*

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Cordiela I don't think is a good choice to come, she isn't trained *enough* for a potential foot hold situation.

C)Leave a message with Larry or Amy
Promise to tell him the full story later, and that if you don't come back he/she should go to Lu-sensei.
I would not take either of them though; Larry has no training, and Amy is just helpless enough to look yummy to a demon.

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Seems reasonable but I'd rather send a Message to Lu-Sensei Directly even if we're already on our way

D)Try for a summon before casting the planar beacon.
Because opening a portal to the Nether dimensions is never something to do lightly.

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A Beacon doesn't open a portal, it's like a lighthouse. Also Ambrose, given the number of people/beings he's likely pissed off, has probably personal wards against being summoned.

 

[Selias]

"-ran into a bit of *nag," Ambrose is saying. "Long story short, I had to hop a portal, and now I'm in Hell. A Hell, at least. One of the classical ones, all fire and brimstone and bat-winged, cloven-hoofed, horned demons- just a moment." There is a hiss of static, and when the wizard speaks next, his voice sounds a bit distant. "I'm trying to talk to someone here, you inconsiderate ass! Bugger off and find some other lost soul to menace!"

You hear a terrible roar that is NOT mystical transmission interference. In response, Ambrose barks a word of magic, and then there is another roar, much more explosive in nature. The static momentarily intensifies, and you lose track of a few seconds.

"-can get back fine on my own," Ambrose continues calmly, as if the interruption hadn't occurred, "but it may take me a while. Unless of course, you're willing to help."

"What would this 'help' involve?" you venture cautiously.

"Well, ideally, you'd create a planar beacon that would allow me to lock on to your position and travel there directly. Of course, that would take a considerable effort on your part, enough that I don't believe the safeguards on Lu Tze's training hall would be able to hide it."

This sounds like a bad idea. You say so.

"I thought you might say that," Ambrose admits. "Well, it's less ideal, but you could get in touch with Altria and let her know of my, er, circumstances. My workshop has everything necessary for the job, all set up and ready to go - all she'd need to do ** push a button, basically."

See, this sounds like a much better idea. Again, you say as much.

"I'd really prefer to avoid that approach, though, because however I do this, I'm going to have at least one angry demon chasing me." There is a pause, punctuated by more spellcasting and a series of staccato explosions, followed by pain-filled bellows. "Probably several angry demons," Ambrose amends. "And I'd rather not have such unruly visitors dropping by the manor. Altria's father has this thing about demons on the property, I'd be hearing about it for months."

Click to shrink...

[X] And then you go ahead and do the horrible thing anyway.
- [X] Or anywhere in the town limits.
-- [X] Preferably in the ocean; or the desert if the first choice isn't doable. Ask Ambrose for his preference.
-- [X] And you're going to have your sword and every defensive spell you've got ready to go when you start the horrible thing.

The yellow one was fixing a type, assuming that the word with the yellow "a" was supposed to be "probably," rather than some other word.

C)Leave a message with Larry or Amy
Promise to tell him the full story later, and that if you don't come back he/she should go to Lu-sensei.
I would not take either of them though; Larry has no training, and Amy is just helpless enough to look yummy to a demon.

D)Try for a summon before casting the planar beacon.
Because opening a portal to the Nether dimensions is never something to do lightly.

E)Defenses up the wazoo.
I'll leave the specifics to the experts.

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I'm sorry, but all of the other options sounded like horrible ideas.

Also, if you want to have him examine Cordelia's curse, I'm pretty sure that we could just ask him to after we help him get out of hell.

 

[Krain]

I'm thinking we summon some Celestial Gorons (sadly I don't think we're high enough in Favor to get Eldin, who would've been sweet to fight with here).
And buff them up like goddamn crazy - I'm talking speeding them up, providing magical defenses and likely something to strengthen their attacks... can we give them something to continually heal them?

...Actually, can we use our power to create some sort of Din-aligned area where creatures granted by her get some sort of powerup in general?
That strike me as a pretty decent thing to go with in this situation... and something the Goddesses might be inclined to help with since, you know, hellish forces invading the world is probably not something any of them would approve of.

 

[Unelemental]

Heh. Imagining casting Protection from Evil/Chaos - and Merlin being unable to cross it.

 

[Krain]

Heh. Imagining casting Protection from Evil/Chaos - and Merlin being unable to cross it.

Click to shrink...

We could cast something like anti-devil or anti-demon defenses instead...
Point is, we should cheat as much as possible here, tilt the whole thing heavily in our favor - I want an army of heavily buffed Celestial spirits aligned with the Golden Goddesses, I want spells that heavily screw with devils/demons fully set up and ready to go, I want personal defenses that would make Shao Kahn himself blink and mutter that this is too much.
Time to show everyone how Power deals with evil!

 

[SuperSonicSound]

We could cast something like anti-devil or anti-demon defenses instead...
Point is, we should cheat as much as possible here, tilt the whole thing heavily in our favor - I want an army of heavily buffed Celestial spirits aligned with the Golden Goddesses, I want spells that heavily screw with devils/demons fully set up and ready to go, I want personal defenses that would make Shao Kahn himself blink and mutter that this is too much.
Time to show everyone how Power deals with evil!

Click to shrink...

Anti devil defenses, Protection from chaos. Anti demon defenses, Protection from Law.

Protection from evil is generic and I doubt Ambrose pings as evil.

 

[Krain]

Anti devil defenses, Protection from chaos. Anti demon defenses, Protection from Law.

Protection from evil is generic and I doubt Ambrose pings as evil.

Click to shrink...

That's in Pathfinder.
I would not want to bet on anti-chaos and anti-law to be all that helpful here.

 

[SuperSonicSound]

Thank you for the answers.
Given what I know, I'm leaning towards doing this ourselves, somewhere in California or Oregon but far away from our home or known haunts of the Unseelie.
Why? Because England should be around 10 PM, and opening a portal to the nether realms in darkness is probably a terrible idea.

But there is no need to be stupid about it.
I'm going to propose a set of options non-exclusive options here:

OPTION
A)Take Moblin
Buff him with spells, and we have something/someone to watch our back in addition to Briar.

B)Take Cordelia
Queen C is the only member of our crew who has faced violence, and we actually need to ease some of them into this.
Give her the spell we gave Xander/our doppleganger, with a conjured rifle, and she can act as an additional safety blanket.
If we had introduced Tony to Ambrose, I would have suggested taking him instead, but*shrug*

C)Leave a message with Larry or Amy
Promise to tell him the full story later, and that if you don't come back he/she should go to Lu-sensei.
I would not take either of them though; Larry has no training, and Amy is just helpless enough to look yummy to a demon.

D)Try for a summon before casting the planar beacon.
Because opening a portal to the Nether dimensions is never something to do lightly.

E)Defenses up the wazoo.
I'll leave the specifics to the experts.


EDIT
Did anyone ever explain why we didn't ask Ambrose to look at Cordelia's curse?

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I am very much against taking Moblin. Cordelia is a very outside candidate for this. She didn't get very far into the tournament. She just isn't ready yet to fight on the level we are going to be entering.

High level demons or devils from a hell plane would utterly trounce Alex were it not for his Magic. Cordelia is less skilled in Ki usage than Alex is. I feel it's a very bad idea.

Letting Lu-sensei know is a good idea though.

I'll come up with a list of long lasting buffs we should throw down to pull this off, as long as we don't end up throwing down with a Balor or equivalent I think we will be fine and if we do end up facing one we are definitely going to need to buffed to the gills.

That's in Pathfinder.

I would not want to bet on anti-chaos and anti-law to be all that helpful here.

Click to shrink...

Pathfinder might not map perfectly but frankly I think you are wrong about that. My point was that we don't need anti chaos and anti law circles any way I'm arguing against it.

 

[Quantumboost]

Might help if we created an inward-facing Magic Circle Against Other-planar Beings around the planar beacon. Then Ambrose would at least be able to retreat across it and we might be able to banish a few of them with less risk of personal stabbings.

 

[frozenchicken]

[X] And then you go ahead and do the horrible thing anyway.
- [X] But not in the house.
-- [X] Or in your neighborhood.
--- [X] Or anywhere in the town limits.
---- [X] Prepare a Circle of protection from Evil, and try to summon something with strong crowd-control abilities (able to stop a crowd of demons from walking through the portal, preferably).

 

[Madfish]

The bad thing about the desert (other than being entirely to damn close to people) is that it's going to be similar to natural terrain for those from a Fire and Brimstone Hell, full demons are higher up the threat scale than we are and we have no clue how many will follow Ambrose through or what condition Ambrose will be in with respect to health or mana.

If we don't manage to get all of them we've basically become responsible for allowing those demons access to the populace. If their at sea that becomes less likely or at least will take them longer.

We also don't know yet if the call is legit! It could be Ambrose testing us or in genuine need of a hand (or both). It could be likewise someone impersonating him and creating the static themselves as obfuscation wanting us to run up the flag for some demonic entity(s). Since there's a non-zero chance of that thinking outside the box and where we might be expected to set up a beacon is just good sense. In all three cases.

Edit:

Since I've got to run to work now a quick list of essential defensive spells

Mage Armour
COP: Evil
Obscure Object/Scry Ward
Resist Fire
True Seeing (Incase someone's pulling a fast one)
(And for raft a Stabaliser and Water breathing/movement)

 

[arrepio]

It could be likewise someone impersonating him and creating the static themselves as obfuscation wanting us to run up the flag for some demonic entity(s).

Click to shrink...

Is it possible when we're out of town to try to contact him in order to confirm the message?
Or is that above our ability?

 

[TeaSpoon]

Can't we just teleport to Alaska or something? All we need is a place with no one around.

 

[bgrant]

[X] And then you go ahead and do the horrible thing anyway.
- [X] But not in the house.
-- [X] Or in your neighborhood.
--- [X] Or anywhere in the town limits.
---- [X] and you're going to have your sword and every defensive spell you've got ready to go when you start the horrible thing.

I may change this vote as things come together. As much as I dislike this, leaving someone in Hell (one of them, anyway) isn't acceptable.

 

[SuperSonicSound]

The bad thing about the desert (other than being entirely to damn close to people) is that it's going to be similar to natural terrain for those from a Fire and Brimstone Hell, full demons are higher up the threat scale than we are and we have no clue how many will follow Ambrose through or what condition Ambrose will be in with respect to health or mana.

If we don't manage to get all of them we've basically become responsible for allowing those demons access to the populace. If their at sea that becomes less likely or at least will take them longer.

We also don't know yet if the call is legit! It could be Ambrose testing us or in genuine need of a hand (or both). It could be likewise someone impersonating him and creating the static themselves as obfuscation wanting us to run up the flag for some demonic entity(s). Since there's a non-zero chance of that thinking outside the box and where we might be expected to set up a beacon is just good sense. In all three cases.

Edit:

Since I've got to run to work now a quick list of essential defensive spells

Mage Armour
COP: Evil
Obscure Object/Scry Ward
Resist Fire
True Seeing (Incase someone's pulling a fast one)
(And for raft a Stabaliser and Water breathing/movement)

Click to shrink...

The problem with the raft idea is the majority of devils and demons that would be even slightly threatening can all fly with good manoeuvrability, alter winds isn't going to do anything to stop them being able to fly so the raft idea does nothing to impair them except give them completely open terrains and no defensive features for us to use to block line of sight or provide concealment.

The demons in question will also either be using an active portal or teleporting them selves across planes. That means they do not have a time limit until they disappear. The demons in question will have more or less infinite effective stamina and so the ocean will present no barrier to them getting at population centres.

Therefore the best thing to do is to hole up where Alex can prepare the area best for himself to fight in and impair any enemies that come through. We absolutely must ensure that any demons that get through are destroyed.

Assuming this is Ambrose and it's not a trick.

The raft in the ocean plan gives alex more problems than the demons that are able to fly naturally.