Chapter II: Lochy i płazy
Welcome back, after a short intermission. As you remember our party of thieves, genocidal cutthroats and diabolist witches brave adventuresses and a half-orc managed to clean out Welkwood Bog and gained a level in the process.
Finally!
Time for the favourite part in any cRPG.
We pick a fighter level for Anna Rexia and choose weapon finesse feat. That'll make here able to hit something smaller than the door to the barn.
Bitch Whoreson!!
She scores 6 hp on hp roll which ain't tragic. But could have been better :/
Clausewitz gets level 2 barbarian. There's nothing much to it – he doesn't get any new feats or anything. Good hp roll – has now 27 hp.
Same deal with Miss Bee. Apart from entangle and cure light wounds she memorises Produce Flame spell.
Aislinn does not learn any new spells, except for 0 level Ray of Frost.
Nex learns Burning Hands and Protection from Evil. Both ladies roll... averagely...
I think somebody does not value his life.
Like, totally.
Anyway, we go collect our rewards...
You don't mean to tell us you forgot to get us rewarded after the whole deal with spiders?!
Uhm... no! Not at all! This way please!
We get whooping 100 gold for our noble deed.
Gee! Wonder what we'll do with so much cash.
Scribing all those scrolls we used up previously cost us more than 150 GP.
Whatever! Anyway, any of you girls remember what the hell we came to this gods forsaken shithole in the first place?
Uhmm...
Errm...
Hmm...
Me neither
Jawoo!!!
*Clausewitz rushess off*
What's the deal with him!?
My guess is... it's this time of the month!
Probably.
Oh, well. We'd better go after him before bites off someone loins or something.
Finally, our heroines manage to locate strayed half- orc in a small earthish cabin.
Jawoo!!!
Lookie me here. I think I had a sudden recollection.
Good boy, Clausewitz - you've found him. Have a biscuit!
“Munch, munch, munch”.
Predictable. Yet again we'll be running errands for clerical fools.
ehm...
...who cannot make their people band up and take care of their problem themselves.
Ever the sunshine, aren't we?
While we are at it, let's visit the other chief religious leader round here.
What for?
Divine guidance?
So what did I tell you about running errands?
Well, let's go to the blacksmith then. We must sell our stuff before going anything.
You mean that oafish
droid druid? I bet he will have us do some preposterous shit like bringing him the head of a troll or something.
How about going to the inn. Before deciding where to go now, it'd be good idea to prepare ourselves accordingly.
Thus a number of fresh Cure Light Wounds and Produce Flame scrolls, as well as Mage Armour, Protection from Evil and Sleep scrolls are written
So, where are we headed?
The original plan was to do the fetching quest, first. Seeing how we are totally unprepared for fighting hordes of undead dwelling there, it's better to postpone that for later?
We are going to the swamped mansion, right?
Oh, the excitement of fighting of snakes 'n' spiders and...
frogs?
There's not much to say here. We just bash it...
and it dies – from a successful sneak attack by Anna Rexia.
The thing is, by creeping behind the frog's back she attracts two more hostiles.
What you see here pretty much made this fight so rage inducing I have no words for it.
Simply put, the froggies resist every attempt to put them to sleep.
For two bloody turns!!
which leads to a lot of more mess than this encounter should create.
At the time when Anna Rexia is swallowed by one frog and Clausewitz grappled by another.
Damned amphibians!
Luckily, Aislinn finally manages to tranqulize... one of them.
Damned amphibians!
Which did nothing to stop the frog from grappling Clausewitz with its tongue.
So enraged our heroes are by this that Anna Rexia guts her way to the surface from the frog's belly with a sneak attack, and Clausewitz one-shot critics the other!
Naturally we dispose off our barbarian attached himself too much to.
Bye, bye froggie.
We meet another frog, and exact a terrible vengeance for the previous battle/
We head east, enter the courtyard of the moat house and to our surprise...
we meet with opposition.
Clausewitz slashes through the first foe.
Aislinn puts three more of them to sleep.
Miss Bee entraps the opponents to the far east with Entangle.
The rest is history.
We enter the tower to the south.
Where we meet violent opposition.
Ok, lasses and slave, here's the deal. That's the last Sleep spell we have. If that fails we are pretty much screwed. So pray to any deitic entity you have... preferably to your pretty, glorious, awesome, amazing, and above all, humble sorceress aka moi.
As usual, justice prevails.
Loved the :humble: part.
Anna Rexia Guess who gets her slender hands on the treasure.
Scrollies!
After night's rest we loot the bodies of all that stood in our way, to sell it in town (we are kinda low on cash now). We find a nice ring on a frog, which is connected with a quest.
We collect a elven cloak from Black Jay, along with some xp.
Then we sell all the loot.
On our way back we meet more victims. There's nothing significant going on except for Aislinn getting hit in the first turn and temporarily losing two constitution points.
You call that nothing significant?!!
Once we've arrived we go around the keep to find a secret passage in the north-eastern part of the wall. I have a gut feeling we are in for a fight.
Gut feeling my arse!
Expecting unpleasant welcoming, we prepare ourselves with Mage Armour spell cast on our wizardess and sorceress, as well as we put Protection from Evil on Anna and Clausewitz.
The combat initiates and, as you can see the first to get hurt was Aislinn. Fortunately she still stands.
Clausewitz and Anna Rexia strike back for 2 and 10 points, respectively.
Anna Rexia manages to put to sleep one for – but by far, the most dangerous one.
Miss Bee casts Produce Flame and deals some major damage herself. Something tells me this gonna be her spell of choice for some time.
Aislinn takes over and “silences” another bunch. Melee fighters hurt one another with sharp, pointy objects.
Nex casts Grease, while Bee throws another fire ray at the opponents.
Aislinn casts sleep on the two remaining foes, finalizing the fight.
You know what comes next: cutting throats, looting, healing etc, etc.
We leave through the northern door. The corridor turns south and we soon are faced with this:
As you can see Anna Rexia was very unfortunate to be struck once, when the Viper engaged combat, and a second time when she tried to flank it.
We fight on with raging Clausewitz...
DEATH TO CONSOLEFAGS!!!
being the only thing standing between victory and total doom...
*Ehm!*
beside our battle droid, wizardess, and – oh, so glamorous – witch, that is.
Anyway, Aislinn casts Ray of Enfeeblement from a scroll draining away 6 Str points – which explains why the damned snake misses turn after turn later on.
The half-orc deals smashing damage and cuts the Viper's head off.
Miss Bee saves Anna from sure demise with two scrolls of Curing.
Being tired, and magicked out, we go to the spider tower and rest a little while.
Then we go the lower level of the moathouse.
As you can see, in the lower left-hand corner there's feast going on.
Zombiez! How exciting!
Except not
Anna Rexia is in the pinch again. Have no fear, though - mighty Clausewitz is here!
Harragh!
It was not very challenging, but very resource consuming. Yet again, we go upstairs, to the tower and rest a day or two.
Upon return, we go to the northern chamber and fix ourselves some nice cloaks collected from an unguarded chest. Every party member puts them on.
We turn to the south-east. Upon entering a new room we are faced with this monstrosity:
Thanks to Aislinn's supreme Charisma score we bluff our way through.
No, ogre smashing? Ohhh
Before venturing forth, however:
We free some would-be heroes...
and get a small token of gratitude this way.
We proceed downstairs...
To find what we've been looking for.
More sacrifices to the dark gods?
Precisely!
*Major battle*
We start off combat with Nex boring putting a Bugbear Archer to Sleep.
Almost immediately after that Aislinn does pretty much the same with the other.
Fortune fails us this time, however. Once we leave the combat mode it immediately reinitiates and a Bugbear warrior storms into the room. After a barrage of attacks - all of them misses I check the creatures AC – it's goddamn 19!
Leaving for later pondering on how a bugbear with a flimsy leather armour can have so high armour class, Aislinn decides to use it towards our own advantage.
Can I have a word with you, oh not-so-handsome...?
… and converts the bugbear to our cause.
Two more bugbears rush in. Meanwhile Nex casts Grease, and Bee conjures up Flame, which he immediately uses to hit the monstrosities quite hard.
We exchange some blows and charm another foe. Nex has cast a Protection from Evil magick on our barbarian.
With invaluable help from our temporary allies we best a barbarian bugbear – but only after he uses up potions of cure wounds on himself.
What a waste!
Miss Bee heals everyone with her scrolls.
Nex uses a scroll of Sleep on a She-Bugbear. The heroes run onwards leaving their “allies” behind.
A full turn later Nex reads another scroll and a single foe loses consciousness. Everyone focuses fire on the single aware target.
We kill the last foe and gain a level. Before actually levelling up, however, we dispose of sleeping foes and charmed “friends”.
Both Clausewitz and Anna Rexia have quite good hp rolls. The former picks a level as a barbarian and gets Cleve cleave feat. The latter chooses to develop her skills as a rogue, and becomes more mobile (Mobility Improved Initiative feat).
Miss Bee gets herself an Augmented Summoning. Now the battles should 
by over 9000! Her hp roll is abysmal, nonetheless.
As you can see Aislinn, becomes more charming than ever.
Nex is going to be our main item crafter, so it's no wonder she pick Craft Wondrous Item. I fuck up with her spell selection though. Instead of choosing the best 2nd level spell like EVAR, I pick Web and Cat's Grace.
You witless fool! You doomed us all!!
What can I say? I was tired and dizzy! 
Spare me your pathetic excuses worm!! I will have your guts!. I will squeeze them out from you LIKE FROM A GODDAMN CATTERPILLAR!!! YOU SHALL KNOW PAIN VERMIN!!! I WILL...!!11111
And so it lasts till the next morning, when our well-rested heroes resolve to do what has to be done. Not that a mistake was forgotten, and all...
… I will have my minions scrap the flesh from his bones....
…. but there are more pressing matters to presently attend to before wrapping up this update, them being Ogre slaying:
As you can see the noble, the charming heroines and their mongrel Orc took full advantage of the ancient art of pre-buffing and pre-summoning. Thanks to that they do not suffer a scratch.
Miss Bee has to be commanded in that battle. Her augmented (+4 to Strength and Constitution) Black bear , dealt most of the damage hitting the colossus three times per turn.
In this last screenie you can marvel at Clausewitz delivering skull smashing critical blow.
Warghhh! Da hed got cracked! No souvenir
There, there, big boy. There, there
And that would be all for now. In the next thrilling episode, we shall reveal what nefarious force dwells deep within the bowels of the moathouse and get our arses kicked deliver justice, rage and nya to it. Till the next time. 
