Hardly that, as it turns out, a sizable sod-and-log cabin, one that manages to suggest cramped, but cozy. Almost certainly a magical construct, of sorts, you decide; you don't remember it from your earlier scan of the terrain. You detect no guards outside, but are unable to scry within, affirming your belief that it is a magical construct, perhaps even possessed of an extra-dimensional interior.

Scinnari takes her time. Putting your scrying aside for a moment that becomes a long hour, you ponder idly on the subject of your goddess- Her domain must be an interesting one; dragons are probably the single least likely creatures to worship... And the single most powerful mortal followers she could have. Presumably she knows about your idle thoughts- after all, she is a true god, perhaps /the/ true god. Could you consider this service to her? Protecting her temple, perhaps dedicate their deaths to her name? While you could declare it so, that smacks of double-charging, claiming to do it for your goddess while doing it for yourself. Would that offend her? It probably wouldn't impress her, at the least. Do these thoughts themselves offend her? You spend a few minutes playing with your medallion of thoughts, skimming the thoughts of the guards and servants in the palace... No, you conclude, she can't possibly take offense at mere thoughts, at least, not at all thoughts. Any god that took exception to thoughts, well, they'd run out of followers rapidly. Or their smiting claws would dull from use-

Scinnari returns, finally, and you rise irritably to greet her. “It's only been a few hours; think you took long enough?” you remark acidly.

“I... Yes. There were difficulties in... I'm sorry for the delay. I did, however, bring what you asked.” she replies. And more; her longbow is slung over her shoulders, and her sword rides at her hip. She's brought yours, too; you'd stopped wearing it, as your reflexes to go for your sword conflicted with your stature as a sorcerer-king, and with your growing magical skill.

“I see. Thank you.” you say, accepting your weapon, and the wand she produces for you. “You've at least spent your time well. It's a little mountain ridge, a couple dozen miles east of here. Are you ready?” your words lose their steel as your discussion turns to business.

“Of course. Whenever you are.”

>>13645271
Bring Asha. When going after adventurers, more stabby goodness can't hurt. I'd almost say bring her kids, too, since they've been training for assassinations since forever, but this might be a bit much for their first big job.

When we move in, do so stealthily. Be wary of alarm or other ward spells; be sure to detect and dispel any which are present. Ideally the first news the adventurers will get of our presence will be making up magically bound with blades at their throats.

Also bring knockout drugs. Strong ones.

How about as our first order of business not being such a dick to Scinnari for no reason. Apologize for being irritable and ask her what the delays were, and maybe confirm that we hold the whole losing-adventurers thing against her.

Then teleport outside the adventurer cabin and ask Scinnari and Asha for ideas on how to get in unnoticed, as they have at least one pureblooded elf who won't be asleep.

>>13645362
>bring Asha
Are you sure that's wise, considering that she's currently pregnant?

>>13645425
She can still stab things. And by like a month; I doubt she's even showing. Pregnant women can keep working even at highly physical jobs much closer to their date than this.

>>13645367
>and maybe confirm that we hold the whole losing-adventurers thing against her.
AGH! Maybe confirm we DON'T hold that against her.

Stupid typos completely changing the entire meaning of my post.

Writer-dude... why must you deny me my sleep again... ; . ;

Also, I think there was a suggestion to bring a wand of paralysis or some such.

Okay, so they've got a secure shelter, meaning that the entrances are all arcane locked and alarmed.

Fuck yes Dragon Quest! Favorite time of the week!

Do one of two things;
1. Polymorph into Verra and destroy them.
2. Fly above them invisible and outside of magical detection range to a much higher point in the mountains. Let them tire themselves out. Then Silently and suddenly take them down while they're vulnerable and exposed.

The big question to determine which to do is when exactly were they expecting Verra.

>>13645766
Well, we took precautions against having them contact her, so hopefully they won't know what's going on just yet. But we have to remember that their wizard can teleport them away if they're in trouble; we can't use any strategy which doesn't account for that. Either by dimensional anchor or taking him out quickly.

Personally, I'm inclined to just straight stealth up. Secure Shelters are not exactly impenetrable to a well-planned approach.

>>13645506
Because I am sadistic. And I did see that, it has been produced.
########################


"Alright. What were the difficulties?" you ask, moving to the door.

"A-" she starts, pausing at your single as you open the door and speak to the guard.

"My servant, Asha, fetch her. Tell her to be prepared." you order. The guard nods, expression carefully neutral, and you shut the door.

"I... It was a minor inconvenience, my lord. Not- I would rather not discuss it." she says evasively. You press.

"Really? Ah... you have served me well for years, and you have never been late without reason." you say, "If something significant enough to delay you for a few hours cropped up, it sounds relatively important."

"I... Would rather not discuss it, lord." Scinnari replies stiffly. Strange. And not.

"I would assume this means you are.. preserving our trust?" you ask, "As we discussed a few weeks ago?"

"I... that assumption could be made, lord." she replies, still oddly formal, but grateful for the relent.

"I- see...." you say, changing your words at the knock. "Enter." you call, and turn back to Scinnari. "We shall discuss this later, I suspect." you say. "Asha. Welcome. We have an order of business tonight, or this morning, rather."Asha. Thank you for coming."

>>13645874


"You word is my command, master. What would you have me do?" she replies demurely. A number of things leap to mind, some of which what you suspect the guard to think you intended with her; you resist the urge to order some of the more violent things done to the guard.

"We have some people to deal with... for queen Seffestranias, the good goddess Tiamat, and myself." you reply. "You are equipped?"

"As you ordered, lord." she replies. You nod. Of course.

"Very well..."

##############################

The mountain ridge is snowing, just slightly. The flakes melt when they hit the ground, in most places, but here or there it's starting to pile up. The cold air hits you as you arrive, though, nearly fifty feet away from the magical lodge. Remaining silent and still for a few minutes, you watch, and note the dim light flickering in the window, but no other signs of life within the hut. Probably a candle burning inside, you decide. Signalling for Asha to circle around and search for sentreis, you think similar orders at Scinnari. They both obey, Scinnari reporting that neither of them have identified any a few minutes later.

Not bringing the children for a run against adventurers capable of killing of us seems terribly smart in consideration we want them to be alive later on. Bringing Asha as always as extra backup could never hurt, at the very least it gives one extra target for them to be concerned about. Assualting them in their sleep would not be a wise move since we may have the advantage of timing, they know the location more than we do for the moment. Setting a trap ahead of them would be a wise move, as long as it was done correctly.

I was thinking of something like a Landslide at first ("Rocks Fall and Everyone Dies") approach, but I have to keep in mind the teleportation issue from the wizard. The Wizard teleporting out with the party means a double failed mission since we didn't keep up our end of the bargain of killing them and we also let them escape. We can't have something as simple as this tarnish our record can we?

Wizards are known for poor reflex saves at the very least. Incapacitating one at range and then doing a landslide on top of them should be pretty effective and in line with our sorcerer king visage. I think we also just picked up a magic bow, maybe it will be of more use in the hands of a skilled archer?

Other consideration is trying to do a physical approach in melee. We already know they are capable of detecting someone invisible if they don't do a good job on their approach, so trying the same trick with three people doesn't seem to be the best idea if we want to go for surprise advantage.

>>13645893
[Forgot to ask for dice, along with next instructions.]

Ah Fuck it. If we're already there why not just rockslide/avanlche the entire encampment and work on it from there if possible. Natural disasters happen all the time do they not?

>>sectices camp

>>13645966
>>13645905
A rockslide will bury and possibly destroy our main objective: the loots.

You know, glass is pretty expensive, historically. It's plausible that there are no windows there, meaning that the light we're seeing is either from a wicker affair, or perhaps shutters. We could sneak closer and peak through there, perhaps even fit the tip of the wand through there and paralyze/hold person them all before they're aware that we're here.

>Webster, Dectux
I'm naming my next character that, Captcha.

rolled 41 = 41

Pfft. Who says /tg/ dice roll low.
Check 'em.

I think we need more information. Detect magic on the shelter to see if the doors are locked, warded, alarmed, ect.

Sneak up invisibly from a side without windows, surely there is one of those, and creep around underneath the windowsills to the front and check for mundane alarms and locks.

If shit gets bad at any point, transform and RIP AND TEAR them, with wizard as first target. Mind blank amulet with AoE effects should ensure nobody sees us do so.

rolled 60 = 60

dice

>>13645996

I really don't expect a bunch of snow or rocks to finish off the adventurers by any means, especially when they are in an extra-dimensional space. I think it's just a good opening move in erasing their prepared defenses and disorienting them for a better attack. I fully expect them to teleport out of whatever their trapped in.

Regardless a detect magic on the local area would be helpful in finding their defenses. With the wizard around, their probably relying on arcane traps to set-off and alert the adventurers.

Just kool-aid-man through the cabin in invisible dragon form (OOHHH YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAH!) sure their alarms will go off, but they'll still be caught flat-footed and fucked.

>>13646049

Is reverting the best idea here as a last resort when there is the possibilty of the adventurer's being able to teleport away and also if Seffy is potentially scrying the area. I'd hate to overplay our hand just to ensure success, especially when their expecting on dealing with a dragon as their main opponent before they even set foot on this mission.

Love to keep one of them alive also for interrogation reasons too.

Unravel their mystal traps via magic. We're pretty damned magical (we're a dragon, we're high level, we've been stated to be something of a prodigy) so it shouldn't be too tough.

>>13646143
You did not read at all. I specifically answered that. We have a MIND BLANK AMULET with area-of-effect.

That means the only way for anyone to scry on us or the area would be epic magic. Not even Wish or Miracle could do so.

>>13645893
Play things cautious. Detect the magic they have in the area; invisibility for Scinnari now since she's got telepathy going on.

I think our overall plan here should be for the stealthy approach. If we do decide to get blatant, smacking the whole shelter with a dispel should give us a surprise round- not to mention that they won't be sleeping in armor, etc.- in which to paralyze and/or charge the wizard, and then we can mop up the others without too much trouble.

rolled =

Wait them out. They'll be more vulnerable when they're on the move. Let them wear themselves out on the trek up the mountains. Above all, remain undetected for now.

>>13646174
you know, technically, I think it only affects a hundred feet around us, or something.

Meaning that a Certain Someone could be scrying on us from, say, a few hundred feet away. Which would be far away, enough they couldn't hear our words, read messages we wrote, or spy on us meaningfully generally, but would actually be totally near enough to notice if we turned into a fucking dragon.

Just saying.

>>13646202
>They'll be more vulnerable when they're on the move.
No. No they won't.

You don't sleep in armor. Experienced adventurers might well /travel/ in it, however, especially to a dangerous encounter like the temple after noticing a tail the previous day.

>>13646263
What? That's not how it works at all. At. All.

You can't see anything inside the warded area via scrying. Period. You don't have an "eyeball" when scrying, unless you are using the spell Arcane Eye, which creates a floating eyeball to look through. Even then, any areas protected by warding are unable to be entered or seen into from outside the area.

It's a completely blank zone, the protection is absolute. You can't "see in" from outside the sphere.

Circling around the cabin, you approach from above it; it seems to be set into the slope of the mountain, utilizing the mountain for a back wall and fireplace. The lack of windows allows you to safely get close enough, and you quietly lower yourself down to the right of it.

It smells of magic, conjuration in particular, but you detect no other enhancements, beyond it's own construction. Not alarmed, as far as you can tell. Turning your attention instead to the window, you look through the shutters. Four beds, bunk beds, actually, lie around the interior, two of them occupied. One person, the bald one you guessed to be a wizard, sits at the table, reading a book by candlelight. The sun elf you spoke with, probably a bard, you suspect, sits half up in his bed, trancing, probably. Elves are such light sleepers, so annoying, sometimes.

They don't appear to have noticed you. That's good.

"They don't seem particularly well guarded." you observe to Scinnari mentally. "Perhaps they didn't take you seriously."

"I don't believe they figured out who I was." she replies, "I-"

"My apologies. I shouldn't be holding this against you. I meant no attack." you reply. "Let us see.... Asha reports nothing from the other side?"

"No. The same. The only door seems to be in front." Scinnari relays after a moments' pause.

>>13646637
>I blame captcha
###########

"The door..." you say, following the walls of the house. You go over it thoroughly- no alarm spells as far as you can tell.

"Simply smashing the cabin could prove the best option." Scinnari offers.

"Yes, I did make a comment about falling masonry and spellcasting, didn't I?" you muse to yourself, "Nevermind. Dinner with Seffestranias. It'd still prefer not to revert unless I have to- If one of them succeeds in escaping, it would be inconvenient."

Testing the handle silently, you ease the door open, slowly and smoothly. The wizard does not notice, looking down at his book, and you bare your teeth. Fitting the wand through the crack in the door, you will some power from it, aiming at the human. He goes still, totally, except for his eyes, which you see darting around. Limited by the fact that his head is looking down.

Entering fully, you activate the wand upon both the elf and the other adventurer, the grey-skinned half-elf. They don't wake, and you pause, holding the door open. Not so much for the effect, though you cloak billows about you nicely, but to allow Scinnari and Asha in behind you.

"Where shall we start, then?" Scinnari asks in your mind.

>>13646644
We brought our knockout drugs, right? Tell me we brought out knockout drugs. I know we said to.

So use them on everyone and strip them of all their nifty magic gear. And other shinies. Then, when they're comfortably much less dangerous, tie them up, separate them, and we can have happy fun interrogation time.

Strip them all naked and get them away from any objects like beds or tables, we don't want any magical item... surprises.

After that, bind them all with mundane restraints in addition to magical ones, paying special attention to gagging and immobilizing the fingers and toes of the wizard.

Then we dispel them all and do an Evil Monologue, starting with the fact that they were very foolish to attempt to kill us. Very, very foolish. Inform them that we are so very far out of their league that they are no more than insects to us.

It's probably not true that they wanted us dead, from the sound of it they had no idea what Verra was up to. Still, best to put the fear of the gods into them and see how they react.

>>13646644
>>13646637
OH

OH GOD

WE'RE DRAGON IRENICUS AT THE START OF BG2

>>13646787
Pic related

>>13646787
I can not be caged.

I can not be controlled.

Know this as you die. Ever pathetic, ever fools.

>>13646787
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq9N9ddsKg8
I approve.

"They came as you rested, figures cloaked in mist that clouded your thoughts, blurring the lines between consciousness and dreaming. There was no malice, no hatred. Only quick capture, and the promise of grim deeds to come."

>>13646644
Have Scinnari and Asha strip the adventurers bare and tie them up. Take especial care with the wizard.

And no monologuing until we have them firmly ensconced in our dungeons.

>>13647069
I would like to monologue now because we can get information from their furious denials, and perhaps extract what they were going to take from the temple, as well as what guards it.

We need to do this now, obviously, or else Seffy will get there first.

>>13647093
I thought we promised not to loot the temple in the last thread.

>>13646890
I am sad that I have no sound. Also, I am unable to connect to the IRC chat. However, I am back.

####################

"Scinnari, you and Asha are to assist me in disabling the wizard." you order, beginning by closing his spell, and pulling it away from him. Scinnari relays your commands, and after gagging him, you begin stripping him of equipment, gear, and, eventually, clothes. With good reason, it turns out; Asha locates a pair of spell scrolls sewn into the inside of his pants. Commendable caution, but sadly misplaced. He breaks free of your enchantment in short order, but by then he is facing not only your enhanced strength, but Ashas, along with Scinnari's invisible assistance. You truss him up soundly, taking care to make sure his fingers are adequately swaddled in bedsheets from one of the empty beds, then leave him face-down on the floor. Refreshing your enchantments of paralysis, you turn to the sun elf next. He, proves an easier task, less mental conviction, you suspect, than the wizard. The final one, however, proves totally immune to your spell, waking as soon as you touch him. While not terribly strong, he is extremely slippery, and actually manages to break away. Asha cuts his throat, perhaps in panic, and you drop him with disgust as he begins bleeding out on the floor.

Which still leaves two survivors. You let the stew as you strip the cooling body, tentatively identifying a blood-stained belt as the possible cause of his immunity. Whatever the cause, you pile his artifacts on the bed, and turn your attentions back to the others.

"Take the wizard outside, I think." you order mentally to Scinnari. "Have Asha watch him."

"You wish to start with the elf, then? The surviving one?" Scinnari verifies.

"That seems worth while." you agree. "Let's see what we can find."

[dice 3d100]

rolled 67, 40, 38 = 145

>>13647105
Rollan.

rolled =

>>13647105
Heaven or Hell, lets rock.

rolled 16, 4, 30 = 50

>>13647151
SHIT captcha ate me email field.
Again. And with gusto.

rolled 18, 53, 92 = 163

>>13647105
Be scary. Be suave. Be an obviously annoyed epic level sorcerer-king who one of their compatriots tried to kill.

Hopefully we will find out everything in short order.

>>13647172
Wow. It's like the rolls from last thread are coming back to haunt us now.

>>13647198

On the plus side, we can't loose anything from the nature of these rolls. We just lose gaining potential information or items at this point.

>>13647133
>>13647172
>>13647181
OK, that's it for me. Night all.

>>13646174
Still catching up on this thread (fuck yeah Dragon Quest), but no, epic magic does not necessarily work against Mind Blank. You have to design something with a specific clause that allows it to penetrate a Mind Blank. Otherwise, not even epic magic can break through it. The only things that break a Mind Blank by default are a couple of psionic powers (Metafaculty being one of them), and even those require caster level checks to break through what are described as "impervious defenses".

Basically, Mind Blank = awesomesauce.

>>13647172
>>13647133
>67, 40, 38
##############

"I was summoned for the purpose of assisting you." you remark calmly, but with anger simmering underneath. It's not all act, either. Recounting the details is enough to get your blood boiling. "I provide answers regarding chromatic dragons that you would not have turned up in a lifetime's search, and ask minimal compensation. I even acquiesce to your requests for me to keep silent." you pause, calming yourself before continuing. The elf seems afraid and confused, and can't speak at the moment anyway. "And you send your comrade to kill me." you conclude, "To assassinate me in the streets. I consider your grasp of the basics of gratitude somewhat flawed. You may now speak." you add, a cue which Scinnari follows instantly.

"Great King, uh, Lord Prestor," the elf begins, and you scowl. "I... I honestly don't know what you speak of, though I have a sense of growing fear as to what it might be." he says, with an air of horrified regret.

"Then make your best guess." you instruct, glaring at him.

"I would... guess that Varra went and did something incredibly foolish, possibly after the money we paid you, an imagined need to silence you, or avenging some slight she thinks you dealt her. I assure you, we know nothing of the sort, nor would we have condoned it if we had known..."

"So you say." you declare, unconvinced. "What is it that you seek in the temple of the dragon goddess?" you ask, abruptly changing the subject.

"Wha-? Oh. Yeah. We have reason to believe an... index resides below it." he says, continuing at your prompt, "One that records... Oh, what did he say, one that lists naturally occurring vortexes, or something. Whatever, Aral says we require it for planar travel."

"Planar travel." you repeat skeptically. "And where, exactly, did you plan to travel to?"

"Ah, home, as it were. We've tried to keep it quiet, but we're here after a rather fateful battle with a lich; we've been trying to track down a way back to our plane for years." he replies. You sigh. It could be quite true. Either way, it would be very difficult to check.

"Varra. The ranger. She has pursued such... private vendettas before?" you ask, idly flipping through the wizard, this 'Aral''s spellbook.

"Yes. The evil little wolf has gotten us run out of more than one town where her solo escapades ended poorly." he says nastily. It sounds honest, at any rate. "I... Did you kill her?" he asks. You smile thinly, turning to face him. "I suspect her 'solo escapades' will no longer trouble you. The question remains, will anything else trouble you, ever again?"

"I dearly hope so, let me say that." the elf replies.

>>13647630
Sounds like a convenient denial to me.

>>13647434
Sorry, sorry, having connection problems again. I still seem to be around, though, so I'll keep writing.

>>13647646
>>13647630
It does sound convenient, but also possibly true. I say we switch to the wizard now and ask him the same things before deciding what to do with them.

Oh, ask what plane and what lich, and why they were fighting him.

Can we head to the temple and investigate the possibility of an index? We don't necessarily have to take it, but it should be something easily confirmed.

>>13647733
Agreed.

>>13647747
But do we really want to go dungeon delving without being properly prepared?

>>13647747
Remember, before going to the temple we will:

1. Transform into a red dragon far from the sight of anyone.
2. Invisify ourselves anyway.
3. When leaving, do the same.
4. If we ever do transform back into a humanoid form while in the temple we make it a different one from Lord Prestor.

I think first, we ask the elf why we should leave him alive. And note that "I stood by ignorantly while one of my companions betrayed and tried to murder you" does not qualify as a reason.

Then, no matter what he says, we tell our lady here to continue asking questions and find out anything interesting they know, and move over to the wizard and interrogate him for a while, following roughly the same pattern.

>>13647776
It's a dragon temple. While it can in theory be dangerous to us, I would suspect it was more likely made for our kind than anything. While adventurers face guardians when plumbing ancient temples, the ones the ancient temples are meant FOR generally do not.

>>13647747
>>13647776
>>13647793
Let's thoroughly finish off this interrogation before beginning any investigations into the temple. Bear in mind that Seffy is likely going to be investigating the temple, and she's going to kill our minions if she finds it looted, or even sees anyone else there and decides to be a bitch. Or just decides to be a bitch. Point being, we do the temple thing carefully.

>>13647693
You should look into mIRC.

>>13647813
This sounds reasonable. Seffy IS quite the bitch, after all. No sense of style.

>>13647813
>Or just decides to be a bitch
Right, she's a lolchaotic evil red dragon; gotta keep that in mind.

I think we should avoid going to the temple at all- I mean, we're going to kill them anyway, right? Get some more answers, kill them, have Scinnari teleport our all loot back, and we're done. Going to the temple risks provoking Seffy, and we promised to avoid it.

Oh god, captcha is in greek. It's trying to silence me! It doesn't want me to be heard!

>>13647852
Man, we're not going to avoid a potentially awesome temple where we can find out ancient secrets the Dragon Goddess intended for our kind just because of THAT bitch.

We just do it carefully.

>>13647893
Fine, but I'd like to point out that temples are generally built for the glory of gods, as oppose to their worshippers.

>>13647954
A temple, by default, needs worshipers to be present or it's not really worth having.

>>13647852
Did we say we wouldn't go to the temple, or that we wouldn't loot the temple? It's an important distinction that I think needs to be made.

Also, greek? I've been doing captcha's math homework for the last week.

>>13648040
We said we wouldn't loot it. I don't think she will care about the distinction if we were found there by her in a form she knows.

>>13648075
So we switch to a different form. Easy.

"This lich. You fought it why?" you ask.

"Well, there's not too much to that, is there? I mean, sure Aral was after it for the- I think it killed his sister, or something. It was a few years ago." he pleads as you raise an eyebrow. "I went along for the story, Thorn for- well, that doesn't matter, now, does it?" he asks, with a sickly smile, "And Varra, as always, went along for the chance to kill something. Lucky us. We confronted it in it's keep, and... Well, I suppose pride isn't something I really have the option of." he says, attempting some self-deprecating humor. He withers under you glare. "He tricked us into a transit portal he set up, and dumped us here." he explains. "A, ah, rather inglorious moment for us."

"I see." you reply. "Perhaps you can give me a compelling reason to keep you alive, then? I should warn you, 'unknowingly letting your comrade attempt to assassinate me' will not suffice." you say, turning for the door. "SCinnari, I leave him in your capable hands." you add telepathically.

"Of course..." she purrs. "In such dire straits, I suspect he'd agree to a pact certain, even. With suitable limitations." she adds.

"Indeed, nothing that would truly allow him to escape, I think." you add, turning for the door.

Something is wrong. You pause, managing to avoid freezing. Don't give /him/ any clue, if that's the case.

"I suggest you think well. I am not in a good mood." you say ominously, casting about for what is putting you on edge. The spellbook. Gone. Tiamat's talons...

[Cont.]

>>13648108
see
>>13647793

>>13648126
Well, this is not good. He somehow got the spellbook without actually being in the room, some sort of spell to recall it maybe. Otherwise Scinnari would have seen him, truesight and all.

Asha is likely dead. We must be cautious.

>>13648178
No, wouldn't it be better to send Scinnari instead?
She's currently invisible and we took pains to make sure that her presence was not given away.

>>13648126
Get Scinnari to telepathy Asha and find out if she's okay/what happened. Dammit, should have knocked the fucker out.

You step out the door, in the process of casting a haste spell. Even though you don't have any at the moment, you feel your scales itch, as if shifting, uncomfortable.

What is wrong is quickly apparent- The sheets you bound the wizard's hands with, and the ropes you bound him with, are lying loose on the ground, empty. Asha is slumped against the cabin, slowly tapping weakly against the wall. When she sees you, she opens her mouth, as if saying something, but no sound is emitted. Silenced, you conclude. You put your back to the wall, getting under the overhang of the roof, and begin dispelling it.

"I- I'm sorry." Asha croaks once you dispel it. "I-"

"What happened." you order flatly, "Now."

"He silenced me, master." she says unnecessarily. You restrain your anger, wishing she would get to what you don't know, and drop the honorifics in the interest of speed. "Then his familiar bit me." She accompanies the explanation by twisting her wrist, showing you two small, deep holes in it. Fang marks, by the look of it. "I... don't know what else he did, but he turned to- to- a puff of wind, and vanished. I couldn't call, master, I was trying to warn yo-" she says, gesturing weakly with her other hand, the one that was tapping.

Cursing, you relay the information to Scinnari, glancing about for the errant wizard. You can probably see farther than he can in the darkness, but he isn't visible, nevertheless...

>>13648336
SIGH.

Slip our anti-poison ring on her briefly to get rid of the snake venom.

>>13648336
That incompetent bitch. Well, time to get downright nasty. Go back inside and inform the elf that his friend has departed. Further inform him that unless he rather quickly informs us of what his friend will most likely do, he will be flayed to the bone before we resume our attempt to find him.

Thankfully the wizard is naked.

OH! Locate object on the spellbook!

>>13648409
No good- He's teleported. He was ready to teleport Varra when she checked in, remember?

We are so fucked.

>>13648409
Haul Asha in as well and have Scinnari go for an antidote potion. Tell her to be quick about it.

>>13648348
Ability damage does not work that way. We might have a potion of restoration on us, however; that's a fairly reasonable part of the healing arsenal.

I am extremely disappointed that our trained assassin was blindsided by a silence spell and a snake- a TINY snake, since that's all they can get- and wasn't able to at least stab the fucker. She loses all brownie points that she gained for her work with the half-elf.

Locate object on the spellbook. Telepathically contact Scinnari and have her come outside, still invisibly, and use her truesight to sweep the area. Render the guy unconscious, have Asha go invisible and watch him after being potioned to be less fucking incompetent.

>>13648443
He may have, so? There are very few places he could go when naked, freezing, and without coin. We just locate that spellbook and teleport to wherever he is.

>>13648443
Then we use our crystal ball to find him and give chase.

>>13648471
Seconding your plan.

Then we try Locate Object on the spellbook; if it fails, we try the crystal ball.

"Scinnari. Fetch an antidote for Asha." you order. "I am going to chat with our friend."

"Is it really worth- Of course, lord." Scinnari replies, and vanishes. You return to the sun elf.

"In the interests of honesty, I will now inform you that your comrade has escaped." you state levelly.

"In the interests of honesty?" he replies dubiously. "I somehow doubt that. What do you want?"

"In the further interest of honesty, I will also now warn you that if you do not tell me where he would have headed, I will show you a world of pain. Beginning, I think, with skinning you alive." you add drawing the over-sized knife you took from Varra. From what you've heard, he may have seen this used for similar purposes before. It certainly looks like it, from the way he blanches.

>>13648684
>I blame Captcha.
#############

"I... There's a temple, of mystra, I think, back in Beren. He stopped there, occasionally. He could head there. I... I don't know about anything else. Ah... Our agreed upon place to regroup, should we need to was supposed to be up in Angevis proper, a tavern called the Pink Swan. Oh, uh, or on our home plane, if we found a way to do it. I'm not sure he'd head to either of them, though, since he saw, well, heard, you take the rest of us down so quickly."

You begin intently examining the edge of the blade. "Think. Carefully." you warn. Scinnari returns before he has a chance to answer, though.

"Give it to Asha, send her inside." you order, "And see if Aral is out there, too." you add, dwelling on the 'see'. She doesn't bother to acknowledge you, but obeys.

"I... He might... Perhaps he has returned to Beren, to try and convince the queen that you're after the temple instead of us?" the bard offers up, a air of panic in his voice.

"I find that doubtful." you reply, drawing the edge of the blade across his shoulder. A thin red line appears under the heavy dagger.

"Nothing." Scinnari reports, "I don't see him."

"Bring me my crystal ball, then." you order. A scant few seconds later, she appears with it. You hand the knife over to her, and turn your attention to the crystal.

[dice 2d100]

rolled 52, 84 = 136

>>13648691
come on dice!

How experienced are these adventurers at dungeoneering? They could perhaps prove useful in the temple of tiamat.

rolled 79, 18 = 97

Dice!

>>13648734
scratch that. I forgot one of them had to die.

rolled 93, 28 = 121

>>13648691
Come on, high rolls!

rolled 36, 66 = 102

roallan

>79, 84

#####

You have proved sufficiently, fast, it seems. You locate the wizard, hurriedly pulling a robe on, in a room of the temple of Mystra the elf mentioned. Rage boiling over, you are about to deal with him personally when the spell dies in your hands. You exhale a plume of dark smoke, enraged. Refusing to admit weakness, you try again, feeling the spell shape, form, and start to fall in on itself, with insufficient power to maintain it. Fueling it with your anger, you manage to hold it together long enough to cast.

You arrive in the temple, anger still burning, and with Aral not in sight. You exhale a fresh plume of smoke, image of the damnable wizard blazing in your mind. And his spell book, which he swiped from under you very nose....

You set off, not quite certain why, but utterly convinced that the spell book is /this/ /way/. You turn a corridor, brushing past a startled temple attendant, and slam a door open.

Aral jumps a foot in the air, spinning to face you, wand in his hand.

>>13649126
"Back!" he orders, distantly you note an odd accent. You ignore him, stepping forward, bringing him closer. He doesn't waste breathe on another warning, shooting a blazing sun-bright sphere at you. You ignore it and step through the conflagration, robes singed and emitting even more smoke, but otherwise unharmed. Only your enhanced speed saves you from his second attack, as he makes a vicious cut at you through the flames and smoke. You snake around his arm, grab it, and pull him forward with all the considerable strength and speed at your disposal. He stumbles, flying through the air, and impacts the wall with a sickening crunch, head on. It's not enough for you, though, and you slam him into the wall again, and a third time, enjoying the visceral feeling. He goes still and does not move.

"Mystra abov- Y-" a temple attendant mutters a horrified oath behind you, "He's-" Damnation. An unacceptable loss of control; he might still have been salvageable after the first. A pity. Ignoring the novitiate's horrified recriminations, you pick her up by her shirt. She squeaks and goes silent. You wait to make sure she's paying attention, then begin speaking.

"He..." you say, choosing your words, " was wanted by your queen. Some of her soldiers will be along presently, to deal with the body. Unless you make it, there will be no further trouble. When they arrive, you will show them in. Do you understand?" you ask.

"Of- of course!" she squeaks, obviously terrified.

"Good. See that you do." you order.

An exit is harder to make than an entrance, being too far drained to even consider another teleportation. Still, looking authoritative, respectable, and supremely confident, you are not stopped on the way out of the temple, and a much easier spell, one of invisibility, allows you to vanish into the city.

You must admit though, that wizard is pretty boss. Naked old elf dude running around a city/inn in a panic after Houdini'ing out of bedsheet restraints? Ossim.

>>13649139
Bald human thayan, I thought, but that wasn't specified. Suffice to say, yeah, it kind of is. Note to self: Never. Underestimate casters again. EVER.

What a clusterfuck. This is just... god damn it.

Whatever, head back and pick up the lone survivor. I say let him live and stay sane provided Scinnari gets a pact out of him and he's sworn to our service for his mortal life.

>>13649223

Gotta agree. This is goddamn humiliating.

>>13649230
shit happens, life moves on, hopefully with us

>>13649223
Seconding.
This entire fiasco is disgraceful.
Reminds me of our time back in Freeport where we nearly drowned because of a damn treasure chest.

>>13649134
We... killed him. No interrogation like we wanted. I trust that we at least remembered to grab his fucking spellbook while we were busy acting like an enraged incompetent?

If we can't teleport again, contact Scinnari. Inform her that she and Asha will be responsible for keeping the remaining captive secure, and that she should relocate all acquired loot to Mza and regularly check in on both still-living adventurers until we get more spells tomorrow and can move them to where we want them.

not sure how raise dead works in this setting butwe could throw in a raise dead to sweeten the deal. depending on their respect to their comrade we could get them to willingly submit themselves to a geas to serve us if we foot the bill for them.

We forgot the spell book!

Oh crap just realized we might have compromised our alternate identity with this super man display. if asked we could write it off as just someone who was hysterical.

>>13649372
We're posing as a sorcerer king. We can just pass it off as spell that make us strong and fast.

>>13649372
>hysterical
No. People know we're a sorceror-king. We just used the Bull's Strength spell.

Anyway. Assuming that we have all the loot we're going to get out of this, there are two tasks left before we can get the fuck out of this blasted country:
-Hammer out the details of who and how we're going to make this profitable trade agreement work.
-Investigate the temple, if we're going to.

We should do both as quickly and efficiently as possible, then get out of here. Of course, the former basically boils down to selecting nations which we'll be matching our own might and military against, so maybe we could leave that until we've done a bit more spying/scrying on the area.

"You want him?" you ask Scinnari over the miles. Thoughts bear enough context with them that you don't have to elaborate.

"Sadly, no. He has refused a Pact Certain, and I cannot force him to accept." she replies. "There is nothing you can do, either, I'm afraid. It cannot be made under coercion." She adds in answer to your unspoken question.

"Very well. Make sure /he/ is sufficiently restrained and guarded, and begin transferring their equipment to Mza." you reply. "I shall report the conclusion of this little... escapade to Seffestranias. And make sure Asha is... capable, before you head out." you add.

"Of course...." Scinanri reassures, and your mind returns to the city.

########################################

"The adventurers are dealt with." you report. It's only been a few hours since you spoke with her last, maybe four since you informed her in the first place.

"I see..." she replies. She met you in her 'hoard' room, in her natural form. Quietly attempting to loom over you, and you equally quietly ignoring her. So far you seem to be winning, if only due to your all-too-real air of irritation.

"The status of our trade compact. Is it finished?" you demand.

"My advisors tell me yes." Seffestranias replies, "I may hope yours tell you the same?"

"You may." you reply evenly. "I may be regrettably forced to return home shortly, now that my business is concluded."

"I see... Regrettably. Very well. I look forward to a profitable relationship with you, Lord Prestor. I hope it does not disappoint." Seffestranias replies with a fang-filled smile.

"Likewise." you reply thinly. "Very well." You turn and depart, meeting concluded by unspoken agreement.

I was hoping we could use our double-agent contact to secure favors from the envoys of the nations trying to take down Seffy. Having them owe us their lives for warning them of oncoming dragonfire would be a good thing to help us with negotiations in the future when we try to take over the country and secure their agreement that we get to rule it.

Oh man, I'm just realizing how pissed I'd be if I was playing that wizard.

First off, we're about to go handle the BBEG, and then WHOOPS he teleports you to another plane and now you have to find your way back!

Then we find a trade city run by a reasonably malevolent red dragon, learn that the portal home is in a temple of Tiamat, go to a tavern to get some information on what is obviously supposed to be the plot arc we're being shoehorned into, and the only guy we can get to tell us anything is king douche of the universe sorcerer-king who fleeces us for most of our loot in exchange for debatably helpful information.

Then our LOL CHAOTIC EVIL rogue up and decides to go assassinate him, he gets mad and follows us. I manage to escape from his associate, but our Bard rats me out under duress and gets us TPKed.

And when I ask how the hell he A: was immune to the fireball, B: could teleport to me through my wards/those on the temple of Mystra and C: Flung me across the room and effectively 2HKOed me, the DM gets to inform me that "LOL THAT'S 'CAUSE HE WAS A RED DRAGON TOO, BUT WITH SPELLCASTER LEVELS."

So, so glad we're not on the adventurer side of things in this affair.

>>13649609
It does look worse.

Say, we broke our spell-per-day limit, if we got four teleportation spells. Does that mena we gained a caster level?

>>13649646
I wouldn't count on it. Let's just put this whole fiasco behind us.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/teleport.htm

For the record, All he needed was to be able to speak to teleport using the standard rules. No hand motions necessary.

All in all, situation was handle without major incident. I'd love to get a truth spell going on the elf to determine he is actually telling the truth in regards to the temple (Zone of True, Discern Lies could both apply here, albeit their cleric spells). I'd love to ask the Wizard the questions but.... (Heh, speak with dead works here too)

>>13649646
It's more likely that it means our Binder-induced spellcasting talents have granted us +4 Charisma over most red dragons our age, and we had a bonus spel.

>>13649671
We had him gagged specifically for that.

>>13649673
Technically we could just be one of the outlier beings in the world. All stat lines are "average". We could just naturally be more charismatic than normal red dragons.

Plans for the near future:

1. Use fleet as planned to take some of those costal city-state ports, as we would anyway for the trade agreement.

2. Either negotiate, intimidate, or conquer the city states on the way to Beren, as planned also.

3. Contact the powerful city-states around Beren, the ones we saw the envoys of during our scrying on the merchant-noble. Arrange secret meetings with the leaders and say that we will take care of their dragon problem if they will back us as the new ruler of Beren afterwards. They will of course agree because Humanoid rule is what they want anyway, and this would be a chance to avenge the many many dead sons, fathers, brothers, ect. that Seffy has created.

4. Infiltrate Seffy's city and build up both support and gather lots of information on how best to take her down as she clearly does not have a very strong hold on the city, even after 15 years. A sign of incompetence.

5. Kill Seffy and take over Beren with the approval and support of the surrounding neighbors and leverage the fact that we already have a strong connection between it, the intermediary ports, and Mza.

6. Profit and laugh evilly.

It has come to my attention that a timeline would be good for the steps too:

1. Within a month from now.

2. Within three months from now.

3. Within a month of establishing our route.

4. Concurrent with 3.

5. No set time, whenever we are ready to finally assume control.

6. All day, err' day.

>>13649727

I disagree, Having control of a landlocked realm with potentially hostile nations between our original island and seffys place would do us little good, and cause a great deal of headache.

Our trade deal is a reasonable method of gaining monetary funds for the time being, and while Reds tend to be crazy at least they are predictable.

I think it would be more apt to start with one of the coastal nations with easy connection to our island if we are beginning conquest.

Your trip back is much more rapid than your trip to Beren, and punctuated by teleports. An flashy arrival and a meeting with the rulers of the towns in question is sufficient to exact their promises of neutrality, at least to your goods, particularly when you express sympathies regarding the dragon problem. Sure, you're assisting her at the moment, but it also puts you closer to her, should the need to replace her become... singularly important. And, of course, she's proven herself quite capable of laying waste, should she so desire, even without a fully equipped army. You leave them confident you have convinced them that you are not their ally, but more of a friend than Seffestranias will ever be. All but a lone port prove susceptible to your persuasion, and that port is not terribly important; you can bypass it or crush it at will.

There are a few things begging your attention, after that has been dealt with. Varra, for one, still survives, and has much to answer for. Her ally, the bard, is alive to, albeit having garnered less of your ire. Asha has recovered, as far as is apparent, and, though no words have passed between you on the subject, she is convinced she has failed you, something you don't exactly disagree with. You have made no effort to assuage of the guilt she feels.

[Only a few days have passed; we can either proceed to new topics, or conclude any details I've forgotten. Requesting 1d100, in any event.]

>>13649781
Note, steps 3 and 4 could take a long time to fully mature. Those times are for when we should have seriously begun and initiated those steps, not their completion.

>>13649807
We'll make them non-hostile through negotiations and promises to rid them of a powerful problem: the dragon.

rolled 13 = 13

>>13649821
dice

Incidentally, what's the bard's name?

>>13649835
Ugh, bad dice.

Someone else roll.

>>13649727

So....anyone else here want to take a stab at the metaplot going on? Our current versions of what is occuring do not match up between the adventurers and what we overheard how they were hired. That lord was quite clearly discussing about "how they'll succeed when other's have failed" and the story given to us by the elf (A bard none the less apparently, Why are we believing a bard telling us a story without fact checking?). Unless the adventurer's tricked the lord just to gain information for their own reasons, this doesn't really add up in the slightest, especially when we were able to eavesdrop on that merchant/lord when they have no reason to be suspicious.

Paying a visit to the temple as red dragon also isn't a bad idea as long as we bring something to sacrifice. It certainly wouldn't be out of place to do so at this point and we would be in the right doing so (Assuming there isn't a dungeon inside of it preventing us from gaining access).

So additional points:

-Interrogate our would be assassin some more and see what she says were there mission.
-Interrogate the elf. If found to be lying, we should have some more fun with him to work out our stress.
-Hit that noble's house and do the mind-read with the crystal since he's only a normal mortal. Should be easy enough and would give us more information.

I'd hate to lose our hand here if we are indeed missing something.

>>13649675
Still Spell only increases the level by one. Gaseous Form is only level two, and if my memory serves, you can use both Still and Silent on a spell if you have the levels for it. Once I could, I always had that prepared if I thought we were in any danger, back when I played DanD

rolled 57 = 57

>>13649821
Dice, and how many ports is all but one? And how important is this port? If we conquer it, what will the reaction be?

Honestly, I want a connection between us and Beren that is likewise owned by us and not intermediary states. We could persuade them to join us, perhaps? In exchange for protection?

rolled 74 = 74

Rollan

I am curious about this lich and planar travel. Also did we have the crystal with us in interdenominational space on our visit? If so we could ask the crystal what it thinks (taken with a grain of salt of course).

Also we could ask more questions about those the binder had bound.

>>13649821
Varra we practice our torture and brainwashing techniques on. She can provide us with a great deal of personal amusement as we test our abilities to break her into a loyal servant like Asha, and if we fuck up and ruin her it's no big deal because we can eat her anyway.

The bard guy... eh, he seemed all right. Throw him in the dungeon where he can listen while we mess around with Varra and let Scinnari keep making her sell-your-soul pitch to him. If he hasn't been persuaded by the time we're done playing with Varra, eat him too.

rolled 79 = 79

>>13649821
Varra becomes an 'honored guest' in our dungeons.

The bard, while still having earned some of our ire, sounds like he may be useful. However, the fact that we killed his party, and he won't accept a Pact, and he's an adventurer, are all negatives against his continued survival.

>>13649848
Let's not do all this. We've left Beren behind. Let's keep it that way. It's not worthy of our attention yet until we have regional allies set up who will support us after we take down Seffy.

One thing we haven't explored yet is the relationship between Tiamat and the Binder. A few questions of the crystal in regards to the relationship between the two might be a good idea. I'd also hate to go religious here, but the temple might provide a good source of potential independent information about the binder.

>>13649870
>>13649873
I say we try to mindbreak them both. So far we have only mindbroken females, and males may react differently.

>>13649895
Yes, but, well, females have that aesthetic aspect.

I suppose it can't hurt.

Any update on Azar?

Let's see what Scinnari's tender ministrations have done to loosen the ranger's tongue.

>>13649564
Millitary take overs are obvious and resented. Go for economic domination instead. Far more profitable, less resented, etc. . .

First lets see how the bard reacts to willingly serving us.If not we could break him but i don't see any use besides tying up any lose ends. We could find uses for him but mind breaking can diminish effectiveness.

If we really want to break vana we could simply point out that her party was dead because of her.

think a picture of nicola bolas is appropriate

>>13650013
Point. But we need to directly rule these cities if we are to have the level of control we want. Economic conquest could take decades.

>>13650026
>First lets see how the bard reacts to willingly serving us.
No. Are you retarded? We just killed his friends and tortured him, then tried to get him to sell his soul.

Absolutely not. He would say yes, vanish, and be a thorn in our side for years until he finds a real high level adventuring party that then comes and kills us.

>>13649684
We don't bother with brute force unless we have to, we charismatically manipulate ourselves to the top of the pile, we're particularly adept at spellcasting... yeah, I'd say we probably have more charisma than most red dragons do.

>flipme Ebony

Captcha thinks our trade agreement should involve ebony in some fashion. Thoughts?

>>13650027
To be fair we can go with decade long planes but simply unless we assume another identity we would give away that we don't have a normal human life span.

it would be preferable to engineer a crisis, removing any leadership or taking advantage of one. Then step in and save the populous. The best type of conquest where the people celebrate you taking over their city

>>13650027
. . . So? We have decades even with our cover identity. First we take over the economy, then we suborn the official government. Less hassle, more rewards.

>>13649892
I would like to add a hearty +1 to this. Investigating information on the Binder from alternate sources would be an excellent idea.

Actually since your bringing up other dragons how is that blue doing... the one with the broken wing. we could have our first test subject. however she could still be to powerful or the means still beyond us.

>>13650123
I forgot to clarify. i mean to test binding on if we can do it.

>>13650086
>>13650085
ITT: Morons who haven't read the archives, or if they did have no idea what they are talking about.

You want a tip? We're an epic elf sorcerer to the world, and that means we live well over 1000 years naturally. That said, conquering a measly few run-down cities is not going to raise enough eyebrows to make economic warfare worthwhile. Stuff in the free cities gets conquered all the time and nobody cares. It's status-quo.

Just conquer the ports.

>>13650138
Do you read nothing, ever?

Binding is expensive, we can't do it. We won't be able to for a long time.

The crystal proves itself useful, if somewhat annoying as always, in confirming the truth behind Baallan story.

"According to them, both of them, they are telling the truth in that regard. They both believe themselves to have originated on another plane, and to have been transported here by the lich they refer to. Actually, it might be a demi-lich, but their minds are not quite as... deep as yours or your dear lady's are. Details fade much more quickly, over the years."

"You said believe." you say, that word having caught in your mind. "That they believe. You did not say whether you believe them."

"Did I? I suppose I did." the crystal replies, pleased with itself.

"Explain."

>>13650167
"Technically, what they saw should not have worked. Analyzing rituals based only visual reports by ignorant humanoids is tenuous at best, but there was not enough power present in that to have broken the boundaries between the planes, nor was it very precisely channeled. Simplicity would suggest that their memory, and by extension, my analysis, is incorrect, though."

Offer no response. Echoing down the cavern corridor, you can hear Varra's agonized screams. Tougher than Asha was, she has still proven easily reduced to a sobbing, whimpering wreck by Scinnari's personal attention. You could probably begin the next stage, at this point, though Scinnari has promised that you could continue this one for a few more weeks without lasting or significant damage.

"Perhaps I should think on it?" the crystalline artifact offers. You snort, unimpressed with it's 'helpful' attitude.

"Perhaps you should." you say non-noncommittally. With a sigh, you replace where you normally hide it.


Your caves, at least part of them, have changed significantly. The lizardmen, your 'holy ones', have taken to carving in the walls, nothing as elaborate or detailed as dwarven art, for instance, but enough to add a new flavor to your western tunnels, near their catacombs. Their worshipful attitude has grown, slowly but surely, something with which you are rather pleased. In addition, your hoard has grown in your absence. Not literally, but there is a sizable pile of profits awaiting you on your return, which you add to your bed.

>>13650123
You know, blues are naturally lawful evil, and, like greens, I think, totally down with subtle machinations and planning.

She might make a more suitable waifu than Seffy. Also, didn't we promise Scinnari, um, eggs, or an egg, a long while back? What do we need to work on to be ready to follow through with that when the time comes? (Someone in a previous thread, I think, mentioned that we weren't ready, even with Mza.)

>>13650217
No, we promised nothing.

And we don't need to get a dragon mate or anything until we find one we like. Or ever, really, though we should at some point probably pop our draconic cherry, as it were.

Leave Verra to suffer another week, week and a half. Begin conquering the ports and way to Beren. See what is up in surrounding countries while our force does so, and what they make of it. I doubt much, as it's just the warring states area. We should also check up on our longterm spies who have been searching out the paladinic order and cult from Scinnari's past.

>>13650243
Err, that said, though we promised nothing I imagine everyone is fine with eventually doing it. I would just like to have an actual fledgling empire under our control first rather than just one tiny city-state.

>>13650167

I'd love to wipe the Bard's memory and make him thing we're the best thing ever, but alas I don't think such a thing is possible. Having a higher level bard travel the world on his initiative singing praises of us surely would never hurt, but there's no way this can safely happen.

>>13650256
Indeed. We're just going to have to crack him and deal with whatever damage happens. At least we will be getting good practice on the matter.

Wait. That thing Scinnari didn't want to talk about. The thing that delayed her.

We should revisit that.

>>13650290
Oh! Yes, I had forgotten. Good idea.

>>13650243
We kind of did suggest to her that we'd be amenable to the idea in thirty years, although we didn't PROMISE anything, per se.

The black still remains to the south of us, with his necromancer-jungle-elf waifu. (Or simply minion. And city of undead minions.) He seems worth dealing with sooner rather than later, though perhaps Tashz will do it themselves.

Hmm... We don't have to be ready to bind her to our will, I mean, that cult demonstrated amply that we can restrain her just fine with human restraints, provided she can't de-morph herself.

Just tossing ideas out, though, so feel free to ignore me.

Give me a roll for each mind rape in process, and one for the proposed invasion, please. Oh, and a fourth one for global purposes. Don't get that one low. Trust me on this.

rolled 3, 55, 62, 37 = 157

>>13650328
dice

>>13650299

At this point I'm fairly convinced we can turn this game into "Dragon Quest: Waifu Edition" and base the entire plot about advancing ourselves while acquiring and maintaining an extensive waifu collection. We're already halfway there!

rolled 38 = 38

Varra

>>13650328
>>Oh, and a fourth one for global purposes. Don't get that one low.

ITT: We get fucked by something we could have handled in the past and a low roll haunts us.

rolled 71, 63, 69, 100 = 303

>>13650328
Wow those were some bad rolls.

rolled 1 = 1

The bard.

rolled 86, 34, 81, 52 = 253

>>13650328
rollan'

>>13650359
You know what, I'm gonna stop now.

>>13650357
Aw yeah, 100 on the global roll.

Let's go take over city-states with impunity.

/tg/ dice, /tg/ dice everywhere

Hopefully the second round of 4 are the ones that count because damn, the rest really suck.

>>13650357
Yesssssssssssssssssssss.

>>13650398
Good to see that image again

>>13650299
>>13650290
[Apologies, /tg/ ate this post repeatedly.]
##################################

"So, Scinnari. It strikes me we have an unfinished conversation hanging." you begin that evening. You've taken to candlelight dinner in front of Varra- The candle serving mostly to outline the utter darkness of the cave, rather than show anything. Despite that, what little it shows of you, combined with your thoroughly inhuman voice has proven itself... extremely effective.

"Do we, lord? And what might that be?" she replies affably. You press the attack.

"If I recall, we left a certain topic on the floor of Beren's palace... You never did explain quite what held up your normally most-efficient service for so long."

"Ah... I believe I stated that I would rather not say." she replies.

"Yes, I do recall something to the effect. I'm still interested in whatever details you possess." you reply, smoothly switching to mental communication.

"Our... Agreement to truthfulness remains in place?" she asks carefully. You nod.

>>13650706
“Indeed, and with the trust that has grown between us, I would feel it a... severe betrayal, were I to find it broken.” you reply. She nods.

“In that case... I would rather not answer.” You move in for the kill.

“Would rather not... or cannot?” you ask. Her silence rings, an answer louder than any words. “Let us see... Why, I believed I could count those who though they could command you upon a single claw.” you continue, “I would assume, then, that this came from Glasya, or one of your lesser superiors?”

“I was ordered not to reveal.” Scinnari replies stiffly, but this time tempered with satisfaction as well as fear. “However, I did not think that would prove feasible. You asked me a question about my superiors, during our original... talk.” she starts suddenly. “I never answered it. Do you wish to press me for an answer to it?”

“I do, I do.” you purr, happy with your deduction and her cooperation.

“In that case, I can answer that my immediate superior is an erniyes named Jezirba, and her immediate superior is Zavaana, a brachina and noble of moderate status in Glasya's court.” Scinnari explains. “I... There are more intricacies, but they... do not translate well.” she offers with a hint of apology.

Well, I...

Am not sure what to say to that. I wonder if it would be possible to get into contact with her superiors and prevent these matters from happening in the future. I do not like having such things happen, and we might be able to 'buy' her off of them.

>>13650767
Ask, it can't hurt. We can't have our most valuable assets subverted in times of need.

>>13650767
She would probably like that a lot. If we could purchase her from the hells somehow then she would be bound to a mortal being instead of an immortal hierarchy. That means, eventually, she would likely be free of all bonds with time. I can see her having a strong interest in that as well.

>>13650802
To add to this, it would also remove one of the big obstacles to dealing with the hells: Not knowing the ropes. She would be working to be free as well and could offer insight into potential traps since it would be in her favor to do so.

>>13650716
I'm still wondering exactly what it was that delayed her. Her superiors contacting her with new orders? If so, involving what? We should push that angle I think.

>>13650716
>>13650706
You know, she also went right for trying to get that bard to sign a pact. She might have been told to send more souls down. Though I sort of doubt it, seeing as she is well on the way to creating a Lawful Evil soul factory in the form of an empire on the prime.

Could also be her superior is trying to take the credit for doing so, somehow. Hell politics is complicated.

>>13650835
Eh, she pretty much just said she is forbidden to tell us. That said, maybe we can... wiggle around that command.

>>13650802
Notable plan flaw: She might desire to hasten said freedom.

>>13650871
Yeah, but better that than having her under the thumb of a superior who can order her to do so and we can't influence in any way.

"I can't say that I like having you... co-opted, particularly without warning." you say with concern. "Would it be possible to... purchase you, or your services, more likely, from the hells?" you ask.

"I... Can inform them of your interest, but I do not find it likely." Scinnari states.

"Only if it would be something you desire." you offer, "My interests is selfish, yes, but not entirely. I would not wish it if you would find it distasteful."

"My lord, I am yours." she replies, touching her amulet briefly, "I of course would desire such an outcome, but devils being freed or exiled is all together rare beyond belief. Somehow, I think neither the archdukes and duchesses, nor Asmodeus himself approve of such happenings."

"I see. I thank you for your... assistance in this matter. If you truly do not object, my dear, do ask them next time you see them, though." you reply. "Why did it take so long?"

"I told you I had not seen them in several years... As long as Kazmiri had held me, and the sixteen hence. Someone had seen me as we traveled, and they had arranged to meet me." she explains.

"Seen you... I thought your choker protected you from such identification?" you ask with concern.

"It does, but devils.. recognize their own, I am afraid. Do not worry, mi'lord. Their interests were primarily in what I have been doing, and in you, when I... revealed you to them." she replies.

"I see. Thank you for your... honesty." you answer, "I am glad their hold over my... most priceless jewel is not as strong as they believe."

"Of course, my lord. How could it be?" she replies happily.

>>13650357
>71, 63, 69, 100

The annexation of Zilbrin, the single recalcitrant port, is almost flawless, both in execution, and in outcome. Your navy demolishes resistance, and your forces secure the town as per your orders. Your 'holy ones', prove excellent shock troops, and devoted to your very words; your orders are obeyed to the letter.

Once you occupy the town, you station a relatively small garrison to oversee it's occupation, but it's hardly necessary. The previous ruler was not popular, and while Lord Varian Prestor is not terribly personable, he is evidently a leader the people can live with.

Efforts to break Varra and Baallan proceed apace. Varra, though initially resistant, is not a terribly complex creature. Once Scinnari is done.. 'breaking' is such an inelegant, term, hardly fitting for the art she wrought; perhaps 'deconstruction' would be better. Once Scinnari is finished with that, you find that she is easy to control, albeit on a lower scale. Rebuilding her into your desired tool proceeds better than you had expected; she retains an unseemly appetite for cruelty to others and killing, but, like Asha, responds to your will as if it were her own.

Baallan is more difficult, sadly, but not terribly so. A more complex individual, Scinnari doesn't break him down quite as effectively, and he is caught trying to kill himself. The special treatment required to prevent that slows progress, but Scinnari assures you it has not halted.

>100
Duly noted. Don't worry.

>>13650955
How competent is Varra at arts we would wish to train our assassin cult in? If she truly is as good as we've heard, let's have it start immediately.

Also, let's see if we can secure other towns as well as the territory between them. Get some actual landmass going here, and the natural resources it represents. We can have ores, wood, and other such things shipped to Mza where we craft and sell them. Subsidiary cities, if you will.

>>13650948
Hmm. Rare beyond belief, but not impossible.

And there's always the fact that eventually we will be an epic caster and could snap the laws of reality like a twig to get her free. That will take a long time, however.

>>13651026
Carving chunks out of the shattered Angevis empire is an old, old hobby among petty warlords and respectable nations alike. Give me a 1d100, and we'll see how well you do gaining a sizable domain on the mainland.

rolled 71 = 71

>>13651067
Sounds good.

rolled 44 = 44

>>13651074
Aaaaand, second roll.

Incidentally, we're archived.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=dragon%20quest

Most of them are there, but 30 is mistagged and can only be found under "dragon" instead of "dragon quest" and 32 is mislabeled as "Beren Quest."

Have we heard any news about the black dragon?

>>13651074
Huh. It's no 100, but still decent.

>>13651102
Or about any efforts against Azar at all. There have to be a lot of paladins itching to crusade against something like that.

>>13651083
>>13651074
The nearest three towns, and a large swath of mostly uninhabited land are brought under your rule relatively bloodlessly. There are a few rebels, but there always are. Provided your commanders have level heads on thier shoulders, they should be able to handle things, and the region should stabilize. Seffestranias has offered some assistance, after observing your conquests, but you turned her down politely. Capable as she might be in that regard alone, you do not wish to appear any closer to her than you must, totally in spite of her other undesirable traits.

[It's getting on in the morning. If you people are willing to type up some broad instructions, we can enjoy a timeskip between threads, if you desire.]

>>13650948
Heh, we should ask Scinnari how the gold dragon soul effected her standings. And maybe ask her if a mindslave's 'willing' submission of their soul to please us would be considered as being without duress.

>>13651102
>>13651115

There are, as it happens. Several notable heroes or adventurers have headed off to find the source of the undead, a great black wyrm being a widely accepted but unverified rumor. A few even passed through Mza. Sadly, however, very few have returned, the skills of a small group apparently not quite a match for a full city of undead. Those that have returned, though, have reported the city to be being dismantled, brick by brick and plank by plank. The most recent say that the palace still stands in the center on the mount, but there is no city around it, just a flattened, leveled wasteland. A few sources of rumor have emerged, most of them agreeing with your letters, suggesting a great and evil dragon or an elven necromancer to be behind the deed.

>>13651120
Alright.

1. That list from before about undermining Seffy, do that stuff.

2. Requisition bards to spread word of our wonderful city of Mza, growing jewel of the world. We talked about the things to get them to sing about in the IRC, 300 of each should be enough to get a decent market penetration.

3. Try to import as much skilled labor as possible, financing their startup if they are good enough.

4. An underworld is probably developing by now. Have Scinnari adopt a guise and fully bring it to heel. Keep it around of course, you can never stamp out crime. Just make sure that all crime eventually traces back to her "Godfather" persona and by proxy us.

5. Get in touch with Cygnis, tell her we might wish to come back and see if we can... persuade Freeport to follow us. As Cibach of course, don't tell her anything about our Sorcerer-King persona. Not even a little hint. This is iffy, and if anyone doesn't want to then I will likewise agree to wait on it.

6. Spies checking after the order/cult in Scinnari's past, and begin to amass devil lore.

7. Begin breeding our assassin cultists when they are old enough.

[cont]

>>13651165

I guess the general plan is to:
1 consolidate our new lands/citys (have them see that we are good rulers)
2 broaden our mercantile assets (have a finger in every pie)
3 increase our military resources (mostly as an deterrent)
4 try to lay low (we don't want more people poking about Mza

>>13651026
She's a skilled ranger and huntress, and can teach those skills well, though perhaps lizardmen would be better suited for training them for jungle environs. Still, you will presumably have targets up north, shortly enough.

She's not a very good teacher, but learns quickly when well motivated. Your pleasure is hers, your displeasure her agony.

i am wondering if we could get or mind control an undead spy to spy on the city currently under the control of the black dragon. Hoping the Idea has never crossed the mind of the necromancer or the dragon.

Also we need to check up on cygnis and how free port is doing. Maybe reestablish relations with the kobalds so we have agents inside the city.

>>13651182
>>13651234
I kind of don't get everyone's reluctance to return to Cygnis. I think our evil love is plenty of justification. And if we have to keep her in chains for a few decades until we're ready to do the bindings, well, no matter, right? The cult proved it can be done, unless she was just playing along with them. (Hint: I don't think she was.).

Yes, I am >>13650305 , not trying to samefag here. Just reiterating an opinion.

>>13651182
8. Continue to build up trade, and establish a Royal Merchant's Guild. This way we won't just rely on taxes, but we will have an actual guild whose profits all go to our hoard. Don't get too greedy though, we want competition and growth at this point not a monopoly.

9. Continue building our army and navy. Drill them and formalize it, and create a ranking structure. Have our Holy Ones completely separate from this, and make sure they are even better... the best we can do. They are our personal bodyguards, they need to be tough as nails as well as fanatical.

10. Create a city guild of engineers from the most prestigous minds of the lands and have them lay out a grand design for our island for all the forseeable future. So that even when it is built up to a super-metropolis and they are building upwards because all the land is taken already, or forming houseboats instead, we will still have a plan for the city layout.

11. Have our Chosen decorate the caves and reward religious artists. Not our personal chambers of course, that would just be obnoxious. But the lizardman chambers and catacombs should all be decorated with our praises.

12. Hire a bunch of dwarves to work on our castle, make it even better. Expand it, increase the luxury, ect. Get a bunch of tapestries glorifying us woven and placed throughout it, and make a throne room where we can formally hold audiences since we are now a real ruler. Have our loyal housemistress pick out good cooks and barristers, as well as luxuriously appoint the palace.

13. Establish a strong police force and strict well-laid-out hierarchy of crimes and punishments. They will be expected to be excellently trained and impartial, always upholding the law no matter what. The laws of course will favor us highly, but in a subtle way. Have Scinnari help with this, she should be perfect for helping design this sort of law structure and it will be a reward for her service.

>>13651289
Eh, we're doing just fine here. I don't think we need to bring Cygnis back into the equation yet.

However, I agree with you now that we've got some actual landmass going here... after the timeskip and we implement all these points I've been listing, it might be a good time to see if Scinnari is up for uh, "bearing a clutch" I think is how she phrased it?

>>13651317
Iffy, but I would go along with it at this point. We have the makings of our empire now, and after another timeskip it should have been long enough and she will have served us well enough to condone it. Also, I'm moderately interested in if our binder powers are just for us or carry over to our bloodline.

>>13651329
>>13651317
Make sure that when this happens the hells won't have a hold on them. They are our children, not devilspawn servants.

>>13651337
Agreed. As suggested in the OP's pic related, Scinnari and offspring are ours, we are not the hells'.

We'll be getting some half-dragons up in this soon...

>>13651295
14. Bring our kobolds from Freeport to Mza to do our stonework inside the mountain.

15. Get our main chamber, library, resting chamber, eating chamber, landing chamber, ect. (whatever chambers we have) well appointed. Use the kobolds from the previous point for this. Have you know... grand beautiful chambers and such. Marble columns and dias for our hoard, inlaid gold images of dragons on the dias... maybe the entire dias being a giant circle of power to enhance our casting when we are resting on our hoard, but the gold will cover so much of it that nobody would notice. That would be an excellent force-multiplier should anyone try to challenge us in our main chamber.

16. Speaking of which, let's be sure to make a grand magical lab with everything we could possibly need or want. Sorcery is going to be our forte eventually, and we need to prepare for that.

17. Have fine appointments and such... tapestries, carpets, bath fixtures, the works throughout our lair. Then carve a special offshoot wing of normal-sized bedrooms and bathrooms and studies and things like that for ourselves and Scinnari, Asha, Verra, and future Thralls. These should all be lavishly appointed of course, as befits both our glorious person and our closest attendants.

18. Also create many chambers for our assassin cult carved out, as well as training and sparring areas. Bedrooms for high ranking members and elites, barracks for the trainees, and those kinds of things. Armories as well for both the guards and assassins.

>>13651355
Man, if our daughters look like that then we are going to be needing to be mad protective of them.

Mostly sounds well and good (for us).

I need to go hunt down some sleep and kill it, so roll me 4d100 for me to work off of next thread.

You can contact me the usual manner. (Bloodsigned letters, or crossroads at midnight. Email works too, though.)

>>13651394
Rollan

rolled 74, 18, 34, 90 = 216

>>13651394

rolled 93, 15, 65, 63 = 236

>>13651394

rolled 86, 42, 56, 3 = 187

rolls

>>13651390
>>13651355
I can just see us becoming the worst dad/father in law ever.

Seriously, that must be half the reason the daughters of BBEGs always turn on them. Let's try not to replicate that.

Still, it might be worthwhile just for the image of an lvl 18 bard with charisma in the twenties staring down a dragon going, "You did WHAT with my daughter?"

This could be a son of ours, were we to knock up one of our lizardmen. Perhaps Zaxis' sister? He got to roll in the hay with Seffy, it's heavily implied...

>>13651420
>>13651413
>>13651404
>Roll #2

We're failing at something. I don't know what, but something. This is ominous.

rolled 15, 52, 68, 35 = 170

>>13651394
rol

>>13651421
What? No he didn't We specifically stopped that.

And I don't think we should breed with the lizardmen. Let's stick to Scinnari for now, at very least until we have some idea if our children get Binder powers or a Binder hold on them.

>>13651422
Yeah, I hope it's not something important to us. I could handle our propaganda campaign being a gigantic money sink. Getting malformed children because of Binder blood, however... that would have very ominous consequences indeed.

rolled 73, 93, 66, 57 = 289

Dice

>>13651432
I believe we didn't let her keep him. I suspect that, being a glorious dragon, and all, if she wanted him she got him. (though temporarily, unless WD pulled something new on us.)

could be wrong, though.

>>13651451
You're late, I wish you had been our second roll.

>>13651445
I don't think WD is going to be enough of a dick to make our personal relationships be dependent on die rolls. I hope.

>>13651421
What? And give our little ang- err, devil over to some... some.. 20 year old /adventurer/ barely out of his swaddling clothes?

I think not!

>>13651421
>>13651507
Funny story, Erinyes are supposed to be really good and protective parents according to the Lords of the Nine Hells book.

>>13651507
Perhaps we could marry her off to a prince...

>after Strafers
That doesn't sound healthy. I think I'll decline.

>>13651295
About the laws, always make sure there is one law above all others:

Our word *is* the law. Period. It overrules anything else.

Also, to add another point to all those, we need to amass a huge library. Tomes on devils were mentioned and those should obviously be a high priority, but also on astral bodies (like the binder's), ancient sorcerers and sorceresses, general magical lore, whatever special lore takes our fancy, everything really. Just a huge, impressive, expansive collection.

Remember to pay attention and encourage our cults to grow in the city! Maybe have the expand into our new territory too.

>Dilciuess manner
Delicious manner? Why, yes, the power cults give us is quite delicious.

>>13651761
We should probably make them less dragon-cults in public and more just a cult of personality. Of course, the holy lizardmen would worship us as a dragon openly, but they live inside the volcano and would be instructed not to tell anyone. The other lizardmen... eh... I dunno. Maybe try to play it off as "Well you know those barbaric lizardfolk, always trying to worship a lizard god like them..." Or maybe just have them worshiping us as the normal cult in public.

We should, as a head of state, take Scinnari around to the courts of other nations to some royal balls or other enjoyable social activity we'll be able to do together. She really seemed to enjoy the last one, and honestly I thought it was pretty fun as well. It will additionally give both of us a good chance to form political and social connections among the upper classes.

But yeah, the main point would be devil courtship, shared fun, and bonding time since we're apparently making her our waifu.

>>13651664
>in before we get tricked into countermanding an existing law because it inconveniences us, consequently fucking over the entirety of our rule