Book Six, Chapter Six �How to assault a castle from the inside�

����������� 11/09/2004

We discuss football, TV and then what happened last time. Very nearly ready to go.

Block the stairs into the area we are in, and then refresh any spells that have run out, then charge out to the other stairs. So that�s a Woodwall and Aruth is down to 2 figures spell point, jammy bastard. A two rounds warm up for Sir Martyn, while it only took one for the Woodwall. Round 18 �Charge� into the main room heading for the stairs.

The door is barricaded so we go up stairs and get to the next floor on round 21. We�ll come back for the old woman latter. On this floor is the one where the Paladin who Daniel shagged sleeps. She stuck her head out and asked what was going on. Sir Martyn said �The castle is under attack� and then he hit her and she died, well she�s AT1 and he�s doing 4 times damage on the two-handed sword table. Through her suite of rooms into the armoury. It is full of people getting swords and shields, but no armour. The room is 60 to 80 foot long and 20 foot wide. Oh yes and Sir Martyn does a 20 foot radius that gives -20 to Evils (this includes Bowlhead and Sir Martyn get -10 as they carrying Evil items). We stay in the doorway.

Spell phase, and our opening gambit is a Triad of Lightning Bolts, which misses (bounces of shields and things). The missiles miss Sir Martyn and stun Zytsi and Aruth. Three rush up with sword and shield, three with halberds behind them. Then there are three with bow and arrows, and three hanging around no doubt casting spells.

Sir Martyn misses, but Zytsi doesn�t but it wasn�t a telling blow. Then they attack us mildly ineffectively.

Spell phase. Aruth drops a Woodwall between the 6 front and back Paladins, cutting their party into two. Sir Martyn calls on Agrik and functions slot number one, it�s Immolation. That gives 1d10 Heat damage to all in 5-foot radius, and we are in a doorway. (It was going to be A Heat Criticals, which is just a pain to keep track of). Well he�s immune to his own spell and the rest of us take it, ouch. So do the opposition.

Missile phase - Daniel throws the old braided belt, it hits but the Paladin saves. It�s going to last for 10 rounds.

Combat, Sir Martyn misses but Zytsi doesn�t, and then they have a go. This is going to take a long time.

Next round, the snake hits but she saves, 9. Some bolts, lightning and shock. Some bits of fire damage. More combat and they are now Strengthed, ouch.

New round. More Triad of Lightning Bolts and two of the Halberds go down. The snake hits and she saves, 8. Sir Martyn kills one at the back with a spear, topped versus AT1 on times 4 damage. Zytsi kills the one he�s been hitting all along. Then Sir Martyn spears another one, who dies. And then there was one.

New round. Then the snake misses, 7. Bowlhead takes all of Zytsi�s damage and falls over. A Woodwall appears behind us, all of us. So she was trying to cut the party into two groups, or even one. Then Zytsi kills her.

We have three rounds to get our act together, I think the count is out but who cares and it comes down in round 31.

When the wall comes down there are 6 Paladins and the head woman. Sir Martyn asks Agrik for function number two - +100 OB and +30 DB (Holy Champion) he turns into the Holy Champion of the Deity. He grows 2 feet and looks vaguely demonic. Interesting, she�s done that as an innate spell.

Aruth�s Triad of Lightning Bolts and their two missiles went of on opportunity. This takes out the two bowmen, and damages a halberdier. That leaves a front rank of a Demonic looking leader and two swordsmen, with a back rank of fortunately only one halberdier. Unfortunately, he is shot in return and is taken down by missile fire. They were obviously aware of what was going on behind the wall.

They charge. Spells � Bowlhead takes the damage from Aruth, and he will be functional and on the ground at the start of next round. Missiles � Zytsi uses up some power points on the halberdier. They charge up, Sir Martyn has her Ladyship and a pole arm person with a swordsman in defence, Zytsi has a pole arm person and a swordsman for defence.

Sir Martyn has a dilemma, does he give and receive slaying criticals. It�s all a matter of which God he is a Champion of, Larani or Agrik. Looks like she�s got him sussed, and he will be the Champion of Larani. Lots of misses, except her Ladyship who is making a mess of Sir Martyn. He uses his Lion Charm for a re-roll on one of the criticals. OB of over +400, why defend against her.

New round. Aruth is functional but on the floor, so opportunity Lightning Bolts when he stands up. Zytsi will fire his Lightning bolt. And Sir Martyn fires function 3 and he grows another 3 feet, so he is now about 11 feet tall. Another +100 OB another +20 on DB and delivers the Fatal Channelling Projection -50 on save throw and boils the target�s blood in 1d4 rounds. Touch can make the opposition go down, the most powerful weapon.

Zytsi�s Triad of Lightning Bolts takes down one of the halberdiers and damages the other one. Aruth stands up and does his Triad of Lightning Bolts, killing the other halberdier and damages a swordsman. Daniel poked and missed the swordsman, but he didn�t use up a Bladeturn � cheeky bitch.

Pious Rapture (frenzy) goes Sir Martyn and he survives her Ladyships blow and then he hits her twice, she survives the save versus boiling blood and survives the round.

New round and its Triad of Lightning Bolts from Aruth again, which doesn�t achieve much. Sir Martyn survives another blow and hits back (the party cheers as he rolls a 92 Slaying critical). Her leg is chopped off, she falls, and she dies. Sir Martyn hit a swordsman who dies and there is one left. Next round he kills the other one and Bowlhead stood up and eats a Mirena Berry.

The Frenzied Paladin comes out of Frenzy, falls over and then gets up again.

<<Dinner>>

Oh dear Larani removes 1 spell point per level from Sir Martyn. There was a 3% chance and he rolled 2%. Well it�s an evil hand and he went up to three on it.

Healing from Aruth and Bowlhead on Sir Martyn and Zytsi, and Daniel thought about eating some more Mirena Berries but what has that got to do with healing his 2 points of damage left. Bowlhead concentrates for a while.

Suit of armour that is mildly evil, a distinctly evil sword and a ring of some kind, which isn�t evil so won�t be very useful.

We loot the castle, a hacking and a slaying. The cleric has left, pissed off and confused. The peasants and bandits (sorry insurgents) are all over the place. Back to her Ladyship�s bedroom. We find a chest with about half a dozen peasants trying to open it. Our burning 11-foot tall demonic Paladin asks them to leave, 5 leave but 3 charge. Daniel throws a Song III and Fear Song, but they are wearing metal helmets so he has rolled so low that it was a spell failure. They charge and Sir Martyn turns off the nasty stuff and Zytsi interposes himself. They do some trivial damage to Zytsi, so he knocks one down. He was pulling to As, but how do you pull Mithrals to A.

Bowlhead tries to talk them out of it, they ignore him. Sir Martyn disarms one and Zytsi dis-shields one. They leave, one way or another.

The chest is trapped says Zytsi. Zytsi asks Larani what the next dice roll will be. Will it work? No, it won�t but it doesn�t go off. So he does it, and then does it again. Then he rolled down and the Pillar of Fire goes off. He loses his hair, but not his beard fortunately. Very stupidly Bowlhead was standing next to him, what an idiot. He got away with that, as he can get rid of that lot. He moves away. Zytsi tries again, and again, finally he disarms it. Picks the lock first time and opens the chest. It�s full of silver coins, about 50,000d. Daniel tells Bowlhead to take the other end of the chest, and we take it, having found the keys.

Then back up the second in command, nothing. Down to the cellars, Aruth finds a secret door. Zytsi looks for traps and finds it and disarms it. A pit trap. Then opens the door and there is another Pillar of Fire, didn�t spot that one then. There is another room with a chest, and a manikin with Agrikan clerical robes and a staff, and a chalice.

Zytsi does not find the (five) traps. He picks the lock and the floor gives way to a pit trap, but a rope was tied around him. �Water in a Fire Temple� says Daniel. The pit trap starts to fill up with water. He makes a Constitution based save versus poison. Something misses him, that will be Acid says Zytsi. Hmm the door of the trap has closed, and he is dangling on the rope.

Sir Martyn goes into the room and finds out that he can try to push open the top of the pit trap. Aruth does a barrier pit and we pull out Zytsi. So it was an acid pit, not water.

A 5-foot wide Woodwall over the top of the pit, and Sir Martyn tells him where the 5 trap triggers are. Two of them, the pit and acid are irrelevant now, but Zytsi disarms them all. Picks the lock and finds a set of carefully stored set of ladies possessions. We take them. No secret compartments. The personal possessions of the martyred sister.

Manikin not trapped. The robes, staff and chalice are all evil of course. Do we trash them; no, we keep them to investigate it later. Look for dungeons, yes but empty. We don�t find the missing man, but we do find 5,000d in assorted trinkets. Aruth and Bowlhead fixed six dying peasants with first aid, just because Sir Martyn reached for the drugs.

Attack the Temple next door

14,000eps�������� put the cash into party fund.

Armour AT20, wears as AT13, reduces criticals by 2, +35 DB, +35 on saves.

The ring � it only works for someone once. Add 1d4 to the stat of your choice. But it only works for that person once, and as long as they wear it. Bowlhead puts it on a gets 3 on his Intuition, and gets 5 pp per level, and an A pick of the stat abilities.