We discuss plans for getting in to the dig site. Naturally, the question gets asked: what would Indiana Jones do?
'He'd maybe fill Rome with man-eating ants.'
'But who would play the ridiculous monkey king?'
'...why do you do this to yourself?'
There is a shady character who we find was following the man who has since been recently killed in somewhat suspicious circumstances. We arrange to bump in to him, and imply that we have the same goals, so that maybe we can get some information from him.
The man suggests we meet later, after dark, which generally means we're going to get ambushed. Sure, maybe he will trust us and reveal his grand plan, but experience says otherwise.
Sure enough, we haven't made a new friend and instead some hired goons appear. Punches are exchanged, and after landing a couple of good ones from ourselves the goons retreat. 'Let us repair to the cafe for a strong drink', says Tobias. 'On the house, of course.'
'Which cafe are we going to?' says cafe-owner Maso. 'Do you know one that will give you a drink on the house?'
'I thought I did.'
An old flame comes to Vienna and asks to meet to catch up. She's only in Vienna for a short time, because her new fiancé, Botha, died recently. She's come to collect his belongings.
'Ah, already a Botha has died to bring us this adventure. This is already promising!'
For a change of pace, we're looking at the Achtung Cthulhu system, which is Call of Cthulhu in a WW2 setting. We remember playing Cthulhu before, which is why 'I picked the character with Language and Library Use skills, as I recall those skills came in useful.'
'I seem to remember that lock picking came in useful too.'
'Really? I don't remember lock pick being useful in the least.' Yep, it's all coming back to us.
On our way to the valley of the Invisible Stalkers, maybe not its official name, we are ambushed, by monks hiding in trees!
'They'll do their fancy slow-falling down to us in a second', says Thrak, somehow experienced with the monk style of fighting.
Salvador casts Scorching Ray, and gets hits with both rays. The Monk dies, falling to the ground with a thud. 'I dunno, it didn't seem that slow to me.'
The monks in trees are a diversion for the main attack, though. Other monks appear ahead of us, firing lightning bolts in our direction. They are quite effective. But now it's our turn. 'Can I charge the monks?'
'No, there's a tree in the way.'
'But they just fired a lightning bolt through it.'
'Then I suggest you turn in to electricity.'
During the previous battle, we saw some villagers being dragged away by Invisible Stalkers. We saw them because we had a See Invisibilty spell active, obviously. Now we think that perhaps we should do something about the Stalkers, to prevent more villagers from falling prey to them.
Rather than rush in, it's probably best to get an idea of where we're going. 'What can I find out about the valley?'
'Make me a Gather Information check.'
'Uh... 3.'
'You know that it is lower down than the mountain, and roughly in that direction.' Excellent. Let's go. Well, after a good night's rest, so that I can learn a couple of See Invisibility spells. They will be handy, but as the journey takes the best part of a day and the spell lasts only 10 minutes/level, we can't rely on them.
Thrak has an idea to help with that, though. 'We'll keep an eye on each other to see if anyone is dragged away by something we can't see.'
It's not a bad plan, but I can't help but think that we don't really need to state it. Don't we do that normally?
'My dog will attack the general! Is 19 a hit?'
'Miss.'
'Ah, +2 for flanking. 21?'
'Miss.'
'+1 for Bless. 22?'
'Miss.'
'...blatant cheating. 40?'
'Hit!'
In the ongoing protection of a village against a fair-sized orc force, Thrak smacks down one elite orc soldier but remains almost surrounded. He ponders his next target of attack.
'Which of the orcs are wounded?'
'That one has been wounded.'
'Seriously?'
'Yeah, I'm not kidding.'
The second wave of orcs takes the form of wyvern riders. On wyverns! Their swooping and fly-by attacks will no doubt cause us problems, so I do something to try to make us less of a target. I cast a spell, and a dome of ice protects us, with an opening at ground level to keep us aware of the rest of the orcs.
'Don't worry lads', I say, with a wink of my eye, 'I've got this.' But the wyvern riders are somewhat prepared. Rather than having to land, they fly over the ice dome and drop firebombs on it to melt the ice. But, of course, it isn't ice, it's just an illusion, me being an illusionist, and making an obvious wink when I said it would protect us.
The firebomb drops through the illusory ice dome, surprising the GM as much as it does Thrak. Maybe taking the two feats Spell Focus (Illusion) and Greater Spell Focus (Illusion) weren't a waste after all.
Instead of melting the ice, the firebomb explodes a few feet from most of the party, deafening Salvador and Thrak. Aggar's curious about how it will effect Salvador's Duskblade spellcasting 'Does being deafened impose a spell-failure chance?'
'I think so. The status effect is detailed in the PHB.'
Thrak is curious about something too. 'What does deafen do to us?'
'...not hear the question I just answered?'
Busy defending the village against the advancing orcs, we don't notice two skirmishers sneaking their way over the fence to flank us until it's a little late to stop them. 'Where are the villagers with pitchforks?' says Thrak.
Salvador is curious about that too. 'I thought we'd coordinated the ones willing to fight so that they'd repel any wall climbers.'
'Yeah, they were going to act as our alarm, their dying screams alerting us to threats.'
It may be well established that certain personality types move from killing their own pets and companions to humans, but that doesn't make it less disturbing when it happens.