Re: Incarnation

Mari started the fight with her go-to of going for their back by shadow-porting behind them but the Drider was able to dodge. When Davy, Ariagoria, and Krys fired at her from a range all their shots were blocked by a magic barrier. When Racknar rushed in hot his four attacks she was easily able to back step them. She was surprisingly nimble for having a spider body from the waist down.

She then tilted her bow sideways and pulled it back causing five ice arrows to magically generate. She then fires them at four of the members of the party. Krys was easily able to dodge, but the rest of the party wasn't so lucky getting hit with magical ice arrows in non lethal spots. Racknar, although hit, didn't seem to be bothered at all as his armor took the brunt of the blow. Mari moved to the Drider’s back again, this time aiming for her upper body from the air while jumping over the spider body. She landed a shallow blow on the woman's back with her moving forward to avoid further damage.

Her movement however put her into the perfect position for an attack from the other side. Krys landed an arrow into the side of the spider part of the Drider and Davy hit her with five bolts of translucent energy. Ariagoria switched to melee and came in at her left while Racknar went for her right where Krys shot her. Ariagoria’s holy light strike landed but didn't do the same kind of damage it did to the demons, still causing the Drider to move as she is pushed by the blow. Moved right into Racknar who gave it his all with five attacks.

Although his attacks lose some of the force behind them thanks to some sort of magic barrier, they all still strike and leave shallow cuts on the spider body. The Drider uses magic to shoot an ice knife at Racknar point blank but he manages to dodge it followed up with another shallow cut from the chainsaw swords. Krys shard moved hitting the Drider as she went past her before firing three shots into her abdomen. Davy fired five more translucent bolts but the Drider blocked them with a magic barrier. The Drider makes a motion afterwards and what look like spiders with insect wings fly at Davy and swarm him.

Ariagoria then slammed her mace into one of the spider legs hard, breaking it. The Drider screamed out in pain and Racknar took the opening to go after the woman with his greatswords once more. This time his body was engulfed in blood red flames, however as he struck, the flames changed color from blood red to a sickly green-yellow color. Racknar roared as his flurry of attacks hit the spider body with savage furocity. This time cutting deeply into the Drider leaving her bleeding out and barely alive.

She made a final desperate attack, casting a spell to make ice spike shoot up from the ground and stab at the party. Everyone but Racknar managed to move out of the way with Racknar's more human legs being turned to swiss cheese. Krys then fires a volley of arrows into the Drider's head killing her. When her body slumps to the floor the ice vanishes as do the fairy spiders that were assaulting Davy. Krys then went over to Racknar. “You okay? She got you good.”

Racknar downed his last health potion “I'll be fine. Let's see what she had on her besides the bow.” Racknar handed the bow to Krys who would get the most out of it but other than that the Drider had little on her. A few vials of poison and what looked like a badge with the symbol of Arachne on it. A spider with a crown pattern on its thorax standing on a web. Racknar could feel power emanating from it. “I'm guessing this is a command badge. Gods give special artifacts to their designated champion and many of them have a command badge as one of them. It lets you control or summon something from the domain of the god it belongs to. In this case it's likely spiders.”

Racknar put it in his coin pouch. “I don't really need something like this since I can kind of already command spiders. However, in the lore of Creatures and Catacombs, Lolith was a priestess of a figure only known as The Mother of Spiders in the book. She couldn't kill the goddess so she trapped her in her own godly artifacts somehow and spread them. Then she pretended to be the Mother of Spiders to deceive the Drow into worshiping her as their savior since the mother of spiders freed them from enslavement at the hands of the light elves. Since I'm assuming Arachne is that goddess here, that means a fragment of the goddess is inside it. To restore her I'd need all of her artifacts.”

Mari put her hand on her chin “Okay, how many are we talking about?” Racknar then explained “Each god has a different number of artifacts and not all of them weapons. In the book there were ten artifacts of the Spider Mother. Not sure where to look but I know what to look for.” Then there was a flash of light and the party found themselves outside of the tower with the structure now magically gone.

Racknar groaned as he adjusted his ring of illusion, making sure it was on before walking to the camp. “Let's let the paladins know we finished their job for them.” He grumbled out before he started walking to the tents. One at the tents they were greeted by Archbishop Frederick with his arms out wide. “Congratulations, you completed the quest and have earned your reward. However, before you receive it my men have to search you for any… illegal items you may have picked up. I know adventurers like you have a bad habit of grabbing anything they can carry.”

Racknar rolled his eyes, not that anyone would be able to tell, and growled lightly before putting his arms out. “Yeah sure, whatever. I would like to state for any record that we are cooperating and fully willing to surrender any illegal items we may have unknowingly grabbed. We picked up things that could have been useful during the tower and we're not exactly thinking ahead to after. When in a dungeon, surviving to clear it is all that matters. We fully intend to safely dispose of any illegal items after the tower was cleared.”

The paladin they saved earlier walked over to check Racknar giving him a pat down checking everything. He then checks the coin purse and finds the badge. “He’s got this badge or pin with the symbol of a false deity on it.” Racknar responds “Took that from a kill as a trophy.” The archbishop then responded with “Well symbolism of heretical gods is outlawed so we’ll have to confiscate that. In fact, anything you grabbed from the tower or the warlock slash warlocks in it are likely demonic in origin. So you'll have to surrender all of it.”

Racknar raised his voice a bit “As long as it doesn't have any logos on it or is an illegal substance or item, anything grabbed from a dungeon is ours to keep under the adventurer's guild agreement. As long as we have it processed to make sure we aren't using a cursed item the law clearly states that you can't-” the Archbishop raised his own voice over Racknar's “I have been given authority by the Pope himself who is above even the Emperor himself. I am the law here. Now, since I have no way of knowing what you entered that tower with, I'll have to confiscate everything you have as a potential demonic artifact. Just to be safe.”

Racknar clenched his fist “You can check with the guild or even your own men that were camped out here to find out what we entered the tower with.” The archbishop looked to his men “I doubt any of these simple minded soldiers were paying much attention to what you had on you. Take everything he's carrying and has equipped on him, strip his armor even. I've never seen black armor before so it might be demonic.” The paladin starts to object “Sir, he's known for his black armor. He's definitely had that long before the tower. Also these four greatswords swords made of dragon's bone as well as the others made of dragon parts I know were from before the tower because I remember hearing about them killing a young dragon some time before the tower. I can give personal verification for those items and-”

The Archbishop shouts interrupting him “Did I ask for your verification?! Also why would he even need four swords? Those things are two handed and I don't detect any magic in them so it's not to avoid resistances or exploit weaknesses. Fine, whatever. Just confiscate any coins and anything you can't verify he had before entering the tower.” The paladin opens his mouth to argue but shuts it and looks back to Racknar “Sorry man, nothing personal.” He then grabbed another paladin who was there when the party arrived and after talking the two started grabbing stuff. They the coin bag, the Arachne badge, and the chainsaw swords.

The paladins then take the coin bags from everyone else as well, the Whisper Blade from Mari, as well as the five fruits and the ice bow from Krys. “That's everything they didn't enter with.” The Archbishop looks over the stuff and pulls out a fruit “Hoho! Now this is definitely not something you should have kept. Let's see, that's a three hundred argentum fine per fruit and one hundred argentum per these other demonic artifacts.”

Racknar tried to protest “The Whisper Blade may be a restricted item but it's not demonic in origin. That's a legendary item you're taking. You have no right to-” the archbishop interrupted again “That's a total of one thousand and nine hundred argentum. Because you lot have been extremely uncooperative, I'll fine you another hundred and bring that up to two thousand argentum.” This time Ariagoria shouts “You literally just took all our coins and haven't even paid us for the quest we did.”

The Archbishop gets a smug look on his face “Why would I reward a bunch of criminals. Now you can either pay up with items since you don't have the coin or I can take you into custody and strip you of everything you have. Items given will be counted at buyback value. One third of market value.” Racknar grumbled as he took off his cloak of protection. “Six thousand market value, consider the fine paid in full.” the Archbishop smirks as a paladin hands him the cloak “Oh no, you see you each are fined separately as being complicit in each item. That's two thousand argentum each.”

Ariagoria now grumbled “You can't do that, your charging is five times for each item.” The archbishop dismissively waves “I can and I have. Now fork it over.” After some grumbling the rest of the party also surrendered their cloaks of protection. The archbishop then continued “You should consider yourself lucky the Pope himself approved of you being made a nun Charity. If it were up to me you'd be dead. I'd wipe all the demonbloods from this world if I could. Then I'd put the rest of the non-human scum in their place. At our feet.”

Racknar rolled his eyes “Great, the super religious blond hair blue eyed straight man is a human supremacist. How original. You got what you could out of us you scrawny little thief, I'd suggest you leave before I change my mind about being a calm and reasonable person over what is clearly a shake down.” The archbishop grumbles “how dare you take such a tone with me!?! I am an Archbishop and have the authority to have you executed. You should consider yourselves lucky.”

Racknar dismissively waved “If you really had the authority, you'd have used it already.” The Archbishop then ordered his men to the caravan “I look forward to working with you in the future then you soulless retch.” He turns and walks away. Racknar flipped the Archbishop the double bird as he did. When the church crew rolled out with their carts Racknar let out a big sigh. “Well that sucked.” Ariagoria gave him a pat on his back. “Could have been worse.”

Davy takes on a frustrated tone “Yeah but he took the badge, that was the closest thing to a main quest we've come across since we formed the group. And now it's gone.” Mari shook her head “I'm a rogue remember? Sleight of hand is kinda my thing.” She opens her hand to show she pilfered both the Whisper Blade and the badge. Krys makes an approving hum as they nod “Too bad you couldn't have done that with the bow.”

Shortly after she says that a strange sound comes from Krys' outstretched hand as ice magically forms into the shape of the bow that the Archbishop and his men took. “Oh shit! That's badass!” Racknar tilted his head “A spirit bound item? I wonder if the swords I got from Gore'ath were as well.” in a flash of flames the two swords manifest in Racknar's hands. “Nice. Seems I get to keep Rip and Tear.” Krys nods as her magic inner glow increases to indicate happiness. “And I get to keep the Cocytus Bow. Nice.”

Racknar made a series of clicks and Achilles came over with the cart. “Let's go, after we sleep we can get a new quest for the money to replace the cloaks and get us bags of holding.” Krys perks up a bit “Can we use Lisa's home again?” Racknar grumbled “We have no money so it's that or sleep outside. I'd rather not do that.” Krys then points out “Well since I can sell my old bow and you can sell two of your older swords, that'll give us something to work with. Not much, but still.”

The party gets on the cart and Achilles takes them back to the nearest gate so they can return to Flowers for some much needed rest. While traveling they had time to talk. Davy shifted in his seat before talking “So I was wondering. You said you got five healing potions for each of us. I didn't think of it at the time but health potions wouldn't work on Mari or Krys.” Racknar chuckled “Well actually health potions work fine on splinterkin. Their bodies absorb the healing magic when you pour it on them. As for Mari I actually got her scrolls of mending. We should probably get more potions for Charity and myself if we can before we go back out on another quest.”

Mari rubbed her arm “I'm a bit worried about what that Drider said. You know, the thing where she looked into Racknar's future or something.” Racknar waved dismissively “That was probably just to throw us off balance during the fight. Don't worry about it too much.” Mari laid down “If you say so. I mean you would be the one most likely to know if seeing the future is a thing.” Racknar grumbled lightly “Well in Creatures and Catacombs it could be a thing but this isn't the game. I know none of you would betray me so I'm not worried about it.” Ariagoria pats at Mari's shoulder “He's got a point, none of us would do something like that. We have no reason to. We are all in this together.”

The party tried to get some rest on the way to Flowers, once in the city they went straight for Lisa's. Racknar did his normal knock, and after a while a young man opened the door. The young man looked Racknar up and down “Well you certainly are a big one. What can I do for you on this lovely day?” Racknar replied simply “We're here to see Lisa. She should be expecting us.” The man opened the door all the way “Ah, right. She did mention something about odd looking guests but I didn't expect the Black Knight of Riverside. Welcome then, I'm Leonardo.”

Racknar nodded “I figured as much. Nice to meet you Leo.” Leonardo leads them to the lounge where Lisa is having tea “Ah, you're back. How'd it go?” Racknar growl grumbled “It was… a mixed experience. I'll tell you all about it over coffee.” The group sat in the lounge and Racknar caught Lisa up to speed with Leo there also participating. Lisa takes a sip of her tea before taking “That definitely sounds rough. I wasn't aware Frederick was made an Archbishop. He must have been promoted recently. I've met the unsavory individual once or twice. Definitely not pleasant company.”

The group nods in agreement and Leo gets his own tea “You seem awfully casual with my sister. Do you visit often?” Davy lets out a short chuckle “Fairly regularly. We've made arrangements with her a few times. Her and Racknar have a sort of thing going on.” Racknar growled “It's not like that.” Leo raised an eyebrow “Okay, then explain what it is like then.” Lisa quickly responds “Racknar here is something of a unique specimen, a scientific curiosity.”

Davy rolled his eyes “Yeah, that's why you kept pressing him for a sperm sample.” Racknar growled “You can think whatever you want. I'm going to sleep.” he then walked off. Leo however was still curious “What about him is so unique?” Ariagoria looked at everyone before responding “You should ask him later, he'll probably show you.” Lisa pulled out a notebook “Or he can just read my notes. They're quite thorough.” Leo eyeballs Lisa “I’d bet they are.”

The next day Racknar woke in a bit of a haze feeling really groggy and rubbing his head. After mumbling about having a strange dream he started his day. He joined the rest of the group who had once again gathered in the lobby. “Morning Racknar.” He mumbled back a greeting. Mari shifted in her spot “So are we going to take a guild quest next or look for more Arachne artifacts?”

Racknar puts his hand on his chin “We have no idea where to look for the artifacts so we might as well take up a quest and maybe we'll hear a rumor about one. I could list them so you guys also know what to look for.” Krys nods “it would definitely be nice to know what to look for.”

Racknar put out two of his hands to count on his fingers as he listed the artifacts. “The badge of spider command that we have, the tapestry of hubris and humility, the bow of Arachne, the lyre of spider’s song, the cloak of spider kind, the armor of Arachne, the swords of Arachne, the eyes of Arachne, The Golden Spider's egg, and finally The Memorial of the Spider King.” Lisa put her hand on her chin “I actually heard something about an adventurer finding Swords of The Spider Mother. You did say that was a common title for Arachne after she was betrayed. I'll tell you what I know.”

Lisa goes into detail about an adventurer from Bramble who has claimed to have gotten the mythical swords from killing a Drider in a dense forest. The adventurer was a former knight of the kingdom who went on into adventuring after his advances on a woman he had eyes on were turned down by her parents. She was the reason he joined the knighthood so after the firm rejection he had left. However apparently after getting the swords he announced he'd be going back home to show off his accomplishments.

Racknar let the information sink in “I think I know just who to talk to before we head out. Thanks for giving me a place to start Lisa.” Lisa nodded, “Though if you are going to keep using my home as a base of operations, I might start charging you rent.” Racknar tilts his head “Well I guess I can use knowledge from my past life to inspire new inventions.” Lisa's eyes widened. “I was actually joking but that would be awesome.” Racknar chuckled, “Alright then, we can start on that once I'm back.'' The group gives their goodbyes before leaving Lisa's home, once out Racknar leads them to the capitol building. The plan is to see what Elizabeth Bramble would know about the knight.