#starstruck will also be entering the fray!!

[hobbitonwheels]

Kim’s Adventures in 5e- Week 28

((I’m sorry I’m so terrible at keeping up with writing these. @_@))

In our last episode, the Finders Keepers arrived in the immense city of Twillport in Rashal. Shopping and shenanigans ensued, and Queg was arrested at some point. Faking his own death, the cleric had to be rescued from being cremated. Upon returning to the ship, Queg simply went to his room, with Selenia yelling after him that he was grounded.

With a few of the party still puzzled, angry, and hurt by Queg’s strange behavior, most of them regrouped above deck. They would soon be interrupted by the same servant of Althea’s who’d come to tell them of Queg’s alleged death. He’d been sent to bring them back to the house, as something had come up very last minute that merited their attention. Arriving at the house a short time later and being sent to Althea’s office, they would find her speaking with a red-skinned tiefling in elaborate leathers. Introducing himself as Bathin, the tiefling explained to them that he’d come to Twillport in the wake of a series of troubling dreams he’d been having. The dreams showed a house covered in vines and an unusual, eternally-autumnal tree unlike anything he’d seen before. Althea believed that the dreams and whatever they might mean to possibly be connected to a strange disturbance around one of the lumber camps in the forests outside of the city. The party agreed to both investigate the lumber camp and hopefully help Bathin figure out the mystery of his dreams.

While the others were away, Queg remained in his room. An intense, loud knock came at the door, but he stubbornly ignored it. He could not, however, ignore the light that suddenly filled the room. Its source, he would discover, was a green-skinned, winged entity. He’d been sent by Queg’s goddess, who was displeased by the cleric’s murdering an innocent man. Thus, Queg was given a choice- Atone for his sins or lose his powers. The others would return to find Queg still in his room, still terrified over what he’d just witnessed and been told. He shook himself out of it enough to follow the others off the ship, but the entity’s words and the choice before him still ran through his mind.

On the carriage ride to the forest, Selenia was distracted, trying to see what she knew to be an instrument of some kind strapped to Bathin’s back. Kalza, to spare her further embarrassment, asked if he’d show her. It was indeed an instrument; a guitar the likes of which Selenia had never seen before. The halfling was left a bit starstruck as Bathin played a few notes, and immediately insisted that they play together sometime. The impromptu demonstration was interrupted by the carriage coming to an abrupt stop at the edge of the forest. The driver, knowing the stories of things lurking in the woods after dark, refused to go further. Thus, the group continued on foot.

As they walked through the woods, a few members of the group saw strange lights moving through the trees, though none of them got close enough to fully see what they were. The lights seemed to just be a distraction, though, for a couple of monstrous sentient vine creatures that seemed to focus their attacks on Bathin. Fortunately, the creatures were easily felled. Coming upon the clearing where the logger camp was, the group would see more of the ghostly lights, but they would also see two other things- A little shack that was covered in vines and a strange tree that, despite it still being midsummer, seemed to be stuck in autumn. The tree was given a veeeeeery wide berth as the group moved towards the shack.

Immediately upon entering the shack, the group was attacked by four of the ghost lights. Selenia was able to cast Bane on two of them, the third target managing to avoid the spell. The fourth one was caught by Kalza’s Hex.Throughout the first few moments of the fight, a loud growling could be heard coming from a room somewhere in the back of the building. Its source was a vampiric creature that came running into the fray. All of its attention, however, seemed to be focused on Bathin.

As the fight raged on, Queg was frozen with doubt. His visitor’s words still echoing in his mind, he at last used an ability that he’d never used before: Turn Undead. First on the remaining ghost lights, which fled in terror from him. He then used it on the vampire spawn, which fled into the next room to try to get away from him. The others pursued, with Selenia casting ‘Protection from Good and Evil’ on Bathin, as the vampire’s attacks seemed to be entirely focused on him. After a long fight, it was Feyd who ultimately got the killing blow. All of their enemies dead, the group began to search the building for anything they could salvage. They came away with poisonous plants, several boxes worth of books (to be extracted in the morning), and grave dirt.

Leaving the shack, they would see the vines already retreating. There were no more ghost lights, and the tree was returning to normal (though, as she’d done with the lighthouse in Starvale, Selenia left a piece of amethyst at the tree’s base to appease any spirits). Before they could depart fully, they came face-to-face with the winged man that Queg had spoken with earlier. Queg’s path to redemption was far from over, but helping his friends in their time of need was indeed a step in the right direction.

And that’s where we’ll pick up next week.

#Kim Plays Stuff #Dungeons and Dragons #DnD 5e

[scottish-purple-shrubbery]

Long Way From Home 5

The drive was long and dusty, the vehicle kicking up sand as it went. Krolia sat in the co-pilot seat, her arm resting on the window as she looked at the landscape around them. It was a bit cramped for her, even though she's pushed the seat back as far as it could go. She didn’t mind; she was finally making progress on maybe getting back into space.

Earth isn’t that bad, Krolia mussed to herself then grimaced; it is annoying that I can’t go anywhere though. She remembered what Steven had said about how his people would react.

She glanced sideways at Steven as he steered the vehicle. At first she’d found it amusing that they had a circular steering device; none of the ships she’d been in had one. It was always a kind of stick control. Krolia’s lips twitched at the thought again. She didn’t know why she found it so but she did. It really fit the other odd things that Steven had told her about his world.

As they went something occurred to her and Krolia looked over at Steven. “What were you doing there?”

He jumped slightly in his seat and looked over at her, one hand gently steering. “What?”

Readjusting the dark glasses he'd given her to dim the light from the sun she elaborated. “If I crashed so far away from everything, what were you doing out there?”

Steven chuckled. “I was wondering when you would ask me that,” he admitted then sobered. “When I was a kid I loved ancient people and their buildings. Also their culture. Well, what's left of it. After finishing my military tours I got an Archaeology degree, since tuition is free. I traveled around to a lot of the normal ancient places; Greek, Egypt, Mayan, etcetera. But these had already been looked at for centuries, so I went somewhere that no one was looking - here.”

He paused and looked out at the dry, pink rocks. “Normal people think that’s there’s nothing out here but I read a long time ago about unusual carvings. Old ones. It was a small paper, no one else could find it for some reason; and the original discoverer was kind of ridiculed because how he was spouting about giant robotic lions or something.”

Krolia froze and snapped her head around to stare at the human. Steven didn’t noticed her reaction and continued, “Not that I think they were out of their mind. I read another completely different book on it, and that one was written a couple hundred years ago. It has to be out there if an ancient text spoke of it.”

Clearing his throat he shrugged, “So basically I was out there chasing old legends. Hey, you ok?”

Krolia’s eyes snapped to where his would be behind the tinted glasses and realized that she’d been staring at him with her mouth open. Closing it with a snap she managed, “Yeah. I’m fine. How many ancient people are there on your planet?”

Steven didn’t seem to noticed the abrupt subject change and brightened before starting to tell her about the millennia old people that one lived on his planet. Krolia only listened to about half of it. The majority of her attention was replaying what he’d said in her head. Giant Robotic Lion. That could only mean one thing; Voltron. If one of the Lions was truly hidden on this planet she had to…

She had no idea what she had to do.

Just one of the lions meant nothing if the rest of them couldn’t be found. Also it was said that the Black one was lost with the ancient Altea Castle and without that one there was nothing to be done with the others. Besides, they would have to find worthy pilots if they were ever going to use them and that’s only if they were going to use them. The Blades might want to keep Voltron forever lost, so that the Galra would never get their hands on them.

She was still musing about what she should do when at about about mid morning he parked the ‘car’ and climbed out. She followed suit and noticed that he’d pulled up beside a scar in the earth. Because she’d been so preoccupied she hadn’t noticed it but now she followed the destruction to a pile of tarps stretched over a sharp looking black structure. Walking over to the back of it she noticed that the sharp bottom had dug deep into the ground, its wing like protrusions laying on the top of the pinkish rock.

He came up beside her and explained, “After you collapsed I tried to enter the ship to see if there was any medicine but the door didn’t open for me; and I couldn’t find any way to convince it to. I had to get everything from my jeep.”

Krolia nodded and began the descent into the scar and slid to the bottom. “That makes sense. All Galra teck is DNA based, only someone with Galra blood or tech can use our machines.”

He hummed thoughtfully and followed her to the fighter’s doors. He was quiet as she placed her purple palm on a panel where the Galra Imperial symbol started to glow the closer she got to it. There was a small hiss of air as the locks disengaged and it swung downwards to allow her entrance.

They’d only gone a couple of steps in when Steven commented, “it's cooler in here. It's the middle of the desert, our vehicles turn into ovens.”

“That’s good,” Krolia told him as she made her way over to the pilot chair, “It means that the life support system is still working.”

“Right.” His tone was curt and she turned around to look at him. As he made his way to her he was spinning as he tried to take everything in. He looked a little starstruck, his face slack with awe.

She snorted at his amazement at something so normal to her and turned back around, about to sit down when something caught her eye. Pooled at the left side of the chair was a dark stain, near black. Her jaw clenched and she looked at her blood staining the seat. Normally seeing her own blood wouldn’t affect her - it was not the first time she’d been gravely injured - but something about seeing it made her uneasy, giving her a feeling of dread.

Shaking it of Krolia flopped down into the chair and started to test how responsive the controls were. Since the screen didn’t immediately activate once she’d approached she pressed her palm onto the panel where the computer should be. She’d done it before and occasionally worked but since nothing happened after a moment she knew that this would not be one of those times.

Growling in frustration she stood up, pushing the chair back as she went. She flopped onto her back she hissed in pain at the garring of her torso but ignored it and focused on the panel above her. Grimacing she ran her nails over the edges, looking for the way to open it. Finally she her claws found the small latched and she popped it off to reveal dull crystals lined up perpendicularly in the center. Looking them over she quickly realized that the crystals themselves where fine but the wires connecting them to the ship were frayed and burnt.

Krolia stared at the damage for a moment then closed her eyes. “Quiznaking klanmüirl quiznaker Duflax!” she snarled and banged her fist against the side of the panel.

“Not going well?” Glaring Krolia snapped her eyes to the humans as he leaned on the seat, looking at her with the calmest dame look she’d seen out of him.

Curing her lip and showing her fangs at him she growled, “NO. I know shit about how to fix this. It was not taught to us soldiers.”

His lips twitched into a smile and she really hated him just then. She snarled again and hauled herself into a sitting position. “From what I can tell,” she growled and ran her fingers through her hair, unwittingly fluffing it up, “The wires that connect the Power Crystals to the engine are damaged; other then that I’m clueless to what’s wrong.”

Steven lifted his scarred brow at her and repeated, “Power Crystals?”

“Energy crystals, which ever. They connect the…” Krolia paused then scowled and snarled at the panel, “Things that allows the quiznaking thing to fly.”

Steven hummed then asked, “Can I give it a look?”

“Sure,” she huffed and heaved herself to her feat, “Why not? Maybe the person that’s never seen this kind of thing before might know how to fix it.” She was still huffing in anger as she got out of his way. She knew that he’d heard her grumbling but she was thankful that he didn’t seem to take offense.

Getting up and standing with her back to him Krolia closed her eyes and tried to center herself. She really shouldn’t be getting this worked up but actually seeing the damage she started to really consider that she might be stuck on this backwater planet. In the past weeks she’d be clutching the possibility that she could fix the ship but after seeing it that hope started to dwindled into nothing.

Opening her eyes a sliver she looked out at the bright pink desert past the ship’s door. If I really am stuck here… how can I lived on a planet where I can’t even show my face? She paused and wondered if she could even live there knowing that the rest of the galaxy were dying under the tyranny of a power hungry monster.

She sighed despairingly then looked back when Steven address her, “Well, I’m with you - I have no idea how to fix this either.” She resisted the urge to give him a smug smirk then blinked when he continued. “But then again I’m not an engineer either. However I know someone who is.”

Now with Krolia flat out staring at him Steven grimaced, “I didn’t mention it before because I wasn’t sure it was the best idea for you to meet her. But we don’t have a lot of choice now.” He hesitated then sighed, “Would you be willing to meet my sister?”

it’s also here on Archive of our Own :)

#long way from home #My writing #erica45