June 13, 2013

13th Age Adventurer Tier: On the Whim of a Coin Flip for 6/6/2013

After surviving their brush with the Lich King’s forces aboard the abandoned ship, our heroes finally manage to sail into Axis, the City of Swords. Once there, Zardy tries to convince Sylvia to unlock the Falconcats chest, but she claims she can’t because the enchantment is very strong, and she’s a sorcerer, and enchantments are technical and less natural like her magic. Sylvia heads off of the ship, to complaints from our heroes. She claims she only agreed to ride with them out of Santa Cora, and nothing else. Still, after being pressed for how they can help her deal with Baal’s Throne, she tells them to meet her at a secret address in Horizon once they get there, but she needs to travel alone now, in order to prepare as quickly as possible. She leaves.

Once exiting the Wavecutter, however, after deciding to tentatively put it on the market to see if it would be worth abandoning or keeping and renaming it The Fore Sail, a strange little gnome runs up to Nimrod with an excited expression. It seems he’s with the local cult of Slyce, and he’s overjoyed to see a real, true Paladin of his god! Nimrod tells of his quest to get Slyce recognized by the Priestess, and he says that the small local chapter is helping too, and shows a flyer advertising an exhibition match in the MURDER MAZE of Slyce’s followers versus the Dragon Empire’s finest in order to prove the strength of their god, seeing as only strength is valued in the City of Swords, or so the little gnome claimed. He rushes the party back to the local Slyce shrine, a unfortunate, unpleasant location in a basement near an arena, to show Nimrod off and give our heroes a great… well, okay, a questionable place to crash while in town.

Our heroes meet with the combatants that the local cult of Slyce has picked to fight, and it’s obvious they are going to be murdered immediately in the MURDER MAZE. Pulling Heathcliff into another room, Nimrod reveals that he knows about Heathcliff’s coin, and that he believes it to be an instrument of his god, seeing as it’s so flat. He forces Heathcliff to use it to determine if they need to help these people, and Heathcliff gives in. The coin says they do in order to further their goals. Hearing this, Nimrod and Heathcliff find it easy to convince everyone to change plans to our heroes entering the fight as the Slyce Flatteners, since Zardy is interested in making a comeback in the arena scene and Murdock is wanting to help these nice people in any way he can.. Zardy and Heathcliff take the required change of combat forms to the arena and attempt to convince Mott Battleman, the Arena Event Coordinator, to make this fight a huge deal. When that doesn’t work, Heathcliff uses a bit of charm magic to get the job done, and they arrange not only the pot for the cultists to get them a better temple, but a little prize on the side if they win the fight.

Soon, it is time for the MURDER MAZE. Zardy learns that his old rival for the affections of the arena-going public, Ingrid Stomphowler, has forced her way in as his opponent so that she would have a chance to defeat him once and for all. Zardy fails to intimidate her, but stands his ground.

Once the MURDER MAZE has begun, our heroes barrel through the traps, braving the danger and using endurance and physical prowess to get through the first two, and a little ingenuity and Murdock’s knowledge of Dwarven machinery to get through another. Their great brains solve some difficult riddles to get through a locked door, and finally they engage in combat with a room filled with horrible, poisonous spiders, which Nimrod helps to fight with more righteous fury from Slyce than ever before, in order to obtain the key to the main battle area, as well as the key to activate the traps of the MURDER MAZE on the other team. Armed with these keys, our heroes must now make a choice: will they rush back and try to beat the other team, securing the healing for themselves to prepare them for a tough fight with Ingrid and her team, or will they hang back and try to weaken them with the traps they have barely survived, risking giving them the healing potions? We’ll find out, tonight!

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