Tag: Michael Sunshadow

After Joe, before Hulum

  After Rosa was rescued from the clutches of Slave Trader Joe, she became a member of The Weird Ones. Her magic may be sealed, but she served as the financial and tactical advisor to the group. The group bought Joe’s old building (using a loan from Mrs. Decambria), and it was renovated into “W.O. Adventuring HQ”, and the group spent the next year fighting foes and earning money.

  The cells of the building were converted into bedrooms, a beautiful garden was planted out back with a Strawberry Jam Fountain as the centerpiece (Rosa’s insistence).

  Seeing the injustice of this government, allowing people like Joe to run free and steal people away from their families, something inside of Sunshadow snapped. He got his new body, and he took up a new oath. An oath to reconquer this world, and remake it in his image. An Oath, of Conquest. This change in his life’s path caused his Sunblade to evolve into a Vestige. It awakened, and Sunshadow renamed it “Sol Purgatio”.

  Staab continued to make money on the side in gladiatorial fights in the undergrounds, often times going too far and dispatching his opponents. Everything goes in the underground.

  Riolu continued doting on Rosa, a feeling that she reciprocated. The two became very close over this period, and became inseparable.

  D-O the Kobold decided he didn’t want to just be a pet, so Mrs. Decambria allowed him to go adventuring with The Weird Ones.

  13 months after Rosa and D-O joined the group, The Dream Man came to visit them, telling them that the Balor was going to return in 3 days time at the king’s new palace, and that they should get ready.

  Sunshadow hired several clerics from his coalition to aid them against the balor, and they kept the deaths to a minimum.

  Just as The Dream Man said, the Balor returned and chaos broke out in the capital. ¾ of the royal guards were killed defending the royal family, but their deaths were in vain. The Balor brought a small army of various demons with him, and the entirety of the royal bloodline was snuffed out in seconds. That is, except for one lone child. A 4-year-old boy the king adopted 2 years earlier. He survived the Dinner Party of Disaster thanks to the sacrifice of Vanta Nailo (he died holding up the crumbling building long enough for as many people to escape. He was sliced apart by the Balor’s demons and then crushed by the building.)

  The fight took 2 days of constant fighting from many forces, as well as a seal preventing the Balor’s escape. The one who got the final blow was Sunshadow, when Soul Purgatio exalted. With a mighty “THE LIGHT PURGES!” from Sunshadow, the balor disintegrated.

  With the only royal left alive being a 4-year-old, Sunshadow took up the mantle and the became the new head of the government. After what he did, nobody dared challenge him.

  The next 6 months saw a series of changes in the world. Sunshadow began rebuilding the world left in ruin with the help of his coalition, the slave traders were brought to justice and the world was peaceful for the first time in centuries. All the while, Sunshadow continued to train the boy to be his successor when he retired. At the same time, Staab disappeared silently and without a trace, nobody knowing what came of him.

New Hashtags from Always The Weird Ones

My friends and I just had a session that finished about an hour ago, and a few Hashtags formed as a a result.
#dumbshadow (Sunshadow has Grog levels of dumbness on occasions, just less refined. Will explain later)
#staabdab (Staab decided to dust off a dead meme and dabbed after each success, to the cringe of everyone)
#applecare (first thing Riolu does when healing someone either physically or mentally is give them an apple from his Treant father Guru)

The Diaries of Riolu Ungart: Part 5; Reunion

For the following month after the party split, I spent some time traveling around the Fey Isle in the Outlands, searching for I don’t even know what. I met some people, was betrayed by those people, and moved on. I ended up going back home for a while, until I received a mental message from the King’s sorcerer, telling me to go to a place called ”Metalville”, and was given a map to follow. So I dusted off my gear and bid farewell to by home once more to begin my travels anew.

Once I arrived in Metalville, I learned something important. The wilderness was dead there. No flowers. No clean water. Putrid air. The town had been too heavily polluted for even the highest of Druids to cleanse. The pollution was so bad that importing became the only means to provide any food and water to it’s denizens. It continues to make me sick how poorly this place has been cared for.

Luckily, my indegestion was short-lived as I soon saw a familiar person from among the golems. Good ol’ Sunshadow stood in the streets holding a red and black garbed person with noodle-like limbs by the ankle, dangling him as the man just smiled. I ran over as quickly as I could to my old friend as he dropped the man and gave me a big hug. The King tried to reunite the old group for a new mission, and him and I were the only ones to show up.

We entered that Metalville’s Laughing Tongue to find a population of the hardier races (ie Dwarves, Goliaths, Orcs, etc.) and golems, the only ones capable of surviving this harsh environment. Everyone is making merry except for one middle-aged man, whom was somber over his mug of ale. The red and black man (whom now I know is named Staab) went over to him and did a masterful performance with his daggers, earning the applause of the tavern as well as some tips. The man stayed sullen. Staab then apparently decided that this sullen man deserved to die, and (unsuccessfully) attacked him. The man caught Staab’s arm in mid-thrust, turned around, and angrily said “What the hells do you think you’re doing!?”. Staab just laughed and responded “Dunno”. That still doesn’t sit right with me.

By this time Sunshadow goes over and apologizes, then asks him why he’s so sullen. The man (named Deven) tells us how there have been disappearances in Metalville, and this time it was his wife and 2 kids. There have been puddles of weird yellowish goo left behind, leading to the speculation of foul play. Everyone who went out searching for the missing townsfolk went missing as well. This was why the king summoned us to Metalville, to figure out what keeps happening to everyone. We were pointed to a trail of the goo (sun dried) leading into a forest of dead trees and we went on our way. Staab kept following us…

As we traveled through the woods, Staab made a remark how we should just burn down the forest to make out search easier. I bonked him on the head with the dull end of my quarterstaff to hopefully knock some sense into him, but he just got up and laughed. (I’m really uncomfortable with him around). 

After a while, we noticed that it felt like we were being watched. We went on guard and were soon ambushed by a group of Gnull, with the leader being twice the size. Staab daggered, Sunshadow smited with the power of his gods, and I simply used the Brown Bear form. We took them down, the leader laughing while coughing up his own blood, acting as if we’ve made a big mistake before finally dying by Sunshadow’s Sun Blade (Sunshadow ended up bringing his body with us).

At the end of the trail we found what looked like a cave with the yellow goo on all sides, even the floor. Not wanting to step in that gunk without testing it first, we tied a coil of rope around the deceased Gnull leader and made quite the morbid yo-yo. When he touched the gunk, he started disintegrating immediately. Sunshadow took one of his javelins and poked it. The metal was unaffected. I was lifted to Sunshadow’s left shoulder and Staab to his right. I cast “Dancing Lights” to guide our way.

We came to a fork in our path littered with the remains of various creatures. Not knowing which way to go, I Wild Shaped into an Acid Bug. Sunshadow then threw me down one way (too hard in fact, and I almost face planted into the wall). It was a dead end, but so was the other path. I used my “Acid Spray”, and the goo dissolved instantly. We continued down, facing zombie like creatures from the goo the entire way.

We arrived to a large room with a large, misshapen face on the wall.

“Welcome fools”, it said with glee, “to your grave. I’m sure you’ll be delicious.”

The room attacked us with humanoids and tentacles made from the ooze. The Sun Blade+”Divine Smite” disintegrated the goop just as easily as my acid spray. Sunshadow’s aura protected us from being absorbed ourselves.

That’s when I noticed 3 people stuck to the ceiling of the cave.  A mother and two children. The creature put out a huge grin as they started falling. I flew up with haste and quickly transformed into a giant crab, catching the two children in my claws and the mother on my back. I fell straight onto the goo, expecting to be dissolved any moment. I was fine. The goo couldn’t digest my exoskeleton. I held onto them, protecting them, until the beast was killed, gurgling and screeching as it sublimated into nothingness. After exiting the cave, I treated their wounds the best I could, but will probably always remain permanently scarred.

We took them back to the tavern to find Deven. He, his wife, and their son immediately perked up and embraced. All except for the little girl. She kept her somber expression, no matter what we tried.

I left them with a basket of apples from my home as we went onward.

The Diaries of Riolu Ungart: Part 3 First Encounter with the Dream Man

Nightfall fell shortly after the owl-faced bears finished escorting our band of misfits out of the woods. We made up camp for the night and I perched myself in a nearby tree to enter my meditative state. Sunshadow went into low-power mode at the base of the tree, Vanta meditated by the dying fire, Destin was nowhere to be found, and the scary lady tried to sneak attack Sunshadow, but failed. I then fell asleep.

In my dream, I went through a glowy door and entered a banquet hall where my friends were all seated around a beautiful table with a feast large enough to feed a kingdom. Down an extravagant set of stairs comes a dapper red man with horns and a harem of women of all races and sizes. He introduces himself as “The Dream Man” and explains that this is his realm, able to be reached through dreams. He invites us to eat to our heart’s content, so we did. After dinner, The Dream Man handed me a dusty rose-coloured spherical stone, and told me to hold it by my head. It immediately started orbiting. I was told this was called an “Ioun Stone” and that it would protect me.

One of his hand maidens leads me down a hallway to a room with a large “R”on it. We enter and are met with 2 other young handmaidens sitting atop a very large plush bed in what I could only assume were some sort of lace garments.

They beckoned me over to rest atop the bed with them with me confused the entire time. They asked me what I wanted to do, and the first thing that came to mind was braiding hair, so with all braided each others’ hair until we fell asleep.

The next morning I find myself back in the tree from the night before, but I still have the stone orbiting. And Vanta gained a pair of Golden Gauntlets. We remember the night before and continue our journey.