Author Topic: Character Journal: Hugo Lang The Human Targeteer (RETIRED)  (Read 3341 times)

StrategicCommand

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Character Journal: Hugo Lang The Human Targeteer (RETIRED)
« on: September 30, 2012, 08:41:58 PM »
'Ere it is:

So barkeep, you want to hear my story?  Here it is.  The hunting was
terrible so I decided to join a band of adventurers to see where they
could take me.  I should probably use another word than adventurers,
because they are more of a band of misfits.  At a small village in an
out-of-the-way location they came upon something that was killing
villagers.  I didn't really care too much about that, but for some
reason they decided to investigate.  I mean who wants to settle in a
village anyway?  What's there but potatoes and potato-shaped women?
The thrill of the hunt is where it's at.

Anyway, back to my story.  They found some well that went to an
underground cavern and just had to explore it.  I mean, what did they
expect to find down there?  Who buries anything good?  Let's not
forget that these are the same "adventurers" that can't figure out how
to use a rope.  After most of them fall, nearly killing themselves, I
tie knots in the rope and climb down.  So what treasure did I find
down there?  Why more corpses than you can shake a stick at!  Great
idea, huh?  Did I mention a door that shocks the crap out you when you
try to open it?  Well, there was one of those down there too.  I got
tired of messing with that monstrosity so I went back up to solid
ground while the other clowns stayed down there.  The next thing I
know is there's all kinds of screaming and fighting so I pull up the
rope.  After a few minutes most of them come back telling crazy
stories that the other guy grew a lobster claw and a pig nose so they
had to kill him.  If you ask me I think they killed him because they
went insane from all the mine gasses.  Later I went down there and his
body wasn't even there.  I have no idea where they hid his body and I
really don't want to know.  Then the spirit creature came.  Did I
mention there was an angry spirit creature there too, because there
was?

Yeah, so this spirit creature is, apparently, intent on killing all
the town folk for some reason and these "adventurers" start fighting
this thing but of course they can't do anything to it.  My grandmother
always said that to fight the undead you're going to need a magic
weapon, God rest her zombie bones.  So after wasting a few nights
watching this spirit beast kill a few townsfolk they run everybody out
of town and decide that we have to go to some other places on a map
that they found.  Great idea, right?

We head off to another place on the map and of course I have to lead
them there because everyone else would be forever lost in the forest.
What do we encounter, but goblins?  I've seen goblins before and
they're not too bad as long as they don't have large numbers.  One of
our fighters was knocked down by a goblin- a fighter no less!  My bow
and my axe took care of goblins.  A few of the others helped a bit,
but it was pretty pathetic for a band of adventurers.  I thought about
just leaving them in the woods to wander around until they died of
starvation.  I figured that would take about five minutes.

We get to the place and guess what?  It's another underground lair.
This time we're attacked by a spider.  You should have seen it because
it was pitiful.  The fighter that couldn't face a goblin was instantly
paralyzed.  He's about as useless as a wizard.  The pit fighter who
always talks about his conquests can't do squat to bash this little
spider with his giant axe.  After deftly shooting the cursed thing
with my trusty bow, I have to finish it off with my axe.  The pit
fighter with his giant axe was swinging like a little girl.  So we
find mostly nothing there and head off to yet another 'X' on the map.

On our way we spot a caravan of the Empire taking prisoners and slaves
to the prison.  If it wasn't for me I bet they would have run up to
the caravan and been taken prisoners themselves.  Sometimes I wonder
if they've ever been on a real adventure before.  We find another
underground cavern and this one is flooded out.  Ever the quitters
when things get rough, they all want to leave immediately.  I force
them to stick around and actually work- you'd think they've never seen
a shovel before!  Then it came.  It was terrible.  It was the largest
troll I've ever seen.  I wanted to run from it because it was so bad.
The pit fighter decided to attack it.  I thought that once he got it's
attention I'd be able to flee and come back and loot his lifeless
body.  The crazy bastard actually took the troll down in one swing- it
was amazing.  I couldn't believe my eyes.  All the things I said
earlier about him, I take that back.  I might stick around with them
for a little longer.

There's one more 'X' left on the map so we head off that way.  We come
across a different caravan this time and immediately notice that
something is off.  We track them for a while and decide to see what
they're up to.  The pit fighter wants to take a direct approach.  Did
I mention the guy with the gun?  I thought I did.  His gun puts my bow
to shame.  I talk them into setting up an ambush if we need it.  I
swear they'd still be wandering around the woods eating each other for
sustenance if it wasn't for me.  We find out they are bandits trying
to ransom troops from the Empire.  Crazy, no?  Well, it's true.  The
pit fighter gets some useless information from them and we head back
to the last 'X' on the map.  You should have seen what was at this
place.  You want to know, eh?  Well that's going to cost you another
free drink.
« Last Edit: February 02, 2013, 09:38:08 AM by StrategicCommand »
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StrategicCommand

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Re: Character Journal: The Human Hunter
« Reply #1 on: September 30, 2012, 08:42:08 PM »
Part 2:

Ah, thanks bartender for another drink.  Woah, that's strong.  It's
good though.  Did I ever tell you about the time that I...  Wait, we
were talking about wizard's caverns weren't we?  Okay, now we took the
dwarf back to the inn.  What I already told you about that?  The third
cavern?  That's where I was?  Oh, okay.

We had the dwarf all fixed up.  I still don't know why we took him
back- I mean it's not like he was a great fighter or anything.  I mean
the guy had a stick with dead rats on it.  Rats!  Now if that stick
had dead orks on it, that might be a different story.  And he was a
dwarf after all.  Don't they just creep you out with their beady
little eyes and dirty little minds?  They remind me of fat, hairy
children from the Eastern steppes.  There's just something wrong with
that.  What, the cavern?  Oh yeah.

We get into the base of the mountains and come upon a small goblin
scouting group.  We track them to their camp and decide to take them
out so they can't ambush us later.  It wasn't the easiest fight I've
seen but we did attack their encampment.  We kill a handful of goblins
and search their ratty tents looking for something useful.  What do we
find?  We find something completely useless.  Something that has never
benefited us in the past.  What's that you ask?  Why it's another
dwarf!  Maybe I should have "missed a goblin" during the fight and
sent the dwarf back underground.  So now we have another one of these
guys with little noses teeth walking around telling great big lies.

After that we track the goblins to their camp in the mountains.  Those
stupid goblins have set up their camp right on the top of the entrance
to the cavern.  Either those goblins were really smart, or they were
really stupid.  We had little choice but to attack them.  The spell
caster started out by distracting several of the little bastards by
casting some kind of light spell in the background.  Once they were
distracted we began our ambush.  There were a lot of them.  They also
had their horrible rat-dogs with them.  They even made a pen for those
hideous things.  A pen to hold those things!  Who would want to steal
one of their pups, or whatever you'd call them?  I rather eat
poisonous mushrooms than one of those things!

We were holding our own when one of the goblins brought out the troll.
 Yeah, that's right, a troll.  What!?!  No, I'm not confusing my
stories.  There was a troll here too!  Only this time it was bashing
the crap out of the pit fighter and the dwarf.  After keeping the
goblins from over-running a human that we found along the way...
What, I didn't mention the human?  Yeah, we found a human who joined
up with us.  Seems like a decent guy.  He was pretty good at holding
off wave after wave of goblins and goblin dogs.  So I spent several
minutes shooting goblins off him as the fighters tried to fend off the
troll.  After shooting most of the goblins I decided that I got tired
of that stupid troll.

So I had enough of that troll and shot him right in the neck and that
was the end of that troll.  You should have seen it- it was a
beautiful shot.  Just as good as any new-fangled gun it was.  Right in
the neck and severed his artery.  Do trolls even have arteries?  Well,
if he did, I severed it.  The best was yet to come.  The troll
gurgled in pain, took a step or two and fell directly on top of the
dwarf!  There's not going to be any taking that dwarf back to town to
get healed.  I'm not going to have to worry about that dwarf getting
killed by a single goblin, no more seeing spiders paralyze him...  I'm
going to miss that dwarf.

Oh, you want to hear about the cavern?  Hold on a second, I think
there was something in this drink that's going to make me sick.
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WJ

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Re: Character Journal: Hugo Lang The Human Targeteer (2nd Career)
« Reply #2 on: October 06, 2012, 05:31:33 PM »
I still haven't figured out if those goblins were really smart or really stupid.  I think they might have used that cavern as a make-shift prison.  Why they would do that is beyond me.  After we took down their nasty, foul-smelling camp we ventured down below.  Now I'm not one for storing food underground, but some fool left crates of disgusting, horrible rotting food sealed away in a small alcove down there.  Who in their right mind would put crates of bad food in a cavern?  Why not just throw it away?  What's that you say?  Well, I guess that it's possible that it wasn't rotten before they put it down there.  But why not just eat it before it goes bad?  That food was so revolting that it would have made a perfect goblin feast!  Image those disgusting little goblin heads and their pointy teeth ferociously gnawing away at crates of rotten food- it's enough to turn my stomach it is!  And that's not just the swill that you call ale talking!

Those goblins must not have ventured too far into the caverns because we ran across some kind of imaginary wall holding back four giant spiders.  What, no I'm not making this up- there were four giant spiders here!  Yes I know that we encountered a spider in another cavern and I hope I never see one again.  At least this time there wasn't a Dwarf around to get instantly paralyzed.  It must have been some kind of crazy magick holding that invisible wall because when the spell caster removed a crystal the wall came down and the spiders tried to ensnare us.  I would have figured that the goblins would have fought each other to their deaths for such a shiny object had they found it.  Either that or they would have been decimated by those spiders.  Pity they didn't do that- it would have made our job a lot easier.  Leave it to a goblin to do something stupid and ruin your plans.

Now since the rest of the 'adventurers' are about as bright as a lump of coal, I had them move those crates to help prevent the spiders from overwhelming us the moment the invisible wall came down.  I swear that if it wasn't for me they'd still be wrapped up in webbing and playing host to thousands of spider eggs.  When the wall came down the spiders come out and start paralyzing the fighters.  I guess Mr. Troll Slayer has some kind of fear of spiders.  After the fighters were paralyzed the spell caster ran like a little girl.  Where was all of his magick that should have stopped these spiders?  Where was all the whiz-bang sorcery that was supposed to wreak havoc on the lands and destroy the week and feeble?  Wherever it was, it sure wasn't here.  Not being a fool I had to leave.  I couldn't be stuck down there with those things with a handful of those things while everyone else was paralyzed or running away in fear.  Strangest thing it was- on our way out we heard someone yelling for help.

When we got back to the surface we decided to see if we could lure the bugs out one at a time.  When we opened up the cavern entrance one of the spiders came out for us.  Fortunately the creature didn't like the sunlight and ran off without paralyzing one of us.  "What are you doing taking down those tents?" they all asked me.  "You're just wasting your time with that!" they all said.  Well, who wasted their time being entangled in spider webs and being slowly eaten!?!  No one ever listens to the hunter and they all wonder why they get caught up in horrible situations.  If I didn’t tell them that food was rotten they’d probably be giving those spiders indigestion as we speak!

After that spider was gone and we got ourselves healed a bit we went back down.  The first thing we did was to see who else was down there.   That's when we found another spell caster.  Now I wasn't born yesterday and stumbling across a wizard in a wizard's cavern seems awfully suspicious to me.  I was ready to introduce that spell caster to the business end of my bow when our spell caster talked me out of it.  I still wonder if I should have finished him on the spot.  A wizard trapped in a wizard's cavern- am I really to believe that something's not fishy there?  I've seen my share of bear dens and there was never a lamb to be found in one.  At least not one that was whole!  I do have to say that he did come in handy when finishing off the spiders and rescuing the ensnared warriors, though.

When we searched the rest of the cavern we found something the caster referred to as some kind of wyerd stone.  Claimed that it was some kind of magick in stone form, he did.  Maybe if our caster had that a few minutes ago he could have used it to bash a spider instead of running away.  Anyway, that thing sure creeped the hell out of me!  I wasn't about to be walking around with that thing near me.  Can you get any more unnatural than magick in a stone form? If those things reside underground maybe that's why Dwarves are so strange.  That would explain their stubby legs, bushy beards, penchants for bad ale, and bad tempers now wouldn't it?  We’d still need something to explain the male Dwarves, however.  While down there we also found a few items, including this Elven blade.  Nice, no?
When we finally left the cavern, hopefully forever, we found that the caster's horse had been taken by the spider.  Now the caster didn't appreciate that, but I found it to be hilarious.  I figured that we had to hunt that beast down before nightfall or we'd all be food, so some of us set out to find the horse.  I knew it'd be simple since it's pretty easy to follow a bloody horse being dragged across the ground. The caster wasn't too interested in finding his horse and finishing off that spider.  Running from a bunch of them is one thing, but not hunting down a lone spider that should be easy to follow is different.  I wonder if that stone has affected him.

It was kind of funny to see that horse webbed up and hanging from a tree.  I wanted to take a stick and whack it to see if candy would fall out.  It only made sense that the spider was close by.  When we found him I took to shooting him.  After a technical difficulty with a shoddy quiver, I had to take my axe and finish off yet another spider.  Luckily for that spider the pit fighter got to him before I could!  I hope the pit fighter got over his fear of spiders.  I really wanted to make a nice stew out of that horse.  That horse could have easily fed us for a week.

At this point everyone said that we had two choices- to go back to the village or to the wizard’s tower.   Apparently they never heard of “screw the townspeople, let’s get drunk and find some whores.”  Why is that never an option?  So it was back to the village for us to try to get that spirit.  This nice Elven blade came in handy with that thing and my grandma's advice rang true, as per usual.  Always listen to your grandmother I say.  Her advice never steered me wrong, though I still don’t know what to make of her statement that drinking warm blood is a lot like drinking hot chocolate, except for all the screaming.  It wasn’t long after that she tried to eat grandpa and half the village.

The spirit was eliminated using this blade and some other magick, but there was something strange with our usual caster.  He got himself completely drunk and was passed out during the fight.  He was one of the people that wanted to go to this stupid village and free it from the curse in the first place, but when it came time to do it he was three sheets to the wind!  It was at this time that I decided that I'm going to eat his stupid horse.  Speaking of horse, bartender, I'll take a nice hot bowl of your stew.

WJ

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Re: Character Journal: Hugo Lang The Human Targeteer (2nd Career)
« Reply #3 on: October 12, 2012, 04:32:41 PM »
Mmmm... It's been a while since I've had a warm bowl of stew.  What's the secret ingredient in here? Oh, you want to hear about the wizard's tower- where should I begin?  What a mess that was!  We get to this tower, and it was an impressive tower, but there were two giant stone statues sitting in front of the entrance.  I hope everyone else suspected that they weren't really statues, but really some kind of animated constructs.  Instead of rushing inside we decided to take a look around.  Imagine that- the adventuring party actually did something smart for a change!  I must have started rubbing off on them.  I knew it had to happen sometime.  When we looked around we found two gargoyles sitting atop the tower and began to attack them. Fortunately we had two people with bows, novel idea eh, and were able to shoot them out of the air.  One of the gargoyles had a chance to pick up one of the human fighters that joined us along the way and drop him from high the air.  I could hear him land on his back- that had to have hurt.  I mean it just sounded painful.  That was almost as painful as hearing my bow crack as I shot one of the gargoyles.  That one brought a tear to my eye.  When you hear that sound you know that you only have about five shots left.  Sad it was, I say.  At that tower I lost my bow, my dagger, and my buckler; it wasn't a great day, that's for true.  At least I didn't lose my trusty axe. 

Sure enough those two giant 'statues' came to life and started attacking us.  The pit fighter, that crazy bastard, actually killed one of them horrible creations in a single blow!  For as much as the lout that he is, he comes in useful some times.  The other stone beast was a bit more difficult and took a combined effort to fell.  And fell he did- right on top of a party member!  You'd think they'd learn not to stand in the way of a falling troll, construct, or other large beasty, but no.  I guess they are fighters for a reason.  I mean if they were bright they'd be hunters, right? 

We get inside the tower and it was just plain creepy I say.  There was a thick layer of dust everywhere and these giant mechanical gears were whirring about underneath our feet.  Now I may be a bumpkin from the hinterlands, but I ain't never seen gears at the bottom of a house before.  I knew that it just wasn't right.  I immediately wanted to wreck those gears- they're just unnatural they are!  Nothing in nature moves like that.  It was enough to make my head spin, all those gears moving with each other so precisely, one gear to the next gear to the next gear and so on and so on.  It was hypnotic.  I hate them.  But our wizard who went completely bonkers had grandiose ideas that he was going to take over the tower and didn't want me to mess with it.  The others also got all whiny when I was about to stop the gears.  Did they really expect to find a wizard's tower that was just there for the taking?  Did they really think that a wizard was stupid enough to leave a tower like that for someone else to pillage and steal?  How dense do they think wizards are?  Well, I guess some are really dense!  So I started getting ready to destroy those gears, despite all their bungling and ineptitude.  An abomination like that just screams out to be destroyed.  The rest of the tower was just as odd, but you should have seen what was on the top of the tower.

On top of the tower were two more cursed gargoyles!  These ones must have waited until we were on top of the tower before they attacked.  I was expecting them to pick someone up, fly them away from the tower and drop them to their doom, but they apparently aren't that smart. Grandma always said "you never can trust a stone-faced gargoyle."  I guess we got lucky by finding the stupid gargoyles.  Must happen every now and then I guess.

Oh yeah, there was a portal on top of the tower too.  Now just where did they think this portal was going to go?  Did they expect to find on the other side of this portal a beach resort complete with fair maidens and endless ale?  Did they think this portal would go to a treasure trove of gold coins and magick plunder?  Where did it go you ask?  Why it went to a realm of fire inhabited by daemons and evil wizards!  Grandma always said "Beware of portals because you never know where they will lead or if you can get back," God rest her zombie bones.  I can't believe that those goons thought it was a good idea to run through the portal and catch on fire.  To be even more dumb, they did it multiple times.  Apparently the daemons in the portal got tired of their excessive trespassing and came out to give them the what for.  Maybe daemons don't like it when you interrupt their... Well, what do daemons do in their spare time?  Huh, I'll have to think about that one.

What happened when the pit fighter came running out of that portal screaming about a daemon burning and killing him?  Did he strike the daemon with his axe and fell him in one strike?  Did he cast that daemon to the fourteenth level of pain on the blood river of Yar?  No, he screamed like a little girl for the hunter to break the gears and destroy the tower, that's what he did!  So having to save the party from certain destruction yet again, I destroyed the gears and razed the tower down to the ground.  The wizard fled on his horse from the magick that he wanted to steal and we lost the Elven archer in that melee though.  I'm going to miss that Elf.  More importantly I'm going to miss that bow.  He could have at least thrown it over the side of the tower before he was dragged into the portal and became a burnt piece of charcoal.  Damned lazy, self-absorbed elves! 

We went back to the village and saw the healer mistress in a ghost-like form walking in that horrible green mist.  She said something or other about making a deal to save the village, I don't quite remember.  Now I'm no citified gent, but to me becoming a ghost for a piece of land doesn't make any sense.  If you're gonna go and become all ghost-like you should at least be able to scare the villagers every so often.  Why not have fun if you're gonna go and be undead for eternity?  Grandma sure seemed to enjoy her time as undead a lot more than the time before she died.  If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it that way- it'd be much more enjoyable. 

Ya know, the more I thought about the tower and those daemons, the more I began to realize that just because something is buried doesn't mean it's gonna stay buried.  Grandma didn't tell me that one- grandma SHOWED me that one!  Ooh, is that a piece of cake I see over there?     

WJ

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Re: Character Journal: Hugo Lang The Human Targeteer (2nd Career)
« Reply #4 on: October 22, 2012, 06:05:11 PM »
So we went back to the small town were the refugees were waiting for us to fix their village and the town elder went and got all upset that his floozy of a wife went and made some pact with a daemon and tried taking it out on us.  Imagine that!  Now where I come from when some tart cavorts with a daemon, that would have brought shame to the entire village like when grandma…  Ahem, moving on.  But in this village the opposite is true.  Somehow it’s our fault that they couldn’t get the curse off of their stupid village!  We weren’t the ones that decided to put our lazy derrieres on a spoiled piece of ground.  We didn’t dig up the remnants of some long-forgotten massacre by an evil wizard.  We didn’t go through some fire portal and bring back daemons with us.  Oh wait, that one was our bad.  Anyway, one of the town leaders tried to blame us for their mess.  The pit fighter put an end to his shenanigans.  I was ready to put the rest of them down should there have been a riot.  If I never see that village again you won’t hear me complain. 

We then head back over to the larger town, whatever it was called- I’m not good at remembering town names.  Being out in the forest is where a man should be.  There we get some supplies and I get my good old bow fixed.  That night while the pit fighter decides to get drunk and find some comrades, I figure that it’s a good time to go out for the hunt.  It had been a while since I’ve hunted anything and I thought some venison might make a good dinner.  I had the beautiful buck in my sights and just as I let loose an arrow some crazy beast jumped in the way and attacked the deer.  I wasn’t going to stick around in the middle of the night to find out what that was, so I got the pit fighter and came back in the morning.  One thing I did know was that I hit it, whatever it was.

The next morning the pit fighter and some of his new friends- remind me never to become his friend because he goes through friends faster than I go through feathers- go looking for what was out there.  We spend several hours tracking that thing and come across an old man bringing food back to his cottage in the middle of nowhere.  It was more than a bit odd that he had a limp too.  I just knew that something was up.  We follow him back to his home where his wife and son were waiting.  They gave us some crock story about being poor and lonely, but something just wasn’t right.  We waited until the night to see if that beast was going to come back, and just like clockwork it did.  We set a trap for it by the body of a girl that we found.  Oh yeah, there was a young girl’s body near the cottage, which was strange too.  Who would just leave the body of a young girl out in the open when there was a freshly dug grave nearby?  What kind of people are they?  They are probably related to the people at the town with the undead specter, they are. 

When the beast came to the body we saw that it was some kind of giant daemon-wolf.  We attacked it and got it pretty bad and it ran off.  The pit fighter and I tracked it to its lair where it was recuperating.  For some strange reason, which I’ll never understand, the pit fighter went to the beast and started to pet it.  He mentioned something about witchcraft and woman at the cottage and that this beast was the old man.  I didn’t get it, but I knew that this beast needed to be sent back to the hell from whence it came.  I’ve never seen a wolf like that before- it just wasn’t normal at all.  Something that unnatural needs to go back to whatever realm it came from.  To be honest, I really don’t care where it came from, but it was obvious that it needed to be banished.  From out of the blue it leapt on one of the pit fighter’s friends.  The guy said something about going to find the Broken Arrow Gang to get revenge for them killing that little girl.  That’s right, that’s the same group of bandits that held the Imperial soldiers for ransom.  As soon as he said that the beast jumped him.  We attacked the beast again and nearly killed it and it ran for its life.  It met the rest of our party along its way and they knocked it to the ground.  That pit fighter makes the strangest friends, I tell you.  Those fools didn’t want to finish off that evil thing.  They even tried to stop the pit fighter from attacking it.  That didn’t matter though, because it ended the way it began- with an arrow straight and true.  Crazy enough the beast returned to the form of the old man.  All that spiel about the magick and summoning and whatnot must have been true.  We went back to the cottage to finish off that evil witch and end her cursed spell casting plague. 

I had the pit fighter try to explain it to me and this how it goes.  The Broken Arrow Gang tried to shake down the family at the cottage.  When the people couldn't pay, the gang killed the daughter.  The woman wanted revenge so she also decided that it was a good idea to hobnob with a daemon and had her husband turned into a horrible beast who was trying to track down the gang for revenge.  The husband-beast was never able to find the gang and would cause havoc in the forest for nights on end.  We intervened and put an end to that evil spell casting.  It was at that point I realized my true calling was destroying those horrible things that should not roam the world.  Also, I recommend you don’t go looking for women around that area- they have some crazy compulsion to fraternize with daemons.

Then began our adventure with the Broken Arrow Gang.

WJ

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Re: Character Journal: Hugo Lang The Human Targeteer (2nd Career)
« Reply #5 on: October 28, 2012, 06:59:46 PM »
Before we were able to get to Middenheim and find the Broken Arrow Gang we decided to hunt down the woman and her child.  For the most part I really don't care too much about things like that, but when people start perverting the natural state of affairs, somehow that really gets to me.  If this whacked-out broad had taken a rolling pin and offed her family, it wouldn't have been the same.  Now I can't just let some woman run around putting curses on people and turning them into daemon-beasts to ravage the countryside.  It's just not natural, it ain't!  By the time we got back to her cottage she had already taken off for the town.  We followed her back to the town and then over to the Three Feathers Inn only to find that she jumped on a caravan to Middenheim.  Truly she was as devious as she was ugly.  In fact she was so ugly that I wouldn't be surprised that when the Broken Arrow Gang broke into her cottage if she screamed 'rape' and they screamed 'NO!'  Oh yeah, we also found a wanted poster for that shady character the pit fighter befriended.  Remind me never to trust his acquaintances.  At least most of his friends die quickly.  I'll have to keep a closer eye on the hooligans he associates with. 

Oh yeah, remember that wizard that was trapped in the tower and portal?  He came back and rejoined us!  Everyone else was glad to see him again, but I wasn't so sure.  I mean something just didn't look right about him.  It was almost as if he glowed with an eerie fire about him.  I decided that I'd keep my eye on him in case something happened.  He also claimed that he killed the wizard in the other realm.  I found that hard to believe, and I didn't really trust him.  I knew that he was up to something there.  Someone throwing around fireballs like that just isn't natural.  I figured that since he was one of the pit fighter's friends he didn't have much time left anyway and it would only be a matter of time before he died.  If he helped us get rid of some wretched magick creatures in the meantime, so much the better.  Since there were no other caravans to Middenheim from the inn for several days we had to follow her on foot.  Everything is in walking distance if you have the time.  While following her we ran across a few small bands of orcs.

Now being that I've spent a lot of time in the woods, I've come across several baddies out there.  Most of the baddies I've seen wandering around in the woods are goblins and other minor threats.  Goblins are about as smart as a broken crossbow and only slightly more threatening.  Orcs on the other hand are capable of organizing and becoming a serious threat.  Seeing groups of orcs wandering main roads like this was new to me.  The last time I saw orcs was awful.  Let's just say that grandma didn't take too kindly to their ilk.  I did learn that day that pounding a wooden stake through the heart works against orcs as well as vampires!  I had to wonder if these orcs were just marauding bands looking for prey on the road to Middenheim.  I certainly hoped that was the case and that there wasn't an orc hoard moving in.  I really had no desire to stop wave after wave of battle-obsessed orcs.  I'd rather leave that to the guards of the Empire.

After the tussle with the orcs we found a carriage that looked as if it had been blown apart from inside.  My first thought was that the carriage reacted badly to the hedge sorceress' face.  A gruesome scene it was.  There were body parts, both orc and human, everywhere.  Something was definitely not right there.  Our dwarf had the bright idea to blow the orc horn right then.  What did he expect to happen?  Did he expect angels with feathery wings to fly down from the heavens and carry him to the promised land?  Did he expect a cornucopia of exotic feasts and pixies to spew forth from the end of an orc horn?  Well, what he got was far more deserving- a shot in the back!  Yeah that's right, one of the carriage-men was still alive and hiding out in the woods and when he heard the orc horn he shot the dimwit dwarf!  Never trust a dwarf to do something smart while on the surface of the world I say.  They are only good underground, and even then I have my doubts.  They still creep me out, they do.  The new wizard launched several fireballs at the woods and knocked this guy out of a tree.  He tried to run but he had never seen the hunter that could run down a deer.  I quickly caught up with him only to realize that he was a scared buffoon who was caught up in something he couldn't handle.  He explained that the orcs had attacked, the carriage exploded, and he was thrown clear of the wreckage.  When he came to he found the shattered cart, dead orcs, and his deceased brother but no sign of the woman or the child.  It sounded like we missed quite an adventure and it was all becoming clear at that time.  The worst thing about this whole scenario was that the horses had been dead so long that they were no longer good to eat.  One thing I've learned is that it's not red meat that's bad for you- it's the fuzzy green meat that's bad for you.

When we tried to track the woman we realized that she was with another one of her bastardized creations.  There were wolf-beast tracks like before alongside her tracks.  I mean it's not difficult to follow a giant daemon-beast forcefully making its way through the wood.  Later the tracks turned into her tracks and those of a small child.  Good thinking my friend, she DID turn her child into one of those abominations!  How could she do that?  She cursed her own child to avenge the death of another child!  What kind of sick, twisted fiend could do such a thing?  Whoever she was, she needed to be purged from the natural world.  Not only could she sling magick from her ugly mug, but she was also quite adept at trying to avoid being tracked.  Unfortunately for her, she used every simple trick in the book.  Did she really think she could elude such a skillful hunter as I?  Did she think that she could get away from me that easily?  She could run from us, but she couldn't hide!

I tracked her to a cave just off a small stream.  Inside she was casting some kind of spell from within one of those wretched circles.  When we attacked her the beast came out to protect its mother, as if on cue.  For a second there I had to figure out which beast I was targeting, since they were equally hideous.  I knew that we should have offed them when we first found them.  Why would anyone live alone in the wilderness like that?  Didn't they know that they would be sitting ducks for bands like the Broken Arrow Gang?  If you ask me they could have, and should, have taken a lot more precautions.  Of course no one else was willing to do this with me.  They probably set up their cottage to attract roving bands so they could cast their evil spells on them.  Sly and cunning she was!  Anyway we had to stop her and her despicable magick once and for all.  I guess that she had the right to be upset at that gang for looting her cottage and killing her daughter, but to cast spells on her husband and son turning them into daemon-beasts?  Clearly this woman had gone mad, and not in a good way like grandma.  I mean grandma did a lot of awful things, but this takes the cake.  It was time to send her to be with the daemons for good.  It's just sad that a family can be torn apart by something as simple as a pack of deamon-wolves.

The battle turned into an all-out melee like I've never seen before.  I was trying to shoot the beast but it didn't seem like my arrows were doing much to it.  I shot the other beast several times and I know that my arrows were effective, but it just wasn't working on this one.  This is why we have to put an end to all that isn't natural in the world, I tells ya.  It's just not supposed to be that way!  It was a long bloody battle but we finally finished off the wretched beast.  We also stopped the wolf-daemon too.  As we all expected the creature turned back into the child.  The strangest part was the woman looked like she cast spells on some of the fighters.  They were all speculating that they were cursed and wanted to get to the town and lock themselves in jail before nightfall in case they turned.  That was probably the smartest thing they've ever said.  I wanted to kill them on the spot with my new pistol.  The pistol?  Oh yeah, the coachman must have went insane and shot himself during the fight.  The worst part is that he went and wasted a bullet to do it.  Had he offed himself with a knife I would have had twenty shots, but now I only had nineteen.  Anyway, we bind the cursed child and headed for Middenheim to try to figure out what was going on with the curse and bring justice to the Broken Arrow Gang.  At least when we got to Middenheim I figured that I could get some rest for once while everyone else was dealing with their various curses.  It's amazing what I have to put up with.

WJ

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Re: Character Journal: Hugo Lang The Human Targeteer (2nd Career)
« Reply #6 on: November 11, 2012, 12:28:29 PM »
Before we got to the city I had the craziest dream that I was waylaid by a giant, freakish storm.  Weirdest thing it was.  I still can’t figure that one out.  Must have been some tainted mushrooms that I ate along the way.

We get to Middenheim and it turns out the fighters didn't have any curse on them.  Eh, that's probably best for the city anyway.  I wasn't particularly concerned about that as the guards could have taken care of the curse the hard way, leaving me free to pursue a life of religious fulfillment.  So Middenheim turned out to be a bust.  No one seemed real interested in following the Broken Arrow Gang to see that they got proper retribution for slaughtering that little girl.  So instead the cleric tells us that we're going to go kill a giant person.  I don't know- something about getting a new hammer.  Why he had to kill a giant person to get a hammer was beyond me.  You'd think this poor guy lived all of his life with giantitis and he’s just going to be beat down for his affliction and all.  Where’s the justice in that?  Also, you’d think that it'd be a whole heck of a lot easier to just BUY a new hammer.  Sometimes I just don't understand these people.  I blame the pit fighter.

This time we rent a caravan to get to Elsterheld, or whatever the little town was called, and arrive to see much of it in ruins.  Apparently Mr. Giant decided to throw rocks at the town and smashed a few buildings.  I guess his affliction must have turned him sour.  I suppose that if I were to grow to 50 feet tall, or whatever he was, I'd probably get pretty testy too.  I can't recall the last time I saw a 50 foot tall giant woman.  It must get pretty lonely out there without and kind of giant prostitutes.

In town we ran into a bunch of armed clowns who all looked like they could be twins and were all farshnoshket.  The pit fighter spoke with their leader and the giant had stomped several of them to death in the previous days.  Some warriors they were- getting stepped on by the very same beast they were trying to hunt!  If I were that stupid I’d have been mauled to death by a squirrel at the age of four.  The only explanation of how they lived to be of fighting age is that it was a miracle.  We had thought about trying to enlist their help in tracking down and taking care of the giant, but it turns out they were about as useful as a sack of wet mice.

We leave in the early afternoon to find this behemoth.  It wasn’t too difficult to follow the giant foot prints, wide swath of broken trees, and fields of discarded cow carcasses.  He turned out to be much further away than I originally thought and we had to camp for the night.  We camped out for the night because the trip was so far.  In the morning a few of our party fell out of the tree they were sleeping in!  I hadn’t seen anything so funny in such a long time.  Oh wait, remember that caster who ran away from the tower?  She fell out of the tree in the morning as well and nearly knocked herself unconscious!  Needless to say we were all shocked.  As soon as she fell out of the tree she turned around and walked away mumbling to herself.  What a crazy battle axe she turned out to be.  At least I knew I was one step closer to finding and eating that horse.  I tells ya, the pit fighter sure picks some strange friends!

That day we find what was obviously the giant’s lair.  It wasn’t too difficult to figure out that the giant lived there.  I haven’t seen many caves that had a fifty foot opening, was constructed of purposely place boulders, and had a halfling butler.  Well, at least I hope that it was a halfling servant.  I don’t want to think about what was going on if he wasn’t a butler.  The best part was the halfling butler was making a fine smelling side of beef.  I was sure to try some after the giant was dispatched.  The pit fighter came up with a rudimentary plan to try to assassinate the giant in his sleep.  I was actually pretty impressed that pit fighter could think so deviously.  I don’t recall him doing so before- he usually just runs up the baddies and plants his axe in their skulls.  Amazing to find out that he was actually capable of learning how things work in the woods. 

We have our plan all set to where the giant would come back to his shack, would eventually fall asleep, the halfling would signal us, and we’d sneak in for the coop-day-graicey.  Just when the giant came back that crazy hussy of a wizard comes running out of nowhere and into the giant’s hovel.  Before any of us can realize what’s going on, there’s some magic explosion and the corpse of the strumpet comes flying out in a most un-womanlike manner.  Did I happen to mention that the pit fighter’s friends usually don’t last very long?  It was then that I realized that when I’m tracking, I need to pay attention for those who might be tracking me.  At that point we realized that our plan had fallen to pieces. 

A half-burnt giant comes thundering out of the cave, picks up the caster’s body, and chucks it into the outlaw.  It was a wonderful sight!  I was a little surprised that the outlaw didn’t die at that point too.  Eh, I just figured that he’d probably just fall to the long gun of the Broken Arrow Gang if the giant didn’t get him.  After a hail of arrows, a few axe chops, and a couple of hammer blows the giant went down.  I did expect the giant to fall on one of the pit fighters companions and flatten them.  It was probably lucky for the outlaw that he was hit by the wizard’s body and wasn’t in the thick of the fight, otherwise he’d get a very close look at a giant’s carcass.

I still couldn't get over the fact that those drunkards at the town were stomped to death by this giant.  It’s not like this monstrosity had even inflicted the most damage on us.  But I figured that it was better to focus on the positive at this point- we had killed the giant so the priest could get his hammer, I had eaten well-cooked beef, we had a halfling butler, and I was one step closer to eating that horse.

WJ

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Re: Character Journal: Hugo Lang The Human Targeteer (2nd Career)
« Reply #7 on: November 23, 2012, 05:52:33 PM »
We arrive back at the town with the giant's head only to see the mercenaries leaving in disgust.  Skittering out like drunken rats, they were!  P'shaw, some mercenaries they were!  I've seen grandma chew-up and spit-out tougher marauders than them- and I mean that literally!  The town throws us a big celebration and gives us medals and an uppity townhouse and all that.  I have to admit that it was nice to stay in that townhouse what with the halfling butler's cooking and all, but after a few days I began to feel a bit bourgeoisie all holed-up in such a place.  It was time to get back to hunting, adventuring, or whatever else it took to stop my mind from turning to city-dwelling, crowd-fighting, ale-swilling, yogurt-eating mush. 

We decided to investigate the disappearances of about eighteen local townspeople before we left and went back to Middenheim to find the Broken Arrow Gang, as we still had to figure out what we were going to do with them.  Remember that they had killed that girl when they found out her family was poor and something had to be done about that. Crazily enough I figured that the investigation would be the relatively easy task, while taking care of the giant would be the difficult task.  I couldn't have been more wrong, that's for true!  I had assumed that the townspeople would be falling prey to a lone psychopathic killer, an underground crime syndicate, or the like, but I was completely taken off-guard by what we found. 

About the only thing that connected the missing people was that most of them disappeared at night and that a significant number of them were gamblers.  Since there were guards at the gates we had to conclude that they were still inside the city limits.  With few other leads to go on, we decided to check out the new tavern and gambling house.  Inside it was what you'd expect for a gambling den and tavern.  While the pit fighter and the priest were busy gambling- I know, but don't ask about the priest.  I've come to the conclusion that our priest is a bit "different," shall we say.  Most priests worship at the altar, but our priest worships at the hammer.  Anyway, back to the story.  The priest and the pit fighter start gambling and drinking amid all the other debauchery that was going on there.  Oh and the smell!  There was a thick, disgusting heavy scent of-- I don't know what you'd call it but it doesn't exist in the natural world I can tell you that!  I've skinned animals that were best left alone when I was young and hungry and had to mix the entrails with damp grass to mask the smell, but that was still far more palatable than the perfumed stench that was wafting through this den of depravity. Anywhoo, while the pit fighter and the priest were gambling and ale-ing it up with the trollop at the bar, I decided to take a gander around the rest of the place.  The upstairs was your typical boarding area with working-class rooms for let.  The main level, well that's where I got my first glimpse of the decadence that was going on.  If I remember there were about eight or ten rooms echoing with the sounds carnal pleasures.  Needless to say I decided to leave them to their decadence.  There was also a set of stairs that led underground and I tried to see if I could slink down there unnoticed.  However, I had picked the wrong time as I was caught in the act.  No big deal, I figured.  There would be plenty of opportunity to try again as things got out of hand.  And considering that the pit fighter was with us, that wouldn't take very long. 

It was painful to watch the pit fighter lose all of our reward money at the card table.  I watched the dealer closely to make sure that he wasn't cheating, but I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. After watching the pit fighter and the priest gamble all of our gold away, as well as drink and flirt with the waitresses, I finally got my chance to sneak into the basement.  At first glance it was your typical basement with butcher blocks, wine racks, card tables and the like.  When I took a closer look I found a hidden door and tunnel that led to a room blocked by a thick curtain.  The noises that were coming from behind that curtain were louder than the ones coming from the main level. 

Now let's be clear that I'm not the kind to give in to sins of the flesh, but with all of the noises that were going on and the incense in the air, I had to just pull the corner of the curtain to make sure that it really was a pool of sensual sleaze and there wasn't anything nefarious going on, well at least not too nefarious.  But when I pulled that curtain back there was a spell that came over me.  Now I don’t normally... 

Wait a minute, don't you give me that look!  It really was a sinful site of she-daemon strumpets in there!  No, they were literal daemonic divas using cursed magick to tempt unsuspecting men into their immoral entanglements!  If you stared closely at them you could just catch a glimpse of their chaotic, awful appendages- lobster claws, tentacles, wings, horns and the excess horribleness that was their true form. Hideous beasts they were, and dangerous to boot.  Not only did they outnumber us by a wide margin, but we had lost all of our gear in the, ahem, sexy snare of a sandpit.  It was the most poorly coordinated battle that we've had up to that point.  We were in a free-for-all, save-yourself kind of fight.  While the pit fighter was trying to slug the sycophantic slags, I was just trying to get away.  I finally broke free of the voluptuous, vicious vixens and made a break for the constable's office to gather reinforcements.  When I arrived back with the local law, the pitfighter was about ready to follow the harrowing, hedonistic harlot on-high to some other accursed realm of aberrant amusement.  Fortunately I found a bow lying in that sordid site of what turned out to be long-corroded carcasses and took dead aim at the lusty lead lady-beast.  My arrow sailed straight and true and sent the beastly bint back to whatever vile realm from whence she came.  After their leader was gone the other ungainly, unctuous urchins quickly followed.  Fortunately the constable was there to verify our claims, having seen first-hand the dreadful, despicable decadence that almost caused our demise. 

Just from the look on your face, bartender, it's easy to see that this story of dirty, disgraceful daemons is difficult to believe.  It wasn't but a few days later that the witch hunters came out and consecrated the ground so it would be fit for human habitation again.  We also got a small manor in the city of Middenheim for our efforts as well, in addition to more medals.  We were becoming quite the fashion show I say, but I didn't have a good feeling about that.  Grandma always said that it's better to quiet wolf than the baying sheep.  Now I realize that there was more to that statement than her addiction to sheep's blood.