Heroes and Heroines Live Action Roleplay (Larp/LRP)

2 Drasaba, 8980 Ta

Source: Marius The Magnificent

Marius the Magnificent-Squeak’s picnic basket was packed, wine was chilled, and Pip and Kasdeya were ready to go.  A much needed family picnic away from the hustle and bustle of the war and the pie shop.  Alas a wrong turn meant that Marius and Family ended up at room X23 instead of T23 and thus they accidently volunteered for a dangerous and secretive mission instead of teleporting to Happy Vale for the family outing.

 

Thus it was the Magnificent-Squeak family got embroiled on a mission where they might be…

KILLED BY LIFE

A Marius the Magnificent-Squeak report.

 

The briefing from the shadowy group known as the --------- [removed by official protectorate wartime censor unit] announced that our job was to punch a hole through the occupying forces of Malice in the reservation and to reach a village where we were to protect the locals and where we would receive further instructions.   The briefing officer was very clear that witnesses were not to be left which caused some consternation (and some glee from a certain Sanctum member) in case any members of Malice surrendered to us.  Luckily Marius was on hand so he could ensure that anyone who surrendered to us could be fairly found guilty so we could ethically execute them rather than just going in like a bunch of murder hobos.  Also Marius’ keen sense of interpersonal dynamics detected the most subtle signs that all was not well between Vydalia and Rivalyn.  Luckily Maius is known for his discretion and also he is certain none of the other team members would have picked up on the miniscule signs of this discord.

 

Speaking of other team members, the mission team consisted of:

Marius Magnificent-Squeak – immediately forced to be elected leader of course.

Pip Magnificent-Squeak – Expert potion maker, master assassin (by reputation at least), Damn beautiful, scary when angry.  Possibly part dragon.

Kasdeya Magnificent-Squeak – Already 2 and ½ - they grow up so quick.  I remember when she was just a little babe in arms.  Now she’s already a master Wizard.  She’s such a clever girl, takes after her parents that way.

Other notable people:

Faer talen Vydalia – Wizard of the dark school

Twig – Wizard of the Earth School

Tenth – Sorcerer of the Water School

Mai’Ru – Wizard of the Light School

And the extended team members who weren’t full time wizards, but managed to contribute anyway

Caleb

Granit

Lok Ay – these three had shields and were useful to stand behind and not get hit.  Lok Ay also did some dark power finger waggling, while Caleb could do actual proper magic, if barely.

Whiskers

Ssaprina – Scouts.  They could go into danger ahead of Pip to keep her safe while she scouted.

Chiaroscuro – Our official legion skirmisher.  Official motto “I’m not a front liner”

Rivalyn and Mr Scruffles – Our hospitilar and King Knitted Life Form.  Spoiler alert, they didn’t explode from over healing this time.  No, they just got beaten into an elixiriable state as per normal hospittilars who stay away from the combat like they should.

 

 

Suitably briefed we headed out, being tree-shifted into the Reservation under cover of darkness to reach the village.  We arrived right in the middle of a Malice unit and Marius managed to stall them through the ruse of making a surprise inspection until we were prepared enough to take care of the situation through standard auxiliary doctrine, mainly Twigs’ prepared earthquake spell and a good deal of beating and stabbing.

Having officially left no witnesses we sent out our scouts to locate the village.  They did so (under the instructive eye of Pip Magnificent-Squeak) and we proceeded in an orderly fashion towards our goal.  There were occasional distractions and delays, most notably some non-protectorate orcs from the Blacktooth-grin clan, before we finally reached the village and our goal for the night.

Relief, or so we thought, but the village was being harassed by a vile General Bile and his minions so we needed to again Marius managed to open diplomatic channels until they were close enough for us to Auxiliarize them into a pulp.   Amazingly we even managed to take the General as prisoner!   Marius questioned him and discovered that his personal view, shared by many generals in the area, was very unflattering of Malinconia, this is surely news we can use to our advantage in the war!  He also admitted to killing people because it was fun, and that he wanted to use undead to be a real bastard, so after a formal trial (Marius found it a great trial to listen to him) he was found guilty of Necromancy and Pip Magnificent-Squeak carried out the sentence.  Marius told you she was a master assassin along being the worlds’ most beautiful Potion Maker.

Bile was also found to have a set of papers on him, some were coded so must be very important information.  Luckily we had Vydalia and Rivalyn with us and they set about to working closely together to decode the letters and reveal the secrets within.  Without their great teamwork we would never have received some vital intelligence!

Reading the Biles letters we discovered that Malice had Steph O’Scope and she was alive, but alas Malinconia had wanted to swap her for a Malinconia General we had in captivity but Foxglove apparently said “Nope” and now Steph was to be executed by a General Mourndread in a “creative and visible way” to send a message to the Protectorate.

We were ready to mount a rescue mission but had no idea where Mourndread was, and in the interim our contacts arrived, a group of Mathamagicians from the Secta Exspiratoria had invented a new machine they wanted to test so they informed us that in the morning we were to go and talk to some Necromancers and check for any ill effects while the mathamagicians played with their new toy.  The evening then descended into a few bottles of port, and discussions about the ideal ratio of shield bearing fighters and magic users, and other support classes.  The correct answer is 2:4:2:1 – 2 fighter to 4 magic users to 2 Healer to 1 scout.   Basically 2 shields can hide 4 magic users who can in turn be healed by 2 hospitilars while the scout runs about and slits throats and looks sexy (okay, that last bit is only if the scout is Pip Magnificent-Squeak).

On that note we went to bed, after a couple of bottles of Port mysteriously emptied themselves in the most excellent company of Chiaroscuro, Pip, and several others.

After far too little sleep we awoke (Before NOON!  Outrageous!) and met with some local Necromancers who wanted to know where Bile was.  We pointed them in the right direction, which was a 1-way ticket to the sea of lost souls.   Now fully awake we prepared, and prepared, and prepared some more, and eventually everyone was prepared at the same time to actually move out.   We first had to secure a special place in the woods where there was a convergence of lines of power where the mathamagicians would set up their item and then we would go and talk to the necromancers until something interesting happened or we got really bored.  We were told that there was a 95% chance of nothing going wrong and a 1% change of utter disaster.  We were doomed for sure.

On our way to securing the location, apart from the regular Malinconia patrols, we encountered another group of the Blacktooth-grin clan.  Careful questioning by Marius and colleagues got them to admit that they had been brought to this area from elsewhere to diplome and advocate for Malinconia as a force for good, however Malice showed her abysmal lack of understanding of the Orcish culture as traditional orc diploming involves killing people and taking all their stuff (see Marius’ report into his cultural exchange journey to Orcatraz) so as we were in the reservation it was only culturally appropriate for us to kill them all and take their stuff.  However before we did so they admitted that the clan would happily accept shineys in return for turning on Malice forces and killing them all.  One for the council to consider as a possible strategy.  Also Malinconia really should spend some time in Orcatraz too, it would broaden her horizons and teach her about the Orcish culture so she doesn’t make such mistakes in the future.

Otherwise untroubled we secured the area and proceeded to find a pair of Malinconia’s finest necromancers, Dave and Dug were their names, or something not like that.  We engaged them in chit chat and found out what it was like to be a minion in Malice’s armies (not great) until suddenly they were overcome with a splitting headache and then itchy skin before they recovered to fins they had lost all connection to the necromantic sphere, as Dave (or possibly it was Dug) said “The rot at the edge of all my thoughts has gone!”.  Confirming this was the expected output we proceeded to tidy up the area before heading back to celebrate success with a bottle or two of bubbly and a slap up lunch, although not the romantic picnic that Marius and Pip had planned, or even the family one we had planned in case we couldn’t lose Kasdeya for 2 minutes or so.

Our lunch was a little ruined by the group of Skaar’Sylvani who arrived wanting to speak with the family, that is the Rivalyn-Vydalia-Chiaroscuro family not the Magnificent-Squeak family, and were most insistent until we were equally insistent against the idea.  We drove them off, and Lok Ay afterwards had to have a little lie down, only it turned out that was because he was dead.   Most irritating, as Marius had to gift a quarter of his power to rescue him from this state.  And then another third of his power so that we could get some long term blesses cast upon key members of our team.   Poor Marius being used like a glorified battery.

 

After the initial test was successful we had to test the item on boosted power, so the mathamagicians set up the machine and set the booster to 10% to see how far it would work.  Expecting that it would explode and possibly summon a dozen enraged elementals we were pleasantly surprised to find it worked without killing us all and so we set off measuring how far we could go to find the edge of the effect.  After a mile (a whole mile Marius had to walk!) we met a dead necromancer and their wild undead who seemed to be unaffected apart from being freed from Malice’s control.  We slew them then carried on.   After 2 miles (Two Miles!  Without so much as a palanquin or a tree-shift!) we encountered more wild undead and a magical undead of the sort commonly seen with an enchantican.  Pushing on, having slain these, we reached just under 2.5 miles where we encountered three Malice necromancers fleeing from their own creations.  Great, but also so much walking!  We slew these then rested momentarily while our healer recharged themselves because they were mostly empty at that stage.  Marius can confirm that in weather like they get in the reservations at this time of year, our healer is not solar powered.

The break was very pleasant though, and Marius had a lovely change to snooze with his wife as a pillow, as well as to eat things from the picnic.  Then pressing on we encountered some Malice forces who had control of their undead.  Marius came up with (or possibly borrowed)  a plan to lead them back into where we knew the zone had affected the previous group so that we could test if the effect lingered or not.  However because patience is for other people apparently a certain one of our scouts with yellow trousers and a shaving problem decided to get himself surrounded by the enemy and so with much effort and yelling at people we had to act and managed to just about put Marius’ plan into action.  We rescued Whiskers (or at least he rescued himself) then we lured the enemy forces slowly back until we discovered when the necromancers lost control of their abominable servants and proceeded to mop up the remnants, for Science of course.

 

Afterwards there was a long walk home and a nice drink break where the mathamagicians explained about their booster thingy very clever widget blah, blah.  Pip Magnificent-Squeak was looking exceptionally attractive and Marius was busy staring into her eyes and thinking about pies.  Anyway they were blah blahing and then a ghoul appeared, really a scout and Earth wizard problem, only it wasn’t a ghoul but rather a full blown fetch and it wanted our booster gizmo thing, and worse it took it!  Well, then it was everyone’s problem and so Whiskers, Mai’Ru and Kasdeya chased them down with Kasdeya being very clever with her teleports and confusing it so Whiskers could get close and receive a touch of death, then Mai’Ru cast fumble on it and Kasdeya grabbed the booster and teleported away pursued by the fetch then she handed off the box to Rivalyn to hide it while the Fetch hunted Kasdeya down.   This made Marius cross, especially as it meant having to run about, so Marius unleashed a barrage of shocking grasps on the Fetch and the rest of the party performed a good old fashioned beat down on the nasty beast until finally it was pasted into oblivion.  Yay us, and well done Kasdeya with her clever use of air magic, the best magic from the best daughter.

Oh yeah, Whiskers was dead but this was clever Kasdeya’s moment so he shouldn’t try to steal her moment of glory.

 

 

 

 

Some Oakwoods people also showed up and wanted Rivalyn and Mr Scruffles back.  It seems their given name is Test Subject 9, but they have asked to be called Rivalyn and Mr Scruffles so we respect their personal choices and the Oakwoods people didn’t so we gave them a lesson in understanding and acceptance by killing them.

 

After all that we needed some re-energising so Dinner was required, and what a magnificent feast the local peasants put of for us.   Tables were groaning with the weight of food placed on them and we were soon bending under the amount of food in our bellies.  It was glorious, and also could have fed twice the number of people, even with Marius there to have thirds and fourths of everything.

 

After dinner we were all ready to have a snooze and enjoy more port, but alas we were out of snoozing for those pesky mathamagicians wanted to try their toy out at 90% power and guess who had to see how far it would go.  (Spoiler Alert, it was Marius and company).

We tree shifted out approximately 10 miles and was then forced to walk back to the village in the dark through the Reservation Woods.  First on our trek we encountered a necromancer cowering from his own undead in a makeshift fort, so we know that the machine worked out to at least 10 miles.  Great.  Time to go home, mission completed.  However we had to mop up the witnesses and what an enjoyable time Marius had, he slew 2 zombies of different types, and at the same time singlehandedly took down the necromancer.  There may have been a small incident though as some evil spirit took control of Marius while he was distracted and made him attack the nearest person, who happened to be Kasdeya.  It was just one shocking grasp, but she then went running to her Mother and the battlefield was stunned into silence by a shout of “MARIUS!” in that very particular, Marius is in trouble, voice that she has.  Sometimes even a prepared teleport isn’t enough.

Much chocolate by way of apology later we continued…

 

More undead approached, and a brutal fight ensued, starting with Chirascuro being possessed and chasing after Whiskers until Vydalia had the bright idea of casting Dark Engulfment on him (Chirascuro, not Whiskers) and then things got really messy.  Suddenly  Whiskers was down, Sarsaparilla was down, Lok Ay was down, Granite was down, and Rivalyn was down!    And so Marius had to be chief healer as well as chief Zombie Slayer and leader, poor Marius has so many jobs to do!  Also our poor downed friends, but mainly poor Marius.

 

Exhausted, down to our last couple of elixers, and nearly out of power we pushed onwards, sneaking carefully to avoid and roaming undead patrols as another fight like the last risked wiping us out completely, and successfully we did until we encountered an Enchantican and his elementals including a magical undead Eye of fear and flame, which appeared to be still in control.  Interesting to know.  Also magical things, hooray for any party with 6 and a bit magic users is not going to be bothered by such trifling matters.

Leaving them for dead, we pushed ever closer to the village when a figure emerged from the treeline.  A foul creature surrounded by a nimbus of stench that was nearly visible and making a terrible rasping and wheezing sound that portended doom.   It was definitely one of ours, a member of the protectorate sent here as backup but they had run into a mummy (the undead sort, not a Mummy like Pip is to Kasdeya) and now the unfortunate wretch lay dying from some hideous disease.   Mercifully Rivalyn was there to cure his disease, or possibly it was someone with a potion, Marius wasn’t getting anywhere near the filthy thing in case it was catching so doesn’t really know what happened, but somehow he got better so we talked to him. 

He had arrived with 2 others and were bumbling about in the dark when they encountered the Mummy.  Two of them were slain but this person managed to escape before the terrible disease the Mummy had inflicted on his took its full effect and now here he was.  Not wanting to leave the bodies of the brave souls who had fallen to the undead abomination we agreed to rescue them, but as exhausted of resources as we were we needed a plan, and plan we did!  Gathering everyone together we came up with a strategy so cunning that you could stick a tail on it and call it a plan with a tail stuck on it.

We advanced to the lair we had been directed to, strange glowing eldritch runes hung in the air like ethereal gossamer, an aura of malice turned our knees to jelly, and out of the darkness a hideous shape lurched out way with a low moan of dread.  We had found the Mummy!  Immediately we backed away, drawing it after us, until it was clear of the woods where is had made its’ nest and then we pounced.

Marius hurled a fireball at it, then while it flailed about on fire Caleb, Granit, Lok Ay, and Chiaroscuro formed a loose circle of shields around it, darting in and out to deal mighty blows while Marius, Kasdeya, Mai’Ru, and Vydalia fired volley after volley of bolts at it.  The beast flinched under our onslaught but struck back with huge blows that, but for our brave shield bearers, would have pulverised boned and flesh, until from out of the darkness thundered Twig who hurled a huge Earth Hammer into the Mummies face, knocking it backwards and while it staggered about trying to recover Lok Ay poured evil power into it’s corrupt form through a couple of cause mortals and then the rest of us redoubled our efforts, pouring dozens of bolts and blows into it before it finally succumbed to our combined might!  A mummy downed and not a single blow did it land in return.  The power of the plan!  From that point on we always had a plan and followed it.  Ha.   No chance, everyone went back to being like a herd of Brownian motion particles, but at least for once we knew what if felt like to execute something properly.  By that Marius means in the sense of “to carry out” as opposed to the other meaning of execute which we all know what it feels like to do as we murder hobo it very regularly.

 

Out of mana, out of power, and with two bodies and a smelly wretch (okay, Marius is aware that doesn’t narrow things down at all) we carefully snuck past any further wandering uncontrolled undead and returned to the village.  10 miles we had to walk.   10!  It shouldn’t happen to an Air Wizard.   Staggering back we had the bodies of the Protectorate soldiers to return , and with Malice managing to disrupt travel in and out, we sent Vydalia with them to make sure they would be safe, a one way trip and we were sorry to lose her but ,   Yay Us, and Yay Beds.

 

Too soon morning knocked on our doors and without so much as an offering of tea, or breakfast port, we were raised to once more do the Protectorates’ bidding.  As we pondered the choice of which Ice Cream to break our fast with, a group of Malice arrived, send from General Mourndread to investigate what had happened to Bile and the forces in the area.  They discovered it was us, and we demonstrated what we had done to Bile.  Lok Ay Posthumously questioned one of them we learned they had arrived from the Haunted Hills and were moving about via the sea of lost souls to get places quickly.  So we know that at 90% the device didn’t reach the Haunted Hills, giving it a range of between 10 to 150 miles.  Go Science.   Also Kasdeya had her chalks, and decorated the dead Necromancer appropriately.

 

Mourndread.  Knowing that evil character was about we had to act, he had Steph in his clutches and we were going to rescue her!   Setting out we waited for Caleb, then setting out we waited for Lok Ay, then setting out we waited for… well, you get the picture.  Finally we lumbered into action and tracked ahead to where we thought Mourndread would be, overcoming a couple of Malice patrols, we heard screams ahead.  Rivalyn raced up to find Steph tied to a sacrificial alter with undead all around and in the middle a hulking evil looking bastard, this was no les than General Nargon Mourndread!  We walked up and demanded our head of the Hospital back, but he started to go on about something or other, a fatal mistake as Marius quickly got bored and for the second time that weekend we put in place a plan that Whiskers and Marius had worked out previously.

First Marius put Mourndread into a deep sleep and Whiskers promptly gave him a shaving accident, then all hell broke loose.  Marius dealt with a Zombie, then looked about to see four people frozen in place, a mad ghast was on the loose.  Luckily Marius is very handy with a dabbling of power and freed our people, especially Kasdeya.   Marius saw Caleb taking on some fearsome undead creature on his own and would have helped him but Mourndread was back on his feet, his terrible embodied undead taking over his body – but that was where he made his second fatal error, he chose a Zombie Lord as his undead of choice, clearly not expecting to meet Marius the Magnificent-Squeak, slayer of Zombies.    A shocking grasp 6 to the head, a shock 6 to the arm, and a thunderbolt to the chest later, the abomination lay twitching on the ground.  Rivalyn raced through to rescue Steph, but with a screech we were too late, Stephs’ corpse leapt up and attacked us, she had been slain and now raised as a gibbering, slavering, quivering creature.  Sadly we had to put her down again, then mop up the remaining undead, which summarises many individual acts of bravery that took place in that murderous field.

 

At the end of that dark day Steph lay there, surrounded by the bodies of the undead and Malice forces alike.  Slain by Malice, needlessly left in their clutches, her hat of office bloodstained and battered.   In respect Rivalyn closed Steph’s eyes and then removed the hat and placed it on their head before their eyes closed and they collapsed.   Marius immediately leapt to their aid and placed the Hospital hat of office on Marius’ head.  Yes, temporarily while Rivalyn was downed, Marius was the head of the hospital.   [Editors note – despite what Marius and Mr Scruffles say, THAT ISN’T HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS!!!)

Once Pip and Marius Had revived Rivalyn and Kasdeya, we tidied up the bodies (Marius taking a small souvenir) and departed from that place of sadness with the mortal remains of Steph. 

Reaching the village we were met by our Druidic ride home, and not wanting to linger at that place of tragedy any longer than needed, with an “item do thy work” we treeshifted back home.

 

 

 

 

Thanks to Seb for a very engaging event with some very scary moments, and to all the monsters for making the event absolutely magical. 

And Seb, Jem, Lex – We killed Steph!!!