The Rescue of Finangle in Oz

From DQWiki
Jump to navigationJump to search

Callas Verdicini

September 1992 AP

Introduction

Brief introduction to the adventure

The party has been hired by the Guild to go to the Land of Oz in an attempt to rescue the Guild member Finangle. Finangle went to Oz with two other Guild members, and during his time there he disappeared. The two other members returned to Seagate without him and he has not returned since. This happened about ten weeks ago.

Guild members going to Oz

Callas
A beautiful, young human female of medium height, a little on the thin side, with shoulder length blonde hair. She appeared at the meeting without arms wearing the latest fashion in greens and browns. Is currently the party's partisan scribe.
Thaeuss
A shortish (for his race) elf. Currently has a useful rag and string golem with him called Halon, who is an adequate five healer. Thaeuss himself has a chronic over compensating inferiority complex, making him some what less than likable.
Antonio
A human male who is current growing plants out of his head. Professes himself to be of the Air College. He is currently the party's leader.
Tananda
A tartish human female of limited beauty who claims to be an investigator of sorts with minor illusionary abilities.
Garabaldi
A human male. The party fighting machine and military scientist.
Kharga
A human male. He has the distintion of being of the earth college, which gives him certain status in the scribe's eyes.
Villa
The most experienced member of our party but I have heard that he is a notorious thief and coward.

Peoples inhabiting Oz

Mombi
The (not so) wicked witch of the east. A sweet grandmotherly old lady who makes wonderful pikelets. She is transporting us to and from Oz. She is believed to special powers dealing with animals. She has only lately become the wicked witch of the east.
Ozma
The currently ruler of Oz by help of the Guild and popular support. She is a mage of unknown power and is current friendly with the Guild. She is a young woman who lives in the Emerald City.
Glinda
The good witch of the south. Said to powers in healing and protection. Rumours say the good witches may not be a squeeky clean as they perhaps should be.
Gaylette
The good witch of the north. Rumoured to have powers of transportation.
Dorothy
A young girl of unknown power. Stories go that she killed both the wicked witch of the west, and the wicked witch of the east, Mombi's predecessor.
Witch of the west
The wicked witch of the west (known as the Wow by some adventurers) is known to have powers of enscrollment and shaping but has little love of the Guild or its members.
Gillikans
The people of the north, who favour the colour purple.
Winkies
Hobbit sized humans who live in the west. They favour the colour yellow.
Munchkens
The people of the east who prefer the colur blue.
Quadlings
The people of the south who dress mainly in red.

Finangle was last seen by the poppy fields near the Yellow Brick Road. It is said that he had been turned into a scarecrow for a little while. Help is supposed to be available Wobblebug College, which is south of the Emerald City. The person there is Professor H M Wobblebug TE.

Maps

Map of the Land of Oz


Map of the Lands surrouding Oz

Map of the lands surrounding Oz

Diary of events

30 June 1992

Today was the day of the Guild's quarterly meeting. I was unable to find an adventure to go for this current session.

1 July 1992

I saw a notice asking for a party to going on a rescue mission to the land of Oz. The meeting will be held in room 306 at 3:00 pm tomorrow. I spent the day buying various needed items.


2 July 1992

We were met by a hooded figure, presumably from Guild sercurity. He asks if we a willing to go to the Land of Oz to rescue a fellow Guild member called Finangle.

During the meeting Villa used a marble imp to attack Thauss. The imp managed to rip up Thauss' nose. Villa's punishment for attacking a fellow Guild member is the loss of half his party treasure.

Because of Thauss' unpopularity and Villa's lack of enthusiasm Antonio was voted in as party leader by 4 to 3. Garibaldi was given the job of military scientist and I took on the role of party scribe. Various other things occurred, but not much of interest.

One problem which will occur in Oz is that there is no alcohol and meat is not eaten there. This has upset some of the more manly among us.


3 July 1992

Left the Guild at 9:30 am to reach the house which was taking us the Oz just before noon. The trip had a few trouble, mainly caused by peasant wanting to burn Thauss as the witch. This was because he was riding his giant spider. Villa went as far as offering the locals a light. While I would not advocate the use of violence against a Guild member I would not have fought too hard save him.

The trip to Oz in the house was not the most pleasant. It started spinning around and around until it took off from the ground and disappeared into the air. Half way it stopped spinning and then started spinning the other way. The whole trip took about two hours and we arrived in Oz during the afternoon.

Mombi was there to meet us and offered us afternoon tea. Many of us were not really up to it and certainly the horses looked very sick. At Mombi's offer we decided to stay the night there in the house. While Garibaldi and Toranda cleaned out the horse's mess (or was it really a romp in the hay?) I enjoyed pikelets and Earl Gray with Mombi.

It seemed that the poppy fields tended to roam around a bit so it was not possible to know where they would currently be. Mombi was very interested in the tree Johisaphat. It was clear she was thinking a lot about what we had to say. She had not seen Finangle for over ten weeks.

My afternoon tea was interrupted by Charga making uncontrollable urges towards Garibaldi. Apparently he made a very lustful pass the Garibaldi's rear parts. Charga maintains it was the effect of a magical backfire (I, myself, will hold judgement on the reason for his behaviour, but it is clear the magic currently is very troublesome and backfires are common).


4 July 1992

It is now the evening of the 4th and it was a very eventful day. Yesterday night, after the small event of Tonanda going crazy due to a magical back fire, causing blindness, deafness and amnesia, in which she manages to which Garibaldi a good left hook we all settled down to sleep and set watches. I was on the third watch (after midnight) and not much happened and I woke Vila to do the final watch. During that time I was kidnapped by three witches. It is strongly rumoured that Vila was in fact asleep at the time. I blacked out shortly after my capture.

From the other members of the party I learnt that in the morning, with the help of a locate from Vila, they set off to rescue me. At that time Mombi was no where to be seen. Garibaldi managed to get flung off his horse by a tree, there after being caller flingers. Apparently they are similar to weeping willows and they can wrap a branch around a person and throw them quite some distance. Later they also met a talking binapple tree, which dumped fifty binapples on Tonanda after she asked for them.

When I woke up I was tied to a tree in a large clearing, while a distance away three witches croned around a large bubbling culdron, muttering to themselves. Above the clouds had all gathered together to form one large storm cloud. As the witches came to cut down from the tree, after pinching and croning over me, I sunk into the ground.

Of the combat that I saw, Thauss managed to get struck my a serious bolt of lightning, Garibaldi and Charga got iching dust thrown at them and Antonio was shunk to 6 inches high. Charga also foolishly attacked one of the witch's boom and was turned into a sofa. Garibaldi forced a witch to turn both Charga and Antonio back to their natural shape and size. Afterward the three witches got away as part of the deal. Apparently they were going to boil me down into pretty potions.

We left the clearing which our escort of munchkin children which the party had picked up on the way. The story of their defeat of the witches while we cowered for safety was told many times, each one less accurate from the last. Our escort departed after we passed through a munchkin village.

Later that afternoon, after travelling north west from the clearing (which was several miles directly south of Mombi's) we stopped at a copse of trees. Soon after stopping the Easter Bunny, a giant eighteen foot rabbit, stopped by and gave us all easter eggs. Asked why he was doing such a thing he replied `Because it is Easter, happy Easter, here, have an easter egg.'


5 July 1992

While doing of great significance happened last night when we awoke Tonanda and Garibaldi were sleeping against some trees and we all slept through our watches. Also all the binapples and the easter eggs were gone. I managed to mute myself back firing a spell. Thauss has an argument with some poisonous daffodils, which ending in Halon putting some in a bag. I could not this and kicked the bag open, freeing the daffodils and making me feel a lot better. It seams the daffodils cannot manipulate magic but are semi sentient.

Tonada, which trying to disbelieve the corpse of trees, manages to disbelieve everything and becomes accutely paranoid for the next hour or so. After a while we reach a dusty trail, which looked yellow from a distance, but was not the yellow brick road. While travelling along this trail we see a road to the west. We head towards it but even after several hours we do not seem to be getting any closer.

The solution to the problem involved covering our eyes and leading our horses. After a dozen or so steps we were on the yellow brick road. The road is 5 foot wide and runs directly east west. After a boring afternoon's ride we stop for the night.


6 July 1992

We set off again heading west. Thauss, using shadowwings, flies off for a while. Around midday he returned, saying the emerald city was about a days ride away. The remainer of the day was comsumed with travelling, little of which was exciting. Antonio managed to fly up on shadowwings and talk to a cloud and we ate up some of the local greenary and fruit.


7 July 1992

We collected some water using my tarp. It normally never rains during the day but quite often at night. About midmorning we reached the emerald city and at the gate we are forced to put on green glasses. About 11 o'clock we meet Princess Ozma. After a long debate we convince Vila to open his mind up so Ozma can get the picture of Finangle. During the afternoon most of the party go off to the shops.

Garibaldi buys a gross of post cards while Tonanda and I trade trinkets. I got a bracelet which would increase my physical beauty but it has a problematic curse of not been able to be removed.

During the evening not much happened except Garibaldi and Charga managed to break up the local tavern a little during a drunken fight.


8 July 1992

Most of what follows relates to a long and very draining session of magic with Princess Ozma. She informed us that she believes Finangle is not in Oz but possibly in the Vegetable Kingdom, which is south west of Oz beyond the Deadly Desert. Garibaldi then goes off to find the Scarecow while Ozma, though Tonanda's illusion magics, and with our mana, creates an illusion, or more closely a mana construct of Finangle. Thauss tries to bind the construct to a golum body but fails. In a last attempt to keep the constuct from disappearing Thauss preserves it.

Garibaldi returns with Bonnie Scarecrow while Thauss again tries to bind the construct to the golum. During the ritual, in a flash of light and a puff of smoke, Finangle is physically transported into the construct. I managed to get his aura and perform empathy on him, but Ozma was unable to hold him and he disappeared again. My managed to assitain that he was amnesiaced but not much more.


9 July 1992 (part 1)

The very strange event which occurred in the alter reality of Oz start at about six in the 'morning' of the 9th.

I Woke up around six with nobody (apart of the other party members) around. It was completely dark and there was no sign of activity. At eight it was still completely dark.

Charga and Garibaldi go off to visit the neighbours and break down a couple of doors. Soon the moon rises from the north. It was about a half larger than the normal Oz moon. Thauss goes off and find the owners of the house.

We have breakfast with the owners, who happen to be vampires (civilised vampires, but vampires nether the less). It consisted of live rats which I found very upsetting. The place we were in was but the Emerald City but the Sanguin City (with everything being sanguin rather than emerald).

Garibaldi managed to coerce a freshly killed pig out of our hosts before we left (in some hurry). At the main gates we were refused exit until we had permission from Princess Ozma.

We meet the Princess as she is holding court. After our pertition we a put in a holding cell for several hours. Ozma gives a the right to leave the city on the condition that she holds no libility to any harm that may come to us.

We get some crystal weapons from the quartermaster and here some stories about the dreadful Ghants who are supposed to roam outside the city walls. We leave about 11 o'clock in the 'morning' and head towards Wogglebug College, going from corpse to corpse.

After half an hour out from the Sanguin City we are attacked by two Ghants. They were around fifteen feet hight and circular any were about six feet wide at the base. They were multi tenticled and had a vile smell.

In the ensuing battle both Ghants were destroyed and it turned out that a Ghant was a small creature, about two feet tall, which sat inside a blown up 'outer skin'. From an examination of the outer skins they look like they are bio-mechanical. The Ghants seem to be a race of magical mechinicians. A Detect Aura came up with college of 'mechinician' with highest ranked spell 'Animtion of improbable machine.'

Because I had backfired a Hands of Earth spell and trapped three of our horses, and I was completely fatigued, we could not go anywhere for at least several hours. We checked on Finangle and he was alive in the alter reality.

About threee quarters of a hour after the fight a huge hole in the ground suddenly appears and both the prisoners and the three captured horses disappear. The hole goes straight down about forty feet before becoming horizontal and heading off to the south west.

We final decided to continue on going south and about half pass six in the 'evening' we reach Lake Quad. Thick forest surrounds the lake and we camp there, cooking the pig for a meal. About seven thirty a red dawn appears and an hour later the sun rises. The sun was very wan and gave of a distinctly red light. A fresh wind picks up but it is still very mild.

It dizzles on and off as the clouds skud above but it does really get cold. About three hours after dawn the horses return along the lake shore. Two of them have some sort of binding magics on them. At the guest Rathlin broke his leg in the fall into the hole and it has been bound with metal.

We leave around midday and head west. About three hours after we reach a river and a bridge. Garibaldi starts to ride across, wearing full plate armour, and is attacked by a water troll. He is pulled into the river and starts behaving like an anchor. Tonanda turns his armour into a green singlet and g-string (quite fetching really). Thauss backfires a binding elements and begins a battle of will with a globe of water while Antonio starts causing a maelstrom in the river. I loose sight at this point.

On regaining sight we are heading towards Wogglebug College. Thauss 'Bubble Brain' has his head emersed in a globe of water but he seams to be able to breath without trouble. We reach the College and meet the professor. The names of Motley and Seaker are seen on one of the large plaques on a corridor wall.

The Professor tells us he won't help us until we get a letter of introduction from Princess Ozma. In the end he tells us how me may get back to the Emerald City, which he says is a myth. We a teleported to the glass tubes and the elevator. We enter the elevator, which is bigger on the inside, with the help of the operator.

We start off accelerating before changing direction several times. Suddenly we start falling and we get pushed into the roof. We keeping falling until I black out ...


9 July 1992 (part 2)

I wake up with all the other party members in the same room. Everybody is fully dress and wearing their packs and other outdoor equipment. All of the items we picked up in Sanguin are gone except Garibaldi's g-string and vest. We all seam to be very fatiqued. While we have breakfast Thauss goes off. The horses are fine and none of them show sign of any injury (including those who were taken by the Ghants).

Around nine we all go off to meet Ozma but she has had a difficult night and is unable to see us until ten. I go off shopping and buy a nice green cloak. We meet Ozma in her bedroom where she is resting. She thought she was the Emerald City and she has being attacked during the night. We relate our adventures in Sanguin.

We are asked to stay the night in the palace and Charga, Antonio, Garibaldi and Villa go off to check the walls and outside the city. Tonanda and Halon fly down to see Professor Wogglebug. I sleep away the afternoon.

Wake with to see Halon hauling a very battered Tonanda. She crash landed the shadow wings and was concussed with a broken wrist. A comment between Garibaldi and Kharga, who had ust visited Tonanda (who was in bed) "Oh, sorry I thought you were ..." "No, she is awake."

Professor Wogglebug gave Tonanda two pills of knowledge, one of Oz geography, which Kharga consumed, and the other of Arcane knowledge of Oz, which Ozma ate. At this point I noticed Halon was beginning to become bebellious against Thauss, or as he put it "Halon is going native."

During the night another dream occurred. It started with myself and Tonanda waking up in the morning, rapidly growing until we were 100 feet tall. We managed to get out of the Emerald City to see a 120 foot giant wielding a huge club and shouting "Fee, fi, do, fum, I smell the blood ... "

Then I wake and am back in the Princess's bedroom where we had been spending the night. The room is surrounded by a wall of darkness. Back again in the dream the giant was smashing down the city walls. Villa managed to levitate it and it slowly started dirfting up into the sky. Our party kept entering and leaving the dream as they woke and fell back to sleep.

In the dream an eagle with a 500 foot wingspan appeared. Ozma entered the dream at 150 foot tall carrying a huge sickle. The eagle attacked Ozma and she struck back. Antonio helped out with a good blow from an axe. The eagle (and the giant which has on its back) disappeared leaving bebind a large feather in the bedroom. Villa seams to think it is some sort of key.


10 July 1992

Ozma woke up this afternoon and tells us we must go outside Oz to the 'Phanfasisms and Mimics' who are creating the dreams. We try several diffent attempts to retrieve Finagle but none work. Thauss creates a new golum Ozran but it does not come with any native knowledge so it is rather childish. Halon is not very impressed about it all.

Gaylette, with the help of Ozma, meets us and with the click of her heels we aare transported to the border of Winkie and Gillikan country.

We cross the border and head towards DoubleUp. Winkie country does not have the perfectness of Munchkin country. During the past two days Garibaldi has been teaching Halon snap and is trying to coerce him from Thauss with revolutionary talk. We camp by a copse of trees. Villa goes missing for a while but nobody cares. One of the trees is Nebuchadnezzar, the brother of Johosaphat. The grove in the trees is a very good place for casting magic.

11 July 1992

Thauss created a mana golem called Mannon Des Sourves. During the night I summoned an animal and accidentally got a kaladar. It wasn't too happy about being summoned so when I said it could go home is simply left. I noticed at this point Villa had two rings in his eyes around the pupils so his irises look metal. I don't know how they got there.

About two in the afternoon we reach the Dangerous Passage. The passage is a straight path, siz feet wide, between two completely square blocks, each six hundred feet high.

After about two and a half hours travel we enter a tunnel. Halon creates a candle on Garibaldi's helm. We meet nobody in the passage or the tunnel. When we exit the tunnel after four hours travel it should have been after eight in the evening but it was only around two in the afternoon.

From the exit of the tunnel the Deadly Desert running north-south is east of us. To the west are broken lands and in the far distance to the north and west are two huge mountain ranges. Between the desert and the broken lands is an area of rolling contry about two miles wide. To the south is a huge black wall which reaches the sky and goes beyond the horizon to the west, but not over the desert. We are now in Greater Oz. The desert kills people by incineration. I walked out onto it. It was hot, but not unbearably so.

From the tunnel entrance there is a trail running north west towards a gap in the two mountain ranges but we head south and a little west. For a while Thuass flies off on shadow wings. After a while we come across the border of the broken lands and just under the surface I could see a dotted line. The land on the line is almost perfectly flat and very good for riding on.

Thuass returns to say that the wall does not meet the desert and there is a strip of land between the two. Also to the west is a large river which runs along side the wall for a while before disappearing.

We reach a place where the desert has made a tongue out into the land we are traveeling, stopping a few hundred feet east of the dotted line. Here the sand is much hotter than before. A small stream comes out here and the water is beinh turned to steam. Antonio throws one of his berries out onto the sands and it explodess creating a mushroom cloud and a large crater. We stop and cook dinner in the sand. Villa notes that here the sand not hot enough to melt a copper coin. Mannon collects some sand, and when it leaves the desert its magic starts to dissapate but is still very hot.

As night falls we make camp in a nice glade in a half mile long gully. Garibaldi notices some very thick cobwebs in some trees and after makeing some torches investigates. A pig escapes from the trees but before we could get to it it disappears into the ground.

Thauss, conversing in arachnid, talks to the owner of the web. The spider is a giant trapdoor spider and lives under the ground. After some threats between the spider and Thauss Antonio hits it with seven iced projectiles. Garibaldi also hits it with a crossbow bolt and we all make a rapid tactical withdrawal and get out as fast as possible.

12 July 1992

After several hours journey we reach the wall just before midday. At a corner in the wall there is a hundred foot high door. Villa opens the lock, which is forty feet up, with the feather key. The door has an anti-magical barrier so all magic no longer works inside.

Inside is a hallway 30' wide, 110' high and 100' long. At the end is a small door. Behind us the door closed. As the golems pass though the door Halon and Ozran become inanimate but Mannon turns into an old man (looking like a human).

The horses cannot fit through the door, which did not have a lock on it, but suddenly a horse rail, hay and a trough appear out of nowhere. Behind th door is a large church awith a big stained glass window. A person was kneeling in front of the window when we entered. He turns around and is wearing a wide brimmed hat with a red shirt and tattered clothes. His face was very scarred and ugly and he had long blades (or claws) on this ends of his fingers.

'Welcome to the house of God.' When asked his name the reply was 'People call me Freddy.' The door behind us closes and locks so Garibaldi pushes our collective luck with Freddy. We manage to get our horses and Freddy says Finangle is just through a now appeared door and along the corridor.

Kharga goes off to investrigate and we soon follow. The corridor was very long with doors coming off it at regular intervals. Hanging from the ceiling were glowing lights, every fifteen feet or so. In the room Freddy indicated to us there was a bizarre sacrificial ritual going on with a person on a bed with others wearing white coats and marks around him. the person was not Finangle and the people in white called security.

After a short fight the security people are dealt with but they turned out to be illusions (or dreams). The corridor desappears and we are in an alley sloping down. the night sky was above us and a huge boulder was rolling towards us. After some heavy riding and concentrated imagination two side alleys appear. We take a quick right. At the end of the corridor is a door which Garibaldi tries to kick down. Behind is an elevator staft with he also falls into. The elevator (a box with runs up and down the elevator staft) comes up with Freddy in it.

One of the elevator buttons has Finagle on it but before we could do anything Kharga rushes in, kicks Freddy out and pushes the button. The doors close leaving us and Freddy in the alley. Freddy leaves through a door that wasn't to find Kharga.

We went though the door that was the elevator into a parkland. Behind us is a small building on a slight hill. Looking down (having just left this building) is a children's play area with a road running thought it. Thauss says he knows about these types of roads (it was black and had a very hard surface). In the park about twenty girls (about seven or eight in age) playing.

After ten minutes of senseless conversation Thauss started bullying one of the girls. They all cry out in unison and out of the woodlands which surround the park comes a 20' tall creature covered in flame and carrying a flaming whip and sword. Thauss got severely whipping and Garibaldi, after trying to shoot it with a crossbow, got badly hit with the sword.

We make a run for it and meet Kharga, who had just come though the door. We all enter the lift and press the button for Finangle. The elevator goes down and at the bottom the floor drops out from under us. We all falls into a square room which has 15' of dirty water in it. At the bottom of the room was a trapdoor which, when Garibaldi opened, sucked all the water down and Garibaldi with it.

Through the trapdoor was a nice clean pool in a large room. At pool was about 150' long and about 15' deep at one end but it shallowed. Progressively we all jump through and Freddy enters. After Freddy has a swim he indicates a doorway we should go through.

Garibaldi sticks his sword through Freddy's guts but he only laughs so Garibaldi gives up is discust. Mannon says he can provide limit mana for casting so Villa casts a locate. We get a sphere of arrows but after concentration of a 'round about' (like we saw the children playing on in the park) half of the arrows disappear.

Going through the door we enter a large fair ground. Now there is only one arrow which we follow to come to a marque with the 'Great Orlando' on it. Inside there is a magician with a show girl. The girl is Finangle and the magician turns into Freddy. Finangle is entering a curtained box when we all charge.

After much rioting of the crowd and damage to ourselves we manage to get the box open and Finagle out. He still looks like the show girl and all of a sudden we back in the cathedral (some where along the line we lost all our horses). We go through the door at the back (which we originally entered through) into a throne room.

There on thrones are the king and queen of this land who are dream lords. Freddy it turns out is their son. Finangle reverts back to his correct form. After some exchange of words we leave to the courtyard where our mounts were waiting. Mannon turns out to be Carzon, the creator of Oz, who takes us to his home back in Oz.

Carzon gives us some financial reward and some magical talents for our help. We stay in Oz for a week before returning to the Guild.