AS usual, see the bottom for your status and location.
Try tonget out of the death spirsl and perhaps use my vaguely worded nagics to at least soften my fall if I fail.
Your badly typed reply made me chuckle. You manage to pull up and regain control, just before the birds fly in.
Keep using that Hypnotic Dance of Dominant Mist to distract the flying monsters so that they don't attack us. Make sure to fly towards the pillar or at least not flying too much downwards.
At this point, "down" is toward the pillar. it's confusing, but that's how it works. Anyway, you use your hypnotic trance and a large swath of the birds are caught in it. unfortunately, they fall straight through your party in their aerial dance, slamming into the carts and your party members as they fall. You, being one with the dance, avoid this damage, though your cart does not. Those birds trapped in the dance fall out of control toward the Pillar, and can be considered out of the fight. Other birds swoop around the edges of the path of the Dance and come in fro the sides. Some of them get entangled with the dancing birds and fall away as well, but many more swoop in.
Continue the dive until I come out of the smoke. If I don't after twenty or thirty seconds, level out and move shallowly in an attempt to get out of the smoke that way. If I do clear it, engage the swarm as expected. If the smoke continues indefinately, spray a bit of fire out to make sure I can see something, and my eyes haven't been magically removed or something.
You were never in the smoke. you were in the unnatural darkness from Xan's knife. well, you are out of it now, and engage the swarm. individually, the creatures are about the size of Gak, who is your smallest companion. They are black, and somewhat shiny. You curve up around the edge of the swarm, avoiding the wierdly rhythmically moving swath and engaging a side that still seems to fly normally. you eat a few, and grab a few as yo ufly upward. Then, you let your cart's momentum swing it up above you, and you dive. You fire napalm in very short bursts, almost like a pair of rapid fire automatic weapons. Dozens are enflamed, and they let out the strangest shrieks. at first, you think the shrieks are their voices, but they rise in pitch pretty rapidly, to be cut off by a sudden bang when the burning creature explodes. Dozens more are taken out in the explosions.
Whoops, seems my dice are doing their thing again. Stop doing the darkness and instead shine a beam of light in the eye equivalents of the flock. If necessary, pull some basic evasive maneuvers while doing so.
Whoops, seems my dice are doing their thing again. Stop doing the darkness and instead shine a beam of light in the eye equivalents of the flock. If necessary, pull some basic evasive maneuvers while doing so.
You drop the darkness and shine a brilliant light upward. This is greeted with a terrible cacaphony of harsh cawing, and a whole lot of confusion. Evasive maneuvers are necessary, yes, but they are not entirely effective. It's like trying to dodge rain. Large, meaty drops of rain. Some of which are on fire. Anyway, you manage to avoid catching fire and get tothe edge of the swarm
Continue towards the general direction of the pillar, and stay out of Freddy's way so he doesn't accidentally shoot me
You swoop low, the only birds you encounter are falling, rather than flying.
alright, here's what happened this round: a large flock of birdlike creatures just flew through your party like hailstones through corn. So, there was damage. I will be rolling for the status of your carts and for how much damage you take personally. Some of the birds were burning, and those burning birds explode, so there is a risk of fire. You are close enough t othe ground that I'll roll for crash for any cart that is disabled. Also, for those who took evasive maneuvers, that is factored into your roll.
(5)(5)(1)(1)(4)
(6)(4)(4)(3)(3)
Freddie's cart snaps free from Freddie and falls, wings torn and out of control, leving Freddie's harness and some broken guide rails still attached to Freddie.
Gak's cart loses a wing, and the entire back half is engulfed in flames. He manages to land without destroying the cart completely, though it will never fly again, and half the contents are destroyed.
Kongor lands without taking any real damage to the cart as do Vladen and Rex.
Rex passes out immediately upon landing, his limbs twitching rhythmically for a while afterward.
Almost miraculously, you guys survive the beating. The only real damage is to Gak and Kongor. Kongor takes a burning bird to the back, and the explosion sets some of his fur on fire and leaves a burnt wound across his back. Gak takes a handful of birds to the face and is knocked free of his ruined cart. he bounced on the hard ground and is disoriented. his ears, and the rest of his body, are ringing loudly.
(4) you land in the shade. The ground at this part of the pillar is roughly flat, with ridges running north and south. The ridges are mountainous. You land on top of one of those. they appear to run the entire length of the pillar. Not far away, on the "East" of your position, is the line where the shadow stops and the light falls on the pillar. You can see a large forest of red. It clearly rises up from the metallic ground. You can see patches of the red scattered about, up to where you are. Here, the light falls mostly in the valley to the East. In the valleys, the land is less smooth, with structures and jagged bits here and there.
So, bottom line: Two carts are ruined. You have about two and a half carts worth of supplies and trade stuff left. You are on a ridge, with a red forest in the valley to the east, and rough terrain in the valley to the west. Kongor needs some medical attention, and Gak needs a smithy or something. The birds are defeated: teh remaining birds fly off in a disorganized clutter. The flock is rather reduced in size from what it was.