TG504

Helping Claws

Episode Number: (TG504)
Original Airdate: 11/2002

The party is split for most of the episode. Timus and Tierney made it back to Twingate, but are unable to get back to their friends. They discover that most of the world is locked to teleportation except for teleportation gates. Meanwhile, Gryff, "Arly", Kaz'k, and Gray get accosted by snooty guards. While their melee-centric nature takes the guards by surprise, a pair of stone golems serves to put a damper on the festivities. Fortunately, the Southlands party manages to break out of jail just as Timus, Tierney, and Emcee, who bribed their way through a gate down into the Southland city, find them. After a quick jaunt to retrieve the soulless body of Arlemis (at a construct & zombie shop called "Helping Hands"), the party gets their asses back to Twingate. And prepares for the big fight.

Watch For

• A twisted game of leapfrog, as Kaz'k, Gray, and Gryffid escape from an inescapable prison by clubbing each other unconscious, stepping outside the cell through the hole in the cell doors, and then getting clubbed unconscious by the next guy.
• The loss of the Claw of Chaos, as Arly gets de-soulified again (apparently the Claw found its way onto the wrist of a rich aristocrat from the Southlands)

Plot Points

• In the dungeon dimension where Tierney was kept and Sendant and Arly are now, some force is tormenting Sendant and being really nice to Arly.
• The Southlands is a high-magic zone. And apparently low on weapons and armor.
• Prisons in the Southlands use mind-control spells to make the prisoners police each other.
• Constructs and mindless undead are popular servants in the Southlands.
• The wards against unlicensed teleportation can be broken by a powerful-enough wizard -- or sorcerer.

Unanswered Questions

• What's up with the Southlands?
• Why is Twingate not under teleportation lock like the rest of the world?
• Why does Tierney have doubts about facts surrounding his capture?
• Who ended up with the Claw of Chaos?

Analysis

Southlanders speak a different language, and appear to think of people from the Twingate area as savage barbarians.

Notable Quotes

Kazek (after preventing "Arly" from setting the orchard on fire): Only YOU can prevent forest fires.

Patrick: What are the two of you doing? Regardless of the fact that I just said "BOOM!".

Guard: Just step through the gate. It should be perfectly safe; system shock hasn't been used since 1st edition.
Tierney: I'll just send in my page first.

Tierney: I'm just worried about merchants trying to skirt around the town and ending up on spikes on the city walls.
Timus: But that's merchants.

Kazek (with a guard impaled on one of his horns): I'll wear the dead guard and try to keep a low profile.

Alec: All I have left is Restoration.
Patrick: Yay! You're attacked by wraiths!

DMP Speaks

The party is back in normality, geographically speaking. I am officially happy. And with luck, no one will want to go to the Southlands anytime soon.

This is, most likely, the last "Sendant & someone-else Gone" episode. I think people are ready to get back to their regular characters.

Gryffid Speaks

I want the old Arlemis back. At least he had some remote ethical sense before he became Mr Blue Eyes. Sure, he was unreliable then. But at least it was a decent sort of unreliable.

Now he's worse.

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