first tweaks and a bugfix: stop minifying things if pushd fails

acl.cool/site/writings/umbral3.dj

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ The island-city of Ruathym lies midway between Waterdeep and the first expanses
 
 Our brave heroes find themselves on a ferry ship, bound for that cold speck of rock, to do the work of their mission's latest leg. In compromise with Almuth's Goddess, the party decided to undertake vanquishment of the Cyclone--- odd even among its eight fellows, and against whom preparation has proved difficult--- on the heels of their victory over the [Witness](/writings/umbral2/). It is something of a blow then that Almuth himself should not be present today[^almuth], engaged as he is, otherwise, with clerical business of a higher priority. Warren too is missing; he tends to obligations[^warren] amongst his dwarven kin under Fourthpeak. The beholder on which the party now sets its sights waits in blue water, west even of Ruathym, where it foments a vortex of thin-drawn thunderheads that hammer spumy, livid coils into the Trackless Sea.
 
-The ferry captain--- a halfling who introduced himself on land as "Ramel"--- ventures a question. What could outsiders seek on the island of Ruathym, so notorious a skerry for its people's disdain toward just such mainland-dwellers? He catches looks of confusion that flit about the party members' faces and, seeing that they don't quite comprehend the situation into which they will soon disembark, gives a short lesson. Ramel explains that the inhabitants of Ruathym are an Illuskan people who make their way by raiding nearby settlements of the Sword Coast and Moonshae Isles[^moonshae]. They believe in their own rightful mastery over all the lands touched by the sea's northern reaches, and long for the day that they will take them _back_ by force. Concomitantly, mingling is ill-advised.
+The ferry captain--- a halfling who introduced himself on land as "Ramel"--- ventures a question. "What could outsiders seek on the island of Ruathym, so notorious a skerry for its people's disdain toward just such mainland-dwellers?" He catches looks of confusion that flit about the party members' faces and, seeing that they don't quite comprehend the situation into which they will soon disembark, gives a short lesson. Ramel explains that the inhabitants of Ruathym are an Illuskan people who make their way by raiding nearby settlements of the Sword Coast and Moonshae Isles[^moonshae]. They believe in their own rightful mastery over all the lands touched by the sea's northern reaches, and long for the day that they will take them _back_ by force. Concomitantly, mingling is ill-advised.
 
 Though freshly uneasy, the party is--- of course--- not dissuaded; a mission is a mission, after all. They share the immediate tenets of their quest, to see the Sea of Swords ridded of the monstrous storm. As the ship pulls upon the near dock of Ruathym, its captain bids his charges well, but before the party departs, they ask for directions to the nearest place with ships for hire--- this dock is sparely populated indeed--- and learn that a greater port lies north across the island. They receive one last piece of advice: if it is to brave the storm that you desire, seek Hergotha the Storm Maiden, Chieftess of the Ruathym people; none are her equal in the art of conquering storm-lashed seas. Carmel casts "seeming" over the party, working from Ramel's description of the locals, which should lubricate their interactions considerably.
 
@@ -24,25 +24,25 @@ After confirming that the party has indeed located the Storm Maiden, Carmel puts
 
 At this, the Chieftess' skepticism is is gone, and a new vigor suffuses her being. She gives directions to the wharf whereat her warriors moor their ships and bids the party meet her there--- she has some quick business to attend to before they depart. The skirmish seems to be wrapping up--- in the Northlanders' favor, which suits the plan nicely--- but the party does not descend to the battlefield; they head away, yet farther north, whither Hergotha bade.
 
-Arriving at the wharf, our heroes find a vast and varied array of ships. Stately galleons preside over twitching clippers that bob in devolved wavelets of the storm-agitated sea. The vessels and the trappings of their berths enjoy conditions that strike the party as incongruous with the general state of shabbiness that pervades the rest of the island. Perhaps one must learn to be fastidious when sailing is a matter of such necessity as it is for the Ruathen. The party boasts no sailers--- only Almuth knows the first thing about a ship--- but they select a sturdy and fast looking specimen and begin to head aboard.
+Arriving at the wharf, our heroes find a vast and varied array of ships. Stately galleons preside over twitching clippers that bob in devolved wavelets of the storm-agitated sea. The vessels and the trappings of their berths enjoy conditions that strike the party as incongruous with the general state of shabbiness that pervades the rest of the island. Perhaps one must learn to be fastidious when sailing is a matter of such necessity as it is for the Ruathen. The party boasts no sailors--- only Almuth knows the first thing about a ship--- but they select a sturdy and fast looking specimen and begin to head aboard.
 
 They are stopped by a pair of loitering crew, who challenge the party about their intentions. Thankfully, our heroes need tender no half-truth explanation; objections are interrupted by a sound like a jet liner caught in a tornado that barrels toward shipyard. Hergotha lands, this time with a crash, and giving orders to other lingering crew to raise anchors, cast off lines, and unfurl sails, makes ready the very same ship the party just approached. Serendipity.
 
-Succeeding the speedy hullabaloo of their departure, the party--- plus the Chieftess and some secondary crew--- approach the center of the storm. Disparate eyes can be seen blowing about like windswept debris, except that their gazes are ever fixed outward. Blistering gusts drag at the keel and threaten to rip the masts from their steps, but Hergotha is prepared. She calls out to the storm, calming it, asserting her own power over the unnatural gale and subjugating its whipping banks of fog that form a wall through which she and her vessel are determined to pass. One eye halts in the storm, studying her from afar--- it regards an unwelcome competitor.
+Following the speedy hullabaloo of their departure, the party--- plus the Chieftess and some secondary crew--- approach the center of the storm. Disparate eyes can be seen blowing about in the clouds, like windswept debris except in that their gazes are fixed ever outward. Blistering gusts drag at the keel and threaten to rip the masts from their steps, but Hergotha is prepared. She calls out to the storm, calming it, asserting her own power over the unnatural gale and subjugating its whipping banks of fog that form a wall through which she and her vessel are determined to pass. One eye halts in the storm, studying her from afar--- it regards an unwelcome competitor.
 
-As the clipper breaches the storm's great eye, a strange sense of lightness comes over her passengers. The weight of their bodies seems supported by something besides their own feet, and a new spring and fleetness[^spring-fleet] is in their every movement.
+As the clipper breaches the storm's great eye, a strange sense of lightness comes over her passengers. The weight of their bodies is supported by something besides their own feet, and a new spring and fleetness[^spring-fleet] bolsters their every movement.
 
 Coalescing out of towering thunderheads appears what seems--- surprisingly to the party, or at least to Gottlob--- like a conventional beholder. It's visage resembles well the momentary glimpse of the Witness had before that creature succumbed to its captors' infection. With a deep inhalation of cloud and spray whipped up by the near eye-wall's whirling fervor, the beholder speaks in a voice that booms with thunder and runs thick with an infinity of crashing waves.
 
 The party beholds Gwintolent, the Living Storm, son of the Gas Giant Gzemnid[^gzemnid] and grandson of the Great Mother[^mother] herself. His tone conveys that majestic lineage as he introduces himself to those below. Carmal and Gottlob query the beholder successively, probing for information. They hope to resolve the matter with diplomacy, but the beholder is not convinced; he summons three elementals from the aberrant vortex's bowels--- water, air, and lightning--- which alight upon the deck of the Storm Maiden's ship to do battle with her retinue. If the party can pass this test, perhaps the the Living Storm will entertain a conversation.
 
-Though these fresh foes wield considerable force and boast impressive resistance to spells and steel alike, the four party members present--- with Hergotha along-side--- defeat Gwintolent's storm-aspect incarnations with little jeopardy. Louisa fires rays of frost that freeze the water elemental. Clementine summons a giant eagle to assist as she launches arrow after arrow from her magic bow. All the same; searing bolts of living lightning do considerable damage, and our heroes are notably weakened as Hergotha's blade deals the air elemental a mortal blow, and Gwintolent reappears.
+These fresh foes wield considerable force and boast impressive resistance to spells and steel alike, but the four party members present--- Hergotha along-side--- defeat Gwintolent's storm-aspect incarnations with little jeopardy. Louisa fires rays of frost that freeze swaths of the water elemental solid. Clementine summons a giant eagle to assist her as the centaur launches arrow after arrow from an enchanted bow, arrows seeming to ignore the winds as they sail unimpeded toward their targets. Searing bolts of living electricity flung from the lightning elemental's what-pass-for-hands do considerable damage, however, and our heroes are notably weakened as Hergotha's blade deals the air elemental a mortal blow and Gwintolent reappears.
 
-Gottlob and Carmal seize once again the opportunity to probe their adversary for personal information. This time, the beholder seems more receptive, his response indicating their newly elevated status in his eyes. Gwintolent aims to surpass the great Gzemnid, to escape the oppressive shadow of his father's legacy. To this end, he _exercises_ the tempestuous faculty that ravages the Sahuagin and incites the crisis that brings adventurers to his lair today--- the great and lingering storm that Gwintolent wraps about himself is the mere accidental product of those exertions.
+Gottlob and Carmal seize once again the opportunity to probe their adversary for personal information. This time, the beholder seems more receptive; his response indicates the party's newly elevated status in his eyes. Gwintolent aims to surpass the great Gzemnid, to escape the oppressive shadow of his father's legacy, and it is to this end that he _exercises_ the tempestuous faculty that ravages the Sahuagin and incited the crisis what brought adventurers to his lair today. The great and lingering storm that Gwintolent wraps about himself, the cause of this whole affair, is the mere accidental product of his exertions.
 
-Though he could easily attack the heroes where they lean on masts and railings to catch their collective breath after defeating his minions, Gwintolent instead states terms. He is an honorable creature; if his life is preserved in the face of defeat at the party's hands, his will shall be theirs to command; he shall comply with their order, whatever it may be. The beholder pauses for a moment, retreating into the sky a dozen yards or two, and from the party's vista, he appears to repose on a bed of cloud while he waits to strike, for his opponents to process the implications of that promise.
+Though the beholder could easily attack the heroes where they lean on masts and railings to catch their collective breath, Gwintolent instead states terms. He is an honorable creature; if his life is preserved in the face of defeat at the party's hands, his will shall be theirs to command; he will comply with their order, whatever it may be. The beholder pauses for a moment, retreating into the sky a dozen yards or two and, from the party's vista, he appears to repose on a bed of cloud as he gives his opponents precious time to process the implications of his word.
 
-There are mere moments to converse in the window of their narrow reprieve, but Carmal takes them with haste; he turns to Hergotha with a calculating glint in his eye. "Surely", he ventures, "the Storm Maiden, Chieftess of the Ruathen, should seize upon this opportunity for gay and glorious battle!" Killing the air elemental has set her blood-lust on edge, and Carmal's urging pushes it over--- she vaults and leaps at the hovering beholder; from her throat she looses a welter of furious exuberance.
+Carmal takes with haste the chance to to converse in the window of their narrow reprieve; he turns to Hergotha, a calculating glint in his eye. "Surely", he ventures, "the Storm Maiden, Chieftess of the Ruathen, should seize upon this opportunity for gay and glorious battle!" Killing the air elemental has set her blood-lust on edge, and Carmal's urging pushes it over--- she vaults and leaps at the hovering beholder; from her throat she looses a welter of furious exuberance.
 
 {.thematic}
 ***
@@ -57,11 +57,11 @@ Those physically present are surprised--- most have heard of astral projection,
 
 Right away, Warren follows suit, leaping from the deck in a feat that astounds even the agile harengon himself, sailing through meters and meters of air, over the taffrail, to take hold of a beholder's eye stalk. He somehow manages to hang on, but the Cyclone sees its chance and catches the cleric squarely with a ray of deadly necrosis. Carmal, apparently having formed a habit while fighting the Witness, casts "polymorph", and Warren becomes a killer whale. As he falls into the ocean, the beholder acts again with a salvo of eye rays cast at various party members, blinding Clementine and infecting Almuth with a creep of petrification. The centaur takes unseeing aim at the beholder, and, miraculously, both her arrows find their marks--- Clementine's skills with the bow are such that sight is a simple luxury. Louisa accesses the weave to "catapult" a nearby barrel toward Gwintolent, who dodges just too late and is clipped as the cask flies by. Hergotha gives a shout of dismay; their wizard has thrown overboard the rum.
 
-Along the eye wall and scattered about the meteorologically calm interior of the battlefield, black, hovering pyramids appear in the air. Faint tendrils connect them to Gwintolent, and the party can think of no explanation for their arrival that fails to strike fear into the heart. Gottlob attacks one nearby, and it vanishes with a pop and a puff of smoke. A few of the others try the same, but are not so lucky.
+Along the eye wall and scattered about the meteorologically calm interior of the battlefield, black, hovering pyramids[^pyramids] appear in the air. Faint tendrils connect them to Gwintolent, and the party can think of no explanation for their arrival that fails to strike fear into their hearts. Gottlob attacks a pyramid the floats near enough to reach from the ship's deck, the strike of his rapier making contact with a flash of blinding light, and it vanishes with a pop and a puff of smoke. A few of the others try the same, but are not so lucky.
 
-The Living Storm activates his anti-magic cone, adding a new element of tactical complexity to the already swimming field of their struggle. The party manoeuvres in and out, trying to balance the protection it affords them from devastating eye rays with the limitations it places upon their own abilities to attack. Spells strike from behind and beside the beholder as our heroes call upon their command of battlefield geometry to land blows where they are needed most. Unfortunately, the cone has a more insidious effect: Carmal has been concentrating on maintaining the party's disguises since they landed on Ruathym, but no more; his magics are suppressed, and Hergotha sees her companions for what they really are--- they really are _not_ her kin. The chieftess teeters on edge once more, caught now between pressing battle with the orb and a burning desire to enact revenge upon the lying outsiders who have made a fool of her. The immediacy of her self-preservation barely outweighs the shame at having been manipulated so easily, but, with the still-true promise of glory to follow Gwintolent's defeat lodged at the back of her mind, she maintains the offensive. Hergotha attacks our heroes with nought but a reproachful glare, for now.
+The Living Storm activates his anti-magic cone, so adding a new element of tactical complexity to the already swimming field of their struggle. The party manoeuvres in and out of that field of view, trying to balance the protection it affords them from devastating eye rays with the limitations it places upon their own abilities to attack. Spells strike from behind and beside the beholder as our heroes call upon their command of battlefield geometry to land blows where they are needed most. Unfortunately, the cone has a more insidious effect: Carmal has been concentrating on maintaining the party's disguises since they landed on Ruathym, but no more; his magics are suppressed, and Hergotha sees her companions for what they really are--- they really are _not_ her kin. The chieftess teeters on edge once more, caught now between pressing battle with the orb and a burning desire to enact revenge upon the lying outsiders who have made of her such a fool. The immediacy of self-preservation barely outweighs the shame at having been manipulated so easily, and with the still-true promise of glory to follow Gwintolent's defeat lodged at the back of her mind, Hergotha maintains the offensive. She attacks our heroes with nought but a reproachful glare, for now.
 
-At last, the living storm begins to weaken, the multifarious powers of his eyes and swiftness of his action unable to keep pace with the multitude of warriors assaulting him from every side. Warren jumps and snaps from below as his party members hammer away from the deck and Clementine's summon harasses from the sky. With a cry of triumph, Hergotha lands the final blow, a solidly gaseous bolt lancing from her gloved hand to fatally strike her foe from the sky. Gwintolent's limp body crashes upon the ship, his eye stalks flapping about before coming to rest, splayed and listless.
+At last, the living storm begins to weaken, the multifarious powers of his eyes and swiftness of his action unable to keep pace with the multitude of warriors assaulting him from every side. Warren jumps and snaps from below as his party members hammer away from the deck and Clementine's summon harasses from the sky. With a cry of triumph, Hergotha lands the final blow, a solidly gaseous bolt lancing from her gloved hand to strike her foe from the sky. Gwintolent's limp body crashes upon the ship, his eye stalks flapping about before coming to rest, splayed and listless.
 
 Freed of her martial engagement, the Storm Maiden reproaches the party; she peppers them with furious questions about their origins and aims. Almuth responds; he explains that the group's intent is to transport the beholder back to Waterdeep, to bring its exertions into alignment with the interests of peace and cordial coexistence. The Ruathen hears he worst suspicions confirmed: these conniving occupiers' agents plan to use the captured Cyclone as fuel in the engine of her people's oppression. The chieftess will _not_ allow it--- the winds of Hergotha's arcane endowment lift Gwintolent bodily above her head, a single eyestalk clenched in her fist, as she poises once more to take a battle footing. She threatens the party that she would sooner see te beholder drowned than allow them to return with it to waterdeep. The cleric Almuth, in a fit of insanity, decides to knock her out with a single hit before she can act on her threat to drop unconscious Gwintolent into the maw of the sea. Taking aim and bashing her upside the head, he only makes her angrier. The enraged Storm Maiden returns Almuth's strike, but the riposte that threatens to become an all-out brawl is curtailed by the voice of Carmal, cutting above the din of shouts and waves that lap against the hull. His spell arrests Hergotha where she stands; stunned, stupid, hypnotized, she can only grip the beholder's eye, fingers clenched as though in death.
 
@@ -91,4 +91,6 @@ Mollified, Almuth has another question. His clerical order, the Stillness of the
 
 [^mother]: The beholder [Great Mother](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Great_Mother) is the primary deity of the beholder race.
 
-[^next-day]: It's the next session. Almuth's and Warren's players have returned!
+[^next-day]: It's the next session. Almuth's and Warren's players have returned!
+
+[^pyramids]: These are physical manifestations of the beholder's legendary actions. With each destroyed, he looses one for the round.

build.sh

@@ -67,7 +67,10 @@ for site in acl.cool ytheleus.org; do
     soup_config
     rm -rf serve/
     soupault
-    pushd serve/
+    if (( $? != 0 )); then
+        exit $?;
+    fi
+    pushd serve &&
     find -type f -name '*.html' -o -name '*.css' -o -name '*.svg' | xargs -0 -d\\n -I{} minify -o {} {}
     popd
     NEXT_DIR="serve_$(date +%s)"