"I dunno what it is, but I'd rather not add my brain to its collection!"
,
,
"Somehow I doubt it wants your brain, except maybe as a novelty." Kaelic responds and goes to work slicing and burning.
,
,
Dagon begins to inspire his companions!
Juma swings his staff in a figure eight, but only lands one strike. The dead thing's rubbery flesh seems to resist some of the blow's force.
Kaelic slashes the creature, his weapon seeming more effective, then burns it as well.
The strange creature then gives Juma a vicious bite, tearing away much flesh!
"Ow! Much of my flesh!"
,
,
,
Dagon backs up more and fires his crossbow at the creature.
vs. AC with cover
"Juma, look out, your flesh!" Kaelic exclaims as Juma gets shredded.
,
,
"Try cutting and burning it!" the gnome advises, seeing his attacks working.
Juma hits the creature twice, one strike solid, but the thing's flesh still resists some the damage!
Dagon fires a bolt, but it flies wide!
Kaelic swings and misses with his sword, but manages to burn the creature. It still stands!
The creature continues attacking Juma, taking another vicious bite out of the fighter!
"Dagon, the wand! For Juma first!"
Kaelic attacks furiously, hoping to temporarily save Juma from his ultimately inevitable fate of being eaten by undead.
,
,
,
Kaeilc slashes the creature with his blade, then burns it some more!
The creature stumbles, then collapses to the ground!
Searching the chamber, your eye alight on the four locked, iron chests. The chests are easily opened with the keys found in Huclay's manor. Inside the first three chests, you find 11,300 cp, 7,200 sp, 1,800 gp, and 60 pp, all in small cloth pouches of 100 coins each.
The fourth chest is twice the size of the others and of very fine manufacture. Inside you see an exquisite darkwood case with four packets atop of it. Inside each of the packets is an enhanced type of dust of darkness, while in the darkwood case is a mithral scroll tube containing a scroll of permanency, as well as five tomes. Four of these are rare antique tomes on astronomy, written in Ancient Osiriani, while the fifth is a tattered volume called Secrets of the Dreaming Dark.
The darkwood case is worth 250 gp, the mithral scroll tube, 300 gp, while the four antique astronomy tomes are worth 1000 gp each.
"Thats... it? There's got to be more to this cave. Help me look for secret doors!"
Dagon searches the area, but finds nothing else of interest.
"Well then, back to free the shae I suppose."
Dagon peruses the Secrets of the Dreaming Dark as they travel back to town.
"Are you sure you want to be reading that, Dagon? I'm a little worried it might be cursed or something."
Juma begins quietly reassembling his own flesh.
Returning to Belhaim with your newly acquired wealth, you return to Hunclay's manor and descend into the lower level. Applying the dust to the light wall, the effect is negated long enough for the shae to escapes her cell.
"You have my thanks and eternal gratitude." Glancing at the table in the corner, she asks. "Do you have my gear that was on the table?"
"...Oh. Yeah so... somebody who isn't us may have taken that to sell it. We could... try to get it back?" Kaelic suggests, turning to the others. "Maybe in trade for getting rid of that devil-thing?"
-Posted with Wayfinder
"You know, the time for asking about your gear was before we stripped out everything that wasn't bolted down. What did you have?"
-Posted with Wayfinder
The shae's form wavers a little. "The leather armor and the two swords, on the table right over there?" She says in a slightly irritated tone.
Kaelic shoots a look to Dagon and Juma, a mix of suspicion and puzzlement.
doesn't ring a bell...
"Well," Juma says, addressing the shae, "We'll try our best to get your stuff back at the auction. Sorry for the mix-up... you know, I don't think I got your name. I'm Juma, and these are Kaelic and Dagon. You are?"
"My name is Maffei." The shae says in response to Juma. As she turns the corner, she points. "Ah, it appears you were mistaken, there is my gear, there on the table." Moving to the table, she dons the leather armor, and straps the two swords to her belt.
"In gratitude for my rescue, I pledge myself to your party. What has brought you to the wizard's abode and hence my rescue."
"Well, so far we're making a killing off this Hunclay guy and cleaning up his messes. I figure we'll ride this until we clean out the city's discretionary spending for this fiscal year, then move on to some place bigger."
"Dagon has the best ideas. Yes, we came here to do a paid service of marking down Hunclay's possessions after his passing." Kaelic says, jingling his coin purse. "A pretty fair wage too. Not to make light of how deadly this place was before we... sanitized it."
"As you may have guessed, though, it seems the wizard was prying into dangerous affairs. I wouldn't be surprised if ramifications of his activities show up to make our lives complicated. And since 'make our lives complicated' is all too likely to be code for 'try to kill us', we'd better ask now: what are your capabilities in battle? I beat things with a stick, the little one can shoot a bit of fire, and Dagon offers a little magical support when he's not busy decorating walls with crossbow bolts."
Maffei nods to Juma. "I am skilled with the blade, using both at once normally. Having been exposed to the light, I feel my faculties have been diminshed, though. Regardless, I will give my utmost in battles you may encounter."
Leaving the manor, Maffei explains that she is hesitant to show herself in town, and will wait for you out in the woods.
Returning to baroness, you inform her that the manor is now secure. ""Once the clerks have a complete inventory of the manor, we will have an auction. You have done so well, if you would like to bid on any of the lots, I will cover half the cost, up to a point. Let us say, 7,500 gold." She smiles. "You have a few days until the auction. Rest, peruse the lots, and enjoy yourselves. You've earned it!"
"Okay Maffei," Juma says before the shae heads off to the woods, "We'll look into getting someone to help with your affliction. Try not to look tasty to any of the local fauna in the meantime. Feel free to run screaming into town or whatever if something wacky or dangerous happens."
Leaving Maffei to her own devices, you spend you time in town training and waiting for the auction. Inquiring into clerical help for your new shae friend, you learn that the priest of Abadar with sufficient power to cast such a spell is in Cassomir reporting to her srperior and will not return until the auction. Continuing your streak of bad luck, you find no one interested in the scroll, though perhaps someone attending the auction may be interested.
After about a month's time, on the eve of the auction, the town is abuzz with excitement as visitors from afar have journeyed to Belhaim to bid on the auction lots. The following day everyone turns out, as the auction is open to the public, and many of Belhaim’s citizens attend out of curiosity, even though few have the means to compete for the big-ticket items. You are given a place of honor with front-row seats.
Despite the large number of invitations sent out by the baroness, only a handful of prospective buyers arrive in town the day of the auction—the remoteness of Belhaim and Hunclay’s limited fame in arcanist circles makes the auction less of a draw than hoped. Talking with some of the twonspeople, you learn that several parties represent wealthy, out-of-town interests: a trio of white-clad Kalistocrats from Kerse; two black-robed individuals of indeterminate gender representing the Mercantile Consortium of Maheto; a snarling half-orc named Mr. Pickets representing Duchess Selphine Telegonus of Cassomir; and a brown-haired man in a red felt hat with a large blue feather stuck in its side, who calls himself Clausyre and represents an unnamed interest from the north.
Finally the auction begins....
-Posted with Wayfinder
Inquiring into clerical help for your new shae friend, you learn that the priest of Abadar with sufficient power to cast such a spell is in Cassomir reporting to her srperior and will not return until the auction.
Inquiring about scrolls, you find that, unfortunately, no scrolls are available and the same absent priest is the only one able to scrib such a scroll.
Dagon asks around, but has a hard time finding someone to purchase the scroll.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Those potions seem a bit expensive. But I wouldn't mind having some of those scrolls around if we can get them for a bargain..."
Dagon pounces on the opening bid, putting on a display of impatience. "255 gold pieces! Although I might need someone to make change for me if it goes for less than two thousand."
Dagon shouts out the opening bid, looking supremely confident. A gnome, the towns historian, looks like she's going to bid, then looks at Dagon and shut her mouth again, looking away.
Dagon saunters over to the gnome woman after the auction, and shows her the scroll of excruciating deformation.
"I didn't even really want this scroll. If it's what you were after, I could probably let it go for a bargain."
The gnome nods happily. "How much?"
"How about... 200? That's just barely more than half what you'd have to pay a wizard to commission it."
The gnome considers for a moment, then nods. "Aye, seems fair enough, though I probably should have tried to outbid you for the whole lot!"
It’s nearing dusk when the final lot is opened: Hunclay’s manor home and his land. The auction is running long, and Chosk. the auctioneer, pauses for several minutes while servants quickly light lanterns throughout the amphitheater. Eventually, the last auction begins with an opening bid of 2,500 gp.
Whle watching the auction, Dagon notices a dark shape flying in the sky. Seconds later, four lanky, batlike humanoids with long tails and four narrow eyes. swoop down onto the auction stage and begin attacking people!
Kaelic jerks his head up from his chest, a bit of drool still lingering between them. "Wha? Did I miss the bear auction?" He looks up and realizes they're at the final auction for the manor itself. "Oh, darn it. Who got the bear? Juma, tell me you got me that bear." Just then, people are suddenly beset by creatures that just aren't much fun to look at. Besides that, they don't seem friendly.
"Dagon, Juma, we've got--" he starts, before noticing he's the last to the party. "Nevermind, you got it." He throws his hands forward and launches a glowing orb that travels to the stage and explodes in a flash of light. "Hey, I'm like a wizard!" Then he runs to the stage to get into the action.