Bassius begins moving toward room a, drawing his blade and saying under his breath "Better safe than sorry."
Tove draws her dagger and moves to investigate room c.
Terri moves into the dark room, creeping past the edge of the light and searching around to see what may lie hidden here in the dusty cellar.
Garret will follow Terri and Ivo into room B with bow in hand and channeling the power of the bat(FF grants darkvision 60).
After a brief glance into each chamber, and seeing no threats within, Bassius and Tove search one room while Garethane, Ivo, and Terri investigate another.
The party splits between two of the rooms and begins to search through the various crates, boxes, chests, and pile of ill-gotten goods. The majority are mundane trade goods such as pelts, furs, tobacco, iron, bronze, tools, miscellaneous weapons and armor, and adventuring gear.
With the first two chambers searched and cataloged, you move to the last chamber where you find a chest of coins and a bag of trinkets and jewerly.
Just as you are wrapping up your investigation, you hear a croaking voice muttering some sort of invocation. Moments later what was a solid stone floor now appears to be soft clay.
Ivo and Garethane can make out from around the corner of a decrepit, balding man standing with his feet and hands attached to the fifteen foot high ceiling, hanging half-way out of the stone wall.
Initiative Order:
Ivo
Garethane
Tove
Terri
Nugrah
Bassius
"Of course there's another. Let's put this fool to rest".
Tove mutters a quick prayer of her own and sheaths her dagger, readying her bow.
Wondering what's going on, Terri squeezes past Garethane to take a look, crying out in alarm as previously solid ground tries to take her boots, she struggles past the clay to a safe spot by the stairs and looks up to see an old man hanging by his arms and legs.
"Tove! He's chained up! He probably thinks we're the Stag Lord's lackeys," she calls out to her friend.
"Sir," she calls out, hoping that he understood her, "we are not your enemy. We don't wish to fight! Let us help you down and you can tell us what happened," she implores the man, trying to head off any violent actions before they couldn't be undone.
Terri looks up to see the old man hanging from the ceiling like a spider and pulls out her bow.
"Please, Surrender! The Stag Lord and his minions above have fallen. We do not wish to kill you, but we will if we must!"
Bassius raises his sword at the man. "Surrender in the name of King-Regent Noleski Surtova, and you will receive a fair hearing!"
Ivo draws his repaired pepperbox, points it at the man's head, and says, "You should do as they say."
"Well that doesn't seem natural." FF back to Tiger assuming our light is decent.
Garret will step 10' into the mud and draw upon the fellow walking towards the ceiling. Should the fellow charge him or try more spell casting or spell-like abilities, Garret will attempt fire on him and attempt to disrupt those actions.
Readied Shot (should it trigger):
"A fair hearing? Ha! Do you think I fear death? No, no, I welcome it, I just intend to take you with me as you took my son." the old man croaks as he changes from the form of a man to one of a large wolverine.
Terri, seeing the man is mad beyond reason, nocks an arrow and sends it flying at the beast that he'd turned into.
Just another unrepentant bandit then.
Tove moves up beside the others and looses an arrow of her own.
*BOOM*
Seeing the man mad with rage and filled with murderous intent, the paladin interposes himself between the now-wolverine and his companions.
Bassius heals himself before placing himself between the wolverine and his companions.
Terri and Tove both sink arrows into the wolverine while Ivo blasts a rather significant hole into the creature's side.
"Guess he won't be casting anymore spells" Garret says before letting loose with this bow.
Garethane fires off two arrows, striking the wolverine with one, before the creature scurries along ceiling deeper into the chamber and begins rhythmically growling and grunting.
Ivo gives chase as best he can; unfortunately his short stature makes this a full-time job.
Tove follows Ivo and looses another arrow over the gnome’s shoulder.
Seeing the chanting, Bassius moves in to put an end to the old man.
Seeing the chanting, Bassius moves in to put an end to the old man.
Attack=1d20+8
Damage=1d8+3
Terri moves up into the room and nocks another arrow.
It flies true and sinks into the old man turned enraged badger's flesh
Garret slogs through 5 feet of mud to keep the badger in point blank range and takes a single shot.
As three more arrows sink into the old man/wolverine, he stops his gutteral chant and falls to the stone floor with an unceremonious thud.
Ivo scrambles forward to check on the old wolverman.
"Were-wolverine? There must be a clever portmanteau for that," he says as he kneels down to make sure the fellow is dead, then looks for any suspicious or identifying objects.
Stowing his sword and buckler, the paladin approaches the body. As he joins the gnome in searching the man's corpse, he mutters "Would that I had a father as caring as the Stag Lord's."
As Ivo approaches, the fallen wolverine slowly begins to shift back into the form of the decrepit old man. On the corpse the gnome finds a club, tattered dirty robes, a number of odd, but worthless trinkets, and a well worn, thumbed through journal.
In his youth, Nugrah belonged to the Green Faith. Against the tenets of his cabal, he took for himself a wife—a pretty, much younger girl with dark tresses and pale green eyes. Soon after, she became pregnant, and despite his best efforts, she died in childbirth, leaving him with a son. Agonized by his loss, he turned to blackest magic to bring her back. Enacting an ancient and terrible ritual, he sacrificed another girl in an effort to ask the spirits to release his wife’s soul and have her return to him. Appalled by his monstrous acts, his wife’s spirit appeared before him, cursed his name, then departed forever into the afterlife.
Soon after, members of his secret druidic order arrived at the scene of his undoing. They tried him on the spot, and upon finding him guilty branded him a heretic. They banished him from the order, sparing his life only that he might care for his infant son. He converted to the worship of Gozreh, finding strange solace in all the
violence and impassive cruelty in nature, and in the years that followed, Nugrah blamed his son for his misfortunes and treated him as an animal. Often he threatened to kill him, and made murderous attempts on more than one occasion, such as by leaving him outside in the winter and beating him bloody. Once, he tortured him near to death by dousing him with acid. This event left the boy permanently scarred, so gruesomely that for years he covered his frightful face with a burlap sack, and to this day he never removes his helmet. Then, one night, the relationship between the two shifted. His son had become a man, one physically and emotionally scarred with terrible, dark desires, and after a near-fatal beating Nugrah realized that he had become the victim in the family. In sour and sickly vengeance his son deals him the same hand the old man once forced him to play. He is abused and beaten frequently, and lives in fear of the son who mercilessly keeps him alive to endure his fate.
Today, Nugrah obeys his son’s commands to guard the treasures kept here, and uses his magic to heal wounds endured by the bandits as well (although the bandits loathe the old man’s moist touch so much that they generally hide their wounds unless they’re particularly painful, preferring to let them heal naturally rather than spend even a few minutes down here with the old man). Nugrah passes the time crafting twisted fetishes and praying to Gozreh for an end to his wretched existence, but lacks the courage to take his own life.
Ivo thumbs through the journal for several minutes, then finally closes it and taps his hand against it a few times.
"Well, in a surprise to nobody, this guy sucked."
Terri lets out a breath she hadn't been aware she was holding as she sees the unceremonious end of the Stag Lord's father.
"I-is it over," she asks as her bow falls to her side.
Garaethane is introspective. "I've spent my life studying the animals of the forest to take on their best qualities. This man forced his son to take on their worst. Losing Razarak is a huge sadness, but the removing these two from the world makes it a better place."
“Agreed, the people of these lands will remember his name for generations to come. His sacrifice has not been in vain.”
"Speaking of people of these lands, once we bury the dead and secure the store, we will want to inform Olaf, to send word to Restov that the Stag Lord is no more."
Between sneaking in, the fight, and then the second fight, Terri is exhausted. Her spells are spent and her brush with death has left her drained. After helping move the treasure to where Bassius could better inventory it and bury the dead, she is nearly out on her feet. Once they are back in the keep, she finds a relatively clean corner and passes out with her blanket half-wrapped around her.