GM Faelyn' Falcon's Hollow Series

Game Master Faelyn

The crossbow is far from good condition; however, it is definitely in better shape than the bolts. A closer look at the wood shows that the frame was fashioned out of darkwood, though a good portion of it is warped. The lathe and stirrup appear to be made of mithral. The weapon is in desperate need of repair, but it does not appear to be beyond fixing... Masterwork Light Crossbow (Darkwood/Mithral) with the 'Broken' condition.

Belladonna is happy to show the rest of the group as she tries to figure out the mystery behind this unique weapon. She suggests letting one of the bigger folk hold onto it for now, as she's already feeling fairly weighted down with just her own stuff.

Question, what does a Mithral weapon do?

On a ranged weapon, pretty much nothing. Makes it slightly lighter.

Caine whistled low at the thing, "May I?" he asked, carefully taking the crossbow from Bella.

"I think I can fix this up in a couple minutes. Lets take break."

Casting Mending (10 minutes). Moving string from my crossbow to new one.

Caine crouched down next to the door and leaned back against the wall, going over the crossbow's mechanisms, cleaning out the crank and oiling the trigger mechanism. He didn't really notice it, but his holy symbol was glowing through his shirt and his eyes were lit up slightly to match.

Belladonna watches silently from a distance, noting how the grumpiest man she had ever met was practically dancing with delight.

Zilka chuckles a bit, looking up the stairs. "Nothing else up there then?"

Over the course of the next few minutes it became clear that Caine liked fixing things. Cleaning up the crossbow took years off of him. He worked with a small smile on his face.

Zirren looked at the crossbow as Belladonna handed it off to Caine, who then started to repair it. "I doubt it, Zilka. Belladonna's eyes are probably the keenest here, anything else of interest was probably taken a long time ago."

He bit his lip, thinking.

"Well now that we've checked the tower, we have to go back into the monastery. We don't have enough iron-bloom mushrooms to help cure the plague yet. Should we deal with the wolves first, or explore deeper in?"

While Caine is working on the cross bow, Zilka uses her whetstone to put a fine edge on her longsword.

"Let's check out the rest of it first. Wolves might not even be there anymore."

Actually, Belladonna is on par with Zirren for perception, except that she doesn't have low-light vision.

Oh, I know that. But I'd say it's a lot more difficult for Zirren to tell that sort of thing, especially given that it was Bella who found the secret door earlier. Zirren isn't exactly humble about his abilities, but he'll acknowledge others from what he sees.

Caine decided to spend the time working on repairing the broken crossbow while the others keep an eye out for the wolves, or other denizens of the monastery. The ten minutes pass agonizingly slowly on the group, each sound or movement causing them to jerk their heads around as they searched for enemies; however, the time passes without incident... In Caine looks as proud as a father as he examines the work he'd completed on the crossbow. It gleamed in his hands, a testimony to the quality of dwarven craftsmanship! It was light in the hand and smooth to cock.

Where to now?

"Now that Caine's finished with his project, we should go. Do we head back the way we came or check the doors on the west side of the courtyard?"

"Anyone mindif I hang onto this? My own crossbow doesn't work so well without the string."

Belladonna just rolls her eyes and giggles

"You're welcome to it. Ain't crossbows special to Abadar's church anyway?"

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"Yeah." Caine said. "They're a weapon usable by pretty much everyone, and they're easy to make. They make the power of size less important. They're the people's weapon."

He held the bow upright so it's T shaped profile was visible. "It's all symbology. They're scales. For weighing things. Coins. Justice. Guilt. Balancing things that aren't equal."

Realizing that his question had been missed due to Caine's presence, Zirren sighed and contented himself to watch Caine's description of the church of Abadar's symbol.

"Fascinating." Zirren murmured to himself as the point of view changed from looking at a simple weapon to one of balance.

Within a moment, he had slid off his pack and was reaching for his parchment and quill. He then began writing at a heightened clip.

I thought we needed to go below this place, did I misunderstand? How many of the mushrooms have we found? We need five of them, correct? We probably need to look for some way of accessing the sub levels of this structure. I know little about dwarves, but I know something about tunnels and caves. We may have to find a way to release the wolves without causing danger to ourselves. Perhaps we can rig a rope to open the door while we stay save behind another, and leave something the wolves can smell out in the open courtyard to draw them out of the building.

Without looking up from his script, Zirren nodded at Nathaniel's suggestion.

"Yes, the journal we found suggested that there was tunneling going on below where they were held captive. There's almost certainly a way down. As for the wolves, does anyone have any dried meat?"

Soooo... What's the plan folks? Where to? Back to the hallway from before? Or do you want to explore the unknown area?

I think we're going in the front door at this point. Right?

Aye Aye, Captain!

Correct. To the front doors!

"Looks like the only place left to go is straight in through the front. Might be trapped. Be careful, Bella." Caine said opening the door to the old tower and stepping back out into the courtyard.

Belladonna approaches the doorway on the western side of the courtyard, spends a moment looking over at and finds no traps. She does, however, notice in the dim light, two doors on either side of the short hallway before her (both closed). On the other end of the hallway, she spots a set of double doors, opened partially outwardly and darkness extending to either side, which is indicative of another hallway. It is likely the same hallway they spotted earlier when they encountered the wolves...

After a few moments of Belladona looking inward, Zirren moves forward and leans over her glancing both ways, his sharp eyes seeing further in with the dim lighting. "Looks clear. Several doors inward both closed. We should check those first. Caine, take the lead."

Zilka directs the dancing lights further along the hallway, her sword at the ready.

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Caine nodded and moved toward the first door, hoping not to be ambushed.

Stealth: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (9) + 6 = 15

Sorry, my bad.

Belladonna sneaks up to the open doors, and tries to make out anything important (such as traps or shiny things or kobolds or skeletons or...)

She takes the most interest in the double doors, but also the southern hallway.

Stealth: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (2) + 11 = 13
Perception: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (2) + 7 = 9

Beyond the double doors is a small dark hall. Littered with mounds of debris and a year’s worth of dead leaves, it is clear that a narrow path winds inside. Belladonna does not hear anything as she presses her ears to the doors. The north door appears that it may be stuck shut and would require a little force to open (Strength check DC13). The door to the south seems like it would be opened easily enough. Zilka's lights brighten up the hallway to the south and they illuminate another door to the south near the edges of the darkness...

The dancing lights illuminate a portion of the room behind the double doors. Belladonna spots pews of darkwood tipped over on either side of this large room. A dark shape looms at the far end of the room, unable to be made out quite yet in the extremely dim light.

Map updated.

When Bella moved forward again, Caine let her pass and went back to his position with Zirren at the rear of the group.

Belladonna sneaks back to Zilka and says "Zilks, can you send your lights farther in? I wanna see what that dark shape is."

Zilka obliges and sends her light streaking into the room, illuminating it completely. Pews of darkwood lie tipped over and covered in dust on either side of this ancient shrine. At the far end sits a large ceremonial anvil, but its surface is defaced and ruined. As Belladonna looks around the room, she spots two jet-black things dangling from the ceiling, watching her with red eyes... Map updated.

"See anything Bella?"

"Yup..." Belladonna gulps. She carefully steps backwards, out of the room.

Caine moved forward behind Bella, just outside the room, his new crossbow leveled right over her head.

"You did your job. Our turn. Zilka, you and I have point on this one. Get those lights out there."

Beneath his shirt, his holy symbol flared and his eyes began to glow with gold light.

Casting Divine Favor.

Then, the quarrel on his crossbow began to glow as well. Casting Light on the crossbow bolt.

Belladonna ducked behind Caine, using him as a bit of a shield. She drew her own crossbow and leaned to the side to aim at the strange creatures.

Waiting to see what the rest of the party wants to do before my next post.

Seeing as it's a pair of doors, Ruhk kneels down and draws his shortbow, getting ready to fire an arrow as well.
Hmmm, I should get a bow good enough to deserve a name...

Can Zilka see these things? How high is the ceiling from which they are hanging?

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We'll say the ceilings are 10' high. From her current position, Zilka would not be able to see them.

Zilka will move forward, and sees the creatures. Since we're not in initiative yet, can I take 10 for 12?

Of course! We are definitely not in initiative yet, so you guys can post actions as you see fit. These things have animal intelligence, so at this point they are simply watching. They are aware of your presence, but they have not yet reacted to it...

"They look like big nasty bats... I wonder if greasing the ceiling would cause them to fall down, or whether they'd just open their wings and fly when they fell?"

"What are they?"

"I remember the name -- Darkmantles. They were in a bestiary I read at the lodge in Oregent. It didn't have much information about them, though. They were in a listing of creatures of the Darklands."

"I don't like having to kill animals if I don't need to, but they're between us and the mushrooms. Safest thing to do is take the opening shots and see if we can bring one of them down. Maybe the other one will run."

"Any objections?" Caine asked.

"Dark Mantles..." Zirren said, it was half question, half comment as he tried to recall what he could about those creatures in particular.

Knowledge Arcana: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (20) + 8 = 28

His eyes snapped into focus immediately as they were pointed out.

"No objections, those creatures are dangerous, Caine. I read about them from a journal from one of my company in Almas. They're fast and prefer to ambush prey by dropping on them from above and are usually able to fly with a strange, nearly silent flapping motion. Imagine swimming through the air, or a cloak billowing through a strong breeze. They may look small, but they can supposedly constrict creatures of nearly any size with their tentacles. They also have a limited ability to create Darkness, usually they'll do this to confuse their prey. They have eyes that can see in the dark, but somehow they can detect nearly anything that comes their way from further off, invisible or not. There was a lot more information about them, but I'll spare you the details for now."

"So...everyone who can moves in and lines up a shot?"

"Sounds good. Thanks, Zirren. Lets do it." Caine nodded.

It looks like we are all in position to be able to take a ranged attack at the lower of the two darkmantles on the map. We'll ready shots, count down and let a volley fly. Here's mine-

Caine aimed down his new crossbow. "Alright, ready? Three, two, one, fire."

Using a Luck Blessing on myself before I take the shot.
Crossbow, Divine Favor, Luck Blessing: 1d20 + 2 + 2 ⇒ (4) + 2 + 2 = 8
Luck Blessing Reroll: 1d20 + 2 + 2 ⇒ (15) + 2 + 2 = 19

Damage, divine favor: 1d8 + 2 ⇒ (8) + 2 = 10

Bolt still has Light cast on it.