We were very fortunate he says following nathan
Nathan leads you over the plains quickly, and through the coming days you move more slowly as he seems wary for another of those birds in the sky.
Around the start of the fifth day you can see the outlines of a village lying before you. A lone tower, possibly of a church, stands alone above the hills and shrubs in the distance.
As you come close, just a short time before noon, your initial idea is that the village is indeed abandoned. No living soul seems to stir in this small town.
What was initially thought of as a church is actually a taller structure, a tower with a small hovel attached to it. The chapel in the town has been looted and has caught fire in several places, the stone walls remain and half the roof.
The houses have blackened walls and chimneytops that have fallen to the ground, traces of its residents seem to litter the entrances as patches of blood, stain the area. Although with this evidence, almost no other traces or bodies of them remain.
Nathan looks around the town shaking his head and with sadness in his eyes. "I'm not sure what happened here, I don't think I want to know. I wonder if we would find any leads still here."
look over here Nathan There are some dragging trails from several of the stained areas, someone has moved the bodies and they all lead in the same direction. Can you follow them?
"Hah, even you could follow them I'd wager. No problem."
Nathan follows the tracks outside of the town and down a small valley where multiple fresh graves have been dug. Counting the number of graves quickly leads to a total of 21. It's seemingly lower than the original number of inhabitants, but still somebody took care to bury such an amount of villagers.
Nathan stands near the gravesite puzzled, he looks to the ground and the surroundings, but something is bugging him.
"There's no discernible tracks amongst here to see who did this. Looking at the different graves, they've been dug at different times. Look some of these are a few weeks old, others slightly less than a week or several days past. I wonder who dug them."
The houses of the village look empty and mostly looted.
Elenzar looks about, "I doubt goblins would have buried the dead. . . seems likely the survivors buried them and then fled." He pauses a moment thinking. "We should see what is about. If we want to return to Heartham to report this we should take what we can for salvage. If we are pressing on we should send word back. Assuming what ever means of speaking with Lord Midway would still work. We should do a thorough search for survivors some might be hiding."
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David, stands in awe as he narrowly escapes a bolt of lightning, which would surely have killed him. He looks on, as the mythical creature vanishes, and the booming of thunder can be heard miles away.
David, pushes on, towards the town of intent. Hoping not to run into any danger or mythical creatures until he has arrived.
We came here because we found a map of a goblin wolf rider. We came to investigate the town its famous crafters and the hard silver they are known to produce. so as things stands this town was abandoned by its inhabitants but some seem to have survived. So Nathan how about we see if we can find this survivors? If we don't find anything we have a choice of returning home, or keep on scouting toward the area marked camp and mines on the goblin map.
"If there are survivors here, they do a good job in hiding their tracks. We'd need to search all the buildings in Olkirk just to be sure there's no one left."
There are several buildings still left standing in Olkirk, a group of wooden homes at the outskirts, a remaining blacksmith's house and half its smithy, the tower you saw from the distance and a pair of great brick and stone houses which were obviously from more wealthy people.
Lets do 3 groups of 2. start with the group of homes, the blacksmith house and the stones houses. Then we all regroup at the tower we saw in a distance. How does that sound?
"Sounds good. I would like to head for the smithy 1st, to see if anything of quality still remains."
I was counting on it Nathaniel. Since this is a smith town is any survivors have taken important tool you would be the one to know. he says smiling
Nathaniel will closely examine the contents of the smithies. Searching both the obvious and potential hidden compartments.
"Who am I partnering with?" Elenzar goes with his companion and searches the buildings thoroughly.
Elenzar looks to David, "lets check the tower."
Searching the base of the tower you find a sack of silvery white powder (Knowledge Arcana DC 19 or Knowledge Dungeoneering DC 16 to identify). The rest of the ground floor contains different broken ceramics, spoiled liquids, an old scribe desk with an half-finished letter and ink still on it. There's a few gold coins scattered across the floor, (in total 17 gp). On the desk is a stale and rotten breakfast of bread and eggs and bacon, the owner must've been disturbed somewhere in the morning.
You two also find a hidden cache of valuables in the desk after a thorough search, containing 100gp worth of gems and jewelry and a ring (Spellcraft DC 21).
As you think you've had all of the ground floor, you hear sounds coming from the second floor and go up to investigate. The tower has multiple floors and goes up a long way, but the second floor seems to show more signs of habituation. Only these seem to be fresher, cleanly chewed bones, ashes in a heap in a corner, ruffled up drapes and curtains close to a crack in the floor.
You still hear sounds coming from above, if they are human voices or not you can't tell.
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David, will wander through the house, searching for any clues about who lives or had lived there, what their profession may have been, and where they may have gone to. He is surprised to find the powdery substance, but for the life of him cannot figure out what it is.
He will gather up the few coins he finds, littered on and around the desk. When he sees the note, he looks around for Elenzar, and points it out to him, So, you are the scribe my good friend. What do you think about the letter? How fresh is it? Is the ink still wet? I do feel bad snooping around, but what does it say?
Questions pouring out almost faster than what his brain can handle at once.
Pushing more loose stuff and materials aside, you find some of the tools still in working condition though they're blackened by ash and stained by soot. Some masterwork (smithing) tools can be found (worth 35 gp due to being stained and blackened). Iron scraps and broken blades litter the ground near the old anvil, you can almost feel the heat coming off the blades being forged here, looking into the furnace, you do feel the warmth as though the embers inside had been glowing.
Inside the smith's house you find a few orders and transcripts of what he has acquired through the past months and what he has sold during the same period. The handwriting is a bit complicated to read however and will take a DC 12 Linguistics check to properly decipher it. There is an empty coin pouch on a table and a vase filled with dead flowers next to it. A quick examination shows that there is still 2 sp in the pouch, caught in the folds of it.
Getting up to the second floor, you find two bedrooms, one with a large bed and one with a bunk with a top bed and a lower one. There are still some toys in the latter one. In the master bedroom you find some opened drawers and clothing thrown onto the floor, there is still a lovely piece of jewelry on a night stand there (worth 25 gp after appraise checks).
There is an attic in the house, but there is a rattling sound coming from up above there. You'd need to shove the ladder on the hall to the open space to investigate though.
The first house has a locked cellar (Disable Device DC 25 to open it).
On the ground floor there is broken crystal glass on the floor near the dinner table as well as red and purple stains on the floor and the carpet. There are bits and pieces of some sort of red meat as well on the floor as well as some animal droppings. (Knowledge Nature DC 15 to identify possible creatures)
Walking around the large rooms you two find a key in the top drawer of a cabinet, not yet having an idea of what it is for. Most of the bedroom closets and cabintes have been opened and cleaned out, not much in those chambers. The study is also thrashed which seems a pity with all the books and maps strewn about the place, they are either half-burned all water-damaged now as holes in the roof have caused rain to pour in. Scuffling through the book debris you both look at the titles of the books with interest and one springs out: 'The art of animation'
The pages within contain pictures of several schematics with cogs and wheels and simple mechanisms. The advanced part of the book seems missing as that half has been torn away.
The second house looks very much unlike the first one. It's original owner seemed to have more with hunting than with books. several trophies line the walls and there's a dead goblin lying inside the hallway of the house, several more blood splatters line the hallway until there's a clear trail you can follow.
You two find 2 more bodies dead on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. One orc and another goblin, the goblin has a bolt through his chest, the orc three.
The rest of the lower floor seems quiet and empty, there are some empty pins on the wall, as there was something kept there. When you come up to the room with a fireplace, there's a set of twin axes on the walls. The axes look like glorified axes to cut wood with, but they appear to be in good condition. (mwrk handaxes)
The second floor contains a single bedroom and another study or something, this has detailed maps on the area and also a page of mechanical nature. The illustration looks like the one seen before, however this is only a single page containing draw and fire mechanisms of crossbows but more complicated. There's also a painting of a man holding a crossbow in the study, Nathan thinks this might as well be the man that's been living here.
He seems a big man with broad shouders, a rough black beard, no moustache and three scars over his left eye. In some ways he looks like a hardy woodsman, but there seems to be a regal air about him.
There are some furs in the bedroom, that could serve a different purpose than warming ones bed at night. One big black bear fur and a few smaller stoat and minx furs.(150-300 gp)
Nathaniel walks through the smithy, discovering things as he goes along.
"Hey Taliesin, there's still workable materials here, though i don't know this silvery white metal."
He stashes it away.
"Careful though, this place doesn't look as firm as it should have been."
Finding the masterwork tools, Nathaniel's eyes go over them carefully.
Nice, i could make good use of these, though they need some cleaning first.
Elenzar looks over the letter to see what is written there. He also checks to see if there is still ink in the vial. That is expensive stuff after all. As they continue to check about he motions quietly that there is possibly someone still living in the tower above. He motions to David to go back down the stairs. Once on the ground floor again he asks"With all the strangeness we have seen of late perhaps we should investigate what is up in this tower all together. Whatever is 'living' up there cares little for whealth or rotten food down here."
The letter is detailing a transport of magical supplies and items that would be sent back along the road east towards the mainland of Erathia.
-2 crates of different magical reagents
-1 crate of glass vials
-3 sacks of powdered mithril
-a dozen carved wooden rods, ready for enchanting
-a pound of gold, 2 pounds of silver and a small pouch of gems.
and there's an acknowledgement of the shipment reaching its destination.
Thank you for the shipment, I've acquired the above list with the caravan a few days ago. I'll finish your order as soon as possible, but this size will take a long time even with the help I have. I'll start with the Mi
And that's where it ends.
"Yea well, perhaps they were in a hurry as well. It seems at though they have looted the village quickly, grabbed specific items and left things that would be too heavy or cumbersome extra's. There are two things that I wonder about. The guy that lives in this house, he seems to be have gotten out perhaps, so where did he go? And also what does this key unlock that we found earlier in the first house?"
The rattling sound gets stronger as you approach the light, you feel a reasonably strong wind blowing through the attic and coming from the light source.
Elezar looks up from the note, "Its about magic stuff and magic reagents. The list mentions powdered mithril I wonder if that is the sack of white powder we found. Lets head toward the others."
Taliesin's Detect Magic goes off in a corner where there is some stuff stacked against the wall. It takes some time to find the object though, but a search together with Nathaniel finds you a hidden flask and some empty bottles.
They all seem to Taliesin as potions of invisibility.
The two of you go back and insert the key into the lock of the cellar door. The key fits, but is difficult to turn. The lock and door squeak and crack as the lock twists and the door opens inward. Below is a room with a stale scent, a very dry air. To the walls are several wine racks stacked with bottles as well as two cheeses resting on a plank at the back.
Nathan whistles. "Now this is something. Must've been a wealthy man indeed if he could afford to collect these."
Nathan thinks the contents of this cellar might be worth a small fortune , certainly when the war is over. The most expensive of the wines he doesn't know but he thinks the least of it could be worth at least 50gp, the highest perhaps 350-400gp.
David seems too distracted by the swarm of bats to notice anything, but Elenzar's sharp eyes see a glimpse of a shape retreating back from a window higher up in the tower, around the fourth floor.
GM & Taliesin
"Sure. those things would be excellent should we ever need to get past goblins or worse."
The stack of paper bound in leather reads 'The Black Tower Saga, part 1'
Once you had back down the stairs, Taliesin hears the creaks and cracks of the stairs as he heads down first, the steps seem to hold, but two steps later one gives way to Taliesin's weight.
Taliesin fails to catch himself from falling and shoots through two more steps, splitting the ladder in half as he goes before landing flat on his back.
Ouch he helps nathaniel stand up Lets get back to the rally point
Elenzar points back to the tower, "David if the resident of the tower did not know we were here before he knows now. The window there where the bats flew out I saw a shadow. Probably the 4th floor. We need to find the others."
After a few good hours of searching Forfax and Nathan return towards the center square where David and Elenzar are already waiting for them to return.
A few minutes later Taliesin and Nathaniel come back and relate their findings at the smithy to the rest of the party.
Nathan describes as best as he can the scenes of the hunting house and the expensive wine cellar he and Forfax found, but he gestures for Forfax to fill in any important gaps he might have missed.
When Elenzar mentions the sounds in the tower and the sighting of someone at the fourth floor. Nathan looks up as well, but sees nothing but drapes or curtains in front of the windows.
"Well if you're sure there's still someone there, perhaps we should investigate it further. Any chance of knowing their number or if they're friendly?"
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"Those of you who love to read would love the first house, the owner seemed to be smarter then the average villager with a library full of books. The interesting thing was a book called 'The Art of Animation', it was full of diagrams of machines, but the later,more advanced stuff was torn out. We also found a wine cellar full of the most expensive wines I have ever seen. If you are more of a hunter you'd have loved the second mansion, he must have been a big game hunter, he had heads all over his walls, a set of unused MWK handaxes just sitting up on the wall, and he killed 2 goblins and an ork before being chased out of the house. And like the first mansion, he must have lived machines because he had a blue print from a draw and fire mechanism, not to mention enough fur on his bed to make us all some very nice coats.