Creative Director
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As a counterpoint to Demon Boy's journal chronicaling the adventures of our group through the Age of Worms, I offer Tyralandi Scrimm's (my character's) journal entries. Keep in mind that, with the exception of the first post (her character background), the entries are in character. With her journal and Demon Boy's together, an outside reader should be able to piece together some/most of what's really going on.
Again: Erik Mona is the DM, and the players are Jeremy Walker (Demon Boy), Kyle Hunter (Dram), Mike McArtor (Vyth), Sean Glenn (Taan), Wes Schneider (Abelard), Sarah Robinson (Dae Jin), Jason Bulmahn (Gar), and myself (Tyralandi).
Tyralandi Scrimm: Character Background
Tyralandi Scrimm was born dead.
Her parents were a husband/wife team of acrobats who worked for a traveling carnival, where they were billed as the “Famous Flying Scrimms.” Alas, Tyralandi and her mother died during her childbirth. Dad was despondent, and over the next few days sold all his belongings in an attempt to scrape up enough money to pay for two raise dead spells. Of course, that's a little over 10,000 gp per spell—a rough sum to raise for a carny. When it became apparent he had barely over 130 gp to his name, his thoughts turned grim indeed.
Yet as luck would have it, a strange and sinister Rhennee mystic came to his tent a few evenings later and offered to cast one raise dead spell for him. The only catch was that the priest would only raise his daughter, and only then if her father would name the daughter after the priest. The father would have preferred to raise his wife but he realized he had no choice and bitterly agreed to the deal. The mysterious Rhennee mystic smiled, cast the spell, and then returned on the barge she had arrived on, leaving behind only her name.
So, for the next 16 years, young Tyralandi Scrimm grew up, traveling the local Greyhawk circuit with the carnival. Her father lost the taste for performance, and became a roustabout and an alcoholic. Before long, Tyralandi was the one taking care of him, keeping him out of trouble and making sure his increasingly violent drunken binges didn't get anyone hurt or burn anything down. There were no other children her age among the carneys, and she looked on jealously at the daughters of nobles who came to gawk at the carnival. They were always dressed so nicely, and had such nice things. Not like the burlap dress she wore, or the rum-stinky wagon she lived in, or the vermin-haunted straw she slept on.
On her 16th birthday, a large group of Rhennee thugs showed up at the carnival. Tyralandi still doesn't know what caused it, but an hour after sundown a huge fight erupted between the carneys and the river gypsies. Her father's rum-soaked wagon caught fire and exploded (there was a lot of high-octane rum inside), spreading the fire all over. The animals got loose from their cages and went berserk. A leering Rhennee thug tried to jump her but she managed to knock him out with a piece of burning lumber and only got shived once for her trouble. Bleeding from a stomach wound and nearly blind from fear, Tyralandi tried to escape to the river and in so doing ran into a scary-looking Rhennee mystic who wore dark robes and carried a staff capped with a human hand clutching an eyeball. The priest immediately cast a spell on her, attempting to use his magic to tear open her gut-wound even further, but to both their surprise his inflict serious wounds spell actually healed her wound! So surprised was the mystic, in fact, that Tyralandi managed to hit him in the arm with her burning board. His robes caught fire and he dropped his staff into the water, just the distraction she needed to race up the riverbank and escape.
Days later, Tyralandi arrived at Diamond Lake. She took shelter in an empty vault in the cemetery at the edge of town, and for the next four years lived on the edge of town. She took care of the cemetery, keeping it nice and clean (a job that the current caretaker couldn't be bothered with). And she started having crazy dreams about a beautiful woman who promised her wealth, power, and luxuries if she would only do her a few simple favors. What those favors were, the woman wouldn't yet say. Tyralandi was told she'd know them when the time came to do them. In return, the woman revealed herself as a servant of Wee Jas, and soon, Tyralandi found she had developed the ability to cast cleric spells.
Today, she's grown tired of the festering town of Diamond Lake. Its dead are less noisome to her than its living inhabitants. At least the dead don't get drunk and carouse and make fools of themselves, and they understand that Tyralandi should be the center of attention, not anyone else. The locals don't really know what to think of the creepy girl who lives in the cemetery, but she seems harmless enough and keeps the place clean so they don't really mind that she's not paying anyone any rent.
Very nice bit of characterization I must say. We had a creepy "goth" necromancer in a game I played in, until my incredibly disagreeable dwarf barbarian/fighter passed away early in the last session.
GGG
Richfest 3, 595 CY
So I heard an interesting rumor today while I was in town, watching the hopeless mob try in vain to drown the truth of their sorrowful, shallow lives in cheep ale and desperate festivities for Diamond Lake’s Richfest festival. Normally I avoid the town during festival (too depressing and filthy), but this time, for some reason, I felt the need to at least go down to silently mock them. Seems some adventurers from Greyhawk showed up in town yesterday morning, spending money like royalty and asking about the cairns; Stirgenest Cairn in particular. Idiots. Only thing left in Stirgenest is dust and rubble. Even the bones were stolen! Disgusting scavengers. But it got me thinking nevertheless. If the lure of treasure is strong enough to call in adventurers from the Free City... maybe there's something to the stories. And maybe there's a cairn around here somewhere that's not been completely looted. I'm not sure how I feel about looting the dead, but I know how I feel about living in Diamond Lake. It's wretched, dirty, filthy, and depressing. The locals toil in mines all day long, come home not quite tired enough to curse and spend their meager, crusty wages on watered-down ale and stringy, desperate whores. I reckon the only excitement anyone gets around here is twice a week when the Feral Dog gets in some new mongrel and they can all descend on the fighting pits in the basement to watch some diseased and starving curs tear each other apart. And since I actually caught myself contemplating going down there two days ago to watch as well... I took that as a sign I needed to get the hell out of this town before I turned into one of these listless lowlives to whom hope is a dead dream and death is mercy.
Richfest 6, 595 CY
Spent the last couple days exploring the wilderness, looking into all of the cairns I know about. They're all empty. Damnation! Tomorrow, I'll have to go into town and endure the ogling of those filthy curs again. I need to talk to Dram; maybe he'll be able to swipe some old regional maps from his father.
Richfest 7, 595 CY
I expected Dram to hem and haw about it, but he fell to the task of sneaking through his father's collection with glee. Seems he wants out of this mudhole as much as I do. He found a map within the hour, one that showed the location of something called the "Whispering Cairn." It doesn't show up on any of the more recent maps, so I'm fairly sure it's been forgotten. Dram seems interested in checking it out, and I’m sure Demon Boy can sneak out of his cage to accompany us. His fire-breathing trick should come in handy if there's any vermin or homeless miners living in the cairn. I told Dram to bring along one of his friends from the garrison, someone tough who can handle some muscle-work, I sure as hell don't intend on pushing any sarcophagus lids around.
Anyway, we're going to meet at the ruined mine office north of town tomorrow morning and set out from there.
"Tyralandi Scrimm was born dead."
That would make a great first line for a novel. And that's a very cool way of explaining her Tomb-Tainted Soul feat.
Thanks for posting the write-up.
Nice. And exactly what is the Tomb-Tainted Soul feat, and from what source does it come? Libris Mortis? BoVD? Complete divine? Dragon/Dungeon magazine? I'm guessing it has something to do with her being healed by inflict spells (and probably harmed by cure spells), but are there other effects?
And keep those journals coming, I like the charactera lot and it's quite well written.
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Creative Director
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Tomb-Tainted Soul is from Libris Mortis. It basically lets her heal from inflict spells and cure spells hurt her, plus, it's a gateway feat to all sorts of other weird feats...
As for the journals... I'll keep posting them weekly, probably once every Thursday since that's when we play.
I can easily see the benefits that a cleric can get from that if they channel negative energy. They'd still have to prepare a few healing spells for any allies they want alive (either from actual affection or just to have somebody big and tough to pick fights with enemies), but could just spontaneously cast an inflict spell to heal themselves. I mght have to look into that book again.
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Creative Director
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I can easily see the benefits that a cleric can get from that if they channel negative energy. They'd still have to prepare a few healing spells for any allies they want alive (either from actual affection or just to have somebody big and tough to pick fights with enemies), but could just spontaneously cast an inflict spell to heal themselves. I mght have to look into that book again.
She also has the Spontaneous Healer feat from Complete Divine so she'll still be able to swap some spells out to heal the other party members, so she won't have to prepare THAT many actual healing spells. But yeah... she can cure herself up all she wants with those inflict spells. Needles to say of the various monsters and evil clerics that have negative energy attacks that do damage, like beholders and liches and the like. Heh heh heh...
Contributor
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Oh great.. another thread where the heroic tale of Gar Blitzhame can be INcorrectly told...
Ugg.
I got to find the time to start my own thread on this topic..
Don't worry Jason, Vyth will tell it like it is. Like so:
"...
...
...
..."
Wow! Such insight, eh? Well, what do you expect from a mute? :P
Reaping 1, 595 CY
So Demon boy and I got to the mine office ruins this morning, only to find it crawling with a huge crowd of people! Dram was there, but so were four others. Dram had his bow drawn, an arrow aimed at some lanky blond elf guy. He was much taller than any elves I'd seen before, and seemed to be casually disinterested in the fact that Dram was aiming an arrow at him. There was also a goggle-eyed dwarf who was grinning like a fool. It was obvious he'd just bought his gear that morning… I recognized most of his armor and weaponry as things I'd seen time and time again on the shelves at the general goods store. And standing next to him was a half-elf woman who seemed intently curious on who might get shot by an arrow next. Also present was a strangely silent man who seemed to know Dram.
I admit, I was a little disgusted that Dram had apparently invited half the town on the expedition to the Whispering Cairn. I had hoped we would be splitting the treasure four ways, not seven. As it turned out, we weren't going to split the treasure seven ways, but eight, for a few moments later, another man showed up. I recognized him as one of the soldiers from the garrison.
As it turned out, Dram hadn't invited most of them; he'd just invited the soldier (a paladin of Heironeous named Abelard) and the dwarf (an exuberant fighter named Gar, named after the toothy fish that live in the lake, I assume). It was Gar who invited the others, in what amounted to a drunken haze. They were Daejin (the half-elf woman; a ranger), Taan (the tall elf, who turned out to be a sorcerer), and Vyth (the silent guy, who seems to be some sort of specialized monk or rogue). Dram (a scout and ne'er-do-well), Demon boy (a halfling sorcerer with a neat fire-breathing trick), and myself rounded the group out to eight. I managed to talk Dram out of shooting Taan, even though no one there knew him and for all I knew, he could be some sort of freaky stalker or murderer. Gar actually asked if any of us had any murdering experience, and no one confessed to having any skill at murder, so that's probably a good sign. Although I know that I lied when I confessed to the no-murder-history, so it's possible that some of the others lied about that… Gar also asked us to not tell his uncle that he was going adventuring. I was okay with that, since I didn't know Gar's uncle.
We set out for the Whispering Cairn, finding it with little trouble using the map Dram stole from his father. Some of the guys started clambering around on top of the cairn mound. I'm not sure why. I waited patiently for them to get bored; Dram found some weird vents in the hillside that seemed to whistle when the wind blew over them. That must be how the cairn got its name… so much for the Whispering Cairn being haunted by whispering ghosts!
Eventually, we entered the cairn. Inside it was full of dust and rubble, and little else. We found a partially broken frame that looked to have once been some sort of transportation portal. It was broken now. OH! We found some more dust, and some rocks, and a ratty bedroll some desperate miner probably left behind a few years ago after he was forced to slum in the cave after no doubt losing his bunk-money on loose women and looser cards. We did find a strange indigo lantern that seemed to radiate some sort of magic, along with a single finger apparently broken from some unknown statue’s hand.
Then I heard something. Deeper in the cairn, a furtive scratching. A shuffling. I realized then that Demon boy was whistling that obnoxious little tune they played during his show in town. I told him to shut the hell up, and not six seconds later a pack of starving wolves were thundering out of the darkness at us, howling and gnashing their cracked yellow teeth!
The resulting battle was fast, much faster than I'd thought it would be. I tried to crush some of the wolves with my morningstar, but didn't hit any of them. A particularly large wolf, obviously not starving, came in after them. He tore into everyone, nearly biting off Abelard's arm at one point, and at another tearing into Taan with such bloody savagery that, after it flung him across the hall and into the nearby wall with a meaty thud, he dropped to the ground, for all I knew, dead.
I jumped between the wolves, barely avoiding their savage bites, and managed to reach the bleeding elf. He wasn't quite dead yet, and as the others stabbed at the wolves with their spears, I could see that Wee Jas didn't yet have need for Taan's soul. So I reached out and touched his wounds, channeling some of Her beauty into him and closing the wounds enough for him to gasp back into life. And not a moment too soon… he lunged upward with his sword and skewered the massive wolf right through its snout just as it had come up behind us to no doubt savage me.
I realized then why Wee Jas had no need for his soul at the time... she wanted me to heal him so he could save me from the wolf. Well and good.
In the aftermath, I did what I could to patch up everyone else's wounds (particularly the paladin's wounds... he looked particularly hot, all covered in blood!). I wasn’t able to patch everything up, but that’s fine. I wasn’t hurt.
We moved into the next room, finding a huge star-shaped domed chamber. A massive sarcophagus sat in the center, its lid shaped somewhat like an arrow and somewhat like a strangely-elongated humanoid form. The seven arms of the star ended in smaller chambers, many of which were decorated by hanging lanterns of different colors. It seems that these seven points corresponded to the colors of a rainbow, and the indigo lantern we found earlier was one of them. We hung that lantern and found that by rotating the central sarcophagus to point to different lanterns, small vaults would rise up from the floor. One of these vaults seemed to be broken; when we pointed the lid at it, the alcove only made a scary grinding noise.
Nothing was within the little vaults that rose up when the lid was rotated, alas, but someone did notice a strange door high up in one of the alcove ceilings. Half the group clambered up the rope to investigate; Demon boy, Abelard, and I remained on the ground floor. Not much longer Vyth found some sort of pressure plate a half-heartbeat before he stepped on it. Beyond was a strange carving of a creepy open-mouthed face. The face’s eyes had faint spiral patterns etched on them, and its mouth was open and big enough for a person to clamber into and sit in, so of course, that’s exactly what Vyth did.
Someone yelled down to us to start turning the sarcophagus again, so it would point toward them; they wanted to see if doing so would change anything in the hallway they were in, I suppose. I let Abelard and Demon boy try to move the lid for a bit, but finally it became apparent they needed one more to help.
Fortunately, with three of us, we managed to start turning the lid again. But just before we got it to point in the right direction, it got hung up. The alcove it pointed at started rumbling and shaking again, and before we were able to move it further there was a terrific cacophony as the alcove’s floor gave way. Dust billowed upward as the floor crumbled into an inky shaft below, and from within came an ominous chittering sound, as if a swarm of spiders had become riled by our clumsy tinkerings above, and now wakened, were shuddering their chitinous bodies upward toward us! Abelard, Demon boy and I made ready our weapons for whatever was about to clamber up into view, hoping it wouldn’t prove to be our doom.
"...particularly the paladin's wounds... he looked particularly hot, all covered in blood!"
ROFL! Oh those young female goth clerics of Wee Jas....
Reaping 1, 595 CY
Whatever it was in that foul pit, making that horrifying skittering sound, it was coming closer fast. I called out to the others for help; they were still busy fooling around in the dead-end tunnel in the other alcove, but answered that they’d be down shortly. Meanwhile, Abelard told us he could sense something evil coming up from below. He, Demon Boy, and I formed a shaky, nervous rank at the alcove entrance, ready to bravely flee once whatever was on the way made its detestable presence known.
GAH! BEETLES! THOUSANDS OF SWARMING, ACID-DROOLING BEETLES! Like a clattery black carpet they vomited out of the hole, spreading across the floor in a shiny living stain. And then, something else clambered up into sight; a terrible spider THING with a single goggling eye for a body and long thin razors for legs. It scuttled up out of the swarm, onto the wall and regarded us hungrily. How such a monster could eat us I’m not sure... I couldn’t see a mouth on the loathsome mockery that was its body, but I do know the emotion in its single bloodshot eye/body was HUNGER.
At the same moment, I heard a tremendous meaty explosion to my right. I glanced over and saw that while most of the group had managed to make it down the rope safely, Gar had not. He had plummeted down from the ledge above, crushing poor Dram to the ground with his dense dwarf body. Gar bounded wobbly to his feet, apparently none the worse for the event, but Dram stayed down... twitching.
And then... there are only fragments of memories. I remember Demon Boy breathing fire on the swarm, people attacking it ineffectually with weapons, Abelard bravely trying to stand in the swarm’s way to hold it back only to be engulfed in a wave of tiny black bodies and crumpling to the ground. And then they were on me as well, in my hair, their little dusty legs in my ears and mouth, their cool shiny bodies wriggling in under my armor against my skin. And the burning of their acidic tiny pinchers.
Suddenly, the beetles on me dispersed. I staggered back, covered with bites and acid burns, and saw that Gar, in a panic, was throwing bottles of acid into the swarm. I saw one of his bottles break open against Abelard’s body, which was on the ground now, and wreathed in a halo of beetles scrabbling for purchase on blood-slick stones. Suddenly, the eyespider loomed up in front of me. It already had some slashes on its body and a few arrows protruded from it, but it nevertheless went into a whirling frenzy of slashings and cuttings, clawing at everyone in reach. I staggered back, managed to hit it once with my morningstar, and then the pain grew intolerable and I must have passed out.
Reaping 2, 595 CY
When I woke the next day, it was to nearly unbearable pain. In a moment, I realized I was back at the abandoned miner’s office. I still lived, apparently.
Unfortunately, Abelard did not. I crawled over to the nasty stained blanket the others had draped over his body, hoping to see if I could help him with magic, but what lurked under the blanket was little more than a red skeleton.
The next several hours were a mess of half-remembered dreams and waking hours of pain. At one point, Taan came back with several priests, and they healed the others. One of them, Velias was his name, I think, seemed particularly broken up about Abelard’s death. The priests tried to heal me, but I knew that their magic would have the opposite effect on my tainted flesh. I knew that, eventually, I had to admit to my condition to the others, but I had hoped to be able to hold it off for at least a little longer. They reacted as I had feared when I told them that healing magic hurt—with narrowed eyes, soft-spoken whispers amongst each other, and disapproving shakes of the head. Pox on them all! Let’s see how they look at me when they’re the ones on the ground, bleeding out and begging for healing! Gar, in particular seemed keen on getting one of the priests to grope me with his filthy healing. Fortunately, I was not hurt so badly that I couldn’t convince the priest to leave me be. He seemed happy to do so, damn his eyes.
Reaping 3, 595 CY
I managed, barely, to heal my wounds enough today that I could finally move around and keep down my food. I was ready to pack up and leave town, but before I made my sentiments known, I realized that everyone else had decided to return to the Whispering Cairn. This shocked and surprised me. They had all very nearly died... indeed, Abelard WAS dead, yet they wanted to go back. Their greed for treasure had seemed to eclipse their common sense. So I remained silent, glad that they had not lost interest in helping me scour the cairn for loot. At least, the next time, we’ll know more what to expect within. And now, the treasure split would only go seven ways, not eight. Things were starting to look up!
We decided to wait another day, so I could heal the rest of my wounds. They obviously understood that my capability to heal their wounds was the most important thing in this venture, so hopefully they’ll do a better job next time preventing me from getting hurt. We’ll see...
Later in the day, the law came calling. It was Deputy Jamus. I recognized him immediately; there was no greater champion of graft and corruption in Diamond Lake than Deputy Jamus. As he started questioning us about what had happened, I could tell he wasn’t interested in our health as much as in our plans... if there was something out there worth us getting chewed by a swarm of beetles, he wanted it for himself! Fortunately, his intellect was as suspect as his honor, and I was able to throw him off the trail. Jamus returned to town thinking that the real treasure still lay in Stirgenest Cairn. Well and good.
Gar did come up with a name four our group. Abelard’s Band. Seems fitting that we should find common bonds of camaraderie in death. I approve.
Reaping 4, 595 CY
We wasted no time after returning to the Whispering Cairn. Taan proudly displayed all of the bottles of oil he bought to burn out the rest of the beetles, and within another few minutes, we were using them! We clambered down into the beetle swarm hole, finding another, hidden level below. And beyond, two more rooms, each infested with more swarms! We made short work of them with the oil, fortunately, but when a large number of hog-sized spit beetles clambered into view and started spraying us down with acid... things quickly turned bad again. With horrifying speed, the beetles (led by one that seemed particularly large and mean) cut us down, one by one. That big beetle nearly bit Taan in half!
Finally, Gar snapped. He leapt out into the hall in a remarkable display of poor tactics and ill-planning, cried out to Moradin, and with an incredibly lucky stroke, crushed the huge spit beetle with one blow from his axe! The amount of beetle gore that spewed from the devastating hole in its head was unbelievable. Gar wasted no time. He began looting the two chambers with drunken abandon, heedless to the very real possibility of traps or filthy fungal contamination from the orange muck growing in one of the rooms. Finally, I managed to convince him to help me haul our unconscious allies back to the miner’s office.
Two attempts to explore the cairn so far, and two near catastrophes. Maybe we should revise our tactics. Then again, maybe we don’t need to. After all, I’m still alive, and I fared better on the second outing than I did on the first. And with a few more battles with beetles and hungry vermin, perhaps the final treasure split will grow even more generous!
Sweet! I can't wait to read this adventure and put it into action. Come on mailman!!
Reaping 5, 595 CY
Spent most of today convalescing at the abandoned mining office north of town, although I did get a chance to head into Diamond Lake at around noon. Taan left to pawn a piece of elven jewelry we found in the cairn. He was headed to Tidwoad’s... I wish I could have been there to watch that interaction! But I had other plans.
I wanted to speak with a local sage and wizard named Allustan; I’d never met him before but knew his reputation. A reputation, I might add, for being an honest, clean, and intelligent man, three qualities in short supply in a flyspeck like Diamond Lake. I must admit that, at least on one level, asking him about our discoveries in the Whispering Cairn was little more than an excuse to introduce myself to him and size him up. Rumor holds that he’s a wizard, and also that he’s related in some way to the town’s mayor. Two more qualities that could be of great use to me in financing a way out of this pest-ridden wen of a village. Gar and Demon Boy came with me. I tried to talk them out of it but they seemed keen on going. I pointed out that Allustan was a wizard and probably of no real interest to a dwarf, but strangely, that just made Gar all the more keen to go.
We arrived at his home just after noon, and the man who greeted us was indeed clean. As we spoke, it quickly became clear that the rest of the rumors were fact as well. He seemed honest and quite intelligent, and reacted to the news of our discovery in the Whispering Cairn with great interest. He said that he needed to do some research in his texts to find out more about the place, so we left him with some of the fragments of relics we’d scavenged from the place, along with some sketches and rubbings we’d made of the runes and architecture.
As we were leaving, Gar stopped and asked Allustan a question about a book. He seemed a little evasive, but the nature of his questions caught my interest—Gar was asking questions only someone versed in magic lore would ask, and was asking them in a way that made it almost sound like he was more than just interested in arcana. It also seemed that he might have a copy of this book in that sack he’s always carrying around. I wonder what it could be?
We returned to the ruined mining office. Dram and Vyth had spent the day watching the cairn, making sure that no one messed with our claim. Taan returned some time later, grumbling about crooked gnomes and crooked games and some sort of rat game type thing. I gathered that he hadn’t got as much as he had hoped for selling the bracelet. Apparently he sold it to the Emporium and gambled up some of the winnings. He ended up with more than he thought he would, apparently, but still... I’m not sure I want Taan using loot from my expedition to the cairn to fund his gambling problem.
Daejin felt the need to return to the nearby enclave she belonged to. She came back with some healing potions for the others, but the smell of them turned my stomach so I opted to tend to my wounds myself. Daejin then returned to the enclave to give a more detailed report of our findings at the Whispering Cairn to her superiors—they seemed rather interested in it, which is all the more reason we should get back there and finish looting the place as soon as possible.
One other thing… I heard some more rumors about some sort of cult of Wee Jas that operates in a nearby cairn. Interesting. I wonder what their story is, and if they’re interested in visitors? For that matter, I wonder what cairn they’re using as a temple? My studies of the Ruby Sorceress have been entirely self-taught, mostly using the books of death and magic that Rhiana kept in her big trunk back in my carnivale days. At the same time, I can’t ignore the stories I’ve heard about some of her followers being a bit more intolerant of outsiders. I don’t want to ruin my chances of getting in their good graces, so for now, I think I’ll focus on exploring the Whispering Cairn. Perhaps I’ll find something in there I can use to curry their favor…
That night, Gar used his sack as a pillow. Damn paranoid dwarf. I tried to sneak a peak inside the bag anyway, but he almost woke up and I decided to wait for a better opportunity. What kind of book does he have in there?
Reaping 6, 595 CY
We returned to the Whispering Cairn today, and explored the remainder of the beetle-infested holdings below the central chamber. Fortunately, there seemed to be no more beetles in the region. We recovered some more interesting pieces of loot and treasure, and found that one room seemed to have some sort of crazy stone slabs that issued a comfortable bed of air.
At the far end of the small complex, we found a section that had been flooded. The water looked far too cold and icky to interest me, but fortunately it didn’t seem to put off Gar and Dram. They roped up and dove in to explore; Gar left his sack with Vyth so I wasn’t able to go through it like I hoped. But when things turned bad for them down there (apparently, they riled up some sort of water elemental), and Vyth and Taan dove in to help, leaving me to hold the rope, I took the chance to look through Gar’s bag. I had to use my foot, and he had some sort of banner or horse blanket stuffed in the top, just over some unappetizing dwarf rations. I wasn’t able to get down to the bottom, where I could see the outlines of a large book pressed against the fabric, before they stumbled out of the water, covered with bruises and bleeding from the ears. Gar didn’t seem too happy to see my foot in his bag. I don’t know what his problem is. My foot’s likely the cleanest thing to ever touch anything he owns, ever. I fixed them up as best I could and sent them back in to finish exploring the flooded chambers below.
This time, Gar left his sack in Taan’s guard. He and Dram and Vyth dove back in, and Taan immediately started going through the bag and eating some of Gar’s food. I suddenly had a vision of him finding the book in there, realizing it was probably worth a fair amount, and then running back to the Emporium to sell it for more gambling chips so he could try to win it big at the rat game or whatever it was that he’d been so obsessed with in there. I couldn’t have that; if he sold it, it’d be out of my reach for good! So I took the bag away from him. He sputtered and complained a bit, but didn’t try to take it back from me. I suppose that means he’s got at least a few shreds of restraint and common sense bumping around inside him after all.
Gar, Vyth, and Taan were down there for an awfully long time, but eventually they returned to the surface… this time covered with scratches and bite marks. They reported that they were attacked by some sort of ghoul or zombie, but managed to destroy it. Damnation! I could have probably used that ghoul as a tool or something to help us explore the place. I wonder if I should tell the others to hold of on the attacking undead, at least until I have a chance to recruit some of them. People tend to react poorly to those plans, though. They see bone or some beautiful rotting flesh and they get disturbed, even though that same stuff’s inside them all and it’s where they’re going in the end. I don’t understand. I guess I’ll wait for the right moment… once they see how helpful a few enslaved undead can be, I’m sure they’ll come to their senses. And if they don’t, well, that’ll be their problem. It’s not like anyone else in this group can fix up their wounds like I can.
They did find another of those strange lanterns down there though. A red one; the only one that was missing from up above! We returned to the upper chamber immediately, lit the lanterns, and put them all in their place. As I suspected, it was little more than a complex magical lock. There was a click from the strange hallway up in the roof of the north east alcove. We all clambered back up the rope, and what do you know? The mouth of that strange carven face at the end of the hall had opened, revealing a shadowed hallway beyond.
Reaping 5, 595 CY
One other thing… I heard some more rumors about some sort of cult of Wee Jas that operates in a nearby cairn. Interesting. I wonder what their story is, and if they’re interested in visitors? For that matter, I wonder what cairn they’re using as a temple? My studies of the Ruby Sorceress have been entirely self-taught, mostly using the books of death and magic that Rhiana kept in her big trunk back in my carnivale days. At the same time, I can’t ignore the stories I’ve heard about some of her followers being a bit more intolerant of outsiders. I don’t want to ruin my chances of getting in their good graces, so for now, I think I’ll focus on exploring the Whispering Cairn. Perhaps I’ll find something in there I can use to curry their favor…
Excellent. Considering your alignment and your self taught faith, you and Erik may have some fun philosophical speeches when your character finally meets a fellow priest of Wee-Jas. Considering the zealousness of your 7 companions, you may have a harder time reigning them in (I can't imagine Gar sitting patiently while you hash it out with some evil clerics).
Clerics of Wee Jas aren't necessarily evil. Wee Jas is a lawful neutral deity, meaning her clerics can be lawful neutral, lawful evil, true neutral, or even lawful good. Now that I think about it, a paladin of Wee Jas would be an interesting character concept. Since Tyralandi obviously channels negative energy she can't be good, but I haven't seen anything to suggest she's evil either, so I'm guessing she's either lawful neutral or true neutral.
Of course, many "good and upstanding" characters would likely be quite uneasy meeting a group of priests and priestesses of a death goddess regardless of alignments involved.
Of course, many "good and upstanding" characters would likely be quite uneasy meeting a group of priests and priestesses of a death goddess regardless of alignments involved.
Especially if some of those death goddess cleric-folk are part of the Ebon Triad.
Since Tyralandi obviously channels negative energy she can't be good, but I haven't seen anything to suggest she's evil either, so I'm guessing she's either lawful neutral or true neutral.
Isn't she healing the other party members?
ASEO out
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Creative Director
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Tyralandi is lawful neutral. And because she's a cleric of Wee Jas, that means she channels negative energy (only lawful good clerics of Wee Jas can channel positive energy). Which means she can heal herself with her inflict spells (thanks to her feat) but has to prepare healing spells to heal other folk. She gets 3 spontaneous healing spells a day from her Spontaneous Healer feat (from Complete Divine). And some day, she'll be able to bend some poor undead creature to her will to do all the heavy lifting. Some day...
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Director of Games
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Excellent. Considering your alignment and your self taught faith, you and Erik may have some fun philosophical speeches when your character finally meets a fellow priest of Wee-Jas. Considering the zealousness of your 7 companions, you may have a harder time reigning them in (I can't imagine Gar sitting patiently while you hash it out with some evil clerics).
Gar is not really the type to negotiate much of anything, least of all with an evil cleric. If Tyralandi even tries, well... that would show what side she's on now wouldn't it.
"Somethin ain't right about that lass.. I tell ya, she's been lookin a bit paler than usual!"
Clerics of Wee Jas aren't necessarily evil. Wee Jas is a lawful neutral deity, meaning her clerics can be lawful neutral, lawful evil, true neutral, or even lawful good.
Not to nitpick, but clerics can only be true neutral if their deity is -- so no N clerics of Wee Jas. Unless, of course, you play in Eberron... :)
Whoops, my bad. The only true neutral cleric in any game I've taken part in was my mystic theurge who worshipped Boccob. I think I roleplayed the alignment fairly well tough the mostly Chaotic good party thought of him as a bit of a jerk, but that is probably because my character deeply revered Boccob as the both the Lord of All Magic and the Uncaring and attempted to emulate his deity in those fashions, so he came off a bit cold and standoffish. Funny, they weren't complaining when he hit the bad guys with a fireball or searing light spell, though they did actually seem a bit begrudged when he'd walk up and heal them before they had a chance to ask (keeping your allies healthy is a good thing regardless of alignment, as long as they fight on your side).
Reaping 6, 595 CY
We all clambered through the face’s mouth and into a short hallway beyond—a hallway that ended, soon enough, in a room so mystifying and horrifying that none of us initially wanted to set foot within.
The room was long and rectangular. Our hallway opened into the chamber not at floor level, well above a huge mound of hundreds, if not thousands, of fist-sized metal spheres heaped below us in a pit. A three-foot-wide bridge of petrified wood extended across the room from our landing to a door at the far side. Dozens of tiny holes festooned the walls to either side, holes just large enough that any of those metal spheres below would fit inside just right. From other holes, a tangled network of light beams sparkled, the dust in the air catching the rays.
I told Dram to go in there and check it out, but he initially balked at the prospect. I tried to get Taan or Vyth to go in there and explore, and that did the trick. Dram swung down under the plank and clambered along under it, avoiding the beams of light with ease and reaching the other side. Unfortunately, the door over there was stuck fast and he couldn’t figure out how to open it. He then heard a strange rustling noise somewhere else in the room, down in the giant heap of metal spheres. He got scared or something and was whining for other people to come in and save him or something. I figured he got in there on his own and that it’d be a disservice to his manly ego for a woman to go save him so I didn’t budge.
The others weren’t so compassionate and caring about his self-esteem, though, and they began clambering into the room to explore. Taan asked to borrow my shield and I let him, figuring he just wanted to be more protected than normal. I thought about reminding him to cast his mage armor spell but then he went and stuck my shield into the room, using it to break one of the beams of light. There was a hollow “THOOK” noise as a huge number of iron balls shot out of the walls and slammed into my shield! Ack! I paid good money for that! It wasn’t without a bit of satisfaction that I noted one of the iron balls hit Taan in the side as well. He teetered, but didn’t fall, and I was able to get my (now dented) shield back.
Dram said something else about weird noises again, and suddenly I heard a weird, whispering voice... “What are you doing here! This is my place!” I called out to the voice and asked who it was; it sounded like a young boy. The voice claimed his name was Alastor Land. I demanded that he stop hiding and show himself, as Demon Boy stepped onto the plank to try to spot him or something, and suddenly there he was!
A wondrous phantasm wafted up from below, a writhing column of ectoplasmic mist that rose up to the plank and coalesced beautifully into the shape of a young boy... a ghost boy, with claws for hands and hatred for a face. It was amazing! I’d never seen a ghost before. On one level, I knew I should run for my life, but on the other, I simply couldn’t look away. The ghost Alastor then possessed Demon Boy and used his body to caper out on the plank. He was promptly shot by iron balls; one hit him in the head and knocked him prone before the ghost vanished.
After some stimulating conversation, we learned that Alastor wanted little more than to go home. He felt sorry for running away from home, and wanted his bones to be buried on his family plot. If we would do him this favor, he promised to help us open the door at the other end. But first, we had to find his bones. As the others started digging and I watched from my safe perch on the landing above, Alastor’s giggles and titters grew louder. “This is gonna be exciting!” he said. And with that, a horrific leathery green slug burst out of the balls. Four long tentacles unfurled around its beak, and it immediately began to attack Taan, Gar, and Vyth. They looked like they were actually having some trouble and when I ran out of daggers to throw, I decided to clamber down into the pit to help. Unfortunately, this was my first attempt at climbing ANYthing unaided by others, and my poor delicate hands weren’t up to the task. I fell, but fortunately didn’t break my fool neck. I tried to brain the slug with my morningstar but it seemed to shrug off my attacks with ease.
Things were starting to look grim. And that’s when Dram scampered up from the other side of the room. He somehow managed to bound over the unstable ground with grace and ease, danced up to the slug, and effortlessly ran it through with his spear. The thing died immediately. That Dram... turns out he’s handy to have around!
We found Alastor’s bones and some treasure a few minutes later and made our way back to the abandoned mine office. Fortunately, there were plenty of people there to help me climb up and down the vertical portions of the cairn...
Reaping 7, 595 CY
I woke early the next day and went alone up the hill to practice my violin playing a little more. I’ve always loved the haunting sounds a skilled violinist can produce; we had a particularly talented player named Garissa in the carnival. That is, until that giant frog bit off her hands. Anyway, the last time I practiced playing the result was horrifying. I’d never played in front of others before, and it unnerved me.
Later that day, Taan, Dram, and I decided to head into town to sell some of the treasure we’d found. I of course changed into my courtier’s outfit; no need to stagger around town looking like a thug or mercenary! I decided we should go to the fletcher’s store rather than the Captain’s Blade. Turns out, the woman who runs that store is quite pleasant. Her name is Venelle. First Allustan, then Venelle. Had I been wrong on my appraisal of Diamond Lake’s populace? I’d always assumed they acted the way they looked: crude, uneducated, and mean. But the first two townsfolk I really spoke to at length turned out to be quite the opposite.
Our loot sold, we went on to speak to Allustan to find out if he knew where Alastor Land’s family holdings were. He didn’t know but said he’d look up the info for us. He seemed particularly interested in Taan, and asked him about someone called the “Black One.” Listening in on their semi-cryptic conversation, I suddenly realized that Taan actually hailed from the Valley of the Mage! I’d read that the Valley was ruled by a powerful wizard, and that recently it had fallen into conflict with some necromancers. The thought made my skin crawl. Arcane magic has no place amongst the dead, and I hope some day to be able to educate all those disgusting necromancers the error of their ways, Wee Jas willing.
As we left, I asked Taan a bunch of questions about the Valley but he didn’t seem interested in answering. I gave up, for now, but I’ll get the information out of him somehow. This group’s turning out to be full of surprises. A dwarf who knows all about magic and might have a magic book... an elf who just happens to have grown up in the shadow of one of the most mysterious wizards of the time... a freakish halfling with strange infernal powers to breathe fire... Makes me wonder what kind of secrets Vyth, Daejin, and Dram are still hiding.
Speaking of Dram, he volunteered to go up to the garrison to see if he could find out where Alastor Land’s home was by looking through his dad’s maps. Seemed like a good idea, because it was! Not ten minutes later, we had found out all we needed to know.
A few hours later, we had all regrouped and had arrived at the small farmhouse north of town. The place looked run down and deserted. More so, when we got to the front door, which had been knocked down completely. I called out for the inhabitants but got no reply. We went inside, and found the place to be in ruins. I walked around the corner, and into an abattoir. And not the good kind of abattoir!
There were several dead beasts sprawled on the floor, hulking monsters with the bodies of bears and the heads of hideous owls. A man’s severed arm lay on the floor, and only a few feet away a wounded but still horridly alive bear-owl loomed! I immediately returned the way I came, reporting the situation to the others who did the exact opposite. They barreled around the corner to attack!
Even though (or perhaps because) wounded, the bear-owl was a horrific combatant. It knocked Vyth on his ass with one swipe. That poor guy’s too fragile... maybe he should think about going back to the monastery he came from to be a gardener or something. The bear-owl also nearly killed poor Gar, even though I had called down the blessings of the Witch Goddess to protect him. I healed him just in time, long enough for him to be savaged some more. Fortunately, my healing kept him alive long enough to deliver a killing blow to the beast. Wee Jas be praised!
Upon looking over the place, we found two things of interest. First, the severed arm bore a strange tattoo, one that looked vaguely familiar. Dram wasted no time cutting the tattoo off the arm and stuffing the wet glistening patch of flesh into a pocket. Disgusting, but whatever works for him, I guess. Hope he remembers it’s in there before it starts to turn. Second, one of the bear-owl cubs still lived. The wretched thing was mostly vermin, beak, and claws, yet Gar still took an immediate liking to the beast and scooped it up into a bag for keeps. Taan got a familiar glint in his eye. It certainly didn’t surprise me when he wondered out loud how much a bear-owl cub could fetch on the open market. The question seemed to horrify Gar.
We wandered back outside and over to the family graveyard, where yet another wretched surprise awaited us. Someone had dug up the bones of the Land family and made off with them! They were but poor dirt farmers, so it seemed that the only explanation was that the grave robbers had pilfered the bones for some foul necromantic use. I glanced over at Taan to see if he had anything more to say about his ties to necromancy which I’m more sure by the minute do indeed exist, but he said nothing. There was some pointless discussion about whether or not we should bury Alastor’s bones anyway. Pointless, I say, because I was carrying his bones and had no intention of putting him to rest next to his mothers violated empty grave.
In the end, we headed back into town. Along the way, the bear-owl cub continued to peck and scratch at Gar’s already lacerated flesh. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’d used up all my healing spells... hopefully they’ll sell the feral runt off before it does for him. Upon returning to town, we split up. Dram mentioned something about going to the Emporium to ask about the strange rune on the severed arm we’d found and to ask about the going prices for bear-owl cubs. Turns out, of course, Dram had another itch he was looking to scratch…
Anyway, I figured that if Allustan and Venelle were nice and educated and pleasant, maybe someone at the Emporium would be the same. Turns out, Allustan and Venelle are the exceptions that prove the rule of Diamond Lake. The halfling who greeted us was both foul-mouthed and foul-spirited. I don’t remember his name, nor do I need to. I think he offered me a job upstairs. I suppose I was flattered and maybe even a little curious, yet still, it was difficult to resist the urge to hook him up with a personal introduction to Wee Jas via one of my daggers. When we asked about bear-owl cubs, he called down a shuddering behemoth of a man who claimed to be the one responsible for purchasing the beasts that the Emporium uses for attractions. He told us that bear-owl cubs, or owlbears, as they called them (that name certainly flows nicer off the tongue, at least) can fetch thousands of gold pieces! WELL! Hope Gar’s not too attached to the beast yet. We also found out that the tattoo is actually a brand that a now bankrupt mine manager used to mark indentured servants with. The guy went out of business, and ownership of these miners passed to others. Now, it would seem, these thugs and lowlives worked for a man named Balabar Smenk, one of Diamond Lake’s more prosperous mine managers.
By the time that Dram announced he was gonna get laid and get drunk (not necessarily in that order), I realized that the greasy halfling and the mouth-breathing beast-wrangler were leering at me in a most uncomfortable manner. I can’t hardly blame them for their interest, of course, since compared to the average pimple-encrusted, dirt-slobbering, hope-barren Diamond Lake skank I must have looked like a goddess to them. And as much as my shacking up with them would probably be the highlight of their miserable little empty lives, I just wasn’t in the mood for charity work so I took my leave of them and headed back to the Guildhall, as Gar has taken to calling the abandoned mine office we’ve been squatting at. Dram stayed behind at the Emporium. He was eyeing me too, come to think of it! Hmmm… wonder how I can use that…
Reaping 8, 595 CY
Woke up today to the damnable squawking of Beaky. Gar’s taken a liking to that little menace. We can’t sell it off soon enough, as far as I’m concerned. More money plus better sleep makes Tyralandi a happier girl.
Spent some time early in the day practicing my violin playing. I went out back and down the hill a little bit, since the last time I played in the guildhouse, I think I nauseated everyone in earshot. No need to embarrass myself further, I figured. Vyth wandered by to listen for a while but left fairly quickly thereafter. No one paid you to listen, you know... Later in the afternoon when I finally worked the knots out of my fingers and was playing a little better he did come back to listen quietly. He’s a good audience. Doesn’t complain at all.
Of course, our primary goal remained tracking down where the Land skeletons had been stolen away to. We’d discovered the night before that several of the thugs who bore that strange tattoo we found on the severed arm at the Land house were known to hang out at the Feral Dog. The place was open all day and all night, but really, if we wanted to confront the thugs it’d be best to go at night.
Of course, the Feral Dog’s a rough place. I wasn’t too keen on going in there, even though of the group it seems that I’m the best at talking to people without riling them up. We spent several hours coming up with a plan, and we ultimately decided to send Gar and Taan into the tavern to ask around about Smenk’s men, and to hopefully pretend to be looking to hire some grave robbers. Anyone who agreed to hire on as grave robbers would then be led out into the village square to seal the deal, at which point the rest of us (who would be hiding or lurking in the area) would descend upon the thugs and intimidate them into telling us who stole the skeletons.
Seemed like a spurious plan to me, but since it meant I didn’t have to go inside the Feral Dog, I agreed to help.
Before we set this plan into motion, Vyth and I went to the local shrine of St. Cuthbert, figuring that if one of these local thugs had gone and got his arm torn off, he’d head there for help. Turns out the local cleric of St. Cuthbert hadn’t seen any recently disarmed miners, but I’m not sure he would have noticed. He seemed far too enthused to be scrubbing the dirt off the floor of his ramshackle sagging shrine and wallowing in the cast-off dirt of his desperate flock. I tried to be nice. I tried to treat him with respect. But I couldn’t resist pointing out to him numerous times just how depressing and wretched his lot in life actually was. When he invited me to attend his next sermon it was all I could do to not laugh in his face. Just the thought of being in the same room as all his filthy pig-farming dirt-choked desperate lifers at the same time, choking on the fetid air thick with the reek of their ruined livelihoods was enough to turn my stomach. We bid him good day and stepped back into the fresh air and sunlight outside.
Later that evening, I took position near one of the windows that looked into the main room of the Feral Dog. There were a lot of unsavory looking thugs in there; a table full of squirrelly looking halflings, another clogged with dwarves bragging foolishly about the big bags of gems they gathered, a third table inhabited by some scoundrels that were eyeing the dwarves with greed and all but sharpening their shivs, and a fourth table with a self-absorbed group of what looked like mercenaries.
Gar walked over to the dwarves and spoke with them for a bit, after which they looked nervous and stopped talking about how their backs were aching from hauling around such heavy bags of loot. He then headed up to the bar to talk to the bartender. He bought the scoundrels all a round of drinks, possibly to try to keep them from robbing his dwarf pals.
Taan wandered away, over near the window I was standing at, where he joined a game of knife-tossing. The others at the game included a drunk human lout, a sneering halfling man, and an uppity-looking elf woman. Of course, Taan immediately began hitting on her. I leaned closer to the window, hoping to hear if he revealed anything more about the necromancers from his homeland, but he was pretty close-mouthed about his past. As usual.
The drunk guy got knocked out of the game immediately. He went up to the bar to buy another drink, then wandered outside and immediately wandered over to me. I could smell the stank of the mud-river hooch on his breath, and could see the vermin writhing in his hair and in the collar of his ruinously-stained home-made shirt. The spectacle rendered me speechless, and as he started talking in a pitiful attempt to garner my favor, I considered the many ways I could utilize to send him packing. A kick to the little miners? A clout to the head with a morningstar? I had just decided to simply channel a little tiny taste of negative energy into him when Gar leaned his head out and must have read my expression. He did the fool a great favor and told him it was his turn at the game, and the lout’s eyes grew big. His interest in me forgotten, he staggered back into the tavern. I breathed a sigh of relief and was about to thank Gar when I noticed Dram had abandoned his post and was entering the tavern as well.
Knowing his impatience had likely gotten the better of him again, I couldn’t help but smile as I leaned back to the window, curious to see just how many people he was about to rile up. Turns out… the answer was four.
He noticed the four mercenaries at the table and started walking over to them. As he did, he called out to them in a loud clear voice laced with cheerful profanity, asking if there were any grave robbers for hire. One of the mercenaries stood up… all seven feet of him, and turned around. The guy was huge and albino; certainly not the friendliest-looking thug I’d seen. And tattooed on his ugly, tusked face was the same tattoo we’d seen on the severed arm.
Dram actually seemed to pause in shock for a moment as the half-orc loomed over him, but he recovered himself quickly enough to hand over a nice helping of insults to the ugly lout. Now… as much as the half-orc deserved the insults for daring to show his sinfully wretched countenance in public like that, I’m not sure it was the wisest thing to do. He reached for his axe, and as he did I called out to him, channeling the tiniest portion of Wee Jas’s wrath into my voice as I commanded him to flee. And it worked! The half-orc turned and ran in fear from Dram, and the rest of the tavern erupted into laughter. Everyone, that is, but the half-orc’s pals, who stood up from their table as one. Dram took one look at the group and fled back outside.
Of the remaining three, two headed for the back door; a lanky bearded wizard pulling along some sort of inbred hillfolk gimp on a leash behind him. It was the third guy, a quick and limber man armed with two swords, who I focused my attention on. The fool raced out into the street calling for Dram, whom had cunningly sidestepped into the shadows. He then, not so cunningly, revealed his presence to the swordfighter with another dose of deserved insults. I ran over to back him up, cause it looked like he’d need it.
And then, the albino half-orc crashed out into the street. He’d thrown off the fear, and as his tiny pink eyes latched onto Dram he roared in rage. Snot flew from his face holes as he swung his axe in the air, and he actually seemed to grow more muscular. I just had time enough to regret coming to Dram’s aid before Gar burst out of the tavern behind the barbarian. He asked the thug to stand down in a nice, calm voice, but when the half-orc instead charged at us Gar took a swipe with his own axe. He hit the thug in the back with a blow solid enough that it sounded like he’d sunk his axe into a wet tree stump, but the half-orc didn’t seem to take any notice. As he charged, an arrow seemed to spring out of nowhere; Daejin’s contribution to his pain.
Suddenly, there was a glint of light and one of those tiny pink eyes blossomed into a gout of blood. I glanced up to the roof above to see Vyth had come out of hiding and had thrown one of his shuriken directly into the half-orc’s eye! WOW!
Even more horrifying, though, was the fact that the half-orc didn’t seem to notice. Not even when I hit him in the face with my own morningstar, driving Vyth’s shuriken even deeper into his dripping socket. Instead, he took a single swing at Dram, a swing that connected solidly and dropped Dram to the dirt. The barbarian didn’t seem happy with merely knocking Dram out, though. He kept roaring and brought up his axe for a death blow. Daejin continued to sink arrow after arrow into his backside but to no avail. The arrows just seemed to make him angrier. I stepped up in front of him to block his strike and protect Dram, but truthfully, I fully expected his next swing to cut right through me and into Dram’s skull.
Fortunately for both of us, Gar and Vyth were on the case. Unfortunately for poor Vyth, as the case turned out. He leapt down from the roof, landing behind the half-orc in a crouch. But as he stood up and made to stick the thug in the breadbasket, the half-orc changed the trajectory of his swing and took the poor fragile guy out with a single hit. That poor Vyth. I’m wondering if maybe he’s just not cut out for this lifestyle.
As the half-orc turned back to face us, I heard a strange shrill-but-gruff shriek. It was Gar! The dwarf charged up behind the half-orc and did a weird little spin. At first I thought he’d lost his balance, but as his axe came back around, I realized he was just winding up his strike.
For a brief moment, everything went red. Through a fantastic spray of blood I saw Gar’s axe cleave completely through the half-orc’s neck and down into his shoulder. It must have hit a bone, cause at the very end the axe head flipped up and launched the thug’s decapitated head through the air. It struck the side of the Feral Dog, leaving a huge bloody swath on the wall before it bounced into the town square, ending up face-down in a mud puddle. The barbarian’s body staggered about for a bit, drenching both myself and Dram with its death before finally collapsing to the street.
The swordsman, who stood right beside me, seemed frozen in awe. I told him that I was going to tend to my friends but that if he took any actions whatsoever, he’d be joining the half-orc on Gar’s axe. The thug proved to be more wise than he seemed, and stood there silently while I quickly stabilized Dram and Vyth’s wounds. During this time, the wizard and his gimp friend stole out the back door, content to use their friend’s murder as cover for their escape. Demon boy caught sight of them and set off to try to follow them.
Taan and the elf woman had joined us outside now. Gar was just standing there, drenched in blood and breathing heavily. It looked like he was either just barely keeping in check some terrible blood-frenzy, or the urge to run in terror. Eventually, he said something about feeding the body to the dogs; he picked up the orc’s decapitated body and vanished around the building’s corner. With Taan’s aid, and playing off of Gar’s apparent cruelty and dog-feeding impartiality to the bodies of his murdered victims, we were able to convince the remaining thug to talk.
And talk he did. For about three minutes, non-stop, as if he were afraid that if he stopped to take a breath or swallow a mouthful of fear-spittle, one of us would step up and bash in his tender skull. He was probably right. In any case, we learned that he and the other three were indeed responsible for the desecration of the Land graves. A fifth thug lost his arm in their fight with the owlbears. Turns out, they weren’t directly working for Smenk on this job. Instead, they were working for someone named Filge who had asked them to gather some human skeletons for unspecified reasons. This Filge was smart—he sent the grave robbers to a ruined farm with a family graveyard rather than to the boneyard itself. But a family graveyard is just as sacred as any public boneyard, and Filge will pay for his crimes with his life. He apparently had holed up in a ruined observatory a few hours outside of town. I’d never heard of such a place, but a barely-conscious Dram said he knew where it was.
So, after giving back the man’s swords and most of his money (Taan, of course, took some from him as payment for interrupting his game), we let the thug go. I hope it was the right decision; he seemed horrified enough that he won’t go crying to Filge or Smenk. At about this time, Gar wandered back, his beard caked with vomit and his skin pale. But before I could ask if he was okay, the town’s Sheriff approached.
It seems he was standing across the square and had seen the whole thing. For a moment, I was afraid that he was getting ready to arrest us, but then I remembered how things work in Diamond Lake. He seemed surprised that we had managed to kill the half-orc, and said as much, adding that the albino half-orc’s name was Kullen and he was one of Balabar Smenk’s favorite thugs. Once Smenk found out what had happened, he’d be furious. Fortunately, I was able (with the help of a thirty gold piece bribe) to straighten things out with the Sheriff, who (after pocketing his gold) agreed that it was pretty dark and he hadn’t seen who had done for Kullen, damnable shame that it was the man was dead.
I’d had enough by now. I was covered with blood and exhausted from fear at the prospect of being cut in two by a barbaric albino face-tattooed half-orc, so I enlisted Daejin and Demon Boy’s aid in hauling Dram and Vyth back to the Guildhouse. Gar had already left, muttering something about “I didn’t mean to cut off his head” or something. Taan returned to the elf woman, and as we were leaving, they stepped into another tavern together. It’s okay, Taan; we’ll take care of our mortally wounded friends. You see if you can get into that elf’s pants. It’s all good.
Anyway… we made it back to the guildhall easily enough. I laid Vyth and Dram down on the cots we’d brought up there and made sure they weren’t going to die or anything in the next hour, then headed out with a big bar of soap to find a river to wash the blood off and clean up my armor. By the time I returned, the others were asleep. Gar, in particular, seemed troubled; he was twitching and moaning, dreaming about something unpleasant no doubt. I noticed he hadn’t even bothered to tie shut his big bag; it sat at his feet, half-open and neglected. For a moment, I considered looking through it, but I decided not to. Just like Taan didn’t feel comfortable yet divulging his necromantic secrets, I’m sure Gar didn’t yet feel comfortable sharing whatever magic book he had stashed in there with me. So instead, I tied it up for him and tucked it under his arm. He seemed to sleep better with his bag at his side, so that made me feel good.
It’s now about three hours past midnight. I’m still awake. Can’t sleep with that damn owlbear cub whining and squawking out in its cage. Ah well... the middle of the night’s the best time to write these thoughts down anyway.
Reaping 9, 595 CY
I woke to pleasant silence this morning. At first, I thought that Dram and Taan had stolen out in the middle of the night to pawn Beaky at the Emporium, but as it turned out, Gar had left with the damnable pest to go on what his note called an “extended walk.” He sure was taking the beheading of that half-orc lout to heart. Hopefully he’ll come to terms with it soon and realize that one of us was coming out of that fight in a pine box. Fortunately, Wee Jas decreed that one would be the half orc. And even more fortunately, we didn’t have to pay for a pine box. I did feel a little guilty at leaving his body there in the middle of the street and not bothering to send his spirit on to Wee Jas. I’m sure he’ll find the way, though. We only just lopped off his head. We didn’t scoop out his eyes. He should be fine.
Looked like Gar wasn’t going to be back, in any case, and DaeJin was still involved with the Lodge folk. Nonetheless, we decided to head on up to the observatory to confront Filge, just the five of us. How much fight could a necromancer put up anyway, especially since I was fairly certain I could shame any undead minions he’d created into turning on him for violating their bones and flesh on such a rudimentary level. But before we were able to set out, we realized someone was standing in the doorway to the Guildhouse. Damn… we need to get a door for this place. Or even better… we need to move out of this place and into somewhere with clean floors, nice stained-glass windows and wall-tapestries, plumbing, maybe some servants and a proper dressing room…
Anyway. The man standing in the doorway was quite obviously a priest of Hieroneous. He was simply watching, quietly, as we spoke. We all seemed to notice him at the same time. Taan and Dram, of course, got all puffed up and indignant. I had a feeling I knew why he was there, and when the man introduced himself as Brother Tassilo and declared that he had been sent by his order to investigate Abelard’s death, I knew that we were on thin ice. I did my best to make Tassilo feel welcome and to get the others to ease down from the (possibly deserved) hate wagons they were riding around the cleric. Once a more civil forum had been established, we discovered that the Church of Hieroneous didn’t quite think we’d murdered poor Abelard, which was a relief. Of a more pressing concern to Tassilo and his superiors was discovering a reason why Abelard would have wanted to join our group in the first place. We had no real answers, of course. None of us had a chance to get to know Abelard that well.
In any event, I saw nothing to gain by keeping Tassilo in the dark, and in an attempt to show him we were trustworthy, I laid out before him our plans to confront the necromancer Filge in the observatory. Tassilo seemed intrigued at the possibility there was a necromancer in town, and agreed to accompany us up the hill to the observatory.
We got there by noon. The place was silent—no one replied to my knocking on the front door. Which seemed to be all the invitation that Dram and Vyth needed to clamber up onto the roof and start peeking through windows. Mental Note: Once I’ve got my own chapel somewhere, make sure to get to the front door within twenty seconds of anyone knocking on it, lest they start peeking through windows into the sanctuary.
Of course, as always seems to be the case, trespassing got results. Demon Boy, Tassilo, Taan, and I clambered up onto the roof of the side building and crept up to where the others were peering through a second-story window into the tower itself. By the time we got there, Vyth was already in the room and looking around.
It was someone’s bedroom. Standing at one end was a huge monolith that looked stolen from some graveyard. If that wasn’t enough to damn Filge, the child wrapped in strips of cloth, mounted on a stand, and holding a silver platter with a preserved woman’s head on it certainly was. I clambered into the room next, but apparently I was far too noisy for everyone else so I just stood there while Vyth, Dram, and Tann started skulking about the place like amateur thieves in the king’s treasure tower. We found some interesting things; a spellbook, syringes, vials of thick fluid labeled “Necroturgents.” Vyth snuck upstairs, but just as quickly retreated back down to indicate something bad was above us. Of course, he couldn’t tell us, but his pale skin and wide eyes communicated enough. Filge was up there.
We started working out a half-dozen plans on how best to get upstairs to get the drop on the necromancer. None of them seemed particularly wise. The best plan was one I think Dram came up with. I would threaten to burn his deviant spellbook to get his attention while the rest of us would catch him.
Of course, it didn’t work out that way.
Turns out, Filge had been working at embalming or otherwise disgracing a poor corpse he’d recovered from who knows where. Worse, he was attended by an animated skeleton. And even worse, there were four huge vats of wretched liquid surrounding him, vats each containing a malformed, puffy-skinned ogre carcass. Something tipped him off, and when he sent his skeleton downstairs to investigate, the fight was on. And when two of the ogre bodies in the tanks animated and burst wetly from their insane glass wombs to claw hungrily at the living, I dare say none of us were feeling that good about our chances.
Dram and Taan managed to make it upstairs, and began harrying Filge with ranged attacks while dodging those lumbering zombies. Meanwhile, the single, solitary skeleton was proving to be a master defender, and single-handedly kept myself, Demon Boy, and Tassilo from mounting the stairs to come to our companions’ aid. I tried multiple times to convince the damnable wretch to obey me, but the animating force was too strong. Tassilo was likewise unable to fend it off. Soon, the zombies started lumbering down the stairs toward us, bespeaking a foul fate for our friends upstairs. The skeleton lunged at me, and for a horrible moment it looked like its scimitar was going to hit me right in the gut. But then, at the last moment, Demon Boy pushed me aside and took the hit himself!
His sudden display of sacrifice shocked me, and I’m glad there was at least one other present to witness his act. He may look like a demon, but I doubt anyone else in Diamond Lake would have taken a sword strike meant for me. I’d known all along that there was more to him than there appeared, which is one of the reasons I took to visiting him in the Emporium once he went on display. Still, the magnitude of his act was shocking. The skeleton and zombies were upon us, though, so I didn’t have a chance to reflect on this. Tassilo took a particularly ugly hit to the chest, but I was able to reach him in time to save him. I wasn’t about to let another one die under my watch—we’d had hard enough a time explaining the first one!
Dram and Taan came rushing down the stairs, just as the undead were about to finish us off. In a few more moments, their reeking bodies lay on the floor, slowly draining clotted chunks of blood and runny brine from their second set of death wounds.
Turns out, Filge was out of commission. Taan and Dram had taken him to task, although Taan seemed to indicate that Dram spent most of the time lying on his back paralyzed with thick clouds of pungent smoke billowing up from his mouth. I’m not sure what happened up there, but the facts of the manner were obvious—Filge lay, near death, on the floor. He’d been tied like a hog lead to slaughter, but looked a lot worse off than a hog. Seems he’d been injecting himself with these “necroturgents” too... his arms were festering with sores and scabs from his abuse. He didn’t seem like he’d be dying in the next few hours, so we drug him downstairs and proceeded to investigate the ground floor. I was able to determine that the animated skeleton he’d sent against us was of a young human girl... chances are, she was Alastor Land’s sister. Which meant there were three more skeletons hidden around here somewhere.
We did find some disturbing things downstairs. In a great dining hall, Filge had arranged the animated dead bodies of what we took to be a half-dozen or so of his former enemies. He’d gone through the trouble to program these zombies to perform a mock dinner party, and had utilized illusions or something to give them incongruous voices. Demon Boy, smacking his little red lips in delight at the food on the table, clambered up onto it to partake. The zombies immediately began complimenting him, thanking him for showing them the errors of their ways and professing their undying love and adoration for him. If Filge had been anything else but a necromancer, I might have felt sorry for his obvious need for companionship and crude inability to make friends. But as it was, I found myself only able to pity the dead. The twice dead, once Tassilo and I finished putting them down.
Vyth, Taan, and Dram found the source of the good-smelling food. It wasn’t the food on the table, which Demon Boy soon discovered to his despair was quite rotten. It was the nasty little dirt-baby that was in the side kitchen, singing off-key while he cooked up a stew. A delicious-smelling stew, to be sure, but it was being made by a dirt-baby homunculus so that was a little off-putting. When the freak saw us, he squealed in rage and attacked… ineffectually, I might add. When he discovered just how harmless his attacks were, he squealed for mercy. Taan put him in a bag. I’m not sure Taan has mercy in mind. I hope he doesn’t. I don’t relish the thought of adding another screaming varmint to our entourage.
This left one room unexplored—the entrance. We listened at the door, and hearing nothing, heaved it open. And within, we found the last three Land skeletons. All animated. All armed with crossbows. Wonderful.
Reaping 9, 595 CY
I had a moment to realize that the three animated skeletons with the crossbows were likely the Land family before they fired. Pain shot through me as the bolts struck me, one in the gut and one in the chest. They hurt... bad. More than anything I’d felt before… As my vision blurred I had enough time to wonder what kind of putrid poison the bolts had been dipped in. I tried to stagger forward to smash them, but the world upended and that was it.
Reaping 10, 595 CY
The first thing I noticed upon waking was the shakes. It felt like my whole body, particularly my arms and legs, were following their own insane agendas. A moment of panic struck when I became convinced that I’d been animated as some sort of perverse undead plaything by Filge, but it soon became apparent that this wasn’t the case. I was slumped in one of the makeshift beds Gar had procured for the Guildhouse. I could hear the sound of conversation in the next room, periodically interrupted with shrill demands for “MY SYRINGES!”
For the next several hours I slipped in and out of consciousness, but by mid-afternoon I felt better enough to sit up. I managed to avoid the unacceptable humiliation of vomiting, but only by sitting on the edge of the bed for another several minutes. My arms and legs still felt shaky, but better. The crossbow bolts had been removed, but the wounds were still raw and puffy and smelled horrifically like rotting flowers. The poison. Whatever it was, it had sapped my strength. I healed the wounds with my magic, but could do nothing about the shakes. Hopefully, they’ll pass in time.
I wrapped one of the ratty blankets Gar had outfitted the beds with about me, too sick to care if it was clean, and stumbled out into the main room. No one was out there, but there was a note on the table, held down with a rock. The note was brief—the group had interrogated Filge, learned much from him, and had left to turn him over to the clerics at the chapel of Hieroneous. I would have preferred to have used him as a gift for the cult of the Green Lady, and as a way to gauge their stance on the filthy practice of arcane necromancy, but I figured that the Hieroneous clerics would give him a more certain punishment.
There was also mention in the note that earlier that morning they’d returned the bodies of the Land skeletons to their graves. Without my aid. Visions of all four bodies dumped unceremoniously into one of the open graves and left there for feral dogs or other necromancers to pillage ran through my head. Leaving the blanket behind, I made my way through the hills to the Land farm to see what I could do to ensure their return to the earth was done with grace and honor.
What I found actually surprised me. Not only had the others apparently returned the bodies to the proper graves and filled them in, but someone had reconsecrated the graves. The work bespoke the touch of Hieroneous, so I assumed it had been Tassilo who had performed the rites of burial. I fixed the mistakes he’d made (which were probably more due to the fact that his teachings had glossed over the proper methods of burial rather than from any real malice or disrespect toward the dead) and gave each the proper marks of Wee Jas to ensure their spirits would not be drawn back to their mortal remnants, and made sure to include the sigils of warning to indicate to any new graverobbers that Wee Jas was watching over the graves, then made my way shakily back to the Guildhouse. It was still empty when I got there, so I spent the next hour in prayer and practicing with my violin.
Eventually, the group came back, the sound of their mirth and merriment apparent long before they stumbled, well-fed and pockets jingling in change from whatever they’d been up to, and seemed surprised to see me up and about. At least they noticed I wasn’t dead. There was some talk about heading back up to the Whispering Cairn to see if Alastor’s ghost had opened the door like he’d promised, but they eventually decided to put off the return until the next day. I like to think that they did this because they noticed how sick I was looking, but I doubt it. I staggered back to claim the bed before anyone else could and in moments, was once again fast asleep, dreaming dreams haunted by the constant squwaking of that damnable owlbear cub.
Is Tyralandi Scrimm's journal (and/or Demon Boy's journal) going to continue beyond the Whispering Cairn, into Three Faces of Evil?
I ask because I'm having a great deal of trouble figuring out PC motivations and goals in Three Faces. In-character journals from playtesters would be very helpful.
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Creative Director
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Is Tyralandi Scrimm's journal (and/or Demon Boy's journal) going to continue beyond the Whispering Cairn, into Three Faces of Evil?
I ask because I'm having a great deal of trouble figuring out PC motivations and goals in Three Faces. In-character journals from playtesters would be very helpful.
That's the plan! In theory... we'll play through the entire Age of Worms campaign with these characters.
Reaping 11, 595 CY
I woke feeling better. I was still a little shaky, but I could tell that the aftereffects of the poison from those crossbow bolts were finally fading. I could stand up and walk around without feeling like throwing up, so that was progress at least. I wandered out into the main room of the Guildhall and was immediately relieved to see that I wasn’t the sickest person in our group. Namely, Taan, Gar, and Dram were looking a bit fevered. Turns out, you can’t spend several days bonemongering in old crypts or fighting undead without catching some sort of funk. Unless, of course, you happen to be blessed by Wee Jas. Like me. Maybe if these others survive, they’ll see the ruby light.
Anyway... I looked them over and it looked like Dram was the worst off. The bite he’d suffered from the ghoul back in the Whispering Cairn was festering. The fact that he didn’t feel pain when I plucked a rotten, hooked tooth from under a suppurating scab in his leg was particularly troubling… it looked like ghoul fever to me. Now… I wasn’t particularly worried about the long-term effects, since if Dram turned into a ghoul that just meant he’d listen better to my advice and be more amiable, but I figured Dram himself wouldn’t enjoy the change. Truth be told, I find his impulsiveness and sense of humor rather amusing, qualities that probably wouldn’t survive the transformation into undeath. Unfortunately, I had not proven myself worthy to Wee Jas and could provide him no aid.
Same with Gar and Tann, although they seemed to be suffering from a different ailment. They had bites on the ankles and shins, nasty, hair-clogged wounds that looked only marginally less hideous after Tassilo and I helped to clean the wounds. Tassilo said the disease looked to him to be the early stages of corpse bloat, a sickness that causes the skin to swell, detach from its fleshy moorings, and eventually sloughing away in wet green ruin in the advanced stages. Taan immediately left, muttering something about needing to seek out the Bronzewood Lodge for aid. We let him go, having learned that arguments with him usually ended with threats of arrowfire. Gar seemed nonplused by his wound. “Only one dependable cure for the plague, friends,” he said in a blustery voice, “And that’s good, honest work.” He set out to work on the guildhouse. We let him go too, figuring that when his skin took to smelling of Diamond Lake at the end of a long dry summer, he’d change his tune.
Tassilo and I decided to escort Dram to the shrine of Hieroneous up on the hill in the garrison. Demon Boy accompanied us most of the way, but I lost track of him before we arrived. He seems to have some issues with the garrison. I would too, I suppose, if I looked like him. I’d have issues with everything if I looked like him, actually.
Anyway, the cleric at the shrine of Heironeous seemed friendly enough… to Dram and Tassilo. He kind of gave me the cold shoulder, but I expected him to do so. His kind are predictable in the same way you can predict an ogre to try to make bread out of your bones. He healed Dram of his affliction, but at a terrible cost—he asked Dram to come to services later that week. I can only imagine how horrifically dull a Hieroneous sermon could get. Better than a Cuthbertian sermon, I suppose, if only because you wouldn’t need medical attention after sitting in the pews.
After this, we went to speak to Allustan briefly. He was in a terrific state of excitement; seems he’d received a large book called the Chronicle of Chan from an old friend in Greyhawk. He invited us all to a late lunch and told us of an ancient race of people known as the Wind Dukes of Aqaa, of how they fought against the Queen of Chaos and her proto-demon armies, and forged a powerful weapon called the Rod of Law to smite her and the general of her legion; a Prince of Demons named Mishka the Wolf Spider. In the battle, many of the wind dukes were slain, and their rod was sundered into seven parts when it smote Mishka and hurtled him into the unknown. And it would seem that the Whispering Cairn is one of the wind duke tombs—the tomb of a wind duke named Zosiel. Allustan grew more and more excited as the lunch drew on, and I admit his fervor was contagious. By the time it was over, it was twilight and while we decided to put off our return to the cairn, I must admit my thoughts were awhirl with the possibilities we’d discovered something truly important. Who would have guessed that wretched old Diamond Lake would have held such a key position in the development of civilization?
I had thought about returning to the Guildhouse, but Dram somehow managed to convince me to come with him to the Emporium. Sleeping in a comfortable, warm bed did sound nice, and would go a long way toward getting over being poisoned. Dram promised to be on his best behavior, so I agreed.
Reaping 12, 595 CY
Wow! Turns out, sleeping at the Emporium was an excellent idea. It cost a pretty penny, but I woke the next morning feeling almost completely recovered. I wasn’t quite completely better, but close. Dram certainly looked better after a full night’s rest, but I certainly wasn’t going to offer him the compliment, considering our current arrangement. Who knows how he would have taken it?
Anyway, upon returning to the Guildhouse, we found that Taan had recovered fully from the bloat. He seemed evasive (shock! surprise!) about what it had cost him to receive the healing from the Lodge, but it apparently worked. Gar, on the other hand, looked like hell. He was sweating, his skin had taken on a nasty green tinge, and he looked overall a bit larger… a bit… squishier. I checked his bite and it had clogged with more hair and dirt. It almost seemed like it was attracting filth to the wound. Needless to say, Gar seemed to be a little more convinced of his imminent peril now, and fled into town to get healed. He returned less than fifteen minutes later and immediately began digging a grave out front, wailing, “I’m a goner! I’m doomed!” Turns out, the temple of Hieroneous wouldn’t let him in and the temple of St. Cuthbert was, well, the temple of St. Cuthbert. Taan seemed to think that the healers at the Bronzewood Lodge would never help a dwarf without a lot of money, so that left the cult of the Green Lady across the lake. I told Gar I’d be his escort to the cult and help plead his case to Wee Jas, but the prospect of putting his health in their hands seemed to frighten him all the more. Fortunately for him, Tassilo was on hand to escort him back to the temple of Hieroneous and got him in to see the healers.
The crisis averted and Gar’s skin re-attached and back to smelling, well, better than before, we returned to the Whispering Cairn.
We found Alastor Land had departed his haunt, but had left the door open. Crossing through, we entered a huge chamber dominated by a massive pit. A balcony rimmed the pit, and four bridges crossed its depths to a central pillar of churning air; two of the bridges were broken, though. The walls of the chamber were covered with strange carvings. As we stepped near, blasts of steam sprayed out to animate the scene, showing us images of the Wind Dukes’ battle against the legions of Chaos. We had no real time to investigate, though, as Vyth stepped onto one of the bridges.
Doing so alerted the ageless guardians of the place, a pair of elemental warriors clad in ceramic armor and wielding a pair of razor-sharp swords flew up out of the pit. The two elementals wasted no time slashing Vyth’s feet out from under him. I managed to reach him before he bled to death and healed some of his wounds, allowing him to get back to his feet and aid in our fight. The creatures could also focus blasts of sound on us when they couldn’t quite reach us with their swords, and using this attack managed to take out nearly the entire group. Fortunately, myself and Gar withstood their horrid ministrations. Gar managed to murder them both, and I healed Tassilo enough to get him back on his feet to save the rest.
The guardian elementals slain, we proceeded to the central column of air and quickly discovered it was a magical elevator. We rode the wind up into a smaller room above, and discovered what could only be the heart of the cairn—Zosiel’s tomb! The walls depicted a strange humanoid (Zosiel, apparently) being destroyed in a battle against a terrible horned demon, who used a sphere of darkness against the Wind Duke. I recognized this as a sphere of annihilation, and shuddered at such a fate, for it was said that even Wee Jas could not undo what these horrific weapons wrought upon the living and the dead. Of course, Vyth stepped up to it, and I braced myself for a new guardian to attack. All that happened, though, was a whispery voice issuing from a statue: “Speak my name!” There was a moment of terror. Would Vyth break his vow of silence to speak the name and thereby save us from whatever dread punishment from the aeons even now loomed before us? Fortunately, Gar was there to speak for him. As he said, “Zosiel,” the sarcophagus before us shone with light, and opened!
Within, we found a strange circlet, a pair of black horns that looked disturbingly similar to those borne by the demon in the carving, and a pewter box that seemed to contain some sort of powerful magic. Taan immediately took to pealing the metal away from the seal that held the box shut, but we managed to get it away from him before he unleashed whatever demons lurked within. Best to get it back to Allustan, I figured, and open it above ground somewhere out in the open. At least that way, if it DID unleash a demon, there’d be more routes of escape open for us. Or more accurately, for me. I like Gar and Demon Boy well enough, I suppose, but their stubby little legs weren’t made for escaping peril. I wouldn’t need to outrun the demon—I just needed to outrun one of them.
Reaping 12, 595 CY
Exiting the Whispering Cairn was fairly simple, and by the time we emerged from the place it was growing late. Not late enough to turn in for the night, of course.
As had become our habit, once we escaped from the containing walls of the cairn, we scattered. Everyone seems always to have a different need. Dram and Daejin went off to drink while the rest of us decided to go speak with Allustan about our most recent finds. The entire journey was one long, tiresome argument about what to do with that strange box we found in Zosiel’s tomb. Fortunately, the argument kept anything disastrous from happening, and before long we were at Allustan’s. He was both shocked and amazed that we’d discovered an actual wind duke tomb, but did his best to keep his emotions in check. He was able to tell us that the strange diadem was something designed to expand the mind of its wearer. Sounded like an excellent tool to aid in prayer and focusing divine energies. I’m not sure why I argued that it should go to Tassilo. Maybe I hoped that such an act would help encourage our group to act as a unified whole rather than a bunch of bickering children. Maybe I just didn’t like how gaudy and ostentatious it looked (jewelry should augment beauty, not replace it). I suppose it was a little of both.
As for the metal box… I noted with not a small amount of satisfaction that Allustan seemed as wary about its contents as I had. We brought it outside to the stump, and Allustan took up his staff against anything that might rumble out of it, and we gave Taan leave to open it. He fell on it like acid beetles on a paladin, and had it open in a heartbeat.
Nothing came out. I was actually a little disappointed. But what was actually inside quickly eclipsed my disappointment with wonder. For inside was a small talisman, a talisman I recognized from one of those old books on arcane traditions as a talisman of the sphere. I’d heard stories as well of the spheres of annihilation, and these talismans were said to provide additional control over these deadly weapons of a bygone age.
Allustan recommended we keep the talisman handy. Turns out he’s wise as well as smart.
After the meeting, we started back to the Guildhall to settle down for the night. I didn’t get far before I noticed something unsettling… my skin had started to grow pale. I didn’t feel that sick, but nonetheless the evidence was there. None of my companions had seemed to notice, so I told them I’d catch up with them later. After ducking behind a house, I checked everywhere I could without making a spectacle of myself to any slobbering, peeping miners that might be hiding in the bushes nearby. Turns out my skin wasn’t just pale… it had taken on an obvious tinge of gangrene in some places, and felt a little too… loose. There was no pain, and I couldn’t detect any unusual odors. I certainly didn’t feel sick… or did I? It was hard to tell. I stopped by the general store and purchased a large supply of makeup to cover up the more noticeable spots and made a mental note to wear gloves and more concealing clothing as needed until the infection, or whatever it was, went away.
It wasn’t five minutes after I got back to the Guildhouse that a terrible, soul-wrenching wail of despair and torment tore through the fading light of twilight. We all leapt to our feet, scrambling for armor and weapons in a mad frenzy to ready for whatever it was that had come upon our ramshackle shack. Again the cry gave vent, and it was then that I realized Gar was not with us…
Visions of the poor dwarf being molested by some sort of haunt that stalked us from the depths of the Whispering Cairn, or perhaps even Kullen’s vengeful headless corpse come to take back his axe flooded my mind. What we found was a bit more underwhelming.
Gar was standing in the middle of the basement, his skin flushed red with rage. He clutched a note in his trembling hand. And he stood in front of Beaky’s cage. Beaky’s empty cage.
An hour later, we had managed to calm Gar down enough that he was no longer shrieking “I’ll Kill Him!” in a raspy tormented voice, and managed to pry the note from his hand. It was short and to the point: “See Me.” Signed with an S. S for Smenk.
So it looks like Balabar Smenk went and Beakynaped our mascot. I had mixed feelings about the event. First of all… the little menace was foul-smelling and bitey. But he was also worth a lot of money. Gar was ready to march right down to Balabar’s house and gut him in his bed, but we convinced him to sleep it off. Somehow.
Reaping 13, 595 CY
Gar was still itching for a Smenking, but again, we managed to hold him off by pointing out that there was yet one area in the Whispering Cairn we hadn’t yet explored. It certainly wouldn’t do to leave this area untouched, go speak to Smenk, and then because of Something Gar Did we ended up having to skip town, it wouldn’t do to leave the untold treasures of the Whispering Cairn’s last corners for the doubtful locals who would certainly be piling in there to pick up our crumbs in the days to follow.
So back to the Cairn we went. As we headed out, Dram asked me if I was feeling okay. I might have snapped at him a little too harshly in telling him I was fine, but really, it wasn’t his business. Still, I kept noticing him eyeing me, in the same way I’d noticed him eyeing Taan and Gar when they’d been sick with the Bloat. I’m not sure what was making me more nervous; his scrutiny or the fact that his scrutiny might be warranted. The gangrene-looking patches haven't increased, so that's good, at least.
By now, the central chamber with its seven lanterns was almost a welcome comfort, after the grueling battle in the true tomb or the harrowing events (and smells) of the old observatory. We had to file one at a time down the last elevator into the unexplored wing of the Cairn, but managed to do so with little incident. Below, we discovered a small complex of rooms that looked to have served as barracks and perhaps even a study for the Cairn’s builder. There were several traps, including one that spewed a fair amount of poison gas into the air after we toppled a large block of stone to unblock a passageway. The gas didn’t seem to affect me, and I guess it didn’t hurt anyone else that much since no one started whining about being dizzy or bleeding from the eyes.
Beyond was a long galley of statues. We started to move down the galley when a strange, nasty THING slithered out of one of the alcoves. It looked like a pair of eyes tethered to each other by a thick cord of sinew and hair. The thing whipped around the room, firing beams of light from its eyes as it attempted to wrap around peoples’ necks. It was joined by a second freak, but that didn’t help its situation. Before long, they lay dead at our feet and we proceeded into the room to the south.
Therein, we found a large patch of mold that seemed to live on heat. Daejin recognized the stuff and warned us to stay away, that if we brought any heat nearby (such as a living body) it would grow rapidly and overwhelm us. Cold could kill it, she said.
And then, an incredible thing happened. Gar muttered something to himself, looked around, adjusted his armor a little, and then pointed at the mold and cast a spell! A beam of cold lanced out of his fingers—I recognized the spell immediately as a basic cantrip most wizards know. The mold withered and blackend and died, and Gar went on with a shrug. The rest of us were a bit agog at his sudden display; I started to ask him about it and he started hemming and hawing and getting all blustery. Fine, fine. But I haven’t forgotten, you weird little man.
We looked around a little more and found a long-dead skeleton under a crushing block trap. We managed to raise the block and loot the bones before someone called out that they’d found something in a side room. We all came to investigate, and found a strange block of stone, almost egg-shaped, on a stand. The stone bore a mark I recognized—the mark of Ogremoch, the lord of evil earth elementals. I said as much to the others and recommended that we leave the thing alone.
And that’s when things got complicated.
For some reason, Taan suddenly grabbed my hand and pressed it against the stone. I was shocked. Too shocked to do anything but stare as the block of stone suddenly unfolded and stood up, a massive mound of sentient stone and earth! The elemental called out in a grating, grinding voice and seemed ready to pummel us, when Gar spoke back to it in an equally grinding voice. The two carried on for a bit, allowing us to move away from the menacing creature, when suddenly Gar went pale. “Oh crap,” was all he managed to say before the elemental roared and attacked!
The fight that followed was horrific. I blasted the elemental with a swath of negative energy but that just seemed to angry it up. It smashed at me with its rhino fist and nearly knocked me to the ground. Tassilo ran up to stand between it and me and it swatted him down with ease. He crumpled to its feet in a spatter of blood. Chivalry’s a nice concept, but it doesn’t really work.
The battle went worse from there. We kept hitting it, but it wouldn’t drop. It took down Gar and I darted in to heal him, then darted back to stabilize Tassilo before he died. Vyth came tumbling in—I’m not sure what for, but whatever he was planning to do he never got to do it. The elemental’s fist caught him in mid flip and smashed him into the nearby wall. Gar clambered to his feet and cast another spell and suddenly doubled in size, and took the elemental to task for its sin of aggression. Daejin and Dram kept shooting and stabbing at it, Demon Boy kept hitting it with magic, and Taan kept trying to get further out of the way by hiding behind a statue to the north. Finally, with a sudden upward swing of his axe, Gar split the thing in half.
I staggered over to Vyth, and knew immediately that he was dead. Or if not dead, he would be by the time his current, gurgling, blood-soaked breath rattled to an end. I had used all my healing magic… with the exception of one final spell. I used it, but as I did I sent a desperate prayer to Wee Jas, asking her for compassion this once. I’m not sure what I promised her in return, or indeed, what Vyth promised her, but suddenly the world flashed red.
When my vision cleared, Vyth’s wounds had closed, and his eyes opened. “I’m not sure what just happened, Vyth,” I said, “But I think Wee Jas might need you to be alive. You should be dead. But you’re not. And I’m not sure why.”
Vyth actually seemed as if he was about to answer, when suddenly Dram barreled into the room. He threw his bow down in anger as he walked up to Taan, who was just coming out from behind the statue to look around the room.
“What the hell was that for? Why’d you rile that thing up, you bastard?!” Dram roared as he approached the valley elf. Taan just shrugged, turned toward me, and seemed about to say something like, “I didn’t touch it… she did!” when Dram punched him in the jaw.
I watched, stunned, as Taan staggered back from the blow. And then drew his sword. And then stuck it into Dram’s gut.
Dram cried out in pain and staggered back, drawing his own sword, and in an instant the two were locked in mortal combat, each trying to kill the other. It seemed obvious that Taan had the upper hand; he’d avoided much of the fight with the elemental and Dram had already been wounded by it.
“STOP IT!” I cried out, channeling the will of Wee Jas into my voice has I had when Kullen the albino half-ogre had nearly attacked Dram, but Taan’s will proved stronger than the half-orc’s. He ignored me and stabbed Dram again. I’m not sure what I would have done if he killed Dram… but I was getting ready to find out when Gar stepped in like a frustrated mother ogre. “Cut it out, you two!” he said as he smashed Taan in the head with his tree stump-sized fist. Taan went down, and then Gar turned to Dram and grumbled, “You gonna calm down there, buddy? Or do I have to take care of you too?”
Dram put away his sword, but then delivered a quick kick to Taan’s ribs before he staggered back to catch his breath and clutch at his insides that were threatening to slither out through the results of Taan’s swordwork.
Gar only shrugged and muttered, “Fair enough.”
I slumped back against the wall Vyth had crumpled against and closed my eyes in a mixture of relief and frustration. So much for party unity!
He fell on it like acid beetles on a paladin
That was cold-hearted!
I just found this post. Read the whole thing through. I just started Age of Worms last Thursday. Second session tonight. Your starting in-game date is almost the same as mine.
The year is 595 CY. It is the month of Reaping. Earthday the 6th. Y'all just had the week of Richfest (Midsummer festival).
I usually start the campaign on the closest day it is in real life. And have the weather the same. Of course that doesn't stay consistant but when their is downtime the date is usually back on track.
Peace and smiles :)
j.
This rocks. Keep up the great story!
ASEO out
Great story so far, James, but I have a question:
We know that Tyralandi was upset over the graverobbing at the Land homestead, yet how does she reconcile that with the group plundering the Wind Duke's tomb?
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Creative Director
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Great story so far, James, but I have a question:
We know that Tyralandi was upset over the graverobbing at the Land homestead, yet how does she reconcile that with the group plundering the Wind Duke's tomb?
Good question.
First of all... Tyralandi doesn't think that arcanists have any call messing with the dead. That stuff should be left to divine spell casters only. That's mostly a weird little obsession she has that may or may not go away as she meets more wizard/sorcerer types.
The main way she reconciles that with the plundering of the Wind Duke tomb is that robing from the dead is different than robbing the dead. It's okay to loot an ancient tomb that isn't under Wee Jas' protection if the money is used to further the needs of the church. It's not okay for people to graverob and turn bodies into undead. She considers the wind duke tomb as more an archelogical type looting. May seem like splitting hairs to some, but it works for Tyralandi!
Reaping 13, 595 CY
In the aftermath of the fight with the earth elemental and the resulting chaos, I welcomed the chance to catch my breath. I stayed by Vyth’s side to make sure he’d be okay while Gar busied himself tying Taan up. He and Dram argued over what to do with the elf, but couldn’t decide what to do with him. Nothing seemed particularly good for Taan, though—the argument’s theme seemed basically on how they were planning on punishing him. Leave him here in the cairn? Take him in to the sheriff? Beat him to death?
When their argument seemed to be taking a turn for the worse, I had to step in. Taan may have made a few stupid mistakes, but it wasn’t our place to decide his fate. It wasn’t even Diamond Lake’s place. In a town where law was just a guideline on who you needed to bribe, well, it just didn’t seem fair to turn him over to a bunch of self-important corrupt officials. Now, more than ever, I wished I’d made contact with the cult of the Green Lady, if only so that there’d be an organized group of impartial observers to consult for advice on how to deal with Taan.
By this point, Taan had woken. The tenor of the “conversation” changed from what to do with Taan to “who’s fault was it all?” Dram seemed the most wrought up about the fact that Taan had put me in danger, and Taan seemed the most wrought up about the fact that Dram had punched him in the jaw. The talk was quickly degrading into death threats, but I was able to make them at the very least concede that killing each other wasn’t going to help anyone. Gar helped defuse the situation as well, although I got the feeling he would rather have left Taan tied up in the dungeon.
Eventually, we let Taan go. He apologized to me, but made a point of not apologizing to Dram. I think, perhaps, that for the next few days, these two should probably sleep in separate rooms. And hopefully they won’t have an occasion to disagree again, because I’m fairly certain that the next time they get in an argument one of them is going to die.
By the time we got back to the Guildhouse, the death threats had settled down to a dull mumbling of hatred. It’s a start, I suppose.
It was still before noon by the time we staggered out of the Cairn, possibly for the last time. There was some talk about where to go next; several people were worried that if we returned to the Guildhall that Smenk would be waiting for us. Tassilo announced that he needed to report back to his temple in the garrison, and the rest of us eventually decided to risk a return to the Guildhall.
Not long after we returned, Dram noticed something weird. Namely, one of the trees out front was absolutely infested with blackbirds. Daejin realized that this was not only unusual, but recognized the significance—Nogura of the Bronzewood Lodge had something to talk to us about. And by “us,” of course, I meant Daejin.
Nevertheless, we all headed up to the Lodge with her. We got there and the gatekeeper, a solemn-looking elf, welcomed Daejin and Taan (!) and barely graced the rest of us (and by “us”, of course, I mean me) with a nod. It seems that Nogura wanted to share some words with Daejin and Taan, and that the rest of us were welcome to wait inside the meditation hall within the lodge.
Everyone else but myself and Gar agreed. I had no real interest in taking part in some sort of weird dirt-worship or fetish-building, and I can only assume Gar felt the same. I would have liked to have talked to him about the new arcane skills he seemed to have developed, but when I tried to bring up the subject he got all huffy and stomped off, grumbling. Oh well. Hopefully he’ll want to talk shop some day. I spent the next hour practicing with that damnable violin. The more I play it, the more I start to think that it’s broken somehow. I need to get a real violin, not this ramshackle tired thing that I found years ago in a trash heap. Of course... there’s nowhere in Diamond Lake that sells things that make beautiful noises. Hopefully we’ll be able to head to Greyhawk soon, but for now, I’d still like to figure out how to make a little more money to finance a proper escape from this armpit (and by “armpit”, of course, I mean Diamond Lake).
Eventually, the rest of the group emerged from the Lodge. Dram, Vyth, and Demon Boy looked drunk, but it turned out they weren’t. They were high. Daejin mentioned something about how Taan was now under her care and that he would answer to her for his actions. I’m not sure what she meant, but Taan seemed a little bit more restrained, at least. So maybe something good had come of their meeting. One can only hope.
On our way back to the Guildhall, Demon Boy told me all about the meditation room. And by “meditation room” it turns out he meant “wrastling pit and huffing parlour.” Turns out, the Bronzewood Lodge folk meditate by watching their members wrestle in a large chamber while they pass around some sort of smoldering concoction in a bowl. They take deep breaths of the fumes and are granted visions or something while they watch their champions have at each other. Demon Boy was going on at great length about the amount of mud and dirt involved—it was hard to tell if he was making that part up but it was entertaining enough to watch so I let him talk.
We met Tassilo on the road, and he told us that his commander had asked to see Dram. Dram seemed happy and ready to go, but Tassilo seemed a bit uncomfortable with his current condition.
“Is he drunk?” he asked me in a whisper.
“Nope. He’s high,” I replied. My answer didn’t seem to comfort him. In any case, the two headed off to their meeting and we headed in to town to talk to Allustan. He seemed excited as usual to hear about our discoveries in the Cairn, and seemed about ready to go explore it himself. He was able to tell us what the latest batch of magical treasures we’d uncovered were used for as well.
We got back to the Guildhall just in time for dinner. Dram and Tassilo returned soon thereafter, both proudly wearing some sort of badges or medals or something. I guess that the garrison deputized them or something. It seemed to please Dram, at least. Hopefully, between Dram’s new rank in the garrison and Taan’s new understanding with the Bronzewood Lodge, they’d be less likely to try to kill each other. Tassilo left soon after dinner, returning to the garrison to sleep, presumably. Can’t really blame him for not wanting to sleep in the same building as the rest of us, but it still annoyed me a little. He might as well have come right out and said, “Well then, that’s enough for me! Since I have a home here, I shall return to it forthwith to sleep on a real bed like a civilized person. Have fun sleeping in your pens!”
Anyway, I volunteered to take the first watch that night (since we were all mostly convinced Smenk was going to try to abduct something larger and more important than Beaky sometime soon), but made sure to keep an eye as much on Dram and Taan to make sure that one of them didn’t get up in the middle of the night for a little bout of late-night murder. I chose a point on the still open to the sky second floor as a post, since I could see the area around the Guildhouse as well as down into the interior. As luck would have it… the night was overcast and dark and I couldn’t really see much of anything.
It was about two hours into my watch that I heard something down below. At first I thought it was Dram or Taan skulking around outside trying to ambush the other. When a javelin shot out of the darkness below and into my shoulder, I realized it was probably someone else.
My scream woke the others. As I staggered downstairs, clutching at the javelin and trying to avoid knocking it against anything that would drive it deeper, the rest of the group sprang into action. There was noise all around us, on the roof, out front, everywhere. We were surrounded. As Daejin, Gar, and Vyth raced upstairs to confront whoever was up there, I noticed the front doors rattling. I yanked out the javelin and gritted my teeth (somehow avoiding passing out from the pain), then grabbed a chair and tried to wedge it up against the doors. No good. They burst open, and facing me was a squat, ugly, hideous little man. Uglier than Demon Boy, in fact.
In fact, there were several of them—goblins. Two held back and began casting spells while the ones by the door started stabbing at me with swords. I managed to escape and hid behind Taan, who was already slinging arrows into them while Dram stepped into the doorway to hold them off. One of the spellcasters started doing something, but Demon Boy was on the spot and lobbed a volley of two glowing motes of energy at the goblin, disrupting his spell. The other spellcaster was more successful, and blasted the front of the guildhall with fire.
From there… the battle got frantic. The spellcasters continued to hit us with magic, and I was forced to bash at them with my morningstar, having expended all of my magic earlier in the day to heal myself and the others. At one point, Vyth leapt heroically off the roof to land in the middle of the goblins. His actions probably saved myself and Dram from being murdered, but they had the same old results on poor Vyth. As he lay unconscious and bleeding out on the dirt, Dram and I did our best to fight off the remaining goblins while Demon Boy kept hitting them with magic missiles. It looked pretty grim, but then Gar and Daejin showed up. Daejin stayed on the roof and peppered the goblins with arrows, and Gar did his thing and hurled himself off the roof into the thick of the fight. It wasn’t long before the goblins were dead. Fortunately, none of us were dead. I helped drag the nearly dead back inside and then proclaimed that all future guard shifts should be handled by those who could see in the dark. Just seems like a good plan going forward, and if it means that I get to sleep all night long, well, so much the better.
Reaping 14, 595 CY
It certainly was nice to finally get some sleep; yesterday seemed like the longest day ever. There was a moment after I woke where I’d forgotten how discordant and dysfunctional these people are. Within the next hour, though, things were back to normal, as we were all arguing about what to do next. Go investigate Dourstone mine? Go talk to Smenk? Go kill Smenk? Let Dram and Taan fight it out in a pit? Go track down Kullen’s pals to see if they were behind the goblin attack the night before? Skip town and seek our fortunes elsewhere?
We eventually decided that the best way to deal with Smenk was not a frontal assault (which actually kind of shocked me). Instead, we decided to look for proof of his corruption to present to the governor mayor or the garrison. And what better place to do this than in Dourstone Mine, which (according to Filge) Smenk had some sort of nefarious connection to? If Smenk was supporting some sort of necromancer cult, I’m sure that the authorities will be forced to do something. I hope, at least.
Dram volunteered to spend the day observing the Dourstone Mine from above ground. Which left the rest of us with nothing to do. Gar took off to do “something” but, as usual, he was close-lipped about what he was going to do. With nothing else to do, I picked up my violin and started practicing. As usual, it did not go well. In fact, it sounded pretty atrocious. Seems like no matter how much I practice, I just can’t make the damn thing sound right. When Demon Boy started mocking me, I gave up and threw the damnable thing down on the ground. He seemed to like that, at least.
By the time Gar returned and I’d been listening to Demon Boy’s insults, I was in a foul mood. Gar seemed to be in a foul mood too. He’d brought a small keg of ale with him. I helped him drink it.
Reaping 15, 595 CY
Woke up with a splitting headache, sprawled under the table in the Guildhouse with a mouth that tasted like wet ashes. I had vague memories of the last half of the previous day, most of which were memories of Gar and I commiserating about the cruelty of life and those who live it. When I saw what remained of my violin, another memory slunk its way into my mind—a memory of Vyth picking up my violin from the floor and handing it to me with a “Why aren’t you playing your violin” expression on his face. I remembered snatching it from his hands and smashing it on the ground, much to his shock. Looking at what remained, it appeared that Demon Boy had practiced his fire spells on the remains. I quietly gathered up the charred remains of the old violin and dumped them out back. Maybe I’ll ask Venelle if she knows where to get a new one. Maybe not. Whatever. Stupid violin never worked right anyway.
In any event, Dram reported that the Dourstone mine seemed to be fairly lightly guarded. Two groups of four guards was it. Of course, the fact that we probably shouldn’t kill the guards made it less simple to get into the mine. Eventually, we came up with a fairly solid-sounding plan.
That evening, I approached the Dourstone Mine and called out to the guards. They reacted with typical male lechery, which was what I had been counting on. I started talking to them, telling them a fabricated story about an old prospector named Bandyleg Pete who had buried a gold nugget the size of a dragon’s eye out in the hills nearby. Of how he had memorized the location by the huge ipp tree that grew nearby. Of how later on, the trees had been cut down. And of how when Bandyleg Pete came back one night to dig up his treasure, he couldn’t find it since his landmark had been removed. He died, the story went, a few days later, and on the anniversary of his death every year thereafter, one can see his spirit using a torch to scour the hills north of Diamond Lake. I wove magic into the tale, keeping all eight guards enthralled until Taan used an unseen servant to carry a torch off into the hills. As the guards saw it, they immediately started jabbering about gold and, to a man, raced off to chase “Bandyleg Pete” and look for his gold.
Still a little shocked at how well the plan worked, we all quickly infiltrated the mine. Inside, we came upon a storage room in which several miner’s outfits were kept. They looked positively filthy, but I could see no way around avoiding the disguise. I put on one of the bulkier suits. It itched and chafed and felt like there were bugs inside it crawling around. Gar started rubbing coal dust on his face and offered some to the rest of us. That was going too far. No way was I going to rub that filth into my skin! Dwarves may worship filth and dirt, but some of us are more civilized.
But Gar was having none of it. Next thing I knew, Taan had grabbed my arms from behind and held me in place while Gar reached up to filth me up. I tried to dodge away but no luck. In a few moments, his callused, crusty, owlbear-tainted, work-roughened, unbelievably thick clumsy hands were mashing coal into my skin. And smearing off onto his hands came much of the makeup I’d put on to hide the weird pallor of my skin.
“Uh... eww,” Gar said. “Your face is leaking.” He didn’t seem to know how to deal with that. Fortunately, it was shadowy and dark enough that I don’t think anyone noticed what the makeup was hiding. And ironically, the dirt and filth would do just as good a job at hiding it as well.
A little further on, we encountered some miners. We ignored them and they ignored us. We ran into the mine foreman a few minutes later. We ignored him, and he got all loud and belligerent and tried to make us work. Which was when Vyth suddenly sprang into action. I saw him sidle up to him. I think I saw his arm move. But the only thing I knew for sure was that Vyth did something to him and suddenly the foreman was slumped on the ground, unconscious. Taan dragged him off to hide his body. Demon Boy seemed shocked and insulted that Dram hadn’t looted him as well, and I was a little shocked myself when Taan pointed out that we didn’t need to rob everyone we met, and that we should just let the foreman “sleep it off” in the alcove he’d been hidden in.
Eventually, we came to a section of mine that had been closed with a wooden barricade. Nothing much to keep a group of thugs like us out, and a few moments later we were in a dead-end room beyond, in which was a rickety looking elevator leading down. Four of us clambered into it and started lowering it down, while Taan, Daejin, and Vyth clambered down the chain after us, showing off their feather falling or clambering skills with their disdain for mechanical contraptions, I guess.
The elevator ended in proof that there was more than mining going on in Dourstone. We stepped out into a huge underground cathedral. The arched ceiling was supported by pillars, and to the south it opened out into a large domed chamber with a wooden balcony overlooking a pit of foul black water. Three doors nearby beckoned us; one was blank, but the other two were emblazoned with unholy symbols: Vecna and Hextor. Tassilo seemed particularly distraught to see the Hextor symbols.
Before we had a chance to look all this over, though, a pair of hideous-looking freaks stepped out from behind two nearby pillars. They looked human, but they were not. Glowing eyes, vestigial horns, cloven hooves for feet... tieflings! One of them hissed a challenge to us, and before we had a chance to reply, Gar was on the move. His charge (and the resulting axe) dropped the first tiefling in a mash of blood, but gave the other one a chance to retreat to the Hextor door and hammer on it. If only Gar had planned ahead he could have positioned himself to attack the second tiefling before. No matter. The tiefling soon dropped to the ground from numerous spear and arrow wounds.
We took a few moments to regroup and wait for the rest of our group to gather. And not a moment too soon, for suddenly the Hextor-marked door opened to reveal a room full of cultists. Cultists... and one very huge and hungry-looking boar the size of a carraige.
The fight that followed was frantic indeed. The cultists proved to be nearly ineffectual on their own and went down with little problem, but there were a LOT of them. The dire boar was more of an issue. Gar cast a spell to double in size, but I still had to heal him every round as the massive boar kept lashing at him with its tusks. Behind me, Demon Boy kept hitting it with magic, while Dram, Taan, and Daejin took down cultist after cultist with their arrows and spears. To my right, Tassilo and Vyth were holding their own against several more tiefling cultists, who seemed particularly interested in killing Tassilo and bringing his holy symbol back to their boss as a trophy. I was ready to abandon Gar to go save Vyth at any moment, but he was holding his own with shocking grace and agility, dancing back and forth between foes, disappearing into the shadows only to leap back out and stick someone in the eye with a shuriken.
And then more villains arrived! For a moment, I thought we were done for, outnumbered and outclassed. Until I realized that these new combatants were actually animated skeletons! Wonderful! I stepped out from behind Gar and commanded the skeletons to abandon their loyalty to Hextor and serve me, drawing upon Wee Jas and taking hold of their necromantic energies. It worked! Three of them immediately feel upon the dire boar and tore it to shreds. The remaining cultists were no trouble, although one of them did manage to escape into the temple of Hextor that surely lay ahead.
After we regrouped and Tassilo and I healed up everyone’s wounds as best we could, I ordered the three skeletons to follow me and defend me. As I expected, some of the more squeamish of my companions started getting nervous about them. Gar asked me what I was doing, and I asked him if commanding the dead was any more distasteful than beheading people or otherwise killing them. That comment seemed to annoy him; he narrowed his eyes and muttered something like, “As long as you keep them in line, I guess its okay...” but I could tell he wasn’t convinced of their loyalty to me. No matter. He’ll learn to trust me or not, and if not, dwarves are a dime a dozen. Of course, not many of them can cast spells. Still. I figured he’ll come around sooner than later. Dram seemed a little put off by the skeletons as well, but rather than confronting me about it he asked Tassilo what he thought of it. I was prepared to defend my skeletons from the Heironeoian but he surprised me.
“I’ve got no problem with turning evil back on itself; with using its own tools to lay it low,” was his only reply. Well said, Tassilo. Couldn’t have put it better myself. If these skeletons survive the trials I intend to put them through here in Dourstone, I’ll undo their animating energies and give them proper burials. Until then... they’re my tools.
After using the skeletons to explore the barracks and the filthy pig den we found, we finally came to a large pair of double doors. Daejin noted there seemed to be a lot of foot traffic through this area. We made ready, and I sent one of the skeletons to open the door. Beyond, we beheld a massive underground arena, a towering statue of Hextor looming in its center and with a thronelike chair sitting on a balcony above on the wall opposite. Only the throne was empty, and the man I took to be its primary occupant was standing in the arena itself near the statue. An intimidating, battle-scarred warrior-priest of Hextor stood before us, flail in hand. He pointed at Tassilo.
“You! Lapdog of Heironeous! I challenge you to combat. Face me alone if you have the courage!”
“You! Lapdog of Heironeous! I challenge you to combat. Face me alone if you have the courage!”
I'll have to use this. Considering I have a Cleric, Paladin, and a Monk of Heironeous in my group.
Peace and smiles :)
j.
Reaping 15, 595 CY
Tassilo stepped up to the front of the group, then turned to face the rest of us. “I’ll take care of this. No one interfere.” He seemed pretty serious about it, so I had my three skeletons take up a defensive position in the large room beyond. The rest of the group filtered into the chamber as well, whereupon we noticed several other cultists lurking atop the balcony that ringed the battle arena. Two of the cultists up by the throne looked particularly menacing—these two were more than mere acolytes. Two shapes hulked in the shadows behind them.
The Hextor priest nodded, seemingly satisfied with the arrangement before he turned back to face us. “I must have the word of your allies that they will not interfere with the battle.” Tassilo looked at each of us; he didn’t seem all that convinced we’d leave the battle alone but he sighed and said, “I give you my word.”
The priest snorted. “Know then that I am Theldrick of Hextor.”
Tassilo nodded. “I am Tassilo of Heironeous.”
Theldrick smiled, and drew his flail. “Any time you’re ready, cur!” he growled.
Tassilo responded by clutching the symbol of Heironeous he wore around his neck. With a flash of light, a blinding bolt of divine energy spewed out of the amulet to blast the Hextor cleric, who shrieked in pain. But he didn’t fall. Instead, he charged. The two clerics met in a terrific clash, but neither seemed able to hit the other. I was so entertained by their frantic stabbing and bashing that I lost track of what Gar was up to.
Turns out, Gar interpreted “Don’t mess with the battle,” as “Don’t mess with Theldrick.” He had moved to a position just under the two clerics to the north, and just as Tassilo finally scored a hit on Theldrick, Gar reached into his pack and tossed something up on the balcony above.
It wasn’t until there was a blast of smoke and a strangely familiar skittering noise that I remembered those strange discs we’d discovered in the Whispering Cairn—the discs that summoned mad slashers when they broke. The two clerics cried out in surprise as a mad slasher started lashing out at them. “Treachery! Murder! Slay the infidels!” The tiefling acolytes on the balcony leapt into action and began firing arrows down upon the rest of us.
One of the clerics reached out and before I realized it, had regained control of the three skeletons! The damnable traitors lunged at me with their swords and cut me! AAAHHH! I fled to hide near the large statue of Hextor in the middle of the room and managed to regain control of them before they came after me, and then sent them to surround Theldrick with orders to kill him if he dropped Tassilo. Taan didn’t seem to be that interested in playing along, and started shooting arrows at Theldrick. None of them hit, but they did make the cleric whine about cheaters. Daejin, Dram, and Demon Boy started firing arrows and crossbow bolts up into the upper balcony against the clerics while Gar tossed a second mad slasher up there.
Vyth, like me, had no real ranged weapon options. Unlike me, Vyth possesses a healthy dose of disregard for his own safety. He scrambled up onto the statue, and tried to jump from its head onto the balcony. As he sprang off the statue, the entire thing wobbled on its unsteady base. Vyth fell to the ground but immediately picked himself up and scrambled over to the far side of the statue and tried to push it over. No luck. I sent the three skeletons over to help him, but not having any muscles makes you less strong so their aid was doubtful at best.
In the meantime, the two shadowy figures had stepped forward to tumble off the balcony and into the battle pit with us. Zombies! Troglodyte zombies, to be precise! They shambled over to Gar and started mauling him until I had a chance to rebuke them for their sin of existence. They took the wrath of Wee Jas the only way they could, by dropping to their knees and writhing in fear. Daejin seemed to get a kick out of that, and spent the next several moments filling each with arrows. A shame, really. They would have been even better tools than the three skeletons.
At about this time, I heard a cry of pain and a telltale thunk. I turned, and my heart sank; Tassilo was down! I had a vision of the priest crushing his head with his flail, so I sent the skeletons back to engage him. The rest of us soon followed, and in short order we had Theldrick surrounded. He didn’t seem that worried.
Meanwhile, the mad slasher took down one of the clerics on the balcony. The other one pressed a button on the throne, and the doors leading into this room slammed shut, cutting Taan off and sealing us into the room. The cleric shrieked at the other archers to kill the mad slasher, then she ran down a side passageway. I heard a short, strangled yelp and saw Demon Boy crumple to the ground, an arrow protruding from his mouth. At the same moment, Taan managed to get the door open just as the cleric that had fled the room stepped out of a door behind him, having gone the short way around.
Suddenly, the battle turned tides. Gar finally managed to land a solid hit on Theldrick, and the high priest of Hextor crumpled to the ground. The second priest in the hall fighting Taan saw this and shrieked, “RALLY TO ME! I AM THE NEW HIGH PRIEST OF HEXTOR!” Her reign was short lived, though, as Gar charged her and cut her down as well. “Any more high priests around?” he roared. He then saw the door the second priest had emerged from and ran into the hall beyond to meet the last few acolytes who were trying to escape.
Before much longer, the cultists of Hextor lay dead. I finally managed to reach Demon Boy and stabilize his wound but was unable to return him to consciousness. With Tassilo I was a little luckier, and had him on his feet in no time. He didn’t say anything about the outcome of his battle with Theldrick, and I didn’t ask.
The exploration of the remaining chambers of the temple of Hextor took about a half hour. We stumbled across a few traps and found several bits of treasure and loot, including a strange little gold statue of a dwarf that Gar immediately claimed. Fortunately, there seemed to be no more cultists about, so we found a secluded room in which we could rest and recover. In this room, we found two things of particular interest. The first was a blank scroll that radiated magic. Taan looked it over and realized it contained magical words that could only be read with magic, and even then, it seemed to be written in cipher.
The second discovery was a large diary—Theldrick’s journal. Over the next few hours I looked it over; most of it seemed to be little more than the rantings of an unbalanced cultist of the Ebon Triad, a group dedicated to the unholy merging of Hextor, Vecna, and Erythnul, but two entries in particular seemed intriguing. These entries spoke of two others; someone called Grallak Kur, who seemed to be some sort of prophet for the Ebon Triad who had been gifted with visions of how the cult could achieve its goals. The second was someone called the Faceless One. Whoever this one was, he seemed to be a source of anger and even fear to Theldrick. If these three (Theldrick, Grallak Kur, and the Faceless One) are indeed the three leaders of the Dourstone Mine cultists, it would seem that we have two more temples to explore and to put down. Hopefully in one of them we’ll find something to implicate and ruin Smenk...
" those strange discs we’d discovered in the Whispering Cairn—the discs that summoned mad slashers when they broke."
What are these? I don't remember seeing them in the adventure.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Something from the playtest that didn't make it into the final adventure. They discovered two delicate clay disks shaped like eyes with eight legs radiating from the central sphere. When thrown, the disks crumble and summon a mad slasher, which immediately attacks the nearest creature. The PCs discovered the disks on the bodies of the slain Seekers in the sleeping chamber in the Lair of the Laborers.
The bolt of Heironeous mentioned in James's post came from Valkus Dun. Both Tassilo and Dram Cicaeda received one after a private audience with Valkus Dun, Tolliver Trask, Dietrik Cicaeda (Dram's dad), and Merris Sandovar in the Garrison, during which both PCs were given the rank of private in the Greyhawk Militia (this so I could implement the rules for rank from "Heroes of Battle."
The bolt allows the user to cast a lightning bolt once. I can't remember how many d6s are involved, but it's somewhere between 3 and 6. It's a one-shot item.
--Erik
--Erik
The bolt allows the user to cast a lightning bolt once. I can't remember how many d6s are involved, but it's somewhere between 3 and 6. It's a one-shot item.
i.e., Javelin of Lightning? ;)
Hi James, it is really great that you're posting a journal of the playtest - and writing in character as Tyralandi makes for a fun read! Quick question, though: for the playtest, and since this is a Greyhawk campaign, did Erik have you generate your characters' ability scores with the RPGA-style "point-buy" method (28 pts to distribute), for "Tougher Campaigns", or another one of the variants in the core rulebooks? Just curious. Anyway, I love the journal!
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Creative Director
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Hi James, it is really great that you're posting a journal of the playtest - and writing in character as Tyralandi makes for a fun read! Quick question, though: for the playtest, and since this is a Greyhawk campaign, did Erik have you generate your characters' ability scores with the RPGA-style "point-buy" method (28 pts to distribute), for "Tougher Campaigns", or another one of the variants in the core rulebooks? Just curious. Anyway, I love the journal!
We built our characters with the 4d6 and drop the lowest number method. Tyralandi's stats are pretty good: Str 13, Dex 12, Con 15, Int 14, Wis 17, Cha 16.
And thanks for the kind words! Writing these journal entries is pretty fun.
Reaping 16, 595 CY
Something strange went on last night. I was asleep the whole time (having learned my lesson that guarding was not my strong point with that goblin attack a few days ago), so it wasn’t my fault that no one noticed it happen. At some point in the night, someone or something drilled tiny holes in all the doors in the now abandoned Hextorian temple. No one seemed hurt, but it was a little strange.
After an unsatisfying breakfast of dried food and tepid water (thank Wee Jas that Vyth planned ahead and brought food!), we headed back to the central chamber. The others took some time to investigate the large domed area to the south, and reported signs that some sort of sacrifices had taken place on the platforms that surrounded the strange dark pool. I could have told them as such. This is, after all, a cult temple. There was bound to be some sort of sacrificial shenanigans going on.
We decided to press on through the unmarked door, figuring that it was likely where the Erythnul-worshiping cult was based. According to Theldrick’s journal, these cultists had recently arrived and were supposedly still recovering from a long underground journey. We figured that this mean they’d be easy pickings.
Turns out, one shouldn’t necessarily trust the writings of half mad cultists.
The chambers beyond were unfinished caverns. The ground was strewn not only with rubble but tiny fissures, tangles of stalagmites, and other hidden ankle-breakers. Gar, in particular, seemed to be having trouble, and complained bitterly about it every step of the way.
It wasn’t long before we ran into the first batch of cultists... they were horrifying humanoid menaces with no eyes! They kept trying to douse our lights so they’d have an advantage but we put down the first batch quickly enough. Gar recognized them as grimlocks.
Not much further we came to a fairly large cavern, the far side of which fell away in a dark chasm. Vyth snuck ahead to investigate and was pounced upon! Some sort of creepy subterranean cat thing had him! Two more of the things leapt out of the shadows to attack, and not far behind was their hooting and howling grimlock keeper. Again, we managed to put them down without too much trouble, even though the cats had this strange and disconcerting tendency to unfurl the skin off their face in a most disgusting manner. My skeletons were rather helpful in this battle. I’m glad I caught them. The shortest one was turning out to be the best fighter of the trio, so I named him Little Gar to honor the dwarf’s fighting skills. Of course, Gar was not too pleased.
Anyway, the cats and their hooting master slain, we turned our attention to the chasm ahead. Dram and Vyth clambered down the side with reckless abandon, but they soon reached the bottom and said it was clear. The rest of us started climbing down as well. I was third to last, with Tassilo and Demon Boy still up top. I was a little unsure of the wisdom of climbing down into the dark, but apparently there were more caves below. I lowered the skeletons down first, leading with Little Gar. I was about 20 feet down when I heard a strange noise behind me. I managed to crane my neck around and saw this cunningly hidden ledge on the wall opposite... on which several grimlocks lurked! They leapt to their feet and threw strange dripping bags at us. I heard one land up above and Tassilo cried out, and an instant later one hit me in the small of the back.
AAUGH! The thing exploded and sprayed me and the rock around me with the most horrible tangled mess of foul-smelling sticky STUFF! It was viscous and thick, and it was really difficult to move with all the stuff dripping off of me. It dried quickly into a rubbery mess, and as I tried to move lower, I heard the grimlocks behind me hooting and capering and suddenly a fiery pain bloomed in my back. I felt the arrowhead grinding against my spine as I slammed against the cliff wall, and was dimly aware of the fact that the pain had caused my arms and legs to go limp. Suddenly, the wall seemed to be falling away from me, and I saw the grimlocks above me, lit by my sunrod, and I realized I’d lost my grip and was falling. I had just enough time to worry about what would happen if I landed on my back and what that might do to the arrow sticking out of it when exactly that happened. The pain as the arrow was pushed the rest of the way through my gut was eclipsed only by the pain of my head slamming against a pile of sharp rocks. And then; blackness.
And then; blackness.
I hope Tyralandi isn't dead.
Peace and smiles :)
j.
And then; blackness.I hope Tyralandi isn't dead.
Peace and smiles :)
j.
She's not dead. You don't die and then write "The pain as the arrow was pushed the rest of the way through my gut was eclipsed only by the pain of my head slamming against a pile of sharp rocks. And then; blackness."
It just isn't done.
ASEO out
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Creative Director
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She's not dead. You don't die and then write "The pain as the arrow was pushed the rest of the way through my gut was eclipsed only by the pain of my head slamming against a pile of sharp rocks. And then; blackness."
It just isn't done.
ASEO out
Unless you worship the goddess of death and your journal's something that she makes you do in the afterlife so you'll hopefully learn from your mistakes...
But that's not the case. Tyralandi's not dead, but she did go to –7 hit points. Which is bad if you're the cleric. And even worse if you have a Tomb-Tainted Soul.