Hello, all.
I have enjoyed reading others' journals, especially the Lidu Diaries, and so have decided to post ours. We have been keeping it on a wiki, but now I am curious how others see them. They make sense enough to our group! Note that the author may change from entry to entry, as we play once a week, and so a different player may make the entry.
Yes - we have a lot of character deaths. Fortunately, we all seem to like rolling up new characters.
Starting Characters, all at 1st level:
Brogan, male human druid, with
Cori, a wolf animal companion.
Solaral, female elf ranger
Alobar, male half-elf wizard (generalist)
The Savage Tide
Campaign Background
1. All of you are from the environs of New Haven. More details on that later.
2. You arrived individually to New Haven (the town/city) and joined the Adventurers Guild, a recent organization founded by the Iron Heroes (who are on the original D&D 3.0 adventure path following the mythical great red wyrm Ashardalon. New Haven is our own campaign town).
3. As part of the guild's services, you have been recruited as a team for an assignment. Consider it a first date for your 'team.'
4. Turns out that this is a special mission. The client is Lady Lavinia Vanderboren, of Sasserine, a free port city on the southern edges of known lands. She has need of an adventuring party from outside of Sasserine (so she can trust it), a smuggler's dens of numerous, conflicting and shifting loyalties. But she can't afford much, hence where you come in.
5. Lady Lavinia's family has a past relationship with New Haven's rulers, the twin half-elves. Based on her request they have decided to work through the new Adventurers Guild (they know the founders) so they have plausible deniability for interfering in another sovereign city's affairs.
6. A mysterious female monk (New Haven's law enforcement), rumored to be a former companion of the Iron Heroes, met with you in a tavern outside New Haven's walls (the Red Wyvern). She has given you the following missions:
a. Protect Lavinia's interests (unknown to Lavinia)
b. Do Lavinia's bidding (where it does not conflict with a. or instructions from this monk)
c. Keep your eyes and ears open for any signs of Infernal (Devils) or Fiendish (Demon) influences.
7. The monk has also told you to expect the following:
a. She will infiltrate Sasserine and operate in the background. She may initiate contact with you by leaving a particular rune for you to observe.
b. You can expect to pick up a fourth member of your team in Sasserine. The monk thought it was important for you to have someone local to help you in the city.
c. Recognizing that this could be a long journey, your pay will consist of an advance of 5pp each (50 gp in value) with a monthly stipend if needed (delivered surreptitiously by the Monk). Successful completion of your mission will result in at least a 1,000 gp reward, more if the challenge and results merit it.
8. In addition to the advance, she also provides you the following:
a. Background materials for you to read before you enter Sasserine (see attached PDF – published campaign materials). Much of this was in an extensive briefing she gave to you.
b. Two potions of Cure Light Wounds (level 6) for each of you.
You set off the next morning. All transportation provided by the Monk, although she does not accompany you. You travel with a large caravan from a merchant heading on a trading expedition to Sasserine. This merchant is accompanied by his young daughter and regales you with tales of the Iron Heroes, whom he claims to have personally brought to New Haven. Despite your doubts as to this and similar tall tales he tells, it makes for a nice diversion. Your trip takes 15 days by land, traveling south, before you board a ship that takes several days to reach Sasserine, which is just inside the subtropical zone.
9. Your heads spinning with excitement and questions, you manage to find an inn to rest before you head.
10. Your first task is to meet up with Lady Lavinia in her Vanderboren mansion.
You do learn the following before you meet her:
- Lavinia is the eldest daughter of the Vanderboren family.
- A tragic fire about a month ago claimed the lives of her parents, Verik and Larissa.
- The Vanderborens were survived by their two children, Lavinia and Vanthus.
The Savage Tide
Session 1
• Arrive in Sasserine after long journey
• Meet with our contact in Sasserine. Our contact is a female Halfling names Farmela (later its Furmella, as she becomes a PC later)(she is a spellthief). Farmela is a local with many contacts.
• We are taken the Vanderboren Estate to meet with Lady Lavinia Vanderboren.
• While waiting to meet with Lady Lavinia we have a brief encounter with the Jade Ravens. The Jade Ravens are another group of adventures employed by Lady Lavinia. The two groups eye each other and Jade Ravens unsuccessfully try to intimated the Heroes from New Haven. The Jade Ravens are made up of:
o Zam (Rouge) – a jaunty male ½ elf.
o Casked (Druid) – a dwarf carrying a large curved spear.
o Liama(Sorcerer) – a haughty women dressed in purple.
o Tollon(Ranger) – a Tall handsome human in armor with a bastard sword
• Coro, Lady Lavinia’s house servant sees us in the our meeting with Lady Lavinia.
• Lady Lavinia tells us that she has recently taken over the affairs of her house. Taxes are due and she does not have access to the funds to pay her taxes. She needs to access her family vault under the Castle T.
• Unfortunately she must have her family’s signet ring to access the vault. Both her parents’ rings are missing. She has commissioned a new ring, but it will not be ready in time to pay the taxes.
• Her father’s ring was last seen on the family’s ship, The Blue Nixie. Unfortunately that shipped has been impounded by Solar Vark and The Harbor Master. Lady Lavinia paid 1000gp to get the ship back. However, she paid Solar Vark directly and Solar Vark denies every receiving the payment. He has refused to release the Blue Nixie and the Harbor Master has sided with Solar.
• Lady Lavinia will pay each of the party members 200 gp to help her gain access to her vault. In order to accomplish this we will need to retrieve her father’s signet ring from the Blue Nixie and if possible recover her 1000gp payment and the Blue Nixie itself.
• We check into the Flying Fish Inn and set about researching our mission.
• We find the Blue Nixie anchored off shore near Pier #5 in the Merchant District?
• By observing activity on the Blue Nixie we find that there are typically 8 people on board. The 8 consist of Solar Vark, a female, and 6 henchmen/guards. We also note more activity at night.
• Farmela uses her local contacts and a few well placed bribes and drinks to find out that Solar Vark is thought to working with the Black Market and possibly involved with trafficking in unique and dangerous animals.
• At one point during the day a dingy from another ship, the Dead SeaDog approaches the Blue Nixie. After a short discussion the dingy is waved off.
• Our Heroes discuss their options and decide on a sneak assault on the Blue Nixie. Farmela assures us that if we gain access to the Blue Nixie without attracting too much attention no one will have a problem with our direct approach.
• After watching the Blue Nixies and gathering info for a day we plan our assault on our 2nd night in Sasserine.
• Farmela procures two row boats for the assault.
• Farmela and Solaral are in the first boat and approach the Blue Nixie under the guise of harbor guards coming to replace the current guards on board.
• Alobar, Brogan and Cori are on the 2nd boat and are approaching from the other side of the Blue Nixie. Brogan casts an obscuring mist spell to hide the approach of the second boat.
• The Guards on the Blue Nixie see the approaching boat with Farmela and Solaral and instruct them to turn away. Farmela makes an impressive effort to keep up the bluff. Solaral unsuccessfully try’s to bolster the bluff by intimidating the guards. Talking to humans is not one of Solaral’s strength.
• However the bluff lasted long enough for 2nd boat to have pulled alongside the Blue Nixie without the guards noticing. The second group of adventures realizing the bluff is about the fail launch their assault.
• Cori the Wolf, her black fur helping hide her approach springs aboard the Blue Nixie quickly closing ground on one of the unsuspecting guards.
• Alobar Jumps on board and fires magic missiles. Brogan stumbles on his first attempt to board the ship, but soon recovers to add his bow to the onslaught.
• Once the adventures from the second boat open fire on the guards Farmela and Solaral quickly drop their bluff and join in. Farmela using her spell thief skills lunches a magic missile at one the guards. Solaral draws her bows and joins in on the attack.
• Within seconds the three guards are killed without ever getting of an alarm. No one else on board have any idea we are on board.
• The Heroes quickly hide the bodies and prepare for the next step of the attack. They decide to try to draw out Solar Vark.
• The call out to Solar Vark, pretending to be the guards. “Solar, get out hear you have to see this”.
• Solar and his girlfriend soon come up from below deck. The party quickly brings down Solar and his girlfriend. The girlfriend sounds a short alarm before she is killed.
• The remaining guards are next to come up on deck. Two guards are quickly killed. The last two guards drop to their knees and surrender. They are tied, interrogated, and then gagged and blindfolded
• We find the Vanderborens' Family Signet Ring hidden in the Captain Quarters. We also find the 1000gp the Lady Lavinia paid to Solar Vark.
• A piece of parchment is found with the ring. It reads:
Chimera looks to sunrise
Cyclops looks to sunset
Medusa looks to sunrise
Umber Hulk looks to sunset
Basilisk looks to sunrise
• We investigate the hold and find many exotic birds and animals. We also find a large caged spider in the hold. Brogan, the Druid immediately starts making plans to release all the animals. The others manage to convince Brogan the releasing hundreds of wild animals in the middle of a city would not be a good idea. He agrees to wait on freeing the animals until a more appropriate time.
• We release the two prisoners and dispose of the bodies
• Alobar and Farmela leave to report our success to Lady Lavinia and to bring help in securing the Blue Nixie. They return soon after and we head back to Lady Lavinia’s expecting our reward.
• She is very pleased with our work but before we get our reward we have to help her gain access to her family vault. It turns out she has never been to her vault, she does not know how it works or what to expect. She believes the vault may be guarded by some type of construct.
• The next morning we purchased some supplies and prepared to open the vault.
• We travel from the Vanderboren Estate to Castle T.
• We are shown down to the vault
• The vault has an eight pointed star symbol as a lock.
• Lady Lavinia places her ring into the lock and the door opens.
• The Vault has the same eight pointed star symbol on the ceiling.
• Soon after entering the room an Iron Cobra drops from the ceiling and starts attacking the adventurers.
• The Heroes try to delay the construct as Lady Lavinia attempts to control the creature.
• Lady Lavinia commands the Cobra to stand down, she recites the poem fond with the ring, but in her panic she fails to show the Cobra the ring.
• The Heroes are quickly overwhelmed by the metallic cobra and are forced to defend themselves. Through trial and error the Heroes find that only bludgeoning weapons will damage the cobra.
• The Cobra starts the gain the upper hand inflicting several significant wounds to Cori the wolf and Brogan the Druid. Brogan is cornered by the snake and is dropped.
• As the situation is beginning to look dire, Farmela realizes what we have missed and yells out to Lady Lavinia. “Show your families ring to the monster, command it to stop attacking”
• With that the Iron Cobra stops its attack. We quickly use one of our potions to heal the Druid.
• We hope that we have solved the riddle of the Cobra, but expect there may be more trials in front of us before we gain access to the Vanderboren Vault and it treasures.
Session 2
• Command Iron Cobra to Stand Down, it climbs back up to the ceiling
• We search room
• The central pillar has a snake pattern on it an reviles a hidden latch
• We press the latch, the snake design animates and slither up into the ceiling reviling an opening.
• Opens into a room with 8 sides with statue on each wall and a central column.
• The Statues are:
1. Tentacle monster with red eye & mouth full of teeth
2. A looming Dragon
3. Fish Like creature w/ 3 eyes & 4 tentacles
4. 2 headed giant w/2 clubs
5. Beholder with 4 eye stocks and one large central eye
6. Gorilla like beast w/ 6 eyes
7. Big black spider w 7 eyes
8. Same 8 sided star pattern on ceiling, 7 points of star are black
• The eights point is red and points towards door
• Lady Lavinia says this room is a puzzle and the message from the blue nixie must be a clue.
• After considerable deliberation we think the room is like a combination lock, with the central pillar turning to point to each wall. Each wall with a value from 1 to 7 matching the number of eyes in each statue.
• The message from the blue nixie is the combination. Sunrise = Turn to the right. Sunset = Turn to the left. Value = # of eyes for each monster.
• We successfully open lock and each wall opens to reveal an alcoves
• Most alcoves are empty
• The final alcove has gold & family documents
• The documents show the many guilds and powerful individuals owe the Vanderborens a dept.
• Lady Lavinia pays us 200gp each
• We are instructed to take a week off while she researches the documents she found.
• One the way out we learn that her brother has visited the vaults recently.
• We spend a week gathering equipment.
• We go to see Lady Lavinia.
• She tells the story of growing up with her brother. They were very close and often pulled pranks. One prank went too far when they put a love potion in the local water supply. After that prank she was sent to a Finishing School & he was sent to work on a Coffee Plantation.
• Something happened to the brother at the Plantation. When he returned he had changed. He had lost his sense of hummer, he became bitter and morbid. He began hanging out with the wrong crowd. During a fight with his sister he stuck her. He moved out afterwards and has not been seen since.
• She believes he may have taken up with a lover in the Azure district.
• She still believes she can redeem her brother.
• Our next assignment is to find Vanthus.
• We start a search and find that he has been seen with Brissa Sonta. Brissa is a minor thief (pickpocket) who has turned into a semi-legit artist. She has taken to painting and the occasional forgery. She has been missing also.
• As we search for the brother we are approached by a disheveled and unkempt half-elf named Sheften. He will tell us the brother’s whereabouts for 5gp.
• Sheften tells us the brother is living on Parrot Island in an underground smugglers cavern. He may be involved in smuggling animals. For another 5gp he will show us how to get their.
• We try to learn some more about Sheften. We learn that Sheften Rosk lives in ShaddowShore and is considered a bit of a fool
• We meet with Sheften the next day to take a boat to the island.
• One the island we find a trap door. We open the door to find a deep shaft leading to a small room below. We rig a rope and climb to the bottom.
• When we reach the bottom we are surprised when Sheften Body is dropped into the shaft. He was stabbed in the back.
• We look to see the brother, Vanthus, at the top of the shaft. He mocks us and then shuts the trap door and seals it shut.
• We can’t go back so we decide to find another way out.
• We start to investigate the underground complex
• We find a large room with a pool and a floating dead body.
• We follow a passage towards a door and we are attached by Pirate Zombies.
• The battle does not go well and we barely manage to defeat the Zombies.
• We see many more Zombies coming. One of the Zombies is stronger then the rest.
• We barricade the door and flee.
• We search for an escape.
• We flee down a flooded corridor. The zombies do not follow for some reason.
• The flooded corridor leads to another water filled cavern with a small beach on the far side.
• On the beach we find Pankous’ corpse and a note.
• The note tells of Pankous being double crossed by the brother. The corpse has a tattoo of a Dragon clutching a flower.
• Behind the corpse we find a secret treasure chamber.
• We find coins; potions and a gem of summon earth elemental. The elemental may be our way out.
• We barricade ourselves in the secret chamber for the night, heal ourselves, and regroup for the next day.
Session 3 - 2/22/2007
Creepy (official) D & D music played by John (the DM). We get out using the earth elemental gem. It’s night and we go to the Red Talon. We are checking out the Guildhall (forget whose). Brogan is waiting for an excuse to burn the place down (maybe the Taxidermist Guild?).
Underneath the Guildhall lies the Lotus.
We’re at the intersection of Monkey St. and Dead Dog Alley.
Solaral and Furmella are on first shift. Lots of boarded up buildings are around the Guildhall and someone slipped into one of them. “Let’s see how long they stay,” says Furmella. (“Stealth and Cunning” music) By the end of shift, the person still has not exited the boarded up building.
Alobar, Brogan, and Cori join Furmella and Solaral, who inform the gentlemen of the mysterious person who has entered the building and not exited. Furmella makes another obnoxious comment to Brogan, and F & S go off to rest.
A, B & C notice another human comes out a different abandoned building and scurries away in a different direction, however there is no activity at the Guildhall. People are going into one building and not exiting, and coming out of another building, but no apparent entrances.
At the end of the evening shift, we enjoy our morning repast. Brogan lounges around out front plotting ways to burn down the guildhall whilst munching on a chocolate chip muffin.
Our plan is to keep an eye on the guildhall and wait until that evening, when we will investigate the abandoned buildings that we people go into. Furmella and Solaral are on first day shift, but despite intense attention, there is nothing other than normal every day business. Furmella thinks that it’s time to change what we’re doing because people are starting to notice us. Furmella makes additional snotty remarks to Brogan during the shift change (perhaps some hidden feelings?).
A, B, & C are on shift now and Alobar feels a tug at his robes, and he sees a street urchin running away carrying something in his hand. Alobar yells “Hey, that street urchin just stole something from me.” Cori runs after the urchin, Alobar and Brogan follow close upon her heels.
Cue chase music (seriously) that sounds an awful lot like Pirates of the Caribbean.
A, B, & C enter an alleyway between the buildings. A, B, & C are surrounded! On the roofs on either side of the alleyway are two scoundrel-looking archers carrying crossbows. “They’re here!” comes a shout from above. Behind them come footsteps…it’s a man with a Tanglefoot bag.
The first shot goes right through A’s robes, and Brogan just dodges the second shot. The street urchin has vanished. Brogan yells “Run!” while running forward. At the bottom of the alley, he turns to the right and stops. The archers look startled at the speed with which Brogan responds, but then quickly recover and send two shots right toward Alobar, both of which miss. The man with the Tanglefoot bag throws it at Alobar, who ducks. (nice move!) The Tanglefoot Bag hits the wall and splatters all over the place. Alobar runs toward Brogan. Brogan runs to catch up with Alobar, who has burst past him. The men fire at Cori and miss. Cori runs back to meet up with A & B. When they check, the men are gone. Alobar checks and finds nothing missing. It was a ruse.
We decide enough of this craziness, and break into one of the abandoned buildings. Furmella says it’s not much of a lock, and is able to pop open the lock with relative ease. We cover her actions by standing in front of her (because she’s not that much taller than McKenzie is (DM’s 2 year old daughter), really). We listen, but there’s nothing to hear except the sounds of the street.
Solaral enters the room and senses a concealed trap door in the floor. We all stumble into the building, looking around at what is apparently an abandoned building. (John (the DM)cues up some music, which is the same as the previous P. of the C. chase music) We search the building, which truly looks like it’s been abandoned for quite some time. The trap door is not locked, surprisingly. Furmella and Brogan don’t hear anything. Alobar casts mage armor.
We open the trapdoor. A ladder is attached to the wall leading downward. The space is bricklined and water trickles down the wall. The air is slightly musty, as if unused for a long time. Apparently we have gone down the ladder. We are in a stone-worked hallway that is about 5 feet wide. We are at a four way intersection that is bisected by a large stone pillar. The hallways turn, so we can’t see very far down them. We can’t see any footprints, but there are torches at even intervals along the hallway that seem to be well maintained. There seems to be a huge stone cavern off in the direction of the harbor.
Furmella arms herself with her dagger and a potion of invisibility.
We walk into the large cavern. It is filled with disgusting water. Yecccchhh. There is a hole in the ceiling, a pipe in the wall, and a narrow tunnel leads upward and out. We go up the tunnel, which winds around to the west and curls upward. It narrows quickly and ends suddenly. Solaral senses two secret doors on either side of the corridor, about halfway up the corridor. We listen and try to determine whether or not they are locked. They are unlocked. We choose the one to the right, and find another corridor going off to the northeast. It ends in a doorway about 35 feet. After much discussion, we decide to go through the secret door. We open the door, and are confronted with yet another hallway. The hallway makes a turn, and we can’t see what’s at the end. A lone lit torch lights the hall. More discussion, including a sense of suspiciousness about the lack of any response to our incursion.
We go back to the stone cavern and our original entrance to this underground passage. We head westward, and find yet another doorway. The door is heavy, swollen, and slightly open. Furmella sneaks a peak and says it opens into a circular room with a door at the top, that may open up into an abandoned building.
We go back the other direction. It’s another door. Hey, just like the last one, but…Furmella begins to look through, but tells everyone “Freeze!” with a raised fist. She listens at the door, drops to the floor, pops out a mirror and sneaks it under the door to see what’s in there. There are 3 humans inside. Ah ha!
Alobar yanks open the door and Solaral and Cori enter the room. Solaral moves quickly to the left and Cori moves in toward the right. Brogan fires an arrow. There are three men inside, all armed with hand cross bows. They are caught flatfooted. Brogan and Furmella miss. Furmella fires again and hits. 1 point damage!!! They prepare for attack and Cori successfully attacks one. 3 points damage! Cori tries to trip the third. The other two attack Solaral and miss. (wow, sad, it’s a small room). The third fires at Solaral AGAIN, and she notices that there is some kind of substance on the arrows. Perhaps poison? Solaral fires at one and kills it dead. Alobar casts magic missile at the one nearest Cori, causing more damage. Cori bites again, knocking the guy out and steps closer to the man in the middle.
Furmella places herself so she can keep an eye on anyone who might come up from behind. Brogan, who is still not in the room fires another arrow, and misses once again. The last remaining fellow drops his arrow and draws his rapier and slashes at Cori. He seems to be taken aback by the growling wolf, and misses. Solaral fires a deadly arrow at him, and Alobar finishes off the job with a spectacular magic missile, blowing the man to smithereens. We search the corpses for goodies and listen at the other door in the small room.
Furmella shudders. “Some type of poison…reminds me of something…probably related to the purple sea urchins we saw on the island.”
We open the door and see a long finished corridor that travels for about five feet north, and another 15 feet northwest toward the lake. It goes another 10-15 feet to the north and turns again. There are viewing ports that look into the pool of brackish water underneath the well. There is yet another door, which is partially wedged open. Furmella listens at the door, and after a few melodramatics says “There’s nothing. It’s another circular room with a trapdoor above.” As with the other rooms, there is a ladder embedded in the wall going up to the trapdoor in the ceiling. Through the doorway is another corridor with two more doorways.
Furmella looks and listens again at the end of the corridor. The room inside is the same as the previous chambers. The closed door on the side wall appears locked. We listen at the door and hear nothing. Furmella checks for traps, sensing nothing, she picks the lock and stands aside. Alobar pops the door open and there’s a small ante chamber heading due south ending in a door. Furmella takes a minute or two to check for traps and finds nothing in the floor, senses nothing in the walls either. She heads to the door, and hears nothing. The door is locked. She pops open the lock. Alobar opens the door and Solaral steps through again. It is a rectangle with lopped off corners (like all the paper on Battlestar Galactica, says Brogan). The room looks over a large cave, with a membrane/haze looking over into the cave. There are several chairs and a wheel valve. Could this open the pipe in the cave?
We enter and investigate the haze. Alobar reaches out to the foggy membrane and touches it, and he realizes it’s a brick wall, but we are seeing through it. This is some powerful magic. There is a chain in the floor that drops down and angles towards the pool. The valve looks to be well-maintained, as is the chain.
We exit the room, and Furmella resets the locks behind us. We go back up to the other circular room, and the door is partially open as well. Hey, there’s a corridor! The corridor looks familiar – seems to match up with the other corridor we were in. It is the secret door that we originally took. Shall our intrepid adventurers go across and examine the other secret door that we didn’t go through the first time?
Hey another partially open door. Furmella checks it and says “We’ve been here”. We send Furmella up to listen at the trap door in the ceiling. She hears nothing.
We’ve been discovered – the bodies we left behind have left a clue to our presence. Cue “Deep Trouble” music. Furmella opens the trapdoor to an abandoned building, and we all clamber through the trapdoor into the room. As we stand there, Furmella shushes us as several men travel through the chamber, leaving one to guard. We signal to each other to kill the man standing beneath. Furmella whips open the trapdoor and we fire at him, knocking him out. We send Furmella down with a rope to tie around the guy and pull him back up. She seems uncertain about this course of action, but then acquiesces, as she isn’t called Quickfoot for nothin’. She ties it around him and we begin to pull him up. She hears more voices, and indicates for us to move faster. She slams the trapdoor shut just as several men enter the room. “Stop!” Several arrows thud against the closed trapdoor. We use a piton to keep the door shut.
Should we stay here? They know these buildings and these rooms, so we aren’t safe. Do we want to carry this guy out? He is currently unconscious, but has been stabilized. We pull the body out into the street with a fireman’s carry. We are on Monkey St. and headed towards the Red Talon. There are two people who have exited buildings who are watching us. They came out quickly and look at us intently, but they do nothing other than watch us. We enter the Red Talon. The innkeeper looks at us suspiciously. “Four of you entered earlier, and now there are five. What’s going on gentlemen (clearly missing the point that Solaral and Furmella are girls)?” “Our drinking buddy had too much to drink.” Brogan assures the innkeeper. “Make sure that five of you who have entered alive leave alive. And I need today’s payment.”
We take our new buddy upstairs after promising to send someone down with payment. The guy has a tattoo with a dragon clutching a lotus flower, identical to the one Penkus had. We securely tie him to a chair and raid his pockets for his gold, potions, sap.
Furmella takes the payment down to pay for the next two days.
We wake our new buddy. Brogan asks “What does the valve do?” Cori growls menacingly at him.
He looks at us and says “Fools the dragon mistress will drink your blood. As if your quarters compare to our guildhall.” Brogan intimidates (after 2 tries) and interrogates the guy.
“Where’s Vanthus?”
“With the dragonmisstress”
“What is she?”
“She’s our leader.”
“What does the valve do?”
“It’s a crucible.”
“Where’s your headquarters?”
“You were there”
“How do we get into the guildhall?”
“Same way you got out.”
“What are you doing hiding beneath the city?”
“We’re going to take over the entire trade smuggling over the entire city.”
“What do you mean trade?”
Pummeling ensues.
“How many of you are there?”
“Enough to defeat you.”
“Don’t be a smartass, give me numbers.”
“How many did you kill?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“More than 15.”
“Do you have creatures?”
“We have a dragon”
“What color?”
“It varies.”
“Where is it?”
“With the mistress.”
“Traps?”
“With valuables. I wouldn’t know where those are.” A change comes over him. “You know how to get there. You stay here you’re going to die. You go there you’re going to die.”
“Ok, let’s just kill him,” says Brogan
“Don’t kill me. We’ve known about you for a few weeks.”
“Was it Vanthus who told you about us?”
“Yes.”
“What’s his role in this?” Solaral notices at this question that this guy has great distaste for Vanthus.
“Turn Vanthus in to his sister,” Brogan demands.
“She’s lucky she’s still alive.”
“Turn him in to his sister and we’ll let you go.”
“How do we get to the Dragon mistress?”
“She resides in the hall from time to time.”
“Where is she now?”
“I’m not important enough to know.”
“Be quiet. Behave and we’ll let you live.”
“I can do that.”
We decide to attack at dawn. We shutter the windows and put stuff in front of the door and windows so we can be alerted if anyone comes in. We leave him tied up practically buck naked in the other room and bunk down in our second room for the night. The night passes with little incident. When we check the other room, our buddy is still there. We untie him and tell him to get the hell out. He runs out.
We walk down to the entry hall and leave the inn. As we leave the inn, Brogan holds up five fingers to the innkeeper, who gives thumbs up, although he looks nervous. Furmella greases the innkeeper’s palm with a gold piece and learns that the word on the street is we are to stay off the street.
We walk outside and we all see different people watching us closely. Brogan gives a cheeky little wave to the four sets of eyes watching us. One waves back. We walk up to him to invite him for a meal. He makes a hand signal and walks away, looking back over his shoulder to see if we follow him. We follow him. “Hey! Wait up! We have a message for your boss.”
He turns into an alleyway. We stand around and discuss our plans for a minute. Furmella says “Those are the ones we can see, I’m concerned about the ones we can’t. They’re putting a lot of manpower into this. What’s your goal?”
“We want to get Vanthus and lots and lots of loot,” says Brogan.
“Well, Nature-nut, I see the city is wearing off on you,” replies Furmella.
Much discussion ensues. We stand around the street discussing in front of all who would care to see.
We decide to go back to the Guildhall, to inquire after Alobar’s Red Dragon. Nemian comes out again, hoping for customers. Recognizing us, he demands to know what we want. “Why are you here? I shall call the watch.”
“We’re here to see the Dragon mistress,’ replies Alobar.
Nemian is taken aback. “I know of no one by that name. You need to leave. This is not my business, my business is taxidermy. If you wish to buy something, please let me know, otherwise I will call the watch.”
“How do we get down below?” asks Brogan.
“What do you mean?” responds Nemian.
“You know, where the dragon mistress is. I’m sure the Watch would be interested in your contraband,” Alobar says threateningly.
Solaral and Alobar sense that he is doing something, and Alobar realizes he’s casting a spell. Alobar hits him with his staff. Nemian is casting a defensive spell. Nemian vanishes.
Cue fight music.
Brogan orders Cori to find Nemian. Cori steps into the far left corner. Furmella locks the door. Brogan steps toward Cori and gets his Tanglefoot bag from Cori, and commands Cori to attack on the next round. Alobar moves toward the back door and blocks it, casting mage armor on himself. Solaral fires and misses. The stuffed animals (and not the kind McKenzie (DM’s daughter, who tends to play with the dice while we talk) would like) seem to be coming to life. Is Nemian animating them, or are they real animals? The dragon moves with an evil glint in its eyes. A deep growl emanates from its core.
Cori seems confused by all the stuffed creatures moving around, but attacks. A swing and a miss.
Furmella says “I think we have company here…are we going to do anything?” Brogan shoots back “Feel free to do something.” Furmella aims at a monkey and hits it; saying “I’m saving the dragon for you,” while looking (longingly?) at Brogan.
Brogan throws his Tanglefoot Bag at the square where we believe Nemian is. It hits something, and a figure falls to the ground. “Noooeuyeuch…!!!”
Alobar shoots at the figure with his crossbow. Solaral fires at him and does some damage. His movements stop, and the stuffed animals shimmer slightly and collapse. Checking the windows, we ascertain that we have not yet been discovered. We search the room and Nemian. We see a key ring with several keys and four 100 gold piece pearls. There is one cure light wounds potions and two wands and a component pouch. Searching the building, we find work rooms, storerooms, as many as 8 different rooms and some corridors. We find a spell book, a locked chest under his bed. One of the keys opens the lock, which is good because it’s a really good lock, most likely beyond Furmella’s ability to open. There are no traps, so we open it and find 540 gold pieces, 20 platinum pieces and a small pouch of gems. Oh yes, and we found a trap door, which is on the floor in the center of the building.
We proceed forth and enter through the trap door.
Session 4 - March 8, 2007
Alobar, male half-elf wizard
Brogan, male human druid
Cori, wolf animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger
Furmella (NPC), female Halfling spellthief
We enter the trap door in the floor of the Guildhall. We’re in a natural passageway again, much like the ones we were in on our previous forays to the under regions of this city. There is a door that is fully shut, which is unusual, as all the other doors had been partially open due to the humidity. The door isn’t locked. We manage to get the door open, and lo and behold, we’re in an antechamber. No wait, we’re in a hallway.
Suddenly we hear “They’re here!” Darn it! We’ve been discovered, and we have hardly had a chance to do anything interesting. Two people, maybe more. We decide to stand our ground and force them to fight us through the doorway. There are two men – more Lotus Dragon thieves…we recognize one from the alley.
They fire at Solaral and miss, much to Solaral’s relief. Solaral moves back into the room, knocking an arrow on her way. Brogan readies, and Alobar takes a giant step back into the room. Furmella takes out two daggers and turns around to keep an eye on the room behind us.
We hear lots of voices, doors opening and shutting.
“Woof.” (this is Cori, during his turn, when he can’t do anything, because of the cramped quarters)
Solaral listens, hears nothing, and sneaks a peek. They fire crossbows at Solaral and miss. Solaral thinks she sees a third person behind the two guarding the door. Brogan casts “summon nature’s ally”. Alobar gets ready to do something, and Furmella gets out her potion of invisibility. Others come around from the other side, and we’re surrounded.
“Woof.”
Solaral fires around the corner of the door, screaming something threatening in Elvish. They simultaneously let loose a volley of arrows all aimed at Solaral. One hits for a small amount of damage, and while there is some poison on the arrow, Solaral’s hatred of humans (guess what her favored enemy is) makes the poison run through her veins almost completely without any damage.
Suddenly, a wolf, summoned by Brogan, appears, attacks and misses. The men in the hallway are quite disconcerted by the sudden appearance of the wolf. Brogan grabs alchemist’s fire from Cori (Cori wears saddlebags). Alobar uses the mysterious wand/ray that we picked up from Nemian’s locked trunk. The ray is drab and yellow and takes a corkscrew path as it misses and hits the wall. Disappointed!
Furmella goes the other way to look and see what is behind us. There’s an S-bend off behind us…however…We hear more voices and activity from the other direction. “Surrender!” They drop their crossbows and take out rapiers and menace the summoned wolf. One gets a hit, minor damage.
“Woof.”
Solaral fires and kills the one she damaged before and kills him dead. “YeARH!!!” a loud death cry. The summoned wolf attempts to attack, misses.
Alobar fires the ray again, misses, but it swishes past Solaral’s ear. The tip of one ear droops slightly as a result of the side swipe with the ray. Furmella reports back that behind us is a body of water, but no people, so we are lucky not to have to worry about two fronts.
“Woof.”
Solaral pops out to shoot again, and one of the guys on the left has come up to the doorway and strikes at her with his rapier. Solaral’s arrow goes straight through the bridge of his nose, cutting off the top of his head with her first shot, startling the third man with the sheer violence of the blow. Don’t mess with Solaral today! Brogan drops the alchemist’s fire, breaking the spell’s fall so it can be used again. He fires an arrow but misses.
Alobar puts the wand away and gets out a scroll of magic missiles. Furmella says “If we’re pressed, we can fall back and use the S-bends to ambush them. I’m sure there’s a way out … I detected a breeze.” Solaral and Alobar sense sea air…salt is in the air. Is that taffy? Do you hear the tilt-a-whirl?
Two men crash forward and swing at Solaral. Swish and a miss.
“Woof.”
Solaral drops her bow and uses her elven thinblade and eviscerates the man to her right. He grabs at his intestines and tries to reinstate them, to no avail. He keels over dead. Ouch, I should hope so. Alobar moves over and fires a magic missile at the one to the left, substantially damaging him in the process.
Furmella is holding down the fort, keeping an eye on the ladder and on the passageway behind us.
Two more men attack Solaral, and miss again. Thunk, thunk against the door frame.
“Woof.”
Solaral attacks the same man Alobar did with her elven thinblade, and kills him efficiently. Seriously, don’t mess with this elf.
Brogan shoots an arrow and misses. Alobar fires a magic missile, causing a small amount of damage. Furmella checks around her. More attacks on Solaral. Thunk, thunk. “Woof.”
Solaral attacks again, slashing at his neck, nearly decapitating the guy. His head falls back, and the force of the gravity pulls his body to the ground.
The last guy looks mightily disconcerted by the carnage caused by Solaral, but musters some impolite language and says “You’re going to die, you Elven wench.” All evidence to the contrary, no? I’m thinkin’ Solaral isn’t the one who’s gonna be dying here.
Brogan fires an arrow at the guy, and Alobar fires a magic missile, blowing a gaping hole in his chest. They’re all dead. There is an eerie silence. We listen at the door, but hear nothing. Solaral drinks a potion to heal herself. Solaral stands at the corner of the corridor and peeks around the corner, seeing a partially open door off at the end of the hallway. Alobar and Brogan look through the bloody corpses for loot. (Yar)
There’s a door in the room, and Furmella listens, and hears nothing. No traps and the door isn’t locked. There’s a small passageway and another doorway. We listen; look for traps, the door isn’t locked. We go through the doorway and are in a long corridor, which travels east west, perpendicular to where we stand. We travel to our left coming out of the door. At the end of the corridor and what’s this? Another door! Furmella listens and hears nothing, door isn’t locked. Alobar opens it and we’re in what looks to be a barracks. Bunks line the walls. The bunks look well slept in, despite the fact that they are covered in mildew (yeacchhh. Don’t these people clean?).
We decide to search the room. Cori begins to growl, and we ready for whatever is about to come through the door. From the hallway comes a very loud scraping and growling. There is obviously something very large and fierce coming our way.
A beast comes flying through the door…it’s a worg. It leaps over Cori, who bites at it as it flies overhead. Brogan and Solaral fire arrows at it, both hitting and causing some damage. Cori attacks the worg, causing some light damage. After a reminder to move, Alobar steps away and fires a magic missile at the worg. Brogan fires and hits, causing some more damage. It howls in pain, but man does it look pissed. The worg charges Brogan, and Cori gets an attack on the worg, biting it. The worg whimpers in pain. Brogan has been knocked over and bitten by the worg.
Men come through the door behind Solaral, attacking and missing. Solaral drops her bow and draws her elven thinblade and attacks the man behind her. She eviscerates him. Solaral is covered in gore and intestines. She is definitely going to need a day at the spa. Furmella sneaks up to the worg and attacks it with her little sewing needle, I mean dagger, and misses. Cori moves up to engage the worg and with a heck of a bite, kills the worg. With a great stunning roar, the creature goes down, splashing blood and guts on Brogan. Cori looks up from the worg with a satisfied grin on her face, a piece of worg hanging from her lower jaw.
Alobar pulls out his crossbow, fires and misses the men standing in the doorway. Brogan takes out a potion and stands up while drinking it, returning himself back to health. Three more men enter the room from the back and attack Furmella and Cori, missing both. At the other end, the two men enter and attack Solaral, causing some damage to her. They shout “For the mistress! For the mistress! For the mistress of Dragons!!” Solaral attacks one with her elven thinblade, causing serious damage. Furmella steps back and drinks her potion of invisibility. Fwwwoooop! She disappears.
Cori attacks one and slips on some gore, missing. Alobar fires his crossbow and misses. Brogan fires an arrow at the three threatening Cori and misses spectacularly…there’s gore everywhere and our footing seems to be unsure. The men rearrange themselves, prompting an attack from Cori, who trips and bites at them. One of them stumbles and falls over. Alobar whacks at him with his staff and cracks his skull in. They all attack us and miss. Solaral swipes and misses. Cori attacks and misses. Alobar swings his staff and misses. Brogan steps and fires an arrow, hitting and causing heavy damage.
The men continue to attack us, one of them moving closer to Brogan and attacking, but he misses. One attacks Alobar and misses. The two surrounding Solaral attack and cause a lot of damage. Solaral moves a step and takes out a cure moderate (?) potion and drinks it. They attack while she drinks, causing some damage…almost enough to strike her down, but the potion works its magic quickly and restores Solaral to full health.
Furmella appears suddenly with a spear, jamming up one man’s side and causing some moderate damage. Cori attacks, killing the one that Furmella had just speared like a shish-kabob. Alobar swings his staff and misses. Brogan drops his bow, withdraws his scimitar and attacks, slicing him in two. One attacks Solaral and misses. “Face your maker! You should have died!” He screams at her. Apparently there’s something about this elf that prompts screaming and threats on the part of her opponents. The other attacks Alobar, causing some considerable damage. Solaral swings and misses. Furmella throws her spear at the one who attacked Alobar, killing him. Cori weaves her way through the carnage and attacks the last remaining bad guy, scraping her teeth on the armor. Alobar picks up his crossbow and loads it. Brogan picks up his bow and fires it at the last guy with a critical hit. The arrow goes straight through his chest. He falls to the ground. Solaral and Furmella close the doors. Alobar and Brogan search the bodies, finding cure light potions and gold coins. We finally get a chance to search the room, and there are no goodies in the room.
Solaral and Furmella switch doors so Furmella can listen at the door. She doesn’t hear anything. We head through the door. There is a corridor with two doors at opposite ends, and the corridor continues on back toward the other entrance to the barracks room. Furmella listens at both doors, and may hear something at one door … maybe some moans? The door isn’t locked. Alobar opens the door and lets Solaral through. We stop and listen and hear some faint humanoid moaning.
We head towards the moaning. The door is partially open. Solaral peeks in and there’s a foul smell…smells like that worg. There’s a door in the north wall. The floor is littered with bones, fur and other dog-like detritus. Furmella sniffs the air and says “Cori, looks like you’ve found your home.” Cori makes a noise that is halfway between a snort and a whimper, clearly indicating her disdain for the Halfling. The moaning sounds a little louder, and Furmella says it sounds like someone is in pain. There’s a long corridor with five doorways down one side. We hear a faint “I’m in here…don’t leave me.” The doorways each have iron bars so we can look inside. Each cell has straw on the floor and a bucket. The cells seem to be rotting away, perhaps due to the moisture.
There is a door at the end of the hallway, and it seems that the sounds are coming from that room. “This is for trying to hurt the mistress!!” and a great cry of distress in response. We throw open the door and enter the room. Inside we see a stretching rack, an iron maiden, and there is some poor wretch being stretched out mercilessly on the rack. There’s a lit brazier in the corner, creating a ghoulish red glow in the room. The torturer is heating something in the brazier, preparing to go about his business of torturing the man on the rack.
The torturer attacks us with the branding iron (striking while the iron is hot). He misses. Alobar pulls out a scroll, readying to attack. Cori moves through Solaral’s legs, just inside the door. She misses her attack. Brogan readies his bow for an opportunity to attack. “Help me! Save me!” calls the man on the rack. Solaral moves inside the room and attacks with her elven thinblade. Solaral eviscerates the torturer. Yeacch. Solaral is The Eviscerator. (“Hasta la vista, Baby”)
Alobar talks to the tortured soul, Brogan, Cori and Furmella guard the doors. Solaral searches the corpse, and sees that he’s got an apron.
Alobar questions the guy. “What’s your name?”
“My name is Kirsch. Thank you, who is my savior?”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m a silk merchant. I was kidnapped. I can give each of you a reward. Please, please protect me from this evil guild.”
Alobar is a bit suspicious of Kirsch. Brogan suggests that Alobar check the ropes binding the man to the rack. What Alobar sees is that the ropes are tied with slip knots. Kirsch is watching Alobar carefully.
“He’s not secured…slipknots!” says Alobar in Elven. Brogan comes over to secure the man, who reaches up to attack. Solaral hits something in her attack of opportunity, and it feels like metal on metal. Looks like fairly minor damage. It’s pretty clear that this has been a set up.
Alobar steps back and pulls out the unknown wand. Brogan shoots at him with an arrow and misses. Kirsch puts up his fists and punches at Solaral and hits her solidly on the chin. She takes some damage. Furmella casts a magic missile at Kirsch, getting some small damage as well. Solaral swings and misses, and moves to the right of Kirsch. Cori moves forward and attacks, causing some damage. Cori seems surprised by something as she bites. Alobar uses the wand and the spiraling yellow corkscrew hits him. He droops, his muscles sagging. He looks weaker. Brogan fires his bow and misses. Kirsch swings at Solaral again, but this time his punch packs a lot less….punch, and he misses. Furmella misses. Solaral swings a misses again. Alobar attacks with the wand again, weakening Kirsch even more. Kirsch slumps to the ground, and seems to be crushed under the force of his own gravity.
“Who are you?” Brogan asks.
“Told you I’m a silk merchant.”
“We don’t buy that.” Brogan intimidates. “give us a reason not to kill you right now.”
“I have money.”
“We’ll take that, don’t worry.”
“I need you to promise you won’t kill me.”
“We need you to tell us more than you have.”
“Promise me you won’t kill me.”
Back and forth with this for a bit…
“Who’s your mistress?”
“She rules all, she’s taking over the town.”
“What else is down here? What other creatures?”
“There’s more than you can handle…”
“Tell us what else is down here.”
“A dragon.”
“What kind?”
“Rainbow.”
“You have a defective dragon.”
“It’ll carve your guts out.”
“You’ve got one last chance to tell us what you know or we’re going to kill you,” says Alobar.
He spits. “That’s what you get for hanging around with a Halfling.”
The Eviscerator kills him quite handily.
Kirsch is wearing some kind of armor. The rags on his body start to change shape…morphing…and they turn into a chain shirt. Brogan casts detect magic and finds out it’s a moderate illusion. Solaral takes the chain shirt and puts it on, but it did not change appearance. Apparently needs to be activated.
Furmella listens at the far door, which is unlocked. Looks like it’s a bedroom. There is a bed covered in furs, with a large cage at the foot of the bed. Might have housed a medium-sized animal, but it may have housed people at one point too. There’s a footlocker, with some personal effects, including some gold and silver flensing knives.
We head back to the last door that we hadn’t had a chance to investigate previously. There’s a corridor with another door. Furmella listens at the door and hears nothing. We enter the room, and find a mess hall. There is a long bank of tables in the center of the room, leaving little room on either side to get through. There are exotic birds in cages throughout the room, sitting around listlessly, looking unhappy. Brogan looks fit to burst and starts muttering savagely about “…killing all the bastards in this armpit of a city….” We pass the birds in the cages as we walk through, and the birds start making noise, and they get louder and louder as Brogan walks by. Furmella looks disgusted at Brogan’s failed attempt to empathize with them, but Solaral is successful in quieting the birds.
Furmella checks the door, and says in Elven “Someone back here is nervous.”
Who is this nervous person behind this door? What will our intrepid adventurers do? Tune in two weeks from now, Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel.
Session 5 – March 29, 2007
Alobar, male half-elf wizard
Brogan, male human druid
Cori, wolf animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger
Enias Fal, male human binder (Who is this guy? Keep reading.)
Furmella (NPC), female Halfling spellthief
When last we met…
Furmella checks the door, and says in Elven “Someone back here is nervous.” The door is unlocked and there are no traps. Alobar opens the door and steps aside so Solaral can jump through and attack. Furmella promises to keep an eye on the rear (not Brogan). Solaral steps through and finds herself a small kitchen. There’s a battered wooden table in the middle. Bubble bubble toil and trouble, there’s a cauldron over the fire letting off stinky smoke. There is a female kobold dressed in cook’s gear. On the floor is a human, looking as if he’s had one too many to drink. His head is half-shaven. The kobold looks terrified, looking back and forth between the prone figure and Solaral.
The kobold yanks slightly on the spear, initiating a trap. Solaral dodges a cauldron of boiling noxious material (oil? Hair grease?) and manages to get out of the way. Solaral attacks the kobold, but barely misses. The kobold viciously thrusts at Solaral’s midsection, but misses Solaral, much to her relief. Alobar hangs out behind the door, while Cori sneaks through the door and engages the kobold, who attacks, and her spear glances off of Cori. Cori menaces the kobold, biting at the kobold, but misses. Brogan fires at the kobold through the doorway with his longbow, hitting the kobold and causing some damage, but not enough to kill the tough cook. Solaral, unnerved by the boiling (grease?), misses the kobold, despite the fact that this prissy little kobold is wounded. The kobold strikes out at Cori, missing again. A blob of fire comes from Alobar, but it hits the wall behind the kobold, doing no damage. Cori attacks the kobold, going for her throat, putting the kobold in the red. Brogan fires a shot at the kobold and hits the side of the door instead. The kobold is beginning to wonder if maybe she has a chance. Solaral skewers the kobold and when she pulls her thinblade out, she removes one major organ, and the kobold falls over, looking at the stranger lying in front of the fire.
“Are you going to check the room, or is this just a gabfest?” Furmella hollers from the mess hall. “Oh, you just guard our backs and shut up,” says Brogan.
Alobar focuses his attention on the stranger, while we search the kobold, finding naught but cooking implements. Perhaps some paella later? Nothing of value on the kobold. The smell is from kind of plant that is used as a sedative or some kind of poison. This is probably the same kind of poison that the Lotus folks have been using. Alobar pokes at the stranger with his staff, and he gives a big ole’ grunt.
The stranger and he gives a secret ole’ signal, that we apparently remember from the monk who is our patron. Alobar unties him.
Brogan asks “What are you doing here?”
Furmella says “What the HELL are you guys doing? We don’t know who this guy is! Tie him back up!”
“I’ve been poisoned,” he says, drooling disgustingly all over the place.
Furmella has some anti-toxin and feeds it to the stranger. She steps back and says “How are you here? What’s your relationship?”
“I don’t have very many relationships.”
“What are you here for?”
“I don’t know if I have enough trust ….thanks for saving me, thanks for the water.”
“Can you find your way out?”
“Wait a second,” Furmella. “I don’t know these guys from Adam, but you know the signal, and that means we must be working together.”
“To tell you the truth, my history is so complicated, that I can’t tell you really why I’m here, but I am here to protect Lavinia. I need more water.” He falls unconscious. Near him lies some gear, which we search, because we have no shame.
He’s got tons of weapons in his backpack – what kind of war is this guy preparing for??? There’s so much stuff inside, it looks like Mary Poppins’ carpet bag.
Furmella says “Why are we down here?”
The stranger sits up abruptly. “I fooled you. I ran afoul of the New Haven authority.”
“Then what are you doing with the hand signal then?”
“I’m here to protect Lavinia and protect her interests. I am free once I’ve done that.”
“What did you do?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Furmella says “Shut up, already! You can trade stories at the next inn. Have you learned anything about this place?”
“The cook’s not bad; I had quite a tasty crepe earlier. I don’t know much more than you know.”
Alobar asks “how do you know what we know?”
Brogan, ever the pragmatist, says “what do you bring to the party?”
“I can do almost anything. I can fill in any hole you need. I could have killed the kobold, but I left her for you.”
“Why was the kobold so hard to kill?” Brogan asks.
Enius, the new guy (a new PC, a binder, from Tome of Magic) says a short prayer, “I think we should take a moment.”
Furmella looks disgusted and says something obnoxious. She is in a BAD mood tonight.
Furmella thoroughly searches the room and finds a small pouch underneath the table. “Probably the money from the cook. It’s 35 gold pieces.”
Enius says “I can carry that for you, my bag only weighs five pounds, no matter what you put in it.”
“I don’t think so,” replies Solaral.
“Not until we trust you,” says Brogan.
“We’re looking for Lavinia’s brother, who tried to kill us.”
“Is he a member of the lotus gang?” asks Enius.
“Yes.”
Enius takes the lead, with Solaral trailing behind, followed by Cori, Brogan, Alobar and Furmella. We go down the hallway on the other side of the mess hall. Enius advances slowly down the hallway, taking out his Morningstar as he goes. Radiating around Enius is an aura of sorrow, which casts around him in a five foot radius.
At the far end of the hallway, Enius sees a bunch of bodies that look like they’ve been eviscerated.
Furmella sneaks up to check out one of the doorways. She hears nothing, but the door isn’t locked. She comes back chuckling, waving her hand in front of her face. “I know what that is, and it needs to be locked.” “Latrine?” Furmella nods. Enius doesn’t trust that it’s JUST a latrine, so he opens the door, letting loose a terrible stench. Human waste, yeacchhh. Fairly modern latrine technology. Solaral pokes her head through the door, but doesn’t really notice anything. Furmella stands in the hallway, tapping her fingers on her crossbow.
We try the other door, and Enius suppresses the aura, opens the door and Solaral rushes through. We’re in a HUGE room, the biggest room we’ve seen yet. The floor is covered with thick padded mats. It’s a training room – there are dummies and targets. At one end is a stage. Solarlal notices that a few of the dummies look a little too lifelike.
“After them, mates!” There are six men inside the room. (John (DM) goes into the monster closet to pick up a plateful of monsters) Brogan sees the surge of dummies heading towards Solaral. “Protect the plants!” he yells. He moves straight behind Enius and fires an arrow into the room, missing. Furmella shouts “Either let them charge through us, or come into this room, but don’t block our attack.” Cori charges into the room and bites and trips one of the pirates in the room. Solaral steps into the room and attacks one of the men who is holding a crossbow. Close, but no cigar. Or no evisceration, as the case may be. The one who was attacked by Cori gets up, and is injured severely by Cori. The one closest to Solaral drops his crossbow and takes out a rapier, giving Solaral a chance to attack. She misses, and he lunges at her with his rapier. Solaral ducks her head and manages to dodge the attack. The men flank Cori and miss their attack. The rest flank around Solaral, but miss their attack as well, as Solaral bobs and weaves.
Alobar attacks the injured guy with his energy ball, but misses. Enius steps into the room, and calls down a lightning strike against the gentleman who is in furthest corner of the room. Crack! And the man is charred nearly to a crisp, a small piece of hair sticking up, a tendril of smoke trailing up from the top of his head. “Where the hell did that come from?” Everyone is startled by this development, and no one is certain what has occurred. Enius calls lightning again, and he keels over, a charred lump of flesh. There’s a smell of cooked meat in the air, as well as a slight sense of ozone. Brogan fires a bow and kills another one. Furmella stands watching the show. Cori attacks one of the guys holding a rapier, but misses. Solaral attacks one of the men in front of her, and does some serious damage. In turn, the two men attack and miss Solaral. On the other side of the room, one drops his crossbow, and reaches for his rapier; Cori takes the opportunity to gouge at his jugular, killing him dead.
Alobar takes a five foot step closer, and sends his energy ball at one of the men, one closer to Solaral. A magical ball of fire appears, enveloping the man, who is toast. S’mores, anyone? Or not, as he dodges, and is only slightly crispy.
Enius steps closer to the one nearest Cori, and he calls down lightning on him. Now THIS guy is toast…he’s been grilled. Brogan steps into the room and fires an arrow, but misses. Furmella steps closer, but is keeping an eye on things. Cori hustles across the room, taking a flanking attack, but she misses. Solaral attacks the man right in front of her, slicing off his arm as he goes down for the count. The last man standing steps back and begs for mercy. He lowers his rapier…he looks ready to attack.
Alobar steps closer to the entrance and says “Drop your weapon or die.”
The guy drops his weapon, looking half defiant and fearful at the same time. Pretty impressive. Alobar seems to be the Intimidator.
“Where is Vanthus???” Alobar asks, shaking his finger. Solaral menaces, while Brogan searches and Cori guards. Enius steps closer to make him sad (his sad aura). The guy backs down. Brogan finds 4 cure light wounds, and about 40 gold pieces.
“Where’s Vanthus?”
He looks afraid and surprised. “He’s with the lady.”
“Where’s the dragon mistress?”
“She’s located in her quarters.”
“Where are her quarters?” Solaral asks testily.
“They’re further east from here.”
He glances at the door that has magically appeared behind him.
“What’s behind the door??”
“They’re here chambers, anterooms, bedrooms, offices.”
“Is there a dragon back there?”
“There’s lots living back there, she keep slots of pets. What are you going to do with me?”
“If you don’t cooperate, we’ll feed you to the pets.”
“Are you going to let me go?”
“Hell, no”, Solaral blurts.
Enius says “We’re going to let you go, all you have to do is cooperate.”
“Thank you; I don’t know why I joined this group. I don’t know how I got involved with these guys. Can I go?”
“Not yet, we need for you to help us, and we know you will.”
“I’ll do what I can, looking nervously at the bodies of his companions.”
“What is behind the doorway?”
“It’s a hallway connecting the rooms.”
“What exactly does she have?”
“Furry spiders”
“How many?”
“At least one. More, maybe.”
“What about the multicolored dragon”
“She has a pet.”
“Does she have a dragon?”
He points at Enius, and says “it’s your size.”
“What does it eat?”
“What the lady feeds it. She lets it run free?”
“Have you ever met the mistress?”
“She runs a very tight ship.”
“Does she know who you are?”
“Yes, she does.”
“What kind of weapons does she carry?”
“She wields a mean rapier and she also is able to captivate you with her singing?”
“Men only, or women too?”
He laughs and says “as if it matters.”
“Where is Vanthus?”
“The last I saw him was some time ago, but people go in and out. He lives in her quarters. They are lovers.”
“How many more thugs are there?”
“No one knows the exact membership except the lady, but there are a couple dozen.”
“How many are in her quarters?”
“Only those she’s playing with.”
A discussion follows in Elven about what to do…but everyone’s hair stands on end and a lightning bolt comes down and kills him dead. Furmella makes a sign and says something in a fairly guttural language, looking at Enius fairly warily. She looks at the rest of us and shakes her head. Furmella listens at the door, hearing nothing, finding no traps. The door is locked. “This is a very good lock, but I’m a better lockpick.”
Alobar opens the door and Enius steps through. It’s a waiting room/antechamber. Hey there’s another door in the far corner of the room. A single chair sits in one corner of the room, and there are target dummies heaped on the table in the southeast. The door at the other end is fancier than the other doors we’ve seen so far. We get the sense that this might be a judging room, or for some kind of assessment. It’s an official type room.
Furmella goes back and searches the stage/chair at the end of the room, finding nothing.
We go into the antechamber and search it, but don’t find much of anything. The target dummies are really just target dummies. Furmella listens at the door and says she doesn’t hear anything. The door is locked, and it’s a good lock. Furmella cracks her knuckles and says “Don’t worry, I got this.”
Alobar opens the door, and Enius steps into an L-shaped corridor with two doors. Each door and room looks a little cleaner and better constructed than the previous ones.
Furmella listens at both doors. One is unlocked and I don’t hear anything. The other is, and there’s something not humanoid. The non-humanoid sounds comes from behind the fancier door. “More than two legs.”
Furmella unlocks the door and goes to the back of the group. Enius opens the door, and Solaral goes in, ready for bear. Inside the empty room is a spider chained, and the chain passes through a hole in the wall. Solaral and the spider stare each other down. The chain can reach every corner of the room. The spider is the size of a pony and has 10 legs. It looks like it moves fast. Solaral attacks first, causing some damage. Brogan waits to see what happens, waiting for the hallway to clear a bit. He tells Cori to attack. Alobar delays, and Furmella takes out her crossbow, staking out the rear. Enius steps right behind Solaral and calls lightning, causing some damage. It’s tough.
Cori charges into the room, and attacks the spider. She hits the spider and causes some damage. It has Cori in its grasp. Alobar enters the room and calls the fire on the spider. The spider collapses in a big thud in the center of the room, the chain clanking down on the floor. Enius boosts Furmella up to peek into the room where the chain goes, and says it’s a winch room, with nothing in there. She listens at the door, but doesn’t hear much. She takes her time, but doesn’t hear anything. The door is locked. Furmella picks the lock.
Alobar opens the door, and Enius steps through. Furmella is watching our back. Hey, another door! This room looks to be a planning room. There is a large hexagonal table surrounded by six chairs. There is a blackboard on the far wall, a tapestry and a winch handle. There’s a map of Sasserine with little flag things on it. Enius enters the room and looks at the map. Solaral enters the room and stares at the scribbles, but Alobar can understand it. It’s tracking projects and the comings and goings of ships, including a schedule of those ships to be holed. A note in the lower left hand corner is in Aquan, but no one reads Aquan. In the upper right hand corner we see all of our names, except Enius’. There’s a box around the names, and a note that says “Vanthus, fix this now.”
The map looks like it’s tracking allies, enemies and those paying protection money. Blue, red and gold flags. The gold flags looks like it indicates income. A gold flag is protruding from the Vanderboren estate, a red flag is protruding the Islaran estate and a blue flag from the Kellani estate. A few of the city watch garrisons contain both blue and gold flags.
There’s a heck of a good lock on the door at the far end of the room, and nothing under the table. Solaral doesn’t detect any secret doors. Furmella takes an extra minute to unlock the door. Alobar opens the door and Enius enters the room. The door leads into a long corridor that is 40 feet. At the end of the corridor is another door. Furmella listens/checks out the door. “There’s something there, but I’m not sure what. It’s not locked.” She goes back and checks for traps.
Enius activates his aura, and goes down the corridor to open the door. Inside is a small room with a creature. What sort of creature is this? It’s a zombie bugbear. It looks pretty damn tough, and it’s wielding a huge Morningstar. It attacks Solaral, but misses, but she realizes that if it hits, it’s gonna hurt. She attacks it and gets some damage. It swings this huge Morningstar at Solaral, and a slight glancing blow, but no damage to Solaral, much to her immense relief. Alobar moves into the room and uses the wand of enfeeblement out and uses it against the zombie. The yellow corkscrew goes out of the wand and hits the zombie. The zombie sags and shrinks within itself. The weapon looks much heavier.
Cori charges into the room and attacks the zombie, but no damage. Brogan sadly moves up behind Enius and fires an arrow at the zombie, but it’s a hit. The arrow hits, but does little damage to the zombie. Enius calls lightning and causes some damage to the zombie. Furmella runs into the room with her crossbow in her hand. Solaral chops at it and nothin’ happens. The zombie goes after Solaral and hits. Alobar uses the wand of enfeeblement against the zombie again, and it drops the Morningstar. Cori bites the zombie, but misses. Brogan takes out a blunt arrow and fires at the zombie, causing some damage. Enius calls lightning on the zombie, causing some damage, but not as much as we all would like. Furmella pulls out her alchemist flask and throws it at the zombie. But each person around the zombie gets an additional point of damage as collateral damage.
Solaral swishes at the zombie but misses. The zombie ignores Solaral and goes after Alobar with a huge slam, but it glances off. Thank goodness for the wand of enfeeblement. Alobar uses the wand again, but it misses. Cori attacks the zombie, but misses. Sadly, Brogan moves through Enius and into the room, and attacks with his scimitar, but misses. Enius turns off the sadness. Furmella’s alchemist flask causes some more damage to the zombie, and she throws a vial of holy water at the zombie. It burns, it burns!
Solaral slashes at it and the zombie collapses.
We listen at the door, it’s not locked, it has no traps. Alobar opens the door and Enius heads through it. There’s a corridor and two doors. Furmella listens at both doors. Multiple creatures behind the fanciest door. Solaral pops open the door and look in.
Inside is a woman standing in front of a dragon-like creature. It’s the mistress. The chamber is opulent in the extreme. The walls are violent, and silver lanterns light the entire room. There are two coffers. There’s a five-foot wide landscape of Sasserine on the wall, and the ships in the painting all have a flag with a dragon and lotus on it. Clearly the room is for entertaining. The mistress is relaxing in a chair, and there’s a monster beside her. A dinosaur like dragon with green scales and a yellow crest. She is well equipped and dressed. She beckons us to enter the room. “Come in, let’s talk.” She doesn’t look alert. “I know you’re Lavinia’s flunkies, and we may be able to work together.”
Session 6 – April 26, 2007
Alobar, male half-elf wizard
Brogan, male human druid
Cori, wolf animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger
Enias Fal, male human binder
Furmella (NPC), female Halfling spellthief
When last we met…
We find ourselves in a beautiful chamber….Inside is a woman sitting in a chair, in front of a dragon-like creature. It’s the mistress. The chamber is opulent in the extreme. The walls are violet, and silver lanterns light the entire room. There are two coffers. There’s a five-foot wide landscape of Sasserine on the wall, and the ships in the painting all have a flag with a dragon and lotus on it. Clearly the room is for entertaining. The mistress is relaxing in a chair, and there’s a monster beside her. A dinosaur-like dragon with green scales and a yellow crest. She is well-equipped and dressed. She beckons us to enter the room. “Come in, let’s talk.” She doesn’t look alert. “I know you’re Lavinia’s flunkies, and we may be able to work together.”
There’s a door to the south that may or may not lead to a bedroom. The woman is beautiful with long, red hair and sparkling eyes. She’s covered in bling…golden earrings, necklace, and rings. She stands up gracefully as we open the door. On one shoulder is a tattoo of a lotus and on the other is a dragon, whose tail coils down her arm toward her wrists. The animal next to her is a crested felldrake. This is odd, because it is supposed to be a guardian of the elves – fiercely loyal and good. She seems amused, but angry at the same time. “Lavinia’s flunkies, job well done. I have a counter offer for you.”
She goes on and on about how she can offer us soooo much money. “I think you owe me something for the damage you have inflicted on my guildhall.”
Brogan starts yelling from the middle of the party about how we should just kill her, she has nothing to offer us, clearly she’s an evil wench and what the heck are we waiting for? This attitude does nothing to endear us to the woman, named Rowyn, who says, “Gut-tugger do your thing.”
Solaral notices that Gut-tugger (the felldrake) has a wrought-iron collar, intricately designed.
Furmella yells from the back of the group, “What the hell is going on?”
Alobar can’t see in the room, so he readies for people to get out of the way so he can scorch the Lotus mistress. Gut-tugger flies, strides, glides over toward Solaral and begins to bite Solaral…the lady hums a tune…is it the Battle Hymn of the Republic? Gut-tugger bites Solaral, causing some damage. The song is in draconic, and Alobar recognizes that it’s a song of heroism and it seems to be inspiring courage in Gut-tugger. Rowyn pulls out her rapier.
Brogan casts a spell. Cori is under instructions to attack but can’t move because Solaral is massively in the way. Cori is ready to attack. Solaral moves into the room and attacks Rowyn, screaming loudly in elven. Rowyn gracefully parries the attack. Enius opens his mouth and exhales towards Rowyn (Focalor’s breath). A brown cloud spirals forth Enius’ mouth. Rowyn mutters a rash of expletives and makes a sign of protection. She seems blinded. Furmella pulls out her sling and moves forward for a better shot. She launches the sling at Gut-tugger, but misses. “Phump!”
Alobar hangs back, delaying, looking for an opening. Gut-tugger attacks Solaral, who is flanked by Gut-tugger and Rowyn. Gut-tugger is going after my (Solaral) “vital” spots, in a similar manner to Furmella’s attacks…levels in “rogue”. Extra thieves’ damage.
The blinded Rowyn is pissed…speaking in draconic. “Tugger, I’m blinded, keep the door blocked.” She swings her sword in a defensive pattern, taking a five-foot step forward.
A black bear suddenly appears, looking remarkably like a blue 20-sided die (we had no bear figure at that time). It attacks Rowyn, using two claws and a bite. Ouch. (Let’s hope). Rowyn screams in surprise, fear and pain. A bite and claw both land. Gut-tugger is speaking back to Rowyn, telling her what has happened, a running commentary. Brogan attacks Gut-tugger with his bow, but misses. Solaral moves to the side of Rowyn and attacks, missing spectacularly.
Enius, who verifies that he can see Rowyn from where he is standing, calls a lightning strike on Rowyn. Smmmooookin’. Rowyn looks severely injured, and Gut-tugger looks unsettled. He’s not happy about this turn of events.
Top of the third round…
Furmella drops the sling and draws her silver dagger and attacks Gut-tugger, but misses.
Alobar delays, because he still can’t get in the &^%#@$!!! room! He pulls out his ray and says “Furmella, get OUT OF THE WAY!”
From her outfit Rowyn pulls a potion, allowing Solaral an opportunity to attack, which she does. Solaral’s attack lands and causes some considerable damage. Rowyn quaffs the potion, and seems to turn to smoke, swirling downward like an inverted genie in a bottle. She swirls into a drainpipe and she’s gone.
Gut-tugger is enraged now, and he comes right at Enius. Gut-tugger says, in common, “Your belly is my dinner.” He hits Enius, but causes a small amount of damage. Enius says “hey, that tickles!”
Brogan shoots an arrow at Gut-tugger and misses. Swoosh. The bear attacks Gut-tugger from behind, flanked. The claw scratches at Gut-tugger, causing a bit of damage.
Cori, still stuck behind Enius, delays. Solaral drops her sword, knocks an arrow and fires at Gut-tugger, but she misses. Enius moved into the room. The air fills with the smell of ozone and the room feels electric as he calls down lightning on Gut-tugger.
Cori moves closer into the room and attacks Gut-tugger, but misses, because Tim (Brogan’s player) rolled a LOW number.
Furmella moves up behind Cori, puts away her dagger and pulls out her sling. Alobar moves closer in and uses the ray of enfeeblement on Gut-tugger. The yellow corkscrew ray spews forth from the wand. Gut-tugger sags, looking a little weaker and smaller. But from behind… “Hut hut hut”…and a bunch of #$*&@# Lotus dragons appear behind Brogan, attacking and hitting him with a rapier.
“To the Lady’s defense! Lady Rowyn!”
“She’s dead! Give up now before you die as she did!” bluffs Alobar.
Gut-tugger attacked Enius, but fails horribly, the strength obviously drained from it. Brogan fires an arrow, but misses.
Solaral fires an arrow at Guttugger. Gut-tugger takes the arrow in the eye, looking surprised, but he whispers “Rowyn” as he keels over. Dead. As a doornail. And that’s why they call her The Eviscerator.
Enius tries to listen through the grate in the floor, but doesn’t hear much beyond the sounds of battle (“hut hut hut”) and the soft whisper of the water passing through the underground sewer system.
Cori attacks and misses. Furmella fires at the Lotus Dragon, but also has not mastered the skill of the high roll.
Alobar brings out the fiery burst (new 3rd level reserve feat!) supernatural ability, and points it towards the Lotus Dragons. The fireball envelops the entire corridor, putting two of them near death.
“Run away! Run away!” Two of them back down the corridor away from Alobar, the “Fire killer”. As one of the Lotus dragons try to run away, Cori bites him and kills him. Brogan and Furmella dash into the bedroom, the inner sanctum of Rowyn. Hmm. Alone at last.
There are no doors, but it’s well appointed and luxurious. Rowyn’s bedroom is thickly, plushly carpeted. There is a soothing light green paint on the wall. There is a large canopy bed in one corner, and there’s a pile a pillows in the center of the room, next to the bed.
Furmella finds the mother-lode inside the bed – a small cache of letters in between the mattresses. Signed by Vanthus…racy love-letters for Rowyn.
In the ante-chamber, Solaral finds some statues, some erotica, a succubus statue, an onyx statue of a displacer beast, and a silver statue of a rearing unicorn. Jackpot! Some stuffed animals of some dangerous animals. The two coffers are jewel boxes. The darkwood coffer contains jewelry worth 300 gold pieces. The iron box contains a dozen rings and earrings, worth 500 gold pieces. The cupboard contains several items of women’s clothing. Furmella recognizes one of the outfits as belonging to one of the noble houses (the Kellani). There’s also a flowing and scandalous lavender silk robe.
Solaral notices there’s a secret door in the bedroom. Furmella checks the door, and finds that it’s locked, but it’s without traps. Furmella tries to unlock the door, and while it is difficult, she is able to finally open it, revealing a long narrow corridor off to the northeast. Look! A door! Furmella and Solaral go and listen at the door, checking for traps, etc.
The door is indeed locked, and Furmella doesn’t find any traps. There’s a matching drain in the hallway.
“Be on the lookout for Rowyn in her gas form – we don’t want her to slip past us,” says Brogan.
Furmella opens the lock. Enius opens the door and Solaral goes through. Darts fire from the north wall down the entire length of the hallway. Furmella and Enius get hit, but Solaral just manages to miss the darts. The darts seem to be covered in some kind of poison of which we aren’t familiar. Enius uses “heroic destiny” and avoids being poisoned, as does Furmella.
The room is a treasure vault, which is empty, save for three large chests. There is no cloud of gas anywhere in the room. Furmella is searching for traps on the chests…she doesn’t seem to want to enter the room, but Brogan sweet-talked her into it.
Furmella is searching the chest, but suddenly stops moving. She breaks out her tools and is moving in urgent concentration. About ten seconds later we hear a click and a slam. “All right, it’s safe, you can come back in.”
“What about the other chests?”
“There was a room trap on this chest…spikes would pop up from the floor if I hadn’t reset it.”
Furmella opens the northwest chest, and we all whistle. There’s a fantastic amount of stolen goods in the chest. “Honest ma, it just fell off the back of a truck!”
Some of it seems to be the Vanderboren treasure, as well as some gems. So we put the jewelry and gems in the haversack, and carry one of the other trunks between Alobar and Enius, so as to leave some extra room in the haversack, just in case.
Brogan asks Cori to see if she can find Rowyn, but Cori is frustrated, because she can’t really find a trail, other than through the original drainpipe that Rowyn went through, as well as another one in the hallway. Solaral searches both the hallway and the vault for a secret door, but finds nothing.
We go through the other door, which opens into yet another luxurious room, which may be a spa. It looks like it’s a bath – there is a white marble tile, with a large pool in the center of the room, with a foot-deep amount of clear water. In one corner is a torch, lighting the room.
Meanwhile, Furmella is muttering to herself. “I can’t believe it was the Kellanis…we are in deep s*!@. There’s going to be a bounty, there’s going to be someone after us…” Furmella is babbling. Solaral gives her a quick slap to knock her out of her near-hysteria.
We pass back through all our prior carnage to the tunnel we first came down through. We follow through the rough passageway to a tidal pool. There’s a little bit of beach. The water is filled with seaweed and red/purple sea urchins…it’s a poison farm. Solaral sees two distinct creatures in the water and gets the sense that we’ve been spotted. The tidal pool forks off in two directions, one of which was taken by the unknown sea creatures.
We head off back down the hallway that we haven’t previously searched…there’s a secret door and it opens into one of the circular rooms with the trapdoors in the ceiling. This is a room we’ve been in before. We went down another hallway and found two doors, one to the north and one to the south. The door to the south is off in a direction we haven’t been before. The door is unlocked and partially open. The room feels a little dryer, and it doesn’t smell as musty – it looks like a lounge, with a stuffed couch in the center. There’s a door in one of the other walls. We go through that door, which was unlocked and slightly open. There’s a visitor’s quarters, with two comfortable bunks with only a few spots of mildew. Enius suggests short-sheeting the beds. We go back to the OTHER other doorway, and we see warg scat and some bones that look gnawed upon. There’s a door in the middle of the eastern wall.
We don’t hear anything behind the door, when the door is opened; we see a corridor, which branches east and west. West is a close door, east the door is further away.
We go to the closest door. There is a table with candles on it, and chairs on either side.
The furthest door, and there’s a room. A door is directly opposite to us. There’s a fifteen foot bench against the north wall, and there are peep holes in the same wall where the door is that we entered through. There are some cross bow bolts on the floor. The room behind the bench is just a small, five foot room. We search the small room, but don’t find anything. Through the other door, Furmella hears something that sounds a lot like the harbor. The door opens into a corridor, which eventually opens into the sound of lapping waves. It is a natural sea chamber – a tidal pool. The beach seethes with crabs, and there’s a short wooden pier that goes into the pier. A large wooden door blocks the cave entrance and the water flows and ebbs under the door.
Alobar and Solaral both notice shapes floating in the water that look almost like carpets, or rays. They are ixitxachitl. Enius throws down a lightning bolt near the creatures, it looks like six, maybe eight…more than we originally thought. They are fast, some swimming in three dimensions, some sinking or vanishing out of site. There’s a great sense of hostility from these evil creatures.
We exit the underground labyrinth and return to our inn. It’s late in the evening – we don’t want to wake the lady, so we recoup and recover our health.
Enius does his binding before we head off to see Lavinia. Our meeting with Lavinia is quite eventful – she is devastated to learn that her brother played a roll in her parent’s death, a fact we have learned from the letters. She’s thrilled with the return of her inheritance. We each get payment for our services – 1000 gold pieces each.
“When you get the chance, I still want you to search for Vanthus…” she says, providing us with a map of the area, showing us that Kraken cove (from the letters) is to the east of Blood bay. Swampland surrounds Sasserine. Lavinia says she’s going to send word to the Dawn council about the Lotus dragons and the destruction of the guild, and she says we’re going to arrange for a reward, since we’ve done a great service for the city.
The Dawn Council hold a banquet for us to thank us in person. We are each presented with the “Spire of Sasserine” awarded to those who perform a great service to the city. We earn a +2 circumstance bonus and diplomacy and gather info.
We learn that the collar worn by the felldrake is magical…a collar of protection for Cori. The vials we found are a large collection of exotic perfumes.
One of us is pulled aside by the monk (our patron), and we each get an additional 100 gold pieces, plus we get a potion of cure moderate wounds (2d8 +5), and she expresses a concern. “There’s a lot more going on here than we anticipated. We should look out for…we need to stay on the trail of Vanthus…he is becoming a major threat, not just to Lavinia, but all of Sasserine, and maybe even to New Haven. The second thing…be very careful, based on my info, the Abyss is involved.”
Lavinia wants her brother back so he can pay for what he has done and so he can pay for his crimes.
We spend some time shopping, getting manis and pedis, getting new equipment, and then we’re off like a prom dress.
We are now 3d level.
Lavinia helps us find a boat to take us to Kraken’s Cove. At exorbitant prices, they agree to take us round-trip to the cove, and they will wait for us until we send the agreed upon signal. The Sea Sprite is sea worthy, and it will take us to the Cove.
The Sea Sprite leaves us just north of Kraken’s Cove at dawn, so we can sneak up on the cove, just 2-3 miles away from the cove. Something is horribly wrong – smoke rises up in the air and we are surrounded by dead animals, and what animals are alive are tearing each other apart, savagely attacking each other. Many are deformed, some with tumors and pus coming from their wounds. There are “things” growing off the sides, extra fingers. Nature is not happy with this part of the world.
We’re startled by four tiny monkeys who race at us – their jaws are filled with fangs, and their bodies are covered with bonespurs. Brogan fires an arrow at one of the monkeys. The crazed little monkeys attack Enius, but they bounce off him harmlessly. Alobar dodges little monkey-sized bites, but Furmella is hit and takes a small amount of damage. Furmella drops her sling, pulls out her dagger and attacks the monkeys, but misses. Alobar uses his fiery burst on the monkeys, hoping for some crispy critturs. They are singed, and are now black monkeys. Solaral attacks the monkey attacking Enius, killing it. Enius brings down a bolt of lightning on the one closest to Furmella. Ozone fills the air, electricity crackles and the monkey is dead. Cori leaps towards one of the ones around Alobar, missing the bite against the crispy monkey.
Brogan attacks one with an arrow, but misses after some fumbling. The monkeys split up and attack Cori and Alobar, hitting Alobar. Furmella throws her dagger at the monkey, killing it. Alobar calls back the fire, and kills the last monkey. The forest becomes silent again. These are some ugly monkeys. Brogan is creeped out, so we move on.
We reach the cliffs overlooking Kraken’s Cove. There is an inferno raging across the water. Several ships are all ablaze. Further out from the cove in the bay itself, there is a three-masted caravel, which seems to be turning about. There is a shiny slick on the water that is burning as well. There is an immense heat rising from the cove, and the fire and surf create such a din that we cannot hear anything from below. Smoke blocks our view, but there is movement on the beach. We can get down by climbing down the 40 feet cliff, or we can take a rickety wooden walkway down to the cove. We could dive into the water, which seems to be about 20 feet deep.
What will our intrepid adventurers do next time? How will they get into the Cove? What will they find when they get there? How has Vanthus been able to mess up nature so badly??
Session 7 – May 10, 2007
Alobar, male half-elf wizard 3
Brogan, male human druid 3
Cori, wolf animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger 3
Enias Fal, male human binder 3
Furmella (NPC), female Halfling spellthief 3
We peer through the smoke and it looks like there may be some bodies on board the caravel…they do not appear to be moving. The boat may be anchored, it seems to be spinning. Anyone home?
We debate how we’re going to get down. Should we dive? Should we send Furmella down? We tie our ropes together and to Furmella, watching her back as she goes down the rickety wooden walkway. Furmella walks down carefully, taking her time so she doesn’t trip or fall on the walkway. “the walkway is rotting…it can only support one or two of you at a time…” she shouts back. The walkway is rickety, but doesn’t make a whole lot of noise. Furmella pulls out her crossbow and a flask of alchemist fire, waving at someone to join her down at the bottom. We send Cori down to join Furmella. Enius follows and makes it down, Alobar follows shortly…
When Alobar is about 15-20 feet, and there is an audible “snap!” One of the burning ships turns toward the burning walkway. Move more quickly Alobar! Enius grabs the rope at the bottom, and Brogan and Solaral hold on to the rope at their end. Alobar moves more quickly, but trips and tumbles into the water. He misses the rope, but grabs one of the planks, and is swinging from the walkway. The burning boat is bearing down on him. Alobar tries to reach for the rope above him, but misses. The boat, the Slippery Eel crashes into the walkway. Alobar manages to hang on to the walkway. Alobar climbs up to the walkway, but manages to get down to the beach.
Solaral and Brogan tie the hemp rope to a tree to help us in our climb down to the remaining, safe part of the walkway closest to the bridge and on the other side of the boat. Brogan goes first, and Solaral follows, each moving carefully and taking their time. We are finally all down on the beach.
There is an entrance to a cave. A few planks cover the tidal pool leading the way to a second entrance. Lots of bodies and blood are all over the place. The bodies look eaten by someone who hadn’t eaten in a long, long time. There are crossbow bolts all over the bodies. Some of the corpses are deformed. It may be that these were allies who fought each other. Two sea-cats are dead, but still attached to chains with a giant spike into the rock. Deformities…parts of bodies elongated, extra human heads.
We move to the closest cave entrance and look inside. “Helloooo?”
There is gibbering and a loud nasty noise from behind the crates…charging directly at us are deformed pirates. These pirates are not-so-much human. The mouths are filled with teeth…for the tearing of flesh from the bone. They move quickly and seem to have lots of strength.
Solaral fires but misses, dropping her bow and pulling out her elven thinblade. Brogan fires, but the arrow bounces off the leather. The smell of ozone fills the air and Enias splits one pirate in half with a lightning bolt. The other one rushes toward Solaral, right in front of her, slashing at her with his scimitar. He connects, causing some damage. Furmella fires her crossbow at the pirate, but misses. Cori moves toward the pirate and doesn’t seem thrilled to be attacking him, but does so anyway.
Alobar shoots a magic missile but misses (how?). Solaral attacks the pirate with her thinblade, and causes some significant damage. She pulls out her second sword so she can attack with two weapons the next time. Brogan attacks and misses. Enius calls down lightning, killing the pirate immediately.
We enter the first cave. There’s a whale oil lantern about 20 feet in the cave, and it splits in a Y, one to the left and the other to the right. We hear screams, clashes, gnashing. It sounds like there’s lots of crap going on. There’s a lot of reverberating sound, and it’s hard to tell where the sounds are coming from, there’s even some smoke in the air.
We take the left fork, because it’s the second Thursday of the month, and one always takes the left fork on the second Thursday of the month.
We’re in the mess hall. And what a mess it is. Barrels have been smashed to splinter. Bodies are lying around, all in various stages of decay and being eaten.
We search the room and bodies. There’s a concealed alcove that may have been the kitchen prep area. Solaral sees the chef chopping up a body and there are two other deformed people waiting hungrily to be fed. All parties are surprised…
One bites Solaral causing some damage. The other bites Enius, but misses, same with Brogan. Furmella moves closer and flings her sling at one, but misses. Brogan yells at Cori to help, who bounds towards the pirate. Brogan fires his bow and hits the pirate. Enius calls down another bolt of lightning on the chef, who is fried, but is not completely dead. Solaral backs away and takes out a cure moderate potion, quaffs it and drops her bow.
Alobar calls down fire on the space behind the baddies. They are a bit crispy. One attacks Alobar but misses, and then the other attacks Solaral, missing again. Furmella’s attack misses. Cori moves closer and tries to “aid another”, but fails. Brogan fires an arrow and missed. Enius brings down lightning on one of the things, and kills it dead. Solaral draws her magic blade and slashes at the one in front of her, hitting and damaging it. Alobar burns the last one, and kills it dead. Muwahahahahaa…. Fire is good.
In the alcove is a dead crewman with a cleaver sticking out from its chest. It looks as if there had been a riot of some kind.
Enius notices that these creatures have been “touched by the abyss.” Some of the characteristics of the abyss may apply to these creatures.
We continue onward. From the ceiling, which has gotten much higher, a bat like-human creature flies down at us. Its fur is matted with blood and its saliva sizzles. It says something about wanting to eat our pink flesh.
Furmella fires her sling at the monster, but misses. Brogan fires at the creature, but misses, and drops his bow and draws his scimitar. Enius shoots lightning at the creature. A wing gets singed. Alobar fires a magic missile at the creature, causing some damage. It comes in on Cori, but misses, and lands. Solaral fires an arrow at the creature, but misses.
Furmella drops her sling, draws her dagger and throws it at the creature and hits! Her dagger seems to do no damage. Brogan attacks with his scimitar, but misses. Alobar tried to hit it with his staff, but missed, and took a five foot step back. Enius advances five feet, pulls out his long spear and calls down a lightning bolt. It curses like a sailor in Goblin (it has also spoken Elven and Common). It takes a five foot movement diagonally, standing on the wall and attacks Cori. It bruises Cori. Solaral drops her bow, draws her magic thinblade and attacks. She hits, causing some more damage. It looks like it’s in dire straits. Cori aids Solaral, getting a plus two for the next time. Furmella takes out her silver dagger and throws it and misses.
Brogan pulls out a silver arrow and fires. He misses. Alobar pulls out a scroll, shooting a magic missile at the creature, which slides down and slumps dead. It had a gold nose ring and a silver chain, whole set worth 100 gold pieces, plus a ruby ring worth 120 gold pieces. The slippers are magical and may likely be spider climbing. Furmella puts on the shoes and walks on the wall. Furmella looks pleased.
We move on into a massive chamber. Dozens of bolts of once-fine silk hang from the ceiling. It’s a big cavern. Ropes across the ceiling, silk hanging all over the place. Furmella remarks “this explains why the price of silk has gone up so much recently.” Cori growls low and menacingly. Something is indeed in the room. Enius turns on his aura of sadness, and Solaral steps back away from the radius. Furmella points… “something is moving about 10 feet up.”
A large, long-legged bipedal creature. Has claws. It’s a velociraptor, and it has writhing tentacles and weeping pus on its back, and so it’s corrupted. Another creature of the Abyss. Brogan casts a spell. The creature pounces on Solaral. It rakes with one of its talon, swipes with the forepaws and bites as well. The talon hits, as does one of the claws. It bites and misses. Alobar pulls out the wand o’ enfeeblement, with the yellow corkscrew and the weakness. The ray hits the creature, but the ray seems to go over and around, but doesn’t do anything. Ah – spell resistance?. Solaral steps back, takes out a potion and drops her bow. Enius brings down a bolt of lightning on the ‘raptor. It reacts quickly, and takes some minor damage. Furmella pulls out her alchemist fire, but changes her mind and pulls out her holy water instead. She throws it at the creature, but misses.
A dire-bat appears behind the velociraptor. The bat has a body the size of a horse. The dire-bat attacks but misses. Brogan pulls out holy water and throws it, but misses. The ‘raptor attacks Solaral. The talons, and one claw and the bite miss. One claw connects and causes some damage to Solaral. Cori moves around behind and successfully aids Solaral. (+ 2 for Solaral). Alobar uses a magic missile, causing some damage to the ‘raptor. Solaral attacks with her magic thinblade, causing 10 points of damage. The creature roars in pain. Enius moves away, removing the sad from Solaral, and brings down lightning on the creature. Furmella pulls out her sling. No wait, she pulls out her masterwork silver dagger, and walks over to the creature, and aids Solarals’ armor class (plus 2 to Solaral!).
The dire-bat attacks, but misses. Brogan shoots a silver arrow, but misses. The creature, now clearly pissed off, and attacks Solaral (what do you mean, 1 to 4 means it attacks Solaral?). The foreclaw hits Solaral. Cori aids Solaral, giving her a plus 2, and then Alobar casts enlarge person on Solaral (plus two on STR, minus 2 DEX). Yay Solaral!!! Solaral takes a step aside to move out of the sad aura of Enius. She is now enormous, and swings her thinblade at the creature and hits. With her massive extra points she causes some more damage, moving the ‘raptor into orange.
Enius breathes Focalor’s breath on the ‘raptor. Furmella aids Solaral’s AC. The bat attacks the ‘raptor, causing more damage, moving it into red. Brogan fires a silver arrow at the ‘raptor, causing a little bit o’ damage. The creature attacks again, missing Solaral with three of the attacks, and missing Cori with the last attack. Cori aids Solaral, giving her plus two to hit. Alobar fires a magic missile. Solaral attacks again with her thinblade and kills the ‘raptor dead. Solaral takes advantage of her size to tear down the silk fabric. There are a couple of tomes on the table. Nature books, making Brogan happy.
We explore through the cavern, and find several passages, one that matches up with the beach, and another that connects back to the other entrance to the massive cavern. We go about 30 feet and come across a door. There are a lot of shouts, wet cries of anguish. We go towards the sound of the fight. We’re in a massive chamber. There are dozens of five-foot wide iron cages built into the walls of the cavern. Some are empty, while others contain the partially eaten corpses of men and women. Some contain mutilated humanoids that are alive.
“These are probably people from the ships…where the silk came from, the other stuff…” Furmella says. Alobar and Enius take a minute and half and use fire and lightning to kill all the creatures. It’s a lot quieter now. These definitely were troubled creatures.
We go back to the door. Furmella listens at the door. And we realize that it’s not a door, but it’s a barricade, someone has put up bookshelves and stuff in the way. “Avast ye scurvy dog, we’re comin’ aboard!” shouts Alobar. We hear nothing. Enius and Solaral push the barricade down. The room is interesting – it looks like a laboratory, with a layer of sand on the floor. Pottery urns line the wall of the cave, growing out of them are a riot of strange mushrooms. Several large glass terrariums are along one wall. One is shattered. There is a pair of small boots, perhaps those of a small gnome protruding from one of the table. The mushrooms are dangerous. One is VERY dangerous and the other is just plain dangerous. On the table is a mind-flayer preserved on the table. The dangerous one is violet fungus.
Enius lightning bolts a dangerous, semi-animated mushroom. The mushroom begins to move, and Enius tries again with the bolt, and it’s dead.
There’s a dead gnome in the boots. The gnome is not corrupted, but the violet fungus killed it. He has two potions on him. The potions are the same color, which is yellow-ish. We search the room, and find lots of poisons, but not much else.
We go down the other passage. We enter an oddly shaped room (looks like a nose). It looks like a trophy hall. There’s a reptilian skull mounted in the center. It’s a dinosaur. Nameplates from ships line the walls. Battered sea chests, sea monster heads. Theft and betrayal. Shark jaws. Sahaugin head. Dragon turtle teeth. We determine it’s not a dragon, it’s not from another plane.
Furmella checks the treasure chest for traps. The locks are too good for Furmella to open. Solaral takes the butt of her sword and hammers at the chest and finally opens it. There are also nautical charts, which we take.
We venture into another hallway out of the nose-shaped room into a small room. There’s lots weapons and bolts. It’s practically an armory. They are all solidly built, but don’t seem to be masterwork. We investigate one of the other corridors off the nose-shaped room and find a largish room, that is 15 by 20. Cori starts to whimper. There are bodies of mangled creatures in a cage, some look wolf-like or hyena-like. As we step into the room, we hear a horrible roar and clink-clink. There are chained dog-like creatures. The skin pulls back showing muscle. It’s a krenshar. There are tendrils.
Solaral steps into the room, pulls out her other blade and uses her two weapon attack. Both swords slash at the creature, and the magic blade does damage, but the non-magic blade does little damage. Enius steps closer to the second creature and uses lightning and causes some damage to it. Furmella secures the rear. Brogan throws holy water on one of them. The vial falls to the ground, unbroken, and Brogan has missed. Alobar uses fire on them, and they both die. We hear more clashing in the background, and a woman’s voice.
We go into the passageway, which branches off. We take the one to the north. We hear fierce sword play, gnashing teeth, and a woman cursing in a language we don’t recognize. It sounds nasty, like she’s really pissed. Solaral recognizes that the cursing is in rhythm with the swordplay. It’s a rabbit warren down here. We move closer toward the sounds of the battle.
We can look into the chamber, and the battle seems to be just beyond the chamber. The chamber is well-appointed with tapestries, seascape paintings, a four poster bed and a matching armoir. The furniture is stained with blood and scored with sword marks. Five men and women who have been killed by sword. We hear gnashing behind us, and a lot more from the room ahead of us. “You picked the wrong lass to make a meal of today!” We move forward towards this woman’s voice.
We are in a large room. It looks like a beach. We see the woman, who is fighting a half-dozen savage pirates. A dozen more lie dead on the ground. She has been bitten by the pirates. She exhorts us to join the fight or stay out of her way. She is beautiful with dark hair and tanned skin. She’s using a two-weapon defense, and is an amazing fighter. Her finesse is astonishing. Poetry in motion. She has an immense piece of jewelry with a shark’s tooth hanging around her neck.
Session 8 – May 31, 2007
Alobar, male half-elf wizard
Brogan, male human druid
Cori, wolf animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger
Enias Fal, male human binder
Furmella (NPC), female Halfling spellthief
Brogan calls an animal aide. Cori rushes to the aid of the fighter, and Furmella takes out a flask of acid, moving closer to the melee. The pirates look hungry, starving, really, and they are attacking indiscriminately, without any real coordination. Alobar casts a fiery burst at one of the guys, killing him almost instantly. Solaral charges and attacks one of the pirates with both her sword, killing him, despite the fact that she causes only a little damage. Enius calls lightning down on the man behind the woman, smoking him. The woman gives a quick salute with one of her sword hands, not breaking her concentration.
At the top of the round, Brogan’s new animal appears – a wolf. The wolf attacks another pirate, hitting him handily. Wolf Prime trips one of the pirates. Brogan looks behind him and sees four more pirates coming up behind us. The only reason we didn’t hear them because of the noise in the room. The pirates are moving quickly and making a lot of noise, however. Brogan moves out of the way, yelling out “Behind us!”, ordering Cori to come to his aid as well. (wow, he sure can do a lot all at once).
The woman moves acrobatically past the pirates, killing another one as she passes. Cori moves to protect Brogan. Furmella takes a step, readying her bottle of acid. She will throw it at anyone who travels within 10 feet of her. The pirates attacks Wolf Prime unsuccessfully. Three of the new pirates move to attack Enius, whereas one attacks Alobar, who gets an attack of opportunity. He whacks at her with his staff, hitting her and causing some damage. The three who attack Enius manage to miss completely. They slash wildly. The one who has attacked Alobar (which is not the same as the one who Alobar got the attack of opportunity on, and sorry for the poor grammar) misses as well.
Alobar casts his fiery burst behind the pirate, causing some damage. Solaral attacks the one who was tripped by Wolf Prime using both her blades. She slices and dices him (or some other cooking term that starts with a v). Enius takes a step back and calls lightning on one of the pirates closest to him, making him somewhat charred, but not completely dead (he’s only mostly dead, which as we know, is somewhat alive). Brogan throws holy water at one of the pirates, but it misses and hits the sand, but does not break. Wolf Prime attacks and misses the pirate closest to it.
The woman attacks again, killing the one closest to her, leaving the place just strewn with bodies. Cori delays. Furmella is still readying for anyone to come at her so she can attack with her acid. One of the creatures attacks Wolf Prime, hitting with the scimitar, causing serious damage. One other pirate attacks Alobar, causing serious damage. Poor Alobar, he is lucky that he’s tough. The remaining pirates attack Enius. Furmella throws acid at one, killing it. The pirates attack Enius, but “successfully miss”.
Alobar withdraws away from his attacker, and moves behind Brogan, pulling out a potion. Solaral moves toward the one nearest Wolf Prime and attacks with her blades, killing it handily with her magic blade. Enius attacks one with his lightning bolt. The pirate bursts into smoke and flames and falls over dead. The room smells very strongly of ozone and burnt flesh. Mmm, yum. Barbecue anyone? Cori is focused on defending herself.
Brogan delays. Wolf Prime moves towards one of the remaining pirates, but misses. The woman moves quickly, charging. She attacks, and the pirate falls over dead, the flesh completely separated from the body, leaving the spine standing alone. “Thank you for helping with this,” says the woman. The last remaining pirate attacks Cori, causing some damage. Alobar drinks his potion, glows and is healed. Solaral moves closer to the pirate and Enius calls down lightning on the pirate, who falls down dead.
The woman resheathes her dagger, walks over to the table, and rights it. She leans on it and asks who we are. Brogan shows his best side and says “No, you tell us who you are first.” He yells a lot about her evilness and how we should kill her. She laughs at his threatening posture and warns us not to make any sudden moves.
“I’m Captain Harliss”
“Never heard of ya,” says Brogan (who elected him spokesman?)
Furmella mumbles that this woman is a brigand of some kind. The captain snaps at Furmella, telling her to shut up or speak up. Brogan takes out a potion to give to Cori. Harliss sees this as a threat, and a dagger flies out of the Captain’s hand at Cori, hitting the wolf. “Explain before you move, or I’m going to have to kill you.”
Brogan gets out another healing potion and gives it to Cori, who had been whimpering in pain. Captain does a reverse leap in the air and is on top of the table, pulling out her dagger. Cori delays. Furmella urgently says “this is suicide, we can at least hear her out.” She moves her hands out to show that she has nothing in them. Alobar sends a fiery burst towards Harliss and she rolls under the table and appears back up in front of the table, seemingly untouched by the table. Solaral moves forward and attacks, but misses. Harliss seemed to be ready for it, flicking aside Solaral’s weapon. Enius pretends as if he is withdrawing, because he is so overwhelmed, but at the same time, he brings down his lightning bolt. Harliss steps aside, managing to avoid the bolt. This woman is an amazing fighter and even more amazing at defense.
Brogan casts a spell, calling an animal. Harliss attacks Solaral, who cries for her mommy. She strikes with the rapier, going right through Solaral’s armor (she just bought that!). She strikes again, hitting, getting more damage. Hitting a third time, missing, and then strikes with the dagger. Solaral is disabled. ZERO hitpoints!! What’s up with THAT??? This is definitely Brogan’s fault.
Cori delays. Furmella pulls out her sling, but says “No one’s dead yet, but we can still talk.” Alobar tries diplomacy. She appears unfriendly (but not hostile) “Captain Harliss, you’re mighty good with those pointy sticks.”
“At least there’s one of you who can think with your feet.”
“We’ll give you your space and be on our way.” Harliss laughs at this.
“Are you asking for your life, or are you going to answer my question?”
“We helped you. We owe you nothing.”
Solaral stumbles backwards. Enius moves forward, calling to Harliss. He apologizes for the bad behavior of the group, and tells embarrassing stories about the members of the group. She laughs and says that she enjoys a good story. She moves back to the table and sits down on it. Brogan apologizes for being so quick to attack, and says that the rest of the party is not to blame for his bad behavior. Brogan spills his guts about what our business was.
A story emerges that Vanthus and his companion, the artist, tried to steal from Harliss. They tried to take a black pearl, which dropped and cracked, issuing forth smoke, etc. There was a shift in Harliss’ reality for a second, and when she came back, only Vanthus and Harliss were unchanged, but everyone else was changed into the horrible creatures that we had just fought. Vanthus dove off the ship and swam away. Harliss dove in as well, toward the shore. She asks about Lavinia and our connection to Lavinia. Harliss has sent off men to kill Vanthus and his family. She apologizes for this. We ask if she can give us a note to give to her man at the manor to call off the attack, and she agrees. We leave quickly so we can stop the attack on Lavinia.
We make our way back to the boat. We manage to make it back to Sasserine right in the middle of a carnival. Brogan heals Solaral. Enius binds a different vestige, Paimon. He must dance now whenever he hears music, which will be great fun during the Festival. Sasserine had been attacked by some green worms. They were defeated by some heroes, and Sasserine is honoring them with a parade, acrobats, marching bands, floats, kites, etc.
Enius dons his hat of disguise and takes on a costume, dancing as he leads the way. Furmella follows closely behind, able to dodge between people more easily. The going is slow and frustrating. A gnome bumps into us, and yells at us, looking tipsy. Enius recognizes the gnome, who is a foul-mouthed, belligerent drunk. You have to watch out for his buddy, who may try to defend him. Brogan notices a half-orc warrior watching the action closely. Brogan instructs Cori to get between him and the half-orc. Enius tries to apologize, but the gnome bumps again. The half-orc looks like he’s trying to get to the action. Enius intimidates, but the gnome was ready for any action. The gnome swings at Enius and he misses. He is also trying to pull out his hammer. Enius couldn’t intimidate through the alcoholic haze.
Brogan fires a long bow at the gnome, but misses. He directs Cori to attack the gnome. Furmella pulls out her heavy crossbow and loads it, but doesn’t fire, just hangin’ out. Solaral tries to disarm the gnome, who gets an attack of opportunity, but he misses. Solaral disarms the gnome and yells “Hey, he’s attacking us!!” Enius tumbles past the half orc, and uses the “Dance of Death”, and attacks the gnome with a rapier. Enius causes some damage to the gnome and to the half-orc. The half-orc seems to be working himself up into a rage. Alobar casts sleep on the half-orc, who seems unaffected. Several people around us fall asleep. Cori tries to trip the gnome, but it fails. The gnome spends the entire round to try and get his weapon back, but triggers attacks of opportunity. Solaral mortally injures the gnome, who falls to the ground. The half-orc is fully enraged, and attacks Solaral. He hits Solaral with a glancing blow on her shoulder. Brogan “we’re defending ourselves, we’re being attacked!” Brogan fires an arrow and misses spectacularly. Furmella fires a crossbow at the half-orc, but misses. Solaral attacks with her blades and causes some more damage to the orc. Enius tumbles again, flanking the half-orc.. The orc swings at Enius, but misses. Enius tries to stab at the half-orc, but misses. Alobar sends magic missiles at the half-orc. “Help, we’re being attacked!!”
Cori tries to bite the half-orc. The half-orc swings again at Solaral, with a glancing blow. Ow! That hurts! Brogan fires an arrow and misses. Furmella is still trying to reload her crossbow. Solaral attacks with her two swords again, but misses. Enius uses his whirlwind attack. He makes an attack on every person around the orc. We’re not sure why.
Alobar fires magic missiles at the half-orc, who falls over. The crowd begins to part. Furmella, Alobar and Brogan all heal the people in the crowd that Enius injured. “We’re sorry, we were just defending ourselves.” We head as quickly as we can toward Lavinia’s place. Enius uses his hat to change his entire look. We get closer to the Vandorboren estate and Solaral hears shouts of alarm. Solaral tells the group that she hears shouts. Furmella does a spot check. A float is on fire and has come loose. Brogan yells “Let’s all move to one side to get out of the way!” and he moves out of the way. Everyone follows suit. The float passes by us, but it’s going to run into the tavern full of revelers. “Get out! Get out! The cart is on fire, and it’s headed toward the tavern!” Brogan grabs on to the cart, as do Enius and Solaral. Alobar and Furmella continue to yell at the people in the tavern. Brogan, Enius and Solaral and are unsuccessful at their attempt to slow down the cart. They jump off the cart, and yell to everyone inside to get out of the tavern.
The tavern explodes, and fire quickly spreads everywhere. Brogan tries to pull people out of the burning tavern. Enius checks to see if there are any other exits/entrances. Alobar and Furmella are looking up at Lavinia’s. Alobar sees a dancer in a black outfit decorated with a white skeleton. Her movements seem to be too coordinated and she seems to be moving towards us. Alobar notices that the people seem to be too focused on our position to be running to help us. “Hey a bunch of crazy people on stilts are closing in on us.” The stiltwalkers are juggling daggers and bottles with rags stuffed inside (on fire). Alobar pulls out a scroll. The stiltwalkers throw flaming flasks at us. They have thrown alchemists fire at us. It hits Brogan, but misses Solaral, hitting the person that Solaral was pulling from the burning building. They do hit Alobar, but miss Furmella. Enius appraises the womans movements and notices that she makes good tumbling moves. Enius takes on the disguise of the woman.
Furmella says “these are assassins for hire, probably a noble house.” “Rowyn.” Furmella launches her crossbow at the woman. She misses. Cori delays. Solaral attacks the woman, who is moving smoothly and acrobatically. Solaral hits the woman and causes some damage. Alobar casts fire above the head of one of the stiltwalkers. “Help, we’re being attacked!”
Brogan casts fog cloud, obscuring everyone’s vision. The woman strikes out at Solaral, causing minimal damage, and then she tumbles out of the way. Cori moves out of the mist, and tries to trip one of the people on stilts. She has fallen off the stilts. Enius steps out of the fog and begins to tie a rope to a building so he can set up the bad people to trip. Furmella casts disguise self, and now she looks like the woman, so now there are three. Furmella steps out of the fog to take a look around.
Solaral steps out of the fog and trips one of the people on stilts, but is unsuccessful at knocking him down. He attacks Solaral by throwing his dagger at her. Alobar casts mage armor and steps back. Brogan casts a spell and takes a step back. Stiltman one drops alchemists fire on Solaral. Stiltman two moves back off the battlefield. The other stiltpeople cover the area, and the woman issues commands to get them to spread out. Enius ties off the other end of the rope. Furmella fires her crossbow at the woman, and hits her. Furmella moves back into the fog. Solaral moves to sunder the stiltman, who falls to the ground. He’s prone. Alobar steps out of the fog casts a fiery burst at above the head of stiltman three. He dies. Alobar takes a five foot step back in. Brogan has summoned a small water elemental, who moves to attack the stiltwoman fighting Cori. Brogan casts cure light wounds on himself.
Stiltman closest to Solaral stands up and provokes an attack of opportunity. Solaral kills him pretty handily, if she does say so herself. The Stiltwoman behind her throws alchemist fire at Solaral, but misses. The stiltwoman nearest Cori tries to flee, but Cori attacks, and the woman falls unconscious. The main woman moves around the fog toward the elemental. The other stiltperson moves in closer as well.
Cori moves back into the fog toward Brogan. Enius ducks under the rope and moves toward Solaral. He readies an attack and mumbles to Solaral “Hey, it’s me, Enius”, dancing away. Furmella attacks a Stiltman, hitting him. Solaral steps into the fog and takes out a cure light and drinks it. Alobar steps out of the fog and sends a fiery burst to the same stiltman that Furmella attacked, killing him. Brogan moves out of the fog to stand next to Furmella.
Stiltwoman moves closer to Brogan and throws her dagger at him. She hits and causes some damage. The main woman tumbles and hits Alobar with her fist. The elemental flanks the main woman and attacks, hitting her. She falls unconscious.
Enius runs and tumbles at the remaining Stiltwoman, hitting her. He sticks the dismount. She falls off her stilts and falls to the ground. Furmella shoots her crossbow at the stiltwoman who dies. Brogan sends the elemental into the burning building to help quench the fire. A bucket brigade comes to prevent the fire from spreading.
Our assassin is a famous former dancer named Diamondback who has become a murderer-for-hire.
When next we meet we will be moving through the crowd to get up to the Vanderboren estate.
Session 9 – June 13, 2007
Alobar, male half-elf wizard
Brogan, male human druid
Cori, wolf animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger
Enias Fal, male human binder
Furmella (NPC), female Halfling spellthief
We are moving through the crowd to get up to the Vanderboren estate. We head towards the front door. There are no guards outside the manor, which is pretty typical. The gate is closed, and we don’t see any guards on the exterior walls, which might be a little unusual, given there’s a large festival going on. We don’t see smoke, fire, there’s no screaming coming from within. Are we first, second, too late? We go up to the gate and look around. Furmella looks around and sees no traps. She says the gate is unlocked.
Solaral and Enius head through the gate. Enius is still dancin’ his little heart out. We approach the front door. Cori sniffs at the air, and there is a smell that she doesn’t recognize. “Something is wrong here,” says Brogan. “Something is wrong inside the manor.”
There are no traps, and we pop open the door. We are now in the large entranceway. It’s a two story atrium with a balcony halfway in flanked on either side by two oak stairwells to an open landing, which is about 20 feet up. There are tapestries hanging from the upper landing. There is a glass chandelier hanging from the atrium ceiling. (John (the DM) heads for the monster room (where he keeps the figures)). Inside the atrium are three bullywugs, which explains the marshy smell.
There’s a big room on the left (we’ve been there) and probably another one off to the right. A hallway extends both left and right at the opposite end of the atrium. There’s an alcove with double doors that open out into the courtyard. Two of the bullywugs are right in front of us, and a second on the upper landing.
Enius readies an attack – if they threaten any action, he will attack. (Bonsai!!!)
Alobar says “We have orders from Captain Harliss. You should stop right now.” Alobar readies an attack if we get attacked.
The bullywugs yell something unintelligible in Common. (“Attack them.”) The one on the balcony yells “They’re here! They’re here!”
Enius attacks, but his attack glances off the bullywug. Alobar shoots a fiery orb at them. Their skin turns a little black. There is some other damage on them that we didn’t cause. One of them moves about 20 feet, attempting to flank Enius. They both attack Enius with their clubs. One club completely misses, and the other doesn’t really connect, it’s a mere glancing blow. The one up top takes one of his axes and throws it at Solaral. The axe goes wild and imbeds itself in the wall.
Furmella moves inside the room and launches her sling at the one up top, missing. Solaral steps into the room and fires at the bullywug on the landing, hitting him, causing a little damage. She drops her bow and takes out her magic thinblade.
Brogan fires his bow at the one right in front of him, but he misses. Cori moves into the room and steps behind a bullywug. Cori sinks her teeth into the bullywug, who falls to the ground with nary a croak. (“rabbit”)
Enius attacks the guy right in front of him and misses. Alobar takes a five foot step closer to the doorway and casts fiery orb behind the bullywug, who burns and turns a sickening black and brown all over. The bullywug on the landing gives a shout of rage and takes one of his axes and throws it at Cori. There is a thud as it hits her, but it causes no damage. That’s gonna bruise, though.
Furmella fires her sling shot at the Bullywug, causing. Solaral moves up the stairs right in front of the last bullywug and attacks him with her thinblade, effectively skewering him.
Solaral goes up to the top of the landing and goes off to the right to see what’s going on – where are these confederates of the bullywugs? Alobar brings Solaral her bow, which she puts away. She keeps out her b!!#+in’ thinblade. Furmella says “You know, for someone who’s not too civilized, that’s not a bad idea.” Solaral makes rude gestures at Furmella behind her back.
Furmella listens at the door, which does not appear to be locked. She doesn’t really hear anything much. Solaral and Enius push open the doors and enter, not unlike Aragon in The Return of the King, very majestic and dramatic. The room is quite large, 30 feet deep, 40 feet long. There is no furniture, except for a weapons rack with several quality weapons. The floor is thickly carpeted. There are four bullywug bodies lying on the floor. There’s a door on the right wall in the far corner. In the other corner is a small tight spiral staircase leading down to the room we’ve been in before.
Furmella listens at the door and doesn’t hear anything. Brogan searches one of the bodies and doesn’t find anything except some battle damage. There is a spell caster among the people in the house. We move through the double doorway in the right hand corner. There’s another set of double doors to the right. It’s the laundry room. Two large bullywugs are in the room. They have no weapons in their hands, but they have weapons in their belts. The bullywugs had been collecting Vanderboren silk robes.
Enius attacks, but misses. The bullywug attacks right back, causing a bit of damage. Furmella is a bit nervous about the alarm that was raised, so she is readying in case anyone comes through. Cori has standing orders to defend Brogan, and she delays. Brogan attacks the bullywug that is right in front of him. These bullywugs also seem to have some damage on them as well. Brogan fires a bow at the one right in front of him, causing his head to explode! Cori moves in to attack the other one, and kills it dead. Yum, she loves them frog legs.
Furmella listens to the door. “This leads outside, I can hear the festival.” The door opens onto a balcony which travels off to the right and turns away. There’s a door at the end. Furmella listens at the door and doesn’t hear anything. Enius pops open the door, which is a “huge-ass room” (which is the technical term.) It’s a kitchen, which is large enough to prepare a banquet. It looks like it hasn’t been used in a while.
We go up the stairs, following the bloody, muddy tracks and are in a balcony/alcove area. There are doors all the way around it. It’s almost like a landing of an apartment building. Looking at the tracks, Solaral notices that there are humans, not very muddy, and what is most likely an orc, who has very muddy footprints. They largely go into one room, so we must follow as is our sacred duty.
Furmella listens at the door. “Lots of people inside. The door is unlocked.” Brogan casts magic fang on Cori. Alobar prepares a sleep spell. We open the door. It looks like the master bedroom. The room smells rank, bloody and muddy. There are four hostages tied to chairs back to back in the center of the room. One may already be dead. One of the hostages is Lavinia; one of them is Kira the other Halfling. It looks like her head is bashed in. One of the other hostages is Tolin, who we recognize as being one of the Jade Ravens. The last is Zan, the half-elf. Lavinia is the only one who is conscious, her eyes narrowed in rage.
“Lay down your arms, or I’ll hack your pretty employer’s head off.”
“We have a note from Captain Harliss instructing you to stand down; we can show you the note right now.”
The bullywug wants to know how we know Harliss’ name, and Brogan explains. “Show me the note.” says Trevoraz (the half-orc). Solaral tosses the note over. Trevoraz signals to the bullywug, who goes and gets the note. Trevoraz, still holding the scimitar, looks at the note. He swings and says “it’s still not the signal from my captain.”
Lavinia lunges free and moves towards us, seeking safety in our midst. Trevoraz misses his attack of opportunity. Lavinia runs into Enius’ arms. “This is the spiritual leader of the tribe. Hand me a sword!” Trevoraz looks frustrated and he charges right at Solaral. He hits Solaral. “Owie!” The elemental moves, but does not attack. The bullywug is casting another spell. Enius moves and does the dance of death, which allows him to strike every creature he goes by. Double critical damage on Trevoraz. He also damages the water element and the bullywug. This spoils the bullywug’s spell as well. Woohoo!
Alobar pulls out his wand of enfeeblement, casting it at the half-orc. The ray zooms off and misses the half-orc. Brogan commands Cori to attack the half-orc, and starts casting a spell: summon nature’s ally. Furmella climbs the walls into the room, firing her crossbow from the side of the wall.
Solaral steps forward and attacks with both her swords, causing some serious damage. Cori moves forward and attacks, but misses.
Trevoraz says to the bullywug “I need healing.” He attacks Solaral and Cori. His scimitar gets rid of the rest of Solaral’s hitpoints, bringing her down to 0. He also hits Cori, causing some damage to her as well. The bullywug steps toward Trevoraz, sparking an attack of opportunity from Enius, who threatens critical, but causes some damage to the bullywug. He pulls out a wand and touches Trevoraz with it. Some of the injuries have healed, but not nearly as much as Solaral had dealt. The elemental attacks Enius, but it missed.
Enius steps back and uses the whirlwind attack against Trevoraz and the Bullywug. He hits both, causing some more damage. Alobar withdraws a potion of healing and gives it to Solaral. He pulls out his last healing potion. Furmella moves across the ceiling, and is now hanging from the ceiling near the half-orc. Brogan’s spell comes in, and a hippogriff appears. Full attack against the bullywug (two claws and a bite). It hits, moving the bullywug to orange. Brogan cast heal upon Cori, and takes out a scimitar and hands it to Lavinia. Lavinia looks like she knows what she’s doing with the scimitar.
Solaral takes the potion that Alobar had handed to her, thus bringing her back from the brink of death. Cori attacks, but misses. The half-orc attacks Enius and Cori. He hits Enius but misses Cori. The bullywug takes a step and uses the wand again on the half-orc. The water elemental attacks Enius as well, but misses. Enius tumbles backward, and lands behind the hippogriff, takes out a potion and quaffs it, curing his wounds.
Alobar steps into the room and shoots the wand o’ enfeeblement at the half-orc. It hits, and the half-orc sags a tad, although he still looks stronger than any of us. Alobar hands the potion to Solaral. Furmella moves so she is behind and above the half-orc. She attacks, causing more damage. Yay Furmella! She causes more damage to him than she probably ever will again. The hippogriff steps into the square right under Furmella, and it goes for the bullywug again. Two claws, both hit, and the bullywug is teetering. Brogan attacks the half-orc, causing some damage. Both the half-orc and the bullywug both look pretty wounded. Trevoraz demands a healing. Solaral attacks with both her swords, causing some more damage. Cori attacks, knocking Trevoraz down. Trevoraz is dying.
The bullywug jabs at the wolf with a spear, but misses. He steps back to the other side of the room. The elemental goes after the hippogriff, causing a serious amount of damage. Enius moves towards the bullywug and stabs him, causing some damage. He starts to curse and shout oaths, but we can’t understand what he’s saying. Alobar casts a fiery orb behind the water elemental (into the fireplace), and the elemental turns to steam and is gone. Furmella hits the bullywug. The hippogriff attacks the bullywug. Brogan checks the hallway. Solaral quaffs the potion, and moves closer to the Bullywug. Cori moves up in front of Solaral and attacks the Bullywug.
The Bullywug uses the wand on himself, steadying him, but not much else. Enius stabs him, hitting. Alobar looks around, but finds nothing of interest. Furmella attacks from above and the bullywug falls.
“Thank you. There are more here, we have to clear them out, but first, help the Jade Ravens.” Lavinia says. “Their equipment is over by the bed” and Lavinia moves over to the bed. We grab the scimitar from the half-orc and the wand from the bullywug. Brogan uses the wand on Solaral twice and on Enius once. Lavinia requests that we use the wand on the Jade Ravens. Brogan uses the last charge on Tolin, who barely wakens. Lavinia gives Tolin a potion, puts on a ring and pulls out a masterwork rapier from the pile. Tolin puts on his chain shirt, and two masterwork short swords.
There are still two other Jade Ravens missing. “They must have come in through the basement, I think that’s where they are,” says Lavinia.
Furmella goes up to Tolin, who looks unsure of how to handle the fact that we have rescued him. She pulls out two of her own light blue potions and hands them to him. “If you’re going to be worth anything, you need to take these.” Lavinia looks fine, and it’s clear that there is blood on her rapier. She must be the one who has caused the damage to the bullywugs. Everyone re-equips, and Zan also puts on some goggles. Zan says “let’s bring it to them. It’s about time they pay for crossing the Jade Ravens.”
Tolin looks at Solaral and makes some obnoxious comment about how she hasn’t been in the city long, and how it still might be acceptable that the two rangers go first. We all head down towards the basement. We enter a private dining hall. It’s filled with bookshelves, chairs and tables. There is a large painting of Vanthus on one wall. There’s a female bullywug in a chair, smoking a cigar, she looks to be the leader. She’s surrounded by three healthy bullywugs. They do not look surprised to see us. She orders her thugs to kill us all, and she stays seated. They spread out and get ready to attack. They all throw their hand axes at Tolin and kill him. These are ranger bullywugs, recognizes Solaral. The leader continues to puff away at her cigar and croaks “well done.”
Furmella moves up the wall into the room. Brogan grabs a flask off of Cori and then starts casting a spell. Brogan commands Cori to attack. Zan looks frustrated and moves into the room, but he misses. Lavinia moves down the stairs and barges into the room, taking the attacks of opportunity to flank the bullywug that Zan had missed. Lavinia gets hit with a club, and receives some damage. She attacks and hits, getting some damage. Enius tumbles through the two bullywugs and attacks one, causing some damage. Solaral attacks the bullywug closest to Lavinia, causing some damage. Cori comes down the stairs and attacks as ordered.
The female bullywug pulls out a potion and casually drinks it between puffs on her cigar. Meanwhile she is giving direction to her minions. Two of the bullywugs focus their attacks on Solaral. They both miss. The third attacks Enius, but misses. The female bullywug sounds pissed and starts yelling at them and is calling them all kinds of names. The bullywug seems to be more afraid of her than of us.
Alobar comes down the stairs and attacks the female bullywug, and he shoots…he scores! (and the crowd goes wild!) Furmella from her ceiling perch fires her crossbow at the bullywug closest to Lavinia, causing its head to explode. She reloads. Brogan’s spell comes to fruition, and a wolf appears, which comes down the stairs and attacks a bullywug. He trips the bullywug as well. Brogan moves to the top of the stairs and looks over his shoulder, but doesn’t see anything.
Lavinia charges the female bullywug. It looks like she has a great hit, but it hits the flesh and bounces right off. She looks a little surprised, and the female bullywug laughs. “My lady!” yells Zan, and he moves around so he can flank the female. He causes several attacks of opportunity, getting hit. The female grabs her hand axe, swings at Zan and hits. The axe is buried in his head, knocking him over. She maintains her hold on the axe.
Enius does his attack and misses. Solaral attacks and slices him open. She moves so she is closer to the last remaining bullywug. Cori kills the last bullywug. The female is pissed off. She stands up. She does a quick draw of her other hand axe, and she now has two in her hands, both masterwork. She attacks Lavinia with both, causing some damage.
Alobar takes out his ray of enfeeblement, hitting her. 2 plus something (we still don’t know its strength) to her strength. She looks a bit weakened and somewhat surprised. Furmella moves to flank and fires her light crossbow. She hits. Brogan’s summoned wolf moves and attacks the female bullywug, missing. Brogan comes down the stairs and throws a flask of acid. It sizzles on her skin, causing some more damage. Enius moves into a flanking position and tries to disarm her. She gets an attack of opportunity. She attacks and hits, but Enius uses his luck and forces her to roll again, and she misses. Enius disarmed her, she has one axe left. Solaral moves to face her and attacks, but her sword glances right off. Cori bites her, and trips her as well. She is down on the ground, prone with only one hand axe.
She flies into a rage, (barbarian), and tries to stand, causing attacks of opportunity from a multitude of people. Enius’ attack causes damage. Cori attacks, causing some damage, and trips, knocking her down again. Solaral attacks, causing yet more damage. Summoned wolf hits, causing YET MORE damage (26 points of damage just on these attacks of opportunity). She’s on the ground, she’s pissed and she attacks Cori, but misses. Alobar moves in and hits her with the ray of enfeeblement one more time. Five plus something…there goes her strength. “Goodbye, weak little froggy!” Furmella loads her crossbow and fires, hitting. Yet more damage. Woohoo. The bullywug starts croaking for mercy. The summoned wolf attacks. She is dying.
Lavinia says “We’ve lost two of the Jade Ravens, but there are still two remaining. We need to go to the basement.”
Furmella casts her detect magic spell and it turns out both hand axes are magical. Solaral takes them and hooks them to her belt.
“They’re through that door!” calls Lavinia. No sooner had she said this when the door burst open and three injured bullywugs come through the door. They are a little shocked to see us. Alobar sends off a fiery orb at them. He kills two and steps back. Furmella loads, fires and causes minimal damage. Brogan fires an arrow at the last remaining bullywug, killing it. Lavinia says “Well done. Through the doors!!!” Brogan gives her a healing potion.
Enius and Solaral head through the doors. We are in a very large room that takes up most of this section. It’s a trophy hall. There are lots of stuff dead animals in the room. Brogan looks pissed. Lavinia leads us toward a door in the northeast corner of the room and we go down the stairs. We are in a large room. The water from the pool in the courtyard passes through this room. There’s lots of mud on the floor. This is clearly where the bullywugs came into the house. There are guttural cries from one of the rooms, as well as the sound of a woman in distress. We also hear a chittering trill. Whatever this is, it ain’t human. There’s a large male bullywug watching the distraught human woman being tortured. Two relatively unharmed bullywug hunters are in the room as well. A strange looking monster is in the room. The distraught woman is being forced to perform some kind of entertainment for the creature, which is a rust monster.
Solaral sheathes her swords and steps behind a pillar while she takes out her longbow. Cori delays. Brogan orders Cori to attack the creature, who does. She hits, drawing first blood. Brogan moves down the stairs and throws the tanglefoot bag at the rust monster. Alobar moves so he is behind one of the other pillar. Enius moves in, but misses. One of the bullywugs moves closer to Enius, flanking him. Enius gets an attack of opportunity, but causes lots of damage. Cori attacks, but misses. The two bullywugs both attack Enius, but neither hit. The chieftain hollers to the rust monster “Chunkus! The elf is dinner!” It goes after Solaral and melts her chain shirt to rusty dust. The big male attacks Alobar with its club, but misses. The woman starts casting a spell, and it’s charm person. She seems focused on the chief. She says “Chief Lorpf, your soldiers have gone crazy, they’re attacking our allies.” He stops and looks surprised. Furmella moves down the stairs, climbs up the wall and hangs out behind a pillar.
Solaral fires an arrow, but misses. Cori attacks the rust monster and hits. Cori trips the creature. Brogan steps back and fires his bow at the bullywug, killing it. It splashes into the water. Alobar uses his staff and whales on the rust monster. Enius moves and strikes at one of the other bullywugs. He is also going to look down the hallway to see if there’s anything else there. The bullywug is dead. Yeeha. Enius sees a large chamber with more pillars. The rust monster tries to right itself, provoking two attacks, which both miss. It sits there eating Solaral’s armor. The sorceress says to the chieftain “Sit in your throne so you can survey your kingdom”, and he sits down with a grin on his face. We kill the rust monster. Yay for us.
Lavinia interrogates the chieftain. The crimson fleet had a long time relationship with the tribe. The tribe was in the swamps surrounding the cove and so the entire tribe had moved to get revenge for their god. Mad about what Vanthus had done and took their revenge on Lavinia. The chieftain’s wife and the priest had been killed. The chieftain is the last one alive. They snuck in through the water. We try to explain that Lady Lavinia was not to blame, and we give him the note from Harliss. The chieftain drops all his equipment and then jumps into the water and disappears. We find the last Jade Raven who had tried to escape through the armory. He opened a chest and was killed by the magic missiles that had booby trapped the chest.
Something about the black pearls is up. Lavinia is impressed with our ability, so she rewards us by giving each of us 100 platinum pieces, and increases our monthly stipend to 200 gps.
We see the sign from our monk (patron) and get 1000 gold pieces from her each. We’re going to get a briefing from her later and she’s really pleased with how we’re doing.
Session 10 - June 27, 2007
Alobar, male half-elf wizard 5
Brogan, male human druid 5
Cori, wolf animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger 5
Enias Fal, male human binder 5
Furmella (NPC), female Halfling spellthief 5
Later…
Lavinia invites us to her house and we see that things are improving – the house is abustle with workers, and things seem to be looking up. Lavinia is ready for a long sea-voyage. When we meet her, she is looking at maps and the journal from the family vault. It’s her mother’s journal. Four years ago her parents undertook a risky endeavour to increase the family’s fortune. They and a shipload of colonists sailed to the Isle of Dread. Brogan wants to know why anyone would want to do it. The place is aptly named. Jungle covered hell with feral monsters. The southern peninsula seems sheltered from the menaces of the rest of the island. Her parents set up a settlement called Farshore. There would have been a continuous flow of wealth once the settlement was set up. However, before the family could return, Vanthus made his move. If Farshore fails, then the last legacy of Lavinia’s parents fails. Lavinia plans to sail southward.
We are worried about three types of threats: the Crimson fleet, the Scarlet Brotherhood and the demonic influences that we’ve already encountered. The SB is a lawful evil organization. The CF is a group of pirates, and demonic is chaotic evil. What an interesting mix of forces.
The boat we are going to take is called the Sea Wyvern. It’s a caravel. There are 7 crew members, plus several others joining us on our journey. The captain seems to have the hots for Alobar…lingering glances. Avner Meravanchi the nobleman wishes to bring his prize special horse on board, but Enius attempts to convince him that it would not be the best idea for him to bring the animal. Avner appreciates the information, and hadn’t considered the info. He was wondering if perhaps his family was trying to get him out of town, and he thanks Enius for the help. Enius begins to tell Avner his family history, who turns away immediately. Banaby guides Enius away discretely. Lavinia thanks Enius for his actions, and says she feels she’s done the right thing by putting us in charge. Lavinia tells Solaral to watch Avner, and says to Alobar that he bears a striking resemblance to the dead husband of the captain. (Hmmmm)
Our journey begins…we set out at dawn. Brogan turns himself into an eagle to fly up and check to see if anyone is following. It looks as if no one is really following us. We are quickly out on hugging the coast. Avner wastes no time in becoming trouble. He arrived half an hour late and didn’t apologize (the bastard!). He is pissed that he has to sleep in the same sleeping quarters with all the “commoners”. The captain has anticipated this. Avner is livid, making a scene, demanding his own quarters, after all, this expedition wouldn’t be happening without him. The captain doesn’t have much patience…he can sleep with the other passengers, or he can step off the boat for all she cares. Father Horst tries to placate Avner, but Avner makes several comments on his personal appearance, so the priest backs down. Avner stomps off and walks right up to Enius and demands “You need to resolve this. Tell the captain I need my own room. You have common sense. It could jeopardize the whole expedition if I’m treated with the proper respect.”
Enius agrees, and says he’ll talk to the captain. “I can’t promise anything, she doesn’t seem to like me very much. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll give you my blanket.” Avner makes a disgusting remark about Solaral.
Enius goes to Amella, the Captain. “He’s asked me to speak on his behalf. He probably should have a room of his own…”Amella doesn’t give Enius as much of a brushoff, but “It’s fine for you to have your opinion, but when it comes to the ship, it’s my responsibility. He’s a noble of Sasserine, but we’re on my ship.” She seems to have taken no offense from Enius having said this. Avner is bitter and cantankerous. The tomboy (Lirith) passes by with a flirtatious flick of her hips, and that evening we notice that Avner is no where to be found.
On our second day, Lavinia sends a message via a rowboat, inviting us, the captain and Avner for dinner. At dusk, the ships come closer, and Lavinia, well dressed, shows us to the galley. There’s a fine spread, including imported elven wine. Now we have the opportunity to interact, and we can make general impressions on the Blue Nixie crew and the Jade Ravens. Most people are indifferent to Brogan. People seem to love Enius, who chat with him all night long. There’s a lot of gossip going around about Solaral, especially given her manners. People seem to be somewhat interested in Alobar, and they are curious about his wizarding abilities. They love Furmella. There’s wary curiosity about Cori.
At the end of the very long evening (Solaral cannot wait to get out of there), there’s a drink on deck, and as the sun sets, we go back to our ship. As Furmella gets on the ship, she stops suddenly and says “Get me off this ship now.” We pull her off and she says “The rope has been sliced.” As Brogan is swimming across he hears nothing. It’s a watermephit, and it looks really pissed. A 15 foot cone of caustic liquid comes at Brogan. Ouch. The mephit is half in half out of the water. Enius moves down the ladder and walks on water toward Brogan. Solaral pulls out her bow and arrow, positions herself and hits the mephit. The mephit pulls off the arrow, and it looks like it’s not hurt by the weapon.
Furmella takes out her sling and fires. The bullet hits and falls to the side. Alobar fires two magic missiles at the mephit. They hit, and we see gaping holes. The creature is pissed. Brogan turns into a dolphin and he comes in behind the mephit. The mephit moves towards Enius, and launches a magical arrow of acid springs from his hand at Enius. The arrow goes flying past Enius and hits the ship, putting a hole in it. Enius charges at the mephit. He notices that the holes are rapidly closing as he does so. The mephit is seriously damaged.
Solaral looks around and nothing stands out. The captain is intently watching us fight this creature. Avner is agog is what he’s seeing. He’s blubbering. “the druid is gone…there’s a man on the water…what…what…” Furmella launches two missiles, but misses. Alobar sends out three more magic missiles, which causes the mephit to explode, and what’s left melts into the water.
The captain comes over to Alobar, looks at him appraisingly and pats him lingeringly on the shoulder. “Nice job.” Brogan, who is being all dolphiny, notices there’s a pickle bottle in the water. We think that the mephit has come from this bottle. We fix the rope and go back. Avner is still freaked out. As Brogan swims about, he splashes the nobleman. Someone is against us.
Brogan and Solaral sleep up on deck because they can’t stand being inside all the time.
Day 3
At high noon…”Ship! Ship!” The captain pulls out a spyglass. She starts barking commands. The entire deck is lined with people as the crew and passengers come on deck. It is indeed a pirate ship. Brogan turns into an eagle and flies over to spy. It looks like it’s trying to sail parallel to us, it seems to have a complement of 15-20 people. It’s not the best maintained ship. It has a ram, and everyone is armed to the teeth. The pirate ship is affiliated with the Scarlet Brotherhood. There are some islands nearby that the SB control, including slave trade. The captain is surprised that the SB has come this far. We exchange info with the Blue Nixie, but we continue on our way.
Skald seems a little nervous and unsurprised…almost as if he were expecting this. He had a fairly bad employer in town (one of the corrupt council members). He doesn’t know anyone in the Scarlet Brotherhood. When we wake up the next day, the pirate ship isn’t there.
Day 4 in the early evening…
We’re all on deck engaged in various activities to pass the time. We hear a beautiful song. Everybody hears it. The song talks about how warm and relaxing the water is and wouldn’t it be nice to go into the water. Brogan immediately recognizes that it’s a fey song. A few passengers have jumped into the water. Alobar and Enius have one leg over the side when they stop. Solaral and Furmella are working their way to get off of the ship. Brogan tackles Solaral to prevent her from going in and Alobar saves Furmella. The first mate, Mikah the red, Quenge go into the water. Avner does not. Skald looks completely immune to the effects. There are six people in the water.
Brogan looks overboard to see something that is swimming in the water…It may be human-sized, based on the splashing. “Over there, there’s something in the water. Perhaps someone who can should kill it. It’s fey.”
Alobar realizes that he needs to threaten the charmed person or knock them to the ground to get them out of their charmed state. “Slap them!” Alobar slaps Furmella. Furmella comes to. “What the heck happened? What’s going on?” Alobar tells her what happened and where the fey is. She retrieves her sling.
A sling bullet comes flying from the general direction of the creature and it hits Brogan. He takes a small amount of damage. The sling bullet seems to be manufactured from heavy conch shell. Enius climbs down to the water and heads toward the sounds. Brogan jumps from the railing and turns into a Dolphin before he hits the water. He travels to within 20’ of the source of the song. Alobar casts Fireball, creature takes 11 HP screams and stops singing. Brogan takes full damage. Solaral misses with her bow. Furmella misses with 2 sling bullets.
The creature that was singing turns visable and is in the form of a beautiful naked woman. She gives us a pout and turns into a shark, then dives down 120’. Brogan and Enius do not pursue her. They carry/help the passengers back to the boat. The captain thanks us profusely. He tells us we are heading for Fort Blackwell. Fort Blackwell and Fort Green Rock are the only forts on our journey that are not held by pirates.
Day 6
A friendly ship is spotted, it pulls along side of us to trade. It is full of exotic animals. Brogan is very upset (what is new). The Gnome shipmate, Urol, tells Brogan they will get theirs because he sent some of his pets over with Miss Crazzle, his raven animal companion.
Day 9
Brogan, Cori and Solaral are sleeping on deck when three zombie pirates speaking Olman climb aboard ship. Cori gets paralyzed. Brogan gets sickened, then paralyzed. Solaral kills one. The captain kills another one. Enius climbs up from below deck and kills the last one.
Day 13
We finally make it to Fort Blackwell. The ship will be docked for 24 hours to load fresh supplies. Solaral stays on board because she hates humans. The rest of us get off the ship for solid ground to get a good meal and some company.
Day 14
The ship finally sails out of the bay and into the ocean. We turn south for the first time.
Day 18
Ships have a tradition of hazing the new crew once they get their sea legs. Today is the day. The hazing takes the form of being dragged behind the ship for a spell. While the carpenter is being dragged behind the ship he is attacked by a shark. Brogan jumps over board and turns into a Dolphin before he hits the water. Enius jumps off the boat and runs across the water toward the shark. Brogan tries animal empathy and is attacked for 4 HP. Enius tries animal empathy with the shark also. Furmella slings the shark for 1 HP. Brogan attacks and misses. Enius lifts the carpenter out of the water and carries him back toward the ship.
Alobar is watching the action from the railing with the rest of the crew when he is back stabbed for 22 HP. He can’t tell who attacked him. Solaral looks for the attacker, but she can not see anyone. Skald is the closest person to Alobar, but he does not have a weapon in his hand. Brogan and Enius return to the ship. Brogan tells Cori to follow the scent. Cori follows the scent down into the ships hold. She finds Rowyn hiding in the hold with a bloody dagger.
Session 11 - November 7, 2007
Alobar, male half-elf wizard
Brogan, male human druid
Cori, wolf animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger
Enias Fal, male human binder
Furmella (NPC), female Halfling spellthief
When last we met, Alobar had been backstabbed. Cori followed the scent down into the ships hold. She found Rowyn hiding in the hold with a bloody dagger.
Rowyn is wearing leather armor and carrying a rapier covered in Alobar’s blood. She looks really, really pissed. “It’s YOUR fault I’m in this position!!!” She is cursing at us and telling us that we’re going to suffer.
Cori tries to bite and trip Rowyn, but misses. Furmella decides she’s going to see if there’s anyone else we need to worry about. Solaral fires her bow and Rowyn is lightly injured. Rowyn keeps screaming obscenities. Brogan casts a spell. Rowyn attacks back and gives Brogan the smackdown, although she only causes two points of damage. Alobar runs downstairs and joins the party. About time, too.
Now it’s Rowyn’s turn…She steps five feet and looks like she’s dancing the “Dance of Anger” at us. Solaral feels a strange sensation while watching Rowyn dancing and finds herself falling into a hypnotic state…Solaral’s mind is freezing up. Solaral is frozen in place, although aware of everything that is going on around her, but she can’t move.
Enius moves closer and strikes Rowyn with his large magic warhammer of Eurynome. It’s big and magic, and that’s all we really need to know. He misses.
Cori attacks and misses! Furmella moves in and positions herself getting ready to fire at Rowyn. Solaral tries to move, but can’t seem to. Brogan shoots his arrow and misses. Alobar turns the corner at the bottom of the stairs and fires magic missiles. He is able to cause some more damage to Rowyn, moving her into the mostly injured range. Rowyn is giving Alobar the evil eye.
Rowyn attacks Enius, but misses thank goodness. Enius activates his heroic destiny. Nothin’ happened. Solaral attempts to move, but can’t. Brogan casts magic fang on Cori, hoping to add to her attack and damage. Alobar attacks Rowyn with magic missiles again, and causes some more damage. Go Alobar! Enius attacked and missed.
Cori attacks and FINALLY gets her. It’s that magic fang. Woohoo!! Rowyn’s throat is ripped open by Cori and she collapses. She is dead. About time, too. Furmella casts detect magic and we find that just about all of Rowyn’s gear is magical. She is also very smelly. Eww.
Enius goes and talks to the ship’s captain and lets her know that we have slain the stowaway, who did all the bad things that have happened to us since then. She is more than excited to hear about Alobar’s role in killing Rowyn. Enius would like to adhere to the proper etiquette of the seas when it comes to the disposal of the body. The captain advocates dumping the body overboard, which Enius does. The captain explains to everyone on board what has happened. The people are amazed at the exploits of Brogan, Enius and, of course, Alobar. Solaral gets no accolades because she was under the spell of Hold person. Dammit.
Day 19 – We pass the coastal fort of the Scarlet Brotherhood.
Day 20 – The priest is desperately ill – we need to help. We all troop down to the priests’ cabin and see that he is indeed desperately ill. He’s skinny, gray, the world is too bright and soft around the edges. There is a strange, pulsating growth in his belly. It’s about the size of a softball. Whatever this is, it is magical and seems to be unusual in some fashion. It is “outsider” magic. Alobar casts a spell, which stops the pulsating. Brogan, Enius and Alobar decide to cut it out of the priest, however, they cause him unbelievable pain, but seem unable to extract the growth from the priest. Brogan has caused almost mortal damage, but he’s able to heal his wounds. However, the pulsating starts up again, and it’s faster. Solaral looks around at everyone and says “Umm, it’s growing.” Sure enough, we all look and see that it is indeed growing. How long has this been going on? A sailor responds that when he went on watch the night before, the priest was just starting to get sick.
The pulsating growth has a bluish tint. Alobar recognizes chaos…the magic is chaotic outsider. The captain insists that we try to keep the priest alive, and we tell her that we will do our best. She insists that it’s not contagious, and wants us to keep the priest alive at all costs. She doesn’t think that any one else will catch this. Solaral notices that the egg-like growth is moving. Brogan and Alobar keep trying to help the priest and … Brogan manages to get the egg out of the priest. He’s got a big blue egg in his hand. “S##~, get this off the boat right away” says Enius. “It’s a demon thing – get it off the boat!!” It’s a slaad. Brogan throws the egg into the water, and Alobar casts fireball. The egg is destroyed.
“So, uh, how the hell did THAT get in YOU?” we ask the priest. Enius leads the interrogation and intimidates the priest into giving us the information we want to know. Enius catches the priest in a bunch of lies. Clearly. He’s very nervous, and he doesn’t realize that we know that he’s a lying sack of … Enius bluffs and the priest breaks down and confesses. “All I did…” there’s still some type of lie. “I was delivering a package to a temple in Blackwell. I was paid. It was in a sealed box to a shrine of Hieroneous…” He doesn’t seem to have a clue about how the egg got into him.
The captain has seen enough and calls an end to this episode. She puts a hand on Alobar and says “we want to keep you around.”
Alobar goes to the captain and asks if we can take away the priests’ holy symbol so we can remove him from his source of power. The captain is flattered by Alobar’s attention and agrees to take the symbol. She locks it up in her cabin. The captain says that there will be a dunking on the next day.
Day 21 – Dunking day
Enius is first in, and he walks on water. Furmella goes in next and is bobbing like a little cork. Solaral goes in next, and here comes a large shark. The shark is about 15 – 20 feet long. It moves WAY fast. Furmella attacks the shark by sending a crossbow bolt her way. She causes one point of damage, just pissing it off a little bit. Enius slides down the rope, lands on the water and runs over to Solaral. Because Enius has the aura of Eurynome, all animals instantly have an initial attitude of friendliness.
Cori: “Woof.” Brogan jumps into the water and turns into a dolphin. Solaral climbs onto Enius’ back. The shark has halved the distance, so he’s about 125 yards away. Alobar casts fireball at the shark, and the shark is now completely pissed. Its dorsal fin is a bit singed. The shark has now closed the distance and is right next to Solaral and Enius. Furmella reloads and fires the crossbow and misses. Enius moves toward the ship and manages to close about a third of the distance between Enius, Solaral and the ship.
Cori: “Woof.” Brogan, now a dolphin, heads straight towards the shark. He attacks and hits the shark. We’ve managed to cause a wee bit of damage to this shark. “Sharks! Sharks!” More sharks appear. (They look remarkably like wolves (this is a reference to the figures used).) Alobar casts a magic missile at the shark. We hear the thwang of an arrow, and it hits the shark. Those on board turn in surprise and see that Skald has fired an arrow at the shark.
The other sharks are closing in on Brogan. Furmella fires her crossbow, putting the finishing touch on the shark, which rolls over and sinks. Enius moves closer to the ship. “Woof, woof.” Brogan swims up beside the ship, turns back into a human and grabs a trailing line that is hanging off the side of the boat. Alobar readies just in case there’s an attack on Solaral or Enius.
The sharks are even closer now, just short of Enius and Solaral. Furmella launches a crossbow bolt at the sharks and hits. Skald fires two arrows and both hit the sharks as well. We hear two more arrow sounds and the other two half-elf scouts have fired as well. Enius pulls us out of the water and we clamber up the side of the boat. Brogan is pulled onto the boat as well.
While there is still dunking to be done, but since Alobar is next to go in, the captain decides to call it quits for the day.
Day 22 - We’re about 800 miles from Sasserine, and about 300 miles from Fort Blackwell. Things might be cookin’. We near the mouth of the Havekihu river, and we encounter our first bout of bad weather. We anchor near the river to take advantage of the access to fresh water. It’s nighttime and a thick fog springs up. Fog banks like this often occur along the coast in this region, but the thickness is really oppressive. This isn’t your ordinary London Fog. The crew listens intensely for reefs and breakers to make sure that we’re staying parallel to the coast. Pretty soon the fog is so thick that we can’t even see the Blue Nixie, which is only a little ways away. Lavinia decides to anchor for the night, and when the crew of the other boat shouts this information to us, it sounds strangely muted. We have a strong feeling of oppressiveness.
First watch is Brogan & Cori, second watch is Alobar and Furmella (is that the captain lurking behind the mast staring at Alobar?) and third watch is the Lord of Darkness and the Lady of the Dance, Enius and Solaral.
In the middle of the first watch the entire ship lurches as if it has struck a reef. Everyone from down below pops up, but the crew tries to assure everyone that nothing has happened. The captain tries to figure out what has happened. The ship is listing slightly to the port (which is left, just in case you didn’t know). We decide to investigate on the port side (Brogan, Cori and Solaral). We see that something is clinging to the hull – some huge flotsam. As we look at it, all of a sudden the debris looks like it is moving. A translucent arm (sorry, a protrusion) comes snapping out of the debris and tries to wrap itself around Brogan and yank him into the water. Brogan is being pulled overboard and has lost 25 points of damage. Brogan gets pulled down over the ship and into the debris.
Everyone else is scrambling to the side of the ship. Furmella appears with her crossbow. There chaos and craziness, people are yelling and screaming and running around like chickens with their heads cut off. (“Squawk!”) Mass hysteria!
Alobar races up on deck, casting mage armor on himself with his wand. Enius comes up top as well. He sees that there may be other bodies in the flotsam. Enius readies … Cori whimpers. Brogan draws his weapon and slashes at the creature with his scimitar. He hits it, causing some light damage. Brogan takes out a potion. Solaral fires an arrow at the flotsam, causing 6 points of damage. (woohoo!)
Another arm comes flying through the air with incredible speed and attacks the first mate. “Ooof!” He goes flying backward and we hear the sickening sounds of bones break. He is thrown overboard on the starboard side of the ship, landing with a splash. He is clearly dead. Furmella starts walking down the side of the ship and pulls out alchemist fire. Alobar casts a fireball and causes some more damage. It seems to have some minor damage. Enius tosses his salve of slipperiness toward Furmella, who catches it. Brogan drinks his potion and takes out another one. Solaral fires an arrow and hits it, causing two measly points of damage. The arm comes flying up again, hitting the captain, causing 24 points of damage. She gets snatched down into the water with Brogan. Furmella applies the slipperiness salve to Brogan, who begins to feel himself sliding through the creature. Alobar casts scorching ray and hits, causing 20 some odd more points of damage. It is now at orange level, which is not the same as the Homeland security threat level, which is high risk. Enius casts deeper darkness, which makes it difficult for the creature to hit Enius. Brogan turned into a dolphin again. The creature sends up an arm at Solaral, hitting her, causing 26 points of damage, and she gets pulled down into the water as well. Furmella pours the alchemist fire out and causes some damage. The fire continues to burn. The other rangers and crew have shown up and are all pulling out their bows and weapons. He casts mirror image, which generates additional images of Alobar, in the hopes that should the creature attack again, it will go for one of the fake Alobars.
Enius takes out his crossbow and begins to load it. Brogan casts call lightning, which calls down a five foot wide bolt of lightning. The bolts won’t come until the next round. Solaral strikes at the creature with her sword, which nearly sticks but she is able to pull it out. The creature sends out another limb, attacking the tomboy that likes Enius so much. She is pulled overboard and looks near death.
Furmella attacks again, causing some more damage. She dumps another alchemist fire, and clambers back up on the ship and pulls out her crossbow. We are now up to 74 points of damage on the creature, and it is finally up to red. Alobar uses ray of enfeeblement on the creature, but he missed. Enius will try to shoot his crossbow, but he misses. It goes flying upward and back over his head. He says something about this being the first time he’s ever used it. Huh, go figure. Brogan’s lightning bolt appears, causing some more damage to the creature. It’s up to 94 points of damage now. And the flowers are still standing. Brogan swims over to Solaral and casts cure light wounds on her. Solaral takes out her other blade, slashes at the creature and misses. Three different arrows sail into the creature from the ship, and they cause 14 more points of damage. It’s down 108 points, and still hanging on. It makes a grab for Cori, who is behind cover because she’s lower to the ground. It missed, luckily. “Rowr?”
Furmella fires with her crossbow, hitting the creature. 111 points. Alobar fires his ray of enfeeblement at the creature, it’s down some strength points. Enius fires his crossbow again, hitting the water and missing the creature. Brogan calls down more lightning, causing 9 more points of damage. There’s a great crack and the flotsam spreads out and sprays all over the place. “Why am I all drippings with goo?” We can now move freely, and see there are six bodies in the creature. There are rings and gauntlets in the creature, which Furmella confirms are magical. The ring is a ring of mind shielding. The gauntlets are gauntlets of ogre power.
The captain has been significantly healed, the tomboy seems to be able to recover as well. Brogan helps out with the healing. The cleric/priest of Hieroneous refuses to help Brogan heal any of the injured folks on board. Brogan is very suspicious about this cleric and his bona fides.
The fog lifts. We make it through Day 23 with little incident.
Day 24 – we see remnants of ancient civilizations. There are lots of ruins, crumbling ziggurats, etc. Lavinia has promised to stop at a major ruined city at some point in the future. We are keeping an extra eye on the “cleric”. Something about him just doesn’t seem very priestly. He’s kind of shifty.
Day 25, 26, 27 all pass with no event.
Day 28 – we pass a patch of shoreline with a huge blackened valley…CHAOS!
Day 29 comes and goes.
Day 30 we pass another coastal fort. There’s discussion of mooning.
Day 31 is a yawner.
Day 32 we see more ruins.
Day 33, 34, 35….Yawn. Hey look, more ruins. Hey look, more shoreline. Sea as far as you can see.
Day 36, we’re about halfway…so John (the DM) claims. Two weeks have passed since our encounter with the flotsam ooze. Lavinia has promised the other gnome Urol that we will visit the ruins. He is fascinated with poisonous critters. He has an animal companion, a raven, called Miss Crazzle. He’s a navigator. We take a look at the ruins. There are lots of crumbling buildings and vines. The ruins have been picked over by looters in the past. No other crew members set foot on shore, because it’s dangerous. Of course, Lavinia wants us to accompany the gnome to keep him from getting in too much trouble. He is an important member of the crew. The gnome received a map from a one-legged sailor (beware sailors bearing gifts), and he wants to explore a previously unexplored portion of the city that the sailor had unsuccessfully tried to find before. The gnome shows us the map, and the ruins are only an hour’s brisk walk into the jungle. The gnome says the 8 legged-lizard that attacked the sailor was a basilisk, and we can get him no problem, but the gnome has stone salve that can help us.
Enius summons the vestige of Haagenti, whose touch can cause confusion and he is immune to transformation. He feels ashamed and bashful in the presence of beautiful creatures.
We find five mirrors and everyone gets one except for the gnome and Enius. We troop into the jungle, not knowing what may face us. Brogan casts greater magic fang on Cori. We have a relatively easy trek through the ruins. The ruins are decorated with ancient images of men and animals.
We get to what looks like a big hill with trees on top, but it’s actually a pyramid temple that is rather large. It’s ziggurat-like, with platforms on each level. At the base there are several entrances. There are images of pouncing and stalking cats on the ruins, and there are stuffed cats and unweathered statues dressed in armour. Hmm, could be something interesting that we might have to kill.
As we are discussing what to do, an eight legged lizard appears. Egads, it’s the basilisk! Everyone cover their eyes. Brogan casts a summon animal spell and takes a five foot step away. Furmella moves quickly to flank it. Solaral steps back and hovers behind a column, putting away her sword and pulling out her bow and arrow. Cori readies an attack for any enemy that comes into range. Alobar is going to avoid looking at the basilisk as much as he can, and he casts a fiery burst at it, but it misses. Enius moves and pulls out his long spear and stabs the basilisk. He hits and causes some damage. The basilisk turns his attention to Enius. Enius turns to stone.
Brogan summons three wolves, and they stand between us and the basilisk. They move to attack. One hits and causes some damage, bringing it up to nine points of damage. Brogan calls lightning. Furmella preps to sneak. Solaral leans out from behind the column and shoots an arrow at the basilisk. She hits it, bringing the basilisk up to 16 points of damage. Woohoo! Cori is holding ground. Alobar casts magic missiles, bringing the damage up to 25 points. Enius resumes his normal shape. He steps up five feet and touches the creature, hoping to cause confusion. It is confused for one round. The basilisk tries to move back into the rubble, but it is backed into a corner.
Brogan’s lightning comes strikin’ down…it causes yet more damage. It’s pretty badly wounded. Brogan is going to keep not looking at it. Furmella moves a few feet, flanking the creature. She attacks with her dagger, causing 12 more points of damage to the creature. The creature keels over and dies.
Brogan has five minutes left of lightning. Which of the two paths do we want – wide or narrow?
Session 12 – November 14, 2007
Run away! Brogan flees from the bright light and dies.
What the hell happened here? We are still under the ruins, and discover the golden statue of some bat god.
Session 13 – November 20, 2007
Alobar, male half-elf wizard
Brogan, male human druid
Cori, wolf animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger
Enias Fal, male human binder
Furmella, female Halfling spellthief (Furmella is now a PC – Congratulations, Furmella!)
We are still under the ruins.
A gibbering mouther found you very tasty and temporarily drained one point of constitution from you when one of its mouths grappled you. It had damage reduction 5 so even though you hit it almost every time, you did almost no damage. We leave the ruins and continue sailing.
A few days latter we were collecting fresh water when a 7 headed water hydra attacked the ship. What's the deal with multi-mouthed creatures? We were able to hit and damage it at will, really very impressive until on its turn it would rapid heal 19 HP per turn. We prevailed, thanks to Enius diving underwater and beating its unconscious body to death. But the captain was killed in the attack. We sailed on and have stopped at the last outpost before heading into open water. We can buy non-metal supplies and magic. So we have to think about what we might need for the rest of the adventure.
After killing the hydra Brogan swan around the lagoon and found a nifty cloak (cloak of the manta ray) we though would look nice on you. Now we have three characters that can fight in the water.
Session 14 – Sargasso Sea
Alobar, male half-elf wizard
Brogan, male human druid
Cori, wolf animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger
Enias Fal, male human binder
Furmella, female Halfling spellthief
Day 55 - We dock at the island of Renkrue the last friendly island before we sail into open water. The suspected evil cleric Conrad Horst wants to stay on the island. we are happy to be rid of him. Skald wanders off to export the interior of the island. Chief Xfuhoney (sleeps with sound) is the friendly and shrewd leader of the village. Furmella and Enius’ Fal offer to trade him +1 chain mail and a MW long sword. He offers 12 100gp pearls, 1 CMW, 4 CLW and 2 spider venom vials. We find a local merchant to trade a statue, some ivory and jewelry for 5 more 100gp pearls. We split the pearls, give Enius’ Fal the CMW and the rest get the CLW. Furmella takes the poison.
We all spend the night in the village except Solaral who prefers her own company on the ship. The next morning two replacement crew have been recruited, a couple of young islanders eager for adventure.
Day 61 - We sail past the island of Ruja. Steep cliffs all around make this island difficult to land on, we sail on.
Day 63 - A flock of Wyvern’s swoop down to investigate our ship. The fly off after a few minutes.
Day 65 - Sailing in open water on the Vohun ocean we encounter our first storm. The next day when the storm has passed we find we are separated from the Blue Nixie. Brogan flys a search pattern 25 miles out looking for Lavinia’s ship. He finds nothing. On one of his flights he spots something green very large and flat - out at the horizon around 100 miles distant. He does not have time to investigate and must return to the ship.
Day 69 - We awaken to a odd sensation, something feels wrong for a ship sailing on the open ocean. We hear commotion on deck and go to investigate. The Sea Wyvern is stranded on a blanket of sea weed that stretches as far as the eye can see. The air is still and the place has an unnatUrol calm. Looking in the distance we see the wreckage of other ships that have gotten stuck in the sea weed, not an encouraging site. 600’ off of our port there is a wreck that looks like it has been stuck for a year or more.
Brogan flys around and sees the Sea Wyvern is stranded a half mile from the open ocean. The Sargasso extends beyond the horizon in the other direction. Enius’ Fal lights an oil vial and throws it into the Sargasso. It slowly burns a hole 10’ deep down to the ocean. Brogan notices that the weeds start to grow back immediately. He estimates the hole will be filled within 24 hours.
The party walks across the Sargasso to the closest ship. There is a hole in the side that opens the deck below. We enter the ship and head for the captains quarters. We cut our way back and find an empty room except for a log book balanced on a rotting board. As we enter the book falls into a hole in the floor and starts to sink into the ocean. Furmella jumps in and grabs the book before it is lost forever. As she climbs out she is attacked by 3 arm thick vines with hand like leaves. The vines are 20’ long, very quick and strong. The vines grapple and do slam damage 1d6+7. Alobar casts a fiery burst on the hole and the vines do not appear effected. Enius’ Fal is successful dealing damage with his war hammer and Solaral is able to cut the vines with her light blades. Both Brogan and Solaral get grappled by the vines and suffer lots of damage before the vines are destroyed.
The log book we found tells a somber tail of this doomed ships fate. Will it be a fate we share? They were not able to make much progress cutting their ship free, the weeds dulled the cutting tools and grew back quickly. They sent a few scouts to explore the Sargasso who never returned. At night they would hear voices and feel eyes watching them. Several days later the captain took a few crewmen to look for scouts. They did not find them. When they returned to the ship the crew was gone. That evening the scouts returned, but they were not the men that had left days before. There bodies had been taken over by something evil. That is were the log ended.
We return to the ship motivated to free it and get to open water. Alobar used his fiery burst every turn (Hurray for Reserve Feats) and the crew cutting around the ship to free it from the weeds move the ship 60’ after half a days work. At that rate it will take 50 days to free ourselves. We don’t have that much food.
As the sun sets a fog comes up and limits visibility to 30’. We setup three watches of 4 people each. On the first watch four humanoid figured approach the ship. We hear voices from all directions repeat over and over “Outsiders.” Two vines join in on the attack. The vines quickly dispatch two crew members before all of the party can get on deck. The plant monsters have AC 19 and do 1d6+4 damage and are able to slip through tiny holes in the desk unencumbered. They are damaged by Alobar’s fire bursts, but arrows and stones do not seem to do much damage. During the battle someone casts dancing lights – Urol!
Day 70 - Brogan casts diminish plants, Enius’ Fal binds with a vestige that allows him to cast a breath of fire 50’ every 5 rounds. These combined with Alobar’s fiery burst allow the ship to move 230’ for a total of 290’, only 2300’ to go. We could double the movement if Brogan casts a second diminish plant spells, but that will leave us more vulnerable at night. As the sun sets and the fog thickens again we spot the shape of humanoid plant monsters in the distance. It will be another long night.
Session 15 – Sarsasso Sea, part 2
Day 70 continued - As night descended and the fog started to come up we spotted shapes on the horizon. Furmella and Enius’ Fal took the first watch with several crew members. The rest of us were sleeping on deck or in the captains quarters to be able to quickly join the inevitable fight.
Three plant men approach the Sea Wyvern from starboard. Furmella spots then and sounds the alarm to wake the rest of the ship. One of the plant men slips through the hull of the ship below deck, the other two come on deck and are killed. Solaral goes below deck with one of the elf rangers and kill the third plant man that was attacking the carpenter and his wife the baker. The baker is already dead. Avner Meravanchi and his servants are hiding and did not lift a finger to help.
The Gnome, Urol, who was sleeping in the crows nest casts dancing lights and sends four lanterns 100’ off the starboard side. He spots 11 more plant men. He sends the lanterns clockwise around the ship and uncovers 9 more on the port side and 6 at the bow. The Gnome realizes that it is one mind (or a collective mind) that is controlling all of the plants.
The plant men approach the ship and attack in uncoordinated waves slipping effortlessly through the hull and deck. The carpenter is killed. Skald, one of the elf rangers and one of the natives are dropped below 0, keeping Brogan busy and preventing him from inflicting lots of damage.
29 plant men have been killed. The rest of the night is quiet. And we are now 7th level!!
What to do next? Do we take the two dinghy’s and walk to the open ocean or do we go looking for the dark heart of this place that captain of the doomed ship spoke of? And what should be done with the Lord and his worthless men? My guess is that each night more plant men will attack.
Session 16 – Sargasso’s End
Alobar, male half-elf wizard 7
Brogan, male human druid 7
Cori, wolf animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger 7
Enias Fal, male human binder 7
Furmella, female Halfling spellthief 7
Day 71 - The party decides to stand and fight. At first light Brogan turns into an eagle and flies toward the center of the Sargasso. The rest of the party follows on foot, including the 2 Olman brothers who just joined the ship’s crew, with the exception of the captain, first mate, Lirith, cabin boy and of course Avner and his underlings.
We travel for hours before we spot Brogan circling ahead over an area of tall fern like plants surrounding a ship. The forest the monk spoke of in the doomed ship’s log? Brogan changes into human form and tells us a ship is at the center of the waste. Unlike all of the other ships this one has skeletons on the deck. As we approach the Thunderer we start hearing the now familiar “Outsiders”, just this time we hear a very powerful voice say it.
Brogan casts Anti-plant shield. Everyone climbs the 5’ onto the deck and 3 plant men ooze through the deck and attack. Brogan fearing he might disrupt the anti-plant shield stays next to the ship. As he scouts around he notices 100’s of plant men in the distance surrounding the ship. There will be no escaping this battle.
Melee ensues, but one of the plant men does not engage in combat. A vine appears and grapples Enius’ Fal for major damage. Urol uses a pearl of CSW (these pearls, 2 x healing and 1 x bless, usable 1/day, become extremely valuable to the party) to keep Enius’ Fal from dieing. Furmella steals Brogan’s call lightning strike and casts it on the vine. We kill two Plant men and the vine. The one plant man that did not engage in combat is left standing. It summons another vine that promptly attacks Cori.
Brogan summons 2 hippogriffs that attack and kill the plant man and it’s vine. We send Cori and the 2 hippogriffs below deck, but they return immediately. The party ventures down and finds a room with 7 closed doors. We start at the set of double doors and work our way counter clockwise. We find nothing. We work our way toward the bow. There we find a hatch to the hold. In the aft hold we discover a hole in the bottom of the ship that goes down into the seaweed. Three plant men appear and two attack the Olman brothers. The party moves into the cover of Brogan’s anti-plant shield.
Furmella climbs on the ceiling and moved 20’ forward to look down the hole. She sees a 20’ tall vile pregnant plant abomination. She calls lightning on the creature. Alobar moves to the edge of the hole and casts fireball at the evil festering tree. She disappears into the seaweed walls of the hole and reappears next to Furmella. Furmella and Alobar retreat back into the shelter of the anti-plant shield.
Brogan summons a lion to attack it. Alobar casts fiery burst. Furmella calls lightning but it has no effect. Every party member with a ranged weapon is attacking her while the Olman brothers work on the couple of vines that have surrounded the anti-plant shield. The pustulating mass kills the lion in one turn with her two attacks. It also appears to have damage reduction 5 hp. Furmella steals a scorching ray from Alobar and casts it. The evil thing moves toward the party and attack us through the plant shield. Solaral casts entangle to bind the seaweed queen tight to one spot. Alobar casts invisibility on Furmella and she sneak attacks stealing 10 points of electricity damage reduction from her. Enius’ Fal calls lightning on her and does no damage.
The evil pregnant queen of the seaweed eventually screams and drops. All of the plant men and vines that were surrounding us loose there animation. Water starts rising up the hole. The ship is starting to sink. The three party members that can cast detect magic cast it and everyone in the party starts looking for any loot. We find a scroll case, a strong box and a shield before the hold floods. As we get on deck we see the Sargasso start to break up. There is no way we can cross it back to the Sea Wyvern.
We all grab loose pieces of lumber and prepare a crude raft. Brogan flies back to the Sea Wyvern to direct our rescue. Once on the ship we find the strong box has over 400 PP. The shield is a +1 animated tower shield and the scroll has 3 x 5th level arcane spells.
Day 75 - We spot the Isle of Dread and start to sail south toward the settlement. Of course it’s never that simple as a storm hits us before we make land fall. We are tossed about as the party helps the ships crew keep the ship on course. 4PM Alobar falls overboard and Brogan rescues him. 5PM Alobar goes overoard and Solaral rescues him. 8PM we run aground on a reef. A giant eel does not like us invading its home and rears up to attack. It’s the size of a purple worn with poison spines. What will our heroes do now?
Session 17 – The Isle of Dread – Jan 17, 2008
Alobar, male half-elf wizard 7
Brogan, male human druid 7
Cori, wolf animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger 7
Enias Fal, male human binder 7
Furmella, female Halfling spellthief 7
Day 75 Cont. - When we last left our heroes, they were sailing south along the east coast of the Isle of Dread toward the settlement at Far Shore when a tropical storm pushed them onto a reef. A 30’ Masher reared up and prepared to strike.
Alobar casts Fireball and Enius’ Fal calls lightning. Lirith gets attacked by the Masher and is put in red. Brogan summons a creature and then commands the Olman brothers to attack. The cabin boy falls overboard and is never seen again.
Alobar casts scorching ray. Enius’ Fal calls lightening, Furmella hits it with 2 sling stones and the beast drops to the deck and slips under the water to it’s final resting place.
The storm is still blowing and we are able to free the ship from the reef and continue south. A rogue wave hits us and rolls the Sea Wyvern on it side. All of the passengers and crew are in peril.
The next morning we wake on the beach of the Isle of Dread. Our ship is hulled on a reef 200’ off shore. We gather and do a head count. Besides the party of heroes the only survivors are:
The Captain (First Mate) - Skald
Lirith
Urol and Miss Crazzle, his raven animal companion
And of course Avner Marivanchi
We start to get organized when we are attacked by a T-Rex. It charges out of the forest at terrific speed and attacks Cori. It hits and grapples her in its mouth. Solaral casts entangle. Brogan and Furmella move away. Lirith moves to flank it. Alobar levitates up 20’.
Alobar casts fiery burst, Urol casts Faerie Fire. Solaral arrows, Furmella slings, Enius’ Fal calls lightning. Brogan changes into an eagle and charges the T-Rex. Cori is swallowed for 24 HP of damage and is taken to -34. Avner runs away.
Brogan is hit and grappled by the T-Rex. Urol casts Obscuring Mist. Furmella, Solaral and Enius’ Fal move to the edge of the mist to do their ranged attacks. Alobar uses a wand of Ray of Enfeeblement. Brogan changes shape into a badger and the T-Rex drops him. Brogan burrows 10’ underground. Lirith has flanked it and attacks with her crossbow.
Brogan heals himself, Alobar enfeebles, Enius’ Fal calls lightning, Furmella slings, Solaral arrows. The T-Rex turns and attacks Lirith and grapples her in its mouth - she appears lifeless in its maw.
Brogan summons a huge crocodile, a level 4 summons. It’s like watching Godzilla and Mothra go at it. We continue to do ranged attacks until it finally drops, having taken 186 points of damage. We all get 990 XP. We cut open the T-Rex and recover Liriths +1 leather armor, 400GP Sapphire nose ring, 150GP silver bracelet and 500GP Royal Signet Ring. We also find 3 potions; CMW +5, cats grace and jump. We also take a finger bone of Lirith’s – we can use it to reincarnate her. She’s a good NPC – kick’s butt and soaks up hit point damage.
Brogan flies to the ship and returns with a dingy. We return to the ship in time to see three large land birds feast on the remains of the T-Rex. Brogan calls a new animal companion, the spell casters memorize spells, Enius’ Fal tries to bind and fails. Urol draws us a map as we prepare to travel over land to get to Far shore. He tells us stories of the island. Dinosaurs and Olman tribes that animate their dead. Cannibals, spider demons, demonic water creatures under the island and remember to avoid the fog.
Guy,
Thanks for reading. Yes, the group is a bit psychotic. The player for Enias Fal, the binder, is actually a psychiatrist. I play with him in 2 groups, and he favors neutral characters with evil tendencies, from obscure classes. It makes the game interesting! In this campaign, Enias is Chaotic Neutral - most of the others are Chaotic Good.
My character is Furmella. I was overseas when the group started this campaign, and picked her up when I returned. Later, I pick up Solaral as a character, too, when her player had to stop coming, because of the time commitment. She was the one who wrote the first 10 or so journal entries.
Session 18 – The Isle of Dread – Jan 31, 2008
Alobar, male half-elf wizard 7
Brogan, male human druid 7
Keller, fleshraker dinosaur animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger 7
Enias Fal, male human binder 7
Furmella, female Halfling spellthief 7
We moved off through the forest on our way South. We managed to avoid most of the terror bird patrols. We did get spotted by one patrol of 3 birds and killed them. We came to a big open area - a crater. A diplodong dinosaur was being pursued by 6 terror birds. Urol asked us to intervene, so we did, and killed them. Then we went into an old Olman temple. A very old spider woman asked for stories, and told us it wasn't safe to spend the night. "For I's was watching us" or "Four eyes was watching us." and some other spooky stuff. She told us to take the underground path thru the hills, so we headed off. Still no rest. We came to an area with 3 nests of terror birds, including a giant 15' bird. We killed it and 3 or 4 others. We found a cloak of charisma +2 and a rod – a harrow rod, that can fire a cone of acid, 3 times per day. We are resting in the cave mouth. Brogan can summon a unicorn, and it can fight and heal us afterwords, and has a magic circle against evil active at all times. Very cool.
Session 19 – The Journey of Many Spears – March 16, 2008
The party continued thru tunnel to the other end, but encountered a throne room, with a pool and a skeleton on the throne. The skeleton had a magic spear thru it (+2 spear). It didn't attack when we took the spear. The pool had a blue rod in it.
Went up stairs to a big cavern which we had to cross, over a river. Two gargantuan centipedes attacked us. We killed one and drove the other one away.
Went to a room with a pool. A black pudding attacked us, but Brogan's summoned unicorn took the brunt of it. We killed the pudding. No treasure - CHEAP!
Next room had a door (to outside, we later learned) with two locked columns - red and blue - with notches for rods. So we are now looking for a red key rod.
Went thru a series of crypts - a lot. Find a secret door, and are attacked by 3 mummies. Solaral, Alobar, and Enias are hit with mummy rot, but we kill the mummies. Avner is hit into unconsciousness and we leave him and forget to help him. Oops! By the time we return to check on him he has died. There is nothing left of his body except dust. We are a good party, mostly chaotic, and we really did forget about him, in all the excitement.
Our resources are depleted. We decide to return to the black pudding room and hole up for the night. On the way back the mummy rot curse kicks in and Solaral, Brogan, and Enias all suffer from constitution and charisma damage. Alobar is reduced to a charisma of one! Yikes, not a pretty sight. We realize that these characters are going to suffer similar damage every 24 hours. We need to solve this problem ASAP or characters are going to start dying. Scouring thru our spell books we realize we don't have any spells that will remove the curse. Not good.
We decide the only solution is to continue on thru the dungeon in hopes of finding a way to remove the Mummy's Curse from our dying party members. Yes, this is meta-gaming. With limited spells, reduced hit points, and significant ability damage we soldier on.
Go thru secret door and find a sarcophagus - trapped! Everyone leaves room and Furmella tries to disable - miss! Spears come out of floor. The rest come in room to lift lid off sarcophagus. Did we miss something? Wait... Trap still works - so spears come out again! We are all caught in the trap! @$&*#%!! Furmella is unconscious and the first mate is dead! (John, the DM, found this really funny) Furmella is healed, and disables trap again. Success! Inside the sarcophagus is a skeleton with a red rod and a ceremonial dagger.
We return to the door room. Rods used to open door. Leads to beach outside. Nothing left in the dungeon. Characters dying. What do we do? We must have the answer. We identify a few magic items, they offer no help. What about the ceremonial dagger? We don't even know if it is magic (ran out of detect magic by the time we found it). One more identify spell from a scroll. It a dagger of Break Enchantment, usable 1/day. Just the thing to remove a Mummy's Curse.
Brogan stabs Alobar with the dagger (sorry), the curse is removed. It takes a few day of rest to remove the curses and cure the ability damage, but we have survived our Journey of Many Spears.
Session 20 – March 20, 2008
We left the cavern and headed out on a path along a cliff along the beach. Rested for the night, but our Alarm spell sounded and everything went dark. Happened after midnight, too. It was stones, with Darkness cast on them. We spotted something big and flying around. Brogan conjured 3 x griffons, but they didn't find anything. We start to sense that we were being watched.
There is a growing sense of dread and apprehension, as we move during the day. We are ambushed by 4 Gargoyles. After a short fight the Gargoyles are killed. Brogan has been travelling in the shape of a grizzly bear. Alobar casts fly on the bear and Brogan follows their scent to their "nest." We got some good gold, gems. The DM had to roll up the treasure, because apparently the STAP authors did not anticipate a flying, sniffing bear. I don’t know why not.
As we turn a bend we see an Olman villager up ahead on the path. As we approach he stabs himself in the chest with his dagger and plunges into the water below. The bear huffs in disbelief. Even a bear can tell that was just some type of illusion and its part of a trap. However, adventurers are a curious bunch. Solaral jumps off the cliff, wearing the cloak of the Manta-Ray and plunges into the surf below. Furmella runs down the cliff face to help. They search for the villager. He is no where to be found. The bear snorts (if you speak bear he was saying I told you it was just an illusion, now keep an eye out for the trap.)
We search the area where we originally saw the villager. Nothing to be found here except an Olman elevator system. There is an empty village on the beach below, and the trail continued above us. Furmella detected a trap on the elevator, to make it fall. We pretended that it got us, but no one came. Oh well, it was a good idea. Nothing in the village, so we continued on the trail.
The feeling of apprehension continues to grow as we continue to travel along the coast.
We are once again ambushed by 4 gargoyles, including their gargoyle king. The results are the same. After another quick battle 4 gargoyles are destroyed. The Gargoyle crown is a powerful magic item and is given to Solaral. We also retreive +2 bracers (Urol) and a ring.
We proceed inland to a fork in the path. One path turns and leads inland, the other continues along the coast. Urol suggests we stay on the coast. We travel a short distance more and find the path ends. Our only way is to backtrack to the inland path. As we follow the new path into the jungle we come to an area of mist and decayed trees. The sense of dread and apprehension that has been following us continues to grow as we move inland. With 2 druids and a ranger we find it easy to head south along animal trails. There is no way we could get lost in a place like this. We come to a clearing with some ruins in it. These ruins are old, but they are not Olman. There is a corpse hung upside down in the clearing. The corpse speaks to us. Some doom and gloom about spending eternity with him. What did you expect, a cheerful corpse? Enius is having a bad day and undead just piss him off, so before we can question the corpse he hacks it to bits. Now it’s really dead.
We begin to worry about our situation. Brogan turns into an eagle to scout a way out, but quickly finds that all paths lead back to this clearing. We are stuck.
We bed down for the night among some ruins hoping to solve the riddle in the morning. We are attacked during the night by 3 bar-lguras who teleport in on us. They attack causing considerable damage. One teleports away with Urol. Brogan tries to summon help, but is attacked and loses his spell, suffering significant damage. Enius manages to blind one of the bar-lguras. Furmella steals a spell from the blind bar-lgura, as well. Brogan turns into a badger and retreats under ground. Between the blinding and some significant damage we are able to drive them off.
Session 21 – March 27, 2008
Alobar, male half-elf wizard 8
Brogan, male human druid 8
Keller, fleshraker dinosaur animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger 8
Enias Fal, male human binder 8
Furmella, female Halfling spellthief 8
Summoned unicorn healed us, and then detected evil. Followed evil currents then disappeared. Detect magic failed re: currents. Brogan (in the shape of a 6,000 lbs Rhino), w/Solaral’shelp, followed tracks in same direction as currents. Came to hillside w/2 baboon faces that were cave openings. Furmella had silence and invisibility cast on her, and ran inside on walls using slippers of spider climbing. Found pile of Urol's equipment and recovered prayer beads and armor bracers. Found bloody hand print from gnome on floor. Found a human skeleton chained to wall, with writing in Olman all around it. Found boulder trap. Found big brass doors with monkey motif. Furmella leads everyone else inside, and we cast spells on each other and got ready for combat. Barkskin & Mage Armor on the Rhino, Enlarge Person & Sonic Weapon on Soleral. Furmella put her hands in the two monkey heads on the doors (AM I THE ONLY ONE THINKING DEMOGORGON!!!!!!!!!!!?????????????) which drew blood - 13 hp - and the doors opened!
It was an empty room with two thrones, two candles on an alter, and two mirrors. The Rhino storms in knocking over one the candles and bumping into mirrors. Brogan in Rhino form has this overwhelming need to run into things. No other exits. Solaral lit a candle and looked in a mirror - TRAP! Solaral was trapped in the mirror and a simulacrum (?) of her attacked everyone. The Rhino tries to grapple & pin Solaral, no luck the enlarged & sonically enhance elf does considerable damage to Brogan. Alobar dispelled his giant size cast on her, and Furmella dispelled the sonic weapon cast on Solaral's sword. Melee ensues and Solaral is killed. The real Solaral pops back out of the mirror, all okay, but her combat magic is gone. DANG!
Furmella drops her weapons, lights the other candle and looks in the other mirror. We all ready actions. Same thing, this time it's the bride of chucky. Readied actions include multiple attacks from Solaral, 2x Claws & bite from the Raptor plus a gore from a Rhino. Furmella is immediately killed and the real one pops back out. We light both candles and the surface of the mirror turns into a whirling pools of light (just like stargate). Yeah!
Furmella & Solaral quickly run through the mirror. The Rhino charges ahead followed closely by his faithful Raptor. Enius & Alobar think we are all crazy to go thru the mirror, but see no other choice and follow.
We pop in a cavern, with overhanging ledges and a large pool of human blood in the middle. 3 bar-lguras are there and attack as the first two come thru the mirror. Combat ensues, as the rest of the party comes thru the mirror one person per round. Solaral can't do damage to overcome their DR 10 (this fight ultimately pushes Solaral into Barbarian and Hell Reaver levels). Furmella climbs the sides of the wall and focuses on stealing resistance & spells from the Bar-Lgurars. She succeeds in stealing acid resistance from all 3, and fire resistance from 2. Brogan, in Rhino form, comes thru the mirror and charges around the room, but keeps missing. Rhinos have bad vision apparently. The Bar-Lguras teleport us and themselves around the room. They keep ganging up on Solaral. At one point she is unconscious lying face down in the pool of blood. However, she was just playing dead (David forgot about the damage reduction). She is able to heal herself with the prayer beads and reenters battle. Enius manages to line up all three for a shot with the harrow rod. He kills one and wounds the other 2. Furmella has stolen all their acid resistance. The Rhino charges thru the pool of blood, sending blood flying and gores one to death. Alobar & Furmella finish off the last with magic missiles and sonic crossbow bolts.
Session 22 – Demogorgon’s Temple – April 24, 2008
Alobar, male half-elf wizard 8
Brogan, male human druid 8
Keller, fleshraker dinosaur animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger 8
Enias Fal, male human binder 8
Furmella, female Halfling spellthief 8
We had just finished slaying the 3 x bar-lguras. So we opened up the steel door next to the mirror, and a mob of baboons came out and overran us. Enius was immediately overrun taking significant damage. Furmella and Solaral manage to sidestep the worst of it. Enius, while being swarmed by dozens of evil baboons, slips on his hat of disguise and takes the form of one of the baboons. He blends in with the mob and is able to avoid taking more damage. Brogan turns into an eagle and lunches bolts of lightning at the mob. Keller wades into the mob and shreds a few baboons to gory pieces. Alobar blasts the mob with a fire ball and some other area affect spells. After inflicting significant damage on the mob, we break it up. Solaral, Furmella and Keller are able to slay the remaining individuals. We are now almost completely out of all magic and daily use items, and almost all of our healing potions.
We enter where the mob came out of, and it was a throne room, with a prisoner pit in the middle, full of scraps of disgusting things. Furmella searches the pit. It is not a pleasant experience. The pit has a tunnel leading back to the big room with the pool of blood that we just exited. We don't search, since we don't want to lose our remaining buffs.
We go back to the big room, and take the 2nd door. An undead looking naga is there. We attack it, but miss, and so close the door! It opens the door and attacks! It has "displacement" but Furmella steals that effect, and we go to town on it. When it dies, it turns into a "normal" naga. There are two large magically sealed double doors leading out of the room. Brogan turns back into a Rhino, his last form change of the day. He immediately has a desire to smash down the doors. But before the Rhino can smash the doors down Enius deals with the doors by using Knock from a scroll.
We continue thru a room with fountains and down a corridor. The corridor is lined with statues. They start howling as we approach each statue. We have triggered the alarm. It’s not like a 6000 lbs Rhino is going to sneak up on anyone anyway.
We find a second set of doors at the end of the hallway and Brogan immediately starts to bash them down. They are surprisingly resistant. Enius uses another Knock spell and we get in.
Next room is a big temple room, with a statue of Demogorgon. Urol is chained up and hanging over a 10' bonfire in a pit in the center of the room. The chain starts to lower. Enius casts levitate on Urol to keep him above the flame. We are attacked by the boss bar-lgura, who was invisible! He whacks Solaral into unconsciousness. Furmella steals some resistances. The bar-lgura then whacks Furmella into unconsciousness, too! Brogan can’t get around the fire pit, he’s too big. Brogan summons a dire wolf, which really helps. Alobar steadily damages the Bar-lgura with his fiery burst. The Bar-lgura now attacks Alobar. Alobar is now down to 2hp! Finally, we kill him, and he whispers "Demogorgon."
Was that it?
We take his stuff: a ring, bracers, boots, and cloak. We rescue Urol from the bonfire. We heal Solaral (to only 1 hp) and Furmella. But before we can retreat the statue animates and attacks. We are so screwed! Run away! We start to retreat. Brogan summons another dire wolf and the two wolves gang up on the statue and are able to trip it and cause significant damage. We are lulled into a false sense of safety and end our mass retreat. Solaral is only at 0 hp and can’t attack without falling back into unconsciousness. Brogan has used his last significant spells to summon and a griffon and a crocodile. We all attack as best we can, struggling to overcome damage reduction. The statue rips one of the wolves to pieces. The 2nd wolf’s time is up and the summon spell ends. Keller takes significant damage and is down to just a few hp. Maybe we should have run away while we were able to. We keep attacking and finally we kill it. We are 9th level!
We still have to rest 1 or 2 or 3 days and leave, and then find our way out of the temple, read the Olman writing by the dead prisoner, and leave and find our way out of the mists.
Session 23 – We Reach Farshore – May 7, 2008
Alobar, male half-elf wizard 9
Brogan, male human druid 9
Keller, fleshraker dinosaur animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger 8 / barbarian 1
Enias Fal, male human binder 9
Furmella, female Halfling spellthief 9
We Reach Farshore - It's underattack!
No real surprise there.
We rested inside the temple for 2 nights, and healed and searched. The bar-lgura boss had: cloak of resistance +1 (Brogan); Bracers of Armor +2 (Solaral); Boots of Levitation (Solaral); Ring of the Ram (Furmella). We also found - using Furmella's new Arcane Sight ability: a potion of haste (Solaral); +2 spellstoring warhammer (Enias); rod of metamagic - silence (Alobar); +1 buckler w/improved agility (Brogan); Wand of resist planar alignment (CL-20, 40 ch) (Alobar); some gold and silver.
We left the cave and the mist had dissipated, so we could find our way again. And Urol was eventually okay, too, but may have a touch of PTSD. We made our way to the big wall, and knocked. Some natives came out, and we managed to pantomime that we want to go to Farshore. They took us thru a couple villages, and to canoes, and paddled us out to the island where Farshore is. The colony is under attack!!!
A pirate caravel is docked. We come up behind it. Buildings are on fire, and smoke is everywhere. We also see the Blue Nixie. We see:
1) a building on fire with screams coming from inside. No pirates.
2) an unconcious man with glass bottles lying in the sand. No pirates.
3) a band of pirates smashing into a chapel, with screams from inside.
4) a half-orc chasing a red-haired woman around.
5) A group of colonists with swords, facing the pirate captain and getting whacked
6) A group of colonists fighting the fire in a big building. No pirates.
We also see fighting further into town. We are still in our canoe, approaching the town.
Alobar casts haste on everyone. Brogan races forward in Dolphin form and Solaral races forward with the Cloak of the Manta Ray, after casting barkskin. Brogan casts Quench on the fire in #6. This was the colony's Hall of Records. Brogan then begins summoning water elementals to assist in fire #1. He changes into a rhino, casts Sleet Storm on the building, then smashes in the door, and turns back into a human to help a woman inside get out. She is Hilda Swenten, a farmer. The water elementals help put out the remaining flames. Solaral races to shore and runs toward the pirate leader in #5. She stops at #3 to cast Entangle on the pirates and slow them down. Keller makes it to the pirate captain before Solaral - he's freaky fast - and slices and dices him. Solaral runs up, rages (go new class ability!!), and gets in the killing blows, and kills 2 of the pirates from #3 who run over to help the captain. Enias is in heavy armor, and keeps running around, but always arrives too late to stab someone, or make them sad. Furmella runs toward the half-orc in #4, hits him with a bolt, and he runs off to help the pirate captain, too. We have saved Ruby the weaver. Furmella chases him, gets in another bolt, and kills him. Alobar takes to the air, casts a few magic missiles, and then watches the boats for any activity, and is ready to kill any crewman/pirates necessary. He sees towards the other side of town that Lavinia and the Jade Ravens are fighting the remaining pirates. Urol runs over to the man in the sand in #2 to heal him. He is Professor Hederick. They begin talking like fellow eggheads. Finally, Keller, Solaral, and Furmella take down the remaining 3 pirates, who are entangled next to the church in #3. We have saved 12 defenseless colonists who were inside the church.
Everybody in town thanks us. Lavinia is happy to see us. The Jade Ravens are not. We loot the pirate captain, Slipknot Pete, for: 2xpotions of cure mod wounds (kitty); +2 keen rapier (Enias, who gives the +2 ss war hammer to Solaral, and the +1 rapier he had to Furmella); +2 leather armor (Brogan); 1,835 gp in coins and gew gaws. We also get a pirate ship!!!!!!!!!!!!! Its ours, and WE WILL KILL ANY COLONIST WHO SAYS OTHERWISE. We now have two ships, if we can get the Sea Wyvern back. Our own fleet. Furmella calls dibs on "Admiral." Brogan points out that an “Admiral” should have more then 1 rank in Sailor.
We go to a meeting of town council. Lavinia, Prof Hederick the man from #2, Hilda Swentan the herbalist (is this the same woman from #1 above?), Olvar the town militia leader, and Maravanchi, who is Avner's uncle.
Town population is now 240, after 10 KIA.
Jade Ravens capture a pirate named Lefty. Our new ship is the Hellfish. Papers say the Crimson Fleet is coming to the area, and want to sack Farshore while they are here. The pirates we killed are from Rat's End (wherever that is). All came (so is Rat's End empty - can we sack it, in turn?). Slipknot Pete had told the pirates that they have 2 months to sack Farshore and flee before the Crimson Fleet shows up. We must prepare for the attack. We can:
1) Improve and fortify various parts of Farshore
2) Get Olman help from Tanoroa village
3) Get help from other tribes of Humanoids in the jungle
4) Find Rakasta weapon caches - ancient people long dead
5) Repair and return with the Sea Wyvern and its supplies
6) Go to tar pit and get tar (how hard can this be?)
Solaral got a lot of new magic to play with and kill human men with. She is very happy.
Session 24-25 – Defending Farshore, parts 1 and 2
Alobar, male half-elf wizard 9
Brogan, male human druid 9
Keller, fleshraker dinosaur animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger 8 / barbarian 1
Enias Fal, male human binder 9
Furmella, female Halfling spellthief 9
Lirith (NPC), female goblin (nee human) fighter 3 / rogue 3 (where did she come from?)
This entry combines two sessions.
We have 60 days or so, to save Farshore from the Pirates. The initial tasks listed by the town council are:
- Improve and fortify various parts of Farshore
- Get Olman help from Tanoroa village
- Get help from other tribes of Humanoids in the jungle
- Find Rakasta weapon caches - ancient people long dead
- Repair and return with the Sea Wyvern and its supplies
- Go to tar pit and get tar (how hard can this be?)
We researched and found out we can get 4 workgroups (WG) from the colony. We can also improve many buildings, areas, etc, that might improve the defense, or might improve the colony, or both. Also, there is an election for mayor in 5 weeks, and the candidates are Maravanchi and Lavinia.
Brogan improve the reef with plantgrowth into a real defense against sea attack, forcing ships to weave to enter the harbor.
Brogan awakens two dolphins, to serve as sea sentries and early warning.
Brogan casts reincarnate on Lirith’s finger, now that we have all the components. She comes back as a goblin! She elects to stay with us, too.
We use a WG to prepare the Hellfish.
We set two WGs on building two more towers around the walls, so now there are four towers. We also use WGs to improve the town walls (wooden) and transplant thorny plants around the walls, and Brogan uses plantgrowth to make large thorny hedges that reinforce the walls.
We send one WG away on the Blue Nixie, back to Sasserine, to begin setting up trade and enticing others to come. The ship and WG will not be around for the fight.
Alobar works to help…somehow. But he keeps failing.
Brogan works to help Telda Swinton, the herbalist.
Brogan uses spells to help the farmers with their crops.
We go find the tribe of troglodytes that lives on the island. We kill their chief and a number of his warriors, to demonstrate our power, and strike a bargain with the others. Alobar will permanently enlarge two of them, for their help against the pirates. Also, they get to eat the pirate bodies. As well, any time a colonist enters their area and takes trees, the Trogs get a certain amount of gold.
The town has been losing supplies in a warehouse – a large amount. We use area awareness spells to determine that an ethereal filcher is responsible. We find its lair but fail to kill it. We send a WG to get the stolen supplies back, and Solarel, with Alobar’s spell-help, sets an ambush for it and kills it in a warehouse one night. It did steal a wand of magic missiles from Alobar, which we haven’t found.
We try to help Lavinia with the mayoral election, by persuading many to vote for her. Furmella persuades some, Solarel persuades some to not vote for Lavinia (an accident), and Enias persuades a bunch to vote for him, by giving the best speech ever given in the history of the world (+47 on the Diplomacy check, getting +20 from the vial of diplomacy), thus stealing votes from Maravanchi. With help from one of our vials of diplomacy, Lavinia gives a pretty good speech herself, and wins the election. We only have a couple vials left, I think.
After the election, we head to the big island, and the village of Tanoroa, to enlist their help vs the pirates. Urol comes with us. As we arrive, a bonfire bursts into fire bats and begins attacking the villagers. A big fire bat looks at us and says “Return what you have stolen!” and the two volcanoes explode or rumble. We know it is referring to the bat idol we found on the mainland on our way here, in a big pit.
We kill the bat things, and convince the old woman who is chief of the village to promise to aid the colony against the pirates, if we can return the bat idol to its shrine within the volcano. The old woman, and about 100 warriors accompany us to the entrance, but they stay outside. We cast Endure Elements on everyone in the party and head in. It takes about 2 hrs, but the way is easy to spot, and no one attacks.
We come to a temple with a large bat statue. Alobar puts invisibility and fly on Solaral, who will return the idol to its resting spot above the large bat statue. Shazam!!!!!! Before Alobar is able to complete the spells, 6 more fire bats, and a large, ugly, man-bat thing appear. Furmella attacks, and wipes out 5 of them with the harrow rod, but then they attack her, and she is almost toasted. Brogan moves to heal Furmella, the others move forward, and then Solaral flies to the appropriate spot and puts the bat idol in its niche. The monsters stop attacking, and the man-bat speaks.
He thanks us for returning it, and offers everyone 1 thing from the collected treasures present - hidden behind the large bat statue.
Solaral gets a mithral breastplate +4. Furmella gets a luckstone +1. Lirith gets a flametongue. Brogan gets an amulet of natUrol armor +3. Alobar gets a Pearl of Power 4. And Enias gets a tooth, thats a major artifact, but only gives him +4 to resist grapple checks. WTF!!!! What a crappy artifact.
We return to the village, and they promise us their aid, and the aid of all 7 villages (or is it 8?) against the Scarlet Fleet.
Session 26 – Defending Farshore, part 3 – June 19, 2008
Alobar, male half-elf wizard 9
Brogan, male human druid 9
Keller, fleshraker dinosaur animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger 8 / barbarian 1
Enias Fal, male human binder 9
Furmella, female Halfling spellthief 9
Lirith (NPC), female goblin (nee human) fighter 3 / rogue 3
We talked to the Olman about gaining access to the tar pits. They told us that a big T-Rex, perhaps the largest dinosaur on the entire island, used it for its territory. So we decided to kill the T-Rex. Brogan turned into an eagle and scouted ahead. He saw the T-Rex eating a tribe of phanatons at the tar pits, so we decided to help them . It was big – 4x4 or 5x5 – gargantuan.
Alobar cast fly on himself, and enlarge on Solaral. Solaral cast Resist Energy-acid on herself (in case she was swallowed) and she cast hide from animals on herself, Enias, Kellor, and Lyrith.
Brogan than cast summon animals to distract the T-Rex from the phanatons, and then cast hold animal on the T-Rex. It worked!!!!! For a round, at least. Then it breaks free.
Keller, Lyrith, Enias, and Solaral rushed forward to engage it. Lyrith popped it a couple times with the Harrow Rod for acid damage. Alobar cast vitriolic orb, and then began a series of rays of enfeeblement. Kellor was slicing it, Enias was stabbing it, and Solaral raged and hit it with the spell-storing hammer, which had three rays of enfeeblement. Brogan summoned a couple huge alligators to distract it. Furmella shot it with sonic crossbow bolts. Eventually, it fell down, doing some damage to the party, after we drained its strength to 0. We had also knocked off about 380 hit points in damage. Enias encourages us to "make friends" with the big Dino. Brogan tries to use animal empathy, but it's apparent that the big T-Rex only see us as a meal. It's survival of the fittest. We kill it.
Furmella spotted a magic dagger in its foot. Was this making it angry? No way to know. The dagger turned out to be a cold iron +2 keen dagger. Solaral is now using it.
We agreed to accompany the phanatons to their village, 2 days away. We sent an animal messenger to Lavinia, telling her the tar pits were open. The phanatons gave us a feast, and agreed to send some Rangers to help fight the pirates. They also told us that the Rakastas were not far away, and they used to trade with them. They took us to a Rakasta temple, but it was deserted, with signs of a battle only a couple years ago. The walls had pictures of jaguar-headed people.
In the temple, Furmella is constricted by a gargantuan snake! Bad pattern here on animal sizes! It knocks her for 30 hp (she only had 40 max)! She’s toast because its grapple is, like, +50! Everyone rushes forward to slice the snake, and Brogan’s hold animal works – again! We kill it, but no treasure. We find a hole, behind an illusion, with a tunnel leading thru an expanding spiral, to a small chamber. Inside is a feathered serpent (coatl?). We talk to it, and it says the rakastas (the jaguar-headed people) were slain by the “skinwalkers” from the central plateau. It confirms the skinwalkers are still around. It tells us “do not delay like they did. Do not tarry.” We take this to mean to get back to Farshore. The coatl gives us access to its armory, with all masterwork weapons: 40 warclaws, 20 longbows and 600 arrows, 10 shortspears, 10 longspears, 30 javelins. Also there are 3 magic weapons: +2 wounding warclaw, +2 evil-outsider-bane longbow, and a +2 holy greatsword. Solaral took the warclaw, Lyrith the longbow, and Enias the greatsword. We return to Farshore on day 45.
Session 27 – Battle for Farshore – June , 2008
Alobar, male half-elf wizard 9
Brogan, male human druid 9
Keller, fleshraker dinosaur animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger 8 / barbarian 1
Enias Fal, male human binder 9
Furmella, female Halfling spellthief 9
Lirith (NPC), female goblin (nee human) fighter 3 / rogue 3 / scout 1
Or “the Saga of Furmella Quickfoot, who wasn't quite quick enough”
Okay. Not what we could consider a sterling session for the girls. Once again, the DM deliberately sacrificed one of David’s female characters with a fireball. This is 2 for 3 (referencing a previous campaign). Does Solaral get it next!?
So we waited for the pirates. Brogan and Solaral cast 18 and 9 trap spells, respectively, to cover the beach. Alobar created 5 x fly potions, 1 each for Solaral, Furmella, Enias, Lyrith, and Urol, and some scrolls. Enias and Furmella recruited 5 more members of the militia, bringing them to 23. We got word from the porpoises that 5 pirate ships were sighted, and we prepared ourselves. The Hellfish was anchored in the middle of the reef channel, and Brogan used his feather token of anchor to keep it immobile. The party set up on the Hellfish, and we left all the villagers on shore. Bad move, as it turned out.
The pirate ships seemed out of sorts upon spying the Hellfish and reef (which Brogan had earlier grown with plant growth), and dropped 3 longboats full of 10 pirates and 5 sailors each, to scout it out. The pirates had a lot of jewelry and masterwork weapons. Yo ho ho! We got into a ranged duel with them. Furmella and Lyrith fired from the crow’s nest, Enias and Solaral from the deck. Alobar and Urol kept out of sight, to make the ship’s crew seem ordinary, and Brogan swam around as a dolphin. Unfortunately for Furmella and Lyrith, the crow’s nest made a great target, and pretty soon 30 pirates, and then 10 ballistas (2 per ship) started in on them. The pirates only got 1 x crossbow shot per round each, but so did the ballistas, but there were a lot of them. Pretty soon, the crow’s nest gang was taking heavy damage, and had to leave it.
Brogan uses control water or control weather or something to create a giant whirlpool that begins sucking up 3 of the pirate ships.
Furmella and Lyrith started preparing the longboat to leave (should have had it in the water already, and a villager crew standing by - hindsight is clear), and a giant mega fireball hit the ship. 50 points of damage. Furmella hits 1 on the save, and is smacked to -20. Oops! And all her magic has to make a save, so the Harrow rod, potion of CSW, ring of the ram, and +1 leather armor, are all destroyed. She and the rest of her stuff go down with the ship – 2 fireballs later. Everyone else gets away. The fireballs are doing 45-50 points of damage per, which at 3.5 avg for a d6, makes me think they are 15 HD fireballs, which you would get if you were at least a 10th level caster using the empower metamagic feat.
While this was going on, Solaral had jumped in the water and using the cloak of the manta ray, swam to the longboats. Enias beat her to them, however, by using fly, enlarge and greater invisibility from Alobar, so he could move straight over the reef, instead of thru the channel like Solaral. Enias used some weird vestige feats to get whirlwind attack and dance of death, and started lopping of heads with his enlarged +2 holy greatsword (5d6 +7 per hit). He killed 20-30 dudes, and Solaral only killed 5. She was pissed. But that’s 45 pirates down to Davey Jones’ locker.
So we linked up on shore. Everyone got enough XP to go to 10th level. Except Furmella. If she is recovered and reincarnated, she will be a dwarf (we did the roll now, to see), at 8th level. We’ll see. At least it’s a +2 Con, and no minuses. But she would lose the +1 size bonus to attack and AC.
Now we either await attack, or go out to the ships and take ‘em. Stay tuned.
Session 28-29 – Battle for Farshore, parts 2 and 3
Alobar, male half-elf wizard 10
Brogan, male human druid 10
Keller, fleshraker dinosaur animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger 9 / barbarian 1
Enias Fal, male human binder 10
Furmella, female Halfling spellthief 9 KIA
Dulcinea, female human swordsage 7 / rogue 4 (who is this? Keep reading, but don’t get attached.)
Lirith (NPC), female goblin (nee human) fighter 3 / rogue 3 / scout 1
The Crimson Fleet pirates are attacking in the north and south. 3 large constructs swim ashore in the center, are slowed by the snares on the beach, but eventually make their way to the village and begin to tear down houses in the center. We see a snake-thing (Yuan-ti) and human with wings. The Yuan-ti appears to be casting some very large fireballs.
Suddenly, 5 vrocks fly at us and attack. All 5 of them cast mirror image, and there are about 40 images floating around. Brogan summons 5 x hippogriffs and 2 x eagles and they begin to pop the images. The vrocks land, form a circle, and begin dancing – the dance of disaster, or something. We manage to kill one, and break the circle, as Enias does his own dance of death, with the +2 holy greatsword. He is quickly becoming our #1 killer. Solaral figures she can slit his throat while he is sleeping, if it comes down to that. He’s human enough, so it probably will.
The vrocks start attacking, and they each get 7 attacks. Its not going well for the party. Even when a vrock is killed, it explodes into spores, that attach and do damage each round, and they can screech that stuns. Solaral is stunned and drops her weapons. Dulcinea, a traveling sword sage/rogue arrives, and distracts the vrocks enough to enable the party to regroup, and strike back. Sadly, Dulcinea is killed when she is stunned and spored, as well. Her new nickname, by popular acclaim, is “30 seconds” because she lasted 5 rounds. We learn that holy water will kill the spores. Urol is hit into unconsciousness. Eventually, the vrocks are defeated.
The snake-thing (Yuan-ti) has headed to the north, and the human with wings has headed south. We head north, to try and kill the caster, the Yuan-ti. Solaral has taken a potion of fly, and fly’s up to engage with Brogan, and an air elemental that Brogan has summoned. The Yuan-ti hits Solaral with a ray, and she gains 3 negative levels. WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Solaral hits the Yuan-ti with two hammer strikes, draining 13 points of strength, and the Yuan-ti collapses. Brogan tries a coupe-de-grace, but his eagle form is too weak. Damn, Brogan. You need a stronger flying form. Solaral does the coupe-de-grace and takes its head.
The party continues with the battle on the ground, killing a bunch of crimson fleet monks and pirates, and saving Lavinia and the Jade Ravens. Again. From the Yuan-ti, we get a wand of enlarged fireballs (30 charges), +1 shock dagger, and cloak of charisma +4.
Lavinia gets everyone together, and we head for the battle in the South. Our side is winning, but the winged human is Vanthus! And he is fiendish! He is now a fiendish aristocrat fighter something tempest. He has a lot of classes, and is a CR-14. But we kill him anyway. Really, Enias does – even though we have to heal him up from unconsciousness in the middle of battle, while distracting Vanthus. Solaral swings like 16 times, and hits him once, even though she was raging. Next time, she will use only 1 weapon, not two, and use a light weapon to get the dex bonus. Lesson learned.
From Vanthus, we get a +3 longsword, +1 keen sickle, +3 mithral shirt, ring of protection +2, Amulet of health +4, boots of speed, shadow pearl (bad!! Must destroy), 1200 gp in rings.
The three ships in Brogan’s whirlpool are destroyed.
We get a “triumphant” victory, the maximum possible, from all the victory points we accumulated. YESSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We are now 11th level.
A near naked human male swims ashore, all bedraggled. Who is he? Malaforte, shipwrecked, rescued, and imprisoned by the Crimson Fleet.
Everyone in the party gets 5000gp payment from the pirate loot the town takes.
Session 30 – Gluttony and Dread -
Alobar, male half-elf wizard 11
Brogan, male human druid 11
Keller, fleshraker dinosaur animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger 9 / barbarian 1 / hell reaver 1
Enias Fal, male human binder 11
Ugly Annie (cohort), female human (half-Olman) swashbuckler 9
Dulcinea AKA “30 seconds”, female human swordsage 7 / rogue 4 KIA
Malaforte, male human warlock 9 / hellfire warlock 2
Lirith (NPC), female goblin (nee human) fighter 3 / rogue 3 / scout 1
We have a new task from our mysterious, female human monk employer – find the source of the shadow pearls. We believe a good place to start is the Scarlet Fleet encampment on the NW of the big island. Also, Lavinia asks us to destroy the one shadow pearl that we have. We do so by burying it in a rock, and releasing it. Before we leave on our new mission, however, Alobar upgrades/creates magic for 51 days. We have lost a lot of cash and magic, but our remaining magic is more powerful – weapons and armor up to +3. Enias gains a cohort, as well. Ugly Annie, a half-Olman, 9th level swashbucker. Malaforte, a warlock who was a shipwrecked captive of the Crimson Fleet, also joins our band.
When we are ready to go, Lavinia gives us a boat and crew to take us to the shipwrecked Sea Wyvern, and another mission as well. It seems the pirates had made a deal with a Dragon Turtle, known as Emros the Glutton, near their cove. We are to make a bribe/pay the Glutton to leave Farshore shipping alone. We have 4xlarge chests of treasure to give him, and some magic pipes to play, to draw him to us.
We head for the Sea Wyvern, spotting a diving Roc and some sharks attacking a squid, but we don’t get involved. No XP for us, it seems. Wait, yes! We get attacked by a swimming dinosaur – a plesiosaurus, I think? It snatches up Enias in its mouth, but once again, that crazy dude pulls one out, and manages to escape. We do manage to kill it, and we don’t lose any crew. A banner day!
We get to the cove, and summon the Glutton. Negotiations go well (a diplomacy check result of +36 will do that), and he takes the treasure, and agrees that the Sea Wyvern is safe for 1 year. Apparently, he wants more treasure. What an ass. But Lavinia warned us it was only the start of negotiations. The Glutton does give us directions to the pirates’ dock, so we go there.
We find a rotten dock, leading into a grotto, with a horrible smell. Malaforte, Keller, and Alobar take sick, and can’t do much. We meet some diseased-looking Trogs, and Malaforte attempts to intimidate them. It seems to be going well, but they want us to take treasure to their masters and we have none, so they grow suspicious, and attack. The party has to defend itself, while the three sick ones can only watch. All of the Trogs appear to be clerics, too, which isn’t very helpful. We kill all four, and their horrible, diseased, dinosaur pet. We also kill some green slime in a jar. They are all wearing magic bracers of armor +1, and have magic black poultrice, which keeps their strange disease at bay. We set a trap for a relief party, but none comes, so we rest, and follow the tunnel in the back of the grotto.
We walk for 5-6 hours, and come upon a gate. We smell trogs, and everyone either makes their save or gets a delay poison cast on them. We open the gate – CREAK!!!!!!!!!!! (its rusty) – and attack! S@&* – they are all clerics, too! We kill 12 of them. Keller & Brogan are both paralyzed (hold person). Brogan rolls a 1 3x in a row on his will save. Brogan, in bat form, drops to the ground. Keller almost dies - he is hit into unconsciousness, but the great DM god rules that natural weapons aren't melee weapons, and so the 3 or 4 trogs around Keller's body can't coup-de-grace him. We all know this was a gimme on the DM’s part. There is a whole village, but all the trogs are almost dead – lying in their huts, diseased, barely able to move, waiting to die. So we don’t help them. We find a trog, healthy, who is a captive, and an Olman captive. The Trog is a cleric of the Trog god, and will help us to find the Lords of Dread, who make the shadow pearls. He says the Lords are not human and not Trog. His description is tentacly. Aboleths or Mind Flayers? The Olman is 12th level, and will help us too. Yes!! He had met the priest of Pelor in Farshore, and was impressed by him. The Olman is a Totemic Demon Slayer prestige class. He says the mysterious skin walkers are half Olman-half demon. We get 12 more sets of Bracers +1 from the dead Trogs, and 6 x potions of cure moderate wounds.
Session 31 – Lirith the Scout, RIP (Again)
Alobar, male half-elf wizard 11
Brogan, male human druid 11
Keller, fleshraker dinosaur animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger 9 / barbarian 1 / hell reaver 1
Enias Fal, male human binder 11
Ugly Annie (cohort), female human (half-Olman) swashbuckler 9
Malaforte, male human warlock 9 / hellfire warlock 2
Lirith (NPC), female goblin (nee human) fighter 3 / rogue 3 / scout 1
Jokara (NPC), male Olman ranger 5 / totemic demon slayer 7
Irgzed (NPC), male Troglodyte cleric ???
We have a new, probational name for our group: The Sea Wyverns! We’ll try it out for a bit and see how it fits. I suspect it is a popular name for this particular group, if you know what I mean.
We go down the hole on a lift, and begin to trek further into the Underdark. The only tracks are Trogs. Our friendly evil Trog, Lagozid, says he has only been this way once. We come to a large cavern, full of pools of water, that Lagozid says is dangerous, but he doesn’t know why. Just that the trogs hurried past the pools. We send out Lyrith, and find out the air is full of some gas, and difficult to breath. We must hold our breath. As Lyrith moves out, and we watch, a humongously large black pudding (gargantuan) that had been hiding up against one of walls, moves into the room. Lirith fails to realize just how deadly this encounter will be and simply moves away (without using her ethereal jaunt or even her well trained tumble skills). The pudding reaches out and grabs her! And its acid dissolves her +3 chain shirt! Crap! It also does 42 points of damage with that one hit. Brogan turns a large chunk of the cavern ceiling into mud causing a cave in. However, this thing is big and it shrugs off the debris. We start attacking, but with ranged only. Lyrith succumbs, and is killed, but most of her stuff is alright, because the pudding didn’t swamp her, but came for us. It does destroy her bracers of armor +2, though. Alobar summons a wall of fire to surround it, and Brogan summons a huge fire elemental. Jokara fires arrows, but they do nothing. Solaral pops the pearl of bless. Malaforte hits it with eldritch blasts. Eventually, we kill it. We gather Lyrith’s stuff, and a finger bone, and continue on. (She’ll be a human again if we reincarnate her – good roll, Brogan)
We come to an even bigger cavern. We are high on the wall, and must traverse a several hundred foot long path to get down. Lagozid says there is a roper, here, whom the trogs give a captive too, to feed on, each time they go and come back (so two captives, total, per trip). Brogan summons a unicorn, but it pops out before it can find the roper. As we proceed down, a rope (gee, I wonder from what) lashes out, and grabs Alobar! And it drains strength! It’s coming from below, so Annie jumps on it, and slides down to the roper, and attacks! He’s large size! The roper slashes out with 6 total arms, which all drain strength, latch on, and pull us to his mouth. Solaral and Jokara attack, but Jokara took 13 Str damage, and can’t hit crap! Annie attacks, and Enias attacks. Alobar runs away. Keller waits. Brogan flies and summons a giant eagle. Malaforte blasts it, or tries to, but it has SR! A 24 doesn’t penetrate – crap! We later find out it has SR 30! WTF! Way too high. But we kill it, and find in its gut 43 pp, 5 x 100 gp garnets, a 1200 gp scepter, a +1 disruption flail, a +3 cloak of protection, and a staff of frost with 24 charges (CL-10).
We rest and heal for 2 nights to get our Str and hit points back.
Session 32 – 3 Deaths
Alobar, male half-elf wizard 11
Brogan, male human druid 11
Keller, fleshraker dinosaur animal companion
Solaral, female wild elf ranger 9 / barbarian 1 / hell reaver 1
Enias Fal, male human binder 11
Ugly Annie (cohort), female human (half-Olman) swashbuckler 9
Malaforte, male human warlock 9 / hellfire warlock 2
Lirith (NPC), female goblin (nee human) fighter 3 / rogue 3 / scout 1 KIA
Jokara (NPC), male Olman ranger 5 / totemic demon slayer 7
Irgzed (NPC), male Troglodyte cleric ???
So we continue across the cavern and down the tunnel. Suddenly the ground underneath Alobar and Brogan starts to boil and erupt. We all move aside and get ready. BOOM!!!! It’s a Purple Worm! All right! WHAT!!!!!!!!! No one has a purple worm figure! David has one. Tim has one. Todd has one. But John doesn’t, and he hadn’t told anyone to bring one. Bummer.
So the worm comes up under Enias and attacks! It bites and stings him, and grabs him in its mouth. The rest of the party attacks, but Brogan is in Bat form, and can’t tell Keller to attack, so he waits. Also, we don’t think the worm is evil, just neutral, so many of our powers won’t work. But we aren’t sure, and can’t tell. Dang it. Solaral is hit with the stinger, and takes poison, and Str damage. Alobar hits it with a globe of acid. Brogan summons a large earth elemental and it begins hitting the worm. Malaforte hits it with a couple Eldritch blasts. Enias dimensional jaunts out of it’s mouth, and we kill it on the 3rd round. When we figure out what we are doing, we can really bring it. Brogan has summoned two creatures, and the second one, and Solaral, and Jakara, don’t even get hits in before its over. We find 9 x 20 gp gems in its gut. We move on.
After 10 miles this day, we rest for the night, and heal. We keep moving on the next day.
After 4 miles, we come upon the scene of a battle. 2 x Bebelith demons have been killed. One is turned to stone, and one is crushed upon the ceiling. Solaral and Jakara go ahead and make sure the stone one can’t be revived, if you know what I mean. They use the hammer. As we are examining the scene, we dimly see something flying toward us, and then it happens! Brogan, in mid-air, turns into a human and drops. Our magic light goes out. All of our magic goes out! But those with dark vision (The Trog, only, now) see two beholders! CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They have come back to the battlefield to collect the stone bebelith. And no one has been told to bring a beholder figure! And we have them!
Obviously, they are hitting us with their anti-magic cone center eyes. We can’t do much but try to spread out. At half speed, since its dark. The first beholder attacks, and turns Keller into stone!!! Crap! Jokara is hit with a charm, and fails save, but is told in common to stand aside, and he only speaks Olman. Ha! The charm is useless. We make a number of saves, but then Alobar is hit with a disintegration ray, and takes 26d6 worth of damage. Needless to say, he turns into a pile of dust. CRAP! Also, I am using a lot of exclamation points. But I can’t help it. Tim K will be pissed, we think. We are so dead. We laugh for a few minutes, and we can’t believe how difficult a beholder with 10 eye rays is, but John assures us they can use all 10 each round, as free actions. But wait! As he’s reading this aloud, it says they can only do 3 rays per 90 degree quadrant. And Alobar had been hit by ray 5 or 6. So he’s not dead! Yeah! Solaral runs up the wall and jumps onto 1 beholder. Malaforte hits it with eldritch blasts. The Trog summons an obscuring mist. Alobar casts a fireball. One dies! It’s the one that Solaral is on, and she didn’t even get a chance to hit it!
Enias and Annie charge the second one, and Malaforte hits it too. Brogan is set to cast Death Ward on himself, because of the all the rays flying around, but the Beholder attacks with a Finger of Death just before he can do it, and Brogan fails the save. He’s dead!!!! Really!!!!! Crap!!!! We give Tim Jokara to play. After all, Lirith is dead, Brogan is dead, and Keller is turned to stone. We make more saves, and kill the second beholder. Solaral never got a hit in! Fortunately, they were damaged in the fight with the bebeliths.
We do find the beholder lair, and get 600 x platinum pieces, a 5,000 gp crown, a 1,000 gp star ruby, and armor of the fallen leaves (+1 wildshape breastplate relic).
Alobar shrinks Keller, takes the Lirith finger bone, and Brogan body, and teleports to Ural, who can cast 4th level Druid spells, and he reincarnates. Lirith is human, and Brogan is now a dwarf. And that’s where we are. CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Reincarnation entry states you can’t be reincarned from a death effect, so we can’t reincarnate Brogan! Tim A starts thinking up a new character. Maybe he will take Lirith as a PC?
Session 33 – Introducing Father Seamus
Alobar, male half-elf wizard 11
Brogan, male human druid 11 KIA
Keller, fleshraker dinosaur animal companion KIA
Solaral, female wild elf ranger 9 / barbarian 1 / hell reaver 1
Enias Fal, male human binder 11
Ugly Annie (cohort), female human (half-Olman) swashbuckler 9
Malaforte, male human warlock 9 / hellfire warlock 2
Father Seamus, male human cleric 12 (of Heironyous)
Lirith (NPC), female human fighter 3 / rogue 3 / scout 1 (still – she’s lost a lot of XP)
Jokara (NPC), male Olman ranger 5 / totemic demon slayer 7
Irgzed (NPC), male Troglodyte cleric ???
The party comes into a 200’ diameter cavern. There was a curtain of shimmering blue light, with Olman spirits/ghosts weaving thru it, like they were trapped. The spirits moaned “2 faces watch the tide.” and “The maw flows forth to bite.” We pass thru it okay, and the tunnel continued past.
However, just as the last party member passed thru the blue barrier, a ray of light shoots down from on high, and a friendly human male in shining plate mail appears – Father Seamus O’Malley, a member of the Church of the Whirling Fury and we believe a cleric of Heironyous. That sounds odd, but he insists its true. He says he has been sent to help us stop the Lords of Dread. He seems trustworthy, if slightly inebriated, so we immediately and unhesitatingly accept him into a position of trust within our party. Way cool.
We come to a split in the path. The Trog, Irgzed, says that the main path leads to the Lords of Dread in 2 days, and the side path leads to a town. Some of us want to visit the town, but the Trog discourages it. We roll a die to see what to do, and skip the town. We continue on for 2 days. The first day passes uneventfully, and then the second. Alobar has cast veil, so we appear as a party of Trogs.
The tunnel changes to a carved stone corridor of Olman design, and we come to a flooded room that is in the shape of an inverted ziggurat. Trog-boy, AKA Irgzed, rushes forward and prostrates himself – “We have come, master!” Oh oh. But an old Trog ghost appears, and explains to us about the Lords of Dread, and states we must stop them. Offers us Trog-boy’s help in this. We accept. The ghost says we must go to the city of Gullus Morgha (sp?), an ancient city in the Underdark at the heart of the Isle of Dread. Then we must find the artifact that holds the waters at bay (the blue curtain power source) and destroy it or turn it off. The Lords of Dread will then be killed when the waters return. They are Kopru, not aboleths or illithids. We will know the power source by whatever it is they guard most fiercely. It will take time for the waters to fill up, so we will have time to escape, he says.
We continue past the ghost for another day, which is uneventful. We come to another big cavern. It has some deep pits with 6 magical fish statues, 20’ long each. They are aboleths in a dreaming state. We spot magic underneath swarms of bugs and assorted creepy-crawlies. Suddenly, large spiders attack! And a huge one, with intelligent eyes, watches us from a distance. The spiders actually end up being easy to defeat, because they have no poison. We take some hit point damage, and that’s it. The party is a buzz saw when it gets going, usually in the 2d round. By the 3rd round, everyone is pouring on the hurt. We end up killing 4 large ragadosas, and 1 huge ragadosa. We find a ring of evasion but no other treasure. Annie gets it. We crumble up the Aboleths into fish sticks. (Did we get XP for that?) Solaral has aberration as favored enemy, so she will do it for any others we pass, as well.
After resting up we continue, and come to the biggest cavern yet. It is ½ mile by 1 mile, and we are 300’ up one wall. There are large fungi growing everywhere, and a strange, weird, city out of Michael Moorcock or H.P. Lovecraft. Let me guess – Gullus Morgha, city of the Aboleths? There are also 3 large columns of violet flame, giving off light. They are 100-200’ in diameter.
So – do we destroy the power source and let the waters in and destroy the Kopru and their mad-pearl nuke bomb making enterprise and let the Aboleths come out of their sleep and reign again underneath the mountain? Or do we just try and destroy all the Kopru ourselves? And destroy all the sleeping Aboleths we can find? Or what?
Also, we are now 12th level.
Session 34 – Gullus Morgha - Sep 17, 2008
Alobar, male half-elf wizard 12
Solaral, female wild elf ranger 10 / barbarian 1 / hell reaver 1
Enias Fal, male human binder 12
Ugly Annie (cohort), female human (half-Olman) swashbuckler 9 / uncanny trickster 1
Malaforte, male human warlock 9 / hellfire warlock 3
Father Seamus, male human cleric 12 (of Heironyous)
Lirith (NPC), female human fighter 3 / rogue 3 / scout 2
Jokara (NPC), male Olman ranger 5 / totemic demon slayer 7
Irgzed (NPC), male Troglodyte cleric ???
We, or Father Seamus O’Malley, cast Divination. Twice:
Q: What is the best way to destroy the Shadow Pearl operation?
A: Flood the cavern after “cleansing” the “Halshner’s Bile.”
Father Seamus O’Flanaghan makes a Knowledge check and determines that this “bile” is some sort of substance secreted by a creature and used to grow evil things.
Q: What impact will flooding the cavern have on the aboleths in the area?
A: They will awaken and reclaim the city.
We went down the cliff, using Solaral’s boots of spider climbing, and Malaforte’s flight, attempting to save our other spells, such as Alobar’s fly, and Father Seamus O’Toole’s air walk. As we started wandering among the strange buildings of the even stranger city, we saw a number of bizarre sites. We passed a large building that stuck out its tongue at us! We kept our distance. The three flame pillars appeared to be alive!!?? Then we met a large undead humanoid figure.
Enias believed him to be a devourer. We talked with him for awhile, and exchanged info. Solaral wanted to attack, but no one else did. The walking corpse told us that “Halshner’s bile is in the ziggurat” and “Destroy the keeper, and it turns into stone like obsidian.” And “the keeper allows it to be fluid.”
We saw another building with asthma and a giant lung. And then the big undead guy snuck up behind us and attacked. It turned out not to be a big deal, for two reasons. Malaforte cast relentless dispelling, and as Father Seamus O’Leary fumbled for his holy symbol, Enius, calling on Tenebrous, rebuked the Devourer and it cowered before us. We killed it quickly.
Unfortunately, we walked past a building and it collapsed on us. Some made their saves, but all were buried. Solaral D-doored out, with her new, 12th level fey ability, and Enius escaped via his Vessel of Emptiness ability, and Lirith used her magic teleporting gloves, and Alobar D-doored out, and they have to dig everyone else out. It took awhile, but no one died.
We were then attacked by another large thing, that seemed to be a big brain on 12 legs. We killed that one, too. Alobar then cast veil, to make us look like big brains and undead guy, and we continued on. We saw a purple worm, trapped by another building but still alive and struggling. Solaral wanted to kill it and put it out of its misery (its not human, after all. They deserve to suffer, but not a dumb animal) but everyone else felt it would make too much noise, because we SAW THE ZIGGURAT!
The Ziggurat has steep steps, and a platform at the summit. It is 150’ across at the base and 200’ high. There are cracks in the masonry (big enough to enter?) and diseased purple flesh(?) all over. Pale green mold and dried blood abounds. There are a lot of Trogs about, and several kopru, including some who are really big – large size.. They see us and react – start scrambling. What will we do?
Session 35 – Tlaloc’s Tear - Oct 1, 2008
Alobar, male half-elf wizard 12
Solaral, female wild elf ranger 10 / barbarian 1 / hell reaver 1
Enias Fal, male human binder 12
Ugly Annie (cohort), female human (half-Olman) swashbuckler 9 /
uncanny trickster 1
Malaforte, male human warlock 9 / hellfire warlock 3
Father Seamus, male human cleric 12 (of Heironyous)
Lirith (NPC), female human fighter 3 / rogue 3 / scout 2
Jokara (NPC), male Olman ranger 5 / totemic demon slayer 7
Irgzed (NPC), male Troglodyte cleric ???
The Ziggurat has a Demogorgan motif in stone carvings, and it appears to be a temple that the Kopru are building over and around something else, that is fleshy. So as we see the forces at the Ziggurat start to react to us, we turn around and depart, still covered by the Veil spell. The forces at the Ziggurat appear to be:
25 x Kopru behemoths – large size. They all use potions of fly.
Dark Nagas in pools
Hordes of Dominated Trogs
Kopru – regular. No legs.
Some follow us, but only for a little bit. We return to the entrance to the big cavern, Alobar casts rope trick, and we all climb in, except for Malaforte, who flys up to the ceiling (more on this later), because rope trick only seats 8. Before we go to bed, Father Seamus O’Dell casts divination, and asks the question “What is the best way to enter the Ziggurat?” The answer is “Destroy Tlaloc’s Tear to disperse and distract the Kopru defenders.” Jokara says that according to legends, when the Olman were being assailed from this dorked up city, Tlaloc the Rain God threw a great Tear down into the earth and it removed the waters from the city, causing the Aboleth’s defeat. So once again, we are instructed by the God’s to let the waters back in, but Father Seamus O’Rourke is still troubled by this. He is afraid, and we all are to some extent, that the Aboleths will rise again and be trouble for the Olmans on the Isle.
During the first shift, we were woken up because the guards saw a patrol of Kopru near by. The Kopru were carried on litters (no legs, remember) by dominated troglodytes. Trog boy says they are not from his tribe.
Up near the ceiling, Malaforte got a good look around and saw a large impact crater, maybe 200’ across, on the floor, far away. Trog boy, AKA Irgzed the friendly evil cleric, says this should be the resting place of the Tear. Now that we have reset our spells for a big fight at the Ziggurat, we decide to head for the crater, instead. Father Seamus O’Rourke casts Heroes Feast and we chow down. It’s a 6th level spell that gives everyone immunity to poison (trog breath, too) and fear for 12 hours, 1d8+6 temporary hit points for 12 hours, and +1 attack and +1 Will save for 12 hours. Good spell. Note that Malaforte always has darkvision, see invisibility, and fly active as 24-hour invocations. We are loaded up with Protection from Evils, Magic Circles vs Evils, Prot from Energies (lightnings (koprus like lightning, we believe)), walls of fire, blade barrier, obscuring mist, barkskins, bulls strengths, and other buffs and control spells – not yet cast, due to limited time. We know that Kopru like dominations, lightnings, and Trogs have stench.
As we near the crater, Malaforte is flying up above, and spots a giant stone lizard head in the middle, with a huge-size creature, one of the 12-legged brains, next to it. He describes it to everyone, and Irgzed and Jokara say the head is an Aspect of Tlaloc, and probably his “Tear.” After much discussion on shooting the big brain or the Tear, we decide on the Tear. But first, Father Seamus O’Nelly casts Augury (Heironyous must be getting tired of all the phone calls) and asks about destroying the Tear. We get “Weal and Woe.” Not weal, not woe, but both. Great. That really helps us decide.
We are 220’ away, so Malaforte zaps it with a 250’ eldritch blast in spear shape. BOOM! It explodes!! Like a little nuke! The whole cavern starts rumbling, and we feel a stiff wind blowing. Is this the ocean, rushing back in and pushing the air ahead of it? And then the big brain with 12 legs is pissed – and he uses telekinesis to grab Malaforte and throw him down. Malaforte got a 22 on his Will save, but it was still a failure! Oh oh. He is slammed down 90’ and takes a fair bit of damage. Father Seamus O’Mammary decides that Protection from Evil on Malaforte is better than healing, so Solaral uses a Pearl of healing on Malaforte. We all start casting long term spells (10 min per level or longer) and await the creature.
Malaforte pops back up to keep track of it. It is coming on slowly. We later learn it had, like, 10 defensive spells cast on it, so it was casting and moving, so traveling slowly. Malaforte zaps it with a bolt again. And then next round, Malaforte’s average intelligence came into play, and he hit it with a relentless dispelling invocation, which hits it with dispelling over 2 rounds. We know that its fly, haste, images, and invisibility (no wonder the others couldn’t see it!) are gone – maybe some other things. Malaforte had to roll about 10 dispellings each round. The max caster level of 10 really sucks. What’s up with that? Another area where the rules are stacked against higher level casters, like 10d6 max on a fireball. Fighters still get hitpoints after level 10, so why can’t caster damage keep up?! Anyway, Big Brain drops onto a building top near us as fly is cancelled, so Solaral runs up to engage in melee. Ugly Annie took a fly potion and flies around to its rear. Lirith and Jokara start hitting it with arrows. Alobar uses his wand of magic missiles (2 missiles per charge). Hey, its something. Better than a delay. It attacks Solaral with a bite, gets a 41 on the attack roll (yikes!), and cuts her up good, but luckily she had the damage resistance from the Gargoyle crown going, so that’s 5 less hit points to take off. She and Annie hit it in melee, and, and in the 2d round of melee, its dead!! Malaforte looks for magic with detect magic, but sees none. We decide to head straight for the Ziggurat, but make a note to check out the crater later for magic. We figure we are on a clock, now, before the waters fill up, and don’t know if we have time to rest or not. Will it be hours or days or weeks?
Its only 10 minutes to the Ziggurat, so we only lose a little magic. Malaforte’s Protection from Evil still has 1 minute left, and the time from Solaral’s Gargoyle crown’s damage reduction is over. Otherwise, we are good to go. At the Ziggurate, almost all the creatures have left! A quick track look by our experts, Solaral and Jokara, show us that they just left, in organized groups, heading out in several directions. We cast a few quick buffs when we see that only 3 kopru behemoths are left, standing on top, and attack. Alobar hits them with 2 fireballs from his pirate wand, we fire a few arrows, Malaforte pops a couple or three eldritch blasts, Enias swings his holy greatsword a couple times (he is now large size), Solaral stabs with her shock dagger, and its over.
We head to the top of the pyramid, where a mound of flesh is bulging out. We pretty much decide that we must destroy the whole fleshing thing under the stone to “destroy Halashner’s Bile” and start hitting it with fire, acid, and eldritch blasts. It has a hellacious regenerative capability, but after we pair it down about 8’, it opens into a chamber! It’s a building, its not a solid mound of flesh. We see a room about 15’ x 15’, with organs and lungs and hearts growing on the walls, and it looks like the Kopru have tried to brick it over. There is another door or passage leading further down, as well.
Session 36 – Halashner’s Bile - Oct 8, 2008
Alobar, male half-elf wizard 12
Solaral, female wild elf ranger 10 / barbarian 1 / hell reaver 1
Enias Fal, male human binder 12
Ugly Annie (cohort), female human (half-Olman) swashbuckler 9 / uncanny trickster 1
Malaforte, male human warlock 9 / hellfire warlock 3
Father Seamus, male human cleric 12 (of Heironyous)
Lirith (NPC), female human fighter 3 / rogue 3 / scout 2
Jokara (NPC), male Olman ranger 5 / totemic demon slayer 7
Irgzed (NPC), male Troglodyte cleric ???
So there we are, standing on top of the Ziggurat, looking into a small room. We look around, trying to decide who will go down? Jokara, Solaral, and Malaforte head into the small room, as does Enias. Malaforte uses detect magic, and Jokara uses detect demons, for 3 rounds, but we detect no pinpoint sources, just the building itself, in near over-whelming auras. We wonder if we should look for secret doors, or follow the opening in the floor, which has a ladder leading down, sort of like a sewer opening. Because we have a number of buffs active, we decide to head straight down. Besides, we wonder if a “fleshy” building would have such things as secret doors and rooms.
Its dark down the sewer, so Father Seamus O’Blarney casts light on an acorn (why he has an acorn isn’t explained) and Jokara then tosses it down the entrance. It falls for 30 or 40 feet, and comes to rest on a wet floor. Jokara then climbs down the ladder, and Solaral follows. The room is larger than the one we are vacating, and has a bust of a two-headed baboon along one wall. Both baboon heads have large black pearls for eyes. Everyone is afraid to touch them. The room is full of fleshy protuberances, and one appears to be a couch in front of the alter. There is a stone door with an iron ring in it, set in the floor in one corner of the room.
As Jokara comes off the ladder, and Solaral is still walking down (using her slippers of spider climbing), we are attacked! There is a medium-sized kopru floating in the air, using a spear and wearing a chain shirt. We roll low initiatives, unfortunately, because this sucker is BAD! It immediately attacks Jokara with 4 spear thrusts, a bite, and a tail slap, and the tail then grapples Jokara, too! The spear thrusts are doing over 20 hit points, each! Jokara activates his Tyrannosaurus tattoo and bites the Kopru, dealing 27 hit points. I love this tattoo! He is unable to break free of the grapple, though.
Solaral runs down the ladder, and takes an attack of opportunity – it hits. Yes, it can grapple with its tail, and still attack with its arms. Crap. Only 11 points, though, from the spear. Odd. She hits the creature with her shock dagger, and it takes full damage! Excellent.
The Kopru’s turn comes up again, and it attacks both Solaral and Jokara with full attack actions. In the same round. WTF! It gets 4 spears and 1 bite vs Jokara, who is grappled in the tail, and 4 spears and 1 bite vs Solaral. We are taking some damage. Again, the spear does a lot of damage to Jokara, but only about half as much to Solaral. Could it be because of alignment (yes, we find out later)? Now, the others can begin to act, though.
Jokara works his Tyrannosaurus bite and scores again. He also activates his Sea Turtle tattoo, for small damage resistance. He is down to 12 hp, from 97, however, so he is going to be dead, dead, dead! And then Enias, once again, pulls out the big save! Still in size large, from the enlarge person spell from Alobar (and using the big blue ogre mage figure with appropriate greatsword), Enias looks thru the hole in the floor from above, and activates one of his special binder abilities, immediately switching places with Jokara. Jokara is back in the room above, and the Kopru is suddenly grappling someone bigger than it is – impossible to do, so the grapple is broken! Enias then gets in one swing with his holy greatsword, using power attack, and scores.
Next, Malaforte comes down and hits it with relentless dispelling. It slowly drops to the floor – Mal got its fly spell – and we know that Mal got something else, too. We can then really activate the buzzsaw. It casts sanctuary on itself, but some of us are overcoming the will save to hit it (go magic circle vs evil) and Mal’s second round from the relentless dispelling does its job on the sanctuary, and we kill it. Ugly Annie, Enias, Solaral and Malaforte all get blows in at the end. Father Seamus O’Carney casts heal on Jokara, and he is good to go again.
We do a quick detect magic, and get from the Kopru a +2 anarchic spear, +4 chain shirt, periapt of wisdom +4, ring of protection +3, bracers of health +2, and a portable hole (full of water). We don’t know what these are, yet, and throw them in the kitty. In the couch, we find a ruby ring of wizardry 2, necklace of adaptation, and a decanter of endless water, along with a 2400gp gold and ivory tiara and 500gp unholy symbol of demogorgon.
(We learn that a special ability of a thrall of demogorgon is making two full attacks in a round, and this kopru could do that twice a day.)
Still on the clock with our buffs, some of which have winked out, we go over to the trap door in the floor. Lirith does a quick search (total roll: 13 – crap.) and we open it. While doing this, we decide Solaral will go down first this time, and Father Seamus O’Houlihan casts aid on her, and she gets three cure spells from him and Irgzed, to come back to max hp. Jokara will follow, then Malaforte, then Annie, then Enias, and so on. Lirith continues to keep an eye on Irgzed, because we don’t fully trust him. Alobar casts haste right as we start climbing down.
The ladder leads down about 50’ to an even bigger room. Apparently the Ziggurat is built much like a pyramid, with bigger rooms the further you go down. The room has much fleshy growth, and several pools of a black substance (bile?) with what look like Shadow Pearls within. Solaral and Jokara get to the floor and spread out, and Malaforte is floating down, when WHAM! A big, huge, white centipede or carrion crawler looking thing attacks, rising out of one of the pools of black liquid goo. It smacks at Malaforte, who is still in the air, and grapples him. He takes acid damage from its touch. It breathes a line of burning acid (fire and acid damage) against Jokara and Solaral. Solaral makes her save, and with Evasion, gets nothing. Jokara makes it to, but takes half damage from acid and fire, and the fire is sticky! He ignores it to attack. Unfortunately, this thing has an AC of 29, and he hits it only once. He does good damage (Yay Bulls’ Strength and favored enemy bonuses) but it doesn’t take any damage from the flaming part of the flametongue he uses. Malaforte tries to blast it, but can’t make the required concentration checks (1 to cast in a grapple, and 1 to cast defensively, avoiding an attack of opportunity because it can attack with 4 x tentacles and grapple with its tail at the same time). Ugly Annie comes down, strikes, and misses. Enias comes down, strikes with the greatsword and hits! Alobar flies down, Father Seamus O’Nelly air walks down and starts healing, Lirith comes down and shoots her bow, and Irgzed comes down and starts healing. Malaforte, Jokara, and Enias need it. Father Seamus O’Fooligan starts doing a mass cure light wounds (and he has some sort of improved healing abilities) every round. Why do we have Protection from lightning active, instead of fire or acid? Dang it.
Lirith and Annie get smacked with tentacles, and pause to wipe off the sticky fire. Jokara is ignoring it, keeps getting hit, and keeps attacking, making only 1 hit per round. Solaral summons a huge constricting snake, but its making its bite attacking, but missing the free grapple check. This halashner thing has a high grapple, too. Solaral runs up to attack it, using the spell-storing warhammer, and gets a hit. The spell overcomes its SR (thank goodness it was Alobar putting it in) and drains 7 Str points – it was a Ray of Enfeeblement from a CL-12. Enias and Jokara keep getting pokes in, and Annie too. Alobar’s chain lightning doesn’t overcome its SR – fizzle. Alobar then flies over to the creature, touches Malaforte, and dimension doors him away, after ascertaining that the creature only had 1 opportunity attack per round, and had already used it. Malaforte then starts blasting, able to overcome the SR – thanks to Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration. The creature tries to cast some spell on Enias (Hurray for poison immunity from Hero’s Feast) and then tries to dominate others (Hurray for magic circle vs evil).
Finally, we kill it, and it falls over, into a pool, dead. As we gather our breath, we hear louder rumbling and feel a great whoosh of air. Has the water broken into the giant cavern!? We do a quick search, but find nothing. The shadow pearls in the black goo give a poof, and deflat. The goo, or bile, begins to harden, as foretold by auguries. And we decide to skedaddle. As we go up, we finally overcome our reluctance and pry the eyes out of the baboon bust, and get 4 x 500 gp pearls. We D-Door and teleport to the entrance to the cavern, and start walking up. It’s a forced march to stay ahead of the waters, and we see tracks where the residents of the town we never visited must have left, too. When we pass thru the curtain zone, the blue force field curtain is gone (of course.) We finally reach the top after a week of walking. Irgzed takes his leave, but not before we got our stuff back from him. Alobar, over 2 days, because of 1 missed teleport, gets us back to Farshore. Gee, we probably could have teleported from the bottom.
Session 37 – the Central Plateau – 5 Nov 2008
After our return to Farshore, we spend time resting and creating magic, with Alobar and Father Seamus O’Farie doing the honors. We really create a lot of belts of giant Strength +4! Our mysterious monk contact gives all of the original party members 5 x 100gp pearls in payment, and gives 6 potions of cure critical wounds to the party.
Some of the more expensive magic that we can’t sell in Farshore is given to Lyrith to sell in Sasserine (+2 spear, +1 keen sickle, armor of leaves). We make her the captain of the Sea Wyvern, and send her back, with trade goods. Additionally, the Blue Nixie returned with several ships of colonists, almost doubling the size of Farshore. The town’s gold piece limit is now 3,800 gp, with total assets of 27,000 gp.
Lavinia calls us in when a messenger from a missionary of Pelor arrives. The missionary’s name is Gnoltus Ingersoll, and he is the one who converted Jakara. The note from Gnoltus tells a tale of darkness from the central pateau, and Gnoltus’ attempts to put an army together in order to combat it. On the plateau is Thanaclon, the City of Broken Idols, from whence the Skinwalkers come. Gnoltus learned of the lost Olman village of Montru on the plateau, as well, and took his force there. His message to Lavinia is to bring the Stone of the Sun and the Moon to Thanaclon, to lay waste to the evil. Father Seamus McMulligan does a scry on Gnoltus, and we see him being held imprisoned and tortured. He appears to be crafting something.
We decide to rescue Father Gnoltus, so we put Solaral and Ugly Annie into the portable hole, and Alobar teleports us to a stone causeway that crosses over to the central plateau. The messenger and Jakara are familiar with this place and described it to Alobar. The causeway is 1500’ long and 50’ wide, crossing over a steep gorge. Fortunately, we arrive on the right side of it from the teleport. There is a road leading north, 30’ wide. We take the road and come to a fork, and cast augury. It detects nothing good or bad for taking the left fork, so we take the right – maybe it will have some excitement!
We see lizardfolk tracks all around, and detect the emenations of evil and demons. BAM! A huge glabrezu comes out of the forest and attacks. We confuse it a bit, because we are a chaotic party, with many neutrals, and its attacks and spells don’t do the damage it was expecting. We put it down in 3 rounds, and decide to follow its tracks. They take us into the light woods and savanagh-like terrain, away from the road. BAM! We are ambushed by 6 Hezra demons. They keep hitting us with Blasphemy and similar unholy area spells. Fortunately, the damage is again lighter than a party of paladins would take. We kill 4 of them, and 2 flee. Then a lizardfolk pops out from some trees, and motions us to follow him. He is wearing a holy symbol of Pelor. Malaforte calls this a good sign, as his deity is Pelor.
Furmella and Lyrith started preparing the longboat to leave (should have had it in the water already, and a villager crew standing by - hindsight is clear), and a giant mega fireball hit the ship. 50 points of damage. Furmella hits 1 on the save, and is smacked to -20. Oops! And all her magic has to make a save, so the Harrow rod, potion of CSW, ring of the ram, and +1 leather armor, are all destroyed. She and the rest of her stuff go down with the ship – 2 fireballs later. Everyone else gets away. The fireballs are doing 45-50 points of damage per, which at 3.5 avg for a d6, makes me think they are 15 HD fireballs, which you would get if you were at least a 10th level caster using the empower metamagic feat.
Oh my. And your DM made the magic items take a save... unconscionable!
But it seems like your characters are generally more powerful than would be expected
Enias used some weird vestige feats to get whirlwind attack and dance of death, and started lopping of heads with his enlarged +2 holy greatsword (5d6 +7 per hit). He killed 20-30 dudes, and Solaral only killed 5. She was pissed. But that’s 45 pirates down to Davey Jones’ locker.
I've never seen any one character do that much damage at level 9.
Out of curio, what happened to the wolf? It was just randomly replaced by Keller in one session? Did it die or return back to its plane of existence?
...What's up with Fr. Seamus?
Enjoyable!
Light Dragon,
Thanks for reading it. As you see, we are just writing it for each other in the group, so we can look back - not really in story mode.
As to your questions: Cori was swallowed by the T-Rex we met when first cast ashore on the island, after the shipwreck. Kellor is one of the replacement animal companions suggested in Dungeon or Dragon magazines.
Enias, as a binder, has a vestige that allows him to use martial weapons and gets a sort of magical platemail around him. The wizard enlarged him (so the greatsword went to 3d6 damage for wpn size) and cast fly on him. His second vestige allowed him to do the Dance of Death thing, which as near as I can figure is to take a move action and make 1 attack at as many people as you can during the move. We found the +2 Holy Greatsword somewhere, I forget where (its been almost 2 years!), and so the "Holy" descriptor does 2d6 damage vs Evil, so enlarged, the sword does 5d6 vs evil. Add in Enias' Str bonus (he may have had Bulls Str cast on him too, I'm not sure) and he did alot of damage.
Also, the DMG says that if you roll a 1 on a save, then your magic has to take the save, too.
And Father Seamus is the replacement character dropped in for Brogan the Druid, who died and couldn't be reincarnated.
Session 35 – Tlaloc’s Tear - Oct 1, 2008
Alobar, male half-elf wizard 12
Solaral, female wild elf ranger 10 / barbarian 1 / hell reaver 1
Enias Fal, male human binder 12
Ugly Annie (cohort), female human (half-Olman) swashbuckler 9 /
uncanny trickster 1
Malaforte, male human warlock 9 / hellfire warlock 3
Father Seamus, male human cleric 12 (of Heironyous)Lirith (NPC), female human fighter 3 / rogue 3 / scout 2
Jokara (NPC), male Olman ranger 5 / totemic demon slayer 7
Irgzed (NPC), male Troglodyte cleric ???<other stuff>
And then next round, Malaforte’s average intelligence came into play, and he hit it with a relentless dispelling invocation, which hits it with dispelling over 2 rounds. We know that its fly, haste, images, and invisibility (no wonder the others couldn’t see it!) are gone – maybe some other things. Malaforte had to roll about 10 dispellings each round. The max caster level of 10 really sucks. What’s up with that? Another area where the rules are stacked against higher level casters, like 10d6 max on a fireball. Fighters still get hitpoints after level 10, so why can’t caster damage keep up?!
<more other stuff>
Greater Dispelling is a L 6 Cleric/Druid/Sorcerer/Wizard spell (and a L 5 Bard spell) which does the same as Dispel Magic and a bit more, with a caster level cap at 20. Of course, that won't help the Warlock, but the other spellcasters might look into getting it. (It's listed in the PHB as "Dispel Magic, Greater".)
I'm looking forward to reading more!
Also, the DMG says that if you roll a 1 on a save, then your magic has to take the save, too.
And Father Seamus is the replacement character dropped in for Brogan the Druid, who died and couldn't be reincarnated.
Oh, I never noticed that rule in the DMG. :o
As for Kori... ah, I must have missed that line about her being eaten.My comment of Fr. Seamus was directed more towards "what's up with the running joke about his last name changing" ;) I noticed the character death.
Thank you for the answers.
~LD
Oh, I misunderstood. The deal with his name is that the player for him hasn't decided on what it should be, so we're all giving him some help. He plays the good cleric as a cross between a crusader priest from the middle ages, and a hard-drinking padre from today.
Session 38, 19 Nov 2008
The lizard folk guy, who we name Rock, and who we believe is a Ranger or Cleric of Pelor (or both), takes us to an encampment along a river in a bog. They tell us their tale – that Father Gnoltus, his loyal dog, and 6 lizard folk scouts left 5 or 6 days ago, to try and finish quelling the demon infestation, on an island in the center of the lake. We spend the night with them, resting, and consume our usual Heroes’ Feast in the morning. Some of the lizard folk, such as Rock, are invited to participate, since Father Seamus can do 1 person per level. Fortunately.
We are alerted by a commotion, and we see that Father Gnoltus, his dog, and 6 scouts have returned. Since we saw him in jail during our divinations, no one in our party believes it is really him, and we hastily and surreptitiously prep for combat. Father Seamus casts a quick augury while Father Gnoltus is talking to the lizard folk. He asks “should I trust Falther Gnoltus?” The answer is “NO!” Of course, its what we expected.
So we go out to meet the good father, and he attacks! Of course. Father Gnoltus turns into a maurezhi demon from the Fiend Folio, the dog turns into a big demon (we don’t know what), and the lizard folks with him turn into skin walkers, including a sorcerer-type. However, Alobar casts a quick haste spell, getting some of the good-guy lizard folk, as well. The demons are surprised because we are there, and we aren’t surprised. Thus, the fight doesn’t last long, but fighting the skinwalkers suck, because they get all their normal attacks, plus two claws and a bite. Fortunately, the Heroes’ Feast makes us immune to poison, which their claws and bite have. What is an even bigger bummer is that the head guy, playing Father Gnoltus, was able to teleport away.
We do get some good magic, a Ring of Freedom of Movement, +1 dagger, +1 comp long bow (+2 Str), Ring of Prot +2, Cloak of charisma +2, and lesser rod of empower meta magic.
Session 39, 25 Nov 2008
Okay, so we move camp with the Lizard Folk, so the demon who go away can’t lead others back to us, and then wait the remainder of the day, so we can rest again. While we are waiting around, we talk with Rock and the other Lizard Folk. They convince us that going to the old village of Mantru, on the shore of the lake, is the best idea. So we sleep and have our heroes’ feast again.
We travel to Mantru, with 6 lizard folk as guides. Mantru is the “lost” village of Olmans, so Jakara is very interested. It consists of 8 thatch lodges – all abandoned. Two are in the water of the lake. Apparantly, it existed here on the dangerous central plateau for quite some time, and was only recently attacked or abandoned.
Solaral and Jakara move forward to investigate the village while everyone else hides nearbye – that’s what Rangers do, right? As they move forward, two coatls appear in the air and the entire party comes forward to talk to them. The coatls are here, standing guard over the remains of Umlaut, the last priest of Mantru. We answer a riddle of the Coatls (pretty simple – the answer is “north”) and then pay our own respects to Umlaut’s remains. Umlaut’s spirit has been tied to his remains, but as we pay our respects, the spirit tells us to “destroy the evil in the temple” and “beware shape changers” and “they can dominate” and “beware the aquatic demon.” The spirit is now released. The coatls are now able to depart this plane, as well.
There are boats about, and he try and lure the demons to us. Jakara, Enias, and Malaforte are in the boat, and all can fly. The rest of the party remains hidden in the village. Unfortunately we don’t get an aquatic demon, but a humongous – colossal alligator. We fly about it, and Malaforte keeps blasting it with eldritch blasts, but they only prick it, and it departs underwater. The three fliers continue to the central island, and head for a cavern at water level, that is beneath the temple-fortress higher up on the island.
As the three fliers come to a dock and nets assembly inside the cavern, we are attacked by a flying bulbous water demon! It hits us with Blasphemy and Unholy Aura and Symbol of Weakness and we are getting smoked! The others teleport in courtesy of Alobar, and we barely defeat the demon. It takes us several rounds to realize the demon is flying because its just an image, and its really in the water below us. Finally, we kill it. And we are on the island – with no way to get off except by boat, and a massive alligator in the water, and our magic severely depleted.
Session 40, 11 Dec 2008
So we are still all in the cavern with the docks, underneath the island temple/fortress, and much of our magic is depleted. Many of the higher-level wizard and especially cleric spells are gone, as are many of the daily items that everyone has. We still are under the Heroes’ Feast, and Jakara has his Magic Circle vs Evil active.
We do our detection bit, with Jakara detecting demons (residue all around) and Malaforte detecting magic. Malaforte detects magic on the floor near the entrance into the rock face. Its necromancy! Malaforte uses knowledge-arcana to try and see what it is. SNAP! And he rolls a 1! It was a symbol of death, affecting anyone within 60’, and if you look at it, it pops. Malaforte is dead. Crap. The line of Furmella – Dulcinea – Malaforte, one replacing the other, is pretty unlucky. It maybe is the player? He’s pretty impulsive (I really am – I hate just standing around).
As everyone is standing around is shock, and arguing what to do (as we are want to do), a fireball slams into us. Solaral has evasion, and is the only one not to make the Reflex save. By the time we figure out to run over the Symbol of Death (which now has a lower hit point total) we take another fireball, and then Alobar uses the Staff of Frost to wall over a hole in the wall through which the fireballs are being cast.
We come into a large room, with a giant fire pit in the center, a balcony all around, and multiple doors. There are skinwalker archers on the balcony (I counted 13, but the DM says only 12), a skinwalker ranger and his ape animal companion attacking us in melee, and a couple of skinwalker sorcerer types casting spells at us. Crap! Also, the ranger has a flaming machahitl (wooden sword with volcanic glass embedded). And Malaforte is dead, so we are hurting on the precision long-range damage. So Solaral runs around stabbing stuff, and sics her level V summoned huge snake on one of the casters. Jakara starts nailing creatures with his outsider-bane longbow, and Enias starts waving the holy greatsword around. Father Seamus McMally get in one offensive spell and summuns a huge earth elemental that does a good job bashing the 12 normal skinwalkers. Awesome blow is a cool feat. We use up just about all the rest of our magic, except for Alobar, who is using Reserve Feats, wands, and staff. We quickly grab anything magic (quite a bit) and figure we have to leave. Now.
Session 41, “It’s Alive!” - 30 Dec 2008
The big fight in the hall has ended, and we have to get out of there. We bring Malaforte’s body from the docks into the hall, and cover the symbol of death while we are at it, with a cloak, in case it resets. As we discuss which way to head (the astute observer may have noticed that we don’t make decisions quickly), 4 ghouls teleport in and attack! We kill them. They are only ghouls – like CR 2, or something. We’re 13th level. We were a little shocked at how low-level these things were. Where did they come from?
As we start heading up the stairs, to go through one of the doors and out of the big room, Malaforte’s body suddenly rises up, sloughing off its flesh as it does so, and turns into a skeleton. A CR-1 skeleton! Again, another easy kill. What the heck is going on? Perhaps there is some kind of animate dead effect tied to an unhallow spell here? We grab Malaforte’s skull and get moving again. But another demon teleports in – the boss from the encampment, who pretended to be Father Gnoltus! We quickly attack, and though Solaral is paralyzed, we kill him. Father Seamus removes the paralysis, and we attempt to get going again. We do get a heavy disruption flail off this guy, though!
As we get up the stairs and through the door, a big 2-headed boss-looking demon teleports in with 6 lizard/crocodile/hound things, like a ranger with 6 animal companions. The big guys look like a kopru-demon hybrid, maybe? He actually looks like a boss’s primary enforcer, but with demons, you never know, since physical size and strength seems to equal authority with them. Maybe he is the boss, or maybe he works for a regular-sized high level caster, like a cleric-type? We’ll find out, I’m sure. He spits out a giant glob of mucus at Father Seamus, which misses and hits the wall, and sizzles – it’s a big acid ball! Father Seamus casts obscuring mist, and we run down a short hallway to another room, where Alobar casts rope trick, and then as everyone else climbs up and in, he casts delayed blast fireball, and climbs up and we pull the rope up and watch. Our idea is to make it look like we teleported away. Two the lizard/croc/hound things come in and sniff around, and get hit with the fireball. The hounds aren’t killed, but no one else comes to inspect.
We rest, and then prep for battle, climb out, and teleport out. No problems. We teleport back to our quarters in Lavinia’s mansion at Farshore, and its burnt! The mansion had been set on fire – maybe a day ago! We find out from the townsfolk that Vanthus returned – on a burning steed! WTF! We killed that guy! Apparently, he’s now demon or undead or both. He had ape minions with him (bar-lguras?). The monsters were branded with the mark of the Crimson Fleet, and they took Lavinia! The Jade Ravens (I think there are 2 left) took the Blue Nixie and went after her – to the port of Scuttlecove, the den of the Crimson Fleet, about 1300 miles away. The colonists are all astir, and the older Maravanchi wants to abandon the colony and sail away. What a putz.
We do have a problem, though. To resurrect Malaforte, we need 10,000 gp worth of diamonds, and the only one who has that in town is Maravanchi. Again – death effect, so reincarnation or raise dead won’t work. That blows. To make a long story short, and despite his vaunted negotiation skills, Enias barters away the Sea Wyvern for the diamonds, with Lyrith staying on as captain. Maravanchi doesn’t want any of our magic. It’s really a crappy bargain. Solaral will probably hire Enias to go back and kill Maravanchi, some short time in the future. She like the thought of one human killing another, at her bidding. As well, we have to support Maravanchi as temporary mayor, and support his plan to lead the townsfolk away, until the Isle is safe. Our thought is that we can clear up the demon infestation in the temple, and then teleport out to the ships at sea, and tell Maravanchi he can turn around. If he doesn’t, we can kill him legally. Alobar spends time studying his ship, to make sure we can get there.
Malaforte is resurrected, we rest, and eat a heroes’ feast, and then teleport back. Solaral and Jakara cast acid protection on themselves , because of the big guy’s spit. We come right back into the big fire hall – but its empty! We follow a tunnel down, though a whole broken in a wall, and into what looks like an unused part of the complex. Our thinking is that if we go down, we can clear on the way up, and maybe meet the boss at the top. And maybe be 14th or close to 15th level.
Enias is large again, and breaks through the floor, into a torture chamber. Its full of 4’ deep water, and has 6 cells. It’s all long unused, and empty. We follow a hallway out, still under water, and see a big room, also with water, from which arise 3 x hezrou demons!
Session 42, 8 Jan 09
Its 4 hezrous coming out the water, not 3! They teleport to surround us, but Alobar casts haste on most of the party, and Solaral casts a quick haste (good 2 level ranger spell!) on herself, and she and Enias strike at them and kill one. Three to go. Malaforte moves into position and starts shooting invocations from the upper level – he hadn’t climbed down the floor yet. Annie is also on the upper level and jumps down to strike. 1 hezrou summons another, and now there are 4 again. Jakara does his dampen summoning ability, so no more come – even though another hezrou tries! A hezrou teleports up to the upper level right be Malaforte, who smacks him with a quickened eldritch blast, and then an empowered, maximized blast, but the demon is still standing. The demon then casts blasphemy, and Malaforte, only 12th level, is dazed and weakened. Solaral dimension doors up, bringing Annie with her, to keep Malaforte from being coup-de-graced, and they attack and slay that hezrou. 2 down, and three to go. Father Seamus tries a dispel twice on the summoned hezrou, but the max of +10 kills him, and he can’t make it happen. Jakara casts align weapon on his bow, after we figure out these guys have a DR of about 10 for weapons not good-aligned, and then goes to town. Between the Evil Outsider Bane Bow & his Favored Enemy he can do alot of damage with that bow. He kills one, and then he and Enias kill another. Since Enias is using the holy greatsword, and Solaral is in a holy fury, their weapons count for full damage as well, and we eventually slay the remaining demon. Alobar contributed with magic missiles and acid orbs, and a chain lightning (which doesn’t do much for such a high level spell – these damn things have entirely too much energy resistance).
We continue exploring the lower level that we crashed in to. We come to an old library, with stone tablets. On the way, we killed some mold and green slime with fire and ice courtesy of Alobar. Malaforte detects magic in a desk, and we find some gold, and two statuettes, and a magic dagger that feels pretty good to Solaral, but Father Seamus and Jakara don’t like. Enias suggests that is might be a human-bane weapon (Solaral is +6 vs humans – 3xfavored enemy bonus). Solaral is keeping the dagger to try out on the next humans we meet. Maybe Maravanchi?
We head down another corridor, and get smacked by a humongous ochre jelly that is behind a wall, and hitting us by squirting out. It grabs Jakara, but Enias does his teleportation trick where he switches position with a party member, and with his ring of free action is able to step away. Alobar casts a wall of ice to cover the holes, and we head down the corridor. We come to a stuck door, and force it, and all the water suddenly rushes past us and through the door! Annie, Solaral, and Father Seamus are caught in the flow! Annie grabs Malaforte, who’s flying, and Solaral grabs Alobar, who’s flying, and Father Seamus is taken by the flow and down a corridor, and out of sight!