I've just cleaned up my archives, and re-located the session notes from my current campaign, which starts out a little sand boxy, but gradually becomes Shackled City.
As there is a whole section of the messageboards devoted to campaign journals, I thought 'Why not?' and so here they are. A bit at a time.
These campaign notes record the exploits of a group of adventurers as they travel around the lands of Quume. The initial group is comprised of ‘Princess’ Irulan, a priestess of Saint Wallace the Eternal; Llorth the rogue and Montpelier the swordswoman. They were joined shortly after forming by Luthor the Mighty, a mage of little renown. All four of them are human, although in the case of Llorth, there is often some debate about this.
The campaign started out with 3.0 DnD rules and migrated to 3.5 rules about 3 – 4 sessions in as it was released. Starting sometime in 2002/3, the game is still running now, with a session every couple of months. The setting is my home brew world, which started out as 1st edition a looooong time ago, and has been the location of every campaign I’ve run. I steal unashamedly from anywhere I can find good ideas, or simply entertaining ones. All of my players are in it for the social value, so there’s no uber characters, but there are some rather silly ones.
I hope it doesn't get too boring.
Reggie
The Cave of Shadows
The three adventurers managed to get off to an inauspicious start. Having travelled from Ruloom to Bridgeton to begin their careers, they found themselves sitting in the bar room of The Slops Bucket wondering what to do during the coming spring. Having seen the only apparent business in town go to Davon Taylorson, a braggart if ever there was, they watched as the tinker Jeffries, his mule Daisy and Taylorson headed north towards the Shan Valley.
That afternoon as spring warmed the air, two log riders (Steve and Paul) floated into town with tales of orcs of the Broken kneecap tribe raiding the valley. Declaring that they (the orcs) were largely wussy, Steve and Paul proceeded to drink late into the night. The adventurers, seeing their opportunity for fame and fortune, headed north the next morning.
Wandering past farms and fields the group wagered with a pair of idle men fishing on the riverbank (Jock & Tad) and settled down for a meal of rabbit that night. The next morning they collected a few more rabbits from a set of generally effective snares and continued north. Late that morning they came across Taylorson, who claimed to have delivered Jeffries to a band of Gnomes in the caves up ahead. He then left in a hurry.
The group approached the caves cautiously and spotted Jeffries fleeing the cave. He was felled moments later by arrows fired by two orcs within the cave. The adventurers attacked from ambush, slew the orcs and healed Jeffries. He then offered them the magic potions and sword he was transporting if they would get him back to civilisation. It did, however, require that they defeat the orcs and their ogre leader in the cave.
The group swept through the caves, slaying a giant rat, a motley collection of orcs and their ogre leader. They managed to recover the three potions and the sword - a lovely bastard sword with a red leather grip, a steel pommel in the shape of a fist and engravings of a human slaying elves along the blade. There was also a large amount of gold coin recovered and a selection of items the orcs had stolen over time.
Upon their return to town (with Jeffries, but without Daisy) the group reported the deeds of Taylorson. The town Sheriff went to interview him, but Taylorson stole a nearby horse and rode away, just in time to receive a crossbow bolt in the back, curtesy of Llorth. Unfortunately, all it managed to do was wound him and he fled the town, disappearing around a nearby bend in the road...
Reggie
A Trip to Shom Par
The adventurers stayed in Bridgeton for several more days, without finding out what happened to Taylorson. Sitting in the front bar of The Slops Bucket they witnessed the arrival of Luthor the Mighty. Watching as he sauntered over to the bar, they decided that he might be worth adding to their numbers and so invited him over for a drink. After a short period of introductions a consensus was reached and they headed off to the farm of Old Todd, whose mule was said to have given birth to a three headed donkey.
Shortly after the crossbow bolt slammed into the fence, right next to the sign that read 'There aint'nt no three-headed donkeys around heer, so git!', Llorth remembered that most mules are infertile and suggested that the rumour may be false. The group then walked the short five minutes back to town, past the leery eyes of William the Gate man, whom everyone knew was a sneaky git.
Back to sitting in The Slops Bucket, the adventurers discussed various rumours they had heard, ranging from the big flying things swooping around The Claws, to the strangeness of Cauldron. Eventually they decided that Weinvier Forest sounded good and set about purchasing tickets for four on the next coach to Shom Par.
The rest of the day was spent watching the world go by, including the arrival of a hooded cleric of St Mirriam and his acolyte from Shom Par, both of whom left before dawn the next day to begin their trek northwards to Cauldron. All slept well that night and were ready for the long journey the next day.
The journey involved two stops along the way, in well hosted way stations, with their only company being Janice the farmer's wife, on her way to Shom Par to visit her niece.
Arriving in Shom Par, with the great expanse of the Weinveir Forest visible to the south, the group settled into The Tumbling Kitten whilst Llorth the Magnificent went looking for the Great Library of Shom Par. He quickly found it and the large crowd standing out front whilst Portia d'Ferranta (the head librarian) stood in argument with a group of academics about some strange goings on inside. Spying an injured gnome on the ground nearby, he approached and discovered that Julius the gnome had been delivering some supplies downstairs to Dr Waldus Thorngreen and Nardo d'Ferranta (Portia's Son), when he heard a cry, a large crack, and saw Nardo run out of the inner library in a cloud of white smoke, only to be dragged back by a black tentacle. He of course immediately fled and now the library is in an uproar.
Considering this to be an excellent opportunity to make a name for themselves in Shom Par, Luthor headed back to The Tumbling Kitten and informed the group of his findings. They all immediately made for the library, where they convinced Portia to accompany them on an investigation of the lower stacks.
Cautiously moving through the lower area of the library, they discovered in the inner reference collection (where Dr Thorngreen had been working on the Alibator Collection) a heretofore unknown door that had been plastered over leading down into a lower, hidden level of the library. Portia, overcome by the discovery, fainted away, just as a crossbow bolt sailed out of the darkness into Llorth's chest. Returning fire, the adventurers soon stumbled over the surprised corpse of an orc of the Bloodied Fist. A tense game of cat and mouse ensued, with the heroes searching the darkness for the remaining orcs.
After slaying three more orcs in the labyrinth-like library, the adventurers found their leader, a hulking great half-orc, armed with a whip. They disarmed him, then cunningly allowed him to escape and so had to pursue him into the dark. Shortly thereafter they stumbled upon the bound and gagged pair of librarians, who were quickly ushered back up to the safer levels of the library (along with the now recovered Portia).
The search was continued, with the adventurers finding a collapsed section of wall, beyond which lay a small series of caves containing a small orc camp. Quickly searching this, the adventurers determined that there were two more orcs left to find. They continued their pursuit out of the tunnel into the late afternoon daylight of a ravine north of the town and set about catching the two last orcs. They eventually caught up with them, and after a brutal fight they managed to slay them. Searching their possessions, they found a note written in orcish stating 'It is found! Munjuk' and depicting a map showing a hidden valley west of the River Shan.
Returning to the library, they were hailed as efficient, and rewarded with gold and the offer of Portia's services as a sage, provided it didn't remove her from her work of cataloguing the newly discovered works for too long. After all, the new university would be needing all the reference material it could get.
A Walk in the Weinvier Forest
After resting and recuperating for several days in The Tumbling Kitten, the party decided to try and find some more adventuring to do. This led to great confusion as they experimented with representational democracy within their group and discovered that it only works when it isn’t representational or democratic. After deciding that Llorth’s vote was not required and that non-government funded charitable organisations were rare (actually non-existent) the group was torn between exploring the Weinvier Forest (which was deemed to be too scary), rescuing the oppressed in Loor (which was deemed to be too much) and trading a valuable 50gp amulet with the Lady Bianca of Jarton (which was deemed to be too unrewarding). So they decided to head East with a merchant caravan instead. Fronting up to the Braxton Shipping Company, they signed on as guards with a caravan headed to Jarton, which meant they’d have to travel through the Weinvier forest anyway. But that was deemed to be ok, as it paid 12gp each, each way.
Waiting the two days for its departure, they were ready bright and early when the day finally arrived.
They were assigned to the last wagon in the group and enjoyed the gentle, easy pace of the caravan, with its thirty armed guards and scouts. The day was sunny, right up until they entered the forest. The journey through the woods was slow and wearying, as the sun barely filtered through the leaves. Nothing occurred during the day, but a chill breeze built up towards evening and there was an ever present feeling of being watched.
That night the guard duty was onerous, with Montpelier in particular being disturbed by the sounds of the forest, and one of the guards going missing on Lothar’s watch. The next day was cold, but with an extra ration to share between the guards it was at least a little better fed. The caravan travelled on south, until late in the afternoon when the front wagon vanished into a cloud of darkness. Irulan imbued a coin with magical light and tossed it forward, dispelling the darkness, but it soon returned and Irulan found herself bathed in a colourful nimbus of light, moments before being struck by two arrows. She then slumped to the ground, victim to a fast acting poison. Llorth and Montpelier leapt to the far side of the wagon, as Lothar cast a magical shield about himself, just in time to prevent the impact of several more arrows.
Spotting two figures perched in the trees, Llorth and Montpelier fired on them, but missed. It was at this point that Llorth and the wagon driver found themselves the targets of another magical darkness spell. Luthor peered out, then decided it was easier to wait inside it. About now two figures attacked Montpelier from behind. They appeared to be dark skinned elves, wearing black armour and wielding swords. She cleft one in twain with the magical bastard sword, being very surprised to note that its handle had started bleeding as she used it against them. The other turned to flee, but was killed by a female of his kind before the party could do so. The newcomer gestured for the party to leave, which they eventually did (after a brief huddle, followed by trading a few missed shots and stealing some horses).
They travelled northwards as quickly as possible with four of the draft horses. Irulan soon woke up, none the worse for her nap. Late that night they were stopped by two travellers, who introduced themselves as Gi’Khlasath and N’a’rai. These travellers were tall and gaunt, and wore baroque armour of a type none in the group recognised. After asking a few simple questions about the party’s expertise and ascertaining that they were possibly typical of most hired guards, the two settled a bet between themselves and allowed the party to pass on. After another quick huddle, they decided to do so.
All seemed to be going well, until a large voice ordered them to stop. This called for another huddle. The appearance of an extremely large, reptilian carnivor of the red persuasion settled the discussion. Being reasonably polite, the party were more than happy to provide the dragon with their horses, a map showing the most direct route to both Shom Par and Bridgeton and to also answer quite clearly “Yes”, “No” and “Maybe” when they were asked if they had recently been with ‘The Faithful’. The dragon (who they assumed to be the infamous red dragon known as Thrazcaleen) then flew off and left them to trudge out of the forest on foot.
Imagine their surprise when they finally exited the forest the next morning, only to see a large pall of smoke hanging over the ruins of Shom Par.
Reggie
Life’s Bazaar
After pausing and looking at the pall of smoke rising over Shom Par for what seemed like a very long time, the party moved onwards. As they got closer, they saw signs of life – generally in the form of villagers trying to put out the fires.
Just before they reached the town gates they witnessed a group of griffon riders approach the town, circle and land in the town centre. The ‘heroes’ moved through the town, seeing a lot of destruction, with the whole Merchants’ Quarter having been destroyed and stopped in at The Tumbling Kitten. There they heard that someone in dark robes had been looking for them, but got no further information. They wandered out into the town square, where they met with Silver, the leader of the griffon riders, who were a band of mighty adventurers on an epic quest. The other members were a well armed dwarf, a gnome, a female human and a cloaked figure they suspected of being an elf. (pah!)
Silver chatted with them, and after stating that the going rate for a griffon was fifty thousand gold refused to accept twenty (not thousand, just twenty).
He then offered them a job. He and his ‘crew’ were going to head off immediately to slay Thrazcaleen, but were expecting some information from the library. If the party would wait for the information and personally deliver it to Silver in Cauldron, he would pay 100gp each, plus transport. The party considered negotiating, and then just took the job.
The information was ready the next day, and so the party dutifully caught the next coach to Cauldron. Whilst pleasantly surprised to discover that Bridgeton still stood, they found the journey rather dull. The inn keeper at the last stop before Cauldron was informative, telling them of the Lost City (which wasn’t) and The Tower (which was - a tower, that is).
Cauldron itself was impressive, with its malachite walls rising around it and the caldera it was built into. They hopped off the coach and wandered around, eventually finding The Drunken Morkoth Inn, just off Obsidian Avenue, where they met with Silver, who actually paid up! He then gave them a tip for nothing. Apparently Cedric (the cloaked member of his group) had had a vision and wanted to warn the party to “Beware the Dark Locks”. Not knowing what the devil this meant, they nodded politely and backed away.
Wondering what to do, they fished around for any gossip and heard that people had been mysteriously vanishing in the night, with the town guard being completely bamboozled. Llorth also heard from a very reliable source that there was a dark cult kidnapping citizens and sacrificing them to dark gods. Llorth offered money to the source for more accurate information, and he agreed to go and ask his cousin to talk to his neighbour, who would get the info from his brother in law.
After checking the prices for accommodation they decided that the inn was a bit pricey for them and so set off for The Lost Rowboat off of Lava Avenue. Crossing over Magma Avenue, they heard cries for help, and so (eventually) wandered down an alley towards the cries, where they found a poor priest of St Cuthbert being set upon by three thugs, each sporting black and white face paint, who were making it clear to him that he and his church should keep away from the orphanage. The heroes used some harsh language to scare the thugs away, whereupon a fourth one, who had been hiding on a roof top, called down to them. She had much better makeup than the others, and was a lot quieter. She told them that the priest lived only because she allowed it, then turned and vanished into the night.
The priest, whose name turned out to be Ruphus Laro, asked the party to accompany him back to his temple. They did, and were greeted and ushered in – even Irulan. Jenya Urikas, the acting High Priest(ess) of St Cuthbert met with them and thanked them for their assistance. She then offered to pay the party 2,000gp if they would find four children who had vanished from the Lantern Street Orphanage. Apparently the Church had vowed to find them, but wasn’t having much luck. In desperation Jenya had used a holy relic of the church – a mace known as ‘The Star of Justice’ – to attempt to divine some clue to their whereabouts. The mace was informative, but only in a very cryptic way. Jenya received the following message:
The locks are key to finding them.
Look beyond the curtain, below the cauldron,
But beware the doors with teeth.
Descend into the Malachite ‘hold,
Where precious life is bought with gold.
Half a dwarf binds them, but not for long.
The party decided to take the work, and accepted the bonus of a vial of Cure Moderate Wounds each. They stayed the night in the temple and then left for the orphanage, determined to find Deakon, Evelyn, Lucinda and Terrem.
Arriving at the orphanage early in the morning, they were greeted at the door by a surly gnome woman named Gretchyn Tashykk, who only let them in after seeing their letter of authority from Jenya. She was a bit annoyed that so many people had been through, what with the town guard taking statements from each staff member and many of the children, and two investigators who worked for the Lord Mayor coming by later that same day to question her. She stopped grumbling for a bit, so the party questioned her and found that on the night of the disappearance a little boy named Tommy had had a bad dream about an evil gnome with crooked teeth and a tattered cloak trying to snatch his breath. Apart from that, no-one had seen or heard a thing. They then interviewed Tommy, who had little to add to the story.
Politely asking Gretchyn, the party had themselves locked into the rooms where the children slept and searched them thoroughly. Apart from learning that the door locks were well made and hadn’t been tampered with, they found nothing, so they again spoke with Gretchyn. After careful questioning, they found that the locks on the doors had one key, which she kept, but that the locksmith still lived in town, and charged quite a bit for his locks.
Leaving Irulan and a strangely quiet Luthor to continue questioning Gretchyn, Llorth and Montpellier followed up on Montpellier’s brainwave and headed off to visit Keygan Ghelve, in Ash Avenue.
At this point Irulan came up with the brilliant realisation that ducks don’t have teeth, then spent the next ten minutes wondering why.
Reggie
Vanishing in Jzadirune
Llorth and Montpellier wandered through town, until they located the establishment of Keygan Ghelve. They entered and found themselves dealing with the world’s tallest gnome, whom Llorth eventually decided was wearing stilts. Deciding that the curtains behind his desk bore delving into, Llorth distracted him by attempting to pick one of his locks, whilst Montpellier peeked behind the curtain and saw nothing of note.
Living up to expectations, Llorth realised that the lock was not of Ghelve’s own manufacture and promptly insulted the gnome, who in turn promptly kicked them both out. Llorth stayed nearby to surreptitiously watch the shop, whilst Montepellier went in search of the rest of the heroes.
'Princess' Irulan, having given up on the duck approach, had decided to pay her respects to the local Church of Saint Wallace and had bumped into a likely looking young sorcerer who went by the name of Heiyu. Heiyu had had a sad upbringing, being an orphan who had failed to become a cleric in the church that had provided food and shelter for most of Heiyu’s life. (There was also a rumour that Heiyu had failed entry into the town guard, but that couldn’t be confirmed or denied.) Seeing the need for a self-actualised, magic-employing member of the party, Princess offered Heiyu a temporary position, which was gratefully accepted.
Returning to the Church of Saint Cuthbert, Princess, Luthor and Heiyu ran into Montpellier, who informed them of the events at Keygan’s, then politely asked about Heiyu. After being filled in on the background, they all headed for The Lost Rowboat (except for Luthor, who was going to go in search of some more background information). Arriving at the 'Rowboat, they ran into Llorth and Keygan, who had spotted Llorth in his tree and had arranged to have a drink with him.
Keygan had told Llorth of his dilemma – his shop concealed the last known entrance to Jzaridune, the abandoned city of the Gnomes. THe gnomes had all left after a magical disease known as ‘The Vanishing’ had swept through their undeground city.
One night, about three months ago, a group of beings slipped into his shop through the hidden entrance to Jzadirune and kidnapped his familiar, ‘Starbrow’ the rat. In exchange for Starbrow’s continued well-being, they demanded a key that would let them into all the locks he had made. Keygan complied and made them a set of three keys that would open every lock he had sold in Cauldron.
In exchange for the party rescuing Starbrow, Keygan gave them all the information he had on the kidnappers:
• There were two types of creatures – short ones, who were sinister, gnomelike beings with pallid skin, big noses and soft, black hooves for feet and tall ones that looked like naked, genderless, hairless humans with blue, pupilless eyes and grey skin that tended to blend in with their surroundings.
• They all spoke some language he didn’t recognise when they weren’t speaking to him.
• He hadn’t spotted any specific leader.
• The tall ones had imprisoned Starbrow somewhere in Jzadirune.
Apparently one of the tall ones was keeping guard inside Keygan's workshop, which was why he couldn’t speak out earlier, and he feared that the town guard wouldn’t be able to act without risking Starbrow, so he didn’t go to them for help.
The party then planned to sneak into the shop by creating a diversion outside and sneaking in. This would have worked well, except that the diversion was right outside the front door they used. Fortunately Llorth and Heiyu managed to fell the guard reasonable efficiently, and they were able to head down the dark stairs under Keygan’s workshop, pausing only to receive the old map Keygan gave them, with the warning that the gear-shapped doors of Jzaridune were probably all trapped, so they were to look for secret doors and tunnels where possible.
At the bottom of the long flight of dark stairs they found themselves in a large room, surrounded by gnomish masks and the magical sounds of giggling gnomes, rustling leaves and birdsong. Llorth decided to investigate an open door to the south and surprised two of the taller kidnappers, who were dispatched by the party as they fled through a hole dug into the wall of the room.
After only a brief huddle, the group headed through the long eastern tunnel, then turned and took the long southern arm of the passage that it ran into.
They found themselves entering a room that they decided had been magically altered to look like a forest in late afternoon sunlight, which was terribly pleasant, but didn’t help them in any of their quests. Heading north up a broad flight of steps, they were surprised when one of the small, dark, gnomey things appeared out of no-where and screamed out “Taral yan zyggek!” – gnomish for “Attack all intruders!” as Heiyu later pointed out – before fleeing from the room. This was odd enough, but the nasty thing that appeared and attacked them was even worse.
Later identified by Heiyu as a Pulveriser Automaton, the metallic construction that attacked them dished out a lot of physical and sonic pain before finally being discomboomerated by a combination of Montpellier’s potion-enhanced brute strength and Heiyu’s Magic Missiles. Following some long forgotten lore, Llorth felt through the remains of the construct and discovered a brilliant blue crystal and a key to one of Jzaridune’s doors.
They party licked their wounds briefly, then went back to find the fled gnomoid. They followed its path through another of the new tunnels and found themselves in an abandoned glassblowing workshop, where they successfully intimidated Yuathyb, self proclaimed ‘Dark Stalker’ and leader of the ‘Dark Creepers’. He was somewhat taller than the other Creepers, and more than just a bit transparent. Apparently suffering from ‘the Vanishing’, Yuathyb offered to direct the party to where he and the Dark Creepers had traded the kidnap victims with a certain ‘Kazmojen’ (who was sort of a dwarf) if they would help him to deal with his unfortunate condition. They agreed, and then promptly searched the glassblowing room and the adjacent Jeweller’s Workshop, where they found another of the Jzaridune keys.
Reggie
Kazmojen’s Bazaar
Having gained Yuathyb the Dark Stalker’s trust, the group decided to investigate the Gnomish city a little further before continuing on. They moved northwards, discovering a disused smithy, within which Llorth found another one of the Jzaridune keys. They crept on westward, finding a dark creeper barracks. A short battle later they had defeated the four Dark Creepers present and had sent Montpelier onwards through a new tunnel they found in the room. When she reported finding a small room at the end that contained a lever, they ordered her to pull it. When nothing untoward (apart from a loud ‘click’) happened, they instructed her to return.
They left the barracks and continued West, finding a boarded up wall, which they ripped open and passed through to find themselves in a large hall, with balconies and a giant, glowing cog. Deciding to investigate a pair of iron doors to the south, Heiyu (and the party) were very surprised when a tentacle slipped down from above and dragged the unwitting sorcerer up into the darkness.
Arrows and crossbow bolts flew. Some even hit the bizarre creature and not Heiyu. The creature – a cross between a jellyfish and a giant, flying brain – tried to flee with its burden, but enough lucky hits caused it to drop its prey as it made for the shadowy cover of the far balcony. Llorth flung his crossbow to one side as he leapt under the plummeting figure, managing to prevent Heiyu’s untimely demise by acting as a trampoline.
Irulan, with her vast history of reading in between impalements, suggested the beast might be a Grell, and that the best way to kill it would be to hit it lots. Backing into the open area around the giant cog, Llorth suggested that Montpelier fetch one of the Dark Creeper corpses to use as bait. When she returned and attempted to fling the diminutive corpse out into the centre of the room, the Grell lashed out of the shadows and paralysed her. The party concentrated their fire and brought the foul beast down.
Spending a few moments to recover, the party searched the large hall, finding a small collection of valuables, and then they proceeded to open the large iron doors to the South.
This led into an ornately tiled room, with four of the gear doors opening off of it and the words ‘Jzaridune’ set into the floor. Llorth investigated these last and discovered that the letter ‘I’ acted as a switch to open a secret door in the centre of the south wall, which led through to the main entrance chamber. Passing through it they followed Yuathyb’s directions to the lift that led to the Malachite Fortress.
Getting Yuathyb to talk to the Skulk that guarded the end of the short tunnel, Llorth crept up on the sentry and slew it, after it tried to offer him the silver key that opened the small silver cage that held Starbrow the rat captive. Next he decided to feed the Skulk’s body to the Mimic disguised as a chest, upon which sat the silver cage. He then swore most virulently as he realised that he would have to search through the gelatinous remains of the mimic, once they had slain it, to recover the other key the Skulk possessed, which opened the gear door that led to the lift.
Once this was accomplished, they entered the large, octagonal lift room and faced a pair of humanoids of a type they had never before encountered. These humanoids fought bravely, but briefly, and the party then used the lift to descend into the Malachite Fortress.
Leaving the lift, they quietly tiptoed past a grumpy piece of modern art, before finding themselves in a large entry room. They quickly slew the four humanoid guards and moved onwards into a corridor with another two guards at the far end. These, too, they slew, before leaping bravely into the room beyond.
Life suddenly stopped being easy. Kazmojen himself, resplendent in his black plate armour, was negotiating the sale of the four orphans with Pyllrat Shyraat, a creepy, grubby looking Durzagon.
The heroes readily slew the two guards in the room, but had great difficulty even hitting the other occupants. Heiyu’s sleep spells managed to quieten the orphans, but only the magic missiles hurt Kazmojen. Irulan attacked the Durzagon, but was quickly trapped as he grew to giant size and struck at her with his creepily animated, poisonous beard. Prickles, Kazmojen’s pet howler, ran around trying to attack everyone. Montpelier leapt into the fray, but was quickly struck down by Kazmojen.
Just as things looked their worst, Heiyu noticed a disturbance in the air nearby and turned to see a large orb-like beast appear. It bellowed angrily at Kazmojen, demanding that the orphan Terrem Kharatys be returned, as he should never have been taken from Cauldron. It said that the boy would be returned safely to the orphanage, but that Kazmojen could do as he wished with the others. The newcomer then vanished with one of the orphans.
This broke up the situation somewhat. Pyllrat stomped off in disgust, not enjoying having his property taken by a beholder. Kazmojen, desperate for money, offered to sell the remaining children to the party, who bartered him down to 130gp for a job lot. The party coughed up the cash, grabbed the kids, recovered Montpelier’s body and ran for it before anything changed.
Returning to the surface, they were thanked by Keygan Ghelve for rescuing Starbrow. They returned the three orphans to the orphanage, where the fourth was apparently already asleep in his own bed, after mysteriously appearing at the front door. They popped by the Church, where they received their reward and accepted the offer of a Raise Dead for Montpelier.
They then slipped back to their rooms in the nearby inn, to work out where they could safely go next.
Reggie
Mad God’s Key
Having saved the world, or at least three orphans who live in it, the party spent a few days reconciling budgets and purchasing needed goods. They then visited several merchants, including Lathenmire’s, Zanathor’s Provisions and Skie’s Treasury,
Whilst this was happening, Montpelier had undergone some deep soul searching and decided that before she died again she wanted to go and help those living in the troubled South. To this end she took her share of the treasure and left Cauldron, leaving the party’s only magic sword with them.
Noting her departure with a solid breakfast, the party were approached by Keygan Ghelve, who asked for their help in recovering a magical key that had been stolen from his shop early that morning. Offering the party 250gp each for its return, he told them that he had discovered thieves breaking into his new shop, and whilst he had managed to apprehend them, another must have gotten away with the key his father had left him. Finding out that Keygan had been forcibly moved on the Mayor’s orders to a new establishment after the general discovery of the entrance to Jzadirune under his old residence, the party followed him to his new shop.
There they found two tied up street thugs being carefully watched by Starbrow. After careful questioning, they admitted that they ran into an ‘Associate’ of theirs, a half-orc called Iron Tusk, who said that the place was open pickings. Apparently he had just finished breaking in and was heading somewhere else. The thugs (Marek and Flegon) said that Iron Tusk was known to frequent the Screaming Duck tavern on Ash Avenue.
Turning the two over to the local guard, who were more interested in the theft of a book from the Great Library, the party went to the Screaming Duck and waited. When Iron Tusk eventually arrived, Heiyu cast a Sleep spell on him, and then Llorth hit him over the back of the head for the slow trip back to Ghelves.
Tying him up carefully, the party questioned him, but he refused to talk. Llorth searched him thoroughly, but found no trace of the key. They did find a map to a nearby building and some coins, so they decided to follow the map to see what they could find. Locking Iron Tusk into the basement, they set off.
The map led to a deserted looking merchant house backing onto the lake. Sneaking to a door in the stables, the group were attacked by a trio of Stirges, which they fed and sent on their way. Deciding to try the main door instead, they found that the building had been taken over by a group of thieves known as the Green Daggers, but that they weren’t in a good way. Fighting their way past a guard Krenshar (well, Heiyu and Irulan fought, Llorth the Incontinent just fled) they discovered that most of the thieves had come down with a nasty blinding disease. Making their way past traps and the few remaining guards as best they could, the group confronted the leader of the Green Daggers, Cyrathas the elf, and his final guards, Tisa & Risa Tyran (gnome twins) and Delta Gwyn (a human).
After they had assured him that they weren’t with the ‘Last Laugh’ they came to an arrangement. In exchange for three sapphires, the party would seek clerical help for the Green Daggers from the temple of St Wallace, and Cyrathas would tell what he knew about the key.
It turned out that the Green Daggers had moved into town a couple of months ago and were trying to cut into the local thieving business. Then, about two weeks ago, they had come down with this serious malady. Two days ago they were approached by a rather grotty cleric of Pelor, who offered them an antidote if they recovered the key for him. They did this, but had to hire outside help, owing to their lack of healthy membership.
Veltargo returned for the key that morning and left an ‘antidote’ with them, but it didn’t work.
The party digested this information, and then spent several days wandering around town, collecting more bits and pieces to the puzzle as they recovered from their run in with the stirges. They discovered that the church of Pelor was being investigated for the robbery of a book from the Great Library, and that whilst none of the priests there matched the description of the villain, one of them had been mugged for his Holy accoutrements about a week earlier. In the scuffle he had wrested a stone pendant, a bloodstone in the shape of a fist squeezing a drop of blood, from his attacker. The priest gave this pendant to the party to help them in their quest.
They then visited the Great Library, where they found that a thief in the robes of a cleric of Pelor had been seen running from the building with a book under his arm. This book had never been read, as it was sealed with a magical lock, to which there was no key.
Putting three and four together, the party suspected that the stolen key opened the stolen book, and so set about researching the stone pendant. They eventually found that it was a ‘cairn charm’ from a cairn called the ‘Tomb of Blood Everflowing’, an obscure cairn that once held a temple to Wee Jas and lay about thirty miles north of Cauldron.
Having money to spend, the party bought themselves some horses and set out North. Stopping overnight at a respectable coach house (The Grinning Fox), they arrived at their destination, a cave flanked by two blood red stone obelisks, midway through the next morning.
Hobbling their horses nearby, the party entered the coppery smelling cave mouth and discovered a carefully carved complex of passages, with lists of names written in an ancient language on the walls, and a flowing channel of blood moving from a wellto a small pool, fed by a carved stone skull in the ceiling. They moved further into the cairn and discovered a large pool of blood, which had bloody footprints leading from it. Searching the chamber carefully, they found ten broken and empty sarcophaguses and a lot of graffiti. They also found a little indentation on the wall above the pool that exactly fit the cairn charm. Putting it into place and turning it, they were not completely surprised to see that a secret doorway opened up at the far end of the blood pool, causing the blood to drain out and a hidden passageway with stairs leading down to be revealed…
Reggie
Tomb of Blood Everflowing
The group looked down into the darkness revealed by the emptying of the pool of blood. After a few moments the debate began. Heiyu thought that the sensible thing to do would be to light a torch and head on down. Llorth and Irulan gave this suggestion reasonable consideration, and then loudly voiced their regret over the fact that the party did not contain a member who was unfortunately cursed by elven or dwarven heritage, for they would be able to precede the others down into the darkness, using their supernatural abilities to see in the dark, thus maintaining their stealthy descent into the tomb...
Heiyu then ‘huffed’ loudly and strode on down into the darkness, much to the surprise of Irulan and Llorth, neither of whom had even the faintest inkling that there was anything amiss in Heiyu’s background. They then quickly stumbled into the passage in pursuit.
Coming to the end of the passage, Heiyu came to a stop as it opened into a room that overlooked a vast pit that vanished into the depths. Far below could be heard the sound of liquid pouring into a large pool and the stench of blood filled the air. As Irulan and Llorth felt their way into the room, Heiyu was surprised to see a silhouette pass in front of Irulan. Crying a warning, Heiyu tried to attack, but felt another creature strike from behind.
Llorth gave up on the stealthy approach and grabbed for a lantern from his pack and quickly lit it, revealing a scene from a nightmare, as the cold corpses of three commoners shuffled forward to attack the group. Even more disturbing, it was plainly evident that each of the undead horrors was missing both their left hand and eye. Irulan sprang into an instant religious fervour, and grasping her holy Badger before her, called upon the power of St Wallace to drive the unnatural creations from her presence.
After a brief round of applause in appreciation of her efforts, the group looked around before considering their next move.
There was a rather big shock when they realised that the pit the room opened onto dropped over a hundred feet to an underground lake of blood below. Countless skulls lined the walls of the pit shaft, each one draining torrents of blood into the lake in frothing coils. Llorth looked back around the walls of the room and found a small shelf in the wall near the entrance that supported six more of the cairn charms, which were quickly distributed among the group. Above the shelf was a symbol that looked a lot more recent than the rest of the tomb so far. It representing an eyeball held in the palm of a hand and had indentations much like the ones above the pool of blood behind them. As they investigated this, they heard the sound of the doorway closing. Confident that they could find their way out again, they paid closer attention to the symbol on the wall, which Irulan thought might refer to some ancient wizard who amassed an army of followers in his quest for godhood.
Deciding that the chances of a Lich awaiting the party at the bottom of the tomb were minimal, Irulan suggested that Llorth advance in front of the party down the passage leading from the room. Llorth was quick to point out that Irulan had overlooked one major point – to whit; he was a coward. Irulan scowled at him before striding on down the descending passageway herself.
The group quickly came to a side passage and found that one path led to a dead end, in which (suitably) they found the cowering zombies, which quickly fell to the effects of Heiyu’s alchemical fire.
Returning to the main passage, they followed until it widened into a ledge overlooking the vast blood pit. Across the chamber from them was another passage continuing down. On the ceiling above them was a crudely painted eyeball, and on the floor beneath them was a painting of a severed hand. Above the far passageway was the symbol of the eye in hand again.
Striding boldly forward, Llorth was literally stunned when a Sound Burst Trap was triggered by his passing beneath the symbol. Reeling in pain for a few moments, Llorth was not amused when Irulan did not suffer the same fate as she tried the passage herself.
This passage wound downwards to eventually open into a dimly torch-lit room full of crates and barrels that appeared to have been taken from strange places, as if they had been stolen from merchant caravans. The contents were quite mundane and so the party looked to the far end of the room to the two exits there. Trying the one on the Left, Llorth found it quickly came to another room, containing four more of the zombies, which the group defeated with spiritual aid from St Wallace. The other passageway led to a similar room, also containing four undead humans, which were similarly dispatched. Searching carefully, the group located a small chamber containing a stone sarcophagus inlaid with silver. The lid had been removed and lay on its side by the empty sarcophagus. The face carved into the stone of the lid depicted an imperious nobleman, and there was the symbol of a skull in a halo of flame carved at the head and foot of the sarcophagus. The contents of the room had obviously been in places for hundreds of years.
Moving onwards and downwards, the passageway opened up again to a broad chamber lit only by a faintly glowing moss that clung to the floor in patches. Hundreds of small holes, each about three inches in diameter, pierced the walls. On the far side could be seen a few steps leading down to the edge of the lake of blood.
Suspecting a trap, Heiyu cast a spell to give the illusion of voices moving through the chamber, but there was no response. Irulan recovered the remains of one of the fallen undead and hurled it into the centre of the room, but there was still no response. Llorth (muttering over his breath) slinked into the room and paused at the centre, when he heard the sound of hundreds of tiny, pattering feet.
Looking around in horror, he saw hundreds of undead Corpse Rats swarm into the room. Irulan tried to call on the power of St Wallace once more, but the undead terror was too great. Llorth tried to fight his way clear, but could only skewer one foul creature at a time, as the rest clawed at his feet and legs.
Heiyu called upon wave after wave of magic missiles to save Llorth, whilst Irulan took her mace and destroyed great swaths of rats, as more swelled into the room. Fighting their rising nausea, the group struggled against the ghastly horde, finally driving it away before they succumbed to their own injuries.
Irulan called upon St Wallace to tend to their wounds, and then they approached the staircase leading to the small ledge overlooking the lake of gently rippling blood. On the far side of the cavern could be seen broken columns protruding from the lake, whilst the sound of splashing blood falling from above echoed throughout.
Not trusting anything, Irulan looked carefully around the chamber, using the holy power within to seek out any foul undead that may be lurking within. She easily discovered eight abominations lurking beneath the crimson surface, but unfortunately Llorth was waist deep in the blood by this time, striding for the far side.
The skeletons rose from the blood to attack as Irulan called her warning. It could be seen that one of the skeletons appeared much more ancient than the others, having browned bones and missing teeth. The glint of silver could be seen around its neck bones. Naturally the party dispatched this one first, followed quickly by the rest.
The group thought that this would be an excellent opportunity to retreat, regroup and recover for their final onslaught, and so moved back from the crimson lake.
Reggie
The Hall of Secrets
After a fitful night’s sleep, the trio crept back down to the shore of the lake of blood. Sensing no immediate threat, Llorth slipped into the red liquid and made his way around the walls of the shaft’s base to the lip of the strange hallway seen from the distance.
This new hall projected back from the pool of blood, with fourteen black columns lining either side of a stream of blood flowing from the far wall to cascade over a short drop into the pool. In the centre of each column was a red, glowing image of the eye-in-hand symbol that had been appearing throughout the cairn. From the air about him, Llorth could hear vague whispers, their words unclear.
Llorth signalled for the others to join him and moved towards the far end of the hall. Reaching the end, Llorth discovered a pair of black stone portals barring the way to the next area. Although he could find no sign of a trap, he didn’t trust the evil magic of the place and awaited the arrival of Heiyu, who cast a spell to divine the location of any magic nearby.
As suspected, the door was indeed enchanted, but Heiyu also detected the presence of magic from the room beyond. Unable to circumvent the ward upon the doors, Irulan stepped forward and boldly pushed open the doors. As the whispers in the hall grew to a near deafening level, Irulan felt a dark shadow slip across her vision, but steadfastly refused to succumb and shrugged off the effects of the magic, and crossed the threshold.
The room beyond was a vast chamber that rose to create a vaulted ceiling forty feet above the floor. Two silver braziers flanked a large pool of blood, both emitting black smoke. A black, basalt statue stood in the centre of the pool, depicting a rotting corpse wearing fine robes and missing both one eye and one hand. Blood poured from each of these wounds into the pool below. An ornate bookstand stood before the statue, bearing a single large tome, its pages open.
Standing by the two braziers were two unkempt men, both in armour, carrying shields and weapons. Their vestments also bore the symbol of the eye in the hand.
Leaping into action, Heiyu fired at the nearer, whilst Irulan turned to meet the approach of the younger. Veltargo, the senior of the two clerics, shrugged off Hiyu’s attack and yelled “Arise and destroy the infidels, oh Blessed One!” at which point a rotting Ogre corpse rose from the pool of blood and started advancing towards the party. The younger priest then struck at Irulan with his mace, whilst crying ‘The Heretics will not succeed!”.
Llorth chose this moment to fire a warning crossbow bolt into the room.
Heiyu tried hitting Veltargo the cleric with a spear, but with little effect. Irulan tried to call upon the glory of St Wallace to turn the approaching Ogre zombie, but to no avail. Veltargo gestured with one hand, and Llorth became aware of a glowing dagger that appeared in the air before him, before plunging into his chest. Isalnarr, the younger cleric, tried to slap at Irulan whilst chanting, but missed.
Llorth fired another warning shot.
Heiyu backed away from Veltargo as he turned and hissed at Llorth ‘Flee!”. Llorth chose to do just this, sprinting back to the pool of blood. Irulan tried once more to strike at the Zombie and Isalnarr finally succeeded in slapping her, the unholy energies he had summoned sapping vitality from her. The Zombie then struck, its slow-moving bulk belying its strength as it delivered a crushing blow to Irulan.
Downing a potion of magical healing, Heiyu turned and readied a spell to hurl at Veltargo, whilst irulan again struck at the younger cleric, finally felling him. Veltargo stepped back and quaffed a potion himself, as Llorth paused in mid flight, then turned and readied himself to charge back into the fray. Again the undead Ogre lashed out at Irulan, dealing her more damage.
Heiyu then cast a spell, sending magic missiles hurtling into the evil cleric’s body. Wincing in agony, he pointed a wooden wand at Heiyu and muttered an arcane word. A magic missile flew from the end, striking Heiyu. Irulan struck again at the zombie, whilst Llorth, screaming a terribly alarming battle cry, charged at Veltargo and deftly thrust his rapier into a gap in his armour, causing him to crumple to the floor.
The death of its presumed master didn’t affect the zombie, which kept on fighting, but was eventually overcome by the three.
A search of the temple, and the neighbouring sleeping quarters, revealed that the two clerics had been left to oversee the temple whilst a mysterious leader ‘D’ left with the rest of the temple’s minions to collect materials for some perverted rite. The tome in front of the statue was indeed the one the heroes had been looking for, but its strange words were unreadable, and many pages had been removed.
The party chose to recover all the items they could, whilst exerting considerable effort to break the other hand off of the statue in the pool and then fled from the temple via the secret back stair, pausing only to pour oil on the floor of the stairs, half-way up them.
Their return to Cauldron was punctuated only by a brief stay at the Grinning Fox.
Their first stop in Cauldron was at the church of St Wallace, where they found that the tome detailed the creation of some sort of grotesque undead creature, and was written completely in Draconic. When they described their adventure to Hamish (the local priest of Saint Wallace), he quickly identified the symbol of the eye in the palm as belonging to followers of Vecna, a rather nasty type of god. They chose to return the tome to the library, where they received a reward of 275gp for their troubles. Realising they felt decidedly unwell by this stage, Irulan and Llorth returned to the temple, where they were cured of their incipient Filth Fever.
Meanwhile, Heiyu visited Keygan and returned his key, which was now non-magical. Still grateful, however, he provided a reward for the heirloom’s recovery.
Discussing their next move back at the Lost Rowboat, the heroes received a request for a meeting with a ‘Lord Vhalantru’. Knowing him to be one of the shadowy merchant lords in the city, Heiyu recommended they attend.
The Lord met them that evening in the common room of the inn, accompanied by one rather well muscled attendant, Jeffries. Lord Vhalantru informed them that certain members of the city were aware of the party’s deeds, and hoped that they would remain in the City, assuring them that there would be plenty of work for an effective group of heroes. He also offered to sell them a property on Magma Avenue, if they wished to set up a more permanent base of operations. For the princely sum of 2000gp, the party quickly agreed. Lord Vhalantru then wished them well and told them they could reach him at his estate through Jeffries in the future.
Reggie
The Grinning Fox
Things were going well for the party of adventurers as they settled into a routine of trouping round their local inns, popping by the lists as they set up outside the city for the opening round of the World Series Jousting and visiting the Gladiatorial Arena as it geared up for the Flood Festival Events. All around them the city was filing with visitors and entertainers and competitors as the festival preparations became more frenzied.
Then on a Monday, somewhere around noon, they ran into an old work buddy, Grumnuts ‘Slack Bladder’, a half Orc bouncer from Riversend, who reported that the new mayor had closed down all the drinking, gambling and wenching establishments, putting many hard working professionals out of a job.
After some careful negotiation in the front bar of the Tipped Tankard they agreed to take him on as a professional weapons handler. It was about then that Luthor the Mighty showed his face again.
Luthor claimed to have been researching information about the city and was certain he had tripped over some sort of conspiracy. He’d discovered that there was a second currency being circulated about the town (which had a jester’s face on one side) and had seen strange people about at night with their faces painted half black/half white. Not believing his half-baked mime conspiracy theory, Heiyu took the coin he brought with him and went to visit Lord Vhalantru's manor. Jeffries made assurances that this curious occurance would be considered most seriously.
Meanwhile, in an effort to evade Luthor, the others left the tavern, only to have him follow them, then start screaming as he was attacked by a robed and hooded assailant with a nasty looking dagger.
As everyone debated the various merits of stepping in to assist, the town guard appeared and the villain ran off. Finally succumbing to nagging feelings of civic responsibility, Llorth, Irulan and Grumnuts took the vilely disfigured Luthor to the temple of St Wallace and left him on the doorstep.
Heiyu returned to the townhouse with Jeffries’ assurances, just in time for the group to be summoned to the temple of St Cuthbert. They arrived there quickly, and were told by Jenya that Sarcem, the High Priest, had magically sent her a message telling her that he was under attack at the Grinning Fox and desperately needed help. Jenya made it clear that the survival of the city rested on his fate, as he was returning after travelling away from Cauldron to obtain eight wands of Control Water, which were vital to preventing rising water levels in the lake destroying the city during the upcoming flood season.
Seeing little choice, the heroes haggled over a fee, and finally agreed to do the job when they were promised five thousand gold for their trouble.
Dashing back to their townhouse, they grabbed their horses and rode off for the Grinning Fox.
Arriving there early the next morning, they saw that at first glance the building didn’t look all that unusual. As they approached closer, however, they saw that several of the windows had been broken and there was a spray of blood across the front door. From inside came the sounds of raucous revelry.
Llorth carefully crept up to a window and peered through, seeing a group of bandits with red sashes helping themselves to the bar stocks, whilst the bodies of slain patrons lay around the room. Deciding that this wasn’t the work of ‘good’ guys, the group sprang into action. Slipping the door open, Llorth let Heiyu lean past and cast a pair of sleep spells that easily affected several of the thugs. Then Grum charged into the bar room, swinging his longsword in a decidedly lethal manner, whilst Llorth, Irulan and Heiyu peppered the room with crossbow bolts. The fight was brief, and an inspection of the room located another two bandits who were too involved in each other to notice the furore in the main room. The group tied up their prisoners and left them in a private salon whilst they continued their exploration of the establishment.
Their searches eventually led them to the garden in the centre of the building, where they discovered a group of dire foxes, which Heiyu webbed to keep out of the way. They then moved to enter the kitchen, when they realised that a nasty looking werefox was in there counting his ill-gotten gains. The party leapt into action, attacking him for all they were worth, before realising that he healed from most injuries almost instantly. This put a major crimp in their plan (“Get Him!”), especially when he called in his backup thugs, who supported him with covering fire from the far side of the room. Llorth chose this moment to turn and run, eliciting chortles of glee from the evil-doers, but using it as an opportunity to circle around through the building and attack them from behind, neatly backstabbing several of them before they realised what was happening. This gave Grum and Irulan the chance to press forward with their attack and eventually they slew the werefox, although Llorth and Grum received nasty bites in the process. Searching the kitchen they discovered the bodiless head of Sarcem – minus its tongue. Their hopes for rescuing him began to fade.
The party then advanced down the stairs to the cellars, where they found another group of thugs, whom Grum recognised as belonging to the ‘Alleybashers’, a rather nasty group of malcontents who had previously worked in Riversend. These thugs were standing near the body of Sarcem. After a brief fight they defeated the red sashed bandits and discovered that they had been trying to work out how to get around a door at the end of the cellar complex that was warped into place and extremely cold to the touch. Heiyu's spells detected the presence of magic beyond the door, so they braced themselves and sent Irulan in to see what was there.
Passing around a nasty patch of brown mould, Irulan found herself in the well room, were a terribly wounded half-elf lay. Irulan carried the half-elf to safety, where she awoke and revealed her name to be Shensen Tesseril, a druid who tended the grove nearby when she heard the attack. Coming to investigate she saw a red headed woman in plate armour with the symbol of a mailed fist clutching six arrows emblazoned on her tabard. Shensen got caught up in the fighting and retreated down to the cellars with Sarcem, whom she had known. When he fell to the werefox, she ran into the well room, scattering the brown mould from the cold room next door and warping the door into place.
The heroes dispatched Irulan to get assistance from Cauldron at this point, and she eventually returned with a force of the town guard and several clerics of St Cuthbert, who were most upset at the death of Sarcem (not to mention the civilians in the Grinning Fox).
The party helped to return Sarcem’s body to the temple in Cauldron, where Jenya took the news of her sudden promotion quite stoically, before reminding the heroes that they still had some wands to recover before they would be paid.
Reggie
The Ruins
The heroes met with Jenya at the temple of St Wallace and got more information on the wands. It appeared that the city was prone to flooding during the rainy season, due to being built on the inside of a caldera. To combat this, in the past the priests of St Cuthbert, Pelor, Wee Jas and Kord would get together and manufacture wands of control water, which would then be used to stem the rising tide and prevent the disastrous flooding that ensued. The past several years have seen a bit of a draught, and so the wands haven’t been needed, being used for other duties. This year the weather predictions have been dire, but the other churches didn’t get involved in their usual manner, leaving Sarcem to go it alone. Knowing he couldn’t manufacture all the needed wands himself, he took a substantial amount from the temple's coffers and headed off to Len Yarn, to purchase the required wands.
The heroes sprang into action. Accepting Sarcem’s magic ring of protection, periapt of wisdom and magical banded armour, they headed off to scour the pubs for any information about a red headed woman who might wish to flood Cauldron.
By that evening they were a little dispirited, but had learned about the sighting of a nasty tentacled beast that apparently lived in the depths of the lake and lured poor fishermen to their doom.
Regrouping at their house, Heiyu responded to a knock at the front door and was handed a note by one of the ubiquitous urchins found in all major cities. Careful questioning revealed that the note had been handed to him by some guy of average height and build with brown hair. Heiyu tipped the urchin, and then read the note.
It clearly stated:
'I know you’re looking for the wands. I can help, for a price. If you’re interested, come alone to the Lakeside Pavilion tonight at midnight. Bring 500 gold coins and you’ll walk away with the location of the wands. Bring backup, and you’ll never find them.'
Being innately trusting, they quickly scouted out the Pavilion, then gave Llorth their potion of invisibility to go and wait for their contact. He did so and presently saw a figure matching the description they were given. The rest of the party showed up and met with the figure, who claimed to have knowledge of the wands whereabouts.
Not believing him, he gave them a name for 200 gold, and told them to investigate it, then meet him again the following night. They agreed to this and were given the name Triel Eldurast. They left, leaving Llorth to follow their contact as he wandered around Cauldron, finally slipping into a back door of the Tipped Tankard.
The next day Irulan went to the Temple of Saint Wallace and had a chat with Hamish Tarmen, the senior cleric of Saint Wallace, who recalled that Triel had been a member of the City Watch about ten years earlier, until she killed six of her colleagues and vanished into the night. It was rumoured that she had gotten involved in some cult.
This convinced the group of the possibility that their informant may know something.
Remembering suddenly that Luthor the Mighty was still around, given that he wandered into their favourite drinking hole, still horribly scarred and raving on about ‘secrets’, the party tasked him with keeping an eye on their informant, whom they’d finally seen working as a cook in the Tipped Tankard.
That evening Llorth went early to the meeting place and hid in the ruins by the Pavilion. The rest of the group arrived at the appointed time and their contact met them. He introduced himself as Artus Shemwick, purveyor of information. After some intense negotiations, they agreed to pay his initial demand, and were told that the entrance to Triel’s lair was via an old lava tube, about half a mile outwards from the North Eastern wall tower. The party thanked him and returned to their home to plan their attack.
Upon returning to their home, they were met by Luthor, who informed them that Artus had left, then returned to the inn within the last hour. They were duly unimpressed.
The next evening they made their way to the lava tube opening.
The tunnel was where they were told and looked terribly dark and scary. So they went in. It wound down into the mountain, eventually opening onto a ledge overlooking a vast cavern that contained a disturbingly algae filled lake. The air was dank and humid. Access to the cavern floor was via a transport cage that was suspended from wires leading from a small stone building built into the wall of the ledge and leading down to a small shack on a shale beach on the far side of the cavern. The far side of the cavern had a series of buildings built into its wall, looking vaguely dwarvern, perhaps, but with curves where there should have been corners, and a sort of melted look throughout. The entire cavern was bathed in a weird, greenish glow from the algae.
Investigating a door in the side of the ledge wall, Llorth discovered a room that held a capstan that connected to the transport cage. Investigating further, the group surprised a pair of thugs who were supposedly standing guard, and ensured they would be of no further concern. The party then made its way down to the beach via the cage.
Whilst Luthor and Grum made their way down after the rest of the party, Llorth and Irulan investigated the small stone building at the base of the transport line, which then collapsed in on them. Somewhat unimpressed, they left the building and set about investigating the ruins built into the walls.
Carefully examining the tracks in the beach, Llorth decided that the bulk of the thugs used three of the possible entrances, and so they carefully snooped under the doors. The central entrance they quickly determined to open onto an empty room, whilst the Southern entrance was obviously a manned sentry point.
They stealthily crept into the central room, finding it to be a large meeting chamber with an impressive wooden meeting table in the centre and three different exits. The central exit appeared to lead to a large corridor, whilst the northern and southern exits led to smaller rooms. Trying the northern exit, Llorth detected that the floor was heavily trapped, so they tried the Northern exit instead.
Llorth quickly realised that this room was also trapped, with many strands of spider silk crossing the floor, so they purposefully triggered the trap from a distance, then stood back to see what would happen.
Almost immediately a net of spider silk fell from the ceiling, then the far door opened and a group of thugs threw in several containers of alchemists fire, before retreating again. The party rushed back out to the beach and circled around to the Northern door, which opened onto the small guard room with only one guard now present, whom they quickly overpowered. They rushed through the corridor beyond, finding the entrance to a mess hall that in turn led to a storeroom that connected to the room on the other side of the trap room. Flinging open the door, the party was quite impressed as Luthor the Mighty detonated an extremely effective fireball in the trap room, flash frying a large number of thugs and leaving only a small handful for the party to mop up.
The group then searched the remainder of the northern corridor, finding a locked door that they couldn’t open, and several caves full of webs and large spiders that they chose to leave for later.
They left this area of the ruins and moved around to the Southern entrance, which led into a high ceilinged room with a nasty floor trap that Llorth helped them to avoid, only to be ambushed from above by thugs on a walkway with bows. As the rest of the party fought them off, Llorth ran deeper into the complex, searching for an access to the higher level. Finding a prison room and an interrogation chamber, as well as an entrance to a deeper set of caves, Llorth then moved further North into the ruins as the rest of the party finished off the thugs and discovered that there was no upper level, just a balcony with a rope ladder leading to it.
The rest of the group moved in pursuit of Llorth, finding him at the entrance to the connecting passage to the Northern areas. They moved on together and discovered another mess hall, where they overpowered another group of thugs, but kept one for questioning and learned quite a bit more about the base, including the fact that there was a ‘dead wolf guy’ in the caves at the south end of the complex, a nasty gnome wizard in the northern areas and Triel in the central section. They were also a bit surprised to learn that there were about thirty thugs throughout the base, split into the three factions. It was about at this point that all sound seemed to stop.
Looking about in confusion, the party saw the room’s Western entrance was open and a group of well armed thugs was charging in, followed by a woman in scary spiked plate that could only be Triel. The party’s magic users backed away, trying to find a location where they could cast, whilst Irulan and Grum attacked Triel.
Llorth set to fighting one of the thugs as Heiyu and Luthor kept retreating. Eventually running out of room, Luthor grabbed his club and started to beat his attacker with it, being embarrassingly successful. Grum and Irulan traded blows with Triel, until Heiyu finally found herself free of the influence of the magical silence cast by Triel and promptly webbed her. Luthor and Llorth finished with their attackers and came to assist as Triel finally freed herself and struck Grum down with a mighty blow, before succumbing to Heiyu’s magic missiles. The group quickly poured all the magical healing they could into Grum, then pressed on, squeamishly obtaining proof of Triel’s demise, and regaining three of the wands of water control from her body. Using the keys they also found on her they were able to ransack her quarters just beyond, finding it to contain a shrine to Hextor.
Further exploration led them into a series of caves, where they detonated a glyph of warding and combated a group of undead monstrous spiders. Moving deeper in, they found a cave illuminated by everburning torches that contained a large stone chest in its centre, apparently guarded by two worm-riddled zombies. Calling upon the power of St Wallace, Irulan was a tad put out that she was unable to turn them. As the party advanced on them, Llorth found himself overcome with fear and fled from the room. The remnants of the party continued their attack, only to realise with horror that as fast as they hit the obscenities, they began to heal again. At this Luthor, too, fled in fear.
Fighting valiantly on, as the horrid corpses flung handfuls of worms at them and smashed at them violently with their rotting limbs, the stalwart remnants of the party eventually overcame the undead horrors and were able to capture the treasure in the central chest. Taking the coins and strange blueprints for a cage made of mithril and adamantine with them, the heroes decided to retire to the ledge overlooking the cavern to try and recover from their various injuries and to prepare themselves for a final onslaught the next day. They also decided to send Luthor back to the city to attempt to gain some support from the church of St Cuthbert, if possible.
Reggie