Month: January 2015

Session 42 (The Perfect Session)

01/28/2015

The party grabs breakfast to go as the coachman from the prior night arrives to take us to the ship.

We had a slight detour to visit the mage Parnell Fellette to get the adamantium cube identified. It is of ancient dwarven make and matches the description of the dwarf Daern. It is some soft of magical fortress that one can cause to come into being, if we only learn the activation word. The mage offers to be a broker to sell it for us. We decline. Thorfus, Axel, and Brice all agree that we should keep it. Thorfus REALLY likes the idea of having a fortress should be go tromping in the jungle again.

While the rest of the party is getting the cube identified, Chuq stops off at the temple to give a donation and inquire as to other monks and let them know he will be gone an unknown amount of time. Chuq meets us in time to load up in the coach to go to the harbor.

We go to the harbor and go to the prison and learn that word had just made it to the prison to stop them cremating the body of Rotho Waterman. Thorfus asks if there are any prisoners named Em or who match her description. None in the past couple of months.

We arrive and meet the man in charge and stop at the crematorium. We see a badly bruised and beaten body with evidence of a rope mark on the neck mixed in with other bruises. He appears to have broken ribs. He has no tattoos or signs of broken arms and no dislocated shoulders. Chuq does a search of his mouth and nose and then a DRE, all with no results.

We then see the body put in the furnace.

We ask to see the cell and the cell window is not high enough for Rotho to have hung himself and broken his neck, he would have strangled. We suspect murder, but nothing points to any single person.

Chuq searches the mattress and finds a purse inside with 47 gold pieces.

We don’t find any lose stones or secret doors, etc.

We go back to the harbor and get on the Bawdy Bachelor captained by Amis Junkyn. 

We ask about New Town and it is very bad and word is it won’t be a town in a couple months. Some of the clerics sent to deal with it are now fighting  for the other team as undead. It sounds like a sickness rather than magic, or is it ancient dwarven technology?

A few hours later we get to Kaligan and the small harbor has only fishing boats. We dock and learn that a man rode into town hired a boat to go out to the Dusty Gnome and it left, with no positive direction.

The two fishermen we question then let slip that the cargo of people were kept in the old imperial fortress. The walls and towers look rough, but when we go to investigate, the keep looks sturdy. We found the barracks and stable empty. The barracks has obvious coins on the floor. We decide to finish checking the rest of the fort before looting the foot lockers.

We passed two warehouses on the way to the fort, and decided to check them after we checked the fort.

We enter the outer door of the keep and are inside the entryway. The arrow slits and murder holes do not have people on the other side.

This is where we left off. Will our intrepid adventurers continue their streak of no injuries, no knock outs, and no deaths? Is there even a fight brewing inside the keep. 

Will we find any of Grell’s Lambs? Will we stumble upon Em?

Do we have a chance to catch the Dusty Gnome?

41

Bookkeeping Joe hasn’t leveled 

Back to town

Guards shout out 

Quicklings stringed up

Heading to 12th night

Alessandra is taking charge of the situation 

Rescue Slaves Dusty Gnome(Meaning Finklemur is still armless)

Calligan not friendly(A few hundred people)

Lack of services 

Wall District lack of dock (east harbor recommended) 

Went to 12th night

Rotho caught 

Letter opened

It says (Read post)

Barney suspected 

They cut out hardcore

We may go party (Peter Theral)

Paw print stamp Agrees to invite

General store

New threadZ for  Quickling Rags

Going to the Lone Barrel

Leather Worker (Orabell)(John underestimates my awful spelling)

Fink gets ripped a new one by Leather worker

Meet Adelard at Lone Barrel

Baywin -Times of transition 

Magic User (Arnell fillet)

Adamantite cube (maybe magic)

Detect magic is cast on a cube and a dagger 

Aldus Runndlebrook is mentioned

we arrive at Peter’s

Directed to set together

Starchy is fed 

We ate dinner

Peter clears his throat

Gives a speech/Lifestory

 Invest in Bargemen

Treasure given to slaves

we keep things hush hush with  peter

Firmhand shakes exchanged

the spell protection from magic

we decide to show up super early for wizards

Late as usual, but at least it’ll be fresh in our minds for next session 😛

We return to the party sitting down to dinner at the Twelfth Knight, the room filled with it’s usual patrons, and Jaharis bustling around to serve us our complimentary meal. 

 

After some time, one patron stood out to the party, an angry-looking, heavily muscled dwarf. He soon approaches, recognising us as having dealings with the Bargemen. We talk, and learn that the dwarf, Angry Jack, was once a prisoner and slave of the Bargemen, forced to work at a mining camp. Now escaped, he looked now to work against them. 

 

He had looked for us, the Starchie Boyz, as we were known to have put a thorn in the Bargemen’s side and broken up thier slavery ring. We invite him to sit with us and dinner is brought. 

 

Talk turns to what to do next, as we feel we are no longer needed in Vargen with the recent developments between the two guilds. As a whole, the party leans towards Newton and the undead threat there, since the river passage is currently blocked. Axel and Thorfus wish to make sure to keep abreast of news from the city at least however, so they know if the city remains safe to at least pass through. 

 

We retire to our rooms, setting watch both within the rooms and without, as Chuq chooses to watch from a tree in the nearby garden. The night remains quiet up until Chuq hears a commotion down Wall Street, along with what looks to be flickering light. He climbs up to a higher vantage point, the nearby Brewery’s roof, seeing that the fire is over near the city wall, near the Watchmen’s barracks. A number of guards are rushing down the street in that direction. 

 

Chuq quickly descends from the roof and heads in that direction. The source of the fire turns out to be the barracks themselves, and teams of guardsmen and citizens are working to fight the inferno, either by water or pulling the building down before it can spread. He spots Elisandro amongst the crowd, and learns from the injured guard that it was the Quicklings who had caused the fire.  

 

They had infiltrated the building in the night, coated the second floor in oil and lit a blaze. Captain Beamsley was still inside, having also been doused in oil and presumed dead. 

 

As the fire begins to spread to nearby buildings, Chuq tells Elisandro to evacuate the buildings and rushes back to the Twelfth Knight to gather help, shouting warnings of fire as he ran. At the Inn, Jaharis is already awake, preparing the morning’s breakfast, and the innkeeper instantly heads out. Chuq opens the nearest room, awakening Finklemur, Brice and Ashton, before waking the others. The whole party, barring Finklemur, who was nursing his wounded arm, heads out at once. 

 

Back at the watch house, the fire has further spread, and now five buildings have caught ablaze despite the fire-fighting efforts. Ashton and the three dwarves take over the hooked poles, and with their superior, battle-hardened strength, pull down the outer buildings, safely containing the fire. Once this is done, it is but a matter of carrying water to the flames and seeing to the wounded.  

 

The sun is beginning to rise once the job is complete, and as the final flames are put out, we are left only with smoking ruins and the charred corpse of Adalun Beamsley. The gathered guardsmen are gathered in the street, seemingly now at a loss with what to do. 

 

Chuq speaks up, voicing the opinion that the Quicklings need to pay for what has happened here, revenge for the Captain’s death. The guardsmen are quick to agree, as are the Starchie Boyz, and we rush off to gear up for a fight and fetch Finklemur, discussing battleplans en route. 

 

When we return, Odard Brevomen has arrived and is talking to Elisandro and the other guards. He initially believes our actions to be rash, but Chuq is quick to convince him of the seriousness of the situation, that the Quicklings are nuisance that needed to be dealt with before any more damage or injuries were caused. Odard steps forward and calls for any guardsmen that wish to assist, and fifteen, led by Elisandro step forward, armed with a mixture of longswords and bows. 

 

We head out almost immediately, coaching the guardsmen on what to expect. At the Copse, we halt at the treeline, deciding to smoke out the Quicklings with fire and surround the stump to stop any escaping. We throw down kindling and oil, and Axel tops it off with one of his improvised firebombs. Finally, Chuq covers the opening with his shirt, and improvised net to prevent escape. 

 

Nothing happens for some time, until we are alerted by Starchie barking at something within the trees. Whilst Ashton and a pair of guards keep watch at the first stump, we investigate and discover a second stump and tunnel, and repeat the process. Figuring their maybe more, we split up into groups to search or guard. Jack and two more guards watch the second stump, whilst Chuq, Brice, Elisandro and three more, hold between the two as backup. Finklemur and Axel, and Thorfus head more guards and set off in a circular search pattern around the copse. 

 

Starchie alerts us to movement, which Axel instantly firebombs, catching a small creature in burning oil and drawing out a loud scream. The rest of the group charge, but it evades them and attacks Axel angrily, though is unable to get passed is armour. 

 

Seemingly on signal, more Quicklings burst out of the trees, one attacking Ashton’s group and two more attacking Jack’s, injuring a guardsman at both points. Once more, the Quicklings prove near impossible to hit, despite our numerical advantage. Eventually however, Tys, one of the guardsmen fells one, and as reinforcements from Thorfus’ group arrive to support Jack, Guardsman Yves kills another. 

 

Not having any luck with his sword, Axel kills the one he is fighting by bombing it, at the cost of injuring himself. As everyone runs towards Jack’s position, the dwarf lands a blow, prompting it to try and escape, only to catch another guardsman’s sword. Believing it to be over, we collect the bodies, noting a viscous coating on the dagger of Axel’s opponent, who appeared to be the leader. 

 

In an odd act of barbarity, Chuq strips and grills the bodies of the Quicklings whilst we wait for the fires to go out. Elisandro sends guards back to the gates in this time to take up watch. 

 

Finklemur decides to climb down the Quickling warren, being one of the few that will actually fit, and Chuq joins him. It seems to be quite sprawling, with many tunnels leading to further exits, but they find a room littered with animal corpses, particular those of cats. Another room contains makeshift beds with animal skin blankets. Eventually they find a strongbox and what looks to be the stolen treasures from Vargen. The box contains an orange-yellow potion and a large cube, each face inscribed with the ancient dwarven sigil for the letter ‘k’. 

 

They count up the money, finding 973 unknown coins, and 2506 silver coins, which they dump into the box and carry back to the entrance, transferring the coins to sacks to lift out. The dwarves take the time to investigate the cube, only noting that is made of an unknown metal, that is neither silver or platinum, and very heavy. After a final bit of fruitless searching, we pull the two out of the tunnels, injuring Chuq in the process when he got stuck. 

 

We return to town in good cheer, the guardsmen carrying the bodies of the Quicklings to display at the gates.

Session 39

January 7, 2015

Joe, Anthony, and Larry were the only player present, so Ashton, Axel, and Thorfus made a lot of decisions to the benefit of the group.

We left about 3:00 PM on the 8th of Denrildon in pursuit of the bargemen. We rowed for about three hours until dusk and pulled off to the southern bank and slept near the river. We were surprised at how uneventful our travel was.

At dusk the discussion was whether to pull off and rest overnight, or keep going. The prevailing opinion was to rest. So we took three four hour watches. I slept well when not on watch and my watch was uneventful, a welcome change. Pelgax swore up and down there was something terrible in the woods near us when he and Ashton were on watch. Ashton assured us it was only some beetles. [Two rhinoceros beetles tearing up a bunch of trees about 40 yards away.]

At sun up we ate a quick meal and then began rowing north. IN about a half hour, Finklemur, Axel, and myself all had the evil, slimy feeling when a devil fish is doing it foul mind reading. In truth, it was a new devil fish who introduced himself as Gronsk, and new of our working with Drayze and made sure to note that he would tell him what we did because Lord Thornton tricked us.

Gronsk tried to enlist us to help him retrieve the dragon orb. This orb is of the make of my ancient ancestors in their war with the dragons. It enables the bearer to control a dragon. It seems that Barnier holds. The bargemen got here just about another half hour ahead of us yesterday and captured the young river dragon and were indeed extorting the dragons of their treasure. A four man team was using the breathing apparatus to go to the bottom of the river and enter the dragons’ cave that has air, to haul out the treasure.

The devil fish said that it need us to distract the adult dragon, in human form, so that he could get close enough to “freeze” Barnier in place so that he can’t use the orb. We were needed because river dragons can compel water creatures to stay away or do their bidding. The young dragon and the other adult were also in human form. 

The devil fish said that we were needed because the bargemen left five days ahead of schedule and the mermen who were coming to help the devil fish did not know of the change in time table.

We debated and considered it and perhaps how to do an ambush as they returned to Vargen, but we decided that we were outmatched, and returned to Vargen.

When we headed north and passed on the far side of the river from the bargemen’s compound, they were packing up boats like they were looting the place. When we came back, the compound seemed deserted. We landed our boats outside the area of bargemen control and Adelard took us to where Mercer spies were watching and learned that they left and they weren’t sure where. All was calm and we were told it was safe to walk along the main roads instead of winding our way through the back alleys.

As we headed up to High Street to return to the Lonely Barrel, a scragly thin man with wavy blond hair ran past. Ashton attempted to clothesline him, but he was too agile and got past us. Three guards from Fen’s Edge chased him, but they gave up when they reached the boundary with their territory. We could not track the man, so we went to the Lonely Barrel. 

When we got to the Lonely Barrel we met Phyllis & Odard who told us that when Peter Thorell, the leader of the bargemen guild learned of the slavery and other antics of Rotho, that Peter was appalled and said this was a rogue element and that he was on the side of the Mercers all along, and pledged to work with the Mercers. There is a new arrangement where the bargemen will work with Odard on the council. We relay what we learned of the orb and the dragons and treasure, and it is not a concern to them, the problems with the politics is solved. It was made clear to us that our services were no longer needed and that we would be more “comfortable” in the “much nicer” Twelfth Night” We have assurances that there are no hard feelings and that the bargemen will not harass us

We went to the Twelfth Night without incident anywhere along the way. Joharis, the proprietor exclaims, “You’re Alive!” when he sees us, as he knew of the rough characters who had been looking for us.

We secure two rooms and board the horses and wagon and go to look for Elisondro, since it was only mid-afternoon,  and see if there is anything else going on with the quicklings. At the gate, we meet the guardsman, Tyce, who is worried about Elisondro, who has become obsessed with the quicklings. Tyce tells us that Elisondro is out there now looking for them, and hopes that we can talk some sense into him.

We find Elisondro and he tells us of his failed efforst to find the quicklings and he is convinced that they live underground. He shows us to the statues and we discover that it is a dwarven automaton nearly 20 feet high but only about 8 feet are visible above ground. It is covered with moss and the accumulation of detritus from centuries in the open air. Thorfus tries to clear a patch on its nex=ck and Axel tries to clear a seam near its elbow in a search for writing. While doing this, Thorfus detects a low rumble/humming and it is decided we don’t want to wake up a huge automaton, if we are not sure we can control it.

Elisondro doesn’t think it is a good idea to mess with the statue as the Brothers of the World Forge will not like it, so he goes off to look for quicklings. Thorfus tells him to look for hollow trees, and he realizes he hasn’t tried that. As we end our efforts of fiddling with the automaton, Elisondro yells for us. We find him off the path to the statue and he has found a hollow tree stump with a dug out shaft about two feet in diameter and aobut 20 feet deept. We lower a lantern and the last 5 feet the light goes off to the side, but we can’t see any more.

Elisondro wants us to go down there an fight, but it is so narrow, we would barely fit, so we will the shaft with dead trees and have Elisondro take us to Guard Captain Adelaird Beamsly. thorfus tells him what was found and what we did and made clear that we did not see or hear or find any signs of the quicklings, we just plugged up the shaft as a precaution. Thorfus also told the captain that it was Elisondro who found the shaft. The captain changes his outlook to Elisondro and appoints him in charge of some en to do further investigation now there there is a solid lead. The captain says that there is not longer a reward, but used the petty cash to give each of us 10 gp. 

We then go back to the Twelfth Night and eat our complimentary supper and listen in aon the conversation and the road from Midmark is now much better, with only a little trouble from Harpies or other things from the jungle. the ability to use the ford for free is very good. The merchants talked like it was all the work of the men from Midmark. We did not mention that we had a hand in any of it.

We waited a few hours and retired to our rooms.

I wonder how long until the bargemen with Rotho and Barnier come back and what will happen. Will we be able to go to Xen Kel, or would we be better off dealing with the harpies in the castle. I would like to rescue Em, but is she really up the Vargwater at the mines? These are my thoughts as I drift off to sleep. This the 9th of Denrildon.