Category: Graveyard of Empires: The Islands of Curabel

SESSION 195 – March 21, 2018

While Rallion observes the infected milling about near the Flying Goblin and Bavmorda and Nash inspect the hold, Estrill’s “friend” who Nash knocked overboard tried to grab her.

We all worked to drop him, and bind him and get him into the hold of the ghost ship, the Shining Ray.

We found no good location to corral the infected at landing.

We made noise to attract them to the ship and they climbed over each other to get on deck.

Nash went to the Flying Goblin and loaded a boat with gunpowder. As we fled the ghost ship and met up with Nash and loaded up with 16 barrels of gunpowder. All out of sight of the infected.

We sneak off silently, leaving the infected and look for a hill to use the move earth.

We find a likely spot and use the move earth spell to shape a killing zone and fortified area in case they get around it. The kegs of gunpowder are placed to collapse the earth.

at 5PM the force from Feldmark arrives.

There are 32 clerics that can cast cure disease. 16 from Evenkeel, 12 from merendur, and 4 dwarves, plus 5 druids and 60 lesser clerics for lesser spells.

We get healing of our wounds and cure disease as a preventative, and as we are resting overnight, they rest and re-learn spells.

One ship goes partway to Landing to keep watch and will go to Landing at first light to draw the infected to us.

The clerics and druids go ashore to the fortified area. Rallion stays ashore and visits with the druids from the Verdant Fellowship. The rest of the party goes to the ships.

Nash goes off to pray to Lysander and she appears. Nash asks to have his level limit as cleric removed. Lysander reaches out, and Xeno Tel appears in a thunderclap saying, “Now now, you wouldn’t want me to think you were a bigger threat do you?” Nash tried to zap him with the last charge from his lightning axe.

The waiting for the coming battle commences.

SESSION 191 – February 21, 2018

Week of 13th to 20 Senrilden – Training week.

Captain Holgar of the city watch leaves us with Baswick at the safe house. Holgar returns to his post at Landing where he is dealing with the ships that arrive.

Holgar thinks there is something wrong with councillor Greta of the ropemaker guild. She became a political animal overnight.

Quinnel Franks, the Midmark Admiral mentions to Aldus Runnelbrook, that since we have the skullcap that we must be “friends”. The cap helped fix Em, can it help Admiral Bridgita Dykonson? Serithaz reminds Nash of the vials of dragon blood and the promise to raise Lysander, and Nash agrees. (I don’t think Nash told this to any of us.)

Alesta that high priestess of the “nice” sea temple, tells Nash and Bavmorda about how she came into control of it, and since Serithaz gave her the memory that she was to gove the sub to Nash and Bavmorda, she does so, and it is delivered to our ship.

Kauri & Druetta gather a list of parts from Kalgun to use from the sub to repair the flyer that Marchmain has. We need a full set of blacksmith tools.

Rallion seeks out a blacksmith shop to buy it out, we can carry the equipment in the bag of holding, and a smith to hire.

Nash “feeds” small DVLs to the DVL on the model airship. It is powerful enough to have a greater altitude and range. Kauri can talk with the DVL to get reports of what it sees.

Lady Em is still despondent and asks after the others, meaning Thorfus & Axel, and the rest. We break the news to her. But we also reveal that her man, Aubry Grodecop, is the “Righteous Halberd” and is fighting the machinations of the Dark King.

We learn of a pair of rings used by the head clerics of Baldric Evenkeel that allowed communication and shielding the mind. Laris is keen to get such a device to guard his mind from Serithaz.

Rallion goes to the Verdant Fellowship and buys 8 potions of cure disease, one for each party member.

We go to the Ark Temple and bluff out way past the lad on night duty, thanks to Sam, AKA Lambertus. We get guided to the vault. It is much less well guarded than the memoirs of the previous group mentioned in Midmark. This is where the ring of mind blocking is.

We find three chests guarded by powerful DVLs. We learn which contains the ring, and that only the key can open it without triggering the magical trap. We make impressions of the vault key. 10 scrolls with lots of powerful spells are in the vault. We leave them, so we are not discovered and the vault security is not changed.

A chokehold is put on the boy as we leave, and Serithaz erases all memories of us.

Kauri makes Nash invisible. The rest of us leave, using our dark elf cloaks or elven cloak, and sneak back to the safe house.Nash finds the high priet, who we learn is actually a priestess. We don’t know why she is hiding, Lambertus says there is no rule against it. Nash reads her mind and makes a drawing of the key to the chest with the ring in the vault, so that Bavmorda and Laris can make a copy.

(Patrick was unable to do this one and told me to take it. This was the highlight of my notes/memory. I do have the list of all the spells, but didn’t want to type all that.)

SESSION 194 – March 14, 2018

The undead whale charges. Oskar misses with his javelin, Bavmorda backstabs the whale, Kauri casts light and misses its eyes, Nash jumps in the water.

Rallion misses with the shard.

Druette, Oskar, Rallion and half the boat are then swallowed whole by the whale, and the thugs, city watch, and Estrill flee, while Lambertus is tossed into the river and turns the undead whale.

As the whale turns to flee, Rallion reaches down with the shard to touch the inside of the whale’s mouth and it explodes. The flying bits of whale meat hurt Rallion and Oskar, while Druetta is knocked unconscious. The thugs and guardsmen we brought with us are killed, and nearly all the guardsmen we rescued are killed by giants chunks of rotting whale flesh.

Simultaneously, coins, gems, an amulet, scrollcase and an axe are scattered in the river.

Nash with the ring of swimming and the Starchy badge is able to find the amulet, many gems, and the battle axe. Bavmorda snags the scrollcase as it goes by.

We have a nice collection of gems, some platinum coins, a magic axe, magic amulet, and a scoll of seven powerful spells.

The axes is of minor enchantment as we have come to understand it. The amulet is a periapt of proof against poison, and the scoll has Move Earth, Geas, Death Spell, Lower Water, Repulsion, Stone to Flesh, and Part Water – all 6th level.

We go to the wreck of the “ghost ship” drawn by the undead whale, avoiding the notice of the walking infected. A huge group gathered from the sounds of battle and the exploding whale.

We board the beached ghost ship and find an idol who will not talk to Serithaz, but will talk to us. Rallion tires of the “ancestor’s” talk, when we learn that the whale was it’s only servant, that it can’t controll the infected, and that it wants the infected to destroy the land dwellers. Rallion takes one of his lightning axes and smashes it to the annoyance of Serithaz.

We make plans to lure the undead into the ship to contain them. Perhaps 200 could be contained in a ship this size. There are about 200 in the area where we are, plus about 100 up river who were following us. We hope that the sound of the exploding whale will draw their attention so that the force from Feldmark has no opposition to reaching us.

We hope to corral the infected, possibly make one or more super organism out of them to maximize the effect of healing to end the plague. We continue our plans as the camera fades to black.

Tune in next week for the exciting adventures of this motley band of fools who think they can save the world from the approaching fleet of the evil space dwarves. The clock is ticking. All can see the countdown from this clock. Will their efforts to get training just run out the clock? Will they reach Lonely Isle and wrest control of the ship from Marchmain and his forces? More importantly, can they get the ship to orbit?

SESSION 193 Tuesday, March 6, 2018

We meet back at the safe house and Aldus, Mortimer, and Cvelnid have packed up and are taking Em to the small dwarven khel up river. It is not an ancient Khel. They want to keep Em safe.

Rallion waits until the others are away and sets his magic aside and ties a rope to the shard and shuts the rope inside the shard with it.

On his way back to join the party, the still invisible Nash has Serithaz influence the minds of all he passes to believe in Lysander and wake up shouting about Lysander. As this is midnight or so, we are not around to hear the result.

Nash arrives at the safe house and tells Em to pray to Lysander, the woman of his vision. He takes off Serithaz before speaking about this.

We find wating for us a warrant signed by Cuddy Hawke authorizing us to take a barge downriver with a contingent of guards.

We pass by the haberdasher on the way to the barge, and we find some thugs beating up – Benedict, a prior associate of Bavmorda’s new henchman, Estill. Estill hides in shadows evading him. The thugs, lead by Asa, claim he had a 50 gp reward on his head for burning the refugee camp and letting a bunch of Midmark refugees into Feldmark.

Rallion drafts the lot, including Benedict. Nash learns that Estill thinks very poorly of Benedict, but they come to an agreement to dump him in the river on the way to Landing.

Nash has Serithaz program the Haberdasher to go with us to finish the training of Bavmorda and Laris.

We stop by the ship and borrow the iron chest of the captain to put all our magic in so we can more safely take out the shard. We make the thugs carry it.

We get to the appointed dock, take charge of a barge and the two guards near it and head down river.

We go downstream and after 30 minutes, we meet up with survivors fleeing Landing, and learn that the infected are on the other bank perhaps 50 of them. 30 minutes later we see movement on the bank and they are the infected, many more than 50 but less than 100. They step to the shallows and one tries to get to us and is swept downstream. The rest stand watching and waiting. Laris bangs his grappling hook on the side of the barge to attact more of the infected.

Bav and Laris take turns trying to hook an infected and finally get one, and cross to the the other bank and tangle it in a fishing net we took (Rallion left 10 gp with the captain for the poor fisherman), and restrain it and Lambertus casts cure disease on it, and it quits moving. Bavmorda spinkles a bit of her cure disease potion on it and it rapidly turns the fungal growths black, much faster than the cure disease was doing. We bring the body along on our journey downriver to make sure it is truly deadly. Before restraining it, Rallion stowed his magic items and tried the shard, and it did not work. We really need to deal with this disease, in case magic is destroyed. All clerics need to go seeking the infected and cure them before we complete our mission…..

We reach landing at dawn and it is a scene of the chaos of battle. We go to the guard ship that we met going to Feldmark, and hear men calling for help. We board the ship and “kill” a severly infected cleric of Lysander. We use cargo nets for the cannons to tie it to the deck and rescue the trapped crew. Nash gives the commander his cure disease potion, and cures his wounds. Two other crew were scratched and Bavmorda sprinkles a few drops of the cure disease potions on the bite marks and it looks better.

We have learned that those killed and infected rise quickly. Those made ill take longer to die and turn. It appears that the combination of cure disease and the cure disease potion work. Perhaps two cure diseases per victim will have the same results. This makes the corraling and controlling of the afflicted who are undead the most crucial to control.

While questioning the commander and working out what to do, we are rammed by the undead whale. We get to the side of the ship that was pushed out of the way, and Rallion used his sword in its scabbard to slide down the rope tied to the barge and the lead guard cut the rope. The whale broke past the ship, and Rallion has just enough time to stow his magical gear, while Oskar prepare to open the chest with the shard….

{We roll for initiative next week….}