Session 147: When Dark Clouds of Trouble Hang Over Us

Day 8 of Patchwall:

As Feno and Lhoss nursed the still weak Jack back to health, Niki cast Speak with Animals, in order to understand the meows of her weak feline friend. While still weak, Kyro, having some sympathy towards him, offered a chunk of the displacer meat, which he gobbled up in eager haste. While the rest of the party heard just meows between Niki and Jack, the normally feisty feline relayed to Niki what had recently befallen him. While on a patrol near the borders of the Dim Forest, he was attacked and ambushed by a large horde of undead. He retreated to warn the people of Orlane of this growing threat. Once he warned them, he went back on an exhibition to fight the undead horde but was instead ambushed by a group of necromancers. They attacked him and cut off his paw, (which incidentally was the same paw that had the ring of Jack that allowed him to talk without use of Speak with Animals) and leaving him for dead. Upon finding Niki and the rest of the group he implored them to head towards the town of Orlane, because it was in grave danger. Following his tale, a healing spell, and a full stomach, he promptly falls asleep in company of the party. The group rests for the evening and discuss/digest this new information. They decide to ride to town in a hurry. 

Day 9 of Patchwall:

The group awakens to heavy rain and mist, that continues throughout the day. The rain slows the group down quite a bit, as they and their horses have to slog through the mud and muck of the trail. The group enters the Dim Forest, which has become quiet due to the rain. 

The rain has made the forest cold, as the group ends their day, finding the good resting spot they used on the start of their journey. They cook and eat more displacer beast stew and settle down for the evening. As they prepare themselves for the evening, each member of the group is hit with a sense of uneasiness at the edge of their senses. Not knowing how to describe it to each other, they brush it off and rest for the evening before starting their hurried journey back to Orlane. 

Day 10 of Patchwall:

The skies clear up a bit for the party, but the trail is still muddy and hard to traverse. They arrive near the outskirts of Orlane in the early afternoon and quickly see an unsettling sight. As they travel closer to the familiar city, they see signs of a struggle: what appears to be crimson blood stains along the trail, patches of torn leather and cloth, along with broken metal, seemingly from a weapon or two. Feno kneels down to examine the cloth and leather and discovers that it bears a close resemblance to the clothing worn by the Grey Hawk Knights. The knights were quietly observed heading in this direction while the party was near the town of Wood's Edge a few days ago. Seeing the signs of this recent battle, Lhoss and the group ready themselves for potential conflict. As they march forward, both Lhoss and Feno notice smoke and haze billowing from a nearby farmland. As they continue marching closer, they see piles of bones from some undead, the corpses of slaughtered livestock, with nearby farms and houses found gutted and burned to the ground. As they near the actual town of Orlane, both Lhoss and Feno pick up on the sounds of battle occurring. Whatever happened in the farmlands is occurring in Orlane right this moment. They move quickly and arrive in town, only to see a clash between undead and their friend Alan Clayborne. Alan, along with his wife and a few knights from Grey Hawk are battling against, ghouls, zombies and skeletons. The group ties up their horses (as they are not cavalry fighters), they head and attack the undead horde, saving both Alan and his wife, but some knights fell in the battle. They then move towards Rayne's forest house and are intercepted by foul creatures known as shades. Niki using her Call Lightning spell last battle with great success, moves the thunderous cloud overhead and blasts two of the creatures out of existence.  Lhoss destroys one herself, using her spell Continual Light, but not before the creature does damage both Feno and Arnd. The group examines the dead body of Rayne and his familiar, Whiskers. After paying their briefest of respects, they move south near the bridge. As they get near the bridge, their collective anxiety reaches a fever pitch. Just past the bridge is the largest collection of undead that the heroes have ever seen. 

Amongst their ranks, is Nanor, and Derek, both villains who have troubled the party for many months, if not years. Nanor and his minions mock the party. The battle between good and evil draws near...

Session 120: A Horde of Skeletons Attacks

Recorded by Gnorcia:

We stayed the day in Orlane and had a wonderful but not exactly memorable day. Lhoss and I spent the day checking in on the mayor, Vilma, and the elves. The next day was Day 6 of Harvester. Feeling refreshed, we arose early, had our meal, and were on our way toward the Barrowmaze by 6:30am. It turned out to be a gloomy, rainy day. Sergius grumbled about the rain because for some reason he did not have a cloak, but the rest of us just pulled our cloaks over us and started the march down the road. I loaned my cloak to Chiki, who also did not have one, knowing it would require cleaning after a day around that gnome and his chicken. Also in our party were Kyro and Eldriel the Grey.

It was a somber, melancholy march with no sunlight and a steady pour of rain. We could smell Sergius and his increasingly-wet chain mail. The road got muddier as we went, then the trees from the Dim Forest dripped on us as we traveled through there. The Barrowmarsh trail was even wetter and murkier than usual, with a supernatural-looking fog. Despite the gloom and rain, we were excited and determined to find more treasure and possibly the Font of Law. We entered the Barrowmaze and made our way back through its silent hallways to the room we had been exploring two days before.

Peering through the portcullis, we saw a lot of dust and cobwebs and two doors to the left—one of them broken down in pieces on the floor. We raised the rusty portcullis and Kyro began sweeping the floor for traps. He soon discovered a large pit right in front of the second, broken door! Avoiding the pit, Kyro peered into the room and was immediately attacked by three crab spiders that dropped down from the ceiling. Lhoss ran in and attacked one and I leapt onto the back of another, destroying them both. Sergius then ran in and attacked the last spider but it turned and bit him, poisoning him. He dug a poison cure and a healing potion out of his bag and drank them down. I managed to harvest the poison sacks from the crab spiders and carefully packed them away as Lhoss and Eldriel did a quick search for hidden doors or anything on the walls. We then headed back out to look into the other room.

The other door was ajar and Kyro pushed it open, revealing two open sarcophagi. He looked carefully at the ceiling—which appeared normal with no hidden crab spiders—and began to sweep the room. The skeletons lay still in their sarcophagi—as skeletons should. We determined to head back out and try the closed door in the large room to the west. Kyro entered the room and began to sweep the floor for possible danger. At one point he found a hollow-sounding spot on the floor and Sergius hit the floor with his battle axe, revealing the seam of a pit trap in front of the first door on the south. Kyro continued sweeping and found yet another pit trap to the northwest in front of another door there. Beyond that, the floor appeared to be safe.

Kyro then began sweeping the floor in a hallway to the south and discovered a large group of 23 skeletons that began lumbering toward us from both hallways, north and south! One attacked Lhoss and another attacked me. Fragile elf Eldriel had gone wandering off across the room and found himself attacked by two skeletons at once. As the skeletons swarmed we all took some damage and Sergius quickly fell to the floor but Chiki grabbed him and dragged him out into the hallway, then poured a healing potion down his throat. He immediately jumped up and sort of stumbled around the room, mindlessly. In the meantime, the rest of us determined to get out as well. Kyro and I both turned and ran out the door, taking a hit from skeletons as we did so, but were able to escape.

Lhoss then cast magic missiles on the two skeletons attacking her, disintegrating one and distracting the other enough that she could jump up onto the wall and climb quickly to the ceiling of the room, beyond their reach. She then doused her lantern just as I closed the door, leaving her and Eldriel alone with a horde of skeletons in the dark dungeon room. As the skeletons bashed on the door, trying to get out to us, Lhoss scrambled along the ceiling to where Eldriel was trapped in the corner by the bony undead creatures. She then cast levitate on him just as he fell to their attacks and passed out, bleeding. After Eldriel floated up to the ceiling, Lhoss bound up his wounds and poured a healing potion down his throat. She then tied him to herself so he would float along behind her as she silently moved across the ceiling toward the door. She noticed that the skeletons had stopped banging on the door and were click-clacking their way back to their hidey holes.

At the door, Lhoss made a low whistle and Kyro—who was waiting outside for her signal—quickly opened it to let them through, then closed it again. In the meantime, Chiki had cast a wall of fog to obscure the rest of us, just in case any skeletons got through, but it wasn’t needed as the skeletons had disengaged. Lhoss poured more healing potions down Eldriel’s throat and swallowed another dose herself. The poor druid looked drained, but we were all safe from the skeletal threat.

Session 95: Wealsun Day 21 through Day 4 of Reaping

As recorded by Gnorcia: 

Lhoss was determined to complete some thief training before traveling to Hochoch. While she was busy preparing for another day of practice and study, the rest of us decided to give up a little sleep and head back to the edge of the Dim Forest at night to see if we could attract and destroy the remaining ghouls that had been harassing farmers in the area.

I tried to convince the others to distract the druid, Niki, so I could kill a small animal and use the blood to attract the ghouls, but she quickly figured out my plan (Jack the cat was probably listening) and put a stop to it. With a big sigh, Feno pulled out a dagger and pricked his finger, dripping and flinging his own blood on everything as we entered the forest. The night was descending quickly and it was mere minutes before we sensed something evil coming toward us from the northwest. It was indeed a pack of ghouls with something even more sinister leading it.

Fear spread across our small group of heroes. I scrambled up a tree and Kyro followed suit. Armatzi and Niki stationed themselves behind the gnarled tree trunks and prepared to attack, but Feno and Chalkboi set themselves in the middle of the path, weapons ready. The ghouls ran straight for the bleeding Feno and only one noticed Armatzi, swiping at him as it passed. Before he was hit, the cleric managed to cast his turn undead spell on the pack's dark leader and called out, aghast at the creature's evil, fishy stench, "It's a ghast!" Jack took one sniff and dove into Niki's backpack.

The rest of us used arrows and darts to attack from a distance, doing some small damage to the horrid creatures. Armatzi cast turn undead again and one ghoul was feared back down the path into the forest, but it wasn't enough to stop Chalkboi from being hit by another. He was immediately frozen by the ghoul's paralytic poison. Feno swiped through one as the rest of us continued our barrage of darts and arrows. Fortunately no one was hit by friendly fire and the injured ghouls screamed horribly as thick blood poured from their wounds.

Once more, Armatzi cast turn undead and the remaining ghouls turned to run. Kyro and I jumped down to help with the chase as Niki cast an entanglement spell, trapping the remaining ghouls in vines. The ghast, however, was merely slowed by the vines and Armatzi determined to destroy it himself. Running around the edge of the entanglement, he scrambled against the forest's thick brush and branches. He even attempted to throw rocks at the ghast, as if somehow he could slow it further.

Feno thought to skip over the entanglement as he attacked a trapped ghast, but got his feet caught in the spell's twining vines. Niki casually strolled right through the vines and smacked down that ghoul, then headed for the last one that was screaming angrily and pawing at the darts sticking out of its rubbery head. Those were my darts and I wanted them back so I leaped over the vines and onto the ghoul's back, but slipped and fell into the mass of greenery. Niki then finished off the final ghoul just as Armatzi and the ghast reached the same point at the vines' perimeter.

Realizing there wasn't time to swing his hammer, Armatzi reached out with the power of the Gauntlet of St. Cuthbert and blasted the ghast with holy light. It crumbled at his feet and even Chalkboi managed to let out a cheer as the paralysis wore off and the vines soon retreated.

Exhausted and covered in the stench of ghouls, we retrieved what darts and arrows we could and headed back to Orlane, stopping only to leave a note on the door at Hans' farmhouse, telling him the ghouls were defeated.

We spent the rest of the week and the next happily enjoying our time with no undead creatures to battle and a joyful summer festival to celebrate. We were a bit too free with our coin and just as freely listened to the tales of too many drunken townsfolk.

Her training complete, Lhoss joined in the celebration and was warned by the townspeople to take great care to avoid altars because they were very dangerous. Armatzi was told to seek the pools in the barrowmaze for safety, and warned that the mutated creatures there would enslave humans. Feno heard that the entrances to the barrowmaze were trapped, while another dismissed the entirety of it, claiming the barrows were just mounded graves and the rest was all folk tales.

I plied stories from a few more folks, learning that they had heard of piles of magical items in the southern crypts, that a powerful evil warrior and his band used the barrowmaze as their hideout, and the oft-repeated story of an elven maiden recently freed from the barrowmaze. I also heard of runic tablets that would curse all who read them, but Niki was told that some runic tablets contain information and not just curses. We nodded and considered our own experiences with runic tablets both helpful and dangerous.

Chalkboi used his story of being paralyzed by ghasts to start conversations with several people who then warned him that tribes of humans live in the barrowmaze along with mutated people who were guarding powerful treasures, and the same story of a powerful evil warrior hiding there with his band. He also had his story dismissed by someone who, again, claimed it was all hogwash and the barrows were nothing but a valley full of old graves.

As the celebrations were winding down on the last day, we gathered together for a meal in the tavern when a short, hooded figure with a long nose poking out from its hood entered the room. It sniffed, then headed straight for our table. We immediately noticed that it smelled more-than-faintly of fish, but this time fish-loving Jack was not afraid and came out to sniff at the hem of its heavy cloak. The creature squawked quietly at the cat and pushed back its hood, revealing a beaked figure in black and white.

"Zraith at your service!" it said. "I have been sent from my brethren in the south to find a cleric known as Armatzi."

All heads turned to Armatzi, who was earnestly breaking up chunks of meat and vegetables in his stew. Sensing the group's silence, he lifted his eyes and recognized the figure before him as a penguin holding a staff in one flipper. Unruffled by the strange welcome, the waddling bird had nothing but attention for Armatzi, and quickly explained that his clan from the south had been experiencing strange visions and sent him as a missionary.

"I am here to accompany you on your journeys for one month," it finished with a snap of its beak, holding its head up at attention. Armatzi paused, then nodded and went back to his stew. We all laughed and welcomed the odd little bird to our party.

The following day, Niki bought a bedroll and Feno borrowed one from Hilja as we packed up our belongings and set out for Hochoch. We stopped to spend the first night with Hans and his family, celebrating the defeat of the ghouls. Days later, on the evening of day four of Reaping (or day four of the elven month of Goldfields, for those who don't know better) at the beginning of high summer, we arrived at Hochoch, exhausted and tired of eating dry rations. We followed the scent of roasting beef and soon found ourselves at the Swift Coin Inn, where we dined on braised beef, soup, and bread, before securing rooms and turning in for a more-comfortable sleep in real beds.

Session 91: Ending Day 19 of Wealson

As recorded by Gnorcia:

Lhoss and Feno agreed to keep watch as Niki, Armatzi, Hilja, and I continued digging the channel to move the water away from the entrance to the barrow we were hoping to get into. Niki took Jack away so Armatzi would be out of reach of petting her cat, and she and Hilja began digging on the other side of the mound from where Armatzi and I were working. We made progress for about 15 minutes before some more unnatural creatures were disturbed by the sound of digging and began to come into hearing from the northeast.

It sounded like zombies. Lhoss raised the cry and we all dropped our shovels to prepare for battle. Armatzi moved to where Lhoss was, just north of us on the other side of the barrow, and attempted to turn undead, but failed. Lhoss then cast Continual Light, blinding all but one of the foul creatures.

The one remaining zombie began moving forward and was almost instantly destroyed by a swift slice from Feno’s longsword, Icing Death. The others remained in place, blinded and turning in circles. Hilja then cast entangled, but unfortunately didn’t pay attention to how close we all were to the zombies. All of us except Armatzi and I were also entangled, so the two of us moved forward and slaughtered the remaining zombies. As the tangling vines retreated, we returned to our digging and patrolling.

We were almost done with the digging when Lhoss heard the unwelcome sound of more zombies coming from the same direction. This time they seemed to be spreading out and moving a bit more quickly toward us. Armatzi failed his turn undead again so I stepped forward and cast Color Spray toward four zombies, hitting three of them and blinding them with color. Lhoss, Hilja, and Feno both moved forward to attack the other zombies that were not blinded and Feno obliterated his target then went on smashing zombies as I took a hit from a blinded zombie. Fortunately, Armatzi healed me so I could dance away before it hit me again, and I finally got a good backstab to take it down. Despite everyone converging on the final two zombies, one of them hit Lhoss and she fell unconscious as the rest of the zombies quickly fell to our angry weapons.

Armatzi healed Lhoss and she woke up but was quite weary and requested that we take some time to rest a bit and heal and memorize spells. Between Niki and Armatzi we were mostly healed up, but determined we were too weary to recover our spells where we were, so we headed back to Orlane and arrived just as the sun was setting.

We returned to the tavern and sat down for a dinner of Blanuache Porre, and the serving wench who is clearly sweet on Armatzi brought him a fine pastry as well. Feno engaged with the bar patrons and learned about some small conflicts with people building new buildings as well as the accompanying rise in prices due to growth in the area. He also heard a comment about the barrowmaze that caught his attention, a rumor that there were some tomb robbers who recently returned to Hochoch with a silver chalice worth 666 gold pieces.

As we retired to our rooms for the night, Armatzi Niki, and Hilja completed healing for us all and Armatzi also used his gauntlet to reduce our fear from the horrid Barrowmaze creatures. Thus ended day 19 of Wealson.

Day 54 Adventures in August 2010

Group of Day 53, joined by:

Legolas Elf Magic User played by Justin

The group eats breakfast at the tavern. Legolas meets the group and asks to join the voyage. The group resupplies and prepares to leave. They all leave to go to the caves. Weather has changed; it is at least 15 degrees cooler. They enter the caves and go to "cave 6". The area is deserted, with the bodies of orcs scattered about. The cave is filled with trash and looks like some creatures lived here. We look through the trash and find nothing.

We leave the cave and walk down the hallway. The walls are slimy and muddy. Legolas lights a torch and burns the slime. Legolas sees a hidden nook and shows the rest of the party. He burns the slime away from the door and opens it. It reveals a room with tables, buckets, chairs, and shields. Legolas sees a similar nook in the north wall. The group opens the box and reveals a long bow, arrows, and other things. Legolas opens the other secret door, which opens into another room.

The room is carpeted, has furniture, and tapestries. It look like a battle was here. The party looks behind the curtain and sees a chest. The chest is opened, revealing copper pieces. The party leaves the room through the door which opens into the hallway. The south leads to a crossroads, which leads to a cave entrance. The party goes to "cave 9".

As soon as we enter, evil fills the air. A shrill piping noise is heard. The floors are smooth and echo. The party looks for traps as they enter the cave; this alerts 8 beings. The group attacks the beings. Breanna, suspecting undead, turns them and 3 flee. The party defeats the others and follow the 3. All 3 are destroyed.

The party regroups and Breanna looks for traps. The group walks south down the hallway. They find a pile of rubble and find a room. Inside, they see skeletons lining the walls. They prepare to enter the room, casting protection from evil on the group, along with bless, aid, and shillelagh. The skeletons do nothing as they enter the room, but the party attacks the skeletons anyway. All of the skeletons are torn to pieces without incident. There were amulets around the necks of the skeletons, that are removed. Legolas looks for secret doors and moves all weapons away from the skeletons. The group decides to eat and sleep for 1 hour. Breanna approaches the throne. She casts detect magic and it appears magical. Belzedar uses a thief tool to remove gems from the throne; he claims 4 gems.

The group leaves the room and heads west. This leads to another room. In the room they see 8 figures similar to the ones fought earlier. They begin to come towards the group. Belzedar makes the first attack. Troy attacks with a crossbow. Frederick and Cassius try to turn the creatures. The creatures attack the group. They do little damage. The group returns the attack, destroy them, and leave the room.

The party moves backwards towards the cave entrance. They approach 2 doors but hear nothing. They open the east door which leads to stairs heading downwards. They open the north door, which goes up the stairs to a room with men in it. Belzedar shoots an arrow, killing one instantly. Legolas shoots a magic missle. They cast silence and hold person. Troy runs up and attacks the men. The group kills the men. They then search the room. The search the bodies and one has an amulet. They find gold in each pouch. Each person gets 7 gold pieces. They gather the armor and the swords. They head back to the keep. Belzedar takes one amulet. The party goes to the priest to show them the amulet. They talk to the priest and destroy the amulet.