Session 63: Day 9-10 of Flocktime: A Replenishing Visit to Orlane

As the evening approached, our party decided to head back to Orlane. Along the path, we encountered a haughty cavalier by the name Zein. He was a bit put off by our haggard appearances (everyone looks a little bit rough after doing battle in the barrowmaze), but seemed intrigued by our adventuring. Zein mentioned that he had been looking for a group to join up with, so we offered to let him join us (as much as his busy schedule would permit).

At our usual resting place (the Slumbering Serpent), we were met by the proprietor Olwin. He was sorry to relay that there was no room at all. We decided to try the Golden Grain Inn, but it likewise was fully booked for the night. Feeling pangs of trepidation, we headed over to the Foaming Mug which had been renovated and opened for business. For many of us, this was the first time we had set foot in the place since we had discovered and slaughtered a den of troglodytes in the basement store rooms. But the inn had been transformed into a cozy respite where we all felt comfortable staying for the night, especially when we were served a delicious meal of chicken and bacon pasties with a side of braised greens.

During the dinner, Lhoss overheard a pair of farmers bemoaning the scourge of frogmen encroaching onto their lands. Lhoss and Tatania approached and attempted to get more information from them, but the two men seemed affronted by the incursion into their conversation. Lhoss attempted to smooth things over by mentioning that our group of adventurers (she may have invoked her favorite calling card "The Saviors of Orlean") had done battle with these same vile creatures in our attempts to cleanse the barrowmaze of the evils that possess it. That actually did put the men at ease and they relayed that these frogmen tended to hibernate (or brumate) in the muck and mire and then emerge in the warmer months to harass farmers in the outskirts. As a gesture of appreciation, the farmers bought a pint of ale for both Tatania and Lhoss. While the rest of the party retired for the evening, Ronan attempted to gather some additional information, but came up empty handed and eventually went to bed too. 

A delicious breakfast of bacon, eggs, fresh bread, milk, and blackberry juice was served to all guests and our cadre wolfed down a hearty helping. There is always business to do in town, and today was no exception. We headed over to the jeweler, Tandid Schulp, to hock our wares for a hefty sum. Lhoss decided to head over to see Merit Lage at the village store to stock up on oil. Zein scoffed at her for using such a lowly weapon. Lhoss, in an attempt to get his goat, replied "wait'll you see what this stuff does to zombies!", but the man is positively unflappable. Others in the group stocked up on supplies. Gnorcia decided to buy some chickens from Hewitt Twain and as payment for their care, he receives half of their eggs. A tidy little transaction.

Lhoss, ever seeking the company (or even just the sight of) fellow elves, popped over to check if Dorian and Llewelyn were in town. Alas, they were not. But she did have a cheerful chat with the mayor who invited our troupe to dine with him when next we are in town. With business done, we headed out toward the barrowmaze.

Session 62: Day 9 of Flocktime: An Exhausting Series of Battles in the Barrowmaze

Adelbertus and Armaziti healed themselves and everyone rememorized spells. The group talked about what other questions they might have for the scrying bowl, and decided to go back and try again. Armaziti rememorized his conjure water spell, but as he did so the group heard a loud noise coming from the south. Immediately they noticed a creature coming toward them down the hallway and it appeared to be a large, fast-moving zombie with enormous fangs! It ran up and swiped its nasty hand across Arnd, leaving him bleeding badly. Chiki turned and swung his sword, but missed. Arnd retaliated with a hard swing from Bonesplitter, making the creature scream in pain. As he did, I vaulted over Chiki and got behind the creature, bounding up and opening up its back. As the short battle ended, Armaziti came running out of the room where he had been memorizing his spell and quickly healed Arnd, then sat down again to rememorize that spell.

The group lined up in marching order and headed back to the room with the scrying bowl. Armaziti cried out “Aquamenti” and conjured water, filling the bowl, and the magic users in the group (Lhoss, Tatania, and myself) all felt the pull of the bowl’s power. Lhoss prepared herself to begin scrying. Lhoss concentrated on Naynor and the note she had from him, but saw only headache-inducing darkness. Dropping that thought, she concentrated instead on the sword, thinking of the bounties of the goddess Merika. She the had the distinct impression that there was another deity enhancing her vision, likely Merika aiding the quest. She could see a statue of a knight in a darkened room, and it was holding the sword, which glowed with its own light. It appeared to be in a tomb in the barrows area, but in its own tomb to the east, not inside the barrowmaze.

The water drained and as before six shadows came out of the statues, attacking the party. Armaziti attempted to use his cleric ability to turn undead and it appeared for a moment that it might work, but the shadows all failed to turn. Hilja cast faerie fire, bathing the shadows in light. Tatania and Adelbertus both attacked and damaged the shadows in front of them. Kyro, lacking a magical weapon, pulled out a vial of holy water and threw it at the shadow in from of him in the corner, hitting it. Arnd and I attempted to attack the shadow in front of Tatania but both failed miserably, practically tripping over ourselves in the process. Chiki also attempted to attack and failed. The shadows attacked Tatania, Armaziti, and Chiki, damaging them all and draining strength from each of them. Lhoss threw a bottle of hot, burning oil, damaging one shadow and splashing another as well as Armaziti. Armaziti then threw a vial of holy water it flew high, hitting the wall behind and just splashing a few drops back onto the creature in front of him.

Chiki swung again and was once more ineffective. It was starting to look like a tough shadow battle for gnomes and dwarves. Adelbertus, however, swung and hit. Angry at having missed with my first attack, I screamed and jumped up at the shadow, slicing down the creature and killing it. Arnd tried to do the same thing, running at the shadow facing Kyro and screaming “Bonesplitter!” but somehow missed. Chiki, Adelbertus, and Armaziti were all hit again by the shadows, losing even more strength. Arnd swung wildly and missed yet again, but Armaziti hit, and both Lhoss and Tatania finished off one shadow each. Lhoss jumped in for a backstab and Adelbertus swung and together they managed to destroy another one. Kyro, unable to defend himself, was hit and felt his strength begin to drain. Still swinging wildly, Arnd found himself completely ineffective at hitting anything. Kyro tried backing away from the last shadow in the corner, but it hit him just as Lhoss ran in to finish it off. Breathing hard, the party paused to healed up and rest to regain our strength lost to the shadows. We then ate some dinner and rememorized spells.

As the clerics were memorizing their final spells, two nasty zombie-like creatures came through the door and attacked Kyro and Hilja. Lhoss and I both ran up behind the creatures and attacked, doing great damage to them. Chiki attacked the creature on Kyro, hitting it, and Arnd, Lhoss, and Tatania finished off the one on Hilja. Kyro swung and hit the one in front of him and then I finished it off with another hit from behind. All of this went on as Armaziti and Adelbertus sat in the corner, quietly praying. Recovered, the group headed back past where Armaziti had fallen into a pit on a previous day.

We moved farther down the hallway and examined some rubble and the walls of the alcove behind it, but found nothing. Kyro and Tatania stepped forward and looked farther down the hallway, then shouted that something bad was coming. It was more skeletons with blue sapphires in their foreheads! Tatania fired a magic missile, damaging the one attacking her as the two in front attacked her and Kyro, hitting them both. Arnd ran up and grabbed Tatania, pulling her back and taking her place as Armaziti cast a heal on her. The skeleton attacked her again and hit, but she survived as the heal took effect.

Chiki and I both threw burning oil and did some damage to the group of skeletons. Kyro and Tatania both hit one, destroying it, and the blue sapphire began pulsing as Adelbertus and Armaziti ran forward to smash it to pieces. Lhoss cast a magic missile and destroyed another skeleton, with its gem beginning its pulsing countdown. Kyro and I both attacked the gem, damaging it, as Chiki threw another vial of oil, hitting skeletons as well as me. The skeletons attacked again, hitting both Arnd and I as Armaziti moved in and finished off the gem. Enjoying the effects of burning oil splashing everywhere, Chiki threw yet another vial, hitting just about everyone and doing a little damage to one skeleton. Adelbertus smashed the skeleton in front of Arnd, destroying it, and Kyro and Armaziti both destroyed that gem. I turned and destroyed the final skeleton, and Lhoss, Arnd, Tatania, and Adelbertus all attacked and destroyed its gem.

 
We all breathed a sigh of relief. That was an exhausting series of battles! Tatania gathered up all the shards of sapphire that were strewn about the floor among the many bones from the skeletons as we rested and considered what to do next.

Session 61: Flocktime 8 and early Flocktime 9

 After the encounter at the scrying pool, Arnd, Armatzi, Gnorcia, Dwerom, Tatania, and Kyro regrouped and rested, memorizing and praying for spells. A strange gust of wind blew into the chambers and blew out Kyro's torch, a minor annoyance that was quickly fixed. Gnorcia spent some time looking around, and found a pile of stones set in a pyramid. She dismantled it, and then reconstructed it after finding nothing of interest. The group also ate dinner, and then travelled back to Orlane, arriving later in the evening at the Slumbering Serpent and agreed to the common room setup. 

The group had breakfast the next morning, and watited for the shops to open up. Once they were open, some provision were purchased, the sapphire gem pieces were sold, and some holy water was purchased from the Temple of Merikka. It was discovered that they produce 10 vials each week, so there will be a steady supply. 

The group left Orlane and headed back to the main entry point to Barrowmaze, having lunch before descending into the foreboding valley. The group made their way back to the area they were in the day before, and proceeded down a new passageway. Armatzi discovered a pit trap by falling into it. Fortunately, he was not badly injured, and there was nothing else in the pit. He was helped out, and the group then approached the walled off section to the north that had been examined earlier. 

The group decided to break down this brick wall, which was very noisy - three of them working on the wall. It was taken down quickly, and without any disturbance. A new passageway with three doors on the left was discovered. 

The first door was locked. Gnorcia, having a love for keys, tried all that she had found, but none of them fit. She then picked the lock, and opened the door. A skeleton was found on the floor, which proved to be inanimate. There were runes on the western wall in charcoal that were examined, but they were indecipherable, even with Tatania's magic glasses (due to being old and worn). Two electrum bracelets were found on the skeleton, and they were claimed after some careful checking. Nothing else was found in the room. 

The next door to the north also proved to be locked, and the last door was checked, and was also locked. The keys proved to be useless, and this time Tatania used her knock spell to open both doors. The middle room proved to hold several animated skeletons, that were fairly easily dispatched. Two platinum necklaces were found, as well as a runic tablet. Tatania threw caution to the wind, and read the tablet, which imbued her with a magical protection to succeed on her next saving throw. Also, there was a yellow potion (yet to be identified), and two bags of coins: 400 sp and 20 gp. The coins were divided up with the party. Tatania memorized her spells again without problem, and the third door was opened. 

A nest of several rats was found, and many of them were killed. The rest fled in fear through small cracks in the room. A silver locket was found amongst a bunch of rotted tapestries and other junk. 

Session 60: Continuation of Day 8 of Flocktime: Answers Have a Cost

Our small group (Lhoss, Gnorcia, Armaziti, Hilja, and Arnd) was surprised to be joined by the capable, if little-known, henchman Dwerom. We are always accepting of allies to assist and will press on with whatever mix of heroes show up for the adventure. We took a vote and decided to get back to the task of searching the octagonal burial alcoves. The search yielded a lot of copper pieces which were divided evenly and we moved on.

Behind the first door we opened, we found a pile of rubble in the southeast corner. Gnorcia was the first to probe the pile, with the rest of us right behind her. She discovered that the pile was actually a cleverly disguised stash of supplies. The neatly organized pile included a sledgehammer, iron spikes, oil flasks, torches, arrows, crossbow bolts, and a curious bottle of iridescent blue liquid. We added all of the items to our inventory. Hopefully whoever left these things behind isn't a noble soul whose life depends on these supplies to save their life!

We saw a brick wall and naturally wondered what was on the other side of it. Using our newly acquired sledgehammer, along with the two we already had, Arnd, Dwerom, and Armaziti bashed the wall down. Right away, we felt a cold chill, heard raspy, ragged breathing, and saw a skeletal figure clothed in a robe. Lhoss immediately hit it with a magic missile and Hilja followed by casting faerie fire and bathing it in blue light. Dwerom was unable to hit with two arrows and Armaziti was unsuccessful in turning the undead. The evil creature let out a nasty hiss in response. Arnd attacked with Bonesplitter and landed a decisive hit. Gnorcia then knocked the thing unconscious with color spray. Arnd was able to finish it off, smashing it to pieces. Armaziti inspected the foul creature and identified it as a huecuva, a dangerous undead foe with a touch that produces a similar effect as the mummy's curse. Not wanting to come in contact even accidentally, Gnorcia swept the remains to the side. 

Beyond the brick rubble, we saw a trapezoidal room with six armored stone knights lining the perimeter that each had a skull inset into the wall. In the middle of the room sat a 3 by 3 foot stone bowl with an empty bronze water jug next to it. The party wanted to fill the bowl with water, but were all loathe to empty our water skins to do it. Armaziti memorized and then cast a create water spell, filling the bowl. The water inside began to glow a tantalizing green color, attracting the gaze of Armaziti, Gnorcia, and Lhoss. Lhoss was the first to step up to the bowl and could see that it functioned as a mystical augury, a crystal ball if you will. She knew if she asked it a question, she could see the answer reflected back to her. Going with the first thing that sprung to her mind, she asked if Derrik was still in the barrowmaze. She possessed a ring and tunic that had belonged to him and also a paper with his own writing, which likely aided in the success of the effect. Lhoss was able to see a vision of Derrik, clearly in the barrowmaze (although not in an identifiable spot) conversing with someone unknown. That seemed to be a useful scrap of intel! But what happened next was unexpected...

The eyes of the embedded skulls glowed green, releasing six shadow creatures. Arnd leapt into action, delivering a nice slice with Bonesplitter. Gnorcia attacked with Vengeance, while Lhoss and Dweron killed two by dousing them in burning oil. Meanwhile, two shadows were successful in their strikes, one against Armaziti, one against Gnorcia. Their blows seemed especially damaging, not only causing injury, but also able to drain strength. Armaziti and Arnd were the next successful targets of the creatures. Although Dwerom knew he did not have a magical weapon that could damage the villains, he sliced at one to distract it from pressing its attack on Arnd. Lhoss connected with a magic missile while Gnorcia was able to land another blow. Alas, Melissa and Bonesplitter could not connect. Dwerom's distraction tactic worked and one of the creatures that had been attacking Arnd turned and hit Dwerom instead. But Arnd was not out of the woods as another shadow continued to attack and hit him, draining his strength. After dodging an attack, Armaziti shattered one of the foes with Melissa. Lhoss managed to put herself in a favorable position and offed another with Gary. After an extended back and forth between the heroes and the shadows, Armaziti destroyed one and used turn undead against the other. As it cowered in fear, Gnorcia finished off the last adversary.

Session 59: Day 8 of Flocktime Continues with Some Very Bad Skeletons

Before we continued searching the Barrowmaze, the party paused to discuss how the strange trash-covered creatures came to be, and Tatania wondered out loud if they might be the results of some unethical magic going on in the Barrowmaze. Tatania then sat and memorized spells while the rest of us ate some lunch and quietly considered the foreboding oppressive sense of evil in this place.

We started down the hall to the west of the room with the strange creatures—Tatania munching on hard tack as she walked—but seeing more hallways with questionable rubble in them, we reconsidered and returned to the unopened door in the previous room. Lhoss examined and then opened it to reveal a seemingly-empty room with yet another door. Opening that door, she discovered a skeleton on the floor and a glowing ball that started, somehow, throwing bits of burial urns at us all!

As clay pieces crashed around us, I cast color spray on the glowing thing, but all it seemed to do was to paint it and make it more angry. It continued tossing bits of clay as Lhoss stepped forward and swung at it with her staff, but she missed. Arnd then squeezed through and swung Bonesplitter at it, hitting it square in the center. The creature instantly vanished and in the process sprayed back magically-colored paint on Lhoss and Arnd.

Examining the room further, we discovered it was lined with many burial alcoves. We began searching and found a few coins but not much else. As we continued our search, we heard steps coming down the passageway to the east. We couldn’t see anything yet, but we quickly prepared for whatever might be coming. Arnd, Armaziti, and Kyro took the front line facing the hallway and Armaziti cast a blessing on the group. Soon we could see a faint blue light and a sense of dread came over us all as we remembered previous encounters with glowing creatures.

The creatures approached and we were troubled to see they were skeletons with glowing sapphires in their foreheads—something we have met before. Two approached Armaziti and Arnd. Armaziti swung and hit but Arnd swung and missed. Tatania fired a magic missile at the skeleton in front of Armaziti and Lhoss quickly finished it off with a second magic missle. I then ran up and easily catapulted over Arnd to land on the back of the skeleton in front of him, but the skeletons behind them advanced, one moving up to face Armaziti and the other behind me, hitting me hard. Armaziti swung and destroyed the gem of the skeleton in front of him as the skeleton I was clinging to swung and hit Arnd. Arnd returned an attack but missed and I was tearing up from the pain and couldn’t hit it properly either.

As we battled, Lhoss, Hilja, and Tatania grumbled amongst themselves about how they wished they had some vials of holy water that they could lob over the top of the fighters in the narrow hallway ahead of them. Of course the cost of such a holy weapon was more than the group could afford earlier, so we had dismissed the idea.

At that point the battle began to rage in a flurry of fighting. Lhoss targeted the skeleton in front of Arnd and hit it with a magic missile. Tatania did the same, destroying it right under me and I leapt down as it crumbled, turning to face the evil creature behind me. Armaziti swung at the skeleton in front of him again, hitting it with a loud crack as Kyro swung one of the sledgehammers into the gem on the crumbled skeleton.

Both Arnd and I attacked the last skeleton and damaged it but it was still fighting and hit me again, knocking me out so I missed the rest of the fight, which was recounted to me later. As I fell, Hilja moved in and swung at the skeleton on Armaziti, who also swung and hit it again, crushing it to dust with his hammer. Arnd swung and hit again as Hilja then turned to bandage me before I lost any more blood. Kyro smashed the third gem on the skeleton that Armazi had downed, as Lhoss ran forward and swung her staff at the last skeleton, destroying it. Tatania then sprung forward and destroyed the last gem.

Whew! Everyone breathed in relief as they looked around at the rubble of skeletons and Tatania carefully collected shards of the blue gems in a bottle. Armaziti healed me but I was exceptionally exhausted from the battle and we retreated to one of the rooms we had just traveled through to rest and re-memorize spells.

 

Session 58: Day 8 of Flocktime - silliness ensues

 The party of adventures (Ronan, Yldarb, Gnorcia, Tatania, Calbach, Arnd, Adelbertus, and Armatzi) decided to go back south and explore there some more. After consulting the map and discussing, the group entered through a room they had previously gone through, and then examined a room with graffiti written on the back wall in chalk - "They are coming". This proved to be true, as a group of skeletons attacked the party from the east. The party managed to defeat the threat. 

Searching around some more to the east revealed a secret door with a latch. Tatania used her dagger to open the latch, which revealed a small, inverted 'L' shaped room. In the room were found two backpacks full of coins, and a variety of other equipment. The party took all of this. 

The party then explored a bit further to the south, and did some resting in the halls, Tantania deciding that was the best place to rememorize her spells. The group split in two, checking some different doors. One revealed a room full of rubble, fungus, trash, and other oddities. This wasn't immediately investigated, but Calbach came back to it after some vagaries that occurred. This caused several misshapen abominations to drop their disguises (which were literally trash) and flee. The party half-heartedly called after them, but they fled out back the way the party had come from. 

That proved to be more then enough for Yldarb, who was very tired. 

Session 57: Day 28 of Planting through Day 8 of Flocktime: Lingering in Orlane

Our group (Ronan, Yldarb, Gnorcia, Tatania, Lhoss, Adelbertus, and Armaziti) thought our stay in Orlane would be a short one, but I think that we find that the cheerfulness of the town makes us look for reasons not to head back to the gloom of the tomb. At any rate, the group (save Armaziti, who was under the watchful care of priestess Misha at the temple) woke to an early lunch at the inn. We noticed that the town gets busier each time we return, with the only arrangements available to us being the common room of The Slumbering Serpent. In fact, all three inns (The Slumbering Serpent, The Golden Grain, and even The Foaming Mug) are filled with visitors. Truly, Orlane has returned to prosperity.

We headed over to the temple to check in on Aramaziti and found him snoring lightly. Misha had been able to lift the mummy's curse, but the cost would be substantial - 1,000 gold pieces. Many in the party balked at the price. Misha, sensing the burden and seizing on an opportunity presented an alternative: a holy sword named Caliburn is rumored to be in the barrowmaze. It is a lawful good intelligent sword and a holy relic of the order of paladins dedicated to Merika. Knowing our reputation, Misha offered a loan against the healing for the return of the sword. Some in the party suggested that the sword may be worth more than the 1,000 gold we would essentially be trading it for. But Misha intimated that such a sword would not respond well to back-alley dealings. It was decided that this noble side quest was a good trade to have our dear Armaziti returned to us in full health. As a show of his usefulness and gratitude, Armaziti used his gauntlet to remove the fear from our party.

Armaziti was healed, but still too weak to travel, so we decided to visit our friends in town and sell off some of the trinkets we have acquired. Unfortunately, Llewelyn and Dorian were off adventuring; Lhoss was longing for some elf company. Fortunately, Vilma is always welcoming with warm bread and hot gossip. Ronan went to the shop to stock up on oil and found that the price of oil had gone up due to increased demand. He also attempted to sell some weapons that he had taken from the slain followers of Orcus and Set. But as they were emblazoned with their wicked insignias, the shopkeeper didn't want them. But the blacksmith would take them off our hands for scrap. Better than hauling them around. Ronan also sold an arrowhead that was attributed to Hern the Hunter. It fetched a good price, so he next tried to sell an arrowhead affiliated with Nerul. Not only was the shopkeeper not interested, he appeared disgusted and almost offended at having been offered it. Lastly, we sold off the gold headband and scepter recovered from the mummy which were quite valuable! Feeling flush with gold, we determined that two in our party should get additional training, which meant another week in Orlane. Well, if we have to...

The morning of day 8 of Flocktime (or Violets if you're an elf - isn't that so much prettier?!) we headed back to the barrowmaze with Gnorcia a newly minted cutpurse and our priest Armaziti. It was an uneventful and pleasant enough hike until we settled into the oppressive gloom surrounding the foreboding burial grounds. Studying our maps, we decided to go to an area that was as yet unexplored. We found a room that held nothing more than a statue with no way in or out. Suddenly we were set upon by six clattering skeletons! 

Yldarb engaged first with his cursed staff. Luckily, he hit and did a nice bit of damage. Ronan missed with his swing while Tatania connected with one of her magic missiles exploding the enemy. With these three gathered around the doorway that separated us from the skeletons, there was no way for the rest of us to engage in melee. Sensing Gnorcia's desire to join the fray, Lhoss offered her a boost to get over and into the scrum. It was not a great hoist, but Gnorcia's dexterity allowed her to land in an advantageous position that she was unable to capitalize on. Adelbertus attempted to use a spell to turn the undead, but was unsuccessful. Armaziti, however, calling upon his advanced skill was able to conjure the spell and the skeletons began to flee. Taking attacks of opportunity, Gnorcia missed, while Yldarb and Ronan hit. Unwilling to let these creatures survive, we pressed our attack until we had crushed every last one. Smashing skeleton skulls? Just another day in the barrowmaze.