Lambs with Teeth

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Summary

GM Stephen
Session Spring 810 wk
Night Thursday
Location New Windsor
Level Medium-High*

Summary
The Mission: Antoine of Novadom represents wealthy landholders who are trying to hold their valley against raids from barbarians, goblinoids, monsters, and the occasional undead. They want the area cleared and they're willing to pay.
The Real Mission: Guild security has discretely asked you to sign up for the above mission. The guild has been informed that the mission is a fake, the employer an innocent patsy, it is all part of a trap to capture some reasonably senior guild members. They want you to walk into the trap, get captured, find out who is behind it, escape and destroy them!
*The Warnings: When you are ambushed you need to make it look good but lose, you will need to be equipped like senior adventurers but you may not be able to recover all of that equipment once you escape. Indications are that whoever is behind this wants you bought in alive, that may be because they just want to talk or it is so they can kill you themselves. You need to stay captured long enough to find the instigator, but not so long that you end up dead. Whoever is behind this is protected from astrology and scrying available to the guild, if this goes wrong a rescue may not be possible.
We don't want to scare them off and have them ambush some other unsuspecting party, so no known/obvious god-slayers or unbeatable heroes.
Party
  • Mordrin played by Clare - Mil Sci
  • Tegan, Earth/Animal Mage, played by Kelsie
  • Cher Lady Maltheim Cross, Binder, played by Sean
  • Dalran, a shadowy E&E Mage played by Chris - AKA Philip - Party Leader & Scribe from 28th Oct
  • Thorn Warrior/healer/Sorceror played by Helen
  • Lady Lizette Summers, Namer, Healer and white hat, played by Dylan - Scribe - until 14th Oct
Pay
  • 20,000sp from Antoine, 40,000sp from the guild. The glory and self-righteousness of saving your guild and fellow guild members from our most evil enemies.

Scribe Notes

Day 1 - Guild day - 1st of Thaw

Our party employer looks good in his white leathers. Our party leader could benefit from his fashion sense. Maybe I should give him a few tips. Antoine seems to be a factor and middle man acting for a bunch of local Novadom landowners who are having trouble with bandits, goblinoids and undead. Antoine is the sort of man who will do anything to make a few gold pieces.

We form a clever plan to get captured in order to find out who wants to capture us. Part of this plan involves not using our good armor or shields. "I know I'm a low ranked Military Scientist compared to the others but I don't like this plan!" Dalran asks to be called Philip who is a medium ranked human E&E as Dalran may be better known than Philip We want to be seen as a competent medium level guild party rather than a huge collection of valuables and guild beasts that we actually are. It seems we have one male escorting 5 ladies on this mission.

When the party decides to smuggle things by cutting holes in themselves and placing itemised items in their bodies before having it healed up, neither of the healers volunteer to carry any of their personal possessions inside themselves. This is probably something to watch out for when the person with the skill has so little faith in the plan they will not participate in the plan, then its not something to volunteer for. The itemisations mean that we need to have the items out of the various bodies by day 13 or there will be some reprecussions when the magic wears off.

At some point I decide to get some tools for the job we've supposedly been hired for. 3 rank 10 Weapon of Flames seem to be about the best thing we can find after silver/magical weapons. There is drinking and then we go to the boat with our hungover employer the next morning. The saurime and I decide not to drink both for our own reasons. Is that cloak the only thing she wears? I guess if temperature isn't a factor and neither is modesty then perhaps it will suffice but I must look at designing him something more colorful.

Day 2 - start of a long voyage to Novadom - 2nd of Thaw

We are on the boat for a week. During the voyage down the party leader cleverly pumps the employer for information. Our employer seems to be on the level and was approached by a group of farmers to go to a banker and draw down the funds.

Day 8 - Novadom - 8th of Thaw

Tuesday we arrive at Novadom. We manage to purchase some flasks of holy water bottles (2 ea) which are pint bottles of slightly holy water. We overnight in Novadom where the nightlife is very well hidden.

Day 9 - Ambush Day - 9th of Thaw

We head south-east on horses the farmers brought in and we ride through most of the day. Ambush detected as we ride. We send forth a wizards eye. 6 Undead come out of the wood. 3 Jump "philip" and 3 on Thorne. Weighing things up I jump into cloes with the ones attacking Thorne. They stink. I am glad I am not wearing anything to fancy because I don't think there is a magic strong enough to get the smell out after this.

After we kill them they explode with putrid flesh covering us. Once the explosions die away we discover that we can no longer draw mana and an ambush of about 40 crossbowmen surround us and then thrown flasks of sleep dust, hands of earth and people with nets. Everyone goes down quickly on order of the party leader who then resists the magic, avoids the hands, makes to charge out of the combat and get away, is shot with 7 barbed arrows in the back which slowed him enough for more enemy to close with him, entrap him in a net and then he engages in melee with the enemy leader before he succumbs to vicious poison and falls to the ground. We're all captured.

Day 11 - A rude awakening - 11th of Thaw

We wake to discover that we're back on a boat, but this time in shackles and wearing sackcloth. We all have manacles on our wrists and ankles joined by chains and a slave collar around our necks, complete with a ring at the front to hook you into a chain. The collar is different; it does not have a hinge or fastening mechanism - It is a seamless one-piece torc, diameter about half an inch. The usual way to remove our manacles is a hammer and chisel to knock the pins out.
Both Dalran and Mordrin have had their right hands cut off and the stump burnt to cauterise the wound with the right wrist having a the spike through it to hold the manacle on.

We are in an Iron cage in the hold of the vessel and I have a collar on that will no doubty react when I trigger it with fatal consequences from the metal spikes that will be driven down into her body in that event. A nice community slop bucket lurks in the corner giving that nice homely 'public longdrop' feel amongst friends & associates. Time for experimentation using soothe pain as a basis to remove a persons sense of smell.

The first part of our cunning strategy has gone off almost without a hitch. Well aside from the missing hand and all our items other than my armor have been stripped from us. Guess they really did want us alive. Given our comfort and hygiene are not a priority and that our party leader seems to recognise one of the people who "caught" us I don't think they want to offer us a job.

Dalran informs us that the leader of our captors is Grygor the Boar who was one of The_Beast_Rabban's lieutenants.
"When we (Mordrin, myself & others) last saw him in Summer 808 (the Blood_of_Girwyllan adventure), he was in the hell of Furfur's realm at Beast Rabban's ascendancy coronation as Beast Rabban became Furfur the 3rd albeit for only about 10 seconds until we replaced him with Furfur the 4th. Grygor is a human male and apparently young although indications are that he's at least 50. He is a reasonably tough, ruthless and amoral mercenary who has been operating for about 20 years and who in 780 dropped out of the business (assumed dead or retired) until he turned up again with Beast Rabban (circa 805Wk) and looking younger. I suspect he is a mage and a quite capable fighter as well by how well he was swinging that Hand & 1/2 sword at the ambush site.
Oh yes, since Grygor and I know each other there is no need to continue with the subterfuge by calling me 'Philip' any more."

While physically we seem to be fine we are suffering from not eating or drinking for 2 days. I monitor peoples health but being so low on energy there isn't much I can do beyond the very simplest of healing abilities.

As best as we can tell the boat is heading west-ish, maybe NW.

We decide not to escape. This is a conscious decision from the party leader and has nothing to do with being on a boat none of us could control, locked in a cage in the hull, surrounded by what sounds like 40-50 armed people or being manacled with cold iron on our arms and legs and necks.

After explaining why we aren't going to escape we spend a lot of time concocting plans to escape in great detail. Satisfied that we can/could escape at any time we once again decide not too. We do consider making it look like we tried to escape. After a while we bench this as if we did accidently escape while pretending to we'd mess everything up.

We also sense the presence of a water mage providing ideal waters and an Air mage providing appropriate air for the vessel. Late afternoon we sense a change in speed of the boat which slows to a stop. Grygor comes down to see us in the hold before retreating upstairs and then we hear the sound of a boat being lowered and not returning. We then know the boat returned to its 'cruising speed' that we judge to be about 15knots or so but turns SW.

Day 12 - A pleasant Voyage - 12th of Thaw

As best as we can tell the boat is heading SW. The day passes.

Day 13 - A pleasant Voyage - 13th of Thaw

We notice something like a boat being lowered into the water every 10 hours. Theories range from a water mage being in contact with the water to cast better, to a fire mage not allowed to cast while on the main boat, to some kind of communication having to be outside of range of a scrying shield. At the end of the day we really don't know what it was and soon lose interest.

As best as we can tell the boat is heading SW. The day passes.

Day 14 - A pleasant Voyage - 14th of Thaw

The boat continued SW by our best reckoning and we come up with a possible plan to escape but choose not to enact it as we are very aware of our purpose here and what we need to sacrifice to achieve that goal.
We are provided with food and water at meal times by strange looking foreign speaking sailors who don't seem to understand much common - even when we offer them thousands of silver for our release.

Day 15 - A pleasant Voyage - 15th of Thaw

The boat continued SW by our best reckoning. We continue to notice a boat being lowered into the water every 10 hours. We decide not to attempt to or to actually escape. There is a small storm today but we seem to pass through unscathed.

Day 16 - A pleasant Voyage - 16th of Thaw

The boat changes heading to NW by our best reckoning and entered shallower waters. We continue to notice a boat being lowered into the water every 10 hours. We decide not to attempt to or to actually escape.

In the late afternoon we enter a port of some sort and once darkness has fully fallen we are transferred via a pulley system to a waiting barge. During the transfer I can briefly see the stars and determine that we are still in Alusia and in the Northern hemisphere-ish. Our cage is filled with darkness so we cannot see out. After quite a large amount of time we are still on the barge and the darkness ends. Once again we decide not to escape due to the large possibility of drowning. We are accompanied by 3 heavily cowled figures. We travel upriver through the night. From our brief impression of the port and city is that it seems to be impressive and 'nice looking' but strange.

Day 17 - Land at Port? - 17th of Thaw

The barge continues travel upriver throughout the day. Finally around dusk the barge stops at a shallow ford. Soon we hear a wagon and some men arrive. We are approached by a human who allows us to call him Clarice who gives us a chain to attach to our Torcs and when we have done so he allows us out of the cage. As we approach the wagon we notice the horses are undead. We can't DA due to all the iron on and in some cases in us but I try a ranged Empathy.

Lizette talks!:

"As expected I don't get anything. This doesn't make me happy. I must talk to the necromancers at the guild. Maybe with a bit of practice I can learn to Empathy a dead horse. I'm not sure why I need to be able to do this but it bothers me when I can't.

We are escorted by Clarice and another 2 humans as well as around 20 demons/undead who are all armed and armoured who will walk beside the wagon to no doubt dissuade us from trying to escape. Above us we hear the flap of wings that leads us to believe that there may be evil nasty harpies, gargoyles or something else equally nasty up there beyond our sight.

We travel through the night, through unsettled countryside and desolate locations.

Day 18 - A new home - 18th of Thaw

Before the dawn we enter a huge cleft in the mountains and travel along the side trail above a great fall to the floor below. This doesn't look like the home of a nice person. Just before dawn we reach an ominous and foreboding castle where there are more demons and more undead. We are thrown into a cell but at least our accommodations are a little better now - We have straw, clean food and the privy even has a curtain.

Lizette talks!:

"Surely they don't expect us to resurrect this Furfur thing. Then again a few things would fall into place if they did. While I might be able to earn my rank ten healer I don't want it this way. Hopefully this hasn't occurred to the rest of the party yet. Bringing one of the powers back would probably end my attempts to be a Urielite forever.

I can't work for the side of evil. Have you seen their fashion sense? Then again is it any wonder that black is the height of colour for them, with half of them being dead or demonic. They'd probably even make me dye my hair. That's it. No going evil".

We gather our strength and see if this is the home of the instigator of our downfall.

With some rest I recover my wits enough to start examining our new cell.

  • The walls, floor and ceiling are all made of traditionally formed bound earth and the cell door has thick iron bars and a large well protected sturdy lock set it it.

We are visited during the day by Clarice and another man wearing a slave collar.

  • Details on Clarice: He is a human, short lived sentient and without a college. He is wearing a set of improved plate metal armour which has the property of aiding recovery, a hand and a ½ which has the property of slaying the living, he wears a leather belt, carries a number of pouches, has a necklace of amulets around his neck, has an earring of shadow-walking and wears fighting gloves.
  • The human male slave appears withered and worn down through servitude and appears very servile.

Clarice says we are to see the master - well perhaps only 1 of 2 masters in the evening so we should get some rest while we can. We get that the 2 masters are named Etrigan and Pithius. We are given some better clothes during the day but since we are bound hand and foot in chains we fail to utilise most of them except for some of the 'ladies' putting on skirts.

Late in the day we are bought more food and hot drinks before we are led out of the cell without continuous chains but followed by Clarice. We are led up through corridors and I DA some items and find the wood originates from Alusia. We go through a corridor that has a T- junction and there were 2 Flesh Golems standing blocking our access to one corridor, making us walk a certain path through the corridor. The Flesh Golems DA'd as Non Sentient Undead -reanimates with a primary vulnerability of Sunlight (but not Alusian Sunlight), they are wearing leather armour that DA's as Demon Skin that is enhanced for extra protection and they carry large glaives which are magical and the wood shows the Plane of Origin as Haven.
"I've started getting a bad feeling about this now!"

We finally end our shuffle at some huge doors that are pulled open by slaves to reveal a large open portal beyond which we can see a large room with another figure on a throne at the far end. We walk through the portal and we feel a change of plane - we are now on Haven. We speak with one who we call Etrigan and who is dismayed at our state with some of us being armless etc. He had asked for us to be bought here by Grygor and it seems that he has taken some liberties with us beyond his brief.

Etrigan goes on and instructs a minion devil to remove our hand and feet manacles but leave the iron collars on while we negotiate a deal. Etrigan wishes to pay us 40lbs of true-silver to take an offer of employment back to the guild leadership, for our part in that offer, and reparation for our harm and suffering. The employment offer being: "He will pay the guild 800lbs of true-silver (20,000,000sp) for their non intervention in events on Haven for the next 10 years. With a right of renewal on the same terms when the 10yrs is up".

We say that we cannot speak for the guild leadership but we do agree to discuss this amongst ourselves and return with an answer on the morrow.

Clarice hides his annoyance when Etrigan names him Atruse while directing him to see that we are well cared for.

We are led back to our cell, Atruse is now leading us but he looks vigilant and ready for us to try something sneaky, underhanded or dangerous. Along the way Dalran come up with a plan and was about to enact the plan which would have resulted in us having a weapon and perhaps more but Lizette at this point decides to create a diversion which puts Atruse on alert and causes Dalran to avert the attempt. Once Atruse had reacted (he did so with speed, reflexes and overt threat) and he waited, watched and considered us a while, we then continued uneventfully to our cells.
We hold discussions on the pro's and cons of the offer. Lizette is fiercely against doing any deal with undead evil demonics and refuses to take the deal, certainly not their money!. We consider the ramifications

Later in the evening a couple of reanimates drag in two local people and put them in the cell next to us.

Day 19 - 19th of Thaw

At breakfast Artuse brings the meal himself, informs us that we will be seen again this evening and warns us that those who say no to Etrigan don't usually lead long and happy lives.

The regeneration of Dalran's and Mordrin's hands is started.

We don't know if Etrigan is a demon. Even though he associates with them and undead.

If we make the deal the geas will stop us directly or indirectly interfering in Haven.

Evening of the 19th

Etrigan agrees to grant us the lives of the two people in the cage next to us. Also that the geas will not prevent us dealing with Grygor, in fact that will mean that he doesn't need to.

Mist and darkness come out of the door and a figure who glides (a lich) comes through. He is going to geas us.

Etrigan's message requests the entire guild not to interfere in the events on Haven for the next 10 years.

There is a rock in the shape of a yak near the guild. The payment will be left there a week before the summer meeting and if it is gone by a week after the meeting then the deal will be considered to be taken.

Day 20 - 20th of Thaw

In the morning Artruse leads us out, some riding the undead horses.

Once out of the mountain cleft, our collars are removed.

Artruse informs us we are on Palestrina about 800 miles from our home town.

Atruise tells us about Grygor. Contact via intermediary in Novadom. Grygor is believed to be NW of Novadom. He was dropped off on the coast in that region. Near where there is a new keep being built on the coast. Not quite as far as Haven.

The language is Paliano.

Walk/ride most of the day to the river, the barge and cage are still there on the bank. Artuse leaves, we camp the night, Tegan hunts a pig for breakfast.

Day 21 - 21st of Thaw

Some of us eat pig. Then we discover we can't draw mana. We conclude this is due to the salt in the pig which apparently causes problems for casters. We take some with us. I also keep some for study.

Mordrin takes us walking and because she is such an amazing ranger quickly gets us lost. As we walk we end up in large amounts of snow. Cher helps us by casting Ice Traversal. At this point the ranger gets lost again. We discover that we're stuck in frozen waste.

Camp in snow cave, summon some Musk Ox. The Ox eventually turn up late in the night.

Day 22 - 22nd of Thaw

A couple of the Ox froze during the night, they are skinned and butchered. The Ox are from a plane that is very similar to, bit not Alusia, we call it "Cold Allusia".

After a while we find out we've been camping and hiking on the sea. Sure glad it was that cold. Riding the remaining 4 Ice Traversed Musk Ox, we make it back to land and despite the fact we keep getting lost we don't find Allusia again.

Camp in another snow cave.

Day 23 - 23rd of Thaw

New Travel Strategy: Cher & Mordrin fly ahead 2-400 miles, then get lost back to the party then get lost with the party to the forward camp, rinse, repeat. Hope to pass through the real Alusia while lost or at least find somewhere better.

Day 24 - 24th of Thaw

We do see a dragon in the distance.

The rest of the party is too scared to approach it. Maybe its just the fact I'm fearless or that I've personally killed bigger dragons that that before but I think we can deal with it. Dragons are sentient and most of them don't just eat you. Especially if you can do something for them. Cher thought it was a black one and they're one of the most reasonable and easy to deal with.

Day 25 - 25th of Thaw

While lost we pass through a snow covered town, DAs reveal this is the same 'Cold Alusia' but it seems better than the wilderness so we stop following the path only Mordrin can see.

Lost on a foreign plane fighting ice demons

We explore the buildings we see around us and discover that we are in Seagate but there is a problem which is that the city is covered in Ice and shows signs of fighting (more than normal for the streets/buildings of the fair city we call home) as well as no signs of beings here for some time, not even animals.
We move up to the location of the guild and we find the ruins of our once proud institution with only a few area showing above ground as the area has been the scene of a major battle long ago and the area is again covered in Ice.

We need food and shelter from the conditions so we dig down physically using tools at hand and after a few hours gruelling work we remember something important and ask Cher to do her job and mould the elements (these Binders are so lazy - they even forget what they can do until reminded of it) to provide quicker tunnels through the Ice.

While some of us stronger beings were doing the hard labour and several other just standing around ostensively 'on watch' a figure crept up to just behind Dalran and was in striking range before Thorn even went 'behind you'. The figure turned out to be a mute Seraph sent to Dalran by Uriel to provide him some aid it seems. The Seraph could not talk due to the distances involved and the fact that this plane was almost wholly cut off from other planes and a number of other extra-planar divine reasons I'm sure.

We had a discussion using Lip Reading and it turns out that Uriel had heard Dalran's call for help but is unable to do this until the Great Wurm is killed on this plane. The Seraph says that the 5 have left some items that may aid the party around Alfheim but the items must be returned to their places when the work is done and Uriel can them aid Dalran and the party to return to Seagate proper. The Seraph then fades back to its own planes of existence to serve Uriel once more.
We'll at least we have some knowledge now and I relate that around 6 years ago I was in a party that went off to Artzdorf and Flugelheim to destroy some Ice Demons and free the land of their reign of Ice, Cold and Death. I think that in this dimension we are in we failed to do this and this was the result of our failure as they no doubt defeated us and grew more powerful until they now reign over this plane of Icy Alusia.

Anyway we resume the digging and remonstrate those on watch to do their jobs or just lay down and freeze to death as it would save us the trouble of looking after them. Many casts by Cher later (she obviously spent all her ranking on Ice traversal rather than college basics, or like OOC counter-spells) we have an entrance into the root cellars below what was the kitchens & I start to search for anything to help us.
Later we also entered the Guild Vaults and secured some remaining items that weren't very useful no doubt at the time such as Ice armour that slowly freezes the wearer and salt the earth armour that makes the earth it passes over unable to sustain life due to a magical salting effect. We find some mundane arms and armour for the rest of us.

We also find a small glowing slug that we identify as a mana slug that eats magic and then exudes a slime that is rich in pure mana (1-20pts) for a day afterwards before transforming into normal slug droppings. We find a box for the slug, throw in a few remnants of magic items to keep her happy and then close the box while grabbing a few more pieces of items for later food purposes.

In the namer college ruins we find a dead Lizette as well as remains of a demon from the plane of 'Icehaim'. We take various bones and then after searching the area for useful scrolls or items we move onto the fire college.

In the fire college we find the 'All Consuming Flame' which appears to be wrapped in 'The Eternal Cold', which seems to basically be a vast source of fire surrounded by Rank 30 bound ice and stopping the fire from consuming the ice and the plane. Lizette divinates Lizette, The Slug and the Demon
In the root cellars are several portals that are mostly broken except for two, one to Burgelfen and another to Volari which is just north of Artzdorf & Flugelheim. We plan to travel to Burgelfen in the morning and then onwards to Alfheim.

We rest for the night and recover our strength and have plenty of the guild broccoli, Brussels sprouts and other such divine almost decade old vegetables. The night passes.

Day 26 - 26th of Thaw, Seagate>Afheim & Lizette dies

The mana slug is put on the bound ice, it is ecstatic, eats merrily, spits mana rich mucous, then cracks start to form in the bound ice, the slug is removed, some slime is consumed.

We rise early, break our fast and enter the portal to Burgelfen. While we traverse the paths we see and hear things just off the path and Lizette is tempted to interact until I make it a party leader order not to interact actively or passively using magic in any form. The portal trip continues with occasional muttering but uneventfully.

We exit in a snow and ice filled valley that was no doubt Burgelfen and we immediately start the fly/get-lost relay towards Alfeim. After some arduous travel we end up at Alfheim late afternoon and we still see ice covering the ground which doesn't bode well.

We walk the final mile to enter the lake valley proper and we see the lake isn't frozen and the city remains floating above the lake, just as I left it. We start walking around the lake and come across a fiery sword embedded in a stone block and discover that this is an Incarnation of Raphael's Sword . We judge Mordrin should wield this. We take the sword and move further around the lake and find the weapons of the other archangels which we dole out as follows: Jus (Uriel's sword) to Dalran,IRA - the sword of Michael to Thorn, Gabriel's Sword to Cher and Sammael's Staff to Tegan.

We decide to rest again and undertake some divinations on the new weapons we have just gained. Some of us go up to the city proper and wander the deserted streets but are unable to enter the palace precincts, but that doesn't stop us grabbing food stores like preserved Strawberries, Custards, Cranberry preserves and the like that were judged too heavy to remove by the inhabitants. We walk down to the docks before we are to fly down to the ground and rejoin the party. Cher attempts to use one of the floating/flying boats there but fails miserably as they are designed for use by skilled elven 'sailors/ferry runners' and not random adventurers. So we descend and rejoin the party on the ground.

When Lizette has finished her divinations she decides to play with the boats even after our warnings. She tries and fails and tries and fails and tries and fails again, ending up ¼ mile above the city which floats ¼ mile above the lake itself. Still she tries again knowing that the boats respond best or almost exclusively to elven boatmen of high ability and acumen. Lizette at this point tells the boat to head downwards and it does at terminal velocity stopping just before the water and Lizette's body oozes fluid due to her death fall in the boat.

We send Cher to get the remains and get our spare healer to make sure she will last a few days while we wait for our (Dalran's and Mordrin's) hands to fully grow back. We have a quiet night after placing the angelic items back where we found them as we won't be leaving just yet and they keep the ice at bay while in place.

Day #27-30 - Days of Tranquility

The days pass quietly and peacefully as we rest, recuperate, re-grow hands, discuss and practise military strategies. Late on the 25th day we get our spare healer Thorn to resurrect Lizette so she can function on the morrow.

Day 31 - Alfheim > Burgelfen > Seagate

1st Seedtime - We collect the angelic weapons, gather our provisions and Lizette and then depart for Burgelfen and the portal. We travel the day and end up in the root cellar of the guild where we rest the night

NB The fractures in the bound ice have spread further, the fire is starting to seep into them.

Day 32 - A new dawn dawns in Volari

We breakfast and pass through the portal to Volari Castle and from there start the trudge southwards towards Artzdorf & Flugelheim. The Castle is all ice encrusted and we can see bodies entombed in the ice. We trudge through the snow, albeit on our Ice Traversing Musk Ox, camping at night in snow caves.

Days 33&34 - 3rd/4th Seedtime - Crossing Snow

Boring dreary days trudging through the snow of Volari towards A&F

Day 35 - 5th of Seedtime | Kernigstan is in sight

Dalran takes over the role of scribe rather than just adding to the notes

We can see the foothills of the mountains north of A&F and the pass into A&F through an area known as Kernigstan.

During the late afternoon we are attacked by 5 large wolves that leap out of the snow at us. We easily destroy them using the angelic weapons but suffer injuries. Cher has a broken collar bone and two of the Musk Ox are dead.

We have either run across a random patrol or the start of the enemy forces being arrayed against us. We must be more vigilant and aware of what may lie ahead in this cold realm where ice demons and their minions rule.

Katarina and Giovanni are still with us and are remaining quiet while Mordrin and Dalran still hold the 20lbs of True-silver each that we are carrying for the party. We spend some time setting Cher's collar bone injury before hoisting her onto a yak and setting her before Lizette who can do the healing as we travel.

Around 8pm we are very close to the mountain pass heading out of Volari and into the kingdom of Artzdorf and Flugelheim via the area known as Kernigstan. We make camp in another snow cave and I undertake to locate items belonging to fellow guild members I expect to have been around here - but to little avail!

I do manage to create a crystal of Vision however out of the Ice and some Mana Grub Poo so I do some long distance reconnaissance of the demonic citadel covering the entirety over the Lake of the Moon. The Ice Citadel rises hundreds of feet in the air and a wall rises up to around 100ft high on the outer portions of the citadel with a small one inside that. The Citadel area is defined in 5 segments roughly covering a 72 degree arc and from North-East and around clockwise the segments appear to be spheres of influence for Wolves, Bears, Spiders, Snakes and finally Ravens with the shared main citadel castle complex in the centre. I also note Ice trees growing around the Lake which brings back memories of 6 years ago.
We rest, set watches and night passes uneventfully, although Giovanni is complaining of being cold so huddles to whichever 'lady' allows him that close.

Day 36 - 6th of Seedtime -We enter 'Icehaim'

Seagate Destroyed as the 'All Consuming Fire' is released > We enter 'Icehaim', terrorising poor Villagers, slaughtering wolf packs and finally entering the Citadel of Ice.

This new day dawns and we set out early after casting our spells. Instead of heading down the pass we arch around to the north where we will parallel the mountains until north of our intended destination - Lake of the Moon. The party is all invisible to reduce the chance of being seen.

9am sees us all look to the SE when a blinding flash illuminates the horizon before dying back and once more these is only 1 bright sun on the horizon. We feel that Tegan's work with the Mana worm on the Bound Ice holding the all consuming fire has reached fruition and the fire has been released and is quickly consuming all it touches, so we can expect Seagate and Carzala are about to suffer a very warm brief period of heat followed by absolute consumption by fire.

We are spurred to move faster by this and we press on with alacrity so that around noon we have turned southwards and cross the mountains to find ourselves at the very well defined magical borders of what was Artzdorf and Flugelheim. We cross the barrier southwards and we find ourselves on the plane of Icehaim that has interposed itself on top of the area we know as the kingdom of Artzdorf & Flugelheim. We quickly have a warm lunch and recover some fatigue and press on, during which time Cher's bone is finally healed and she rejoins the party in its Ice Traversals.

Around 3pm we hear the howling of wolves closing and we seek to hide in a nearby 'village' populated by people and beasts covered in a thin layer of icy sheen. We see the last of the villagers entering their huts and closing the doors in response to the very close howling wolf pack and we decide that this is a good idea as well.

I stride up to the sturdiest looking building and knock on the door, a voice queries what I want and I say "the wolves are close, let me in" and the occupant opens the door to an empty doorway as we are all invisible. We push our musk Ox inside past the man and we all enter the now cramped abode and close the door behind us. The man and his family huddle in fear of the talking Musk Ox who are pushing them around and talking about the wolves. Cher provides us with a view of the wolves via one way transparency through the iced wall of the building. We watch a few moments of the wolves trotting through the village and fail to stop Tegan from casting a control spell on a wolf.

Once the spell goes off the wolf pack stops passing through the village and senses something different here. We decides that offence is the best form of defence and the sword wielding fighters head out to take on the wolves (while still invisible), Tegan will stay inside and then Lizette bravely (against orders) activates her armour becoming visible and proceeds to head outside the door becoming the primary target for the wolves. The wolves howl waves of fear at the party which results in Tegan and I needing to check on the health of the Musk Oxen before Mordrin rallies us back to her side.

Lizette is ordered back inside while we lay waste to the wolf pack. Tegan is very interested in trying out the effects of Sammael's staff and engages a wolf who was about to enter the building with some success and is then helped by Mordrin. A few pulses later all the wolves are dead and the last one was hit by Sammael's staff that removed the icy control over it and returned it to normal wolf form which we then put down as it was injured. We quickly move on from the villagers who babble about the invisible demons and the evil talking Musk Oxen that slaughtered the wolves. We actually reach the Lake of the Moon area around 4pm and once we cross into the segment of the snakes Lizette and our 2 rescued fugitives seem sleepier and duller!!

We move towards the citadel and around 5 miles from the citadel see a picket line of denizens spaced at most 15ft apart looking for us and we judge that getting involved in dealing with them would involve being swarmed so we are quickly ferried over them by Cher.

We close on the citadel and climb over the outside walls avoiding the frozen doom wards just above the walls that are designed to 'discourage' flying in. We quickly despatch some wall guards and descend onto a huge courtyard area between the outer and inner walls. Wards are everywhere so we spend a lot of time counter-spelling them to get to the inner wall. We scale the inner wall with difficulty after resorting to landing our dwarf with rope on the battlements. We move fast as we see the enemy troops in the form of giants, large snakes, icy covered men and beings all returning to the citadel fast, no doubt in response to our passage across the walls and killing of sentries as we went.

We enter the citadel proper and head for the main throne room type area. We open the final door and look out onto a courtyard full of Ice Giants, Giant Snakes, Snakes, various other troops and at the far end of the courtyard we see the King Wurm/Snake who we need to kill. We quickly plan for the majority of the party to carve a path through the enemy to get the King Wurm while I will possibly work to avoid the defenders and get to the King Wurm quickly. We ...

The fight to free us from this icy hell

- we need the king worm dead or we all are
OK we have a plan.
Everyone but Dalran will start to progress across the room (slowly so as to avoid getting surrounded or overrun by the horde of enemies) in a box formation with angelic sword wielders Mordrin and Thorn at the corners facing the horde with support from sword carrying Cher who can do for minions and staff carrying Tegan who can thrash about too and Lizette casting counter-spells in the centre of the formation with Giovanni and Katarina. Lizette has informed us she has a 90ft range on her Ice Special Counter so the main party needs to about to mid room (say 80ft from our entryway - or 3 half pulses of quickened movement) to enable Lizette to get her spell off. Dalran will meantime phase out and attempt to phase back in behind the King Snake in order to take out the big guy and shorten the fight duration.

We have quickness for the next 12 pulses so slacking isn't an option and we know there are enemy reinforcements on the way so we must move fast and hit heavily to get across the room so Lizette can counter-spell and the angelic weapons can be used at full efficiency. We are all invisible which should provide the party with some extra defence but given the powers aligned against us we shouldn't count on that to save us and battling via attrition will mean our loss as we can't heal ourselves.

What actually happened during the fight!
Opening the door we saw the enemy forces arrayed against us, there were;

  • Hundreds of small 1-2ft long snakes that we deemed non threatening unless we were on the ground whereby they would likely swarm and do for whomever stayed there by sheer force of minor bites.
  • 33 snakes taking up 2 hexes that are around 10ft long and 2ft wide with some furry skin
  • 7 heavily armoured humans in Ice Plate armour, carrying Hand and ½ swords and shields
  • 6 snakes taking up 5 hexes that are around 25ft long and 5ft wide and again furry
  • 6 huge Frost Giants that are 16-18ft tall, wearing Ice Plate and carrying giant hand and ½ swords
  • The king Worm who is 8hexes across, being some 40ft long and about 8ft wide.

Dalran phased out as planned and the party entered the room doing a full move for the half pulse so making 35ft of headway into the room. The enemy snakes swarmed around the party closing through our frontlines due to their unfamiliarity with the angelic weapons and thus the main party was bogged down in close with the enemy unable to fully wield the weapons if at all. The next few pulses saw little change although the angelic weapons were doing damage due to their proximity to the evil snake minions. The king snake also got off his breath weapon making the party more visible due to its icy sheen and cast other magic as Lizette still wasn't close enough for her counter-spell to be cast.

  • Around pulse 4 Lizette suddenly realised that her counter-spell could have been cast from the doorway of the room as its range is 25+25ft not 10+10ft. The party collectively groans and notes this for another nomination for Lizette. Note for future parties that have Lizette, make sure she knows her own abilities and job.

In Pulse 5 a 25ft snake finally succumbs to its accumulated damage and the main party makes some gains with more damage to nearby snakes but they worry as to where Dalran is and why he hasn't made his move as yet.

Mordrin is battling 25ft snake with a giant bearing down on her, Tegan is gaining a terrible reputation for her ongoing damage against her foes, Cher is making some headway even though she can barely use the sword of Gabriel in her hands and Thorn is making free use of her sword and often hitting 3 snakes but they are hardy snakes, continuing the attacks with plenty snakes in support waiting to take their places against the party. Lizette is bemoaning her lack of armour and does a few cures and makes a lucky hit on a near snake with her enchanted blade.

At the end of pulse 7 the party senses Dalran return to the present dimension and I tell the party that I would have been here sooner but when I phased out the room and its denizens disappeared and I fell into the lake of the moon beneath the room so I had to swim this 100ft the hard way until just before my talent ran out. Anyway I have achieved my aim of getting behind the enemy and I will act.

Pulse 8 sees me step up behind the king snake and smite him for 100pts of damage which he mainly shrugs off due to his shielding magic, armour, natural armour and other such divine powers but some damage is done and now he and his unengaged minions know I'm there. The main party is energised with this and redoubles their attacks but Mordrin drops due to the sustained damage from the giant and huge snakes. More snakes are killed around the party with Thorns slashing sword but they are still stuck where they first stopped and hemmed in on all sides.

Pulse 9 is choose to stand and fight heroically in order to possibly kill the king worm rather than some sort of tactical spatial reorientation and once I land my blows with some effect I am knocked unconscious. Mordrin dies this pulse and her angelic sword flares which heal her and other angelic weapon holders back to full health but her sword is diminished in its offensive capabilities. I decide to act dead in the hope of getting a better angle on the enemy leader.

Pulse 10 sees me picked up by a giant and the king snake saying "get rid of the nasty sword and I will eat him" and so I appear to drop the sword from my hands although it happens to land in the giants boot which is still within my reach and also stuns the giant, I await an opportunity to strike. King snake seeing me looking unarmed swings its big maw towards me in an effort to swallow me and I quickly grab the sword and jam it into its inside throat while the worms jaws close around my feet trapping me inside its corrosive toxic body. The main party has cleared some worms and so Cher grabs Mordrin and flies up to the king worms elevated platform and drops Mordrin to add her weight of angelic weaponry to the fight to kill the king worm. The main party continues fighting with Thorn being the lynchpin there along with Tegan's valiant support.

Pulse 11 - the Penultimate pulse. I am still fighting from inside the King worm, Mordrin is smiting it from the outside while giants are beating on her, Cher is trying to get up the platform after her bad landing but to little avail and the rest of the party is fighting on.

Pulse 12 comes around and our quickness is fast flagging along with our levels of FT & EN but we continue taking the fight to the enemy. The King worm finally dies leaving me standing in a pool of snake slime/goo and the enemy seem to lose heart a bit as a result. We hear a bell toll and we feel connections to our angelic allies at last, so we ask to be saved from this hell, having done our job.

Our wish is granted and we all quickly gather non angelic weapon users close to angelic weapon users and then we find ourselves in a heavenly bright court. I briefly offer thanks before we are expelled from heaven for bringing an abomination of a worm to the realm. We find ourselves back on Alusia - the real one, somewhere none of us are familiar with!

We determined that we were in the far north of Terranova and it's evening. Almost everyone is tired from the days trekking through snow and the battle, making camp in the safest spot to be found nearby, we sleep. Except for Lizette who divines Katarina, then gets caught up in the ancient history that is part of the magical landscape of this area.

Day 37 - 7th of Seedtime - Lost afar from Home

Mordrin gets us lost to near her ancestral home in the far northwest of Alusia some 1300 miles from Seagate. We slept the night as the going was arduous and extremely tiring.

Day 38 - 8th of Seedtime - Lost but rested

The next day saw us get lost ending in an Inn in Bremen in Eastern Aladar where we passed the night without event.

Day 39 - 9th of Seedtime - the day the demon died

Today the day dawned brighter and saw us get lost until we finally emerged around midday in the woods 5m north of the guild. Fearing that the guild could be under observation we slipped into the guild through subtle means until we were finally intercepted by a competent guild security official who when I asked to see Kali said "she's expecting you, follow me". A little astonished we followed him and had a quiet meeting with Kali who informed us that we all had a price on our heads for our attempted assassination of Uriel. I then explained what has happened, passed on our message, introduced Giovanni and Katarina and sought access to our equipment so that we may go and clear up the mess with Uriel. We asked leave to sort the mess out and asked that G & K be given into secure accommodation while we are away sorting out angelic matters. We depart the guild via the same subtle but now more cramped means and then headed north to shrine dedicated to Uriel in a secluded setting where we are less likely to find a bunch of inquisitors and Michaeline knights seeking to inflict justice upon us.

At the shrine I ask for Uriel's guidance and judgement, soon thereafter finding ourselves before a heavenly court of Seraphim convened to hear our case and pronounce sentence for the heinous crime of attempted assassination of Uriel. I throw myself at Uriel's mercy and ask for her judgement on the matter upon which we believe ourselves to be innocent and the rest of the party also agrees. A moment of tension descends on all of us before the court dissipates and Seraphim informs us we have been found innocent of the charge but we are charged with killing the demonic assassin in our midst and then returned to the shrine.

We return to the guild with haste, entering the same cramped subtle way before finding a guild security officer who leads us to the secure guest accommodations. Now our plan is to enter the rooms subdue the 2 occupants, manacle them and investigate which one could be the demonic assassin as our other options are some of the armour and weapons we bought back from the Alternate Icy Alusia, the Mana worm or the quantity of true-silver we have picked up.

We hear noises from one of the rooms and fearing something untoward burst in and see G & K in 'flagrante delicto' but that doesn't stop us moving to restrain the protagonists. In the next few pulses Katarina is restrained and webbed along with Cher while Giovanni proves to be stronger than he appears, resisting our attempts at restraining him before turning into a 30ft long red worm like creature who then moves to escape through the bound floor of the guild. We make haste and follow him down there and fight him with some success before he disappears travelling though the earth away from us. We rouse the guild to the threat and follow the beast out of the guild grounds. In an effort to engage him I grab an earth mage tutor who I offer a substantial incentive if he can cast his earth magic in our aid. We land in front of the projected path of the beast, tunnel down and prepare to meet him but a nightmare illusion finds us and the beast veers away from us. I determine that the beast is sensing me and my weapon as moves to avoid areas I occupy so we plan how to kill him before he gets free to wreak havoc.

We plan to have me direct the party to intercept it while I stay away and hopefully the party can hold it long enough for us to kill it.

We consider how best to place our ambush that requires us to effectively herd the demon towards a spot of our choosing where Cher will have dropped the Earth Mage Terri Forte who is one of the earth college trainers, who will do 3 tunnelling spells to enable us to get access to the demon in the earth. The demon will also be 'herded' by Thorn, Lizette and Mordrin running roughly parallel to him to stop him veering off to the side and away from our ambush while I fly over-watch to coordinate efforts.

We do this plan but he shies away at the last moment so he is 4 miles from the coast which we assume is his objective. He does however at this time speak with us using some demonic voice pitching magic so that we all hear "I am Pithius, if you stop me from leaving you will be acting against the interests of Haven". This gives us all pause as we are geased not to do so but we realise that if he gets away he will regenerate and return with a vengeance when we are probably least prepared for it so we ignore the queasy feeling in our stomachs and press on knowing we may just die in our pursuit of this demon from Haven.

We enact our plan again to little avail and with only 2 miles to go before he reaches the safety of water. Terri Forte has exhausted his body so I provide him with some Lime and Liquorice flavoured gut-busters that he takes with the nasty Suarime looming over him and soon his body FT has been replenished so he rejoins the hunt. We determine that we have one last area to try and catch him before he reaches the water so we act to bolster our chances through better use of supporting magic and so our ambush is again laid waiting for the opportunity to strike. The demon moves into our ambush pit and we pounce with Mordrin's sword cutting him , followed by Thorn's sword and finally my staff strikes causing his corpulent wormlike body to split asunder followed by a flash of demonic magic where we see a wizened old man lying apparently dead in its core.

As we do not trust evil demons we prod and poke the body as well as empathising it with healer skill applications and the like before we determine it to be dead. I quickly manacle the body and take the corpse along with some samples of the degrading demon skin and we all head back to the guild.

The corpse is later determined to be that of an ancient formerly living dark elf.

We approach the guild and inform security of our success in capturing the demon and give precise instructions regarding his female companion Katarina in regards to her incarceration, immobilisation and treatment as a result of possible contagion, foreign bodies and pregnancy fears for her and Alusia. We then report to Kali who informs Lizette that she has the Death Curse meant for me and the doom of the curse will come about in 100hours "if Lizette doesn't resurrect the demon then she will suffer the same fate and die". The MA of the curse is 34 so I ask my friend Kilroy to undertake the remove major curse on her and she is led off to the curse removal chamber (read large bed with manacles) to be relieved of the curse.

Meanwhile the Namer college masters and apprentices have been DA'ing the corpse like mad since they barged into the room and inform that we have a Dark elf who became a demon 1000's of years ago and who is now a dark elf again as he has had his demonic side stripped off him somehow (I move my weapons further away from the rabid namer's) and they say he is a magnificent sample, "could you get us more for empirical testing?" They then proceed to say he should stay in their care only to be furiously countered by us saying he is our party treasure and they are not taking him anywhere. The namer's depart pouting but they actually depart leaving our party, Kail and the demons body.

I pop outside to briefly commune with Uriel but find myself unable to contact her so we ask Kali to hold the demon body in a suitable vessel in a secure location for us to retrieve later as well all feel the need for sleep, especially while Lizette will be getting her long 18hr curse removal done. The rest of the day and the night passes as we sleep in secure guild chambers.


Day 40 - 10th of Seedtime - Grygor hunting season starts

We decide to start our hunt for Grygor and so after our midday meal we pack some outdoor camp equipment and once more get lost with our master ranger Mordrin and endure the arduous trekking through the heavy snow until we arrive in Gryphon valley to set up camp and start our reconnaissance. We make camp and then get lost to the site of our ambush where we recover Tegan's special boom stick and discover the dead horses and the shallow grave where Antoine was interred but appears to have been dug up and taken away.

We then decided that close to Novadom is the wrong location and instead chose Mt Branden to be the site of our next camp as its equidistant between Mt Desai area that was once the Beast Rabban's base of operations and the Hils of the half born which is a wild lawless area inhabited by belligerent Orcish mercenary tribes/bands.

The night passes at our new camp without event.

Days 41&42 - 11th/12th Seedtime - Observing the Camps

We spend the next few days observing the two areas of interest for us using crystals' local fauna and physically moving around the areas before we narrow the likely area of interest to Mt Desai and its surrounds.

Day 43 - 13th of Seedtime - Snatch & Grab

We need fresh intelligence on the camps and who is where so I decide to abduct a likely soul soon and get information from him or her. We move camp to the eastern side of the peninsula in the middle of Swithan's Cove (ref 07 down, 009 across), secure a suitable cave with scryguard protections and await fate. I espy a suitable victim and await the opportunity. Around midday he walks out of camp only to be ambushed, knocked out and moved by me to our secure camp. I conduct an interview with the man who is named Byorg and who works for Schuler who was also one of Rabban's lieutenants.

We get the following information from my captive

  1. Byorg is from the western camp of the three and Grygor's camp is the easternmost one bordering Swithan's Cove.
  2. There are three camps, all watchful of each other and for outside threats to their lawless lives.
  3. They operate as mercenary bands and each number around 300 souls with 200 combatants in each.
  4. Grygor's camp has only about a dozen mages as most of the mages didn't want to go with him
  5. Grygor has been heard bragging about pulling off 'a big job' recently that will make him rich.

A certain amount of whining about intensive information gathering methods occurs which leads me to offer Byorg a more peaceful incentive to provide me information. I offer him 10,000sp and relocation to Aquila in return for his cooperation which he happily now provides as I also provide my word that he will live as long as his information proves true. After getting all that I can think of for now I decide to hide his abduction as a grab by a gryphon and so using some of his blood, ruined torn clothes and the skills of Mordrin I dress up an abduction site so that his departure won't cause too much fuss and be put down to bad luck. Once we have finished talking with Byrog we knock him out, petrify and then itemise him for portability - such handy people binders.

It is now evening and we need more information on the camp so Tegan flows out to the bay to see what she can see and she finds out there are draconically warded caves under Mt Desai and these are no doubt connected to the temple to Xanadu built into the upper mountain.

We make plans to retrieve Grygor once I have some raw animal intelligence from some friendly cats that I acquaint myself with. The cats seem happy to work for fish which thanks to Tegan is in plentiful supply!

We know the camps have wards around them and so we plan to suppress them using Lizette's skills so as to allow us access to the camp during the night so that we may grab Grygor and possibly retrieve our items and exact our revenge.

The night passes as we refine our intelligence.

Day 44 - 14th of Seedtime - Gather Intel

We decide we need more fresh 'boots on the ground' intelligence and so we plan to take one or more of the hunters that leave the camp looking for game. We successfully grab a low ranked ranger through innovative use of our water elemental and we tae our captive back to a pre-prepared secure travel camp. I blindfold our unconscious captive and ask Lizette to go look for some faggots to get her out of earshot while we ask some questions of our new captive. Soon thereafter we have gleaned all we want from this lowly ranked ranger who seems un-inquisitive and lacking in perception about the camp he occupies. I sleep him, bind him and leave him in the camp in a branch above insects and the like.

We decide to attack the following morning so we rest and observe the camp more. The day passes.

Day 45 - 15th of Seedtime - Inciting unrest

Just before 3am sees us 500feet away from the camp after a good jog through the woods from our camp 10m away and we cast last minute magic including invisibility. We attempt to stealth up to a copse of trees 300ft although some dwarves need to learn about stealth and so we make some noise so we stop and wait to see if anything comes of it. A few minutes later we hear sounds of movement in the nearby bush and we wait only to hear howls from nearby dogs who have found some prey or things by the tone of their barking. We quickly despatch the dogs by killing 2 and sleeping 2 others but not before the near guards have been roused and our element of surprise lost. We attempt to impersonate 2 of the dogs but when their earth mage handler talsk to us in dog and we don't respond as usual he gets suspicious and sounds the camp alarm so we two dogs flee into the night followed by missile fire. We get back to the party and I tell them all to get lost back to camp while I observe the camp response to the alarm.

I watch as the wall guards are doubled, officer shout commands and patrols of foot and horse exit the camp looking for whatever is out there. A bunch of ranger types arrives where we were and assess the scene. They get the impression that there were 5 beings, one short and an elemental, likely water - and all the beings were there but just disappeared. I observe and listen a while and the patrols start heading back in.

I am surprised when an air elemental tries to restrain me and I move to escape its grasp and remain free. I flee with it following me while I cast some magic but it doggedly follows me so I stand and beat it with my weapons causing it to be dispelled. I then fly back to our camp to await the others from their getting lost experience. The night appears to have been a failure in respect of our entering the camp but a success in terms of useful intelligence. We talk about things when the other come back and we adopt a plan of Tegan's for disinformation and ratcheting up of inter camp tensions between Grygor's and Schuler's camps.

After a decent sleep we go back to our travelling camp and re-question Robert the ranger while still blind-folded but we make out that we are Schuler's men and tell him to spy for us and provide intelligence to us every day or so at an arranged location. He agrees and after some more talking we take him back to where he was captured and release him.

I observe his rushed return to camp and things don't look good after the previous nights 'action' and he is immediately stopped by the gate guards. When asked where he'd been he said "hunting" and they ask where is the catch and they then grab him and take him for intensive 'questioning' inside the camp. I follow the interrogation and he spills all he was told within a minute of questioning which isn't good for him. He spills the beans about being hired by Schuler to spy on the camp and he seals his fate.

An hour or so afterwards he is taken out into the camp square where he is picked up by the Air elemental and he is taken over to above schuler's camp and dropped from a terminal height, just missing a boy getting water. This has stirred up Schulers camp and the note attached to the body reading something like "We don't like spy's so here's your one back" gets them riled up and confused.

We plan for the middle of the day and come up with more plans.

We ambush a larger patrol of Grygors men and take 6 prisioners who are soon put to death and then at dusk in the early evening I drop them into Grygor's camp from a terminal height and then flee away from the elemental thereabouts. We can see Grygor's camp is riled up and the men are baying for responses but we then see the camp settle down again.

We meanwhile head over to the area of Schuler's camp and capture another 6 of his men and wait.

Night passes

Day 46 - 16th of Seedtime - We get Grygor

I head toward Schuler's camp with my 6 returnees up high and in time for the sunrise when I see below me an Air Elemental sweep into Schuler's camp and do some damage, kill a few men before being banished away. I wait a few minutes and then when Schuler's men are looking a bit dazed and confused I drop the patrols bodies back to them and hastily retreat.

Our plan (well Tegan's really as she is a devious minx after all, albeit a wet one) seems to be going well and the two camps are wound up tight and living in fear and uncertainty, not really knowing what is going on. I worry that we haven't yet seen Grygor and I wonder if he is actually in camp or he is elsewhere in which case our current actions while amusing may be less than useless!

Regrouping back at the camp I share the events of the dawn and so we plan. I decide that we need to assess where Grygor is in order to locate our items. I locate several of the items and find that 3 of the 4 items are in Sanctuary and there's a reasonable chance that Grygor is there too.

So we get lost to the guild to get some spells cast on us and then we get lost to just outside Sanctuary just in time for noon.

We quickly enter the city in various guises and enter an unused dwelling that I know of so that the party can stay hidden while I assess where the item is through various contacts. By mid afternoon I report that the thieves guild is auctioning a lot of our stuff on the Moonday and that Grygor is selling the items. Grygor is in town and staying at a 'tailors' in the upper part of town with the location being watched over by the local thieves guild. The TG might be watching the location to attempt to grab the items beforehand or might be doing so to protect their investment in the items being auctioned.We surreptitiously survey the tailors location by rats and find nothing much there.

I have a locate on the item of Tegan's and I notice it moving down and likely through the sewers so we follow it on foot to a known thieves pub which we pass by on route to another pub nearby. I suggest we hole up in a building we know is over the sewers that he has traversed and lay an ambush for him. We do so and take over an unoccupied building over the sewers, make our way into the sewers and lay an ambush with Tegan playing in the water and a shell of silence over the area.

We manage to take out the 2 advance guards 50ft in front of the main group of 5 but they become alarmed when they can't hear anything when they reach the area of silence so we attack. The fight involves bloodshed, thrashing water elementals drowning victims, a rhino, a nasty ooze, a troll, some magic, brute force, TK rage and finally an uncontrolled dark sphere that Grygor lets loose in an effort to make his escape. The end result is all his men down and out along with Grygor, a slowing burning unconscious troll and we finally banish the uncontrolled dark sphere but Lizette has lost her left leg when the DS passed through it.

We move to the surface and mayhem and death reigns as G's TK rage has killed many and the Dark Sphere done more damage. I collar a guard and tell him to get some Mages down here to help and then we flee the scene with our latest guests itemised.

We staunch Lizette and then quickly depart the city before the gates get closed and the city locked down while the perpetrators are looked for. I soon learn that I and Grygor are wanted men, with G for the damage and me for my appearance and failing to remain on the scene - no doubt some petty bureaucrat is looking for something. I'll have to fix the situation and before Moonday as the TG won't cancel the auction on the day of the auction and they want 40,000sp for incidental expenses.

So we plan to question Grygor about a number of things and then I will go tell some sanctuary notables what happened to fix the situation, present them with Grygor's head and get the goods back from the TG. We hole up in Mordrin's fastness stronghold.

We are in Mordrin's stronghold in the fastness and we chat with Grygor finding out some useful information but he is a canny entity and he senses that this is the end of the road for him and clams up, causing his untimely death, twice over but we do get some useful information from him. He was escorted by 2 of his most trusted men from his camp and also 4 men provided by the auction house as their way of safe guarding their investment which we learned was expected to sell for around 500,000sp. The 40 men that ambushed us were hired mercenaries from the Lunar Empire and the ship that transported us was a Palestrina merchant ship hired by Atruse.

We talk and decide on the bold approach to recover our gods and so we settle down to get a good night sleep beforehand. I get viciously beaten up in the night by a dwarven woman but I take it like a man.

Day 47 - 17th Seedtime - Get our stuff back

Some of us get lost close to Sanctuary and I go into the town along with the 4 resurrected guards of the auction house whom I have paid 5,000sp each to verify who I am and I am looking like a beaten up Grygor under an illusion. We enter the auction house and I recover the goods by paying the forfeiture fee of 40,000sp and then I exit the city and get lost with the rest of the party back to the fastness fortress once again.

We rest up again after some more questioning of Grygor to little avail.

Day 48 - 18th of Seedtime - Wrapping things up

I walk into the Mt Desai camp disguised as Grygor and deal with sundry problems. I talk the large enforcer that now has Cher's gauntlet in his possession to walk by himself out of camp and towards Schuler's camp so he can kill him with his bare hands. He agrees to do this and I sic the party on him. I quickly search Grygor's room and the escape the camp leaving it in confusion. The party have dealt with the nasty brute and the last of the items are recovered. Returning to question Grygor we again get little and then he plays his last card swearing allegiance to Berith thus sealing a pact to the evil demon. I quickly despatch him with a ceremonial dagger expressly designed to deal with such events ending his life and sending his soul onwards but Cher makes sure he never comes back by disintegrating the body down to ash.

I swear and gather up the ashes in a bag and then depart for Sanctuary where Tegan and I go to my rooms at the SMG and find out some local gossip about the recent event in town. We learn that there was a considerable amount of disruption 2 days ago but the furore died down yesterday as if nothing had happened. Around 20 poor people died in the area but that's nothing new and so life is normal otherwise in Sanctuary, the premier seaside resort of the Western Kingdom.


We go and see Walegrin the Sanctuary Garrison commander and one of the men charged with security of the city. I introduce myself and pass across Grygor's ashes explaining that the SMG has dealt with the issue of Grygor using such lethal magic in sanctuary harshly and his remains are for disposal or flushing as Walegrin sees fit. He thanks us for the 'remains' and asks about related issues and gets a reply that they have been dealt with too. We wish him well and pass across a 2 TSG donation to the garrison drinking funds and depart. We walk out of town and then return to the party.

We go and get the guards that Grygor had and attach notes to them and then take them over his camp and drop them but they are deflected by the waiting air elemental causing them to smash just outside the camp. They are soon investigated and the crumpled & smashed bodies revealed along with a note. "Don't mess with the Seagate Adventurers Guild or its members again or this will happen to each and every one of you".

We return to the guild and split the meagre loot.We are informed that we failed our mission so the guild won't be paying its share and the 600,000 will be held for us and each beltane we will be given 10,000sp for the next 10 years.

Lizette donates all her share of the loot to Uriel and I give my share to Duke Leto, to build a new prison to assist with the dispensing of justice.

THE END - 7 weeks down and 6 to go

Nominations and SGT Snippets

  • Stupidest
  1. Lizette has finished her divinations she decided to play with the boats even after warnings from the rest of the party including Cher who had previously tried to play with the boats.. She tries and fails and tries and fails and tries and fails again, ending up ¼ mile above the city which floats ¼ mile above the lake itself. Still she tries again knowing that the boats respond best or almost exclusively to elven boatmen of high ability and acumen. Lizette at this point tells the boat to head downwards and it does at terminal velocity stopping just before the water and Lizette's body oozes fluid due to her death fall in the boat.
  2. Lizette, While we were hiding in a village, a wolf pack stops passing through the village and senses something different here. We decides that offence is the best form of defence and the sword wielding fighters head out to take on the wolves (while still invisible), Tegan will stay inside. The Angelic sword wielding fighters are all quickened, invisible and have ice traversal on for fast movement. Lizette on a whim (and against standing orders) activates her armour that removes all magic on her and then moves outside the door becoming the primary target for the wolves while she is unquickened, no Ice Traversal and weaponless. Lizette would have been swarned on but for the invisible fighters using angelic weaponry who laid waste to the wolves while she was ordered inside to remove her armour and help when she was once again useful. By the time (2 pulses) her armour had repacked itself the fight was over.
  3. Lizette, Around pulse 4 of the big fight she suddenly realised that her counter-spell could have been cast from the doorway of the room as its range is 25+25ft not 10+10ft. The party collectively groans and notes this for another nomination for Lizette since they used Lizettes information to plan an attack to get them closer so she could cast her magic.
  • Best Death
  1. Lizette has finished her divinations she decided to play with the boats even after warnings from the rest of the party including Cher who had previously tried to play with the boats.. She tries and fails and tries and fails and tries and fails again, ending up ¼ mile above the city which floats ¼ mile above the lake itself. Still she tries again knowing that the boats respond best or almost exclusively to elven boatmen of high ability and acumen. Lizette at this point tells the boat to head downwards and it does at terminal velocity stopping just before the water and Lizette's body oozes fluid due to her death fall in the boat. The peace and quiet after this was so appreciated we kept her dead another 3 days while we waited for other things to happen.
  • Bravest
  1. Lizette for facing down the uncontrolled dark sphere and continuing to attempt to banish it, even continuing after it consumed her leg.

Party Roles

  • Primary Fighter - Mordrin
  • Secondary Fighter - Thorn
  • Tertiary Fighter - Dalran
  • Primary Healer - Lizette
  • Secondary Healer and Primary Ranged Healer - Thorn
  • Impromptu Flying Mistress - Cher

Marching order

As required


Dalrans 'Black list' - Spring 810

This is a list that you don't want to be on. The people listed here will be hunted down and revenge exacted.

Dalrans Black List

Buffs

Magic Rk Effects Dur Dalran Mordrin Cher Tegan Thorn Lizette
Enchant Armour (Dalran) 20 +42, +1DR 11hrs
Enchant Weapon (Dalran) 11 +12% SC +4DM on the non magical weapons only 55min
Counterspells (Lizette) 6 +48% 23min

Reference Information

People

  • Antoine of Novadom - deceased
  • Grygor the Boar - Led the capture party. Branded Dalran & Mordrin with a curse/doom of torment and guilt for the murder of Rabban-Furfur. We don't know if he is doing this for his own reasons or on behalf of someone else as a 'contracted job'.
  • Etrigan of Haven
  • Pithius of Haven - Was known to us as Giovanni. Killed by the party when we returned to the guild
  • Clarice aka Atruse
  • Giovanni - a demonic assassin - See Pithius
  • Katarina - to be determined, possibly pregnant!
  • Schuler - another of The Beast Rabban's lieutenants and leader of one of the 3 camps near Mt Desai.

Locations


Calendar

Spring: Thaw (10)
Moonday Duesday W'ansday Th'rsday Frysday Reapsday Sunday
Candlemansa 1 Guild Meeting 2 Depart on Boat 3 4 5 6
7 8 Arrive in Novadom 9 Depart Novadom - get ambushed 10 11 Wake up on Boat 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 We meet Etrigan & discuss events and propositions 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Spring: Seedtime (11)
Moonday Duesday W'ansday Th'rsday Frysday Reapsday Sunday
28 29 30 1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 Rites of Thunor 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 Equinox 16 17 Eostre 18 The Seagate Spring Ball
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30 1 2
Spring: Blossom (12)
Moonday Duesday W'ansday Th'rsday Frysday Reapsday Sunday
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 Floralia 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Walpurgisnacht