No 1 Hobbit Detective Agency - Adventuring Arborist

Characters

• Jedburgh
• Marco

Diary

Frost 819WK

Samhain

Guild meeting.

8 Frost

Get message from Olo Notwise that the No. 1 Hobbits' Detective Agency that some work needs doing in Brastor township.

9 Frost

Get Rank 10 Enchantment (??? sp). Fly to Brastor overnight in poor weather conditions and Magneric.

10 Frost

Ride to Brastor Township, taking half a day. Stablehand is a young human called Robert. Meet Olu at lunchtime.

• Mine near South Lending, workers suffering from fatigue.
• Enchanted tree near Charity looking sick.
• Goblins attacking caravans near Carlon's Switch.

Pay is Guild rates (200sp / week). Eat lunch at the Smashed Orc and take ferry to Hugler's Ferry. Meet up with Sebastian and stay the night. Go to the Duke's Ear for the evening's entertainment.

11 Frost

Fly up to South Lending with Sebastian. Meet local rep Rathar. Tarbrook is mine supervisor. Walk up to mines and speak to Tarbrook but nothing definate.

• Dadim
• Joreg

Divination shows a low level undead drain on about half of the miners. Return to South Lending and rent a room at the Scorched Spectre. Rest for the afternoon. Get alchemical glow stone to provide some low level light.

Return to the mine in the early evening. Met by Sapphire Gold (young female hobbit). Borrow amulets of Chalcedony and Jade from Sapphire. Head down into mine. In the most recently opened cavern we find a large number of small cave spiders who have been affected by the Necromantic spell Replenishment.

The spiders have an inate ability to drain fatigue at range over a period of time. The drained fatigue gives the spiders excess fatigue (so they have 2 FT).

12 Frost

Wake up down four fatigue and find some of the spiders have two fatigue. One of them has three fatigue. When killed the fatigue doesn't return to the victim.

Borrow amulet of carbuncle, chalcedony, diamonds, hypericum, iron and jade.

Head up to the mine. Get notes about the passages leading off the second cavern. Go into mine around midday and head down to the first new cavern. Enter the second cavern and start exploring the passages.

One of the passages is different from the notes made by Carson. Marco casts a tunnelling to avoid a tight spot in the passage. We follow the passage and after a short time enter a large chamber, around 80 feet long and 40 feet wide.

In the center of the chamber is gavity defying cube around two foot length in each dimension, slightly off the center of the room. Cast DA on box and it is magical. It has no Mind College spells. Box is formally living GTN teak.

We are then attacked by dog sized spiders. We kill three but the fourth grows to the size of the elephant. After a brutal fight it is vanquished but not before Jedburgh is knocked unconscious. The party withdraws back to rest.

13 Frost

Meet with Rathar after breakfast and then head back into the mines. Return to the cavern and clear out of the webs using Smoking Magma. Check other exits from the cavern but none of them seem to go anywhere. Another spider attacks us but is quickly dispatched by Dadim.

Divinate the box. It has general protection of its contents and will improve magic items that are kept in it. Has a command word to allow it to levitate.

The giant spider has a necromantic lifedrain and the ability to drain the spiders around it. The spider slowly being undead.

Head back out with the box and return to clear the webs.

14 Frost

Finish clearing the webs. At lunchtime Sapphire turns up and sends in a clear-up team to sweep the mines for anything else.

15 Frost

Spend day in South Lending resting up. Hire horse and cart to take box back to Brastor.

16 Frost

Travel back to Brastor via road then ferry. Meet Olo and leave box to be divinated.

17 Frost

Spend day in Braster Town.

18 Frost

Ride to Charity to meet Posco Littefoot. The local inn is the Bronze Bullfrog. Posco tells us to meet Helen, who lives north of town towards the Greenwood. Helen is a elderly lady [Arabella] with many cats and a mountain lion (called Jonathan) as a pet.

The tree is about about 10 minutes from the house in the Greenwood. There are standing stones about 20 yards away from the tree. The tree is a large, old, oak. We speak to the squirrels and they say the tree is infected with some dark magic. A divination shows it up as Necromantic transformation.

Head back to Charity and speak to the barkeeper Geoffrey. Charity was abandoned during the war. Samual is a local ranger, late middle aged and has lived here before the invasion.

Ashurasafe's tower is nearby and it blew up over a decade ago. A Wicca live nearby in a cave but haven't been seen for a year or so. She is an old human called Polly. Stay the night the Bronze Bullfrog.

19 Frost

Head to the standing stones. There are eight stones in the circle about five yards in diameter. The stones give a bonus to Earth Magic which waxes and wanes over time and has some sort of transportation.

Head over to Arabelle and meet the witch there. She uses the stones to help the local plants and animals. She says she can transform us so that we can merge into the tree but we cannot take any metal with us.

Polly reads our futures, and for Jedburgh "The Long Blade will be danger in your future". Head five miles east along the edge of the forest until we reach the remains of towers. There remains the base of the tower surrounded by a circle of blackened ground approximately 100 feet in radius.

Area has magical effect "clensing" of no clear college with years of duration. The effect is very weak and doesn't effect current magic. Only the very base of the tower remains and there is no other magic there.

There is a basement, filled with dirt, some rubble and a fair amount of water. Rappel down on a rope and see a dissicated body. It is a ghoul. I hit it twice as another ghoul appears from the waters. Between myself and Marco we dispatch the ghouls but don't find anything of interest.

Collect some samples of the ground for distribution and return to Charity. Speak to the Molton Core. Arrange for some wooden weapons and get a set of Rank 4 hard leather armour. Spend evening in Charity.

20 Frost

Received Crystal of Vision and use it to see precognative vision of a rune of Necromancy burned into the trunk. Head out to tree and try to see if exists as a physical mark. Marco convinces some moles to dig down under tree to see if there anything other than earth or stone. After a while we find the rune carved into the tree, now very much overgrown.

Marco deals with a fox to stop the foxes from attacking the moles. The moles return some hours later saying that they hadn't found anything. Return the Charity to hire a wood worker to help remove the rune tomorrow.

21 Frost

Try to remove the rune but it continues beyond the surface so decide to stop and visit the witch instead. Find out how the transformation works and plan for that.

22 Frost

Spend day ranking Necromancy counterspells. Collect armour and weapons from the Molton Core. Each weapon somes two versions, one bone (10% break, -1 DM) and one wood (5% break, -2 DM).

23 Frost

Spend day ranking Necromancy counterspells, Detect Aura and Dark Vision.

24 Frost

Spend day ranking Necromancy counterspells. Sapphire visits in the evening. Given a trap which holds a Bubble of Force with diameter of five feet. Lasts 25 minutes.

25 Frost

Sent into tree using the Standing Stones. End up in a chamber in the tree with two squirrels, Colomar and Timatar, who are human sized. The chamber has four exits, four bright and one less bright. On the ground is the sigil, and touching it should allow us to exit.

Tunnel is wide enough for two people. Along the walls are veins and something is being transported down them. It seems to in the general direction from the well light tunnels to the darker tunnel.

After travelling for a while encounter a green amorphous blob floating in the tunnel. Seems to some sort of maintenance creature. We continue along and encounter another blob which seems to be infected with Necromantic Consumption.

Encounter three corrupted blobs but these have a much more rigid skin with extruding spikes, each about four feet in diameter. They attack by extending their spikes at speed. Defeat the blobs but not without injury so spend half an hour healing up afterward.

After a couple of hours of rest we are attacked by a much larger creature and it severes Marco's right hand. We defeat it then withdraw back out.

3 Snow

Marco has his hand attached by a dwarven healer and we get armour made for the squirrels over the previously 10 days.

Rank Necro general and special counterspells to rank 4, Dark Vision and Detect Aura to 12 and 2 respectively. Get a couple of Rank 7 Waters of Strength.

Head back in tree. Head down same route but after a while encounter a black membrane across the tunnel. The membrane is magic with necromantic draining, the MA of the caster is 20. Marco casts DTJs at the membrane, which envelopes the javelins. After Timotea beats the membrane to a pulp.

Encounter a green blob that had been infected with a hidden black blog, which ambushes us. It hits the squirrels hard but it is defeated in the end. It tried to absorb Macro but he managed to break out of it.

Spend 10 minutes healing up before heading on to where we ambushed previously. Get to intersection, where there are side tunnels of to each side. Continue down the main tunnel.

Encounter a Transporter and Macro talks to it. He convinces it to take us to the Heart of the Tree. We continue down and reach a wall of Transporters. They have been ordered block the tunnel. We force our way between the Transporters.

After a while we encounter a magic projection, created by something with MA 30 and close to Necromancy. It "cast" a form of Agony against Timotea. We put up a Wall of Stone around it and put Smoking Magma under it. After the Smoking Magma runs out we remove the Wall and nothing remained.

Continue for a very short distance to reach the Heart of the Tree. In the large cavern is the heart and a large black snake wound around it. The snake is a foot diameter and at least 30 feet long.

We defeat the magic but Jedburgh gets some sort of the curse when it snake is killed. The Rune disappears as we heal up the tree and then head back out.

8 Snow

Return to the Guild after debrief.

People

• Magneric Fairfoot - young hobbit that manages the HDA in Emmitsburg
• Olo Knotwise - old hobbit that manages the HDA in Brastor Township
• Ledger Harfoot - quiet and thoughtful hobbit. The 2IC in Brastor Township
• Ansega - small child in the HDA in Brastor Township
• Rathar Puddlefoot - talkative hobbit that manages the HDA in South lending
• Tarbrook Effin - retired military commander that manages the mine south of SL
• Dadim Honorrock - dwarven. head excavator of the mines
• Joreg Rubydigger - dwarven. head digger of the mines
• Sapphire Gold - young hobbit troubleshooter for the #1 Detective Agency