The Dark Continent Adventure
Summary
Adventure: The Dark Continent Adventure
GM: Miles Jackson
Season: Autumn 804 WK
- Party
- Employer
- John McCormick
- Mission
- rescue his young daughter Nicole from the demons that kidnapped her and sealing the temple up
- Pay
- 2000sp just for going on the mission
- 4000sp for rescuing the daughter
- 4000sp for sealing up the Temple (which in effect will remove the curse).
- Original scribe notes
- Media:Snau0301.zip
Scribe Notes
The Party
- Dirk, (elected party leader), a mixture to beast-master/ warrior / namer / military scientist, has the wolf named Shadow and a baby Phoenix. He is a Dwarf with a lovely Golden cloak. Good with Battleaxe.
- Raidon, a Human, he was an Air Mage (from the sounds of it, not any more, thought he still has some of the spell for that area). He has merchant and healer skills as well as Military Scientist. (below average in looks).
- Tannis, a Human Air Mage, not long a Guild member, good with a bow and has good horse riding skills.
- Robert, a Human Mind Mage, like to be in the front line for attacks, he has death aspect. Good with Battleaxe.
- Falco, a Human Shadow Mage. He is slight. He has mentioned his Thief skills. Likes his Rapier.
- Thedonna, a human Namer, not long with the Guild. Learning new things all the time.
The mission if we choose to accept it.
John McCormick comes from a different plane looking for Adventurers to rescue his young daughter Nicole from the demons that kidnapped her and sealing the temple up. The temple is in the Dark Continent where John had gone to look at and research for the University, among other things. He and some other people have unsealed the temple and cursed themselves. He does not really believe in magic because he comes from a technological society.
He will pay to each member of the party 2000sp just for going on the mission 4000sp for rescuing the daughter 4000sp for sealing up the Temple (which in effect will remove the curse).
The Information that the Party has been able to get out of John and Hildargo.
John went on an expedition to the Dark Continent to explore this Temple and bring back items for the University. He went with his assistant Terry and some hired soldiers to protect him, he also brought his eldest daughter Jasmine along with him.
He was warned by Hildargo, who lived in the ravine near where the temple was situated, which is a hole in the ground, to not discrete the Temple, (Do not open).
His soldiers mysteriously ended up dead or missing a half his bearers from a nearby village were killed off as well. A fellow explorer (a rival), by the name of Baron von Grunhiltz, also around the same time had decide to explore the temple.
They broke the seals of the Sarcophagus and took the items of treasure for further study. Since then strange things have started to happen.
John got the statue of a female with feline features. John assumes the other two statues, a bat and a cat, were taken by the assistant Terry and the Baron. John has received a strange message from one of them and he thinks it is to do with the strange things that are happen with his family.
Other items that John got were a golden Torac, a bracelet, a necklace, a belt, a Scarab Beetle broach and some gold coins. Terry took the gems and the Baron took the metals.
Hildargo says you need all the statues to seal up the Temple again and this should appraise the Demon who resides there.
From the information received the Demon is Alyria, who a mostly female body. She can transform into any animal. Her favorite creature is a lion and she likes the dark, weakness is light, bright light. She comes from the 7th plane of hell. She will grant powers. She has a vindictive streak.
There is some History that says people came down from the north and started to worship the God Basst at the Temple and Alyria got usurped. Basst is a feline god.
Back to Hildargo (a witch doctor).
Hildargo seems to be a sort of keeper of the Temple. He has made a deal with someone(thing) to verbally warn people off. He seems to be the friend of John and is helping him out for some reason. He says if the items are returned things should be okay. (From what he says and the way he says it you seem to think he has been forced into this arrangement, something to do with the entity??)
After the items were taken from the Temple weird things have started to happen to John’s family. Nicole the youngest start to get violent and after two months of this she was kidnapped by two foot tall flying demons with sharp claws and teeth (Quasit).
John has been D/A and he has a greater curse and it will take a Rank 35 to maybe get it off. All his family needs to get it off themselves otherwise they will re-infect each other. We accept the mission.
We have to wait 3 days for the conditions to be optimum for Hildargo to transport us to the plane we will need to go to. While we wait we go to Karakaz to get some potions to help us on our mission. Karakaz is two hours ride away from the Guild. She is also looking after Dirk’s Phoenix. Karakaz is deemed to be very ugly and repulsive in her features.
When we go visiting a Gollum is tending her garden we go to speak with it. It says we have to wait for Karakaz and that she will not be long. After about half an hour a dishealved young man comes out looking very dazed.
A high pitch voice asks us to come in. We ask if we can get some potions and greaters. In payment she would like to have a go with one of the party members. She picks Raidon, so he has to do the deed to get us the greaters and the potions. Raidon gets very shagged and will have explicit and not very nice memories of the experience. Karakaz is very please he lasted the whole session.
- Tannis, Dirk, Robert, Raidon, Thedona will get greaters +16
- Raidon an endurance with +18
- Dirk gets a potion for agility +8 points
- Falco an amour enhancer (+2 points to defence/amour?? and make skin go a sickly yellow colour), and also a +9 Greater
- Potions: 4 x resurrection suppository, a strength potion +17 (2 week duration)
Karakaz says that a delivery of herbs has not come through from a town and she will need these to do the potions. The village is reluctant to send more shipments. We are to take a message and give it to the person at the gate and that we are not to ask too many questions.
Pick up the herbs and bring the shipment back here. 2 girls have gone missing; they had been transporting the herbs to Karakaz. We will get a bonus if we sort out the problem. The bonus would be
- 2x stealth potions (2 weeks duration),
- 1 x Manual Dexterity +10 (2 weeks duration),
- 3 x healing potions (14 points),
- 4 x resurrection potions and
- 2 x troll skin salves (smear on limb and it will regrow)
The village is populated with werewolves.
Day 2
We go near the village in morning to deliver the message. Raidon, Robert and Shadow check to see if anything is following. They think squirrels.
Walking unseen is cast on all members of party except for Thedona who will deliver the message at the gate of the village. Dirk D/A’s Thedona and last magic to impact it ESP. Party members are lurking in the trees watching and waiting.
Thedona goes to the gate and knocks and hands over the message and then goes in, (she should have stayed outside and waited for the reply). When going through gate last magic to impact is Hellfire – no effect. (Aura going wacky???) She is taken to the hall where food and drink are served and gets spelled by one of the young men there.
Meanwhile the daughter of the leader comes out to see the other party members and says Thedona got saved by the village leader Garon. Thedona lusts after one of the young men. Garon says Hello and give a box of herbs for Karakaz, and do not open. An Iron box comes out Dirk D/As it get three questions trapped with hellfire opening it causes it to activate illusion special to counter it.
Tannis takes Thedona arm to help her out of the village, (still feeling the effects of the spell). Dirk gets Shadow to sniff to see if everyone is the right person. They are. Thedona gets to walk with the chest. Others are still unseen, Shadow scouting around. On the way back to Karakaz we find a body in the middle of the road, looks human and female. Party gets Thedona to stop to have a rest as if she has not seen the body yet. D/A (dead. formerly living and killed by a blow) Robert cast ESP and gets 90 foot range with a 60 degree angle and feels emotion of two confused and one angry.
Thedona starts walking again and acts surprised to see the body, so this will trigger the trap hopefully.
Trap triggered.
A smoke Granados comes flying out of thin air and lands at Thedona’s feet, then before the grenados take effect she see an Eleven lady come out onto the road in front of Thedona shouting in a guttural unknown language.
Fight ensues. We get attacked by two unseen trolls wielding battleaxes. The elf lady gets killed by a troll trying to get Dirk. One of the troll’s runs off when the fear spell is cast at it. The other troll gets hit with mental attack from Robert. Part of the party is damaged, takes healing potions.
We see what we find on the bodies
- 1 x Giant Battleaxe with silver teeth (200 pounds)
- 2 x undetectable potions
- 4 x smoke Granados
- 300sp
- strips of plate armour for metal.
decide to track it back to its hideout, it is a cave, when we get near there we hear heavy movement. We cast some spells and this stops it and then we check the cave out. We find glass vial with stuff in them. They get D/A to check what they are and the seem to be the Karakaz herbs.
We go back to Karakaz to claim the reward and get the other things we came for. Karakaz gives and extra reward of magical gauntlets, which men fear. Tannis get them. (One had does fire, the other does cold).
Items are split up. Silver taken of the Battleaxe. Brought 6 x healing potions from the Guild.
Day 3
When we get back to the Guild, John our employer is bruised and bandaged, (trying to take apart a Golem).
We go and hypnotize him to get more information, he is willing. Found he has missing memories concerning his assistant. Also catch up on the research from the Guild. (See first page)
Day 3
When we get back to the Guild, John our employer is bruised and bandaged, (trying to take apart a Golem). Which was not happy to oblige.
We go and hypnotize him to get more information, he is willing. Found he has missing memories concerning his assistant. Also catch up on the research from the Guild. (See first page) Dirk suggested to John that he should get hypnotized to see if the party could get any more information.
The information that we got out of him was the he got the statue of the woman, (one of the sealings). He also got a Golden Torac, a number of nice jewelry, which is scarab beetle, a Bracelet, a necklace, a belt, and a quantity of gold. All these seem to be at his university office.
He has a key to the door at the university. He has an assistant, Terry McChallister.
There are two other statues one of a cat and one of a bat. More about the daughter Nicole's kidnapping.
They were having dinner, (all the daughters, the father and Hildargo) about four days ago. The creatures that attacked were two foot tall, small and brown with horns and sharp claws and teeth.
Information on Hildargo.
On the expedition they found him in a hut in a ravine near the temple, he warned them not to discrete the temple. The expedition party consisted of the father, the assistant, the daughter Jasmine, 6 soldiers and a few beaters.
The soldiers and half the beaters died by magical means, eg shriveled up and got burnt in flames, or just disappeared.
Because of the soldiers disappearing and that another party had come as well to with Baron von Grunhiltz, (reveals), they combined parties.
In the temple the saw a sarcophagus and the items that John got were from the sarcophagus. The Baron took the metals, and the assistant took the gems.
We ask about his assistant and when he last saw him. He could not remember the last time he saw his assistant. We notice by asking some other questions that he seems to have other missing memories.
It has been one month since the expedition and that the assistant Terry went with Baron. Dirk gave him hypnotic suggestion to give us the items to us to help daughter and not to remember it his session.
Hildargo returns from visiting friends.
We talk to Hildargo.
He is a sort of keeper of the temple and he has made a deal with someone (???) to verbally warn people away from the temple. (We get the impression that he was forced into the arrangement with the entity.)
He says to us to talk rather than fight.
He also says that other looters may visit the temple. And to do with the case of John and his daughter that if the items are returned, things should return to normal. We will meet the daughter before the end and when he takes us to the other plane he will use most of his strength.
Dirk and Falco get D/A's off on Hildargo, mine fails. The D/A's on him do not seem to be working properly because we got some strange answer. His Generic True Name came up as Gnoll and he is pacted with Father Christmas, he last shifted from a plane was 4 days ago and the Geased is in effect and there does not seem to be a magical link with the entity that had Geased him.
(Other info found out the next day. Hildargo has lived near the temple for a couple of years. Before that he has moved around a lot. Hildargo is pacted to learn knowledge.) A little bit later the party asks John about the city he lives in and if there are things we should know about dress and any customs.
The men of the party are expected to wear a kilt and a they can also wear a sword with it. Amour is not really worn around the city and would look strange if we did. Us ladies of the party would have to dress as Ladies of that realm because women over there do not dress as men and are not armed either.
There are no magic users in Edinburgh. We are told that they were burnt at the stake. We will have to be carefully about what magic we use where and when.
The people of that city worship the sciences, I do not what kind of religion that is and asking the other party members, and they do not know really either. We did get a little bit of an explanation from John. (could they be members of a cult?)
John says we may be able to be passed off as weird foreigners (smelly unwashed foreigners) and have a cover story coming from Tansavaner.
We buy a jet amulet, (4800sp), with a radius of 50 foot to stop demons from coming in, (as long as the person wearing the jet amulet steps does not move the radius pass the demons, which will let them in.) I get to wear this one.
We buy an Iron amulet, (4000sp), with a 10 foot radius. Raidon wants to wear this one. The party will sell this for profit later on.
We know that Alyria was sealed in the temple. And we know the John, the assistant Terry, and Baron von Grunhiltz desecrated the temple
Day 4
We walk to the Portal site and Hildargo walks faster for one so small.
At the Portal, Hildargo puts his staff in the field. All the grass trees in a 50 foot radius start to whither. The staff starts to glow, while the grass blackens. The Portal opens. Hildargo crumples to the ground. The party helps him up and through the Portal.
The Next Plane.
It is dark, misty and raining. Great way to start the morning. In the distance we seem to be able to see lights of some kind. John says that is Edinburgh Castle on the hill, and we are about a mile from the city.
John goes off to organize transport to his town house. And the temperature is very cold to me. Someone recons that it is around -5 degrees, at the moment. A few people that are seem to have taken a bit of an interest to us. The Party exchanges a few coins to stave off that interest.
We take the transport to John's townhouse where he is greeted by servants, and are informed that his remaining daughters are waiting. The daughters are Jasmine (mid 20's), (she is wearing men’s clothes and a rapier and she has total contempt for us??), Julie (21), (she seems to be quite friendly to everyone except Falco), and Francesca (16), (the males of the party think she is a stunner). All of them are wearing riding clothes and not the frilly stuff either.
Dinner is served for all party members and John and his daughters. About halfway through dinner discussions on other things we need to know about and a basic plan of attack is drawn up. During Dinner Falco talks to Jasmine about her rapier, she has learnt this a finishing school, as well as riding and other things and the other sisters are nearly as proficient with this.
John tells us that we will be meeting Baron von Grunhiltz in the next couple of days and will be going for a ride in a Zeppelin. (Whatever the hell that is). Something that floats and moves in the air. Wouldn't a flying spell work just as well.
Four men bring a crate, which has in it the feline statute, a belt, a scarab beetle broach, a necklace, a Torac, and a bracelet.
Dirk, Falco, and me D/A the items. The necklace, the bracelet, and Torac are non-magical items. Falco gets no answer to his question on the belt. Dirk gets that the most powerful effect it that of Demonic communication.
The Scarab Beatle Broach - has the ability to transform the wear into a scarab beetle. We also D/A the daughters
- Jasmine - last magic to impact was a greater curse, and she feel a little bit under the weather and also stronger.
- Julie - seems to be faster and more agile.
- Francesca - weird dreams of the future, her boyfriend has disappeared and she has lost money and an item.
- John - he seems to be healthier, better than the last ten years.
The attack on the daughter Nicole is explained that the items were on the table, which the father had put there. Nicole had turned very aggressive and then the little winged creatures turned up and took her.
Falco D/A's Robert and the last magic to impact is life wasting from the Portal. Raidon uses his nontactal empathy and he feels that everyone is a little bit drained.
Dirk tries to divinate Francesca but fails. It now 10pm at night in this realm we all go to be in the main guest room and we take the items with us to guard. We set watches for the night. We would like to talk a maid, (any maid), about back stairs. You would think in a place the size of this that there would be back stairs.
Day 5
At breakfast, the party and John discuss plans about what is going to happen today. We will need to go to John's country estate later today, where the Baron will meet us tonight and then the next day we start on the journey to go to the Dark Continent. It will take about 2 hours riding from here to get to the estate.
Some of the party members want to try out the weapons called guns to see how the work and how useful they would be to us as a group. Dirk is going to divinate the items, and Shadow and Raidon are with him.
While Dirk and Raidon are find out more about the items, the rest of the party members and me go off to the firing range. We are shown the very basics from some of the servants about the guns and left to practice with them. They seem to be not as accurate I expected and they are very loud.
As we are going back to the house, we here and explosion. We think it may be from the room where the divination was happening. It is. (I later find out that Dirk was doing a 3 hour divination on the statue. The fire place started to smoke and obscure the visibility in the room decreases. In the distance they could hear servants yelling for help. Shadow was able to smell something in the smoke.
Raidon thought he could see another one coming through the fire place.
The first thing gets D/A by Dirk and it was a Quasit. Dirk says it went after him and only got it claws into his clothes. He brushed it off and it starts to circle around.
A third one appears before Raidon could get the fire out. He saw in the fire place that the grate is gone and they are coming out of the ground. (Raidon maneuvers himself so the amulet stops any more from coming through.) We dash into room to help fight what has come up in there. We have a fight killing the Quasits that are in the room.
From outside we hear a very loud clank. It is the grate in the courtyard. More Quasits appear from here. The staff of the townhouse decide to help and defend there employers place as well. Raidon casts lightening and gets the rest of the Quasits. I can see that a cart has been over turned on the grate area to stop others from coming through.
We hear a Scottish voice say “oh F****K!!!”
We go downstairs, towards the area that we think the voice has come from. We see a young male person in a kilt, speaking in a strange language, looks like he is casting a spell, with a Quasit fluttering around him.
There are 12 other Quasits in the room as well. We engage in a battle and win. While we are fighting this person and the Quasits, John our employer comes to try and help with one of his guns. He recognizes the person as Terry, his assistant. Terry, his assistant, has now been turned into an undead Necromancer. In the battle Raidon got his heart ripped out. On Terry’s twisted body we find the Bat statue and a crystal. We D/A the crystal. It is heart linked with Raidon. Person who holds the crystal can draw from the person it is linked to all but 1 point of Fatigue and Endurance. If the crystal is destroyed the person who is linked dies.
Information of the Divinations.
The Statue - It Enhances Mana of beings pacted with Alyria - Limited Shape Change to the processor - Sealing Demons - Demonic Origins (Alyria created it) - Curse has been put on afterwards to summon things when divinated.
Dirk and Falco go up to Divinate the weak and resting Hildargo.
- Demonic Geas - Geas older than two weeks - Instructed to prevent the release of Alyria - Protected by enhance Illusion - Currently under life drain - Age 1200 years old - Black mage (Wicca), with a bit of Necromancer - Not pacted at all.
Dirk gets the professor to guard Hildargo. (Otherwise we have no way to get back) We decide to go down the hole where the fire grate is. It looks as if it has been tunneled out by something. Raidon goes down in Gases Form. At the bottom it comes out into tunnels with bricks, at least two foot of this very evil smelling sludge. One of the tunnels heads in the direction of Terry’s house, (which is Northwest of here), and the other tunnel heads Southeast.
Before the rest of the party members go down to the tunnels, Tannis casts vapour breathing on the rest us. Wolf stays and guards Phoenix. Also Phoenix tells us a legend: Alyria and Basst were sisters and they had a falling out over a male demon. They had been great friends and they had similarly abilities before he had driven a wedge between them, (he is half human and half demon). He also boosted this to other demons. The sisters do no know that the have been played.
The tunnel leads the way to Terry’s house looks as if things have been moving down it recently. We go in that direction.
After traveling for over half a mile we find a ragged hole in the tunnel. Dirk D/A’s it and finds out that there had been an Illusion on this section of the wall and that was about 12 hours ago. Falco decides to throw a pebble through the hole in the wall to see what happens. We now can see light through the hole. We can also see stairs the are 8 foot wide and 20 foot long with a set of double doors at the top of them.
Raidon use his special sight to look through the rock walls, he relies that he can see a basement like area with a shambling slug like creature, (60x60 foot and 20 foot high). We decide on a plan of attack.
Dirk goes and kicks the door open. Falco cast wall of light which it promptly goes through and goes berserk and goes after Falco who is behind Dirk. Falco decides to try his new owl form out and make a hastily flying exit from the slug. After some of the party gets some damage, Robert manages to cast control animal on the slug and it is his faithful giant African Slug. The room looks as if it was a lab of some kind. Papers are scattered all over the floor. While quietly looking around at the books on the desk I sneeze. Instant reaction from Dirk, who leaps away emitting a girly scream and ends up quivering behind Tannis skirt. While this happens Raidon is able to find Terry’s diary. The last pages are covered with very scrawled writing and the last page contains “yaaaaaaaaaaaaaa….. HELP ME!!!”. We are taking the diary with us.
There is a door that we think that will lead up to the house. Robert is a bit disappointed as the slug is to big to fit through the doorway and follow him around. We shut the doors to the sewers so the slug is unable to get out and go up the stairs. We go up 105 feet and come to a wine cellar. Wine but no beer. We go now to explore the house after we get out of the basement area. There was once a live maid, but she has had her head ripped off and that looks as if it was about a day ago. The door to the rest of the house looks trapped to me, but Falco does not think so. Dirk being party leader opens the door and gets hit with a poisoned spiked steel ball. Dirk drops to the ground and is crying and screaming in agony. Raidon helps him, and he stops screaming.
There are four doors, they all looked trashed. One has girl clothes in it and we assume that they might have been to do with the daughter Nicole. The front door is trapped magically and physically.
As we are looking through the house, we hear noise from outside. There is a mob gathering outside and they look as if they mean business. Some of the people outside thump on the front door and set of the trap. We can now hear screaming from outside. A creature has been summoned when the trap went off and is the Devil Irenes and the counter for it is Greater Summoner and it can control males.
The mob disappears. There is a rumbling noise of big heavy carriages. The Cannons and a gatling gun arrive. Dirk helps with a bit of magic, while dodging cannon balls while been unseen. The people operating the cannons manage to kill the Devil Irenes. We scoot over the 6 foot wall in the back garden of Terry’s house and get away.
We go back to our employers John’s house, but there is a mob and soldiers out there as well. This is not good. Raidon scouts the area out and finds out that the servants have got scared and have been spreading gossip about the strange things that have been happening around here recently. We go round the back to the stables, there are soldiers there as well. One of the daughters is there. She whispers to us that the soldiers are interrogating Hildargo in the stable and the have already talked the professor (John). The other daughter is waiting outside of town.
Hildargo is chained up and guarded and he can see through the unseens. One of the party members is able to help him escape with the use of gases vapour potion.
Raidon flies the males out and summons a big storm to confuse any followers. The women come by carriage with Shadow protecting them. The storm soaks the men while they wait for the carriage to catch up, the women all arrive in armour. We all head for the Country estate. The Baron is late with the meeting because of the storm. The army will take about two hours to get to the country estate. While we are waiting for the Baron to arrive we have dinner and Robert makes Raidon go to sleep so the storm will go away.
The Zeppelin, which is from the College of Technology.
The Baron is dressed like a Prussian Tsar. He asks if we are friends with the professor. Dirk asks if the Baron has been feeling well lately and some other questions, the Baron has respect for alternative sciences. The Baron has lost a few members of his family very recently. Dirk also D/A’s him. He is cursed with transform into a demon, his highest rank sill is a rapier and the last magic to impact on him was a greater enchantment.
The Baron tells us that we can be on our way as soon as all the wood has been brought on board for the air ship. Raidon gets woken up. When we are finally able to board the air ship, one of the daughters tells us not to touch anything and to keep our hands in our pockets. Once we are underway the Baron asks us to formerly dine with him. (We are cursing 5000 feet up (normal mana for us now)). While we dine with him we ask about the journey we are about to take in the air ship to the Dark Continent, (we also brought our own food along). The Baron says that before we go to the Dark Continent, he will be making a slight detour and we will be picking a female friend of his. I ask is it Basst and he confirms it that it is. He says that he will not be divinated, and that Basst wants to dispose of her treacherous sister. She had appeared to him about three days ago and that she has put an abeyance curse on him for his cooperation. He has already seen the effect of his disobedience from Basst, this is where a couple of family members have had a few problems of dying very early.
The Baron says the journey will take about two weeks on his flying ship. And if the daughter is taken by boat and camel it will take them six weeks. The Baron thinks Alyria has taken the daughter to be sacrificed, so she can free herself fully.
A bit later in the evening we go and dance on the dance floor that the flying ship has. Raidon goes and retires with Robert’s help because he is drawing a big storm toward the flying ship.
