Players (Characters)
Scott (Rain)
Catherine (Amber)
Tony (Roland)
Rachel (Horkina)
DM: Tom (Garlen)
Amber, Garlen, and Rain spent the next day exploring the city together, browsing shops and upgrading their equipment. A heavy rain doused the city just before nightfall, and the group headed for shelter. On their way to the Drunken Morkoth Inn, they heard a cry for help from a nearby alleyway and moved to investigate, along with a dwarven female and a human male who were nearby. In the alley were three men with their faces painted half white and half black. Two of the men were beating on a younger man wearing chain mail and a purple robe, telling him to "stay away from the orphanage." The third man drew a short sword and told everyone to "bugger off". Rain recognized the face paint as the symbol of the Last Laugh, a local theives guild. Amber, Garlen, Rain, and the dwarf woman moved forward to subdue the thugs, while the human male cast spells in support. When the thugs went down, Garlen and Rain tied them up while Amber stabilized them. The Dwarven woman introduced herself as Horkina, a fighter looking for action, and the human male introduced himself as Roland, a scholarly Wizard looking to research anything and everything he could. Moments later a guard patrol arrived, and one of them recognized the thugs as off-duty city guards.
The man in purple introduced himself as Ruphus Laro, a cleric from the temple of St. Cuthbert at the north end of town. He requested escort back to his temple, and the group agreed. On the way, he explained that he had been investigating a string of local disappearances -- about 25 people had gone missing over the last 3 months, including four orphans just a few nights ago. The church had publicly vowed to solve the mystery, but apparently the Last Laugh was opposed to that.
Once inside the temple, Ruphus invited the party to stay by the fire while he stepped out to find the head cleric. Other acolytes brought snacks and warm blankets. A few minutes later, a woman wearing a brown robe with golden trim and a symbol of St. Cuthbert hanging from her neck stepped into the room and introduced herself as Jenya Urikas, acting high priestess. She informed the group of the current situation -- four children named Deakon, Evelyn, Lucinda, and Terrem disappeared from the Lantern Street Orphanage three days ago, the most recent victims of a string of strange disappearences. Their rooms were locked with barred windows, and there were no obvious signs of forced entry. A church artifact mace called the Star of Justice was used to cast a divination to locate the children. The response was a cryptic poem: "The locks are key to finding them. Look beyond the curtain, below the cauldron. Beware the doors with teeth. Descend into the malachite 'hold, where precious life is bought with gold. Half a dwarf binds them, but not for long." Jenya handed each party member a healing potion and promised a reward of 2500 gp total if the children were recovered.
The group headed out to the orphanage and knocked on the door. A halfling woman, Gretchyn, peeked out and asked "who sent you?" "The church of St. Cuthbert." "Can you prove it?" Rain held up one of the healing potions with the symbol of St. Cuthbert on the side, and Gretchyn let them in to investigate. Rain set to work looking at the locks, and found them all to be high quality and of consistant manufacture, with no signs of tampering. Roland looked for magic auras but did not find any. All of the windows were barred. Gretchyn kept the only key with her at all times. Asked what she'd do if she lost the key, she responded that she'd have to contact the locksmith who made all of the locks.
The party decided to investigate the locksmith, Keygan Ghelve, in the morning. His small shop was on Lava Avenue. Roland asked him about purchasing locks while Rain sneaked closer to a curtain on the side of the showroom, remembering "look beyond the curtain" from the divination. Ghelve told the party to stay away from that curtain, which made them more curious. When Rain stepped up to the curtain, Keygan pointed up and signalled "danger". A strange humanoid with chameleon-like skin, called a "skulk", jumped down from the upper floor and attacked the party, but was felled with one swing of Horkina's axe.
Keygan fell to his knees crying, and explained the situation: his shop was built atop the entrance to an abandoned gnomish stronghold named Jzadirune. Strange creatures, including skulks and shorter humanoids, had recently come into his shop and kidnapped his familiar, a rat named Starbrow. They threatened to kill the rat unless Keygan made them master keys to the city's locks and kept quiet. Keygan also warned of a strange magical disease that befell Jzadirune, leading to it being abandoned 75 years ago. "The Vanishing" made those who were infected slowly fade away. Finally, Keygan handed the group an old map of Jzadirune and showed them the secret entrance beneath his staircase.
Rain and Garlen led the way down the stairs. Rain noticed that one of the empty sconces on the wall was mounted in an unusual way. Upon further inspection, it was clearly the trigger mechanism for a secret door. Rain twisted the sconce, and the floor tilted up, throwing him down the stairs. He walked back up and twisted the sconce the opposite direction. The wall opened up to reveal a short hallway. Rain noticed unusual cracks on the floor, suggesting the presence of a pit trap of some sort, so he jammed one half of the pit closed. Horkina forced open the door on the other end of the hallway. In the next room were a pair of hobgoblins who did not live long enough to inflict much damage. The wooden floor of the room was attached to large chains, and there was a lever on the wall. Pulling the lever revealed the room to be an elevator, which descended to a deeper level of the dungeon.
The room adjacent to the elevator had what looked like a strange stone statue in the middle. Roland recognized it as some sort of earth elemental, and warned that it would be difficult to deal with. Several group members fired their bows and then moved to surround the strange elemental. Garlen did his best to give Horkina an easier time hitting it, and Rain stepped away after taking a nasty hit. Horkina was dropped by a critical strike from the elemental, but was able to get back up and keep fighting after a healing spell from Amber. A magic missile from Roland and a few strikes from Horkina nearly destroyed it, but it continued fighting until Rain threw some alchemists fire on it, dropping it as well as a party member. Amber made sure everyone was stable, and the group retreated to the temple of St. Cuthbert to rest.
The party reached level 2.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment