The Shackled City, Day 7 (2006-10-20, 6:30 PM) Chapter 2: Drakthar's Way

Players (Characters)
Scott (Rain)
Jeremy (Grokk)
Catherine (Amber)
Tony (Roland)
Rachel (Horkina)
DM: Tom (Garlen)

With the reward from the temple and the proceeds from selling various treasures, the party went on a spending spree, acquiring a guild hall in the western part of town as well as several new pieces of equipment. Amber checked to see how each of the rescued prisoners was doing and gave them each a little bit of gold to help them get back on their feet. Horkina, Grokk, and Rain spent the next week drinking in celebration of the completed mission. Roland spoke with Jasper Drundlesput, one of the rescued prisoners and a professor at Bluecrater Academy, and was able to gain access to Bluecrater's libraries. After about a week, Garlen showed up one evening with shiny but slightly bloodstained armor. With a huge smile, he said "this is brand new armor, and I've already got goblin blood on it!"

The next morning, a messenger delivered a summons. The party was to meet with Tereson Skellerang, the captain of the town guard. Tereson said that the town had been having trouble with goblins vandalizing the town for the past several nights, and Jenya suggested the Rubble Rousers were up to the task of tracking them down. They agreed, and decided to set a watch overnight. They caught a small group of goblins scrawling graffiti on a wall, capturing one and killing the others. The graffiti referred to "Drakthar", apparently the goblin leader, who "hunts... as a wolf". Roland charmed the goblin, who revealed that the "red-eyed dwarf" guarded the way to the goblin lair. Roland recalled an ex-adventuring dwarf, Orak Stonehaven, had an eyepatch with a red gem and was sometimes referred to by that moniker. Sensing the goblin had outlived its usefulness, Garlen backstabbed it.

Orak ran a bathhouse on Lava Avenue, so the party decided to watch the bathhouse the next night. Sure enough, a small group of goblins approached the door and the dwarf allowed them passage. Rain noticed another group of characters, wearing blue cloaks, were also watching the bathhouse. Rain snuck up on them, but they attacked, and the rest of the party joined the fray. The cloaked figures turned out to be wererats, who resisted the attacks made by non-silver weapons. Eventually, three of the four were killed and the remaining one was captured and charmed. He revealed that he'd been hired by "Gaelen Trodor", a name Roland recognized as belonging to one of Cauldron's founders hundreds of years ago. It was obviously a pseudonym, but his physical description led the party to suspect Tereson Skellerang. Roland approached Tereson and asked him to "come look at something" outside, and the wererat, watching from afar, signaled this was not his employer. A clever bluff by Roland was enough to get the wererat to let down his guard, and Skellerang quickly took him into custody.

With solid evidence that the goblins were based out of Orak's bathhouse, Skellerang sent a group of guards to go along with the party. The guards told Orak they'd spotted some thieves prowling about, and wanted to take a quick look inside to make sure they hadn't damaged any of his property. Orak opened the door and let the whole group inside. Rain snooped around and discovered some nice magical items in Orak's desk, including a decanter of endless water. After a few minutes chatting, Roland began to suspect Orak was under some form of mind control. Amber cast protection from evil on him, which temporarily suppressed the effect and left the dwarf wondering where he was. A quick explanation from the party and the group of guards was enough to convince Orak to drop his weapon and be put into manacles, and head towards the nearest temple.

Partway to the temple, the protection from evil wore off and the now-dominated Orak began questioning why he was being led off in manacles. Rain convinced him he'd been involved in a brawl, and the town guard just wanted to question him, but first they had to stop by the temple of Kord to pick up someone else who'd been involved in the fight. A messenger ran inside the temple and explained the situation, and several clerics rushed out to tackle Orak. A few spells later, the domination was broken. Orak handed over the keys to his bathhouse and decided he'd sleep elsewhere until the goblin problem was taken care of.

Skellerang set a watch inside the bathhouse overnight, and the party rested with the intent of invading the goblin lair in the morning. They spent some time discussing what the goblin leader might be, suspecting possibly a werewolf or vampire.