Session 11 - Spikes and Spiders
March 13, 2009 - The Stormhammers ponder a spike pit and battle spiders and spider-men.
While the Stormhammers rest, they peruse some of the books from the halfling's room and discover that his name was Skaven, one of the three people Drakthar sold the decanter of endless water to. After resting and recovering their abilities, the Stormhammers (consisting of Huron, Yggdrasil, Snake Eyes, Lover and Cram) continue on into the ruins in search of the wands. Huron has cut off Skaven's head and has it on his belt. Gary kicks in a door to find 4 human minions calming sitting at tables, eating some stew and chicken legs. Gary bluffs them and says that Skaven wants them back up on the surface. They ask why, since they just returned from above, and Gary says "DON'T YOU LOVE RAPING AND PILLAGING??" They consider, and agree. They walk out and head for the southern exit.
Huron, Cram, Yggdrasil and Lover ambush them as soon as they notice the wrecked statue and destroyed wall, and all four are slain without any trouble. The Stormhammers feel pretty good about their clever assault and approach another unopened door. Inside they hear voices and a low growling, which Huron identifies as a Dire Wolf...but the voices and growling cease as he's at the door listening.
They kick in the door to find a human guard, two gnolls (one with a spear, one with a longbow) and a dire wolf waiting for them. Yggdrasil runs in, Lover divine challenges the archer, and the fight is on. Huron activates his spider climb boots and scampers up the wall and along the ceiling to get to the human guard. He and Yggdrasil fight the guard and dire wolf. The dire wolf keeps knocking both of them down for a while and chewing their legs off. Lover traps the archer in the corner but rolls horribly for most of the fight. The spear gnoll gets into the previous room with Snake Eyes and Cram. He wounds Snake Eyes, who lets out a wail and flops to the ground, pretending to be dead. The gnoll believes him and turns to attack Cram, and Snake Eyes leaps back up and sneak attacks it. This happens a few times until finally Snake Eyes, while running around the gnoll to get a flank, gets impaled by the furious gnoll on an opportunity attack and falls to 0 hit points...but the gnoll thinks he's faking and bites him for good measure. Eventually Yggdrasil notices and runs in, and he and Cram finish off the gnoll.
After healing up, they investigate the rest of the room, and find a large 20' x 20' pit trap in the floor. They throw the human guard's corpse in and it triggers the trap, revealing a 20' drop onto large metal spikes glistening with poison. This sets off all sorts of ideas in the Stormhammers minds, such as:
- using the wand of control water they have to retrieve water from the underground lake and fill the pit with water so they can swim across (even though they can edge around the outside of the pit without trouble)
- emptying their bag of holding full of loot on the floor so they can fill it with water and fill up the pit
- filling the pit with water so that they can dip their weapons in it to get poisoned weapons
- filling the pit with water and then bringing the poisoned water back to town and POISONING THE WATER SUPPLY
- filling the pit with water so that they can swim down and rip out the spikes and attach them to Yggdrasil
After they finally decide to just leave the pit alone, they check out an adjacent room, which is full of ordinary weapons and light armor. They also take 3 small casks of ale from the room. After, they decide that instead of continuing further into the heart of the ruins, they want to go back and check out the hallway and halfling-sized passageway. The hallway has two walls on the southern wall, and they split up to open them both at the same time. Huron & Lover open the first, while Cram and Snake Eyes open the second. (Justin had to leave so Yggdrasil is being played as a Healbot.) Huron & Lover kick open their door and are immediately pounced upon by three leaping spiders. One bites Lover, and the other two bite Huron (one of which crits him for over 20 dmg). In addition, both of them are poisoned, slowed AND knocked prone. Nothing is in Snake Eyes and Cram's room, so they rush over and help, and the spiders go down relatively quickly, though they do skitter back into the room (which is covered in thick webs) and pounce again.
After cursing the spiders, they investigate the rooms. They are both full of heavy webbing but the walls have been broken down and lead into unworked caverns. Passageways through the webbing have been cleared to walk through. The webbing, while thick and slightly sticky, have lost most of their adhesiveness and don't stick to things without extra effort. Snake Eyes runs back and grabs a halberd and wraps it completely in webbing and puts it into the bag of holding. They decide not to go through the web tunnels.
Returning back to Skaven's room, Snake Eyes squeezes into the halfling-sized tunnel with a light spell cast on a rock so he can see. He crawls through and stops when he can hear skittering and scratching on stone. He uncovers the light stone, revealing a flash of light in which he catches glimpses of another jumping spider, a horse-sized spider with blade-like legs, and a humanoid with spider-ish eyes and mandibles. They recoil at the flash of light and Snake Eyes runs back to the party, and they take shelter in the burned-out barracks to wait for the attack.
A few minutes pass, then a few minutes more. Huron peeks out and sees nothing, so he sneaks out and looks down the hallway. He sees nothing there, so he continues down the hall. Snake Eyes also runs out, heading for the halfling tunnel, but he spots two deathjump spiders hiding in the shadows on the ceiling, about to pounce on Huron, and one of the spider-men (Ettercaps). Snake Eyes leaps backwards into the duergar room and readies his weapons. The spiders pounce on Huron and the Ettercap spits a ball of webbing which explodes, covering a big area with sticky webs, entangling Yggdrasil and Snake Eyes. Another Ettercap lumbers out from around the corner (where they were hiding) with a greataxe, and runs unhindered over the webs to bite Snake Eyes. Snake Eyes resists the poison though. Cram goes to help Huron, who is angrily fighting the spider who pounced on him, and Lover runs into the middle of the fray and fights everyone.
The Stormhammers suffer from a LOT of status effects over the course of the fight, enduring deathjump poison, being slowed, being knocked prone, and being entangled in the webbing ball burst effect. The webbing ettercap also reveals an annoying ability - as a minor action, it can throw a web net on someone, restraining them. Cram finds himself mostly unable to use his burst spells due to the narrow hallway. At one point Lover is webbed to the floor AND wrapped in a web net, and he uses a Hero Point to burst out of the webs and murder the ettercap. (He was able to make 3 saving throws at the start of his turn, to try and escape the 2 web effects. His first two rolls were successes, so he broke free.) Snake Eyes runs into poison trouble as well fighting the ettercaps, and Yggdrasil's single action each round are usually spent healing him or giving him first aid so he can make a saving throw.
Huron reduces one of the deathjump spiders to near-death almost immediately, but for some reason is unable to hit it for the rest of the fight, and spends many rounds taking poison damage and being slowed. However, his fighter's mark keeps the spider from running off. At one point Cram runs up to help out, and is immediately poisoned and slowed for his efforts. The two of them CONTINUE to miss the spider, with melee and magic attacks. The spider (the first combatant to attack) is actually the very last one to die. Lover proves how durable a Lover is in combat, dishing out huge amounts of damage while healing himself and the others.
After the fight, the Stormhammers decide to rest again in the barrack and recover.
C03SE10 - Here Comes Halfling Death
Session 10 - Here Comes Halfling Death
February 21, 2009 - The Stormhammers track down the wand thieves and immediately get into a nasty fight.
The Stormhammers head to the Church of Bahamut first-thing in the morning to speak with Jenya. She asks them if they have any leads on the people who stole the wands and murdered Sarcem. They tell her that the rogue Bonesaw chokeslammed from the 2nd floor mentioned the name Triel, which Jenya remarks sounds vaguely familiar, but she can't place where exactly. They decide to interrogate the unconscious bandit that they brought back from the Lucky Monkey.
The female bandit is panicked and very intimidated. She tells them that Triel hired her from Cauldron for extra muscle (to which Huron bursts into laughter for some reason), and also tells her that Triel is a female human woman with wild fiery red hair and heavy spiked fullplate armor decorated with the symbol of Bane, evil god of war and conquest. She also remarks that Triel never told the hired goons that there would be killing - the woman was under the impression that they were just going to rob the people. She doesn't seem to know anything else about Triel, such as her abilities or where she would be now. The party decides to let her go, but tells her that if she sees Triel or finds out anything regarding her, to seek them out at the Tipped Tankard. She runs out of the church, and Snake Eyes slips off to follow her.
Meanwhile, Lover, a minotaur paladin of the Raven Queen, is on a holy pilgrimage and has arrived in Cauldron. Out of respect for the gods, she decides to visit all the churches in town. He visits the small Church of Pelor, proudly admires the majestic Church of the Raven Queen, visits the Church of Kord, and arrives at the Church of Bahamut just as the female bandit runs out the door. Lover is showed in to meet Jenya.
Jenya urges the Stormhammers to seek out and find the wands, as the rains are still heavily falling and people are getting very concerned about the looming flood waters. Lover, standing nearby, overhears this and volunteers her services, saying that it must be fate that led her here at this very moment. SHE JOINS THE PARTY! (but not the Stormhammers, yet anyways.)
Meanwhile, Snake Eyes follows the female bandit back to a shoddy neighborhood. She goes to a hovel, unlocks the door and goes inside. Snake Eyes waits outside for 4 hours, then takes off his mask and walks up and knocks. A man answers. Inside Snake Eyes can see that they are very poor. Snake Eyes says he has something for the man's wife, and hands him a pouch and runs off before the man can open it (the pouch contains the platinum holy symbol of Kord that Snake Eyes stole from Zachary Hawkwinter in Session 5 - Bulls and a Beholder. He goes and rejoins the party.
They then head to Rhiavadi's Fine Silks, a very fancy and posh clothing store. The clerk welcomes them and shows them to a costume room full of outfits for the Demonskar Ball. Yggdrasil shows him his special invitation, and the clerk tells him that he will be portraying the infamous leader of the demon army, Aggannar. He shows them the Agannar costume, a hulking outfit with two large pincer hands, two smaller humanoid ones, and a fearsome looking hound face with large horns. The entire costume is dark blood red. The clerk tells Yggdrasil that for most of the ball, he will be wearing a regular demon costume, but when it comes time for the re-enactment of the climactic battle, "Aggannar" will fight - and lose to - someone portraying Surabar Spellmason.
They ask the clerk more details about the Ball, and find out that there will be numerous dances, a banquet, musical performances, etc. He says that they can go sign up for special dance lessons at Bluewater Academy in preparation for the Ball. They decide on the rest of their costumes. Demons: Drrk asks for something "unique" and the clerk offers him a Lemure outfit, which Drrk accepts. Cram gets an imp costume for himself and a tiny plush demon outfit for Murgatroyd. Snake Eyes asks for a Kyton costume, which they have in stock and is complete with numerous clunking light wood chains. On the human side, Huron selects a foppish bard outfit and chooses a tambourine to go with it, and Bonesaw chooses a wizard outfit which comes with a glowing staff and a magical glove which has a ball of light constantly circling it. They choose an Eladrin Warlord outfit for Artem. When asked if they are going to rent the costumes (10 gp) or buy them (20 gp), they all decide to buy them. Since Yggdrasil has to get two costumes, the Aggannar one and a regular demon one, the clerks gives him both outfits for 30g. He takes their measurements and tells them the costumes will be ready for pickup in a week's time.
On their way out, they scare and intimidate the regular customers. Cram decides to use mage hand to pull someone's pants down. He spots a middle-aged man trying on some breeches and yanks them down. The man turns out to be Ankhin Taskerhill, who lets out a startled yelp and trips over and falls. Scandalized shrieks and laughter fill the store, and the Stormhammers make a hasty exit before they are spotted, very proud of themselves.
Snake Eyes, Yggdrasil and Cram sign up for dance lessons. The lessons start next week and cost 10gp a person.
They go back to the Tipped Tankard and meet Shensen, who confirms that the woman named Triel was leading the assault at the Lucky Monkey, but unfortunately doesn't know anything else about her. She gives the party some magic boots of spider climbing as thanks for rescuing her. As they eat, Huron notices her glace subtly at Fraxx a few times, but she doesn't do anything more. After eating she leaves, wishing them luck on finding the wands.
The Stormhammers decide to check into Patch's disappearance. They head to the Lantern Street Orphanage and speak to the kids and then remember that Terrem was returned to the orphanage by a mysterious woman. They ask him if she had red hair or "spikey clothing" but he says that she wore a red full head veil so he couldn't see her hair, but she was wearing robes and not armor. Gretchen tells them that Patch was nervous when the children were kidnapped, and then abruptly one day never showed up to work. They get directions to his house and head there.
A single guard is outside and recognizes them, greets them, then lets them in. Patch's house is a small one-floor apartment. A mostly-finished bowl of cereal is on the table, and nothing looks disturbed or out of place. It doesn't seem that Patch had packed and left for a long trip or journey. While searching, they find a hidden stash of coins underneath some shirts in a dresser, and they conclude that he didn't run off but was kidnapped or ambushed on the way to the orphanage.
Trying another lead, they head to the barracks and seek out Skylar. They show him the jester coins they have found, and say that they want to try to draw the Last Laugh out of hiding by confiscating all the counterfeit coins that are currently in circulation throughout the city. After some hesitation, Skylar agrees that it's worth a shot and gives them a warrant to do so (but they have to buy the jester coins from merchants who have them for 1g apiece.)
They also mention Triel, and Skylar instantly recognizes the name. He tells them that 3 years ago, Triel was a member of the Cauldron guard, but one night apparently went insane and brutally attacked her own patrol, killing three before being severely wounded and chased out of town. She vanished into the wild jungles outside of town and due to her serious wounds, the guard assumed she was dead. Wanted posters with her face were put up around town for a while but after no reports of her appearing in over a year, they stopped. He also tells them that her name is Triel Lanthenmire...as in Cora Lanthenmire. He adds that after the incident, the Lanthenmires erased her name from all family records. They ask him to sketch her, and he tries, but he's not a very good artist. Bonesaw decides to head to the Lanthenmire estate while the rest of the Stormhammers head around town collecting the counterfeit coins. Cram decides to follow Bonesaw.
Bonesaw finds the Lanthenmire estate and sneaks around to the side, and stealthily scales the wall. He goes up to a side entrance (seemingly a kitchen or pantry storage room) and tries to enter, but magical force seizes him and starts restricting his body. He throws off the paralysis though, and backs off. He spots a balcony above and climbs up, though he makes a fair amount of noise and commotion (Cram, outside the yard in the alley, hears stone being scratched and Bonesaw's armor screeching against the wall). Bonesaw climbs up and enters, spotting two elderly people sleeping. Judging from their dress they look like servants. He walks through the room, causing floorboards to creak and his armor rattling. The two wake up, and Bonesaw says that he's only here to talk to Cora in regards to Triel. Doesn't cut it. The woman starts screaming and the man leaps to his feet and waves a poker in Bonesaw's face. Bonesaw grabs it and throws it off the balcony, then hears footsteps pounding up stairs. He opens the door into the mansion to see a dozen armed guards rushing up the stairs towards him. He doesn't see Cora and assumes she isn't here, and turns and leaps off the balcony to the ground. He climbs back over the fence (a loud magical alarm is now sounding behind him) and he and Cram turn and walk down the street. Moments later the guards and some city guards arrive and arrest them both for breaking and entering. (though Bonesaw corrects them that it was only entering.)
The rest of the Stormhammers realize Bonesaw and Cram are late meeting them, and go to the Lanthenmire estate to find out what happened to them. There, they are surrounded by guards who recognize the Stormhammers symbol as the same as Cram and Bonesaw wear, and question them about involvement in the break-and-enter that just occurred. They talk their way out of being arrested and head to the barracks, where they spot Cram and Bonesaw in a cell. Bonesaw demands to speak with Cora, but Skellerang shows up and tells them that the Stormblades are away on a mission, riding with haste to the nearest major city to try and acquire more wands of control water. Someone says that the Stormhammers are already trying to find the wands, but Skellerang points out that he doesn't care who gets the wands, as long as enough are found in time to stop the floods. The Stormhammers grudgingly agree with this logic.
In another attempt to draw the Last Laugh out of hiding, they head to the fanciest tavern in town, The Slippery Eel. They head inside out of the pouring rain and get a table, but the waiter insists that Murgatroyd be left outside.
As they sit down to eat, Murgatroyd perches on a nearby window sill and glares at them, soaking wet and miserable in the rain.
The party enjoys a nice meal, being purposefully loud and obnoxious and talking bad about the Last Laugh. Soon all the other patrons are offended and leave. Huron grabs a waitress's ass as she walks by, she turns around and she's pretty ugly. They finish their meal and Huron pays the 30gp bill, and feeling bad about making them lose their other customers, since that wasn't the intention, he tips them another 70gp. The manager thanks them and after a bit of conversation, gets them another 20 or so jester coins.
While the party is eating, Murgatroyd sees a messenger running the streets announcing that he has a message for the Stormhammers. Murgatroyd "signals" the party inside by spreading his wings - during the Flood Festival, Huron got a giant tattoo of the Stormhammers symbol on his back, and Cram and Snake Eyes also got small shoulder tattoos. Yggdrasil also got a special plate etched with the symbol from a blacksmith and attached it to his body. Murgatroyd ALSO got two small tattoos under each wing, one saying STORM and the other HAMMERS...so when he spreads his wings it reads STORM HAMMERS. The party sees the "signal" and rushes outside to talk with the messenger. The message is from Artem saying that someone left a letter at the Tipped Tankard addressed to the Stormhammers. They rush back and open the letter. It says "IF YOU SEEK TRIEL, HEAD TO THIS LOCATION OUTSIDE OF TOWN (with a crudely drawn map). THIS IS IN RETURN FOR PREVIOUS SERVICES." They gear up and head out.
Cam has to leave, so Cram and Murgatroyd retire to the Tipped Tankard, citing a bad case of indigestion.
Following the map, they arrive at an ancient lava tube hidden deep within the jungle. They descend into the mountain, and come out on a rocky ledge overlooking a giant subterranean lake faintly glowing with phosphorescent moss and lichen. A rickety iron cage/gondola and pulley system spans the lake, and the chains enter into a nearby building. They blow inside and slaughter 3 thugs inside, and spotting a lever on the wall, pull it. The cage starts to move across the lake, and only Yggdrasil is next to it and able to climb in. Everyone else has to run and leap for the cage, except for Snake Eyes, who remains behind. Huron actually leaps ON TOP of the cage and rides it all the way to the bottom. Snake Eyes waits, and starts tying a rope around a horseshoe to slide down the chain.
On their way down, they spot movement to their side across the lake on a small beach, of humanoid shapes moving around. The lift quickly carries them out of sight of the beach though. They descend and see a vast stone keep before them, worked out of the actual stone. Though obviously intended for humanoid use, it looks very foreign and unnerving. Huron recognizes a few traits as belonging to an ancient bloodthirsty underground race called the Kopru, who killed themselves off hundreds of years ago.
The cage enters a small shack on the beach and stops, and they exit and leave. (Huron hops onto the roof of the shack and waits for the others.) Yggdrasil almost triggers a tripwire trap, but Drrk spots it and disarms it. They study the trap and realize it was connected to the wall, and would have brought the entire wall crashing down upon them. They send the cage back up for Snake Eyes, who abandons his rope/horseshoe plan and gets in. He tosses the roped horseshoe at the lever a few times before managing to activate the lift. He remarks that the ruins are definitely the work of elves. (natural 1 on History check.)
They see two entrances - a small side entrance to the west, and a main, central entrance directly before them. They head to the side entrance. Inside is a small meeting room with a large table, and sitting around it are three black skinned dwarves with white hair (duergar) and a tiefling in snakescale-patterned leather armor. Bonesaw rushes in and fire breaths them. The duergar draw warhammers which ignite into flame, and the tiefling starts throwing black fire at them. The Stormhammers spread out and retaliate. Snake Eyes heads for the Tiefling spellcaster, who is able to teleport away after being struck, and keeps blinking around the room. One of the duergar growls and doubles in size partway through the battle, and the duergar all shoot poisoned quills from their prickly beards during the fight. At one point, Lover teleports away from a duergar strike to appear above him, and smashes him with her spiked shield as she falls on him. Afterwards, they find an amulet that protects against poison on one of the duergar, and take the snakescale leather armor off the Tiefling's body, which allows the wearer to move and superspeed and dash around enemies (shift 3 squares, even through squares occupied by enemies).
Corey has to leave, so Lover says "Bad Clams!" and rushes back to Cauldron with...a severe case of indigestion.
The door in the room leads into a hall, with doors on either side of the hallway. Snake Eyes checks the door on their left for traps and finds none, while Yggdrasil and Drrk open/shoot into the other door. Inside are some sleeping humans - Drrk shoots one. Bonesaw leaps inside and fire breaths again, incinerating four humans and burning the other two, who leap up and grab halberds. Huron enters the room too with Yggdrasil, while Drrk and Snake Eyes hang back...only to hear rumbling and metal grinding coming from behind the other door. They step back just as a giant metal statue of a minotaur with a greataxe smashes through the door and wall, pushing them aside. Snake Eyes attacks it as it moves by, but his claw bounces off its thick metal skin. It comes to rest, and its torso spins quickly in a 360-degree turn, slashing out at Drrk, Snake Eyes and Bonesaw with its axe, causing heavily bleeding wounds, and blocking the hallway between the 2 doors. Out of the smoke and dust of the pulverized wall, a spider with large fangs leaps at Drrk, but Drrk shoots it in mid-air and it doesn't manage to bite him. It pushes him back into the duergar room though.
Yggdrasil and Huron hear the giant statue burst through the wall, but can't maneuver very well in the small guard room and are momentarily unable to strike at the statue. Meanwhile, a halfling wizard announces his presence by causing a poison cloud to billow out of the floor, poisoning some people for ongoing poison damage. Snake Eyes moves past the statue to fight the halfling, noting a desk and a few bookshelves full of texts in the room, as well as a halfling-sized tunnel in one of the walls. Bonesaw trades blows with the statue, eventually smashing its knee with a Dizzying Strike (I think?) and Huron eventually gets into position for a Cometfall Charge, and they lock down the statue for a time. Meanwhile, Drrk finishes off the spider, who kept leaping and pouncing at him and skittering all around the duergar room. The halfling unloads at the Stormhammers, firing off a fireball, which after activating some giant red metal gauntlets he was wearing, caused ongoing fire damage, and then using a blast of dazzling colors that dazed a few party members. The last human guard attempts to charge at Yggdrasil from behind (who was frantically healing the party) but stumbles and runs into the wall, knocking himself unconscious.
Huron is pissed at the halfling and pins him in place, though the statue reaches back and intercepts half the blow. The halfling knocks Huron back with a spell, freeing himself, and positions himself by the tunnel - but Snake Eyes intercepts him and they fight for position. Between the halfling's spells and the statue's greataxe chops, and the various ongoing sources of damage (statue axe bleed, halfling poison cloud, halfling fireball burn) everyone is low on hp. Drrk eventually finishes off the statue and everyone rushes the halfling. Snake Eyes bull rushes the halfling away from the tunnel, and blocks it with his body.
The halfling hurls another fireball and teleports to the back of the room, but Bonesaw, Huron and Yggdrasil follow. Huron critically fumbles an attack and slashes into Bonesaw by accident, who falls to the floor, dying. The halfling then tries to blind everyone with a dazzling flash which also causes radiant damage, and Huron also falls. However the flash reflects off Drrk's platinum belt buckle (natural 1, miss = critical fumble) and the halfling reels back, burned, and falls to the floor dead. Drrk runs forward and shoots the halfling repeatedly while Yggdrasil and Snake Eyes quickly stabilize and heal Huron and Bonesaw. Everyone uses some healing surges, and Huron stomps into the guard room, and moments later everyone sees the broken and slashed body of the unconscious human guard fly through the doorway. They strip the halfling of his gear, and take the gauntlets (which make a fire attack do ongoing fire damage, and also enhances any future fire attacks in that encounter). The texts and tomes are all related to the ruins and their history, and are worth 100gp to an interested collector. They also find one of the wands of control water in his pockets.
They quickly go back to the guard barracks and barricade the door to rest and recuperate. Bonesaw takes the gauntlets for now.
February 21, 2009 - The Stormhammers track down the wand thieves and immediately get into a nasty fight.
The Stormhammers head to the Church of Bahamut first-thing in the morning to speak with Jenya. She asks them if they have any leads on the people who stole the wands and murdered Sarcem. They tell her that the rogue Bonesaw chokeslammed from the 2nd floor mentioned the name Triel, which Jenya remarks sounds vaguely familiar, but she can't place where exactly. They decide to interrogate the unconscious bandit that they brought back from the Lucky Monkey.
Huron: I'll go "question" her. (takes out a knife) Jenya: What?! Have you even asked her anything yet? Huron: ...no? (Jenya throws her hands up in disbelief)
The female bandit is panicked and very intimidated. She tells them that Triel hired her from Cauldron for extra muscle (to which Huron bursts into laughter for some reason), and also tells her that Triel is a female human woman with wild fiery red hair and heavy spiked fullplate armor decorated with the symbol of Bane, evil god of war and conquest. She also remarks that Triel never told the hired goons that there would be killing - the woman was under the impression that they were just going to rob the people. She doesn't seem to know anything else about Triel, such as her abilities or where she would be now. The party decides to let her go, but tells her that if she sees Triel or finds out anything regarding her, to seek them out at the Tipped Tankard. She runs out of the church, and Snake Eyes slips off to follow her.
Meanwhile, Lover, a minotaur paladin of the Raven Queen, is on a holy pilgrimage and has arrived in Cauldron. Out of respect for the gods, she decides to visit all the churches in town. He visits the small Church of Pelor, proudly admires the majestic Church of the Raven Queen, visits the Church of Kord, and arrives at the Church of Bahamut just as the female bandit runs out the door. Lover is showed in to meet Jenya.
Jenya urges the Stormhammers to seek out and find the wands, as the rains are still heavily falling and people are getting very concerned about the looming flood waters. Lover, standing nearby, overhears this and volunteers her services, saying that it must be fate that led her here at this very moment. SHE JOINS THE PARTY! (but not the Stormhammers, yet anyways.)
Meanwhile, Snake Eyes follows the female bandit back to a shoddy neighborhood. She goes to a hovel, unlocks the door and goes inside. Snake Eyes waits outside for 4 hours, then takes off his mask and walks up and knocks. A man answers. Inside Snake Eyes can see that they are very poor. Snake Eyes says he has something for the man's wife, and hands him a pouch and runs off before the man can open it (the pouch contains the platinum holy symbol of Kord that Snake Eyes stole from Zachary Hawkwinter in Session 5 - Bulls and a Beholder. He goes and rejoins the party.
They then head to Rhiavadi's Fine Silks, a very fancy and posh clothing store. The clerk welcomes them and shows them to a costume room full of outfits for the Demonskar Ball. Yggdrasil shows him his special invitation, and the clerk tells him that he will be portraying the infamous leader of the demon army, Aggannar. He shows them the Agannar costume, a hulking outfit with two large pincer hands, two smaller humanoid ones, and a fearsome looking hound face with large horns. The entire costume is dark blood red. The clerk tells Yggdrasil that for most of the ball, he will be wearing a regular demon costume, but when it comes time for the re-enactment of the climactic battle, "Aggannar" will fight - and lose to - someone portraying Surabar Spellmason.
They ask the clerk more details about the Ball, and find out that there will be numerous dances, a banquet, musical performances, etc. He says that they can go sign up for special dance lessons at Bluewater Academy in preparation for the Ball. They decide on the rest of their costumes. Demons: Drrk asks for something "unique" and the clerk offers him a Lemure outfit, which Drrk accepts. Cram gets an imp costume for himself and a tiny plush demon outfit for Murgatroyd. Snake Eyes asks for a Kyton costume, which they have in stock and is complete with numerous clunking light wood chains. On the human side, Huron selects a foppish bard outfit and chooses a tambourine to go with it, and Bonesaw chooses a wizard outfit which comes with a glowing staff and a magical glove which has a ball of light constantly circling it. They choose an Eladrin Warlord outfit for Artem. When asked if they are going to rent the costumes (10 gp) or buy them (20 gp), they all decide to buy them. Since Yggdrasil has to get two costumes, the Aggannar one and a regular demon one, the clerks gives him both outfits for 30g. He takes their measurements and tells them the costumes will be ready for pickup in a week's time.
On their way out, they scare and intimidate the regular customers. Cram decides to use mage hand to pull someone's pants down. He spots a middle-aged man trying on some breeches and yanks them down. The man turns out to be Ankhin Taskerhill, who lets out a startled yelp and trips over and falls. Scandalized shrieks and laughter fill the store, and the Stormhammers make a hasty exit before they are spotted, very proud of themselves.
Snake Eyes, Yggdrasil and Cram sign up for dance lessons. The lessons start next week and cost 10gp a person.
They go back to the Tipped Tankard and meet Shensen, who confirms that the woman named Triel was leading the assault at the Lucky Monkey, but unfortunately doesn't know anything else about her. She gives the party some magic boots of spider climbing as thanks for rescuing her. As they eat, Huron notices her glace subtly at Fraxx a few times, but she doesn't do anything more. After eating she leaves, wishing them luck on finding the wands.
The Stormhammers decide to check into Patch's disappearance. They head to the Lantern Street Orphanage and speak to the kids and then remember that Terrem was returned to the orphanage by a mysterious woman. They ask him if she had red hair or "spikey clothing" but he says that she wore a red full head veil so he couldn't see her hair, but she was wearing robes and not armor. Gretchen tells them that Patch was nervous when the children were kidnapped, and then abruptly one day never showed up to work. They get directions to his house and head there.
A single guard is outside and recognizes them, greets them, then lets them in. Patch's house is a small one-floor apartment. A mostly-finished bowl of cereal is on the table, and nothing looks disturbed or out of place. It doesn't seem that Patch had packed and left for a long trip or journey. While searching, they find a hidden stash of coins underneath some shirts in a dresser, and they conclude that he didn't run off but was kidnapped or ambushed on the way to the orphanage.
Trying another lead, they head to the barracks and seek out Skylar. They show him the jester coins they have found, and say that they want to try to draw the Last Laugh out of hiding by confiscating all the counterfeit coins that are currently in circulation throughout the city. After some hesitation, Skylar agrees that it's worth a shot and gives them a warrant to do so (but they have to buy the jester coins from merchants who have them for 1g apiece.)
They also mention Triel, and Skylar instantly recognizes the name. He tells them that 3 years ago, Triel was a member of the Cauldron guard, but one night apparently went insane and brutally attacked her own patrol, killing three before being severely wounded and chased out of town. She vanished into the wild jungles outside of town and due to her serious wounds, the guard assumed she was dead. Wanted posters with her face were put up around town for a while but after no reports of her appearing in over a year, they stopped. He also tells them that her name is Triel Lanthenmire...as in Cora Lanthenmire. He adds that after the incident, the Lanthenmires erased her name from all family records. They ask him to sketch her, and he tries, but he's not a very good artist. Bonesaw decides to head to the Lanthenmire estate while the rest of the Stormhammers head around town collecting the counterfeit coins. Cram decides to follow Bonesaw.
Bonesaw finds the Lanthenmire estate and sneaks around to the side, and stealthily scales the wall. He goes up to a side entrance (seemingly a kitchen or pantry storage room) and tries to enter, but magical force seizes him and starts restricting his body. He throws off the paralysis though, and backs off. He spots a balcony above and climbs up, though he makes a fair amount of noise and commotion (Cram, outside the yard in the alley, hears stone being scratched and Bonesaw's armor screeching against the wall). Bonesaw climbs up and enters, spotting two elderly people sleeping. Judging from their dress they look like servants. He walks through the room, causing floorboards to creak and his armor rattling. The two wake up, and Bonesaw says that he's only here to talk to Cora in regards to Triel. Doesn't cut it. The woman starts screaming and the man leaps to his feet and waves a poker in Bonesaw's face. Bonesaw grabs it and throws it off the balcony, then hears footsteps pounding up stairs. He opens the door into the mansion to see a dozen armed guards rushing up the stairs towards him. He doesn't see Cora and assumes she isn't here, and turns and leaps off the balcony to the ground. He climbs back over the fence (a loud magical alarm is now sounding behind him) and he and Cram turn and walk down the street. Moments later the guards and some city guards arrive and arrest them both for breaking and entering. (though Bonesaw corrects them that it was only entering.)
The rest of the Stormhammers realize Bonesaw and Cram are late meeting them, and go to the Lanthenmire estate to find out what happened to them. There, they are surrounded by guards who recognize the Stormhammers symbol as the same as Cram and Bonesaw wear, and question them about involvement in the break-and-enter that just occurred. They talk their way out of being arrested and head to the barracks, where they spot Cram and Bonesaw in a cell. Bonesaw demands to speak with Cora, but Skellerang shows up and tells them that the Stormblades are away on a mission, riding with haste to the nearest major city to try and acquire more wands of control water. Someone says that the Stormhammers are already trying to find the wands, but Skellerang points out that he doesn't care who gets the wands, as long as enough are found in time to stop the floods. The Stormhammers grudgingly agree with this logic.
In another attempt to draw the Last Laugh out of hiding, they head to the fanciest tavern in town, The Slippery Eel. They head inside out of the pouring rain and get a table, but the waiter insists that Murgatroyd be left outside.
Waiter: I'm sorry, your pet will have to wait outside. Murgatroyd: (to Bonesaw) Hey! You're gonna have to wait outside!
As they sit down to eat, Murgatroyd perches on a nearby window sill and glares at them, soaking wet and miserable in the rain.
The party enjoys a nice meal, being purposefully loud and obnoxious and talking bad about the Last Laugh. Soon all the other patrons are offended and leave. Huron grabs a waitress's ass as she walks by, she turns around and she's pretty ugly. They finish their meal and Huron pays the 30gp bill, and feeling bad about making them lose their other customers, since that wasn't the intention, he tips them another 70gp. The manager thanks them and after a bit of conversation, gets them another 20 or so jester coins.
While the party is eating, Murgatroyd sees a messenger running the streets announcing that he has a message for the Stormhammers. Murgatroyd "signals" the party inside by spreading his wings - during the Flood Festival, Huron got a giant tattoo of the Stormhammers symbol on his back, and Cram and Snake Eyes also got small shoulder tattoos. Yggdrasil also got a special plate etched with the symbol from a blacksmith and attached it to his body. Murgatroyd ALSO got two small tattoos under each wing, one saying STORM and the other HAMMERS...so when he spreads his wings it reads STORM HAMMERS. The party sees the "signal" and rushes outside to talk with the messenger. The message is from Artem saying that someone left a letter at the Tipped Tankard addressed to the Stormhammers. They rush back and open the letter. It says "IF YOU SEEK TRIEL, HEAD TO THIS LOCATION OUTSIDE OF TOWN (with a crudely drawn map). THIS IS IN RETURN FOR PREVIOUS SERVICES." They gear up and head out.
Cam has to leave, so Cram and Murgatroyd retire to the Tipped Tankard, citing a bad case of indigestion.
Following the map, they arrive at an ancient lava tube hidden deep within the jungle. They descend into the mountain, and come out on a rocky ledge overlooking a giant subterranean lake faintly glowing with phosphorescent moss and lichen. A rickety iron cage/gondola and pulley system spans the lake, and the chains enter into a nearby building. They blow inside and slaughter 3 thugs inside, and spotting a lever on the wall, pull it. The cage starts to move across the lake, and only Yggdrasil is next to it and able to climb in. Everyone else has to run and leap for the cage, except for Snake Eyes, who remains behind. Huron actually leaps ON TOP of the cage and rides it all the way to the bottom. Snake Eyes waits, and starts tying a rope around a horseshoe to slide down the chain.
On their way down, they spot movement to their side across the lake on a small beach, of humanoid shapes moving around. The lift quickly carries them out of sight of the beach though. They descend and see a vast stone keep before them, worked out of the actual stone. Though obviously intended for humanoid use, it looks very foreign and unnerving. Huron recognizes a few traits as belonging to an ancient bloodthirsty underground race called the Kopru, who killed themselves off hundreds of years ago.
The cage enters a small shack on the beach and stops, and they exit and leave. (Huron hops onto the roof of the shack and waits for the others.) Yggdrasil almost triggers a tripwire trap, but Drrk spots it and disarms it. They study the trap and realize it was connected to the wall, and would have brought the entire wall crashing down upon them. They send the cage back up for Snake Eyes, who abandons his rope/horseshoe plan and gets in. He tosses the roped horseshoe at the lever a few times before managing to activate the lift. He remarks that the ruins are definitely the work of elves. (natural 1 on History check.)
They see two entrances - a small side entrance to the west, and a main, central entrance directly before them. They head to the side entrance. Inside is a small meeting room with a large table, and sitting around it are three black skinned dwarves with white hair (duergar) and a tiefling in snakescale-patterned leather armor. Bonesaw rushes in and fire breaths them. The duergar draw warhammers which ignite into flame, and the tiefling starts throwing black fire at them. The Stormhammers spread out and retaliate. Snake Eyes heads for the Tiefling spellcaster, who is able to teleport away after being struck, and keeps blinking around the room. One of the duergar growls and doubles in size partway through the battle, and the duergar all shoot poisoned quills from their prickly beards during the fight. At one point, Lover teleports away from a duergar strike to appear above him, and smashes him with her spiked shield as she falls on him. Afterwards, they find an amulet that protects against poison on one of the duergar, and take the snakescale leather armor off the Tiefling's body, which allows the wearer to move and superspeed and dash around enemies (shift 3 squares, even through squares occupied by enemies).
Corey has to leave, so Lover says "Bad Clams!" and rushes back to Cauldron with...a severe case of indigestion.
The door in the room leads into a hall, with doors on either side of the hallway. Snake Eyes checks the door on their left for traps and finds none, while Yggdrasil and Drrk open/shoot into the other door. Inside are some sleeping humans - Drrk shoots one. Bonesaw leaps inside and fire breaths again, incinerating four humans and burning the other two, who leap up and grab halberds. Huron enters the room too with Yggdrasil, while Drrk and Snake Eyes hang back...only to hear rumbling and metal grinding coming from behind the other door. They step back just as a giant metal statue of a minotaur with a greataxe smashes through the door and wall, pushing them aside. Snake Eyes attacks it as it moves by, but his claw bounces off its thick metal skin. It comes to rest, and its torso spins quickly in a 360-degree turn, slashing out at Drrk, Snake Eyes and Bonesaw with its axe, causing heavily bleeding wounds, and blocking the hallway between the 2 doors. Out of the smoke and dust of the pulverized wall, a spider with large fangs leaps at Drrk, but Drrk shoots it in mid-air and it doesn't manage to bite him. It pushes him back into the duergar room though.
Yggdrasil and Huron hear the giant statue burst through the wall, but can't maneuver very well in the small guard room and are momentarily unable to strike at the statue. Meanwhile, a halfling wizard announces his presence by causing a poison cloud to billow out of the floor, poisoning some people for ongoing poison damage. Snake Eyes moves past the statue to fight the halfling, noting a desk and a few bookshelves full of texts in the room, as well as a halfling-sized tunnel in one of the walls. Bonesaw trades blows with the statue, eventually smashing its knee with a Dizzying Strike (I think?) and Huron eventually gets into position for a Cometfall Charge, and they lock down the statue for a time. Meanwhile, Drrk finishes off the spider, who kept leaping and pouncing at him and skittering all around the duergar room. The halfling unloads at the Stormhammers, firing off a fireball, which after activating some giant red metal gauntlets he was wearing, caused ongoing fire damage, and then using a blast of dazzling colors that dazed a few party members. The last human guard attempts to charge at Yggdrasil from behind (who was frantically healing the party) but stumbles and runs into the wall, knocking himself unconscious.
Huron is pissed at the halfling and pins him in place, though the statue reaches back and intercepts half the blow. The halfling knocks Huron back with a spell, freeing himself, and positions himself by the tunnel - but Snake Eyes intercepts him and they fight for position. Between the halfling's spells and the statue's greataxe chops, and the various ongoing sources of damage (statue axe bleed, halfling poison cloud, halfling fireball burn) everyone is low on hp. Drrk eventually finishes off the statue and everyone rushes the halfling. Snake Eyes bull rushes the halfling away from the tunnel, and blocks it with his body.
The halfling hurls another fireball and teleports to the back of the room, but Bonesaw, Huron and Yggdrasil follow. Huron critically fumbles an attack and slashes into Bonesaw by accident, who falls to the floor, dying. The halfling then tries to blind everyone with a dazzling flash which also causes radiant damage, and Huron also falls. However the flash reflects off Drrk's platinum belt buckle (natural 1, miss = critical fumble) and the halfling reels back, burned, and falls to the floor dead. Drrk runs forward and shoots the halfling repeatedly while Yggdrasil and Snake Eyes quickly stabilize and heal Huron and Bonesaw. Everyone uses some healing surges, and Huron stomps into the guard room, and moments later everyone sees the broken and slashed body of the unconscious human guard fly through the doorway. They strip the halfling of his gear, and take the gauntlets (which make a fire attack do ongoing fire damage, and also enhances any future fire attacks in that encounter). The texts and tomes are all related to the ruins and their history, and are worth 100gp to an interested collector. They also find one of the wands of control water in his pockets.
They quickly go back to the guard barracks and barricade the door to rest and recuperate. Bonesaw takes the gauntlets for now.
C03SE08 - Baboons and Bandits
Session 8 - Baboons and Bandits
February 6, 2009 - The Stormhammers fight bandits, baboons, Last Laughs and a werebaboon at the Lucky Monkey.
Chancellor Alahind notices Jenya's distress and comes over to ask the party what's going on. After they tell him, he ponders it for a moment before telling the Stormhammers to meet him at Weer's Elixirs in 5 minutes. Alahind explains that since the Lucky Monkey is a day's travel from town, riding by horse would take far too long. He says that instead, Vortimax can perform a teleportation ritual to the Lucky Monkey (Alahind often goes there to drink and relax). He pays for the ritual and the party teleports to a crossroads just down the road from the inn. They rush to the inn, noticing once again the pack of wild baboons that stop foraging for food and watch them instead.
Meanwhile, Cram the Executioner and Yggdrasil meet in the Lucky Monkey stables, having fled their rooms after hearing fighting erupt downstairs. Cram looks for his horse and is horrified to discover that all the horses are gone, and some of the horses were apparently killed and dragged out of the stables to behind the inn, judging from the blood trails. He vows NOT to go out there and find out what could drag off a horse. Cram and Warforged spot the party heading down the road, armed and ready for battle, and decide to go out and meet them. They join the party to try to fight off whoever has attacked the inn.
Huron, Snake Eyes and Drrk decide to scale the wall and enter the building through an upstairs window. Meanwhile, Fraxx, Cram and Yggdrasil wait below. Cram peeks in a slightly-open shutter window and spots a number of people inside the main dining room, including a pair of burly bugbears, a mage behind the bar, and a dwarf with a hammer and shield. A few other bandits and thieves are also there. Everyone is drinking and having a good time, even though the furniture is all destroyed and blood and carnage litters the room.
Upstairs, Huron, Snake Eyes and Drrk sneak inside. Huron and Snake Eyes head to the stairs so they can ambush people downstairs, while Drrk heads the other direction to make sure there's no one who will follow them down.
Downstairs, Yggdrasil notes that the people inside aren't openly hostile, so he throws the doors open and walks inside. Everyone stares at him. He asks how much it would be for a room, to the mage. She looks slowly around the room at all the wreckage and carnage and says "I'm sorry, did you say you wanted a room?" Yggdrasil tells her that he has money, and upon hearing this they all draw weapons. Cram immediately tosses a lightning blast into the room, vaporizing a few minions and causing a huge amount of chaos and damage. They notice that two of the bandits have Last Laugh face paint on.
Upstairs, Huron and Snake Eyes look down into a courtyard and see a bunch of bandits, and some baboons being fed by a woman in black and white harlequin facepaint. They pass by and reach the stairs down and hear the muffled explosion from the front of the inn, and rush downstairs.
Meanwhile, Drrk is sneaking through the hallway when the floor beneath him suddenly creaks loudly and explodes. He manages to flip down nimbly and negate the fall, landing in the middle of the fight that has broken out. He immediately starts firing his hand crossbows at everyone in sight. Huron and Snake Eyes rush in from upstairs, but Huron is immediately shield-slammed by the dwarf and battered around a bit. Yggdrasil gets attacked by the bugbears, who are carrying wire garrotes. One starts to choke Yggdrasil. Fraxx puts a curse on the bugbear, but it keeps choking Yggdrasil, opting to take the full damage from the curse. In the back, the mage sends three arcs of lightning shooting at the party.
The tables turn quickly. Cram hits the mage and her two bodyguards with a spell that makes them think they are falling to their death, and Huron gets up and crushes the dwarf with a massive strike. Yggdrasil unleashes a huge healing power and breaks free of the bugbear choking him, and Snake Eyes pursues the dwarf (who is trying to flee) and starts whittling him down. Bonesaw also appears, having missed the teleport ritual the first time, and enters the fight by chopping down one of the bugbears immediately. Huron leaps up on a table (and gets smashed by a bugbear morningstar crit as he does so) and cleaves down three of the bandits.
One of the Last Laughs, seeing the battle turn against them, whips out a hand crossbow decorated with flames and shoots a bolt of fire at a space in the middle of Cram, Drrk, Bonesaw, Yggdrasil and Fraxx, who all catch on fire. Even after the fight, the party members on fire flail around for a bit before managing to extinguish the fire. Drrk marvels at the hand crossbow and takes it.
Next, the Stormhammers decide to burst in on the people/baboons in the courtyard. Fraxx and Cram head upstairs for the small bridge over the courtyard, and Snake Eyes and Drrk also go upstairs, to snipe down into the courtyard from the windows. Bonesaw, Huron and Yggdrasil burst in on the ground level. They tell the people in the courtyard that they'll let them live if they hand over the priest and the wands. The woman in Last Laugh face paint tells them they're too late for both. Bonesaw dragonbreaths the left side, while Cram throws another lightning blast at the right side. Bonesaw then shoulder checks a female bandit into the wall.
Shortly after the fight breaks out, Snake Eyes and Drrk are attacked in the upstairs hallway by some club-wielding goons. Snake Eyes kills one and Drrk shoots his new crossbow's fire bolt at the other, setting him aflame. The thug runs away screaming.
One of the baboon leaps up at the walkway, trying to get to Fraxx and Cram. And completely fails. However, another baboon also tries, and climbs up next to them and starts wrestling with them, shoving them back. The door across the bridge also flies open and more thugs rush out, bashing Fraxx and Cram with clubs. However, Cram responds by grabbing his executioner axe and cutting the baboon in half.
Drrk decides to leap down and get out of the hall so he jumps through the window, sliding down the wall to break his fall. Snake Eyes remains upstairs and picks off one of the thugs on the bridge attacking Cram. Snake Eyes is then attacked in the hall by another Last Laugh, this one better equipped and spinning dual daggers as he rushes at Snake Eyes and....punches the wall, provoking an attack, and also fumbling his dagger out the window (two natural 1's in a row). Snake Eyes decides he doesn't want to fight this new rogue alone and flips backwards out the window, tumbling gracefully to the ground.
Meanwhile, the thugs on the bridge fall - and another bugbear choker rushes out of the doorway, slamming into Fraxx. Fraxx drops a darkness spell on the bridge, and Cram drags himself and Fraxx back down the stairs into the barroom. The bugbear rushes after them, but Fraxx escapes by leaping through a window into the courtyard. Cram hits the bugbear with a thunder spell which throws it back a few steps, and Cram leaps out the window too. He lands on Fraxx, who was just getting up, and knocks them both to the ground. The bugbear runs down, and looks at the courtyard battle. It decides to run away instead.
Bonesaw, Huron and Yggdrasil are battling the rogues and baboons, and Bonesaw manages to reduce the female bandit to zero hp exactly. He sees Snake Eyes land, who tells him "Go upstairs if you want to be a hero!" Bonesaw launches himself at the wall and starts climbing up. The rogue spots him and stabs him deeply in the arm. Bonesaw pretends that he is falling from the injury, but instead lunges forward and grabs the rogue by the throat AND LEAPS OFF THE WALL, CHOKESLAMMING THE ROGUE INTO THE FOUNTAIN COURTYARD BELOW. The rogue breaks one of his legs on the edge of the fountain and is slammed headfirst into the bottom of the fountain.
The rogue quickly surrenders. Huron and Yggdrasil finish off the last few rogues. The last baboon starts cowering in the corner, so Drrk shoots it. It starts fleeing and limping away into the barroom...and Drrk pursues it and kills it.
They start interrogating the clumsy rogue, after tying up the unconscious female bandit. Snake Eyes kicks his broken leg, Drrk shoots him in his unbroken knee, and Bonesaw sticks a finger into the crossbow wound and starts poking around. They ask him where the priest is, and where the wands are. He fearfully tells them that the priest is dead and Triel took the wands. He tells them that Sarcem's body is in the basement, which is below the kitchen. They ask him who sent the Last Laughs to attack the inn - he says that his leader, who he knows only as "The Jester" told them to come here and help the bandits with the attack. Bonesaw takes some leather gloves with red stitching from the rogue, who tells him that the gloves let their wearer do extra bleed damage when wielding a light blade. Snake Eyes takes them. They gag him and tie him up. Bonesaw grabs him and they enter the kitchen area, except for Snake Eyes, who had run upstairs to the window to try to elbow drop the rogue.
As Huron reaches for the door, it explodes outwards and a snarling, ferocious ape-headed man rushes out and attacks - a werebaboon. It swings its greataxe at Huron, knocking him to the ground, and then kicks him in the side with a bladed boot. It then rushes forward into the middle of the group and screams loudly, dazing everyone except Bonesaw (who was out of range) and Snake Eyes, who shoots at the werebaboon from upstairs. Bonesaw drops the dagger-fumbling rogue and starts fighting the werebaboon, commenting on its nice boots. The werebaboon, whose mouth is red with fresh blood, spits out something it was chewing at Bonesaw, which hits him in the chest and falls to the ground - a bloody, chewed human tongue. The Stormhammers stagger around for a short time, but then gather their wits and team up on the werebaboon. Snake Eyes blinds it with a barrage of shuriken and Yggdrasil outlines it with a bright aura, making it an easier target for ranged attacks. They kill the werebaboon and Drrk notices the dagger rogue crawling through the kitchen window. He rushes to the window and shoots at the rogue as he fumbles with a ring, trying to put it on his finger. Both crossbow bolts hit and the rogue dies before he manages to slip on the ring. Drrk grabs it. Meanwhile, Bonesaw strips the werebaboon of the knife boots and puts them on.
Inside the kitchen they find a large crate full of various valuables and treasure that the bandits have looted. In addition to the mundane valuables, they find a leather bag that emanates magic. Fraxx identifies it and finds a staff of fiery might and a set of rune-etched leather armor inside. Cram takes the staff and Fraxx takes the armor.
Crate of Loot (weighs 250 lbs)
Silver candelabra with etched ivy leaves curling up the candlesticks (40gp)
Extravagant evening gown decorated with black silk roses (50gp)
Small wooden chest carved with a dragon in flight (30 gp) containing trade bars, 3 silver (10sp each), and 3 gold (30gp)
Deck of silver-plated tarot cards in a mahogany carrying case (30 gp)
Bottle of fine dwarven stoneblood spirits (30gp)
Butterfly tapestry - 6’ x 5’ silk tapestry with an embroidered scene of giant butterflies swarming a castle, a young maiden riding one of the butterflies. (125gp)
Set of four decorative ornamental swords (45 gp each)
A platinum belt buckle with a crescent moon insignia in black pearl. (70gp)
10 brass lamps with “The Lucky Monkey” engraved on the sides (1 gp each)
A large bowl in good condition, made of hammered gold, worked in a design of leaping dragons fighting warriors armed with spears. (100gp)
Small coral statue of a pair of lizards (90gp)
410 cp, 96 sp, 79 gp in coins
On the wall is the severed head of an older man. His tongue has been ripped out. They assume it is Sarcem and head downstairs, where they find his battered and headless corpse, which still clutches a broken mace. The mace handle still glows with power, so Yggdrasil takes it. They find no wands of control water, but do hear ragged breathing coming from down the hall. Drrk notices some fine red crystals covering the hall and tell the others to wait so he can disarm it - but Bonesaw just steps directly in the crystals, which ignite and burn him. They go to the room at the end of the hall and find Shensen, who is bleeding from multiple wounds and unconscious. Yggdrasil heals her and she jumps awake, but notices the party and recognizes Huron and Snake Eyes, and starts weeping in relief. She tells them that the inn was attacked by bandits and she and Sarcem fled to the basement, but were overrun. It was all she could do to escape to this back room and trap the hallway so they didn't pursue.
The Stormhammers glumy use the ritual scroll of sending to tell Vortimax to start the return teleportation. Shensen comes with them and promises to seek them out in a few days so she can thank them for rescuing her. They bring the unconscious bandit woman with them. Upon their return, Alahind sighs upon discovering they couldn't save Sarcem, but tells them not to beat themselves up over it since they tried their best. He asks if Yggdrasil and Cram are also members of the Stormhammers, and after some quick discussion they answer that yes, they are. He presents them with invitations to the Demonskar Ball and leaves.
They deliver the bad news to Jenya, who mourns for a moment before steeling herself - she's now the head priestess of the church. She asks them to return in the morning so they can discuss what to do now, since the wands are missing and the rains are still coming down heavily. She presents them with a dragon-styled helm made out of dragonscale and bone, which Huron gratefully takes and immediately puts on.
They head back to the Tipped Tankard to eat and rest. Artem welcomes them and notices them carrying the invitations. He tells them to open them, and they are all intrigued about the ball. Bonesaw mentions that he should bring Cora. Artem notes that some of the invitations have different pictures on it. They compare the invites, and sure enough, Cram, Drrk and Snake Eyes have a picture of a crater, while Bonesaw, Fraxx and Huron have a picture of a mountain. Yggdrasil's invitation has a picture of a mountain with horns. Artem thinks about the symbols and tells them they likely indicate what type of costume they have to wear to the ball. According to what he's heard about the event, the crater represents going to the ball dressed as a member of the demonic army, while a mountain means having a costume representing a member of the army that opposed the demons. The horned mountain is a special, unique invitation, and represents attending the ball as the leader of the demon armies. Artem says that they should go to Rhiavadi's Fine Silks, where they can rent the costumes and get more information about the ball.
Huron remembers that he said if he got an extra invite, he would give it to Artem, which he does. He also discovers that all the nobles and notable people in town get to attend automatically, including the Stormblades. This gets him worked up and mad that they were trying to win the Flood Festival contests even though they didn't need the invitations.
LEVEL UP - PARTY IS NOW LEVEL 5
February 6, 2009 - The Stormhammers fight bandits, baboons, Last Laughs and a werebaboon at the Lucky Monkey.
Chancellor Alahind notices Jenya's distress and comes over to ask the party what's going on. After they tell him, he ponders it for a moment before telling the Stormhammers to meet him at Weer's Elixirs in 5 minutes. Alahind explains that since the Lucky Monkey is a day's travel from town, riding by horse would take far too long. He says that instead, Vortimax can perform a teleportation ritual to the Lucky Monkey (Alahind often goes there to drink and relax). He pays for the ritual and the party teleports to a crossroads just down the road from the inn. They rush to the inn, noticing once again the pack of wild baboons that stop foraging for food and watch them instead.
Meanwhile, Cram the Executioner and Yggdrasil meet in the Lucky Monkey stables, having fled their rooms after hearing fighting erupt downstairs. Cram looks for his horse and is horrified to discover that all the horses are gone, and some of the horses were apparently killed and dragged out of the stables to behind the inn, judging from the blood trails. He vows NOT to go out there and find out what could drag off a horse. Cram and Warforged spot the party heading down the road, armed and ready for battle, and decide to go out and meet them. They join the party to try to fight off whoever has attacked the inn.
Huron, Snake Eyes and Drrk decide to scale the wall and enter the building through an upstairs window. Meanwhile, Fraxx, Cram and Yggdrasil wait below. Cram peeks in a slightly-open shutter window and spots a number of people inside the main dining room, including a pair of burly bugbears, a mage behind the bar, and a dwarf with a hammer and shield. A few other bandits and thieves are also there. Everyone is drinking and having a good time, even though the furniture is all destroyed and blood and carnage litters the room.
Upstairs, Huron, Snake Eyes and Drrk sneak inside. Huron and Snake Eyes head to the stairs so they can ambush people downstairs, while Drrk heads the other direction to make sure there's no one who will follow them down.
Downstairs, Yggdrasil notes that the people inside aren't openly hostile, so he throws the doors open and walks inside. Everyone stares at him. He asks how much it would be for a room, to the mage. She looks slowly around the room at all the wreckage and carnage and says "I'm sorry, did you say you wanted a room?" Yggdrasil tells her that he has money, and upon hearing this they all draw weapons. Cram immediately tosses a lightning blast into the room, vaporizing a few minions and causing a huge amount of chaos and damage. They notice that two of the bandits have Last Laugh face paint on.
Upstairs, Huron and Snake Eyes look down into a courtyard and see a bunch of bandits, and some baboons being fed by a woman in black and white harlequin facepaint. They pass by and reach the stairs down and hear the muffled explosion from the front of the inn, and rush downstairs.
Meanwhile, Drrk is sneaking through the hallway when the floor beneath him suddenly creaks loudly and explodes. He manages to flip down nimbly and negate the fall, landing in the middle of the fight that has broken out. He immediately starts firing his hand crossbows at everyone in sight. Huron and Snake Eyes rush in from upstairs, but Huron is immediately shield-slammed by the dwarf and battered around a bit. Yggdrasil gets attacked by the bugbears, who are carrying wire garrotes. One starts to choke Yggdrasil. Fraxx puts a curse on the bugbear, but it keeps choking Yggdrasil, opting to take the full damage from the curse. In the back, the mage sends three arcs of lightning shooting at the party.
Dwarf: Ah, you're up from your nap? Huron: Now you're dead. (Brutal Strike)
The tables turn quickly. Cram hits the mage and her two bodyguards with a spell that makes them think they are falling to their death, and Huron gets up and crushes the dwarf with a massive strike. Yggdrasil unleashes a huge healing power and breaks free of the bugbear choking him, and Snake Eyes pursues the dwarf (who is trying to flee) and starts whittling him down. Bonesaw also appears, having missed the teleport ritual the first time, and enters the fight by chopping down one of the bugbears immediately. Huron leaps up on a table (and gets smashed by a bugbear morningstar crit as he does so) and cleaves down three of the bandits.
One of the Last Laughs, seeing the battle turn against them, whips out a hand crossbow decorated with flames and shoots a bolt of fire at a space in the middle of Cram, Drrk, Bonesaw, Yggdrasil and Fraxx, who all catch on fire. Even after the fight, the party members on fire flail around for a bit before managing to extinguish the fire. Drrk marvels at the hand crossbow and takes it.
Next, the Stormhammers decide to burst in on the people/baboons in the courtyard. Fraxx and Cram head upstairs for the small bridge over the courtyard, and Snake Eyes and Drrk also go upstairs, to snipe down into the courtyard from the windows. Bonesaw, Huron and Yggdrasil burst in on the ground level. They tell the people in the courtyard that they'll let them live if they hand over the priest and the wands. The woman in Last Laugh face paint tells them they're too late for both. Bonesaw dragonbreaths the left side, while Cram throws another lightning blast at the right side. Bonesaw then shoulder checks a female bandit into the wall.
Mark: It's a lucky monkey! (after one of the baboons dodges the lightning blast)
Shortly after the fight breaks out, Snake Eyes and Drrk are attacked in the upstairs hallway by some club-wielding goons. Snake Eyes kills one and Drrk shoots his new crossbow's fire bolt at the other, setting him aflame. The thug runs away screaming.
One of the baboon leaps up at the walkway, trying to get to Fraxx and Cram. And completely fails. However, another baboon also tries, and climbs up next to them and starts wrestling with them, shoving them back. The door across the bridge also flies open and more thugs rush out, bashing Fraxx and Cram with clubs. However, Cram responds by grabbing his executioner axe and cutting the baboon in half.
Drrk decides to leap down and get out of the hall so he jumps through the window, sliding down the wall to break his fall. Snake Eyes remains upstairs and picks off one of the thugs on the bridge attacking Cram. Snake Eyes is then attacked in the hall by another Last Laugh, this one better equipped and spinning dual daggers as he rushes at Snake Eyes and....punches the wall, provoking an attack, and also fumbling his dagger out the window (two natural 1's in a row). Snake Eyes decides he doesn't want to fight this new rogue alone and flips backwards out the window, tumbling gracefully to the ground.
Meanwhile, the thugs on the bridge fall - and another bugbear choker rushes out of the doorway, slamming into Fraxx. Fraxx drops a darkness spell on the bridge, and Cram drags himself and Fraxx back down the stairs into the barroom. The bugbear rushes after them, but Fraxx escapes by leaping through a window into the courtyard. Cram hits the bugbear with a thunder spell which throws it back a few steps, and Cram leaps out the window too. He lands on Fraxx, who was just getting up, and knocks them both to the ground. The bugbear runs down, and looks at the courtyard battle. It decides to run away instead.
Bonesaw, Huron and Yggdrasil are battling the rogues and baboons, and Bonesaw manages to reduce the female bandit to zero hp exactly. He sees Snake Eyes land, who tells him "Go upstairs if you want to be a hero!" Bonesaw launches himself at the wall and starts climbing up. The rogue spots him and stabs him deeply in the arm. Bonesaw pretends that he is falling from the injury, but instead lunges forward and grabs the rogue by the throat AND LEAPS OFF THE WALL, CHOKESLAMMING THE ROGUE INTO THE FOUNTAIN COURTYARD BELOW. The rogue breaks one of his legs on the edge of the fountain and is slammed headfirst into the bottom of the fountain.
DM: The rogue takes...95 damage. He's bloodied. Everyone: HE'S ONLY BLOODIED??
The rogue quickly surrenders. Huron and Yggdrasil finish off the last few rogues. The last baboon starts cowering in the corner, so Drrk shoots it. It starts fleeing and limping away into the barroom...and Drrk pursues it and kills it.
They start interrogating the clumsy rogue, after tying up the unconscious female bandit. Snake Eyes kicks his broken leg, Drrk shoots him in his unbroken knee, and Bonesaw sticks a finger into the crossbow wound and starts poking around. They ask him where the priest is, and where the wands are. He fearfully tells them that the priest is dead and Triel took the wands. He tells them that Sarcem's body is in the basement, which is below the kitchen. They ask him who sent the Last Laughs to attack the inn - he says that his leader, who he knows only as "The Jester" told them to come here and help the bandits with the attack. Bonesaw takes some leather gloves with red stitching from the rogue, who tells him that the gloves let their wearer do extra bleed damage when wielding a light blade. Snake Eyes takes them. They gag him and tie him up. Bonesaw grabs him and they enter the kitchen area, except for Snake Eyes, who had run upstairs to the window to try to elbow drop the rogue.
As Huron reaches for the door, it explodes outwards and a snarling, ferocious ape-headed man rushes out and attacks - a werebaboon. It swings its greataxe at Huron, knocking him to the ground, and then kicks him in the side with a bladed boot. It then rushes forward into the middle of the group and screams loudly, dazing everyone except Bonesaw (who was out of range) and Snake Eyes, who shoots at the werebaboon from upstairs. Bonesaw drops the dagger-fumbling rogue and starts fighting the werebaboon, commenting on its nice boots. The werebaboon, whose mouth is red with fresh blood, spits out something it was chewing at Bonesaw, which hits him in the chest and falls to the ground - a bloody, chewed human tongue. The Stormhammers stagger around for a short time, but then gather their wits and team up on the werebaboon. Snake Eyes blinds it with a barrage of shuriken and Yggdrasil outlines it with a bright aura, making it an easier target for ranged attacks. They kill the werebaboon and Drrk notices the dagger rogue crawling through the kitchen window. He rushes to the window and shoots at the rogue as he fumbles with a ring, trying to put it on his finger. Both crossbow bolts hit and the rogue dies before he manages to slip on the ring. Drrk grabs it. Meanwhile, Bonesaw strips the werebaboon of the knife boots and puts them on.
Inside the kitchen they find a large crate full of various valuables and treasure that the bandits have looted. In addition to the mundane valuables, they find a leather bag that emanates magic. Fraxx identifies it and finds a staff of fiery might and a set of rune-etched leather armor inside. Cram takes the staff and Fraxx takes the armor.
Crate of Loot (weighs 250 lbs)
Silver candelabra with etched ivy leaves curling up the candlesticks (40gp)
Extravagant evening gown decorated with black silk roses (50gp)
Small wooden chest carved with a dragon in flight (30 gp) containing trade bars, 3 silver (10sp each), and 3 gold (30gp)
Deck of silver-plated tarot cards in a mahogany carrying case (30 gp)
Bottle of fine dwarven stoneblood spirits (30gp)
Butterfly tapestry - 6’ x 5’ silk tapestry with an embroidered scene of giant butterflies swarming a castle, a young maiden riding one of the butterflies. (125gp)
Set of four decorative ornamental swords (45 gp each)
A platinum belt buckle with a crescent moon insignia in black pearl. (70gp)
10 brass lamps with “The Lucky Monkey” engraved on the sides (1 gp each)
A large bowl in good condition, made of hammered gold, worked in a design of leaping dragons fighting warriors armed with spears. (100gp)
Small coral statue of a pair of lizards (90gp)
410 cp, 96 sp, 79 gp in coins
On the wall is the severed head of an older man. His tongue has been ripped out. They assume it is Sarcem and head downstairs, where they find his battered and headless corpse, which still clutches a broken mace. The mace handle still glows with power, so Yggdrasil takes it. They find no wands of control water, but do hear ragged breathing coming from down the hall. Drrk notices some fine red crystals covering the hall and tell the others to wait so he can disarm it - but Bonesaw just steps directly in the crystals, which ignite and burn him. They go to the room at the end of the hall and find Shensen, who is bleeding from multiple wounds and unconscious. Yggdrasil heals her and she jumps awake, but notices the party and recognizes Huron and Snake Eyes, and starts weeping in relief. She tells them that the inn was attacked by bandits and she and Sarcem fled to the basement, but were overrun. It was all she could do to escape to this back room and trap the hallway so they didn't pursue.
The Stormhammers glumy use the ritual scroll of sending to tell Vortimax to start the return teleportation. Shensen comes with them and promises to seek them out in a few days so she can thank them for rescuing her. They bring the unconscious bandit woman with them. Upon their return, Alahind sighs upon discovering they couldn't save Sarcem, but tells them not to beat themselves up over it since they tried their best. He asks if Yggdrasil and Cram are also members of the Stormhammers, and after some quick discussion they answer that yes, they are. He presents them with invitations to the Demonskar Ball and leaves.
They deliver the bad news to Jenya, who mourns for a moment before steeling herself - she's now the head priestess of the church. She asks them to return in the morning so they can discuss what to do now, since the wands are missing and the rains are still coming down heavily. She presents them with a dragon-styled helm made out of dragonscale and bone, which Huron gratefully takes and immediately puts on.
They head back to the Tipped Tankard to eat and rest. Artem welcomes them and notices them carrying the invitations. He tells them to open them, and they are all intrigued about the ball. Bonesaw mentions that he should bring Cora. Artem notes that some of the invitations have different pictures on it. They compare the invites, and sure enough, Cram, Drrk and Snake Eyes have a picture of a crater, while Bonesaw, Fraxx and Huron have a picture of a mountain. Yggdrasil's invitation has a picture of a mountain with horns. Artem thinks about the symbols and tells them they likely indicate what type of costume they have to wear to the ball. According to what he's heard about the event, the crater represents going to the ball dressed as a member of the demonic army, while a mountain means having a costume representing a member of the army that opposed the demons. The horned mountain is a special, unique invitation, and represents attending the ball as the leader of the demon armies. Artem says that they should go to Rhiavadi's Fine Silks, where they can rent the costumes and get more information about the ball.
Huron remembers that he said if he got an extra invite, he would give it to Artem, which he does. He also discovers that all the nobles and notable people in town get to attend automatically, including the Stormblades. This gets him worked up and mad that they were trying to win the Flood Festival contests even though they didn't need the invitations.
LEVEL UP - PARTY IS NOW LEVEL 5
C03SE08 - The Flood Festival
Session 8 - The Flood Festival
January 3, 2009 - "The Stormhammers" enjoy the Flood Festival and antagonize the Stormblades.
The party sells their miscellaneous loot from last session and go to see Alahind to see if he's found a house for Snake Eyes to buy. He tells them that yes, he has found them one, but it's half-destroyed from last year's Flood Festival storm, which blew a wooden beam onto the house and destroyed the roof. The owner is an old halfling named Tygot, who runs a shop called Tygot's Old Things. They go to see him.
Tygot's store is a cluttered mess of all sorts of antiques and bizarre oddities. Huron is immediately fascinated by a rack of exotic creature skulls and buys one. Snake Eyes purchases the deed to the house for 50g. Tygot offers to handle the rebuilding and construction needed on the house for 100g, which Snake Eyes accepts.
On their way back to the Tipped Tankard, they notice lots of caravans and visitors arriving for the Flood Festival, which starts tomorrow. One group of performers in particular catch their eye - one person is watching them curiously as they walk by. As they notice him, they notice he isn't dressed like a performer except for his fox design mask - he is wearing adventurer's gear. Fraxx and Snake Eyes notice the mystery person do some drow sign language, asking "Fraxx?". Huron of course doesn't understand it and is confused. Wary, Fraxx doesn't immediately answer, but Snake Eyes responds by pointing to himself.
The fox-masked figure comes over and looks at Snake Eyes, who is a much different body build than Fraxx, and then turns to Fraxx and reveals that it is Fraxx's longtime friend from his homeland, "Dangerous Deadeye Drrk Darkenson." He explains to Fraxx that after Fraxx's house/family was destroyed, Fraxx's father came and found him, and brought him here since they're friends.
Meanwhile, Huron is keeping himself entertained by checking his equipment and flexing. People walking by think he is a street performer and/or homeless and give him 7 copper pieces.
They head back to the Tipped Tankard and Drrk helps himself to one of the vacant rooms, since no one except the party ever stays the night there.
While eating, they discuss how they should maybe register as an adventuring party in town. Alahind already told them that it is 25gp to register, and doing so lets them start building a reputation in town and become known in the area. After some lively discussion and some downright horrible names, they focus on the idea of making a name that mocks the Stormblades. They decide to go with The Stormhammers (other suggestions included Earth Cudgels, Lightning Blades, Thunderhammers, etc.)
They also want to ask the Tipped Tankard owner Pilok if they can buy the bar - but once again he is passed out and hammered. Artem sees them talking about this and tells them they have good timing, as the one time of year Pilok is sober is about to start - during the Flood Festival, because round 2 of the drinking contest takes place at the Tipped Tankard. Seeing their blank looks, he explains that the Drink Down The Flood contest starts on day 1 of the Festival with 64 people at the Town Hall, then progresses through the days at different taverns until the final round on day 6. The whole party decides to sign up.
Artem then also gives them a brief agenda of the rest of the Festival:
Day 1
Opening Ceremonies (Lakeside Pavillion)
Drink Down the Flood! (Town Hall, 64 people)
HURL THE ROCK! (Temple of Kord)
Day 2
Drink Down the Flood! (The Tipped Tankard, 32 people)
Archery Trick Shot Competitions (Temple of Kord)
Day 3
Drink Down the Flood! (The Rolling Barrel, 16 people)
The Crater Lake Monster Hunt (Crater Lake, no limit on entrants)
HURL THE HAMMER! (Temple of Kord)
Day 4
Drink Down the Flood! (The Drunken Morkoth, 8 people)
Team Tug of War (Crater Lake, teams only)
Wintersun Feast (Church of Pelor, cancelled due to their recent hardships)
Day 5
Drink Down the Flood! (The Slippery Eel, 4 people)
HURL THE TREE! (Temple of Kord)
FIGHT THE BEAR! (Temple of Kord)
Day 6
Drink Down the Flood! (The Coy Pixie, 2 people)
Annual Flood Festival Cooking Contest
Day 7
Closing Ceremonies & Lowering of the Waters (Lakeside Pavillion)
Also, the Church of the Raven Queen will be performing nightly displays of magical illusion and grandeur at their cathedral, and that each citizen will also be allowed to speak to a single deceased person that they desire. He also tells them that during the Festival, pretty much everything will be on sale and if they want to buy anything and get probably 10% or 20% off, now is the time.
He also tells them about the Demonskar Ball, the true highlight of the Festival. It takes place a week after the Festival ends and is invitation-only. The only way to get in is to be a noble, be an important person in town (such as a head priest or guard captain)...or make a name for yourself during the Flood Festival. Snake Eyes asks him if they can bring guests if they have an extra invitation. Artem says he doesn't know as he's never attended, but says probably, as long as they do it on the down low. They tell him they will bring him if they get an extra invitation, to which he says he'll gladly go - he's heard the food is excellent.
The party is intrigued by everything and decide to enter all of the events. They ask him about the cooking contest, and he tells them that it is judged on creativity and the exoticness of the meal. The party likes this idea and start designing a party logo for the event, which involves a storm cloud, a hammer, a lightning bolt, a destroyed sword representing the Stormblades...and a bat. Huron gives Artem the sack of 200 dead bats and asks him to put them in the cellar for the contest.
Afterwards, they go find a tailor and commission chef hats made embroidered with the Stormhammers logo, which they intend to break out for the cooking contest on Day 6. They also get their logos sewn into their traveling cloaks.
They also run into Keygan Ghelve, who was found guilty of involvement in the kidnappings, but only partially due to the circumstances. His punishment was to replace all of the town's locks free of charge and provide master keys to the town guard. He greets the party and doesn't hold a grudge, instead thanking them for rescuing Stargloom. He tells them that if they ever need his lock (or lock-opening) expertise, he would be happy to help.
Next was shopping for exotic ingredients for the cooking contest. Snake Eyes found and purchased Dark Naga intestines for 100g, some powdered unicorn horn, and dried Myconid Queen membrane flakes. Huron's contribution...bats.
Snake Eyes stops at an apothecary and buys some antitoxin for the contest. The first of many cheating efforts by the party...
Drink Down the Flood! (Town Hall, 64 people)
The Town Hall is full of people competing in the drinking contest and others just there to watch. They see Alahind and all of the Stormblades entering, and also notice Morate Windwalker there with his wife. Huron, Snake Eyes (after drinking the antitoxin), Bonesaw and Drrk all move on to the second round. Fraxx falls short though, losing to a farmer who jovially slaps him on the back after and introduces himself as Pierto. They notice that Morate, Alahind, and all of the Stormblades except the rogue have also passed this round. The Stormhammers also toss around the idea that since the next round is at the Tipped Tankard, they should get Artem to put extra strong drinks in their competitors' mugs and weak alcohol in their own. They never act on this plan though.
HURL THE ROCK! (Temple of Kord)
They head to the Temple of Kord, which a huge half-orc in cleric robes introduces himself to the crowd as Rokk Strongarm, head priest of the church. The contest is to hurl a small stone either accurately or for distance. Huron and Bonesaw throw for distance, the others opt for accuracy. Snake Eyes wins the accuracy contest and receives a small bronze trophy with a stone inscribed on it. While Rokk is holding up his hand and the crowd is cheering, Snake Eyes notices that Rokk looks a lot like Patch, the orphanage janitor. He asks Rokk if they are related, and Rokk tells him that yes, they are brothers - but Patch has gone missing. He explains that he hasn't had time to investigate due to his duties to the church, but a few days after the orphans were rescued, Patch mysteriously vanished and no one has heard from him since.
Pilok greets the Stormhammers, sober and suave and cleaned up. They ask him about selling the tavern, but he's not very keen on the idea. They put it aside for now.
Highlights of this round:
- Snake Eyes vs Huron. Snake Eyes forfeits. (Takes a sip and forfeits and says "I'M SO WASTEDDDDDD!"
- Cora vs Bonesaw. They slam 8 drinks in rapid succession. Cora wins. After Bonesaw comes back in the room after running to puke outside, he tosses a pickup line at her...and she comes back with "Sorry, I only like WINNERS."
- Drrk vs Pierto. Despite Drrk, Snake Eyes AND Fraxx all helping Drrk cheat and switch glasses and dump ale on the floor, Pierto still wins.
- Morate also advances, as does Alahind. Annah advances, but Zachary does not.
- As Snake Eyes is watching Morate drink, he notices the next table over a human woman with brown hair tied back in a ponytail. She looks familiar but he can't place where he recognizes her from.
Archery Trick Shot Competitions (Temple of Kord)
Drrk and Snake Eyes enter the trick shot contest, as do all of the Stormblades. The judges for the contest are Rokk, Ankhin Taskerhill and Alahind. Drrk is chosen first to shoot. He walks up to the judges, and suddenly throws both hands behind him and shoots. He hits one target okay, but misses the other entirely. Rokk and Ankhin give him fair scores but Taskerhill gives him a very low score. The Stormhammers immediately start hating him because they guess he is going to be unfair in his judging.
Snake Eyes stands on the judge table and does a backflip off, shooting in midair...but botches his acrobatics roll and ends up just falling off the table onto the ground. He then shoots, and hits the target, and bluffs that was his intention all along. He gets okay scores.
As Todd steps up to shoot, a cleric of Kord announces his name loudly to the crowd. Thus do the Stormhammers find out the Stormblades' first and last names:
Annah Taskerhill - Female human warlord, leader of the Stormblades. Regal and beautiful and confident.
Cora Lanthenmire - Red-haired female human fighter. The one Bonesaw has been hitting on. Impatient and brash.
Todd Vanderboren - Male human rogue. Brown hair, weaselly looking. Sneers a lot.
Zachary Hawkwinter - Male human cleric of Kord. Handsome and muscular. Snake Eyes stole his holy symbol when the groups first met.
Todd does a plain, straight shot with a hand crossbow. The Stormhammers boo loudly at the lack of creativity in a trick shot competition.
Cora grabs a longbow but then seems to not know what to do, so eventually just does a running charge up to the shooting line at full speed and fires. She hits the target and is given pretty good marks. Annah and Zachary however miss the target completely and drop out.
Round two, Snake Eyes lines up FIFTEEN targets and blinding barrages them. He hits 5 perfectly, but misses the other 10. Todd brings Annah out to help him and they go behind the target, then suddenly Todd vanishes and appears in front of the target and shoots it. Drrk gets Rokk to go on his hands and knees, and he vaults off Rokk's back and shoots while upside down in mid-air. He bullseyes it, but is so excited he forgets he's in the air and crashes down, knocking himself unconscious. He gets top marks. Cora then says she can also use multiple targets, and lines up 5 in a row, saying she will pierce through all of them. She pierces through FOUR of them (critical hit), and receives similar marks to Drrk.
Rokk says that technically Cora has won, because of her higher first-round scores. But due to the spectacular two shots Drrk and Cora just pulled off, they should have a final round. Cora hmms and Drrk tells her he is game if she is. She agrees.
They decide to shoot at the same time. Cora nocks a longbow, holds the arrow in place with the hand that is holding the bow, then gets Zachary to nock a second longbow and put it in her other hand. Drrk sees this, and purposefully takes his time readying his crossbows and preparing - long enough that her arms start to wobble from the strain. Finally he signals that he is ready. She shoots, and Drrk immediately drops a darkness globe on himself and fires, shattering both of her arrows as they soar towards the target. Drrk then uses his action point for a second shot and bullseyes it, winning the contest. He wins a small trophy with a golden archery target, with a hole through the bullseye.
Today's round of drinking takes place at The Rolling Barrel, a nice and clean tavern located only a few blocks away from the city guard barracks. A wooden rail circles the tavern near the roof, and a small barrel rolls continually around in a large circuit.
Results of this round:
Annah vs a Cauldron citizen. Annah wins.
(round with two nameless NPCs)
Huron vs Pierto. Huron wins.
Morate vs the human ponytail woman. Morate wins.
Cora vs a Cauldron citizen. Cora wins.
(round with two nameless NPCs)
Alahind vs a Cauldron citizen. Alahind wins.
(round with two nameless NPCs)
The Crater Lake Monster Hunt (Crater Lake, no limit on entrants)
All of the Stormhammers enter, as do the Stormblades and hundreds of others. When the whistle blows, everyone jumps in and Drrk immediately fails his Athletics check and starts to drown. Fortunately there are trained swimmers accompanying the participants and one drags Drrk to shore. Almost immediately Huron wins the contest and finds the correct boat. As he puts his peg into the boat, a huge magical illusion appears above the lake of a giant glowing tentacle writhing around, which then slithers down into the water. Huron is then outlined in magical light to show everyone he has won. He receives a medium sized trophy depicting a man reaching into a pool of water, and a tentacle reaching up behind him.
HURL THE HAMMER! (Temple of Kord)
For the second "Hurling" contest, Rokk reveals the hammers that will be thrown - giant seven-foot long hammers weighing over 100 lbs, with thick leather straps wrapped around the end. He explains that the throwers have to spin around rapidly to gain momentum, and then release the hammer in the right direction (an athletics check and then an attack roll). Snake Eyes is the only Stormhammer to have a really good throw, but Annah, Zachary and Cora all have good throws as well. However Snake Eyes still ends up winning the contest, and receives a small silver trophy with a hammer inscribed on it.
The next round of drinking takes place at The Drunken Morkoth, a common inn for wealthy visitors to town and merchants. The walls are adorned with various murals depicting the Morkoth - the fabled monster of Crater Lake - engaged in various drunken activities.
Results of this round:
Annah vs a Cauldron citizen. Annah wins.
Huron vs Morate. Huron wins. Morate shakes his hand after.
Cora vs a Cauldron citizen. Cora wins.
Alahind vs a Cauldron citizen. Alahind wins.
Team Tug of War (Crater Lake, teams only)
The Stormhammers are going to skip this event, before discovering that there is only one other team entered - the Stormblades. Hearing this, they immediately sign up. Bonesaw, Huron, Snake Eyes and Drrk take part. They get off to a poor start, but quickly turn the tables on the Stormblades and pull them into the water. For good measure the party makes fun of the Stormblades as they swim to shore. The Lord Mayor presents the party with small platinum medals with a wave design on it.
Wintersun Feast (Church of Pelor, cancelled due to their recent hardships)
Even though the feast is cancelled, the party decides to go visit the church and see how Kristof is doing. He greets them warmly and Snake Eyes asks for a blessing, which Kristof gives him. Snake Eyes then asks if he can join the church. Kristof is surprised but says of course, and asks Snake Eyes to come by once a week to learn the ways of the Morninglord.
That evening, the party decides to go to the Cathedral of the Raven Queen and check out the magical display, and also to commune with some dead people they have some questions for. There are lots of people watching the displays, and Raven Queen clerics are filtering through the crowd offering blessings. The actual Cathedral is majestic and huge, reaching up into the sky, made of black marble and obsidian. They meet the head priestess of the church, Embril, who greets them and says that her second will take their requests, a cleric named Iverson.
Huron speaks with his dead father.
Who killed you? Your mother.
Why did she kill you? Because I discovered her secret.
What was her secret? When the moon is full, she transforms.
Snake Eyes speaks with Drakthar.
Who do you work for? Master Orbius.
Where is the decanter of endless water? I sold it.
What are the names of the people you sold it to? Triel, Skaven, and Tarkilar.
Fraxx first asks to speak with his father. Iverson tries, then tells him that his father isn't dead. The party decides to save Fraxx's commune with dead opportunity for later.
Drrk has no one to speak with, but they use his turn to ??? I forget this too.
The party heads to The Slippery Eel tavern, noticing that the rain that has been falling the last few days has been steadily increasing, and it is raining fairly heavily today. The Slippery Eel is a pretty high-class restaurant/tavern, and many pleasant meals can be ordered as well as the usual wide range of drinks.
Results of this round:
Annah vs Huron. Huron wins and advances to the finals.
Cora vs Alahind. Alahind wins and advances to the finals.
HURL THE TREE! (Temple of Kord)
The final "Hurl" competition hosted by the Church of Kord is to throw a giant caber (essentially a giant log) as far as possible. Most of the Stormhammers and Stormblades enter, but to the shock of everyone there, it is Fraxx (who has only 8 str) who somehow manages to fling the caber the farthest. He receives a small gold trophy with a tree inscribed on it.
FIGHT THE BEAR! (Temple of Kord)
The final competition is a combat one - to fight a bear. Rokk reveals that this contest is a 1-on-1 fight against a bear inside a 30' by 30' metal cage. It is not a lethal fight - the bear is well trained and the participant's weapons are enchanted to deal non-lethal damage. The Stormhammers draw straws to see who will get to fight the bear, and Drrk wins. He heads in and the gate is closed & locked behind him.
Drrk hits the bear with a large number of abilities and shots, and the bear takes a lot of damage but still wears Drrk down quite a bit. When the bear is almost defeated, it roars and rages. Huron, outside the cage, notices one of the bear trainers run up to Rokk in a panic, and Huron overhears that the bear is going against its training and is entering a berserker rage. Huron runs up to the door and starts yanking and pulling on it, but it is difficult due to it being made of metal and because of the slippery rain. Meanwhile, Drrk starts taking lethal damage and realizes something is wrong and, though near death, peppers the bear with more hand crossbow shots. Huron rips the door of the hinges and rushes in just as the bear drops to all fours with a whimper and tries to run past Drrk & Huron and out of the cage. Huron takes mercy on the bear and decides to knock it out BY PUNCHING IT IN THE HEAD. He manages to knock it unconscious. Though shaken and angry at the trainers, Rokk rewards Drrk with a statue depicting a bear rearing up and about to attack a man.
The final round takes place in The Coy Pixie, an elegant and high-class ballroom. The place is packed to watch Huron take on Alahind. Huron drinks some antitoxin before the match, but some bad rolls quickly spell his defeat. To his surprise, Alahind lets him have the trophy and reward, since he says he doesn't need it. The reward is a large gold and crystal tankard trophy, with a permanent illusion cast on the tankard to make it look like it always has ale sloshing around inside. Huron celebrates by filling it with ale and drinking out of it. After the celebration, Alahind congratulates Huron on making it to the finals, and gives him a sealed envelope and tells him to open it later.
The party ends up with some time to kill, and then have the idea to use Fraxx's commune with dead spell to speak with a famous dead chef, and have the chef give them help and tips for the cooking contest tomorrow. Fraxx heads to the Bluewater Academy, a combination library/mage school, and instantly discovers (natural 20 on history check) that the founder of Cauldron, Surabar Spellmason, was not only an archmage and famous adventurer, but an extremely talented chef.
They rush to the Cathedral of the Raven Queen and Fraxx tells Iverson who he wants to speak to. Iverson casts the spell, remarking "A popular request this year," to which the party curses, thinking that others might have had the same idea. The spirit of Surabar materializes, and starts having a conversation with Fraxx, and soon the rest of the Stormhammers as well. They gradually convince him not only to give them some cooking tips, but also to stay with them during the actual cooking contest to benefit from his expertise. (Snake Eyes tells him numerous times that Surabar can possess him, but the ghost declines.) During the conversation they also discover that the magic cauldron Bonesaw found in Drakthar's lair used to be Surabar's, and it has a trick to it - when a flaming sphere is used to cook whatever is in the cauldron, it will taste extra delicious and tasty.
Hearing this, Huron rushes out the door to find a mage. He remembers an advertisement in a previous Cauldron Chronicle for magical potions, a store called Weer's Elixirs. He heads there and meets Vortimax Weer, a cranky and grumpy wizard.
Vortimax isn't really interested in the cooking contest OR showing up the Stormblades, but he eventually says that he will help in exchange for a potion he's never seen before. The Stormhammers, who have now convinced the spirit of Surabar to help them in exchange for naming their meal after Cauldron, check through their loot and find two potions, an orange one and a milky white one. They give him both. He hmms at the milky white one, and says he's never seen it, so he'll help. The other one is glances at and tells them is a healing potion. The Stormhammers leave, greatly enjoying the idea that they might have just given him a bottle of sperm.
The Stormhammers leave and are doing some more shopping and wandering around, when they receive a message (unsigned) asking to meet them, immediately, at the Rolling Barrel. Intrigued, they head there but it is empty other than the bartender. The Stormhammers are puzzling over the note when the door slams open - it's the Stormblades. They are armed and carrying their weapons (though sheathed.)
Annah steps forward and immediately starts verbally insulting the Stormhammers. Huron steps forward and starts trading insults back and forth, commenting on how her father does everything for her. She responds with "At least I know who my father is." Huron responds that his father is dead. Annah rolls her eyes and says "Huh! Big surprise." And Huron leaps forward to fight, but is held back by Snake Eyes. However, Cora pushes her way to the front and challenges Huron to a fight - fists only. Huron agrees. They start fighting and trading heavy punches. They miss a lot, but Cora hits Huron good a few times, her gauntlets glowing a fierce red with the force of her hits. Huron responds by smashing a mug into her face, blinding her.
Both groups settle back to watch, Snake Eyes sidling up next to Todd. He starts whispering insults at Todd and after a few rounds of this Todd flips out and attacks Snake Eyes with his mace, but Snake Eyes blocks the attack and they leap back from one another, tipping over a table. Zachary notices and looks over at both rogues, who both shout "He attacked me!!" Zachary draws his weapon, a giant warmaul resembling one of the hammers from the Hurl The Hammer contest, and attacks Snake Eyes. The attack misses and hits the tipped-over table, destroying it. Annah also attacks, wielding a shield and trident, and the Stormhammers also leap into the fray.
At this point Bonesaw bursts into the tavern, having been left behind at the Tipped Tankard. He sees Cora fist-fighting Huron, and notices the other 3 Stormblades attacking Snake Eyes, so he leaps up on a table and fire breaths, uses his ring-recharge, and fire breaths again. He ends up burning Todd, Annah and Zachary each once. Snake Eyes throws a barrage of shurikens at them as well, drawing blood on all 3 (not Cora), but Todd responds by teleporting behind Snake Eyes and crushing him with a powerful mace strike (crit), and somersaulting away. Drrk takes out Todd with a crossbow shot, which spreads Fraxx's warlock curse that was on him to the other 3 Stormblades. Drrk shouts at Annah to stop now before this goes any further (gesturing at the wounded Todd). Annah responds by glaring at him and saying "We shall remember this!" and whistles loudly. A dozen city guards rush into the tavern and break up all the fights. The guard seemingly in charge reads the Stormhammers the riot act, while the Stormblades simply walk out. The guard is threatening them with a cold night in jail when Skylar rushes into the tavern, demanding that the guards all leave and stop wasting everyone's time. The guards filter out.
The party starts telling him about the fight and what started it, and he interrupts them saying he knows very well what happened. He tells them that this kind of thing happens all the time, and that because they are all nobles and rich, and politically connected, there isn't anything the city guard can really do. The Stormblades ask him what they can do, Skylar shrugs helplessly and says "become nobles?" He reminds them that the cooking contest is set to begin in a few minutes, so they rush off to the contest.
Annual Flood Festival Cooking Contest
Vortimax meets them there and casts flaming sphere for them, and under Surabar's guidance they made an incredibly tasty meal (d30+20 for how tasty it is). Huron has a taste and loves it so much he has to be held back from eating the rest. The judges sample a few of the other dishes, including Zachary Hawkwinter I's exotic dessert, but once they try the Stormhammers' entry they freak out and end the contest immediately and declare them the winners. They each receive a golden trophy shaped like a bowl with a spoon sticking out of it.
Everyone shows up to watch the closing ceremonies. Once again the Lord Mayor and Alahind are up on stage, and the Lord Mayor is giving a long speech about how successful this festival was. Before be begins his speech, he calls the Stormhammers up on stage to recognize them for their impressive feats during the Festival, and hands each of them a small sealed envelope while the crowd applauds and cheers. As they walk off the stage, they see the Stormblades angrily leave the pavillion. The Lord Mayor's speech takes a long time...so long that people start to get antsy and confused. The Stormhammers see Jenya in the crowd, and notice her suddenly grow agitated and extremely concerned. She rushes up to the stage and whispers something to the Lord Mayor, who tells the crowd that the closing ceremonies will have to be delayed slightly, as there seems to be a small problem with some of the wands.
The crowd disperses, and Jenya spots the party and rushes up to them. She tells them she just received a magical sending from the head priest of Bahamut, Sarcem, who had been away from Cauldron on a mission to purchase wands of control water (since the other churches have stopped creating them.) He was on the way back when he was ambushed by bandits led by a murderous apeman at The Lucky Monkey Inn. The message sounded like he was in serious danger. Jenya begs the Stormhammers to rush to the Lucky Monkey and save Sarcem and the wands. Someone asks her why she doesn't ask the Stormblades, but she refuses instantly, saying that the Stormhammers are the proven ones, they saved the orphans, they defeated the vampire, and she trusts them. They agree to help.
January 3, 2009 - "The Stormhammers" enjoy the Flood Festival and antagonize the Stormblades.
The party sells their miscellaneous loot from last session and go to see Alahind to see if he's found a house for Snake Eyes to buy. He tells them that yes, he has found them one, but it's half-destroyed from last year's Flood Festival storm, which blew a wooden beam onto the house and destroyed the roof. The owner is an old halfling named Tygot, who runs a shop called Tygot's Old Things. They go to see him.
Tygot's store is a cluttered mess of all sorts of antiques and bizarre oddities. Huron is immediately fascinated by a rack of exotic creature skulls and buys one. Snake Eyes purchases the deed to the house for 50g. Tygot offers to handle the rebuilding and construction needed on the house for 100g, which Snake Eyes accepts.
On their way back to the Tipped Tankard, they notice lots of caravans and visitors arriving for the Flood Festival, which starts tomorrow. One group of performers in particular catch their eye - one person is watching them curiously as they walk by. As they notice him, they notice he isn't dressed like a performer except for his fox design mask - he is wearing adventurer's gear. Fraxx and Snake Eyes notice the mystery person do some drow sign language, asking "Fraxx?". Huron of course doesn't understand it and is confused. Wary, Fraxx doesn't immediately answer, but Snake Eyes responds by pointing to himself.
Mark: I put a hand around my rod.
The fox-masked figure comes over and looks at Snake Eyes, who is a much different body build than Fraxx, and then turns to Fraxx and reveals that it is Fraxx's longtime friend from his homeland, "Dangerous Deadeye Drrk Darkenson." He explains to Fraxx that after Fraxx's house/family was destroyed, Fraxx's father came and found him, and brought him here since they're friends.
Meanwhile, Huron is keeping himself entertained by checking his equipment and flexing. People walking by think he is a street performer and/or homeless and give him 7 copper pieces.
They head back to the Tipped Tankard and Drrk helps himself to one of the vacant rooms, since no one except the party ever stays the night there.
While eating, they discuss how they should maybe register as an adventuring party in town. Alahind already told them that it is 25gp to register, and doing so lets them start building a reputation in town and become known in the area. After some lively discussion and some downright horrible names, they focus on the idea of making a name that mocks the Stormblades. They decide to go with The Stormhammers (other suggestions included Earth Cudgels, Lightning Blades, Thunderhammers, etc.)
They also want to ask the Tipped Tankard owner Pilok if they can buy the bar - but once again he is passed out and hammered. Artem sees them talking about this and tells them they have good timing, as the one time of year Pilok is sober is about to start - during the Flood Festival, because round 2 of the drinking contest takes place at the Tipped Tankard. Seeing their blank looks, he explains that the Drink Down The Flood contest starts on day 1 of the Festival with 64 people at the Town Hall, then progresses through the days at different taverns until the final round on day 6. The whole party decides to sign up.
Artem then also gives them a brief agenda of the rest of the Festival:
Day 1
Opening Ceremonies (Lakeside Pavillion)
Drink Down the Flood! (Town Hall, 64 people)
HURL THE ROCK! (Temple of Kord)
Day 2
Drink Down the Flood! (The Tipped Tankard, 32 people)
Archery Trick Shot Competitions (Temple of Kord)
Day 3
Drink Down the Flood! (The Rolling Barrel, 16 people)
The Crater Lake Monster Hunt (Crater Lake, no limit on entrants)
HURL THE HAMMER! (Temple of Kord)
Day 4
Drink Down the Flood! (The Drunken Morkoth, 8 people)
Team Tug of War (Crater Lake, teams only)
Wintersun Feast (Church of Pelor, cancelled due to their recent hardships)
Day 5
Drink Down the Flood! (The Slippery Eel, 4 people)
HURL THE TREE! (Temple of Kord)
FIGHT THE BEAR! (Temple of Kord)
Day 6
Drink Down the Flood! (The Coy Pixie, 2 people)
Annual Flood Festival Cooking Contest
Day 7
Closing Ceremonies & Lowering of the Waters (Lakeside Pavillion)
Also, the Church of the Raven Queen will be performing nightly displays of magical illusion and grandeur at their cathedral, and that each citizen will also be allowed to speak to a single deceased person that they desire. He also tells them that during the Festival, pretty much everything will be on sale and if they want to buy anything and get probably 10% or 20% off, now is the time.
He also tells them about the Demonskar Ball, the true highlight of the Festival. It takes place a week after the Festival ends and is invitation-only. The only way to get in is to be a noble, be an important person in town (such as a head priest or guard captain)...or make a name for yourself during the Flood Festival. Snake Eyes asks him if they can bring guests if they have an extra invitation. Artem says he doesn't know as he's never attended, but says probably, as long as they do it on the down low. They tell him they will bring him if they get an extra invitation, to which he says he'll gladly go - he's heard the food is excellent.
The party is intrigued by everything and decide to enter all of the events. They ask him about the cooking contest, and he tells them that it is judged on creativity and the exoticness of the meal. The party likes this idea and start designing a party logo for the event, which involves a storm cloud, a hammer, a lightning bolt, a destroyed sword representing the Stormblades...and a bat. Huron gives Artem the sack of 200 dead bats and asks him to put them in the cellar for the contest.
Jamie: I shoot Shaun in the kneecap. Shaun: Except you roll a 17 and die. Jamie rolls a 17. Jamie: SHIT!
Day One
The party attends the opening ceremonies and listens to the Lord Mayor give a speech about the history of the Flood Festival (which Mark dictates, hilariously). They see Alahind up on stage, already drinking, and remember reading in the Cauldron Chronicle that he has been the Drink Down The Flood champion for 25 years in a row. They grimly anticipate matching up against him.Afterwards, they go find a tailor and commission chef hats made embroidered with the Stormhammers logo, which they intend to break out for the cooking contest on Day 6. They also get their logos sewn into their traveling cloaks.
They also run into Keygan Ghelve, who was found guilty of involvement in the kidnappings, but only partially due to the circumstances. His punishment was to replace all of the town's locks free of charge and provide master keys to the town guard. He greets the party and doesn't hold a grudge, instead thanking them for rescuing Stargloom. He tells them that if they ever need his lock (or lock-opening) expertise, he would be happy to help.
Next was shopping for exotic ingredients for the cooking contest. Snake Eyes found and purchased Dark Naga intestines for 100g, some powdered unicorn horn, and dried Myconid Queen membrane flakes. Huron's contribution...bats.
Snake Eyes stops at an apothecary and buys some antitoxin for the contest. The first of many cheating efforts by the party...
Drink Down the Flood! (Town Hall, 64 people)
The Town Hall is full of people competing in the drinking contest and others just there to watch. They see Alahind and all of the Stormblades entering, and also notice Morate Windwalker there with his wife. Huron, Snake Eyes (after drinking the antitoxin), Bonesaw and Drrk all move on to the second round. Fraxx falls short though, losing to a farmer who jovially slaps him on the back after and introduces himself as Pierto. They notice that Morate, Alahind, and all of the Stormblades except the rogue have also passed this round. The Stormhammers also toss around the idea that since the next round is at the Tipped Tankard, they should get Artem to put extra strong drinks in their competitors' mugs and weak alcohol in their own. They never act on this plan though.
Jamie: I'm taking your anal virginity is that ok? Mark: Are you saying that as you or Dale? Jamie: ...Dale.
HURL THE ROCK! (Temple of Kord)
They head to the Temple of Kord, which a huge half-orc in cleric robes introduces himself to the crowd as Rokk Strongarm, head priest of the church. The contest is to hurl a small stone either accurately or for distance. Huron and Bonesaw throw for distance, the others opt for accuracy. Snake Eyes wins the accuracy contest and receives a small bronze trophy with a stone inscribed on it. While Rokk is holding up his hand and the crowd is cheering, Snake Eyes notices that Rokk looks a lot like Patch, the orphanage janitor. He asks Rokk if they are related, and Rokk tells him that yes, they are brothers - but Patch has gone missing. He explains that he hasn't had time to investigate due to his duties to the church, but a few days after the orphans were rescued, Patch mysteriously vanished and no one has heard from him since.
Day Two
Drink Down the Flood! (The Tipped Tankard, 32 people)Pilok greets the Stormhammers, sober and suave and cleaned up. They ask him about selling the tavern, but he's not very keen on the idea. They put it aside for now.
Pilok: I appreciate the offer but- Fraxx: STORMHAMMERS!!
Highlights of this round:
- Snake Eyes vs Huron. Snake Eyes forfeits. (Takes a sip and forfeits and says "I'M SO WASTEDDDDDD!"
- Cora vs Bonesaw. They slam 8 drinks in rapid succession. Cora wins. After Bonesaw comes back in the room after running to puke outside, he tosses a pickup line at her...and she comes back with "Sorry, I only like WINNERS."
- Drrk vs Pierto. Despite Drrk, Snake Eyes AND Fraxx all helping Drrk cheat and switch glasses and dump ale on the floor, Pierto still wins.
- Morate also advances, as does Alahind. Annah advances, but Zachary does not.
- As Snake Eyes is watching Morate drink, he notices the next table over a human woman with brown hair tied back in a ponytail. She looks familiar but he can't place where he recognizes her from.
Archery Trick Shot Competitions (Temple of Kord)
Drrk and Snake Eyes enter the trick shot contest, as do all of the Stormblades. The judges for the contest are Rokk, Ankhin Taskerhill and Alahind. Drrk is chosen first to shoot. He walks up to the judges, and suddenly throws both hands behind him and shoots. He hits one target okay, but misses the other entirely. Rokk and Ankhin give him fair scores but Taskerhill gives him a very low score. The Stormhammers immediately start hating him because they guess he is going to be unfair in his judging.
Snake Eyes stands on the judge table and does a backflip off, shooting in midair...but botches his acrobatics roll and ends up just falling off the table onto the ground. He then shoots, and hits the target, and bluffs that was his intention all along. He gets okay scores.
As Todd steps up to shoot, a cleric of Kord announces his name loudly to the crowd. Thus do the Stormhammers find out the Stormblades' first and last names:
Annah Taskerhill - Female human warlord, leader of the Stormblades. Regal and beautiful and confident.
Cora Lanthenmire - Red-haired female human fighter. The one Bonesaw has been hitting on. Impatient and brash.
Todd Vanderboren - Male human rogue. Brown hair, weaselly looking. Sneers a lot.
Zachary Hawkwinter - Male human cleric of Kord. Handsome and muscular. Snake Eyes stole his holy symbol when the groups first met.
Todd does a plain, straight shot with a hand crossbow. The Stormhammers boo loudly at the lack of creativity in a trick shot competition.
Drrk: More like VANDER-BORING!
Cora grabs a longbow but then seems to not know what to do, so eventually just does a running charge up to the shooting line at full speed and fires. She hits the target and is given pretty good marks. Annah and Zachary however miss the target completely and drop out.
Jamie (as Bonesaw): You can nock MY longbow!
Round two, Snake Eyes lines up FIFTEEN targets and blinding barrages them. He hits 5 perfectly, but misses the other 10. Todd brings Annah out to help him and they go behind the target, then suddenly Todd vanishes and appears in front of the target and shoots it. Drrk gets Rokk to go on his hands and knees, and he vaults off Rokk's back and shoots while upside down in mid-air. He bullseyes it, but is so excited he forgets he's in the air and crashes down, knocking himself unconscious. He gets top marks. Cora then says she can also use multiple targets, and lines up 5 in a row, saying she will pierce through all of them. She pierces through FOUR of them (critical hit), and receives similar marks to Drrk.
Rokk says that technically Cora has won, because of her higher first-round scores. But due to the spectacular two shots Drrk and Cora just pulled off, they should have a final round. Cora hmms and Drrk tells her he is game if she is. She agrees.
They decide to shoot at the same time. Cora nocks a longbow, holds the arrow in place with the hand that is holding the bow, then gets Zachary to nock a second longbow and put it in her other hand. Drrk sees this, and purposefully takes his time readying his crossbows and preparing - long enough that her arms start to wobble from the strain. Finally he signals that he is ready. She shoots, and Drrk immediately drops a darkness globe on himself and fires, shattering both of her arrows as they soar towards the target. Drrk then uses his action point for a second shot and bullseyes it, winning the contest. He wins a small trophy with a golden archery target, with a hole through the bullseye.
Day Three
Drink Down the Flood! (The Rolling Barrel, 16 people)Today's round of drinking takes place at The Rolling Barrel, a nice and clean tavern located only a few blocks away from the city guard barracks. A wooden rail circles the tavern near the roof, and a small barrel rolls continually around in a large circuit.
Results of this round:
Annah vs a Cauldron citizen. Annah wins.
(round with two nameless NPCs)
Huron vs Pierto. Huron wins.
Morate vs the human ponytail woman. Morate wins.
Cora vs a Cauldron citizen. Cora wins.
(round with two nameless NPCs)
Alahind vs a Cauldron citizen. Alahind wins.
(round with two nameless NPCs)
The Crater Lake Monster Hunt (Crater Lake, no limit on entrants)
All of the Stormhammers enter, as do the Stormblades and hundreds of others. When the whistle blows, everyone jumps in and Drrk immediately fails his Athletics check and starts to drown. Fortunately there are trained swimmers accompanying the participants and one drags Drrk to shore. Almost immediately Huron wins the contest and finds the correct boat. As he puts his peg into the boat, a huge magical illusion appears above the lake of a giant glowing tentacle writhing around, which then slithers down into the water. Huron is then outlined in magical light to show everyone he has won. He receives a medium sized trophy depicting a man reaching into a pool of water, and a tentacle reaching up behind him.
HURL THE HAMMER! (Temple of Kord)
For the second "Hurling" contest, Rokk reveals the hammers that will be thrown - giant seven-foot long hammers weighing over 100 lbs, with thick leather straps wrapped around the end. He explains that the throwers have to spin around rapidly to gain momentum, and then release the hammer in the right direction (an athletics check and then an attack roll). Snake Eyes is the only Stormhammer to have a really good throw, but Annah, Zachary and Cora all have good throws as well. However Snake Eyes still ends up winning the contest, and receives a small silver trophy with a hammer inscribed on it.
Day Four
Drink Down the Flood! (The Drunken Morkoth, 8 people)The next round of drinking takes place at The Drunken Morkoth, a common inn for wealthy visitors to town and merchants. The walls are adorned with various murals depicting the Morkoth - the fabled monster of Crater Lake - engaged in various drunken activities.
Results of this round:
Annah vs a Cauldron citizen. Annah wins.
Huron vs Morate. Huron wins. Morate shakes his hand after.
Cora vs a Cauldron citizen. Cora wins.
Alahind vs a Cauldron citizen. Alahind wins.
Team Tug of War (Crater Lake, teams only)
The Stormhammers are going to skip this event, before discovering that there is only one other team entered - the Stormblades. Hearing this, they immediately sign up. Bonesaw, Huron, Snake Eyes and Drrk take part. They get off to a poor start, but quickly turn the tables on the Stormblades and pull them into the water. For good measure the party makes fun of the Stormblades as they swim to shore. The Lord Mayor presents the party with small platinum medals with a wave design on it.
Wintersun Feast (Church of Pelor, cancelled due to their recent hardships)
Even though the feast is cancelled, the party decides to go visit the church and see how Kristof is doing. He greets them warmly and Snake Eyes asks for a blessing, which Kristof gives him. Snake Eyes then asks if he can join the church. Kristof is surprised but says of course, and asks Snake Eyes to come by once a week to learn the ways of the Morninglord.
That evening, the party decides to go to the Cathedral of the Raven Queen and check out the magical display, and also to commune with some dead people they have some questions for. There are lots of people watching the displays, and Raven Queen clerics are filtering through the crowd offering blessings. The actual Cathedral is majestic and huge, reaching up into the sky, made of black marble and obsidian. They meet the head priestess of the church, Embril, who greets them and says that her second will take their requests, a cleric named Iverson.
Huron speaks with his dead father.
Who killed you? Your mother.
Why did she kill you? Because I discovered her secret.
What was her secret? When the moon is full, she transforms.
Snake Eyes speaks with Drakthar.
Who do you work for? Master Orbius.
Where is the decanter of endless water? I sold it.
What are the names of the people you sold it to? Triel, Skaven, and Tarkilar.
Fraxx first asks to speak with his father. Iverson tries, then tells him that his father isn't dead. The party decides to save Fraxx's commune with dead opportunity for later.
Drrk has no one to speak with, but they use his turn to ??? I forget this too.
Day Five
Drink Down the Flood! (The Slippery Eel, 4 people)The party heads to The Slippery Eel tavern, noticing that the rain that has been falling the last few days has been steadily increasing, and it is raining fairly heavily today. The Slippery Eel is a pretty high-class restaurant/tavern, and many pleasant meals can be ordered as well as the usual wide range of drinks.
Results of this round:
Annah vs Huron. Huron wins and advances to the finals.
Cora vs Alahind. Alahind wins and advances to the finals.
HURL THE TREE! (Temple of Kord)
The final "Hurl" competition hosted by the Church of Kord is to throw a giant caber (essentially a giant log) as far as possible. Most of the Stormhammers and Stormblades enter, but to the shock of everyone there, it is Fraxx (who has only 8 str) who somehow manages to fling the caber the farthest. He receives a small gold trophy with a tree inscribed on it.
FIGHT THE BEAR! (Temple of Kord)
The final competition is a combat one - to fight a bear. Rokk reveals that this contest is a 1-on-1 fight against a bear inside a 30' by 30' metal cage. It is not a lethal fight - the bear is well trained and the participant's weapons are enchanted to deal non-lethal damage. The Stormhammers draw straws to see who will get to fight the bear, and Drrk wins. He heads in and the gate is closed & locked behind him.
Drrk hits the bear with a large number of abilities and shots, and the bear takes a lot of damage but still wears Drrk down quite a bit. When the bear is almost defeated, it roars and rages. Huron, outside the cage, notices one of the bear trainers run up to Rokk in a panic, and Huron overhears that the bear is going against its training and is entering a berserker rage. Huron runs up to the door and starts yanking and pulling on it, but it is difficult due to it being made of metal and because of the slippery rain. Meanwhile, Drrk starts taking lethal damage and realizes something is wrong and, though near death, peppers the bear with more hand crossbow shots. Huron rips the door of the hinges and rushes in just as the bear drops to all fours with a whimper and tries to run past Drrk & Huron and out of the cage. Huron takes mercy on the bear and decides to knock it out BY PUNCHING IT IN THE HEAD. He manages to knock it unconscious. Though shaken and angry at the trainers, Rokk rewards Drrk with a statue depicting a bear rearing up and about to attack a man.
Day Six
Drink Down the Flood! (The Coy Pixie, 2 people)The final round takes place in The Coy Pixie, an elegant and high-class ballroom. The place is packed to watch Huron take on Alahind. Huron drinks some antitoxin before the match, but some bad rolls quickly spell his defeat. To his surprise, Alahind lets him have the trophy and reward, since he says he doesn't need it. The reward is a large gold and crystal tankard trophy, with a permanent illusion cast on the tankard to make it look like it always has ale sloshing around inside. Huron celebrates by filling it with ale and drinking out of it. After the celebration, Alahind congratulates Huron on making it to the finals, and gives him a sealed envelope and tells him to open it later.
The party ends up with some time to kill, and then have the idea to use Fraxx's commune with dead spell to speak with a famous dead chef, and have the chef give them help and tips for the cooking contest tomorrow. Fraxx heads to the Bluewater Academy, a combination library/mage school, and instantly discovers (natural 20 on history check) that the founder of Cauldron, Surabar Spellmason, was not only an archmage and famous adventurer, but an extremely talented chef.
They rush to the Cathedral of the Raven Queen and Fraxx tells Iverson who he wants to speak to. Iverson casts the spell, remarking "A popular request this year," to which the party curses, thinking that others might have had the same idea. The spirit of Surabar materializes, and starts having a conversation with Fraxx, and soon the rest of the Stormhammers as well. They gradually convince him not only to give them some cooking tips, but also to stay with them during the actual cooking contest to benefit from his expertise. (Snake Eyes tells him numerous times that Surabar can possess him, but the ghost declines.) During the conversation they also discover that the magic cauldron Bonesaw found in Drakthar's lair used to be Surabar's, and it has a trick to it - when a flaming sphere is used to cook whatever is in the cauldron, it will taste extra delicious and tasty.
Hearing this, Huron rushes out the door to find a mage. He remembers an advertisement in a previous Cauldron Chronicle for magical potions, a store called Weer's Elixirs. He heads there and meets Vortimax Weer, a cranky and grumpy wizard.
Huron (rushing into the store): I UH UM FLAMING SPHERE! Vortimax: What.
Vortimax isn't really interested in the cooking contest OR showing up the Stormblades, but he eventually says that he will help in exchange for a potion he's never seen before. The Stormhammers, who have now convinced the spirit of Surabar to help them in exchange for naming their meal after Cauldron, check through their loot and find two potions, an orange one and a milky white one. They give him both. He hmms at the milky white one, and says he's never seen it, so he'll help. The other one is glances at and tells them is a healing potion. The Stormhammers leave, greatly enjoying the idea that they might have just given him a bottle of sperm.
The Stormhammers leave and are doing some more shopping and wandering around, when they receive a message (unsigned) asking to meet them, immediately, at the Rolling Barrel. Intrigued, they head there but it is empty other than the bartender. The Stormhammers are puzzling over the note when the door slams open - it's the Stormblades. They are armed and carrying their weapons (though sheathed.)
Annah steps forward and immediately starts verbally insulting the Stormhammers. Huron steps forward and starts trading insults back and forth, commenting on how her father does everything for her. She responds with "At least I know who my father is." Huron responds that his father is dead. Annah rolls her eyes and says "Huh! Big surprise." And Huron leaps forward to fight, but is held back by Snake Eyes. However, Cora pushes her way to the front and challenges Huron to a fight - fists only. Huron agrees. They start fighting and trading heavy punches. They miss a lot, but Cora hits Huron good a few times, her gauntlets glowing a fierce red with the force of her hits. Huron responds by smashing a mug into her face, blinding her.
Both groups settle back to watch, Snake Eyes sidling up next to Todd. He starts whispering insults at Todd and after a few rounds of this Todd flips out and attacks Snake Eyes with his mace, but Snake Eyes blocks the attack and they leap back from one another, tipping over a table. Zachary notices and looks over at both rogues, who both shout "He attacked me!!" Zachary draws his weapon, a giant warmaul resembling one of the hammers from the Hurl The Hammer contest, and attacks Snake Eyes. The attack misses and hits the tipped-over table, destroying it. Annah also attacks, wielding a shield and trident, and the Stormhammers also leap into the fray.
At this point Bonesaw bursts into the tavern, having been left behind at the Tipped Tankard. He sees Cora fist-fighting Huron, and notices the other 3 Stormblades attacking Snake Eyes, so he leaps up on a table and fire breaths, uses his ring-recharge, and fire breaths again. He ends up burning Todd, Annah and Zachary each once. Snake Eyes throws a barrage of shurikens at them as well, drawing blood on all 3 (not Cora), but Todd responds by teleporting behind Snake Eyes and crushing him with a powerful mace strike (crit), and somersaulting away. Drrk takes out Todd with a crossbow shot, which spreads Fraxx's warlock curse that was on him to the other 3 Stormblades. Drrk shouts at Annah to stop now before this goes any further (gesturing at the wounded Todd). Annah responds by glaring at him and saying "We shall remember this!" and whistles loudly. A dozen city guards rush into the tavern and break up all the fights. The guard seemingly in charge reads the Stormhammers the riot act, while the Stormblades simply walk out. The guard is threatening them with a cold night in jail when Skylar rushes into the tavern, demanding that the guards all leave and stop wasting everyone's time. The guards filter out.
The party starts telling him about the fight and what started it, and he interrupts them saying he knows very well what happened. He tells them that this kind of thing happens all the time, and that because they are all nobles and rich, and politically connected, there isn't anything the city guard can really do. The Stormblades ask him what they can do, Skylar shrugs helplessly and says "become nobles?" He reminds them that the cooking contest is set to begin in a few minutes, so they rush off to the contest.
Annual Flood Festival Cooking Contest
Vortimax meets them there and casts flaming sphere for them, and under Surabar's guidance they made an incredibly tasty meal (d30+20 for how tasty it is). Huron has a taste and loves it so much he has to be held back from eating the rest. The judges sample a few of the other dishes, including Zachary Hawkwinter I's exotic dessert, but once they try the Stormhammers' entry they freak out and end the contest immediately and declare them the winners. They each receive a golden trophy shaped like a bowl with a spoon sticking out of it.
GM: What is this, Iron Chef? Shaun: No, it's STORMBLADE CHEF! Shaun (moments later): STORMHAMMERS! Dammit!
Day Seven
Closing Ceremonies & Lowering of the Waters (Lakeside Pavillion)Everyone shows up to watch the closing ceremonies. Once again the Lord Mayor and Alahind are up on stage, and the Lord Mayor is giving a long speech about how successful this festival was. Before be begins his speech, he calls the Stormhammers up on stage to recognize them for their impressive feats during the Festival, and hands each of them a small sealed envelope while the crowd applauds and cheers. As they walk off the stage, they see the Stormblades angrily leave the pavillion. The Lord Mayor's speech takes a long time...so long that people start to get antsy and confused. The Stormhammers see Jenya in the crowd, and notice her suddenly grow agitated and extremely concerned. She rushes up to the stage and whispers something to the Lord Mayor, who tells the crowd that the closing ceremonies will have to be delayed slightly, as there seems to be a small problem with some of the wands.
The crowd disperses, and Jenya spots the party and rushes up to them. She tells them she just received a magical sending from the head priest of Bahamut, Sarcem, who had been away from Cauldron on a mission to purchase wands of control water (since the other churches have stopped creating them.) He was on the way back when he was ambushed by bandits led by a murderous apeman at The Lucky Monkey Inn. The message sounded like he was in serious danger. Jenya begs the Stormhammers to rush to the Lucky Monkey and save Sarcem and the wands. Someone asks her why she doesn't ask the Stormblades, but she refuses instantly, saying that the Stormhammers are the proven ones, they saved the orphans, they defeated the vampire, and she trusts them. They agree to help.
The Cauldron Chronicle - Issue 03
The Cauldron Chronicle - Issue 03
Bugbear Vampire Responsible for Vandalism Destroyed
Cauldron’s newest band of heroes is at it again! Fresh off of breaking up the vile kidnapping/slavery ring a few weeks ago, this time they tackled the vandalisms and break-ins which were causing havoc in the merchant district.
After tracking the goblin vandals back to Orak’s Bathhouse, and discovering that Orak had been charmed by dark magic, they bravely delved into the tunnels beneath the city and found the source - a ferocious bugbear vampire! However, the vampire known as Drakthar was no match for the young heroes, who killed the undead terror, scattered his goblin minions, and returned triumphant.
Guard Captain Skellerang had high praise for the group, commending them for bravely solving problems the city guard didn’t have the time to handle. Once again we owe a mighty thanks to these mighty warriors!
Flood Festival Begins
It’s that time of year again! The 33rd Annual Flood Festival begins today, don’t miss a second of the festivities!
A BRIEF HISTORY
32 years ago, the rainiest winter in centuries resulted in massive flood damage to the lowest reaches of Cauldron. Representatives of the churches of Pelor, the Raven Queen, Kord and Bahamut came together and pooled their resources to create Wands of Control Water to lower the flood waters. Next year, the clerics armed with the wands successfully fought back the flood. After the flood season ended, the town celebrated with a massive festival, which grew into the tradition we enjoy today. Since then, the winter rains have lessened - but even though the clerics haven’t needed any wands in over ten years, the Festival is still going strong!
CRATER LAKE MONSTER HUNT
Will you be the lucky swimmer to find the “Monster of Crater Lake?” For a small entry fee, you can join hundreds of hopeful swimmers catching small wooden boats in Crater Lake and attaching your entry tag to it. If you’re lucky, your boat will be the “Monster of Crater Lake” and you will be this year’s champion! You will also receive an exclusive invitation to the famous Demonskar Ball.
TESTS OF STRENGTH
Rokk Strongarm, head priest of the Temple of Kord, has promised numerous competitions of strength for the strong of heart (and arm!) Sparring matches, archery competitions, weight lifting contests, you name it, if it requires bulging muscles, it’s here!
NIGHTLY DISPLAYS OF ARCANE POWER
The Church of the Raven Queen will be holding nightly displays of magical power. If it’s anything like last year, expect elaborate illusions, wonderful displays of otherworldly sights, and maybe even a glimpse into other planes of existence!
COMMUNE WITH THE DECEASED
Embril, head priestess of the Church of the Raven Queen, will be communing with the dead each night at midnight. For a small donation to the Church, she will commune with a dead relative or friend you request, and you may ask them a few questions. Don’t miss this opportunity to put spirits to rest or say goodbye to loved ones.
WINTERSUN FEAST
Unfortunately, due to the tragic deaths of the two head priests of the Church of Pelor a few months ago, the annual Wintersun Feast has been cancelled this year. Kristof Jurgenson, acting head of the church, offered his apologies for the cancellation, but said that if any revelers wanted the Morninglord’s blessing he would be happy to bestow it upon them.
DRINK DOWN THE FLOOD CONTEST
Do your part and fight the flood! The annual Drink Down the Flood Contest starts today at the Tipped Tankard! For a small entry fee, you can be one of the 64 participants vying to become this year’s champion! As always, the contest is six rounds, and whoever emerges on top gets to match livers with Chancellor Alahind, who has never been beaten in the 25 years since coming to Cauldron.
THE DEMONSKAR BALL
Cauldron’s most prestigious event is held at the conclusion of the Flood Festival, the Demonskar Ball. The Ball celebrates Surabar Spellmason, who founded Cauldron over 600 years ago, and his historic victory against an army of demons at the nearby ravine, now known as the Demonskar. This mysterious event is through invitation only, so the average citizen has no chance of attending - unless they make a name for themselves during the Festival, that is!
Just visiting or passing through? Stay a few days and enjoy the celebrations! When you do finally head home, why not stop at The Lucky Monkey inn? Only a day’s travel away from Cauldron, we offer delicious meals, affordable rates, and even a small shrine to Avandra, the god of travel - it can’t hurt to offer a few words of prayer for luck on your journey! One gentle word of caution - travelers have reported that wild animals in the region have been riled up as of late, so stick to the roads and don’t provoke the wild baboons in the brush!
C02SE07 - Cleaning the Caves
Session 7 - Cleaning the Caves
October 4, 2008 - The party explores the rest of the dungeon and finds more mysteries.
Silverfang (Shaun) & Tank, his wolf pet, and Fraxx (Mark) travel to Cauldron for various reasons. There, they meet with Captain Skellerang to introduce themselves as strangers to town, and find out about the goblin vandalism problem and the bounty on goblin ears. They go to the broken-in warehouse, and Tank tracks the scent back to the bathhouse, and they follow the party's path down and find all the goblin corpses, taking their ears in the process.
The rest of the party is in Drakthar's room and hear people approaching. Snake Eyes hides in the wreckage of the throne, the others ready weapons...except for Bonesaw, who drops his pants and moons the door. Silverfang peeks in with Tank, and Silverfang thankfully looks in with his blind eye and doesn't see Bonesaw's naked ass.
Brief discussion, where it is revealed that Fraxx is a drow and - surprise! - so is Snake Eyes. They agree to split the ears. They search Drakthar's room and find some treasure and a locked box which they smash open to find some jewellery and an ivory flute with jade inlays.
Fraxx and Silverfang brought copies of the Cauldron Chronicle with them, and the party is rather upset that the Stormblades collapsed the tunnels leading to Gnomeregan, because the skulks were not evil. They are also not pleased with the insulting words from Annah Taskerhill. They also wonder if they will encounter Zenith Splintershield.
They decide to press on and investigate the orcish voices they heard. In the adjoining room to the chamber outside Drakthar's throne room is a large cavern with many chutes leading up into the night sky. On the ceiling is hundreds of bats blanketing every inch. Bonesaw goes into the room and dragonbreaths upwards, incinerating over 200 bats which fall burning to the ground. This stirs up the bats which start swarming around the room, obscuring all vision and hearing.
The party quickly discovers that there is something else in the cloud of bats besides regular bats, as Bonesaw and Huron get struck violently by something hiding in the swarm. After some misses, they manage to swat a large bat with a long, leathery tail out of the swarm. Moments later the other one botches an attack and crashes into Huron, and they both fall to the ground.
They quickly kill the giant bats and scatter the regular ones. After the fight half the party starts eating bat. Huron grabs one off the floor and eats it, and also stuffs 200 in his bag, while Snake Eyes and Bonesaw set up the cauldron and pour beer in and start cooking some.
Silverfang/Tank are the only ones who are on the guard as 7 orcs with clubs rush into the room wielding clubs and attack. However, the party makes short work of them. As the last orc dies, Fraxx and Huron notice a dwarf in black armor with a heavy mace rush into the room, take a look around, gulp and rush back out. Huron pursues, hefting the helpless guide goblin over his head as he goes. The rest of the party sees him run off and runs after him. Fraxx notices that the dwarf was wearing a blue tabard.
Huron runs up the corridor just in time to see a door slam shut that the dwarf just ran through. The party close behind in the narrow hallway, Huron decides to kick the door open and run in, hoping to throw the goblin at the dwarf. Bonesaw yells that they should leave the dwarf alive since they don't know if he's evil.
Inside the room is another 7 orcs with clubs, an orc archer, a ferocious looking orc with a greataxe, and the dwarf, hiding behind some of the orcs. As Huron takes this all in, the archer shoots him in the gut. Huron reacts by hurling the goblin at the archer (over a group of orcs), knocking it down and killing the gobilin. He then steps back out of the room and slams the door shut and holds it shut, yelling a quick report to the rest of the party.
Before anyone else can react, two orcs start yanking on the door. Huron holds the door shut against one, but the other yanks it off its hinges and they step back, allowing two more orcs to step forward and attack. The club-wielding orcs don't last long thanks to Tyson's dragon breath and a shuriken barrage by Snake Eyes, which also blinds the dwarf. The orc archer double-shots at Huron, hitting once, and then later tries to power shot through a line of Tyson, Tank, Bonesaw, Huron and Fraxx...but rolls a 1 and misses completely.
The greataxe orc attacks Tyson when it enters the fight and does a huge hit to him, but Tyson returns it right back. They two exchange mighty blows throughout the fight.
The dwarf doesn't manage to do a whole lot in the fight, as he is blinded by Snake Eyes, then dazed by a curse from Fraxx, then blinded AGAIN by Huron. Silverfang notices that the dwarf is wearing a blue tabard with a design of a white horned helm on the front. Right before the dwarf is killed, he yells that "the party is interfering with things bigger than they know!" to which the party mocks him a bit before killing him.
The orc archer decides to flee as things deteriorate, and Snake Eyes chases him down the exiting corridor for about 200 yards, before finally catching and stabbing him in the head. He smells fresh air and discovers that the tunnel leads to an exit in the side of the mountain.
The party loots the corpses, and on the dwarf they find a letter in a pouch. The letter, which had a broken wax seal of a stylized Z, reads "I am sending new recruits your way. You're in charge of them. Await further instruction. -Z" The party hmms about this but don't know enough to make a guess at the meaning. The letter is also stamped with a black birdcage symbol, the same as they saw on supply crates in Kazmojen's lair.
They then decide to collapse the tunnel entrance despite having no tools to do so. After some bizarre plans, they decide to just have Fraxx blast the entrance over and over again until it collapses. This takes A WEEK. Finally it collapses and they head back to town. It is nighttime when they emerge into the bathhouse, and they can hear Orak snoring from his bedroom. They wake him up and explain everything that has happened. He listens and believes them, and also asks them if his decanter of endless water was recovered from the goblins (it wasn't.) He thanks them and says they can come back anytime for free baths.
On his way out of the ruins, Bonesaw sketches the decapitated statue of Moradin so he can show it to a mason in town to estimate what kind of work would need to be done on it to repair it.
The party rests until morning (Silverfang goes and gets a room at the Rolling Barrel Inn, because they have a stable). In the morning they go to meet with Skellerang, who pays them for the goblin ears and, after some convincing, also almost as much for the orc ears they also brought back. They ask him if they recognize the dwarf (whose head they brought back), but Skellerang doesn't know it. They also ask if he knows the Z wax seal, or if he can compare it to how Zenith Splintershield used to sign things. Skellerang says he will check into it and to return in a few hours.
While they are waiting, a representative from the trial comes and asks Mike and Jamie for their opinions on Keygan Ghelve's involvement in the kidnappings. Both say that he is not guilty-guilty because he was being extorted, but should still be found guilty of involvement nonetheless...but not anything as serious as execution. They both also explain how exactly he was being forced to work with the skulks, and Mike gives the person Stargloom back to verify the story.
They return to Skellerang and he tells them that no, Zenith never signed his reports with a Z - he signed his name. They compare some old reports to the letter and the handwriting does not match. The party still suspects that Zenith is involved.
LEVEL UP - PARTY IS NOW LEVEL 4
October 4, 2008 - The party explores the rest of the dungeon and finds more mysteries.
Silverfang (Shaun) & Tank, his wolf pet, and Fraxx (Mark) travel to Cauldron for various reasons. There, they meet with Captain Skellerang to introduce themselves as strangers to town, and find out about the goblin vandalism problem and the bounty on goblin ears. They go to the broken-in warehouse, and Tank tracks the scent back to the bathhouse, and they follow the party's path down and find all the goblin corpses, taking their ears in the process.
The rest of the party is in Drakthar's room and hear people approaching. Snake Eyes hides in the wreckage of the throne, the others ready weapons...except for Bonesaw, who drops his pants and moons the door. Silverfang peeks in with Tank, and Silverfang thankfully looks in with his blind eye and doesn't see Bonesaw's naked ass.
Brief discussion, where it is revealed that Fraxx is a drow and - surprise! - so is Snake Eyes. They agree to split the ears. They search Drakthar's room and find some treasure and a locked box which they smash open to find some jewellery and an ivory flute with jade inlays.
Fraxx and Silverfang brought copies of the Cauldron Chronicle with them, and the party is rather upset that the Stormblades collapsed the tunnels leading to Gnomeregan, because the skulks were not evil. They are also not pleased with the insulting words from Annah Taskerhill. They also wonder if they will encounter Zenith Splintershield.
They decide to press on and investigate the orcish voices they heard. In the adjoining room to the chamber outside Drakthar's throne room is a large cavern with many chutes leading up into the night sky. On the ceiling is hundreds of bats blanketing every inch. Bonesaw goes into the room and dragonbreaths upwards, incinerating over 200 bats which fall burning to the ground. This stirs up the bats which start swarming around the room, obscuring all vision and hearing.
The party quickly discovers that there is something else in the cloud of bats besides regular bats, as Bonesaw and Huron get struck violently by something hiding in the swarm. After some misses, they manage to swat a large bat with a long, leathery tail out of the swarm. Moments later the other one botches an attack and crashes into Huron, and they both fall to the ground.
Huron: (from underneath the bat) I FOUND IT!! (from underneath the bat)
They quickly kill the giant bats and scatter the regular ones. After the fight half the party starts eating bat. Huron grabs one off the floor and eats it, and also stuffs 200 in his bag, while Snake Eyes and Bonesaw set up the cauldron and pour beer in and start cooking some.
Snake Eyes: I fill the pot with bats! Bonesaw: We make bat stew!
Silverfang/Tank are the only ones who are on the guard as 7 orcs with clubs rush into the room wielding clubs and attack. However, the party makes short work of them. As the last orc dies, Fraxx and Huron notice a dwarf in black armor with a heavy mace rush into the room, take a look around, gulp and rush back out. Huron pursues, hefting the helpless guide goblin over his head as he goes. The rest of the party sees him run off and runs after him. Fraxx notices that the dwarf was wearing a blue tabard.
Huron runs up the corridor just in time to see a door slam shut that the dwarf just ran through. The party close behind in the narrow hallway, Huron decides to kick the door open and run in, hoping to throw the goblin at the dwarf. Bonesaw yells that they should leave the dwarf alive since they don't know if he's evil.
Bonesaw: (while running into battle) I don't think we should kill the dwarf, because we just killed a bunch of goblins, and dwarves don't like goblins, remember the destroyed dwarf shrine, he might have treasure, PS the last dwarf we fought almost killed jamie in one hit!
Inside the room is another 7 orcs with clubs, an orc archer, a ferocious looking orc with a greataxe, and the dwarf, hiding behind some of the orcs. As Huron takes this all in, the archer shoots him in the gut. Huron reacts by hurling the goblin at the archer (over a group of orcs), knocking it down and killing the gobilin. He then steps back out of the room and slams the door shut and holds it shut, yelling a quick report to the rest of the party.
Before anyone else can react, two orcs start yanking on the door. Huron holds the door shut against one, but the other yanks it off its hinges and they step back, allowing two more orcs to step forward and attack. The club-wielding orcs don't last long thanks to Tyson's dragon breath and a shuriken barrage by Snake Eyes, which also blinds the dwarf. The orc archer double-shots at Huron, hitting once, and then later tries to power shot through a line of Tyson, Tank, Bonesaw, Huron and Fraxx...but rolls a 1 and misses completely.
The greataxe orc attacks Tyson when it enters the fight and does a huge hit to him, but Tyson returns it right back. They two exchange mighty blows throughout the fight.
Bonesaw: Oh, the dwarf's a traitor, kill him.
The dwarf doesn't manage to do a whole lot in the fight, as he is blinded by Snake Eyes, then dazed by a curse from Fraxx, then blinded AGAIN by Huron. Silverfang notices that the dwarf is wearing a blue tabard with a design of a white horned helm on the front. Right before the dwarf is killed, he yells that "the party is interfering with things bigger than they know!" to which the party mocks him a bit before killing him.
Huron: Not so big now are you?
The orc archer decides to flee as things deteriorate, and Snake Eyes chases him down the exiting corridor for about 200 yards, before finally catching and stabbing him in the head. He smells fresh air and discovers that the tunnel leads to an exit in the side of the mountain.
The party loots the corpses, and on the dwarf they find a letter in a pouch. The letter, which had a broken wax seal of a stylized Z, reads "I am sending new recruits your way. You're in charge of them. Await further instruction. -Z" The party hmms about this but don't know enough to make a guess at the meaning. The letter is also stamped with a black birdcage symbol, the same as they saw on supply crates in Kazmojen's lair.
They then decide to collapse the tunnel entrance despite having no tools to do so. After some bizarre plans, they decide to just have Fraxx blast the entrance over and over again until it collapses. This takes A WEEK. Finally it collapses and they head back to town. It is nighttime when they emerge into the bathhouse, and they can hear Orak snoring from his bedroom. They wake him up and explain everything that has happened. He listens and believes them, and also asks them if his decanter of endless water was recovered from the goblins (it wasn't.) He thanks them and says they can come back anytime for free baths.
On his way out of the ruins, Bonesaw sketches the decapitated statue of Moradin so he can show it to a mason in town to estimate what kind of work would need to be done on it to repair it.
The party rests until morning (Silverfang goes and gets a room at the Rolling Barrel Inn, because they have a stable). In the morning they go to meet with Skellerang, who pays them for the goblin ears and, after some convincing, also almost as much for the orc ears they also brought back. They ask him if they recognize the dwarf (whose head they brought back), but Skellerang doesn't know it. They also ask if he knows the Z wax seal, or if he can compare it to how Zenith Splintershield used to sign things. Skellerang says he will check into it and to return in a few hours.
While they are waiting, a representative from the trial comes and asks Mike and Jamie for their opinions on Keygan Ghelve's involvement in the kidnappings. Both say that he is not guilty-guilty because he was being extorted, but should still be found guilty of involvement nonetheless...but not anything as serious as execution. They both also explain how exactly he was being forced to work with the skulks, and Mike gives the person Stargloom back to verify the story.
They return to Skellerang and he tells them that no, Zenith never signed his reports with a Z - he signed his name. They compare some old reports to the letter and the handwriting does not match. The party still suspects that Zenith is involved.
LEVEL UP - PARTY IS NOW LEVEL 4
C02SE06 - Beneath the Bathhouse
Session 6 - Beneath the Bathhouse
December 6, 2008 - The party tracks down the leader of the goblin vandals - a vampire!
We start right when Alahind was giving the party the reward rings. Changed the rings - now wearer can detect location of the other rings (minor), and also once per day recharge an encounter power used already that day (minor action, consumes healing surge).
Changed to 4E.
They leave, then go back in to ask Alahind about housing / lodging. He asks them how cheap, they say CHEAP. He advises them to go to the Tipped Tankard, which they are familiar with. They head there.
The owner Pilok is once again passed out on the counter, but Artem greets them and sits them down. Huron asks how much a month's lodging would be, Artem tells them 10 silver. Huron pays for all four party members, and buys the meals.
While eating, Snake Eyes specifically watches the rest of the bar. There are only two other only patrons, a pair of adventurers eating across the room. One with a morningstar, one with a longsword and scale armor. Snake Eyes notices one glancing in their direction now and then, so he walks over and says hello. The morningstar one says hello, the longsword one ignores him. Huron also walks over. No conversation really takes place, and Huron buys everyone in the bar a round and they go and sit down.
Snake Eyes continues to eavesdrop on them from across the room and hears "Report to...could be....Maavu." He walks up again, with Bonesaw this time (who had been in the washroom), and Snake Eyes says "Maavu sent me." Morningstar looks surprised and says "What?? Really? But I thought we were supposed to--" but then Longsword cuts him off. Longsword looks up at them and starts denying any knowledge of Maavu, eventually telling Bonesaw that he is wrong and he thinks Bonesaw has had too much to drink.
He then CHOKE SLAMS HIM THROUGH THE TABLE. (While Bonesaw is doing this, Snake Eyes plants his orphan ring inside Morningstar's pack.) Wood splinters, broken dishes flies everywhere, and Longsword sputters angrily, but then Morningstar grabs his shoulder and gives him a look. They leave.
Pilok is awoken by the noise, and sputtering drunkly about the broken table, and not really finding out anything, passes out again. Artem sighs and comes over and starts cleaning up the mess, and says to Huron "it's a good thing you overpaid for the lodgings."
The party decides to follow Longsword & Morningstar after they finish their meal. They follow them to the northern part of town, the mercantile district. Incidentally where the vandalism and break-ins were happening before. The ring they are tracking has stopped moving. They are almost at it when they hear the tinkle of glass breaking a block away. Snake Eyes sneaks down an alley to investigate, and spots small figures in darkness hopping on a crate and sneaking through a broken warehouse window. Before he can do anything else, a small figure - a goblin - next to the alley entrance lunges out at him and wounds him with a rusty blade. Snake Eyes turns and claws his face off. He then turns and shoots his hand crossbow at one of the two figures still standing by the window, but misses. They yelp and leap through, but he reloads and gets another shot at the last one, who yips in pain as it enters the window. Snake Eyes then gives the signal for the rest of the party - an owl hooting.
They run up, Bonesaw takes a look at the situation, and leaps up on the crate and smashes through the rest of the window frame. He lands with a crunch, on the corpse of the goblin Snake Eyes shot. He sees numerous small shapes scattering about in front of him and breathes fire, incinerating five goblins and illuminating the dark warehouse. He watches, but sees no more movement. Huron and Snake Eyes enter, Tyson remains outside. The goblins have nothing but tattered rags and rusty shortswords, but the one unburned corpse's clothing is actually a little damp and smells faintly of rose fragrances.
They check out what are in some of the crates. First crate contains bundles of broomsticks (groups of 10 roped together in a bunch) and another contains bolts of cloth. Meanwhile, Tyson hears booted footsteps of a group of people coming, so he runs to the alley and hides. Huron and Bonesaw and Snake Eyes decide to shove the bundle of broomsticks up the unburned goblin's ass and try to wave it around in front of the broken window at whoever is coming. Or to dangle it like a puppet so its sitting on the window sill, legs dangling. In any case they LITERALLY DESTROY the goblin corpse, and Bonesaw is showered in blood and goblin insides.
Meanwhile, the footsteps belong to a guard patrol, and as they draw near Huron hurls one of the burned goblin corpses out the window near them. They are startled and draw near to investigate. Bonesaw leaps out and greets them, startling them and making them draw their swords. He explains the story, and after a bit of wary examination they believe him and head inside to verify. They talk with Huron and Snake Eyes, are baffled by the internally exploded goblin, then they ask the party - since they are good at killing goblins - to talk to the guard captain in the morning, as maybe he will hire them to eliminate the problem. During the conversation, when the guards are staring in horror at the exploded goblin, Bonesaw leans his head in the broken window and screams:
They leave, and follow the ring again, but find it discarded in a pile of trash in an alley next to more warehouses. Dejected, they think about the damp goblin clothes that smelled like roses, and realize there is a bathhouse in town that they have walked past before, but it has always been closed for business. They decide to investigate.
Sure enough, it's locked, with a wooden board on the door that says CLOSED FOR BUSINESS. Snake Eyes crowbars it off, and tries but fails to pick the lock. They decide to climb to the roof, where there is a large open skylight above the bath area. Just inside the skylight is some kind of metal stand or brace meant to hold something, but it is currently empty. Huron and Bonesaw brace a rope, and lower Snake Eyes and Tyson (tied together, back to back) into the bathhouse. There is an office room adjacent to the baths where they can hear someone. Tyson goes behind the office door, while Snake Eyes picks the lock on the front door to let Huron and Bonesaw in. Snake Eyes peeks in and spots Orak, the bathhouse owner, a dwarf with an eyepatch, sitting at a desk going over papers. He doesn't notice them. Snake Eyes climbs above the doorframe, while Tyson waits behind the door.
Huron and Snake Eyes hide behind the front desk counter. Snake Eyes almost slips and falls, but braces himself on the door, which wobbles. Orak notices something and comes to investigate, and Tyson kicks the door shut in his face. Bonesaw runs up so when Orak angrily opens the door, he is staring at Bonesaw's chest. He's mad, and asks them why they are intruding, etc. They ask him why he's closed, and he says because "they stole my water!". He denies any knowledge of goblins. It is revealed that he lives in a back room in the bathhouse, because "times are tough." Eventually Snake Eyes tackles him from his wall perch and, after threatening him with a crossbow to the back of the head, SHOOTS HIM IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD. Orak is bloodied but does not die.
Orak gets up enraged, and does a Brute Strike (Fighter level 1 Daily ability) and crits. Snake Eyes almost dies. They subdue him shortly and he is still mad but helpless now. They even take his eyepatch (which has a ruby set in the middle), taunting his defense of "Times are tough!"
While the others are questioning/tormenting Orak, Huron investigates the baths and finds out that they have shutters on the bottom that can be closed or opened to drain water. He lifts it off and finds a shoddy ladder leaned up against the chute, leading down into darkness. As soon as he discovers this, Orak's face and eyes go blank and he stops reacting to anything they do. They leave him in his room and descend down the ladder, which is leads down to a tunnel smashed through the chute wall. Farther down the chute is the sound of rushing water - the river feeding into the lake, most likely.
They enter the tunnel, find some scratching and graffiti on the wall that mentions Drakthar again, and then fight and kill six goblin minions who were preparing to go topside. They avoid a simple rope & bell trap, Snake Eyes pockets the bell. They emerge into what used to be a temple to Moradin, but has been desecrated and ruined. A large statue of a dwarf in the center of the room has had its head severed. They continue on.
They find a room with six empty human-sized cots, and a storage room. Snake Eyes starts searching the storage room but is ambushed by two goblin rogues. They dispatch one and manage (unfortunately) to reduce the other to exactly zero hp. Snake Eyes slings the helpless goblin over his shoulder and keeps demanding where Drakthar is, the goblin responds by feebly lifting a trembling finger and pointing. In the storage room they find some greatswords, some disguise kits, a couple kegs of ale, and 3 barrels (each equivalent to 50 flasks) of oil.
At some point, they hear the distant noise of wolves howling.
Another door leads to a room where the floor has shattered and sunken down into rubble. The goblins have been filling it with trash and refuse, and it stinks horribly. Bonesaw however plunges into the garbage and starts searching. He finds the severed head of the dwarf statue, and runs back to the temple room with it. Unfortunately there are bits of stone missing and he can't place it back - it needs some actual masonry work to re-attach it. He dejectedly leaves it in the room.
Snake Eyes stealthily peeks into another room and sees a goblin stirring a bubbling cauldron. A few tables are also in the room and are covered with empty flasks and jars. Snake Eyes sneaks up on the goblin and shoves him into the pot. It shrieks and surfaces screaming, but Snake Eyes then shoots it in the face (sneak attack) and kills it. They pour out the liquid and realize the cauldron - which weighs about 250 lbs - was boiling without fire. They experiment a little and discover that when liquid is placed inside, it starts heating itself as if it were on a roaring fire. (Metal grows hot too.) Bonesaw picks up and starts lugging around the cauldron.
The hallways open up into a large, unworked cavern with stalactites on the ceiling and a few large stalagmite mounds on the ground. They split into a triangle formation and move through the room, and are attacked by a pair of goblins, each riding a wolf and throwing javelins at the party. The party starts fighting the goblins, but are ambushed not once but twice - first by a pair of Darkmantles which flutter down from the ceiling to try to suffocate them, and then moments later by some goblins that have snuck up on them and ambush Tyson, who was shooting arrows from the rear. Snake Eyes has to drop the helpless goblin to the ground, but it doesn't take any damage and remains helpless and at zero hp. The party takes some injuries but defeat them all except one darkmantle, who flies up to the ceiling again and successfully hides. One goblin, mortally wounded, starts fleeing out of the cavern, and the party decides to let it go and follow it.
They find it dead on the ground a few feet away from a heavy wooden door. Behind the door is a hallway leading straight, which the party can hear orcish voices emanating from, and a large spiked pit to the left about 10 feet across, with another door on the other side. They throw the dead goblin in the pit and then leap across. They notice that this door has a small opening underneath it, and that the floor slopes slightly in the direction of the door...so they heat up a barrel of oil in the cauldron so it's warm, and pour it under the door. They then light it on fire. After a few minutes the flames go out, and they open the door. (After putting down their goblin "guide".)
The walls of the room they enter are painted and caked with dried blood. A lower level rises up a few stairs to an elevated platform, upon which sits a horrible throne made of humanoid bones and skins. A crumbling tunnel leads out of the room behind it. A few rotting corpses of large animals are in the corners. Everyone starts searching the room except for Snake Eyes, who leaps from the entrance up onto the throne to see if he can do it. Much to everyone's surprise, the throne comes alive when Snake Eyes flies through the air at it, and starts clubbing him with its bone chair-arms. The party starts fighting it. During the fight the various faces and empty holes in the skins moan and groan. Eventually Huron hefts another barrel of oil and smashes it down on the throne, covering it in oil which Bonesaw then breathes fire on. The throne withers and dies.
Everyone uses a healing surge or two, and then Snake Eyes rushes out of the room to get his helpless goblin. To everyone's surprise, Tyson shoots him with an arrow as he gets near. Tyson's face is blank and emotionless. A pale bugbear (Drakthar) with long fangs materializes out of thin air and yells at them for wrecking his chair.
Tyson shrugs off Drakthar's domination effect as soon as the fight starts, and the fight doesn't last long. Everyone uses their daily powers, and Drakthar only lasts a few rounds before turning into mist and floating out of the room. They watch him float in the direction of the orc voices. Thinking quickly, they run into the tunnel to investigate and find a poorly boarded wooden floor in a vertical shaft. They spot a coffin about 30 feet underneath the boards. Huron grabs their last barrel of oil, ties himself to a rope which the party holds, and leaps upon the boards as hard as he can, shattering them. He smashes the barrel of oil on the coffin and, once Huron is back up, the party drops a torch down and ignites the coffin.
Drakthar, who had re-entered the room, curious as to why the party was not following, sees this and shrieks. He re-forms and starts fighting again, drawing a mist of blood from Tyson's wounds once, but quickly gets chopped into bits and is killed.
December 6, 2008 - The party tracks down the leader of the goblin vandals - a vampire!
We start right when Alahind was giving the party the reward rings. Changed the rings - now wearer can detect location of the other rings (minor), and also once per day recharge an encounter power used already that day (minor action, consumes healing surge).
Changed to 4E.
They leave, then go back in to ask Alahind about housing / lodging. He asks them how cheap, they say CHEAP. He advises them to go to the Tipped Tankard, which they are familiar with. They head there.
The owner Pilok is once again passed out on the counter, but Artem greets them and sits them down. Huron asks how much a month's lodging would be, Artem tells them 10 silver. Huron pays for all four party members, and buys the meals.
While eating, Snake Eyes specifically watches the rest of the bar. There are only two other only patrons, a pair of adventurers eating across the room. One with a morningstar, one with a longsword and scale armor. Snake Eyes notices one glancing in their direction now and then, so he walks over and says hello. The morningstar one says hello, the longsword one ignores him. Huron also walks over. No conversation really takes place, and Huron buys everyone in the bar a round and they go and sit down.
Snake Eyes continues to eavesdrop on them from across the room and hears "Report to...could be....Maavu." He walks up again, with Bonesaw this time (who had been in the washroom), and Snake Eyes says "Maavu sent me." Morningstar looks surprised and says "What?? Really? But I thought we were supposed to--" but then Longsword cuts him off. Longsword looks up at them and starts denying any knowledge of Maavu, eventually telling Bonesaw that he is wrong and he thinks Bonesaw has had too much to drink.
Bonesaw: OH REALLY?? (grabs Longsword by the throat) I WAS DUMPING!!
He then CHOKE SLAMS HIM THROUGH THE TABLE. (While Bonesaw is doing this, Snake Eyes plants his orphan ring inside Morningstar's pack.) Wood splinters, broken dishes flies everywhere, and Longsword sputters angrily, but then Morningstar grabs his shoulder and gives him a look. They leave.
Pilok is awoken by the noise, and sputtering drunkly about the broken table, and not really finding out anything, passes out again. Artem sighs and comes over and starts cleaning up the mess, and says to Huron "it's a good thing you overpaid for the lodgings."
The party decides to follow Longsword & Morningstar after they finish their meal. They follow them to the northern part of town, the mercantile district. Incidentally where the vandalism and break-ins were happening before. The ring they are tracking has stopped moving. They are almost at it when they hear the tinkle of glass breaking a block away. Snake Eyes sneaks down an alley to investigate, and spots small figures in darkness hopping on a crate and sneaking through a broken warehouse window. Before he can do anything else, a small figure - a goblin - next to the alley entrance lunges out at him and wounds him with a rusty blade. Snake Eyes turns and claws his face off. He then turns and shoots his hand crossbow at one of the two figures still standing by the window, but misses. They yelp and leap through, but he reloads and gets another shot at the last one, who yips in pain as it enters the window. Snake Eyes then gives the signal for the rest of the party - an owl hooting.
They run up, Bonesaw takes a look at the situation, and leaps up on the crate and smashes through the rest of the window frame. He lands with a crunch, on the corpse of the goblin Snake Eyes shot. He sees numerous small shapes scattering about in front of him and breathes fire, incinerating five goblins and illuminating the dark warehouse. He watches, but sees no more movement. Huron and Snake Eyes enter, Tyson remains outside. The goblins have nothing but tattered rags and rusty shortswords, but the one unburned corpse's clothing is actually a little damp and smells faintly of rose fragrances.
They check out what are in some of the crates. First crate contains bundles of broomsticks (groups of 10 roped together in a bunch) and another contains bolts of cloth. Meanwhile, Tyson hears booted footsteps of a group of people coming, so he runs to the alley and hides. Huron and Bonesaw and Snake Eyes decide to shove the bundle of broomsticks up the unburned goblin's ass and try to wave it around in front of the broken window at whoever is coming. Or to dangle it like a puppet so its sitting on the window sill, legs dangling. In any case they LITERALLY DESTROY the goblin corpse, and Bonesaw is showered in blood and goblin insides.
Meanwhile, the footsteps belong to a guard patrol, and as they draw near Huron hurls one of the burned goblin corpses out the window near them. They are startled and draw near to investigate. Bonesaw leaps out and greets them, startling them and making them draw their swords. He explains the story, and after a bit of wary examination they believe him and head inside to verify. They talk with Huron and Snake Eyes, are baffled by the internally exploded goblin, then they ask the party - since they are good at killing goblins - to talk to the guard captain in the morning, as maybe he will hire them to eliminate the problem. During the conversation, when the guards are staring in horror at the exploded goblin, Bonesaw leans his head in the broken window and screams:
Bonesaw: ARE WE HEROES YET??
They leave, and follow the ring again, but find it discarded in a pile of trash in an alley next to more warehouses. Dejected, they think about the damp goblin clothes that smelled like roses, and realize there is a bathhouse in town that they have walked past before, but it has always been closed for business. They decide to investigate.
Sure enough, it's locked, with a wooden board on the door that says CLOSED FOR BUSINESS. Snake Eyes crowbars it off, and tries but fails to pick the lock. They decide to climb to the roof, where there is a large open skylight above the bath area. Just inside the skylight is some kind of metal stand or brace meant to hold something, but it is currently empty. Huron and Bonesaw brace a rope, and lower Snake Eyes and Tyson (tied together, back to back) into the bathhouse. There is an office room adjacent to the baths where they can hear someone. Tyson goes behind the office door, while Snake Eyes picks the lock on the front door to let Huron and Bonesaw in. Snake Eyes peeks in and spots Orak, the bathhouse owner, a dwarf with an eyepatch, sitting at a desk going over papers. He doesn't notice them. Snake Eyes climbs above the doorframe, while Tyson waits behind the door.
Huron and Snake Eyes hide behind the front desk counter. Snake Eyes almost slips and falls, but braces himself on the door, which wobbles. Orak notices something and comes to investigate, and Tyson kicks the door shut in his face. Bonesaw runs up so when Orak angrily opens the door, he is staring at Bonesaw's chest. He's mad, and asks them why they are intruding, etc. They ask him why he's closed, and he says because "they stole my water!". He denies any knowledge of goblins. It is revealed that he lives in a back room in the bathhouse, because "times are tough." Eventually Snake Eyes tackles him from his wall perch and, after threatening him with a crossbow to the back of the head, SHOOTS HIM IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD. Orak is bloodied but does not die.
Orak gets up enraged, and does a Brute Strike (Fighter level 1 Daily ability) and crits. Snake Eyes almost dies. They subdue him shortly and he is still mad but helpless now. They even take his eyepatch (which has a ruby set in the middle), taunting his defense of "Times are tough!"
While the others are questioning/tormenting Orak, Huron investigates the baths and finds out that they have shutters on the bottom that can be closed or opened to drain water. He lifts it off and finds a shoddy ladder leaned up against the chute, leading down into darkness. As soon as he discovers this, Orak's face and eyes go blank and he stops reacting to anything they do. They leave him in his room and descend down the ladder, which is leads down to a tunnel smashed through the chute wall. Farther down the chute is the sound of rushing water - the river feeding into the lake, most likely.
They enter the tunnel, find some scratching and graffiti on the wall that mentions Drakthar again, and then fight and kill six goblin minions who were preparing to go topside. They avoid a simple rope & bell trap, Snake Eyes pockets the bell. They emerge into what used to be a temple to Moradin, but has been desecrated and ruined. A large statue of a dwarf in the center of the room has had its head severed. They continue on.
They find a room with six empty human-sized cots, and a storage room. Snake Eyes starts searching the storage room but is ambushed by two goblin rogues. They dispatch one and manage (unfortunately) to reduce the other to exactly zero hp. Snake Eyes slings the helpless goblin over his shoulder and keeps demanding where Drakthar is, the goblin responds by feebly lifting a trembling finger and pointing. In the storage room they find some greatswords, some disguise kits, a couple kegs of ale, and 3 barrels (each equivalent to 50 flasks) of oil.
At some point, they hear the distant noise of wolves howling.
Another door leads to a room where the floor has shattered and sunken down into rubble. The goblins have been filling it with trash and refuse, and it stinks horribly. Bonesaw however plunges into the garbage and starts searching. He finds the severed head of the dwarf statue, and runs back to the temple room with it. Unfortunately there are bits of stone missing and he can't place it back - it needs some actual masonry work to re-attach it. He dejectedly leaves it in the room.
Snake Eyes stealthily peeks into another room and sees a goblin stirring a bubbling cauldron. A few tables are also in the room and are covered with empty flasks and jars. Snake Eyes sneaks up on the goblin and shoves him into the pot. It shrieks and surfaces screaming, but Snake Eyes then shoots it in the face (sneak attack) and kills it. They pour out the liquid and realize the cauldron - which weighs about 250 lbs - was boiling without fire. They experiment a little and discover that when liquid is placed inside, it starts heating itself as if it were on a roaring fire. (Metal grows hot too.) Bonesaw picks up and starts lugging around the cauldron.
The hallways open up into a large, unworked cavern with stalactites on the ceiling and a few large stalagmite mounds on the ground. They split into a triangle formation and move through the room, and are attacked by a pair of goblins, each riding a wolf and throwing javelins at the party. The party starts fighting the goblins, but are ambushed not once but twice - first by a pair of Darkmantles which flutter down from the ceiling to try to suffocate them, and then moments later by some goblins that have snuck up on them and ambush Tyson, who was shooting arrows from the rear. Snake Eyes has to drop the helpless goblin to the ground, but it doesn't take any damage and remains helpless and at zero hp. The party takes some injuries but defeat them all except one darkmantle, who flies up to the ceiling again and successfully hides. One goblin, mortally wounded, starts fleeing out of the cavern, and the party decides to let it go and follow it.
They find it dead on the ground a few feet away from a heavy wooden door. Behind the door is a hallway leading straight, which the party can hear orcish voices emanating from, and a large spiked pit to the left about 10 feet across, with another door on the other side. They throw the dead goblin in the pit and then leap across. They notice that this door has a small opening underneath it, and that the floor slopes slightly in the direction of the door...so they heat up a barrel of oil in the cauldron so it's warm, and pour it under the door. They then light it on fire. After a few minutes the flames go out, and they open the door. (After putting down their goblin "guide".)
The walls of the room they enter are painted and caked with dried blood. A lower level rises up a few stairs to an elevated platform, upon which sits a horrible throne made of humanoid bones and skins. A crumbling tunnel leads out of the room behind it. A few rotting corpses of large animals are in the corners. Everyone starts searching the room except for Snake Eyes, who leaps from the entrance up onto the throne to see if he can do it. Much to everyone's surprise, the throne comes alive when Snake Eyes flies through the air at it, and starts clubbing him with its bone chair-arms. The party starts fighting it. During the fight the various faces and empty holes in the skins moan and groan. Eventually Huron hefts another barrel of oil and smashes it down on the throne, covering it in oil which Bonesaw then breathes fire on. The throne withers and dies.
Everyone uses a healing surge or two, and then Snake Eyes rushes out of the room to get his helpless goblin. To everyone's surprise, Tyson shoots him with an arrow as he gets near. Tyson's face is blank and emotionless. A pale bugbear (Drakthar) with long fangs materializes out of thin air and yells at them for wrecking his chair.
Tyson shrugs off Drakthar's domination effect as soon as the fight starts, and the fight doesn't last long. Everyone uses their daily powers, and Drakthar only lasts a few rounds before turning into mist and floating out of the room. They watch him float in the direction of the orc voices. Thinking quickly, they run into the tunnel to investigate and find a poorly boarded wooden floor in a vertical shaft. They spot a coffin about 30 feet underneath the boards. Huron grabs their last barrel of oil, ties himself to a rope which the party holds, and leaps upon the boards as hard as he can, shattering them. He smashes the barrel of oil on the coffin and, once Huron is back up, the party drops a torch down and ignites the coffin.
Drakthar, who had re-entered the room, curious as to why the party was not following, sees this and shrieks. He re-forms and starts fighting again, drawing a mist of blood from Tyson's wounds once, but quickly gets chopped into bits and is killed.
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