The party (Tylin [Ian], Moonlight [Chris], Argile [Richard], Sorrow [Jeff], Lammy [Kevin], Burrito [Darryl], El Cid [Shane] and the now-marmalading Huilam [Jamie]) were in the Smoking Loon (still disguised as the "Pepper Jack") approaching the town of Winjammer (pop 1175). The weather had much improved during that day, and it was now just a light breeze, with big rollers. They were about half an hour out to sea when night fell.
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| Wizards' trunk |
Almost immediately, the heavy wizards' trunk, that they had brought here to deliver, started to make a scratching noise. It wasn't a light and feathery scratching like the Canker black nappers, it was substantial and strong. They were not sure if it started just now, or if it had been scratching the whole time and they just hadn't noticed it because of the wind and sea noises. But they were pretty sure that it only started after night fell. They decided to let sleeping dogs lie, and not attempt an opening.
Sorrow steered the finicky boat in past the breakwater, and moored at the wharf. There were three other ships moored here.
Then Lammy, Argile, Tylin and El Cid went into the town, to the Wizards' Guild where they woke up the guild staff, and arranged to get a hand-cart to fetch the heavy trunk from the boat. It was soon delivered (with the help of the Guild staff Olaf and Eric, and the head of the guild Pieter). Pieter could not pay the four COIN delivery fee, but he gave them a signed note to confirm delivery. Thankfully, he didn't ask anything about the scratching. He also got in magical contact with Daisy Crown back in Scabport to tell her the news (he had his own conch).
Lammy bedded down for the night in the Wizards' Guild (as all wizards are entitled to do). El Cid, Argile and Tylin stayed the night at one of the three inns in Winjammer, the Copper Kettle. Argile & El Cid got rolling drunk. El Cid's alcohol-induced diarrhoea came back in spades.
No-one went back to the Smoking Loon to tell the rest of the group where anyone was, so after an hour or two, a worried Moonlight made his way to the Wizards' Guild, and ended up waking everyone there to get an annoyed Lammy out of bed.
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Day 1
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| Staff of the Phylactery |
In the morning, after a slap-up breakfast, Tylin spotted a job on the Copper Kettle notice board.
A wizard merchant called Chang Billet wanted a group of "competent adventurers" to find a group of mercenaries that he had hired to do a job, and who were late. They had left Winjammer 16 days ago on a mission that should have taken a week. They were sent looking for a unique wizards' staff called Staff of the Phylactery from the main gold mine of the Gold Hills (see map). The actual contract was to retrieve this staff (he gave them a picture), and/or the six adventurers. He named the group "The Billet Six". They were:
- Bertha Littlegood, dwarf tea-leaf
- Morgan Leaf, half-elf minstrel girl
- Khartoum, human Vingt-et-un priest
- Betws-y Coed, human fighter
- Samuel Chad, human fighter
- Jacinta Whiteface, human paladin of REAL
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| Gold Hills environs |
The group bought two pack horses and loaded them up with some mining gear, tents and stuff, and Huilam's marmalading body. El Cid also loaded on two barrels of ale.
Sorrow arranged with the Harbour Master to keep an eye on the "Pepper Jack" while they were away. It was only then that Sorrow discovered that one of the other docked ships was the schooner the Debonair - that being of the pirates that had given Huilam the magical promissory note. He kept his head down and snuck back to the boat.
Lammy arranged for the three chests of silver (3 COIN), that was currently in the Smoking Loon's hold, to be stored in the Wizards' Guild's vaults.
El Cid bought himself a war chicken (a capon) from a reputable purveyor of fighting chickens. And some hessian rooster armour for the bird too. He named it Mr Clucky. When Moonlight discovered this, he put an Animal Friendship onto it. That allowed him to teach it some tricks, and stop it crowing each morning.
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| Mr Clucky, war chicken |
Winjammer as a walled town. As the day progressed, and the further they got from Winjammer, the farm houses that they passed were becoming more and more armoured and encircled themselves. These were substantial stone buildings with compounds.
The group spoke to a couple of stalwart farmers, and the predominant trouble-makers around here were bands of gnolls. Gnolls don't suffer burning from the sun (like kobolds, goblins, orcs, etc.) so are active during the day.
They stayed that night in a stone farm house. Both El Cid's ale barrels were empty by now, and the group even drank dry all the ale stores of the farmers.
Day 2
At noon, they reached the farm compound that was the furthest from Winjammer. It was wilderness from here on out.
The farmers here had seen the Billet Six about 15 days ago. The group had lunch with the farmers. One of the farmers had a gnoll bow, which was a huge bow with a 100kg pull. Argile could handle if he used his strength feat. The farmer couldn't use it, so he gifted it to Argile.
The party then said their good-byes, then headed off towards the Gnoll Hills.
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| Generic Gnoll |
The plains were flat and dry, and so it was easy going. Towards the end of the day, they crossed a track. Plenty of large feet tracks here: gnolls.
Just before dark, they crossed a little stream. So, Burrito back-tracked and used his skill [HUNT] to hide the party tracks up to the stream. Then the group, and horses, all walked up the stream for an hour. Here, they found a copse to rest for the night. It was clear and calm, and the stars were out.
During his watch, and with his superb IMAG eyes, Sorrow spotted some tall figures in the distance. Probably gnolls.
Day 3
While the party stayed hidden in their copse, Burrito and El Cid went scouting. They went up side of the Gnoll hills and found another copse, then returned to the group, and all made their way up to it.
That night, the group, they left this copse and crossed over the ridge of the Gnoll Hills. Up the top, they spotted a campfire off in the distance. Then kept travelling down the far side of the hills. They passed a tunnel which went into the hillside, but, in an act of unwavering single-mindedness (or was it cowardice and timidity?), they ignored it and kept going out onto the plains between Gnoll Hills and Gold Hills.
They found another bunch of scrub and rested here until morning.
Day 4
The day was spent crossing the plain between the Gnoll Hills and the Gold Hills.
Just before dark, they secreted themselves in another piece of rough scrub.
Day 5
The Gold Hills had been mined (by civilization) a few decades ago. The easy gold had run out and the mines were abandoned. But there were still roads and tracks from the three significant mines to the Siren river (where the gold was taken down to the nearby town, Sirensville).
The group got to a ridge and could look down onto an old road and see a mine entrance, with tailings and old abandoned equipment scattered about. It was eerily quiet.
They found a reasonable copse of scrub about two hours' from the mine entrance. There was another thicker copse a bit closer, but as they approached it, the two pack horses became skittery, so they returned to the two hour one.
Tylin, El Cd and Sorrow went scouting. There was something rotting nearby and the stink was awful. Around a bend they came across a dwarf woman, impaled on a spike, naked and chewed, rotting in the hot sun. They guessed that this was Bertha Littlegood, one of the Billet Six, but they didn't dare move the corpse for fear of detection.
The three kept exploring and ventured closer to the mine entrance. It was in the end of a valley, with the track winding its way towards the Siren river, away in the distance. They were up on the hill, above the mine entrance, when two gnolls walked out, and started to look around, then start to chatter to each other excitedly. Gnoll speech sounds like hyena laughs and barks.
Like Ogre and Bugbear, Gnoll languages are VSO, polysynthetic, agglutinative and, as you'd expect for a talking dog, display evidentiality and mirativity in the verbs. E.g. davouhtо̄yuh : davo is a non-ironic, direct knowledge "want", uh is "he", tо̄ is "war-bow", yuh is "of-yours". So "He definitely wants your war bow". But in davanuhtо̄yuh, davan is a sarcastic, hear-say "want", so "It is said that he wants your war bow; yeah right."
The three pulled back up the hill and explored down the back side of that hill. There was another shady copse here, plus it had a spring, and was only 20 minutes from the mine; it would make a better base, but they dared not fetch the group with those gnolls near. They found a traces of a campsite, and suspected that maybe the Billet Six made camp here two weeks back.
The three waited for dark, and then skulked back to the valley edge, close enough to glance down at the mine. The gnolls were still about in the starlight, so the three gave them a wide berth, passed the impaled dwarf, and got back to the group five hours into the night.
Pick up the corpses on the way home.
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