Ouzo's letter home

The cast: Bear [Ian], Dexter [Jamie], Gillard [Kevin], Debbie [Steven],
Myrtle [Andrew], Oliver [Jeff], Tu [Shane], Ouzo [Darryl], Scuttle [Chris]

Dear Mum,

Hope you are well and everything good back home. My friend Debbie is busy looking up at the ceiling. She does this quite a lot.

Things have been very weird here, with many of us having strange dreams and hallucinations which is weird. But we have made good progress in tracking the girl Zara who went missing and whose dad wants us to find her.

We found a secret place under the Slaver's Lookout inn. Below, in the basement was a secret door, but I could not open it, but did see a trap and left it to Debbie to fix, which she did by setting the trap off. She does not seem to be affected by lots of stuff, probably because of her curvy figure which keeps her safe.

Once we opened the secret door, it was all dark but Gillard took the lead. She is very brave considering she only comes up to me privates. She and Bear strode forth into the dark, and after a bit, they came across a cave-in, and only the little ones could get through. Scuttle went and had a look and said a new passage. We decided to check the other passage-way first, down some stairs, and we came to a big rusty door. I listened

with Scuttle and I could hear some low human male groans of agony. I was on a roll and then found a mechanical trap. Scuttle is good at picking locks who unpicked it and Gillard  opened it up.

In the room which was a torture chamber with a poor bloke tied down here. Myrtle got him off and cured him while everyone else hunted around but finding nothing. The bloke's name was Pedro and he said Zarbo took him and his brother and questioned them to find where the girl Zara was. So the mystery gets deeper. Zarbo is also looking for Zara. Pedro then said she is safe in the temple of Caribou Gorn [God of Nature]. Pedro's brother was dead - what a shame.  

Eventually, we found a secret door,  and it was not trapped. Pressing on a plate it opened up. The passage went on for many hundred of metres slowing going up. After a bit, we saw some light and a big chamber ahead. Scuttle went and had a look, and then came rushing back saying a big growly thing was comin' to get us. Then 3 huge wolves
came bounding towards us.

I started shootin' arrows while Bear knelt out the way. So did Dexter and some how we both missed. Dexter then got another arrow away (we used expensive silver ones just in case) and he hit. Full-on melee then started, and as usual we missed a lot, and when we did hit we hardly scratched them. The mighty Gillard took a bad hit, but bravely fought on. Dexter could reach over Gillard and ran one through real easy. Bear did a
mighty hit and the wolf began bleedin'. Gillard fell, but Dexter kept fightin' and protectin' Gillard's body. Dexter got bit, but shook it off, and another wolf bit itself. Bear got bit bad and missed while our great fighter Dexter killed yet another.  Myrtle healed Bear a mighty 1 point and this was enough. He swung mightily and wasted it. Poor Gillard lay
buried under the bodies of 3 wolves.

The party was very tired and sore. Scuttle took off to explore ahead and he saw an exit out. Scuttle came back and told us. We decided to head back  via the tunnels, stopped on the way to rest and heal. On the way up [to the Slavers' Lookout Inn] we checked the hotel owner's room found a chest and a key on him. We opened the chest and there was 2 vials and bags of gold. We went upstairs [of the inn] but there was no-one up there.  We did not know what to do with the hotelier [who was still tied up] with most of the party way too goody-goody to do what had to be done. 

Most of them needed a mum, like you, who showed what had to be done to get by.  We took the hotelier down to the cells and locked him in.

Lots of the party needed to rest up for at least 6  hours so we left for the Caribou Gorn temple late in the afternoon. We bought a wagon, and Pedro and his dead brother came with us. We travelled for about 6 hours to the nearest way-station.  Next day, after cures and sleep,  we carried onwards. A nice safe day and another way-station for the night. The mood of the party began to lift and the next day around lunch time we arrived at the forest. Pedro tells us we need to be pure of heart to enter and
find the Caribou Gorn place. I don't like forests very much and this one was real shifty. Me and the others made sure to not touch anything. After a couple of hours we felt like we ended up back where we started. Then we heard a big noise - started rushing towards us real fast:: bears!
"Can we shoot them, Pedro?" and he me "That would not be wise".

Then they magically turned into druids, something I ain't never scene before. They were real friendly, so we went with them to this real huge tree which they told me was the "grove". There were lots of people here, and we told them about the werewolves.  Zara was in the temple, and all of us except Oliver were allowed to go in and see her. We explained things to her and asked her to write a letter to her parents to tell them she was all good. The druids said they were not going to let her go until Zarbo was killed. Zara wrote a letter to take back, and the druids wouldn't give us nothing to help kill Zarbo. So, we decided to go to Penstoke [nearby town] where a Real temple had been ransacked, and ask them if they have some stuff to help with the killing of Zarbo  (like, a mighty sword for Bear).

Next day, we got to  Penstoke and contacted the Real priests. They told us what happened, and they said were arranging a reward. They also told us they had 1 prisoner and we asked if we could question him. Oliver did the questioning [while Myrtle used Thought Capture], and found out they were mercenaries who not know who hired them. His captain died and they were told to obliterate all they could. Oliver didn't get any more and the guard only added that one of the raiders was wearing a Malechai symbol [God of Hate].

We sat around  for ages chewing the fat tryin' to work out what to do. We decided  to go  to Gazebo, a week away, so we could get some silver weapons made to kill Zarbo. One day before we arrived, that night Oliver's dagger buzzed and an undead thing or two came out of the swamp. Myrtle tried to turn them but she had been hanging out too long with Oliver so failed. A third then arrived. I shot one but it kept coming. 5 of the buggers were then observed, so we did a runner. We then worked out  we probably  wouldn't be able to do in time so the fight went on. Debbie played some tune and even more appeared out of the dark. Myrtle and me started to  break camp and get the horses ready, the rest of the crew began to take them on. Things started well with the first two going down in the first round. Each round 2 more would arrive so we had to fight
real hard to keep from being overwhelmed. Second round we took down two more, still under control. Gillard then fell over her own feet and luckily did not get hit but the others still cleaned out the next 2. Round four kept things going well, but still more were coming out of the swamp. Round 5 and we only killed one round 6 killed two, and the horses
were harnessed and  camp broken so we began slowly moving away. Gillard, Bear and Tu fought a mighty rear-guard action as we got moving. Bear got hit and scratched but saved ok.  Dexter also just got away from a scratching before they took off and joined us in the moving cart where we slept and took turns driving for the rest of the night.

We arrived safely in Gazebo and we organized silver weapons. 

Debbie

Two long swords for Tu and Beat, and a rapier for Debbie [ten times normal price]. 

We had a spare week in town [while the weapons were made] and I spent the time not doing what you think I did. Instead, I read a good book called "The Day of the Kobold". It was good with lots of fightin' and killin'. 

We all felt good and rested after our rest. We did find out about another job worth thousands of gp's! We were tempted but decided to leave it for another time. We then left for Fresnel and had a easy trip back to Toluene. 

We checked the back exit to the tunnel under the pub [The Slavers' Lookout] and saw tracks that were about two weeks old. I cleverly sneaked in but all was clear. The others joined me me off we went. No sounds ahead so off we went. We found the desiccated body of the hotelier in one of the cells. Myrtle opened the cell and checked the body, which had all his fingers broken and he looked well beat-up [assumed he was tortured to death by Zarbo]. 

We then carried on along the passage back towards the pub. It looked like someone had disturbed the cave-in but only a small bit. We make it to the stairs up to the cellar. We listened at the door and heard nothing. Opening the door all looked undisturbed. We could smell smoke as we slowly walked up the stairs. Daylight flowed into the stone building from the fire-gutted hotel.

After some discussion, I went into  town alone to check out what was what. I went the long way round, and  first checked out the town notice board. A new job on the board and nothing about us. I then went off to a pub we had not used before [The Sign of the Bestial Maid] and asked about the burning of the hotel. 

Rag tag adventurers

There had been a huge blast in the middle of the night a couple of weeks back. Neville Campbell, the owner, and his dogs are missing and so is Zarbo who has not been seen since. 

The local thieves guild was more forthcoming. A bounty is out for a group of adventurers with a bounty of 1,000 gps! I reckon that is us!

I rejoined the group and filled them in. Dexter then went into town to check out the militia. Lots of halflings have had their heads pulled off but other than the fire of the hotel and the disappearance of the hotelier and his dog nothing else really.

Well, that's all for now Mum. Give Woopie a pat and a bone from me.

Your loving son
Ouzo.

(Edited by Myrtle)