The Art House

The crew: Bear [Ian], Debbie [Steven], Myrtle [Andrew], Oliver [Jeff], Ouzo [Darryl], Scuttle [Chris], Tu [Shane], with two marmalading back at the Bestial Maid Inn (Gillard [Kevin], Dexter [Jamie]).

“Oh shit” complained Oliver, “my arm has gone black again!”

The party were in the REAL Temple in Toluene, discussing the Temple’s posted mission to “solve” the raid on the REAL Temple up in Penstoke.

“And destroy the suspected witch’s coven operating in the area” stated the REAL priest.

Back at the Inn we decided that a good starting point in unravelling the local coven would be to locate the house at the top of the access shaft that ran up from the Malechai shrine. We had located that shrine down in the caves below the centre of town, and REAL had dealt to it. We knew that the trapdoor at the top of the shaft (which we could not get through) was somewhere in the city’s central restricted zone. And we knew it would be likely that the symbol we had found on a few of the other houses associated with the coven would be at that location too.

“And” said Oliver, “if we are in the restricted zone again, we could recover that guy’s artwork”

Oliver was referring to one of the jobs posted on the community notice board; to recover Roger Olak’s precious artwork which he had to abandon in his house in the restricted zone when the area was evacuated due to subsidence and risk of collapse.

Oliver and Myrtle dropped around to Roger’s temporary residence to discuss the job. Ten thousand gold pieces to recover his fifteen pieces of artwork from his locked storeroom in the old house. He gave us the address, along with a cursory description of the house layout.

“And most impowtantly” he stressed, “you must wecover the chalice welic and incense sticks that are stowed were in the woom too!”

“Very dodgy” stated Myrtle as we were leaving, “totally not his art! Or even his house”

But we had taken the job. And with some heated discussion and application of party smarts [Oliver made a Mind role, less than 18 and a success] we determined that the location of the shaft in the caves was almost exactly below the house that Roger had directed us to. So, we were looking forward to an efficient two‑in‑one mission into the red zone.

That night we slipped back into Zarbo’s house on the restricted zone boundary, waited till morning, and then out the back door into the restricted zone. Ouzo was cautiously leading us through the streets towards the address when we rounded a corner to find a squad of five town guards directly in front of us and staring straight at us.

“Oi” yelled the ugly female sergeant, “what the f… are you lot doing in here?”
“Oh, good morning sergeant” blustered Ouzo, “can you please direct us to the Custard Tart Inn”
“Eeeek” squealed Tu stumbling back, “they have dogs!”

“No” commanded the sergeant, “now get the f… out of the zone. In fact, we will escort you out”

We were escorted out of the restricted zone!

“And don’t let me catch you in there again” instructed the sergeant, “or you’ll be arrested and thrown straight in the slammer”

We slunk back to the Inn to determine our next steps.

“Well, she was quite nice” chuckled Scuttle.

After a few hours we returned to the Zarbo house to try again. But this time we took more care with our navigation and managed to avoid the patrols and arrived at a walled mansion in the heart of the restricted zone. A ten-foot high brick fence with an old metal gate surrounded a large two‑storey mansion. Peering over the gate we could see an ornate front door in the middle of the building. All the windows we could see were shuttered, stone gargoyles could be seen adorning the corners of the roof, and the gate had a huge padlock locking it closed.

“No traps” said both Ouzo and Scuttle.
“Ha” complained Bear, “Not me this time”

After Scuttle poked at the lock for a few minutes Ouzo quickly sprung it open and we all slipped into the property, closing the gate behind us. Draping the chain around the lock, we made sure not to relock it. The driveway swept round to the left and led to an old stable building. Foregoing the front door, we quickly circled to the right around the house. The right rear of the enclosure sported an overgrown vegetable garden, while an old well was located about halfway along the rear brick wall. 

A back entrance to the house was located about central on the back wall, and there were two old timber out-buildings at the left rear. And sure enough, the coven symbol was subtly caved into the timberwork of the rear door.

A timber veranda  ran along the left side of the house and another entrance was located off the veranda .

The unlocked out-building contained a bunch of gardening tools and a lot of dust. The locked out-building had a broken window along the side and looked to contain more tools and a pile of old sacks of something smelly. Scuttle stepped back from the lock with a frown, so Ouzo stepped up and flicked it open in seconds.

“That’s how you do it Scuttle” he mocked.

Tu and Myrtle slipped into the gloomy interior, and almost immediately stumbled back out with a yell, closely followed by four large flying “bats” with extremely long proboscises.

Tu managed to let off an arrow as the creatures swept up into the air above us and then began to dive straight down towards us. Tu’s arrow hit one squarely in the chest region, closely followed by Myrtle’s sling bullet that hit the same one square between the eyes. It’s head literally exploded, and it dropped to the ground like a stone. Ouzo’s arrow barely injured one of the others.

The three left attacked Bear, Oliver, and Scuttle, but they mostly missed. Bear was struck on the shoulder, but the proboscis just bent against his chain mail armour, and it skittered past with an indignant screech.

Tu got off a shot the next round which took another one mid-flight and pinned it back against the out-building wall. Ouzo’s arrow glanced off the one that still had his previous arrow hanging from its guts, and Myrtle’s highly effective sling bullet knocked one of the others from the sky.

The final remaining creature dived down on Debbie, but missed, and Debbie pierced it with her rapier as it swooped past. But not enough to kill it, as it swept up and turned for another attack.

Oliver’s Magic Missile stopped it mid-dive though and it tumbled to the ground at Debbie’s feet.

Myrtle looked over the four creatures and confirmed their identity as Stirges.

“Nasty blood sucking bastards” she noted.

We took a quick look down into the well, but given our well experience of a month ago, we took the dark well at face value and moved around the corner of the house, bypassing the veranda , and checking out the stables building. The stable door was ajar, so we all slipped in. There was a month’s dead horse lying in the middle of the stable, extremely desiccated, otherwise nothing of interest. Bear shimmied up the ladder to the loft, but only found old straw and dust.

Then we stepped up onto the veranda and Ouzo carefully inspects the lock.
“No traps” he reports, but the disbelieving Scuttle then successfully removed the poisoned needle poised just next to the lock and flicks the lock open with a deft twist of the pick.
“I’s been learning” he confirms.

The door creaked loudly open as Bear gave it a push, and then he stepped boldly in. The room was quite dark, and very musty. The dim shapes of furniture could be seen sitting around what appeared to be a cigar lounge. Directly in front of bear, a long dead figure was slumped in an old armchair.

“Um, my dagger is vibrating” yelled Oliver from out on the veranda.

Bear stepped forward, swinging his new +1 Long Sword at the figure in the chair. His mighty blow shattered the desiccated corpse and scattered bits of bone and ripped cloth across the room.

“Still vibrating” shouted Oliver nervously.

Bear felt the temperature in the room plummet, and his breath began condensing into misty streams as he breathed. He caught a flicker of darkness off to his right and spun around to see a shadowy apparition floating towards him. He swung his sword at the shape but cut only air. 

The creature swung back, and its misty arm swung right through Bear’s torso. But rather than physical damage, the effect of this chilling strike was to reduce Bear’s strength by three points.
[The rolled damage, 6, less Bear’s armour of 3, was deducted from a random character stat, which was strength in this case. Bear’s strength attribute is 18/50 so a 3-point drop reduces it to 16 temporarily. Note that for high strength characters, this affects hit points (from +3 to +1, so effectively -2 hit points temporarily), hit damage if using strength style (from +2 to 0), and other minor abilities like smashing open doors etc.]

At this point Oliver’s dagger gave a throbbing pulse and Oliver noticed that the blackness in his arm retreated slightly to below his elbow, and that he felt particularly invigorated!

Getting in the next strike, [Party rolls a larger initiative roll on D10 than opponent] Bear’s magic sword cuts through the figure and deals four points of damage, less an unknown armour value. This time when the creature swung at him, Bear ducked back out of the way.

Myrtle attempted to use her innate ability to Turn Undead, which unfortunately had no effect.

Failing the next round’s initiative roll Bear was the target of the creature’s next attack. This time Bear was too slow, and the creature hit him for 0 [three points damage minus three armour]. Bear’s return attack swung over the creature’s head and missed.

In the meantime, Tu had been pulling back the curtains and opening the shutters to let in some sunlight, Myrtle had expanded her new magic obsidian +1 staff and stepped in for an attack, and Scuttle had been skulking along the side wall to get behind the creature in preparation for a Back Stab with Gillard’s +1 magical short sword.

In a sudden flurry of activity, each of those three things happened just after Bear hit for 0. Myrtle swung her +1 staff dealing four points of damage. Scuttle appeared right behind the creature and dealt six points of damage. [This was also a critical hit, a 20 on the first D20 roll followed by a second roll that “hit” the creature. The critical hit dealt extra damage, and the Back Stab dealt double damage. This all added to the 6 points inflicted. Less the unknown armour value deducted by the DM] And then a beam of sunlight from the nearby window fell across the creature causing some additional damage. The creature then just evaporated leaving nothing but a lingering chill.

“I got it, I got it” cheered Scuttle, leaping about with excitement.

With a bit of sunlight streaming in we could see that there were two internal doors leading out of the room, one straight opposite the external door we came in, and one to the right that headed towards the front of the house. There were also a couple of tables and some small bookshelves. Ouzo took a look around and was soon lighting up a cigar that he pulled out from one of the cigar boxes laying on the tables. Clouds of smoke billowed out as he puffed away.

“Pretty decent” he stated, “and check out the fancy box. Five more if anyone wants one!”
“Woah” exclaimed Bear as the smoke billowed around him, “my strength is back!”
“Don’t anyone use those cigars, they are obviously magical” commanded Oliver.

We gathered up the fancy cigar box and the (hopefully) five healing cigars and having completed a cursory search of the rest of the room, we headed over to the door leading to the front of the house.

“SNICK” goes the poisoned needle in the door handle as Scuttle grabs it.

But fortunately for him, the lingering cigar smoke in the room neutralised the poison almost immediately. He pushed the door open and stepped into a reading room. This was the corner room of the house, with shuttered and curtained windows around the two outside walls, and full floor to ceiling bookshelves all around the two interior walls. And books, so many books! Oliver squealed in delight and stated looking at the book titles, but Ouzo and Scuttle were already at the next door which looked like it would open into the front door area of the house.

“No traps” reported both Ouzo and Scuttle as they swung the door open.

Steeping through the door we found ourselves in the entrance foyer. Steps led up the second level, an open archway led out of the foyer straight ahead of us, and an internal door was closed to our left, directly opposite the main entrance door to our right. A dense collection of hunting trophies adorned the walls, with thick dust and spider webs indicating quite a time since the house was occupied. Scuttle makes a beeline for one of the ten-pointer deer head trophies mounted low on the wall and lifts it down.

“Rooaaar” he yelled, holding it over his head, “look at me”
“Idiot” chuckled Bear, looking around to make sure there was no one, or nothing, else looking.

Lowering the dear head to the ground, Scuttle checked the left-hand door, and after satisfying himself that there were no traps, he slowly pushed the door open and peered in. A grand dining room with a large centre table covered in rotten and mould food, with twelve seats. Each seat was occupied! Then the twelve shadowy figures stand and turn to look towards the door.

“Opps” whispered Scuttle.
“Um, my dagger is vibrating again” noted Oliver from back in entry foyer.
“Hold the door” yelled Tu as Scuttle pulled the door closed.

Bear shoved Scuttle aside, wrapped his hands around the handle and leaned back. There were a few thumps on the other side of the door, some violent tugging, then nothing. After a few minutes of silence Bear relaxed his hold on the door and looked over at Myrtle.

“Let’s try the archway” she decided.
“There was a door in there that probably went through to the cigar room” noted Scuttle.

The archway led through to an empty lounge with shuttered windows to the front of the house, and a door to our left. Scuttle and Ouzo checked the door and confirmed there were no traps. Myrtle took the risk this time and opened up the door. Nothing happened! The door opened up into a kitchen. The rear door of the house was directly in front of us, a door that probably led to the dining room was on our left, and a staircase dropped down into the darkness on our right. A few little rats were startled by our lights and scuttled off into gloomy corners.

But then a much larger rat hopped up from the stairwell, squeaked at Myrtle, and launched itself at her. As she lurched backwards, tugging the door closed, she saw a stream of rats tumbling over the top step of the stairwell and heading for here. At the rear was an even larger rat, enormous!

“Eww” squealed Myrtle as she slammed the door shut, “Giant Rats”

Bear did his door holding trick again, but with a mighty crash the head of an axe splintered its way through the wooden door panel in front of him. This door was not going to last very long. Oliver bolted back out through the arch to the entrance foyer, and the rest of the party spread out in front of the arch facing towards the kitchen door and preparing to fire. Bear let go of the handle and dropped back to the defensive line, shield up and +1 Long Sword in hand. Scuttle dropped into some shadows by the disintegrating kitchen door and disappeared. Debbie slipped out her magic +1 flute and struck up a fighting tune.

In seconds, the door was smashed open by the axe, and a very scruffy and hairy man with buck teeth stepped through the remains. His Giant Axe was held up in a very aggressive stance, but that was not going to stop our arrows. Ouzo and Myrtle let fly, but only Ouzo’s arrow hit the thing. Then Bear and Tu step forward in unison and engage it in melee. One successful hit each and the rat man goes down, before it can even swing its axe. [Bear hit for nine damage, while Tu made a critical hit dealing eight damage, also reducing its CON by four points, and causing it to faint from the pain]

But then seven giant rats followed it through the door and spread out to attack everyone. Two went for Debbie, two for Tu, and one each for Myrtle, Ouzo, and Bear. Scuttle appeared over the fallen rat man and made sure he would never get back up. In one combat round three of the rats were down, and the remaining four wisely turned tail and scampered back into the kitchen and down the stairs.

We followed of course. Bear and Tu in the front, down into the cellar. Tu was wielding his silver-plated sword and Bear was using his magical +1 sword. Among the stacked barrels and ripped open sacks of flour cowered the four rats. As Tu and Bear stepped forward off the bottom step the rats attacked. The first two rats went down easily with the first strikes, and then the second two leapt into the fray. The lead rat launched itself off a barrel and smashed Bear in the chest. Bear stumbled back, twisted his ankle, and dropped his sword.

[The rat made a critical hit dealing two extra damage, breaking Bear’s rib, temporarily reducing his STR by one and his CON by two, causing him to lose his next attack with subsequent attacks at -2, dropping his weapon, and having to roll on the fumble table. The fumble resulted in the stumble and twisted ankle, with an additional -2 to attack and defence for the rest of the combat. Pretty much as bad as it gets for a strength fighter! The STR and CON reduction also caused a temporary drop in maximum hit points of three for the rest of that combat, or five minutes]

Tu finished off his attacker with a couple of weak blows, but Bear was really struggling against his opponent. The rat had managed to sink its teeth through Bear’s chest armour and was worrying at him mercilessly. Given the peculiar location of the rat against Bear’s chest and Bear’s injury induced restrictions, Bear was unable to get in an effective blow. After Tu killed his one, he spun around and cut Bear’s rat off his chest with a finely judged swipe with his silver-plated long sword.

“Ouch” said Ouzo, offering the cigar box to Bear, “try one of these healing cigars”
“Wait”, yelled Oliver when he finally noticed, “we don’t know that they are all the same …”

Too late!

A cloud of cigar smoke billowed out from Bear’s puffs and enveloped some of us as we all stood around in the small cellar. As we each breathed in the smoke, we began to cough and splutter. Five damage to Bear from the poisonous effects, three damage to Tu, and two damage to Oliver.

 [LUK rolls were made, a fail put you in the smoke, a success put you out of harm’s way. Then saves against poison were required. Obviously, not all cigars are equal]

A decent search of the cellar did not uncover any steel trap doors in the floor, or any hidden passages to other locations. But there were four dead rats and a pile of old rotting foodstuffs.

Myrtle noted that Bear’s broken rib would take three days of rest to come right, or a level two or three Priest’s Cure Serious Wounds, which she could not cast, or some other magical cure effect. But she did cast two Cure Light Wounds, on Tu and Bear, and a Detect Magic.

[The clerical Detect Magic has a much longer duration that the Wizard version, so this is used if a party want to wander about a bit looking for magic]

Not surprising, the four remaining cigars were magical. And fortunately, so was all our own magical equipment, but nothing else down in the cellar. We retreated back through all the rooms we had cleared of danger finding nothing else magical, until back in the cigar room Myrtle could see that a door shaped section of the outer wall had a noticeable “shimmer”.

“There”, she pointed, “a possible secret door of some kind”
“Allow me” stated Ouzo, stepping forward.

Ouzo laid a hand on the wall in the middle of the indicated area to investigate.

“POP”

Ouzo vanished.

Myrtle rushed over and being very cautious not to touch the wall she swung her arms about to check if Ouzo had been turned invisible. Nope. Tu grabbed a mirror off one of the tables and reflected a beam of sunlight onto the indicated section of wall. Nothing.

“Better hurry” exclaimed the incapacitated Bear, “he could be in trouble. Wherever he is now”

Bear and Tu approached the wall and simultaneously touched it.

“POP”

Myrtle and Oliver followed.

“POP”

Debbie was looking at a couple of the books, so Scuttle grabbed her by the arm and pulled her over.

“POP”

We Found ourselves at the top of a stairwell leading down into darkness ahead. We were standing on a stone landing, with a solid stone wall behind us, and only the dark ness ahead. Ouzo was crouched in the shadows beside us with his bow drawn, and Bear and Tu had stumbled down a few steps as the rest of us popped through to wherever we currently were and pushed them forward.

After dragging Debbie through the magical door, Scuttle slumped down into a corner of the landing beside Ouzo with her head drooping and marmalade starting to dribble out the side of her mouth.

“Watch out” yelled Tu, peering down the stairs into the gloom.

Two pairs of glowing eyes could be seen, rapidly getting closer as whatever creatures they were came charging up the stairs towards us. Ouzo fired off an arrow (silver tipped) and we all saw it pass straight through the closer shadowy outline of some four-legged skeletal dog.

Tu and Bear drew their swords and engaged one of the creatures each. Both of them are immediately bitten by these strange dogs, and both of them fail to hit back. Oliver sends a Magic Missile into the one attacking Tu to little effect, and Debbie launches into a rousing tune on her magical flute. [Debbie’s +1 magic flute playing gives us +2 to attack]

Bear, already suffering from a broken rib, twisted ankle, temporary reduction of STR and CON and associated loss of hit points, and damage from his previous battle with the rat, received a nasty bite from the dog. [Dog rolls 8, less 3 for his armour, and deals 5 damage] Feeling like he could not hold out for much longer he tried blocking the dog’s next attack with his shield and quaffing a healing potion. He got the healing potion down but took another mighty bite and collapsed to the ground, blood spurting from a gash in his wrist.

Meanwhile Tu’s attacks have been either missing or not penetrating his opponent’s armour, Oliver let fly another Magic Missile, again to little effect, and Myrtle stepped over Bear’s body to take on the viscous dog that had taken Bear down. Myrtle had expanded her magical +1 obsidian staff and was bashing at the dog. Ouzo also stepped forward and poured another healing potion down Bear’s throat while Tu and Myrtle held the dogs at bay.

Tu struggles on the uneven footing of the stairs and twists his ankle [Rolls a fumble (1 on D20 followed by a missed attack roll) and suffers -2 to his DEX and -2 to his OV] and then collapses as the dog attacking him gets a solid bite into his leg. The dog attacking Myrtle fortunately misses its attack.

Oliver boldly steps forward over Tu’s collapsed body and using his quarterstaff, smacks the dog across the snout for three damage.  Myrtle is not so lucky this time and suffers a mighty bite to the thigh, collapsing to the ground. [Dog rolls 7, less 2 for her armour, and deals 5 damage. Myrtle drops to -1 hit points, and drops unconscious]

In a desperate last-ditch action, Ouzo picks up Myrtle’s dropped obsidian staff and steps over her body to engage the dog while Scuttle staggers up from his marmalading condition to feed another healing potion to Bear.

Seconds later Oliver is bitten by his opponent and staggers back, but stays upright. [Dog rolls 7, less Oliver’s magical armour defence of 3, and deals 4 points. Oliver has 5 hit points total and is reduced to 1, and his magical armour is now expended] Ouzo is also bitten by his opponent, and similarly reduced to 1 hit point. The situation was looking very desperate!

Fortunately, the potion that Scuttle fed to Bear revives him and he reaches forward to drag Oliver out of combat and step into the melee. But the dog was too quick and bites Oliver as he is dragged  back, sending him into unconsciousness. Bear flung him back onto the landing and puts his Great Axe into action. With a mighty blow, he collects the dog on his first swing and crushes it against the wall of the stair. One down!

Ouzo takes another bite and goes down, leaving Bear to face the final dog on his own. The unconscious forms of Tu, Myrtle, Ouzo, and Oliver lay scattered across the stairs. Debbie plays on, only partially aware of her perilous situation. Scuttle has collapsed back into a marmalading state, and the seriously injured Bear battled on to save the party from certain death.

Bear lands another massive blow with his axe and smashes the final dog into pieces.

“Close” he stated, looking back at the slumped forms of the rest of us.

Bear retrieves our final healing potion and feeds it to Myrtle, reviving her.

Myrtle settled down on the top landing and entered her meditative trance to recover her spells while Bear maintained a watch on the darkness below. After an hour Myrtle casts three Healing spells, on Tu, Ouzo, and Oliver, respectively. Tu and Ouzo are revived, and Myrtle again rests and relearns her spells.

After another hour Myrtle casts three Healing spells, on Oliver, Tu, and Ouzo , respectively. Oliver is revived, and Myrtle again rests and relearns her spells. Oliver also takes the opportunity to also rest and relearn his magical spells!

After another hour Oliver has his spells back, and Myrtle casts three more Healing spells, on herself, Bear, and Oliver, respectively. This brings us all to near maximum health, and Myrtle again sits down to rest and relearn her spells. Fifteen minutes later ….

“GRRROOOOWWWWWL” reverberates up the stairs from the darkness below.