Dwellers in the Woods

 Present: 

• Sophia Beauchamp (half-elf priest 21) [Ian]
• Elvis Ghenna (elf bard) [Shane]
• Balder Dash (gnome wizard) [Jamie]
• Slim Jim (human rogue) [Darryl]
• Walton Formalin (half-elf mystic of 21) [Andrew]
• Red Feuersturm (human temple fighter of Hob) [Chris]
• Donk Platebreaker (human fighter) [Jeff]
• Macron (elf thief) [Kevin]

Walton writes.

Sophia, Walton, Slim, Macron and Red and Julia (the NPC witch part of the remnants of Red's former party) were up in the top of Dweller's tower. This tower was attached to the Dweller's cottage, in a small forest, near a cliff edge, three day's travel from Toluene,  in the wilderness of the Oble mountains. 

The tower was three storeys high. The party was standing over the still-warm bodies of two kobold guards. The Sleep spells had done their work, so the Dwellers had not been alerted. Ugly Elvis, the distraction for the raid, hobbled to the base of the ladder. The soles of his feet had been sliced off so there was no way he could climb the ladder up to us unaided. Elvis had been horribly tortured and he had a Major Wound [ In game mechanics, this means Shane makes every roll with a Penalty die. Like D&D's "Disadvantage", this means you roll two D20s and take the worst one. ]. So the group tried to shoo him away into the woods until later, but he pleaded in his frail reedy voice not to be left alone, so they took pity on him and lowered down a rope. Then Red and Slim hauled his sorry arse up to them. 

Elvis's jewish harp

Elvis was an elf, but not that you'd recognize it. He was horribly ugly and malformed, his facial skin was like a burns victim, but he was never burned. To add insult to injury, during his captivity, the kobolds had mockingly cut the tips of his pointy ears off [ APP = 5 ]. Ironically, Elvis was a bard, not that you'd ever guess it. His voice was croaky, and his musical aptitude was as good as zero. He played the Jewish harp. His one was named "IUD".

There was a trapdoor going down, so Macron lead the way, quietly, and the group followed except Julia who stayed to comfort the sickly injured Elvis. 

Lucky it was on a chain

Level two of the tower was a laboratory with some distilling ceramics and shelves full of knick-knacks. Chained to the wall there was, none other than, Balder Dash, his glistening naked body severely cut, punctured and burned from his time with the kobolds. When rescued, Sophia and Walton cured what they could, and that enabled Balder to walk. Luckily, he didn't have a Major Wound. The ladder continued below through another trapdoor.

Level one, ground level, had a dog chained to a wall ring. Luckily, it did not hear the floor creaking and groaning above as the group pranced about. Balder still had his magic, so he hit the war-dog with a Sleep and that allowed Macron to kill it in cold blood. And so the group all descended.

There was a heavy set door exiting this room. The group could hear talking through here, so it was time for Plan A. Slim lead the way, he threw the door open. Well, he tried, but it was locked!

So, he kicked at it, and luckily, the bolt splintered and the door fell in. There was a large room, the entire cottage was one room, in fact. There was a fire burning in the hearth, and an ugly woman with a sword - this was the Dweller fighter whom the group had seen before - but she had no armour (lucky!), and off to one side was the scruffy and unkempt Dweller wizard himself. Over in the far corner was Donk, still alive, strapped naked to a table, severely wounded. The Dwellers were not surprised (after all, Slim had bashed the door several times). 

Macron succumbs to Sleep
 as Sophia scurries clear

Slim rushed at the man but was dropped after a few paces with Sleep. Red engaged the woman. Macron rushed in, followed by Walton and then Balder. Macron managed to wake Slim before he himself was dropped with another Sleep.

Then, with a flurry of Sleeps from Walton and Balder, and general weight of numbers, the two hapless Dwellers were eventually dropped, and brutally slaughtered.

The group then rescued injured Donk, cured him best they could (Sophia and Walton); he had a Major Wound so would be a bit slow.

Julia and Elvis were collected. The place was searched, but not much was found. The Dwellers did have some dried verbenas and verbena seeds which the group took. 

There was another trapdoor in the floor, so they explored down there. It was a store room with fresh food and clean water, and an escape tunnel. They followed it and it led down to the base of the cliff (near to where the body of ugly Elvan was found hanging last time).

Having cleared out the Dweller's cottage, the group headed back towards the Verbena Source to try to locate some more living clumps of the herb.

verbena / vervain

This location was reached several hour's later, just before dark, and Detect Poisons were cast about (Sophia and Walton). All the soil around here was contaminated, and herbalist Balder knew that the verbena seeds would not strike if planted in this area. And the group couldn't just plant to a nearby area; this spot had a micro climate that was perfectly suited to verbena, so the winter frosts would kill verbena if planted elsewhere.

Still thinking what to do, the group struck camp for the night. Red took a holy wafer which dropped him for the night [ Holy wafers are the priest equivalent of Wizards' Guild grapes, and are used to recharge the spell-caster's Magic Points ]. Sophia, Balder and Walton decided to not zonk themselves with wafers and grapes, which turned out to be beneficial. 

During second watch, two waves of goblins attacked. Five the first wave and eight the next.

The group managed the five goblins with not too much trouble, but the eight certainly pressed them. After that battle, magic points were all pretty much drained.

Mention in dispatches: Slim killed three. Donk took on four injured. Goblins criticalled twice (severely damaging Donk and dropping Walton). Elvis, in a fit of extreme cowardice (but maybe understandably), played possum successfully. Had the goblin that he tricked damaged Balder or Sophia, and disrupted spell attacks, the group would have been enraged and probably hanged him.

Sophia and Balder decided to rest into the morning, which meant the group had a late start.