Joe can do it!

Present:

• Balder Dash (gnome wizard) - Jamie

• Donk Platebreaker (human fighter) - Jeff

• INTRODUCING: Joe Manco (human fighter) - Shane

• Malcolm Gandhi (gnome thief) - Kevin

• MARMALADING: Red Feuersturm (human temple fighter of Hob) - Chris

• Slim Jim (human rogue) - Darryl

• Sophia Beauchamp (half-elf priest 21) - Ian

• Walton Formalin (half-elf mystic of 21) - Andrew

The crew were standing just outside the Toluene gates waiting for the slaver's wagon train to pass by and collect us. Well, everyone except for Elvis that is. Elvis had taken offence at all the rude names we had called him and packed in adventuring for the meantime. The upcoming trip to Draser may have been a small factor in his decision, but it was probably all the rude names!

Sophia was quite taken by Zara

Just after breakfast we spotted the wagon train rolling in from klibward, the general direction of Penstoke. There were nine or so wagons, four were loaded with extremely attractive female slaves, one held two males, one held a small silver barred cage containing a young girl, and three were general transport and supplies for all the guards. Monty the Goth, a big tough human fighter led the wagon train, with Robert and Zara as his lieutenants. Zara was a beautiful curvaceous Priestess of SOIXANTE-NEUF, dressed in curve-hugging black leathers and carrying a nasty looking whip. Robert was the typical grumpy second in charge fighter type who didn't say much.

"Do not free the slaves" yelled Monty, as he expounded the rules of our token "employment".

"Do not interact in any way with the girl", pointing at the silver cage on the back of the wagon.

"Do whatever I say, and always listen to Joe, he knows what to do" 

Joe turned out to be one of Monty's head guards [Shane's new character] and was put in nominal charge of our group. The VINGT-ET-UN temple had arranged for our passage to Draser, travelling undercover as guards on Monty's slave train. Once we arrived in Draser we were to investigate the disappearance of one Simone Fussell who had been investigating some cash-flow discrepancies at the Draser Casino. The last report had arrived some weeks ago, but nothing since.

So, off we went. The weather was actually pleasant for a change, and we made good time on the first two-day section, overland to Skulk. The country was open farmland, and we were off the main travel routes, not cross-country exactly, but on a series of back-country tracks. 

When questioned about the route, Monty just replied that this was the way we were going, and that he hadn't recalled asking us to navigate for him! 

Arriving at Skulk mid-afternoon of day two, we set up camp for the night, and moved off again in the morning. This time we were heading for Pulchrite. Another two days travel across the open farmland. Although the weather had turned, and a soaking drizzle fell for just about the whole two days. We had a miserable overnight camp beneath some eternally dripping trees and arrived at Pulchrite mid-afternoon the next day. We again set up camp outside of the town.

"Joe, first thing tomorrow, take that group into town and get our supplies" commanded Monty.

Dark shadowy figures
stalked Sophias dreams.

That night, Sophia was plagued by disturbing dreams. In her dream, she watched helplessly as female slaves were tortured and violated, and young children were sacrificed. "Help me" they cried pitifully as they were put to the knife by a dark and shadowy figure with a dimly glowing halo. Waking in a cold sweat, Sophia nervously discussed these dreams with Walton. 

"Don't be telling the others" Walton suggested, "It would only trouble them"

The next day Joe gathered us up and took us into the town with a list of supplies. Walton put his mystical bookkeeping and negotiating skills to good use, and we returned some hours later with everything on the list, and then some. Monty was also surprised to receive a handful of change from his coin bag.

"You should never give it all back" mumbled Slim, "You Mystic loser"

A hideously evil creature tormented the children

That night Sophia was again plagued by disturbing dreams. 

Female slaves screamed as evil creatures stalked them and violated them, 

Children were tortured and whimpered in fear as a hideous monster leered in front of them, saliva and juices dribbling down its face, and crooked teeth snapping for them. "Help me ..." echoed in Sophia's mind as she jerked into wakefulness, panicked and breathless.

"What the fringing heck?" wondered Sophia, "where are these evil images coming from?"

Quietly discussing the dreams with Walton, they decide that they had better talk to the slave girl in the silver cage, despite Monty's express instructions not to have any interactions with her. Ever!

That morning Monty told everyone that we would be staying here another night and moving on the following morning. "Have a good rest" he said, "the next few days travel will be tougher"

That evening, Sophia and Walton contrived to secretly talk to the slave girl. They determined that she was from Gazebo, where her parents had been killed and she had been sold into slavery. She also had been having bad dreams, about evil creatures, and an unknown Priestess who wanted her help.

"Could that be you?" Walton quietly asked Sophia later.

"I don't need no help!" responded Sophia, "Although these dreams are so bad, I can't even recover any magic points"

Perversely, that night Sophia's dreams were totally normal, consisting of dice rolling across the craps table and coming up seven every time. She awoke totally refreshed.

The terrain was more hilly

After a hearty breakfast, we broke camp and started off towards the Spoon River crossing, two days travel away. The terrain was becoming hilly, and Monty's prediction of tougher travel was born out. But the time quickly passed, there were no encounters, problems, or interruptions to the journey. 

We camped out on a small rise for the night, and Monty let everyone know that we would not be crossing the Spoon River by the main bridge, but rather we would be using an alternative crossing that he knew about.

"About a days travel upstream from the main bridge" he noted. 

"A much quieter and less busy crossing, only known to some"

"A smuggler crossing no doubt" muttered Ghandi, nodding his head knowingly. 

The next morning we woke to the sound of heavy rain pounding on the tents. Sophia's sleep had been blessedly peaceful again, and pretty soon we were dressed in the wet-weather gear and on our way. We diverted away from the path to the main river crossing and dropped down a ridge to the right. The Spoon River could be seen in the distance, wending its way across our path. As we dropped down off the hills, we lost sight of the river, and pretty soon it was just Monty leading us through the scrub and bush slopes that kept us heading in the right direction. The wagons snaked their way through the thickening bush, barely squeezing between the tress, as we followed some small trails that Monty seemed to be familiar with.

A large waterwheel powered the bridge span

Later that afternoon the rain lifted, and we could hear the rushing sounds of a river ahead. We popped out of the bush just upstream of an old two-span stone bridge that crossed the river at a narrow point. The far span was raised up at around forty-five degrees, so the bridge effectively stopped at mid-span, and we weren't crossing until the span was lowered down!

A complicated mechanical system at the hinge point on the far abutment was connected back to a three-story wooden house with a giant waterwheel. A faint trace of woodsmoke could be seen exiting the chimney.

At the upstream side of the house, a flight of stone steps climbed up from the riverbank path to a small deck. The wooden door there swung slowly in the breeze. 

Something was definitely amiss at the wheelhouse.

"Lower the bloody bridge" Monty yelled at the house. There was no reply.

"Bugger" Monty complained, "It's meant to be down"

"Joe" Monty instructed, "Take the group over there and find out what's going on"

The water was relatively shallow, unless you are a Gnome, so Walton hoisted Malcolm onto his shoulders and carefully wades out into the river. Slim gathered up Balder, who complained profusely, and followed Walton out into the water. 

Sophia doesn't like water, so she asked for a lift across too. Donk plucked Sophia off the bank, settled her over his shoulders, and strode out after Slim and Walton. From the far bank, Slim and Walton set down the Gnomes, and turned to watch Donk and Sophia crossing.

About halfway over, Donk stumbled, flailed around for a bit, and then just disappeared under the water. Sophia bobbed up, gurgling and flailing her arms about. It was a stroke of Luck, but she managed to catch hold of a small log that happened to be floating by, and she drifted slowly downstream until becoming wedged against a few rocks.

No sign of Donk though. [Jeff failed his Dexterity roll, then failed his Luck roll, and then failed his swimming roll. This left Donk in a precarious situation. Weighed down by his chain mail, that he had foolishly decided to wear during the river crossing, he had stumbled into a hole in the riverbed, and was unable to regain his feet] 

Donk was lying on the bottom of the riverbed, the weight of his armour and the flow of the river current holding him down. He could see the surface above him, trails of bubbles streaming out of the nooks and crannies of his chain mail and bursting up out of the water just above him. But nothing he tried had any effect. He was trapped, and his breath was rapidly running out.

Just as it seemed that Donk would open his mouth and fill his lungs with river water, an arm reached down from the surface, grabbed Donk by the hair, and hauled him up and out. Bursting through the surface of the water, Donk gasped in a great lungful od air, and looked up. Walton had a firm grip on Donk's hair and was looking down worriedly.

"Thought we'd lost you" Walton commented.

Donk staggered to the bank, while Walton splashed off to rescue Sophia from off the rocks where she was holding on tightly, and shivering fit to burst. 

"Praise to VINGT-ET-UN" she chattered, "That was Lucky"

After drying off, we turned out attention to the wheelhouse. Pairs of windows looked down at us, and the open door was just way too inviting.

"In you go" Joe suggested.

Balder cast a Protection from Normal Missiles on Donk, and then slipped behind him as the group advanced up the steps to the open door. The creak of the hinges could be heard over the splashing of the river behind us as Donk took the last of the steps and slipped into the doorway. Donk looked around the large open room at the front of the house, the wheel room he decided. It was immediately apparent that the bridge wasn't coming down any time soon! The room was empty of people, but bent and twisted hunks of metal and smashed cogs and gears were littered across the floor. The large metal axle that poked up through the floor from the waterwheel mechanism below, slowly turned. But the equipment that had probably connected it to the bridge mechanism had been torn loose, smashed, and strewn across the room, 

"Oh golly gosh" cried Balder in shock, "Someone done a wery vine job on that!"

"Looks like at least 2 to 3 days to get that going again" he concluded.

There were two other door openings off the far side of the room, so we moved on deeper into the house.

On the left the door led into a workshop. Tools hung from the walls, and an assortment of metal item and unknown mechanisms littered the benches. One wall held bookcases, filled with books.

"Oh golly gosh" whispered Balder, "I av died and gone to Heaven!"

But there were no exits from this workshop, and no people there either. We moved back to the second exit from the wheel room and entered a huge kitchen space. A stair on the far side of the room went both up, and down, and on the left-hand wall were two closed doors. On the right wall was a large stone fireplace, embers glowing red and a wisp of smoke rising up and disappearing up the chimney.

Odd footprints

"Look" noted Slim, "Blood on the floor, and lots of odd three-toed webbed footprints"

We tried the left-hand door first, but that just led to an empty washroom with tubs and a couple of showers.

"Look" noted Slim, "Puddles of warm water in the shower stalls"

The right-hand door led into a porch space, empty boot racks lined one wall, and an opening led out the back of the house to stairs that dropped to ground level.

"Look" noted Slim, "Five pairs of boots still tucked in here"

So, it was back to the kitchen and the stairs. Up, or down?

"Ssshhh" whispered Slim, "Did you hear that?"

A slight creaking in the floorboards above us indicated that something was up there.

"Let's go down and check the basement" said Walton loudly, with a big wink.
Walton pointed at Malcolm, and waved him over to the stairs leading up.

Malcolm crept up the stirs towards the creaking floor, while the rest of us clomped about noisily below. Reaching the top of the stairs, Macolm silently peered down the corridor there. All three doors along each side of the corridor were closed, and there was nothing to see. Listening at the first door, Malcolm heard nothing. Nothing on the other side of the door, and nothing from anywhere else on the floor. Figuring that opening any of the doors might be detrimental to his health, he crept back down the stairs are reported.

"Ssshhh" whispered Slim, "Did you hear that?"

The faint sound of a door opening and closing drifted down the stairs from above. Then the quiet patter of running feet sounded. Donk, Joe, Slim, and Malcolm charged up the staircase, thumping loudly on each tread and sounding out a battle cry. Well, Donk and Slim were yelling, Malcolm was as silent as a sneaky Gnome thief, and Joe was focussed on getting his feet onto each step without tripping and forgot to yell.

The lizardmen were carrying tridents

Arriving at the upper level, Donk saw two odd looking lizard creatures, standing upright on two hind legs, at the end of the corridor. They had a ladder leaning up the wall, and there was an open trapdoor above them. They were climbing onto the ladder and heading up into some attic space above. Donk hesitated at the first door, wondering about the possibility that enemies might emerge behind them if they all rushed forward, and Slim pushed past and raced towards the climbing lizard creatures. 

Slim dived forward, just as the ladder was being pulled up through the trapdoor from above and grabbed the ladder firmly by the bottom rung. The creatures let the ladder go and slammed the trapdoor doom with a sold thud. Donk, Joe, and Malcolm checked all the six rooms that opened off the corridor, but nothing of interest was found. Except for a dead human body in the last room!

"Bloody tridents" stated Slim, "Those things were carrying tridents"

Donk and Slim placed the ladder below the trapdoor and Donk climbed up and gave a shove. The trapdoor gave only slightly, there was something very heavy up on top.

Suddenly, there was a lot of croaking noises from above, guttural shouting and screams. Donk quickly retreated back to the floor, and looking up noticed a few drops of greenish-yellow liquid seeping down around the trapdoor.

"Malcolm" Donk asked, "Can you sneak a look in through an attic window?"

Malcolm quickly clambered out one of the bedroom windows and climbed up the outside of the house to the attic level. Peering through one of the upper windows, Malcom saw two dead lizard creatures collapsed next to the trapdoor location. A large storage box was sitting over the trapdoor, and a greyish figure in a flapping cloak was crouched over them. It leant down and ripped off an arm and started to eat. Then another of the greyish creatures drifted out of the darkness of the attic and joined the first. They both looked hungry, and nasty as.

"We definitely don't want to be going up there" Malcolm reported after he clambered back in through the bedroom window.

Balder cast a Lock spell. There was a satisfying "snick" sound, and we all retreated back to the kitchen and prepared to explore the basement down below.

The basement looked to primarily be a store, there were crates and barrels stacked around the place, In one of the far corners away from the stairs, a ring of stacked crates hid an opening in the floor. A deep pit dripped about ten metres to some form of tunnel leading off below. Chips and shards of rock could be seen by the light of our torches. This was definitely a "man-made" shaft dug up into the basement from below. And quite recently by the look of it. There was a damp moist smell to the air, but no draft, and no noise. Slim piled up a stack of boxes that could be easily tipped into the hole, and we turned our attention to a large and sturdy wooden door, the only other exit from the basement.

This was a very solid metal reinforced door, with a solid steel locking bar in place between two metal brackets bolted firmly into the stone walls of the basement. Malcolm checked for traps and finding nothing he waved for Donk to come forwards and open it up. Donk grabbed the locking bar with his hands, took a deep breath, and prepared to heave it up and out of the way. But it was cold. Colder than the rest of the room. Colder than Donk expected it to be. Donk let the bar go.

"UM" Donk stated, "Icy cold!" 

Sophia cast a Detect Undead spell and confirmed that there were indeed undead on the other side of the door.

"Let's not go through there" Sophia suggested.

"Ya think?" confirmed Slim sarcastically.

Having explored all of the easily accessible locations in the house, locked off the creepy creatures in the attic, and rigged a trap beside the basement pit, we retreated back over the raised bridge to report to Monty. Malcolm took a rope, leapt off the raised end of the bridge span, deftly tumbled to a halt on the lowered span, and tied off the ropes. We all managed to clamber, or be lowered, down the rope over the river, to the bridge. 

Help us they cried.

Monty set a double guard that night and we all tumbled into our beds. Sophia was hoping to regain some of her magic points, but her disturbing dreams stated up again. This time she dreamt of young girls, drowned beneath still waters, wrapped in weeds, and with their eyes turned glassy white.

"Help us" they cried.

The next morning, Monty tasked Joe to lead us back across the river to escort Samuel, Monty's repairman. He was going to fix up the bridge mechanism so we could lower the raised span and get the wagons across.

"Two days" Monty yelled after us as we hauled ourselves back up the ropes and onto the raised bridge, "Two days!"

Samuel immediately got to work on the broken mechanism in the wheel room, Donk watching over him in case anything came into the house from the river, or down from the locked attic. The rest of the party descended into the basement, planning to explore the underground tunnel and see where it might have started from. Lowering a Light down on a rope, they determined that the passage below led off away from the river. 

"I ain't going down there" argued Slim, "You do it Joe"

"I ain't going down there" replied Joe, "I need to keep an eye on things up here for Monty"

"I'll friggin do it, ya yellow bellied puss buckets" volunteered Malcolm.

He was lowered into the pit, ten metres down, where we watched him untie his rope and scuttle off into the darkness along the tunnel. He was back in about ten minutes, refastened his rope, and climbed up the pit wall faster than Slim could haul the rope up.

"Lots of those webbed footprints" he reported, "The tunnel goes about two-hundred metres with twists and turns, and then dips down into water. I ain't no swimmer, so that's as far as I went"

They set a Light stone at the bottom of the pit, set up a watch rotation at the top of the pit, and up in the wheel room, and settled in for the two-day repair duration. While Walton and Balder were on watch at the pit latter that day, noises were heard from below. A gurgling whisper of sound, and the patter of feet. Balder quickly rushed off to wake and alert the others, and Walton cautiously watched the bottom of the pit. The noises grew slightly louder, and then a green scaled arm reached into the light from the tunnel and grabbed for the Light stone.

Sleep went Walton's spell, and the green arm slumped to the ground. But it quickly got dragged backwards out of sight. Some more gurgling noises and the Light stone went out. Fearing the worst, Walton turned to see Balder rushing back into the room. He raced over to the pit and stood beside Walton, peering down into the dark pit.

"Better stand back" he instructed, "This is a perfect opportunity for my Fireball"

"Oh bugger" Balder complained, "That's a shame"

[The Fireball spell failed to ignite. Jamie had failed his Arcane 3 roll (rolled higher than his skill using the D20), expended the 3 magic points, but with no effect]

The rest of the able party members crowded into the basement, ready to defend the top of the pit with their lives. The croaking noises of many lizardman voices echoed up from the bottom of the pit, and Balder leant over the edge again. 

Slim was caught in the fire

"BOOM" succeeded his second Fireball attempt.

A mighty gout of flame blasted up the pit and into the basement. Flames washed across the wooden ceiling and billowed back down the walls in a swirling maelstrom of fire. Slim and Joe were both caught in the backdraft, suffering immediate fire damage. Joe was slightly singed, but Slim took some serious burns around the face. 

"Second time lucky" beamed Balder.

"You idiot" Slim huffed, his eyebrows singed off and smoke rising off his leather armour.

"The ceiling" yelled Sophia, noticing the flames establish themselves on the wooden ceiling, which was the floor of the kitchen above. "The whole house will go up" she screamed.

"Water" yelled Walton.

Recalling that she was able to create water, albeit in smallish quantities, Sophia began a series of Create Water spells centred on the flaming ceiling. After multiple successful spells, she had the fire out, the blackened and charred flooring gently steaming, and water everywhere.

A couple of Cures for Slim, and things settled back down. There were no lizardmen bodies down at the bottom of the pit, but neither was there any more noise. They had taken their dead and retreated.

Sophia took a clerical wafer and slumped into an enforced magic-point recovery rest. She would be out for ten hours. The guard watches were reconfigured and reestablished, but nothing else exciting occurred, until Samuel reported that his repairs were complete. The bridge span was lowered, and the wagons were all rolled across. Once everybody was across, Samuel disabled the wheelhouse mechanism, effectively locking the bridge span down, and we continued on the trip.

The next portion of the journey would take us overland to Able, near the headwaters of the Oxfam River, somewhere up in the Able Pass. Monty figured this would be a six-seven-day stage, with a slight detour around the town of Emanter Phile.

"We don't want to go too near that place!" Monty noted.

Monty's cross-country path seemed to be serving us well. They had been no major encounters, apart from the creatures at the river crossing. But no raids or attacks. That's got to be a good thing right?

Over the next few days Sophia was troubled every night by the dreams and messages that were building in intensity. Discussing the situation with Walton again, they decided they had better talk to the slave-girl in the silver cage again. Given the repeated requests for help from young girls in the dreams, they figured that she must be involved somehow. So, they repeated the actions that had worked so successfully last time. 

But I guess VINGT-ET-UN had other plans, and just after starting a conversation with the slave-girl, a guard walked around the end of the wagon and caught them mid-conversation. Monty was summoned, and pretty soon the whole guard crew and our party were standing around a full-noise yell fest.

"What was the one rule?" screamed Monty in a rage.

"Ah, there were three rules" pointed out Balder quietly.

"What was the one rule ... about the friggin girl?" screamed Monty, saliva flying.

"Joe, grab that Gnome, gag him, and toss him in the slave wagon with the other men" yelled Monty.

Things were going downhill fast, and we weren't even halfway yet. Sophia used her charm, appeal, and good looks to Persuade Monty that perhaps the slave wagon was a bit much for poor Balder, "After all, he was the one who saved everyone from the Lizardmen, and that let us get over the bridge"

[Ian was successful with his roll against his Persuade skill. Persuade is a skill based on a combination of all those factors that might be used to influence a decision. Monty's decision was influenced, he calmed down, and concluded that the slave wagon wasn't probably the best after all]

"Perhaps the slave wagon is a bit much" recanted Monty, "Joe, three lashes for the Gnome!"

"And don't interact with the friggin girl" yelled Monty, "Or it'll be you (pointing at Walton) in the slave wagon."

Walton and Sophia decided that talking to the slave-girl perhaps wasn't such a good idea and backed off that plan. The dreams continued, Sophia not getting a good rest and night, getting more and more exhausted and haggard. The messages during the dreams were getting clearer though. And she started having waking dreams, during the day. A voice in her head. Not heard by anyone else.

"Help me" had diversified into "Let me out" and "I can't go to Draser" and "Help me"

It was definitely the slave-girl.

"She ain't no girl" noted Slim, "She might look like one, but she ain't"

Sophia is gagged by Zara

Sophia decided that she would need to discuss the situation with Zara, but that didn't work out too well! Zara got Joe to gag Sophia with one of those anti-magic devices. "Just in case you are unduly influenced and try to cast spells" she said. "You can move around like normal, just no spells. Or talking"

"Gumph buuh slgggh" replied Sophia angrily.

A days later, the wagon train was winding through some low hills, and we heard and saw a large combat occurring on top of a rise in the distance. Clouds of dust were billowing up, and the clash and clang of steel echoed down the hillside towards us. Stopping to observe, Monty called out for Joe.

"Joe, send that group up there to see what's going on"

Joe gathered us together, removed Sophia's gag, and sent us forward to see what was going on. We moved up a little way, then decided to send Malcolm forward to scout out the battle site. Malcolm stepped behind a blade of grass and disappeared. A few branches rustled ahead of us. Some minutes later, Malcolm returned to report that a great battle had occurred. The bodies of Gnomes and Orc's littered the ground, cut down by great sword blows. Some bloody Orc tracks led off towards the hills, and a mounted horseman was perusing.

"One horseman?" queried Walton.

"Yup" confirmed Malcom.

"How many bodies again" asked Slim.

"Dozens" confirmed Malcolm.

"Wow" Joe stammered, "Who the heck is that horseman?"

Monty decided that we would ignore the battle and move on to a good defensible campsite.

"The enemy of our enemies is a friend, right?" he figured.

... To be continued