The Barge

   Present:

• Balder Dash (gnome wizard) - Jamie
• Donk Platebreaker (human fighter) - Jeff
• Joe Manco (human fighter) - Shane
• Malcolm Gandhi (gnome thief) - Kevin
• Red Feuersturm (human temple fighter of Hob) - Chris
• Slim Jim (human rogue) - Darryl
• MARMALADE: Sophia Beauchamp (half-elf priest 21) - Ian
• Walton Formalin (half-elf mystic of 21) - Andrew

By Donk

As the second gargoyle dived towards us, Joe stepped to the fore and Slim tossed his net. The net successfully entangled the gargoyle's wings, but didn't prevent it from smashing down towards Joe, who waved his sword and dodged deftly to the side. [Joe's roll against his Dodge ability was better than the gargoyle's roll against its Attack ability. The attack missed, Joe dodged, and the gargoyle crashed to the ground with its wings tangled in the net]

Despite my grievous injury from the previous gargoyle's critical hit, I took a swing at it as it flopped on the ground. Missed! Then all three of us dived onto it, pinned it down immobile, and Slim was able to kill it with a deadly slice across the throat. It crumbled to pebbles beneath us!

Looking up the hill towards the ridge, I noticed that the seven rescued girls, escorted by Balder, Malcolm, and Red had disappeared over the top and were hopefully safe from the third gargoyle. Joe threw Sophia over his shoulder, and we all ran on towards the ridge ourselves. Joe pulled ahead of the others on the climb.

"Wow" I thought to myself, "That new armour of Joe's sure looks easy to run in"

Stumbling over the ridge at the rear, I looked back into the valley. The little natural light from the stars overhead did not reveal any sign of pursuit, and no sign of the third gargoyle. All was quiet, so I turned and followed the others down the far side of the hills and towards the river, somewhere in the darkness ahead.

The others were waiting for me a little way ahead, and a brief discussion about the merits of spending our last magic points casting Hide Tracks, versus Healing, versus waiting for a later emergency ensued. Walton decided that waiting was the most prudent, and I led the party on. [Donk's Survival in the Wild skill was the highest in the group, and Donk was certain he knew exactly where the rendezvous point on the river was. He also recalled a decent copse of trees nearby the rendezvous point where everyone could rest up until dawn. Unfortunately, Donk's roll against his skill had failed, and his recollection was clouded by his recent critical hit in the head!]

With me in the lead, the party and the rescued girls, hurried through the night towards the river. After some hours, the sounds of the river could be heard ahead, but also, I heard the sounds of pursuit from behind.

"Walton" I whispered, "Now might be a good time to use that Hide Tracks spell. I'm pretty sure I heard the sound of dogs from behind us."

Veering slightly to the right for a few hundred meters, we set a false trail before Walton did his thing, and then we veered back towards the rendezvous point. We arrived at the river just as dawn was breaking. It had taken us slightly longer than planned, but it had been dark, and we had the seven rescued girls to assist. We were expecting the barge to arrive just after dawn, so we settled down for a short wait.

...

"That's a half hour" noted Balder.

No barge.

...

"That's an hour" noted Balder.

No barge.

...

"That's an hour and a half" noted Balder.

"There is only one river round here, right?" queried Slim.

"Of course" I responded, "The barge is just late. Be patient"

...

That's two hours" noted Balder.

...

"Oh look, finally, the barge" said Walton.

"That's two hours, seventeen minutes" noted Balder.

The horse slowly pulled the barge towards us, and we prepared to board.

"Why weren't you at the rendezvous" called the bargeman Jasper.

Apparently, I wasn't as good a navigator as I had assumed. But hey, we got here, and got picked up, and the chasers never found us. So that's all good, right?

The spell casters took their wafers and grapes and settled down below the barge deck for some forced recovery time. In fact, everyone hid out below decks as the barge moved peacefully up the river back towards Draser. The bargeman, Jasper, reported a very heavy guard presence at the Turk's wharf as the barge slipped quietly passed there.

After the spell casters had woken, Cures were cast, including a Cure Major Wound on the massive egg that had appeared on the back of my head after the Gargoyle had struck. The ringing headache and slightly double vision disappeared immediately, which was a great relief.

Night fell, the barge pulled into the shore, and the spell casters took another round of wafers and grapes. The river was pretty busy, with barge and other boat traffic in both directions. We had moored at a way-station wharf with a bunch of other barges, and Jasper and his crew maintained a watch overnight. Those of us not recovering spells also took a watch, but we kept ourselves hidden from any observing eyes.

We set off again in the morning, anticipating arriving in Draser that night, just after dark. Which we did. Jasper moored at a common wharf some hundreds of meters from Tomo's warehouse, and Malcolm and Jasper strolled up the street to make sure there were no watchers at the warehouse. Which there were not.

Apparently, we were being searched for throughout Draser, by name, and with some decent descriptions of some of us. Both the recovered girls and ourselves were smuggled into the warehouse and kept hidden there for a week, while the girls were thoroughly debriefed in relation to their experiences and what they knew of the Turk's operations. 

At the end of the week, we were all going to be smuggled out of Draser, by barge again, and transported to Hackerton, out on the Free Coast. This trip would take us upriver, over the Mamba Locks, across Lake Mamba, through the Mamba Forest, and down the Hackerton River to the coast, where Hackerton sprawls beside the river mouth. Expected to be two days of travel.to the Locks, one day to pass the Locks, a few days down river to Mamba, four days along the lake, then a swift run of maybe five days down the Hackerton River.

During the week of enforced waiting, we were paid our two-thousand gold piece fee for recovering Selina, some of which we spent on identifying the magical treasure collected on our recent adventures. We had:

• Magic chain mail of weightlessness [Jeff rolled and successfully obtained this]
• +1 Large Shield (requires a Strength of fourteen to wield) [Left in the party stash]
• +1 (to hit) Long Sword (classed as a one-handed sharp weapon) [Left in the party stash]
• The two remaining Potions of Diminution [Left in the party stash]
• A bag of saffron powder from Zephyr the Turk's basement lab (3 doses of Mental Fortress)
• +1 Lock Picks [Kevin rolled and successfully obtained these]

The day of departure dawned clear and sunny, we all slipped into the barge, named "Pontoon", and Jasper the bargeman got us underway. The day was uneventful, and we were towed slowly upriver by the horses. That night we pulled into the riverbank, set watches, and settled in for a sleep. Walton and I took the first watch, with one of the barge crew, Slim, Joe, and Malcolm were on the second watch, with Red and Balder on the third watch.

A quiet and peaceful night!

The next day Jasper told us that towards evening we would be passing the Draser border post, so we would all need to be particularly quiet in our below deck cubbyhole. 

The border crossing went smoothly, and we again pulled into the riverbank for the night.

The next day we reached the start of the Mamba Locks around midday. Travelling through the Locks was an interesting process of start-stop-wait-move. But we eventually arrived at the top of the Locks and were discharged onto the headwaters of the Mamba River near nightfall. We pulled the barge into the riverbank, alongside a couple of other barges, and set up for the night.

Things were quite peaceful, until right near the end of the last watch, while Red and Balder were on duty. 

Balder kicked everyone awake with a hissed "Sssshh, suspicious drunks approaching".

We all prepared for action, while Red yelled from the top of the gangplank.

"Fuck off ya mongrels" he roared, "Only death awaits ya here"

Shadowy figures hid by the river

Balder had also spotted two other figures, crouched in the bushes on the far side of the river and was keeping an eye on them during Red's confrontation.

"Wha?" questioned one of the 'drunks', "Dis my boat, need lie down time"

Then he toppled off the side of the gangplank and into the river.

Walton had cast a Sleep spell from the deck!

The second "drunk" dragged his companion from the river and they walked hurriedly on. Balder noted that one of the figures on the other side of the river had disappeared, and there was the suspicion that the drunks might have been a distraction to allow two swimmers to slip onto the barge from the river side without being spotted. Jasper the bargeman remarked that raids on the boats plying these headwaters were not uncommon. 

Whatever, we saw no one else and dawn arrived not long thereafter. 

After a hearty breakfast, we set off down the Mamba River towards the town of Mamba, situated at the head of the lake. Some hours later, Jasper called a halt, and we stopped mid-river. Peering ahead, Jasper reported that there were some unusual rapids in the river.  "Never seen anything like that here before" he commented.

"Let us off on the bank and we'll check it out" suggested Joe.

Our party disembarked on the true left and Jasper pulled the barge back into the safety of mid-stream. Walton suggested Malcolm use the ground cover and sneak ahead to investigate the bush just beside where the strange rapids were. Malcolm used his Stealth skill and slipped quietly ahead.

There arrows flew from the bushes, one embedding itself into Malcolm's chest, and throwing him to the ground.

"Charge" I yelled, and took off towards the bush, trusting my fellow fighters would be right behind me.

As I was running, a small red pellet flashed past my shoulder and disappeared into the bush ahead. Then a massive explosion erupted out of the bush, just as Balder's laugh erupted from behind me.

"Vireball" Balder yelled, "Ye-haw"

Slowing to let the erupting flames settle down a bit, I spotted two singed figures running away from the smoking bushes, one big guy in chain mail armour, and one man without armour.

Then two crossbow quarrels flashed past my other shoulder. Red and Joe probably.

The unarmoured guy dropped with two quarrels protruding from his back, leaving me only one target. With my weightless armour I was definitely closing on him, so I pushed on. 

He spun around once I had closed, and a short flurry of blows ensued. I hit more than he did, and he soon dropped. I did notice that his blade seemed to penetrate right through my armour though, which was disappointing. Damn those magic swords!

As I dragged his body and gear back to the still smouldering patch of trees, I saw the others had found three burnt corpses in the charred zone. A Gnome, a woman with Malachi bling, and a human male in steaming chain mail.

We gathered the bodies and equipment into a pile and Walton cast his Detect Magic spell. A magical knife, one-handed sword, three small vials, and a cloak from the Malachi woman. The were also three non-magical vials, likely some form of poison. Once we get an opportunity, we will identify this lot and divvy it up.

Slim pointed across at the river and yelled "Take care of that" and rushed back to the barge. He had taken quite a fancy to two of the rescued girls, and they had been showing him their appreciation for his daring rescue.
Luck to him I reckon!

Anyhow, whoever the bandits had been, they had slung a large log across the river, fastened at each end with chains. It was suspended just below the surface of the water, hence the rapids created as the rived flowed up and over the log.

"Lucky we spotted that" Jasper later remarked, "Would have sunk us for sure"

Over the rest of the day, that night, and the following day before we arrived in Mamba, we took the opportunity to rest up, regain spell points, sharpen up our swords, and Identify the recent loot.

• Armour piercing Long Sword 
• +1 (to hit) Knife
• Cloak of Hiding in Shadows 
• Two potions of Healing
• One potion of Invisibility

At the end of that second day, the barge arrived in Mamba. Jasper secured a mooring at the jetty for two nights, with a plan to restock for the rest of the trip. Walton (and Sophia) slipped into town to report to the local VINGT-ET-UN 'Temple', finding the local Priestess Brooklyn Kennedy eager for news. Apparently, there was some concerns about travel up and down the lake at the moment, with boats disappearing somewhere between Lakeside and Pugsville, the two villages along the side of the lake. Donk and Joe were looking forward to a nice meal at one of the local Inns, and Malcolm was going to join them. 

"Just let me change into a disguise" Malcom instructed as he slipped into the head.

He returned dressed in a parody of woman's clothing, with bright red lipstick smeared across his lips, a bra wrapped around the outside of his normal vest, and something that could have been a skirt draped around his hips.

"No" I stated firmly.

"You can't come with us looking that that" said Joe.

"Subtle, blend in" muttered Walton in disbelief.

Dining at the dockside tavern

Joe and I left, Malcolm stayed and sulked. We went to the Dazzling Hornet for the evening, rather than the Warm Racoon, which turned out to be another stroke of luck. Apparently, there were four riders that had arrived from Draser recently, staying in the Warm Racoon, and who were looking for a party of adventurers, with a couple of Gnomes, three burley fighters, a VINGT-ET-UN Priestess, and a VINGT-ET-UN Mystic!

We quickly ate our meal and retreated back to the barge. 

After discussions with Jasper, we decided that everyone would stay on the barge that night, and we would slip away just before light and travel on to Lakeside to restock. That would be two days travel, but there were enough supplies still to last the trip. The travel was uneventful, with very little traffic plying the lake.

We arrived in Lakeside a few hours before dark and docked at the jetty alongside two other boats. There were seven or eight wharfies milling about, and Jasper was sporting a puzzled expression.

"What is it?" asked Walton quietly.

"I don't recognise any of these men" Jasper noted, "Keep on eye on them while I check things out"

Jasper and one of his crewmen strolled into town while we checked our weapons and kept our eyes peeled. When Jasper returned, he mentioned that stores were in short supply, lake travel had been restricted due to boat disappearances, lots of armed strangers were loitering around the town, but ta few known locals were still around. 

As we were discussing the risks with staying the night here in the town, three armed men approached the barge and questioned Jasper about his purpose for being here, his cargo, and his plans. We all hid belowdecks and listened to their muffled exchange.

When they left and Jasper came belowdecks, he was very happy to depart immediately, travel on for a kilometre or so until dark, and overnight on the side of the lake.

"Be very alert" he stated, "something's up"