Present:
- Balder Dash (gnome wizard) - Jamie
- Grizo Muso (human thief) - Jeff
- Joe Manco (human fighter) - Shane
- Malcolm Gandhi (gnome thief) - Kevin
- Red Feuersturm (human temple fighter of Hob) - Chris
- Kosha Pickle (human rogue) - Darryl
- Sophia Beauchamp (half-elf priest 21) - Ian
- Walton Formalin (half-elf mystic of 21) - Andrew
By Jeff
Everyone was standing around the remaining two wagons from the slavers collection, poking through the pile of recovered goods when they noticed that the third human slave from the wagon had sidled back from the woods.
"Well done you lot, and thanks heaps for the rescue" said Grizo.
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| Grizo hailed from Krondyke |
Apparently regular communications between Lakeside and Krondyke had been suddenly interrupted. As an expendable new recruit, Grizo was chosen to check out the problem and sent on his way.]
After suitable "settling in" discussions, the party got back to checking out the loot.
"This chain mail fits nicely" stated Red, dropping the vest over his head.
"And this studded leather is pretty sweet" noted Kosha, settling it over his slave robes.
"Oooh", exclaimed Kosha, "A bow as well"
"Those ten vials in that box are magical" stated Sophia, "As is that Long Sword, and that Cloak"
"As are you Balder!" she continued, frowning at Balders blue skin and twitching hand.
The loot also included piles of clothing, weapons, a slavers licence and paperwork, the wagons, one warhorse, one riding horse, four cart-horses, foodstuffs, water, ale, magical grapes, and a chest with fifteen hundred gold pieces. The loot was loaded into the covered wagon, although Sophia threw the cloak over her bare shoulders, and Grizo quietly lifted the magical Long Sword, slipped it into a sheath, and strapped it around his waist. The clothing was also divided among everyone. The Draser girls were loaded into the cage on the second wagon, and we set off back up the hill. Away from Draser! And towards Hackerton.
"We'll need to pretend to be slavers ourselves now!" exclaimed Walton, with a grin.
As we travelled back up the switchbacks towards the Mamba saddle, Kosher explained that he had also been enslaved in Lakeside. Apparently, a few months back, the local Lakeside elections had installed a Mr Otto Turner as the new mayor. Otto had been a long-term local farmer, but since gaining his new position a large number of rough strangers had been employed by the local council, local residents had disappeared, trade had slowed to a trickle, a lot more slavers had been passing through the town, and a number of people that Otto took a dislike of had been "arrested" and sold as slaves.
"Including me" grumbled Kosher, "So we had better not pass through the town on this trip!"
"But we do need to recover Cousin Malcolm as soon as possible" stated Balder, "And by the prickling in my thumbs, and in my guts, and in my medallion, I fear he is in grave danger at the moment!"
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| Walton's Grapes of Power |
"Of course I trust him" ensured Walton before going to sleep, "He is absolutely one hundred percent trustworthy".
"I know we only met him a few days ago, and he is a slave, but he is a totally trustworthy slave!"
In the morning, we placed the sleeping Balder into the wagon and got moving. Down the Mamba side of the saddle today, through the upper switchbacks. When Balder eventually woke, about four hours after the dawn, he groaned and moaned, threw up over the side of the wagon, and curled into a foetal ball, whimpering in pain.
Walton cast a Cure on him, but that only aggravated his situation, and he screamed in agony as his health rapidly degraded. [His hit points dropped to two, for reasons unknown, but suspected to do with the plight of Cousin Malcolm, through some magical link provided by the magical cursed medallions, which were "gifted" by Dimble, the Gnome trader in Toluene].
Walton cast a Detect Poison on him too, just in case, but that was negative.
There didn't seem to be anything that could be done. Once we got moving again, the pain seemed to recede a bit, so we just monitored him closely as we bumped on down the switchbacks.
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| Two riders were approaching |
The weather was cloudy, and a chill wind was blowing up from below.
We spotted a couple of travellers heading up the hill towards us and Walton started singing quietly.
"Outside in the distance
A wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching
The wind began to howl"
There was no howling, but two riders were definitely approaching. Those of the party that had Draser wanted posters pinned up in Mamba, tucked themselves into the covered wagon with the gear, and Kosha took the reins.
Red took the reins of the slave wagon, and Griza sat beside him as shotgun. As the riders approached, they split, one to either side of the wagons, stopped, and watched us closely as we rode through. It was a nervous moment, but no one recognised them, they didn't appear to be Draser officials, they didn't start anything, and rode on after we had passed.
"Phew" exhaled Sophia from inside the covered wagon, "I hope they don't spot those wagons we tossed off the road over on the other side!"
We pulled into the waystation camp about halfway down the switchbacks and set up for the night. Walton and Balder repeated their magic grape and power point recovery exercise, and before we knew it it was morning again.
We descended the rest of the switchbacks with no issues. Balder was looking much more normal, not blue at all, and he was not feeling ill, although he was still only on two hit points.
Kosha, driving the lead wagon, spotted a thin column of rising smoke and some circling birds ahead.
Although not anticipating any trouble, Walton cast a Cure of Balder to give him a bit more resilience.
"Oh dear" exclaimed Balder, "Dat is looking like where we be leaving Malcolm"
"Oh yes" confirmed Walton, "That is absolutely the exact spot we left him. Right by that fire"
Some five hundred meters off the road, there was a small clearing in the bush, and an old campfire was smoking. Two dead horses were lying on the grass, and two humanoid bodies could also be seen there. The circling birds were swooping down occasionally, tearing into the horses, flying off with chunks of horse flesh, and rejoining the circling plume of birds.
Halting the wagons on the road close to the clearing, Griza and Kosha jumped off the wagons, and silently disappeared into the bush to scout out the place for danger. Travelling together for most of the way, they split up and circled around in opposite directions.
Peering out of the bush into the clearing, Grizo saw that there were actually four dead horses and four dead human males. Two of them were just on the side of the clearing, partially under the bush. The horses were large black ones, wearing the livery of the Draser militia, and the four human bodies were wearing chain mail, but looked strangely shrunken from his observation spot. Only the smoke and the birds were moving, so Griza moved in closer. Kosha was obviously doing the same, as Griza heard the occasional crack of a branch and spotted the rustle of a stealthy figure on the opposite side of the clearing.
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| Only skeletons were left of the four men |
On the way back, there was a muffled exclamation from back near the bush beside the clearing, and a Gnomish squeak. "Oh my God" came the Gnomish squeak, "Who da bloody ell are you?"
Kosha refrained from killing the small Gnome that he had tripped over in the bush and returned to the wagon with Malcolm in tow. Apart from a soreness in the nasal passage, Malcolm was fine, and not at all blue either.
"I wouldn't go over there" instructed Kosha, "Something is off with those bodies"
Everyone apart from Kosha went off to check out the bodies. There were sets of chain mail that would fit Joe, and no doubt other treasures on the bodies of the men and horses. Red confirmed that these were the four men who had been in Mamba looking for the party, when they passed through a few weeks ago. As Joe went to strip one of the suits of chain mail off, his hairs all stood up too, and he jumped back with a squeal. Balder and Malcolm began to turn blue, and Balder's twitchy hand began to spasm.
Sopia used her last power point to cast Detect Undead and confirmed a positive result.
"Maybe I don't need armour just yet" Joe figured, and everyone returned to the wagons, and we carried on.
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| The mysterious follower passed |
In the morning, Griza and Kosher took some of the cash funds and headed into Mamba to pick up some supplies and equipment.
"Are you sure you trust them?" asked Malcolm worriedly.
"Absolutely!" replied Walton emphatically, "One hundred percent; with my life"
While they were gone, Walton tested out the magical vials and concluded there were four Healing, two Neutralise Poison, one Invisibility, one Jump, and two Water Breathing Potions. Sophia cast a Detect Poison, all clear, and ten a bunch of Cure spells were also cast on various party members.
"Ahhh" sighed Joe, "That feels much better"
Griza and Kosher returned with a set of studded leather armour, two two-handed swords, and a couple of sets of small dice. [Replacement Holy Symbol of VINGT-ET-UN for Sophia]
And off we went towards Lakeside.
"We can't ride through Lakeside" argued Kosher, "They'll recognise us"
"We can't take the lake" noted Red, "Bloody swimming Lizardmen"
"We can go overland through the farms" suggested Malcolm, "Shouldn't be too tricky"
One kilometre from Lakeside, we turned off the main road onto a small farm track that looked like it was heading uphill and around the town. It was only one hour later that the covered wagon slipped off the bank of a narrow corner, and slowly toppled off the edge and down into the small stream below. Fortunately, the whole disaster happened relatively slowly and everyone on the wagon managed to jump to safety. But the wagon was unrecoverable, and badly damaged.
"Well ..." muttered Malcolm, "Maybe a little tricky in places"
All the supplies were transferred into the caged wagon, and we carried on. Everyone was on foot now though, so it was slow going. Around the middle of the day, as we were rumbling across a grassy paddock, well up the hill from the lake, a mighty crash rang out from the wagon, and it crunched to a halt. The wagon had hit some large stone buried in the grasses and the front axle had snapped. The right front wheel and short length of axle topped out, and the wagon tipped to the ground.
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| We found ourselves in a graveyard |
"Who put that friggen rock dere?" yelled Malcom
""It's an ancient gravestone" hissed Balder who was poking around the grass, "We're in an actual ancient graveyard"
"This is very Grave" Balder chuckled.
"Shut up you idiot" whispered Sophia, "Graveyards are not places to linger in, or be jovial"
Looking around, we could now see that the long grasses were covering a multitude of stone tombstones, weathered and broken, all around us. A small barrow reared up on our left, with a circle of standing stones planted around the top. Gathering up the supplies that we could easily carry by hand, we hurried on.
"What's this" wondered Red, spotting a skeletal hand lying in the grass, with a red ruby ring glinting on its finger.
"Flame red" he noted to himself, "Nice"
"POP"
Hearing a strange pop, Sophia looked around, and spotted something bouncing in the grass.
A skeletal hand.
"Where's Red?" asked Joe.
"Forget about him" grumbled Kosher, "Let's get out of here"
"Don't forget, Red almost single handedly rescued you from the slavers" countered Walton.
"Oh alright then" grumbled Kosher.
A Detect Magic indicated no unusual magic anywhere nearby, and definitely not on the skeletal hand.
A Detect Undead indicated no undead within range.
A Locate Object on Red's two-handed hammer got a trace, fifty meters towards the barrow, and underground.
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| The Barrow was topped with standing stones |
"Oh wonderful" grumbled Kosher, "I'll stay topside and guard all the pretty ladies"
An investigation of the standing stones, and particularly the black unnaturally chill one in the centre of the circle, revealed a carved panel that Griza considered likely to reveal an opening.
"No traps" Griza reported, just before the panel slid aside with a grinding graunch to reveal a black shaft.
Deathly cold stale air puffed out, and Griza ducked back to clear the opening.
Walton cast a Protection from Evil on Joe, and Joe led the the way down the shaft.
"Good luck" yelled Kosher as Sophia clambered in and down the old rusty rungs at the rear.
Jow leapt the last few feet and turned. Four torches gutted with an unnatural blue light in the corners of a small square room, about three-four meters along each side. A black obsidian altar to MALECHAI sat in the centre of the room, a shallow bowl full of glittering dust resting on its strangely carved capping. A single exit left the room on the opposite side. Joe slid carefully around the wall towards the opening. Everyone followed.
"My medallion is getting warmer" whispered Balder from the back, who was looking slightly blue now.
"Mine too" noted Malcolm.
Joe reached the exit, an opening in the wall that led to a descending stair and started down. The stairs descended for what seemed an age, although Balder figured was about a ten-metre drop, and then a flat passage turned to the left and carried on into the dark, eventually opening into another square chamber, carved roughly from the rock.
A large metal door stood at the far side of the room, surrounded by large stone statues wielding massive axes.
The air was unnaturally cold here too, and a foreboding feeling gripped the party members as they stepped in,
"I'm not stepping between those statues" quivered Griza.
"Watch this" quipped Balder, flapping his hands.
"BOOM" echoed around the room as the door slammed open.
Balder had cast a Knock spell, with spectacular results.
The sturdy metal door was open, and a chilling waft of flesh reeking air wafted towards us.
A flickering blue light from beyond the door outlined three shambling figures, staggering towards us.
Everyone retreated back into the passage, and Joe backed up slowly to the opening, his Protection from Evil still radiating out from him. The three zombies stumbled across the room, but as soon as they approached to withing four feet of Joe they stopped and backed off.
Joe was able to herd them into a corner of the room, and everyone else scurried across behind Joe to the metal door. Griza eyed the statues warily as he passed between them, but they hadn't moved when the others had passed, so he crowded up to the door behind the others.
The door opened into a large chamber, a blue fire flickering from a small pit in the centre, with assorted torture devices and instruments scattered around. Manacles hung from the stone walls, some with skeletal arms still dangling from them. Two passages led out from the room, one off to the right and one off to the left.
Walton picked left, and advanced down a long passage, Joe staying back to make sure the zombies didn't bother us. A series of locked wooden doors marched along the left-hand wall, and Griza laid his ear to each in turn. The fourth door echoed softly with a dull banging and a deep rumbling voice, and Griza stepped back with a grin.
"In here" he confirmed, "And there are no traps!"
Malcolm took point on the Lock Picking but was almost immediately flung back with a squeal.
A wave of crackling blue energy had erupted from the lock as Malcom had slipped in his picks.
"Ouch" Malcolm exclaimed, picking himself up from the floor.
"BOOM" went the door, slamming open with a crash.
Balder had cast a Knock spell again, and Red was lucky to have been on the other side of the small cell.
Yes, Red had been found, but not yet rescued!
"Um, guys" whispered Balder, "Something wicked this way comes!"
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| Something Wicked |
Sophia stepped to the fore, her Holy Symbol held up in front of her, and she led as we all returned towards the entrance. As Sophia stepped into the torture room, the most hideous creature also stepped in from the other passage. Its skin, what there was left of skin, hang in tattered strips. Two glowing red eyes stared out from a gaunt skeletal face, whisps of pale hair floating loose from its skull. With its mouth open in a silent scream, sharp teeth poised to chew, it launched itself at Sophia.
"Get thee hence you foul beast of MALECHAI" chanted Sophia, and it shrunk back and withdrew back into the other passage. While Sophia held her Holy Symbol that way, the rest of the party hastily passed across the room, through the metal door, past Joe, still holding off the Zombies, and back towards the surface. Sophia pulled out of the torture chamber, collected Joe, and followed us up to entrance chamber.
"Um, its closed" complained Griza, fumbling around for a handle on the stone wall at the top of the ladder.
"Allow me" insisted Balder.
"BOOM" went the stone wall, shattering open with a crash.
We all tumbled out into the circle of standing stones and raced off down the barrow towards Kosher and the girls.
"Go, go, go" yelled Walton and we grabbed up the gear and raced on out of the graveyard.
We kept moving quickly for a few hours when we settled down and made a camp for the evening.
Balder and Malcom were no longer blue, and their medallions were a normal temperature.
"Do you like my new ring?" asked Red.
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