The Gnoll Mine 2

The Budgie Smugglers (Tylin [Ian], Sorrow [Jeff], Lammy [Kevin], El Cid [Shane], Burrito [Darryl], and Moonlight [Chris]) had just arrived back at the Billet Copse after fleeing out of the gnoll mines.

Argile [Richard] and Huilam [Jamie] were there, slung over the pack horses drooling marmalade. 

Jacinta Whiteface
[Joff pic]

Huilam gave a little cough, slipped off the horse, staggered to his feet, and wiped the marmalade off his mouth with the back of his hand. Moonlight suddenly sagged to his knees with a silent cry, and collapsed drooling marmalade himself. El Cid gave a mighty marmalade belch then sagged too. Huilam slung them both over the pack horses to join Argile who hadn't stirred.

The group had four new arrivals, rescued from the mine: Jacinta Whiteface the paladin, Samuel Chad the fighter, Morgan Leaf the half-elf minstrel, and John Red-shirt the farmer. They were all dressed in tattered rags (except for John whose tight red shirt was always pristine).

Already, the surrounding hills echoed with gnoll barks and hyena cackles - the gnolls use hyenas as their hunting dogs. But the group had unquestioning and uncritical faith in Burrito's track-covering skills to avoid any gnoll detection or pursuit. 

Jacinta, not one to mince words, was appalled at the disgusting IMAG taint of Sorrow and El Cid, "You are worse than the gnolls!" she said. "At least their evil is mild."

"Well, why don't you go back to them?" Sorrow sneeringly replied.

She was lawful good and not lawful stupid, so she had to suck it in and tolerate the IMAG presence over the need to rescue her companions.

Lammy gave Jacinta some paper and crayons, and she, Sam and Morgan drew a map of the tunnels that they knew, then summarized the state of play inside the mine. They had no idea as to how many gnolls: "between 20 and 100, maybe". They added that the gnolls had a bunch of hyenas too, which they used outside for hunting and tracking.

They did know that there were now eleven slaves inside: Khartoum and Betsy (the last two of their team), and five men, three half-elves (one male) and one elf. And there was one dwarf (poor Bertha) but gnolls hate dwarfs, so she was tortured and killed. As slaves, they were fed okay, but forced to work two shifts a day at the mine face, mining quartz, under the lash. The gnolls also punished their own kind by making them work on the face too as a punishment for mistakes.

 

Stamping mill

The mined quartz was taken from the face to a stamping mill in ore carts.  The mill was powered by slaves using a big treadmill wheel (this mill was seen by the group when they fled this morning). The crushed quartz was not smelted here. There was a dilapidated furnace outside among the old mining remnants, probably used in human times, but it wasn't used now. So, the crushed quartz was taken outside in slave-pulled ore carts and loaded onto piles next to the tailings. 

The three didn't know what happened to the quartz then, but the outside piles never got any bigger. So, there must be someone or some group who took it away: in wagons? Maybe to the Siren river?

While the three were briefing the party, John Red-shirt quietly slipped away to the pack horses. Here, he delicately licked the drooling marmalade off Argile, Moonlight and El Cid's lips, faces and necks with his feather-light tongue, like a little hummingbird laps at nectar in a honeysuckle trumpet flower.

Marmalade

John was working on El Cid, his long tongue buried deep in Cid's mouth, when El Cid suddenly jerked awake [Shane had arrived late]. There was the brief awkward moment when their eyes met, then John withdrew his tongue, and staggered back in alarm.

"Sorry, sir!" squeaked John. "I thought ... the marmalade ... I was just cleaning you. Sir!"

El Cid was about to sink his black IMAG fist into John's face, but he tasted the inside of his own mouth. Instead of the normal bitter grapefruit, sour lemons and pectin (drooled marmalade is known for its lack of sugar), he only tasted roses and butterscotch. It wasn't bad at all.

"Well," snapped El Cid. "Stay away."

El Cid joined the rest of the group in discussion.

John's eyes gleamed and he nodded "yes, sir", then returned to the marmalading Argile and Moonlight. He had spotted a lovely piece of sticky grapefruit lodged in the suprasternal notch of Argile's neck.

Day 11

Now that it was day, from the Billet copse on the side of the hill, they could look down into the surrounding valleys and hills. The occasional group of gnolls and hyenas could be seen wandering about, searching. 

50ft™ rope (10kg)

Burrito and Sorrow (good sneakers) left on a reconnaissance mission to the shaft on top of the mine hill. The remnants of an old lift overhead and hoist beam was here, so there were plenty of good anchor points. Sorrow affixed a rope, and climbed down into the darkness. Burrito stayed at the top and guarded. At the end of his 50ft™ rope, Sorrow could see, two storeys below him, a boxed side-tunnel off the lift shaft. So, he joined on another length of rope, climbed further down, and peered into the side-tunnel. It was a short passage that ended in a tee, with a candle in an inset at the end. He carried on deeper down the shaft, and there was another side-tunnel down another storey. This one was all dark. This was as far as Sorrow was brave enough to explore at this time.

While Burrito and Sorrow were away, El Cid, Lammy and Tylin needed to de-stress. This meant indulging their vices.

• El Cid again tried to find things to break, but he had yet more bad luck, and the rocks he selected were quite sound and unbreakable. [1 - the 3rd in a row]
• Tylin satiated his obligation to Sly Stone with a little prayer and some correspondence [4]. 
• Lammy, once again the master of Weird, found another wild beehive, and spend six glorious hours rolling about in the honey with his raw ginger and napkin rings [6].

When Burrito and Sorrow returned with their news, the group decided to do the rescue mission that night. The plan was for Sorrow, master of SNEAK, to do a quick scout alone, and then return to collect the entire group when he spotted a viable path.

Jacinta, Sam and Morgan were still in their tattered rags (even if very fetching and stylish rags; hauts lambeaux), so they needed some better gear if they were going to help with the rescue mission. The group had seen lots of equipment in Thorn's workshop the other day, so Tylin & Burrito suggested that they take the three on the four-hour round trip to see Thorn. 

While planning this trip, the three were surprised to hear that Thorn actually made the very staves that they were seeking; the Staves of the Phylactery. But when they heard that the main component was the skull of a virgin girl, they were horrified. 

"We shouldn't have taken that cursed job off Billet after all," muttered Jacinta to Sam. "He never said anything about evil, or virgin skulls."

Then she turned on the group, and said with bitter sarcasm "But why does this stop you lot from completing the damn mission? You all travel with, and condone, those two sickening REAL-cursed abominations, yet you let the mere murder and decapitation of a virgin girl get on your conscience?! Take a Perspective Pill." 

Two hours later, when they arrived at Thorn's place, he was outside tending his precious runner beans. 

Jacinta noticed immediately that he cast no shadow, and she whispered to Tylin "he is evil, but it's weird sort of; I get waves of it - on then off." Then she couldn't help herself "but, nothing compared to the two IMAG bum-boys in your group."

Thorn

Thorn surveyed the newcomers with interest.

"Ah, a paladin of REAL," he said. "Welcome! Welcome! Would you like some tea?"

He motioned everyone inside to his workshop-cum-kitchen-cum-lounge. 

Jacinta certainly noticed the six unfinished evil Staves of the Phylactery along the back wall, but said nothing; she was on best behaviour not to make any scathing or sarcastic comments in front of Thorn.

Thorn made his delicious tea for everyone. This time Tylin and Burrito took to it with great gusto [each dropped a stress]. Jacinta looked and sniffed her cup, as Samuel and Morgan watched on. Satisfied, she then nodded to them, and all three drank the delicious brew. [NPCs don't use the Stress game mechanic. They are protected by such literary elements as 'narrative function' and 'plot armour'.]

After tea, Thorn rummaged through his gear scattered through his rooms. He certainly had lots of odds and sods. Sure enough, he managed to scrape together enough to equip Jacinta and Samuel with last-season chainmail armour and weapons. And he found Morgan a fetish set of cuir bouilli (leather armour). He found some toy bows, too, for Morgan and Samuel.

Jacinta grudgingly gave thanks, and even a blessing of REAL. And then everyone went back to the Billet copse.

While the others were away with Thorn, Huilam and Lammy spent the day building one huge rope ladder (100ft) out of four 50ft™ ropes ready for the night mission. This basically used up all the party rope.

As it was now a couple of hours before dark, they began to get worried about the vampires again. Someone suggested moving to the owlbear cave. So, they headed for there. It was an hour's travel from the gnoll mine shaft.

It had been many days since they were last in the owlbear-spider cave system. The owlbear cave was on a side passage and had its own exit, but this cave was now strewn with spider webs. Obviously, the spiders had ventured down the owlbear tunnel (the one unblocked by the group). The party soon burned all the webs clear (they didn't see any spiders), and then re-blocked the connecting tunnel. 

Then night fell.

_________________________

It was time to put the cunning plan into action. Sorrow and El Cid went back to the shaft. El Cid stayed up the top to protect the lift head, and Sorrow went down on a double rope.

He explored below down the side tunnel (candle inset).  The candle was at a tee. One way lead to a room with a lot of chatting gnolls. The other way curved around, past several dark passages heading off, like spokes on a wheel. The tunnel width was generally two-people wide, and not as short as the spider tunnels. Nevertheless, gnolls would always have to stoop.

At one time a gnoll patrol of two ambled past. Sorrow hid in one of the spoke passages. 

Further down, the passage opened into a room where he could hear the clink of chains, the barks of  gnolls and the groans of prisoners. From the passage tunnel (not too close!) he could see one chained man sitting on the floor. Jacinta had said that there were always six gnoll guards. 

None of the spoke passages seemed travelled, from what he could see with his IMAG eyes, but at no time did Sorrow explore them in detail.

Unable to progress any further Sorrow went back to the shaft, and climbed down to the deeper level. "Level 2" he named it. He took a few paces down the passage here. It smelt musty and wet, but he didn't explore any more than that.

Down the shaft, he could see another side passage off the shaft "Level 3", but he didn't go down there at all. And beyond that, the shaft hit water.

Then Sorrow returned to the surface and to El Cid. So, having reconnoitered, the two took the on-hour walk back to the owlbear cave to collect the rest of the party. 

Morgan Leaf

Everyone traipsed back to the shaft. They carried the new rope ladder. They expected that Argile and Moonlight would wake up during this foray into the Gnoll mine, so they made a conscious decision to bring the (surprisingly clean) marmalading bodies along. With the extra carrying capacity of Jacinta, Samuel and Morgan, this was just feasible without needing a pack horse, even with the nonresponsive dead-weight of drooling bodies. So, the only one left in the owlbear cave was non-combatant John Red-shirt, and the two pack horses, and faithful guard Mister Clucky, the war capon.

It was almost midnight when they all got to the shaft. First, they dumped the two marmaladers up by the shaft.

"If they wake up, they can sodding well climb down themselves."

Next, with the double-length rope ladders, it was easy enough for everyone to climb all the way down to "Level Two", and to creep into the musty tunnel entrance, and wait. The plan was for Sorrow to recheck the tunnels above, to see if anything had changed in the last three hours.

Sorrow went up to "Level One", the gnoll level. He spotted that Khartoum and Betsy had annoyingly been split up. Khartoum was in the prisoner chamber, which meant Betsy must be at the mine face digging.

While Sorrow was out, a wave of musty air washed down the tunnel, past everyone patiently waiting there. No-one was brave enough to check it.

Then Sorrow returned and hissed "Time to strike!"

The Gnoll Mine

The Budgie Smugglers (Tylin [Ian], El Cid [Shane], Sorrow [Jeff], Burrito [Darryl], Lammy [Kevin] and Moonlight [Chris]) were resting in the pure REAL sunlight by the entrance to Cave Four ("Undead Cave"). Tylin had just collapsed with marmalade, so he was hauled back to camp to join the marmalading Argile and the pack horses. 

Ghoul

The six re-entered the tunnels, found and defeated three more ghouls, and found a secret door (a camouflaged curtain). Down this winding tunnel was a large chamber with a mine face, where over one hundred skeletons were digging. As soon as the group entered the cave, the skeletons came swarming out after them, so they beat a hasty retreat. The skeletons lost interest and returned to the face.

It was a few hours before dark, but El Cid, Lammy and Sorrow were already very stressed, so the group decided to let the three have a Vice Break. But they were worried that there might be more vampires deeper within the caves, and these vampires would not take too kindly to discovering the destruction that the party had wrought upon their mates. So, they moved camp to be a good two hours away.

Here, the three took a Vice Break.

El Cid's indulging vice consisted of breaking things. He could not find many satisfying things to break out here in the hills, so did not relieve much stress [1 on a D6]. 

Beehive for Lammy

Sorrow's vice was "obligation to half-elves", and the only other half-elf in the group was Huilam. Huilam's face was a sticky mess of drooled marmalade, so Sorrow tended him. But it was a sad and pathetic sight with fitful dabs using his soiled hanky, and so he failed to relieve much stress [two 1s on 2D6].

Whereas Lammy, whose vice was Weird, indulged his vice with ease. He found a beehive, and broke it open. While the honey poured out and the angry bees began to swarm, he got out his peeled ginger root and mother-of-pearl napkin rings. Suitably adorned, he rolled around naked in the honey as the bees darted and stung. This proved to alleviate a lot of stress [4].

Sorrow and El Cid finished their vice-indulging just as it went dark (Lammy would take another three hours). As they were organizing the group into watches, the still night was rent by a hideous scream. It was more psychic rather than aural, and was full of despair and rage. They guessed that the defiled vampire tomb had been discovered.

 

Sorrow's powerful IMAG vision could see flying things in the distance, circling, searching, spiraling.

They waited, with Sorrow watching the four things spiraling outwards in a methodical search pattern. Vampires had superb infra and ultra vision.

"We be safe," muttered Burrito. "They no can get to us this night."

But when Lammy finished indulging his vice and cleaned up, his wizards' knowledge of classical mechanics soon put paid to those calculations.

"There are four of them," he said. "We are certainly NOT safe!"

Thorn

So, the group upped-sticks and moved.

They hurried back to Thorn's cave and to the side entrance (the over-hang that led to the sentient root cave). Here they camped, and hoped the searching vampires would not spot them.

Half way into the night, there was a quiet shuffling. 

It was Thorn. And he was not very happy with the great evil that was now in his caves (Sorrow's IMAG eyes and El Cid's IMAG fists). But Tylin consoled him [with a good SWAY roll] and he agreed to tolerate one night. The over-hang was enough cover, and so the vampire searchers did not spot them.

Day 10

Morning arrived. Thorn brought them all a mug of his delicious steaming (stress-reducing) tea. Sorrow and El Cid had left early in the morning, so, by the time they returned to their mugs, they got no benefit (the magic tea had gone cold, and tasted like asparagus urine).

The whole group headed off  toward the Gnoll mine, and returned to "Billet copse". This was the good copse that was 20 minutes from the Gnoll mine entrance, had a spring, and was probably where the Billet six had camped.

El Cid and Sorrow were still very stressed, so they had another attempt at indulging their vices. This time Sorrow was more successful - he gave the marmalading half-elven Huilam a bed bath with the spring water. But El Cid still could not find many things to break. So, he didn't de-stress much. [Another 1 ! But this inter-mission vice-indulging has a useful feature of un-ticking the once-per-mission feat tick-box. This would prove to be useful for El Cid later on.]

While the two were indulging their vices, the rest of the group searched the vicinity for other entrances into the gnoll mine.  

They found a vertical shaft at the top of the hill dropping into the darkness, with no signs of recent use. 

Plus the stream, from the spring that they were camped near, was diverted from its natural course into a hole in the side of the hill, and down a cut tunnel. Tylin crawled down here, and after 30 minutes, emerged into the ceiling of a cave, two storeys off the floor. The stream water trickled out of this hole into a bucket on the floor below, and then into a gutter in the floor. The room had one exit (gutter went that way too). Tylin wiggled back to the outside to tell the others.

They waited until night.

They wiggled down the tunnel in a tight line. Tylin peered into the gloom, and the bucket room now had six gnolls, all sleeping. He relayed this back down to the others in hushed whispers. Then they decided to sneak it. Tylin anchored and let down a rope and then they all proceeded to sneak into this room. [This was a Lead-Party-Action SNEAK roll. Three fails, and no 6s. ] 

It didn't go quite as they planned in that they made a bunch of noises, and the gnolls all awoke.

There was a fight and a massacre; Lammy's Sleep spell proved very useful. And IMAG fist and sword did the rest. The water gutter filled with gnoll blood.

Out of the bucket room was a tee onto a passage with mining noises from one direction. Sorrow went for a surreptitious sneak. The mining noises came from a large cave with 15 chained figures digging quartz on a rock face. 11 of the diggers were gnolls, and the rest were two men, one woman and one half-elf lady. The slaves were guarded by six gnoll overseers. There was an exit, large, beyond the face.

Gnoll overseer & slaves (Samuel and Morgan)

Sorrow reported back, and the group returned and attacked. It was a quick battle and the overseers were defeated. Again Lammy's Sleep proved invaluable and El Cid's IMAG fists effective. But he did get badly wounded, and so did Sorrow. Moonlight went to cure those two, but as he was doing this, the 11 treacherous gnoll "slaves" started to scream and holler. 

And very soon after, approaching noises were heard in the corridor behind them.

Tylin found an allen key on one of the downed overseers, and he unscrewed the manacles of the four non-gnolls. Then everyone fled.

They rushed down the wide passage, past mine carts filled with quartz, to a stamping room (it was night, so the stamping mill was not active). From here, they rushed down another wider passage, and down to the end. Here they could see outside and the night. But two gnolls stood at the entrance there and drew their heavy gnoll bows.

Sorrow shot at one and El Cid shot at the other. Sorrow hit and wounded his one, but El Cid didn't and would have got a heavy gnoll arrow through his eye, but fate smiled and he only got a nasty scratch. [Level 4 fatal harm - "arrow to the brain". El Cid's Battleborn feat (tick feat tick-box) reduced this to Level 3. His Tough as Nails feat then reduced this to Level 2. And his armour then reduced this to Level 1 harm "deep scratch".]  Sorrow then dropped his gnoll, and El Cid dropped the other with his fists.

The group and the four freed slaves ran out into the night, and onto the floor of the valley. The sides were steep, so they clambered up, hell for leather, and only just got over the top when the mine mouth disgorged gnolls by the dozen.

Burrito now moved to the rear and frantically started covering tracks as the group headed back to Billet Copse. This was to stop gnoll trackers. 

It was a few hours before light when they got to the copse, and assessed the situation. Three of the four freed slaves turned out to be the ones they were sent to find from Billet's group: Morgan Leaf the half-elfess minstrel, Samuel Chad the human fighter, and Jacinta Whiteface the REAL paladin. The fourth one was a farmer called John Red-shirt.

Jacinta knew about Bertha the dwarf being killed, and was interested to hear from the group that they had spotted her impaled body.

"Now," exclaimed Jacinta. "We need to rescue Betsy and Khartoum. Then we will recover poor Bertha."

 

Mine Three

The Budgie Smugglers had returned to their temporary base, near Mine Number Two: El Cid [Shane], Moonlight [Chris], Sorrow [Jeff], Burrito [Darryl], Huilam [Jamie]. Tylin [Ian] was up. And Lammy was up [played by guest visitor Jamie's daughter Niamh]. Argile [Richard] took ill with marmalade. 

Day 8

Sorrow and El Cid were feeling a bit stressed out, so they indulged their vices (Obligation and Pleasure) [using the new inter-mission Indulge Vice rules, to reduce stress]. 

During the six hours while they were doing this, Tylin and Burrito went out scouting. They spotted another cave in the distance and went over to investigate. By the mouth of this cave, they espied a solitary elderly figure, dressed in a tattered robe, tending a garden.

Thorn

He was standing in bright sunlight, but he cast no shadow.

They watched for a bit, and then he headed into the cave. They had a brief reconnoitre to check out the beans and then returned to the group to report.

Burrito, Tylin and Sorrow viewed from behind a rock, while Lammy and Huilam had a chat with him.

He was called Thorn. The local gnolls didn't seem to bother him. While they were chatting, he suddenly raised his head and looked over at the rock Sorrow and Burrito were hiding behind and said "There is great evil there." They assumed it was Sorrow's IMAG eyes. Sorrow sloped off. Then Burrito tried to sneak close and into the tunnel, but he wasn't so successful; everyone, including Thorn, looked over at him.

He sheepishly joined the group talking to Thorn.

The entire group was invited inside into the cave. Sorrow and El Cid hung back - both had the evil IMAG gifts, and Moonlight hung back - his pet toad and El Cid's Mr Clucky freaked out whenever they neared Thorn.

In the living chamber there was an attached kitchen area, and along one wall, it was a workshop. 

Staff
of the
Phylactery

Six partly-made Staves of the Phylactery were along the back wall. Thorn manufactured them, it seemed to be his job, but to finish each one required the skull of a virgin girl; human, elf or half-elf. These six staves were each awaiting their skulls.

Thorn explained how it worked. The person who wants the staff must supply the skull, and place it on the staff himself. If an incorrect skull (non-virgin or wrong race) is brought and placed on the staff, then "The last person to handle the skull, dies."

Thorn offered them all tea. No-one was prepared to finish the tea at first, everyone taking little polite sips. That is, until brave Tylin did. It was very refreshing [and restored a Stress].

They left Thorn and rejoined Sorrow, El Cid and Moonlight to brief them on the new information. Then Tylin, Burrito, Lammy and Huilam snuck in through a back entrance that Tylin and Burrito had discovered earlier. This set of tunnels ended up connecting to Thorn's tunnels. There was a wet cave with dangling glowing phosphorescent grabby plant roots. And then a smart (but old and musty) bedroom with a magical chest of drawers.

Thorn encountered them in these tunnels, and he was a bit miffed that they had the audacity to skulk into his home like lowly thieves. So, they made sheepish mumbled apologies and left. Heaven knows what would have happened to them if they had destroyed all of the sentient guard roots, or had looted the bedroom.

Day 9

Early in the visit, Thorn had pointed out that there was another abandoned mine about two hours away, "... filled with skeletons". So, the next day, the entire group, horses and all, went off there, and relocated base.

There were two dead gnolls at the entrance. Dead maybe a week or two, their heads cleaved with axes.

Like the other tunnels, this one had been a gold mine too. With narrow single-file tunnels, and shored-up ceilings. 

There were several sets of skulls embedded in the walls; two skulls facing each other, at the same height off the floor. The group suspected that this was some kind of magical alarm system, so, rather than walk through them, they were careful to gingerly step over the imaginary line between the two skulls, or to squat and crawl beneath them. Deeper in, when there were two skulls on each side, and two imaginary lines, this exercise in gingerliness became more difficult.

Down a side passage, there was a pit that blocked the passage. It had a rickety wooden bridge across it. Huilam tried to fix it [with TINKER] but failed in a spectacular fashion, and all the wood collapsed into the pit. 

Scrabbling skeletons

Down in the pit there were some desiccated unmoving bodies, in rotted clothes, so El Cid climbed down loot them. There was some petty cash and some knick-knacks. While he was down there, he passed up the pieces of timber from the broken bridge. 

Lammy had a go at fixing it this time, but he used his Mend spell, and did a sterling job.

The party moved down further, but a group of skeletons came swarming down the tunnel. The party withdrew back across the pit, and pulled the bridge back as each mindless skeleton approached. It didn't take long until all the skeletons had fallen into the pit. They scrabbled around futilely.

The group continued down the now-clear passage into a chamber. This was where the gold vein terminated and so the cave was a large mined seam. There was broken mining equipment around, and with no exits.

Double tomb doors

They returned to the main passage, and off another side passage was a recently carved room (into the rock), with twin double doors, reinforced. But they were no match for Sorrow, and despite the intricate mechanism, he managed to move the bolt enough to prise one open.

Inside was a nicely carved room with four sarcophagi. No-one was brave enough to open them until El Cid volunteered. Everyone withdrew to the passage, and he stuck a crowbar in to prise up a lid. There was a little hiss. 

Inside was a wooden coffin. Since it was still daytime outside, he risked opening the coffin. As expected, there was an immaculate body inside, well dressed. It was a young woman. 

"Vampire!" growled El Cid.

He hammered a wooden spike into her chest. Not much happened; until black blood began to pool in the bottom of the coffin.

So, several of them helped him, and they lifted the coffin out of the sarcophagus, and carried it outside into the sun. There, the effect was more spectacular, and she exploded into magical fire, then burned down to a dry skeleton - with fangs.

The other three sarcophagi were dealt with in a similar matter. The vampire casualties were one woman, one man, one half-elf man and a gnome girl.

There wasn't much loot in the sarcophagi: just some petty cash and funerary items. Though, the first girl had a gold key with an emerald inlay.

Back in the tunnels, further in, they came across some ghouls. As it was single-file, El Cid had to fight them himself - two waves of two ghouls. He chopped them all down, but the last one scratched him, and it's foul grave filth paralyzed him. 

Peering into the next chamber, they spotted a number of milling figures. So, they dragged El Cid out into the sun to wait for the ghoul paralysis to wear off.

Mine Number Two

The group was at their temporary base, the "Two Hour Copse". This was El Cid [Shane], Moonlight [Chris], Argile [Richard], Sorrow [Jeff] and Burrito [Darryl]. Huilam [Jamie] woke up from his marmalade and joined them, but Tylin [Ian] and Lammy [Kevin] were struck down with it.

The night was quiet at first, but a few hours before dawn, there were some noises of fighting nearby. Sorrow skulked off to investigate. He got to the top of the cliff overlooking the old road. A group of orcs had been killed by gnolls. So he quietly snuck back to the party.

Day 6

When it was light, Sorrow and Burrito, and El Cid and Huilam headed towards the mine entrance (which they named "Gnoll mine") and, from that spot, Sorrow and Burrito did a 20-minute radius circle anti-clockwise around that entrance. And the other two did a 30-minute radius circle clockwise around it. 

Mr Clucky, war chicken

They were all moving with the utmost caution, of course [using STEALTH and HUNT skills], searching for any significant terrain features in this area. 

Sorrow and Burrito's search netted nothing, but El Cid and Huilam spotted a second visible mine entrance on a hill in the distance, 30 minutes away.

This reconnaissance of both teams took most of the day, so they returned to the camp, and made plans. 

It was a quiet night.

Day 7

"Mine Number Two"

The next day, they all upped sticks and shifted closer to this second mine entrance. Here they left the pack horses and the marmalading Lammy and Tylin in a suitable bunch of manky scrub, and everyone else made their way into this mine "Mine Number Two". They took Mr Clucky too, El Cid's war chicken.

The entrance had not been disturbed in years. It was a man-made mine, the walls and roof had been shored up. 

The tunnel was single-file wide and short enough that tall El Cid and Argile had to stoop, especially with helmets. The musky passage started level, but then sloped downwards, and after a while, they came across another passage off to the right. 

Down this right path, a short distance, there was a rock fall, where the shoring had given way, and there was a pair of legs protruding from the rubble. The owner of those legs was a well-desiccated corpse.

They cleared enough rocks away to get at the whole body. Moonlight and Huilam guessed it was a male human, years dead. He was in leather armour and helmet, with a rusty short sword and a shield. The shield had Scabport Knives livery on it. They looted the body, and recovered a few coins. The youngest coin was 5 years old, which gave them an approximate age.

Argile took the shield, and El Cid took the rusty sword. El Cid was sure it was a Sword of Wishes, so, for the next few hours, he tried wishing for things while holding it and doing grand martial gestures -- with no success.

Rather than excavate that right tunnel (and thus open another entrance behind them), they returned to the main passage and carried on there.

Soon enough, they came upon thick webs blocking the passage. 

"I hate spiders," muttered Argile, no doubt thinking of the scratchy Canker's black nappers box that he had held for a while.

Burrito was at the front. Moonlight, behind him, shone a beam down the tunnel with his lantern, past the webs. Burrito saw some eyes gleaming in the light, and sent an arrow flying right between them. The eyes went out.

giant spider

El Cid ordered Mr Clucky to stand down, but Mr Clucky was happily ensconced in Moonlight's robe by now.

They moved down to where the eyes had been and, sure enough, there was a dead giant spider here, the size of a Labrador. It had a greyish ichor drooling off its fangs.

With exposed torches, they cleared away the web off the walls and ceiling, and a few paces down from the first web, they exposed a vertical shaft in the ceiling overhead. 

Burrito sent an arrow up and it thunked into wood. Sorrow climbed up the shaft, torch ahead of him, to burn webs. But something dripped on him, and so he came bravely sliding back down. It was the same nasty venom.

Discretion being the better part of valour, they all withdrew back to the side passage, the cave-in and the corpse.

Huilam then spent the next hour or so supervising the clearing of the rubble from the cave-in. His TINKER skill allowed him to sturdily shore up the passage and ceiling, and avoid another collapse. There were enough pieces of old timber lying around to do this. 

Past the now-clear cave-in site, the shored passage continued, and then opened into a large natural cavern. There was a swift underground river here, thigh deep, flowing left to right, which vanished into a tunnel to the right. Unlike the exit tunnel, the river entry tunnel was entirely underwater. There was a rickety, rotting, single-file bridge across the river too.

With ropes and safeties they all got across the river. At the far end of the cavern was a large pile of husks; dried desiccated bodies of large insects, large rats, some giant spiders, and an elf corpse. The elf corpse was a similar vintage to the cave-in chap, but this one was carrying six well-oiled throwing knives and a lock-pick set. Sorrow took all this.

There was a natural exit passage here, and it was worn smooth, and had traces of coarse hair. So they all made their way carefully down the passage, Argile at the front, followed by El Cid, then Huilam, Sorrow, Moonlight and Burrito. After a bit, they heard a noisy snuffling and growling. Something big was approaching fast. Unable to retreat fast enough, Argile drew his sword and prepared.

A large creature, big as a bear, with bird claws, and a bird's head, eyes and beak, attacked. This was an owlbear, and it was mad.

Owlbear

Argile launched into the owlbear with his sword, and got in a good cut, but that only made it angrier. It attacked back, and would have raked him, head to belly, disemboweling him, and breaking his pelvis in the same blow (despite his armour), had it not been for Huilam to reach past El Cid, grab Argile by his nostrils, and, in a bout of superhuman strength, literally pull Argile bodily, over the top of the stunned El Cid in a graceful arc, to slam him down onto the ground. This saved him from the owlbear's blow. [Huilam used his one-shot Mastermind feat which allows him to PROTECT a team mate. Argile then criticalled his PROWESS Resistance roll, so, from literally dying, ended up taking no damage at all, and actually recovered one Stress!]

El Cid, now at the front, engaged the owlbear, and he showed everyone how it was is done. He punched the owlbear with his IMAG fist. The creature had been damaged by Argile's original swipe, so when El Cid punched, his black fist broke through the sword gash, and buried itself in the pleural cavity of the monster crushing the big heart [El Cid got a Critical]. The owlbear died pretty fast, and there was a lot of blood.

Burrito ate what was left of the heart. 

The tunnel continued to a fissure and exited outside. They all turned around and went back inside.

Back in the river cavern, El Cid, still on a high after the owlbear fight, decided to explore the underground river, on a rope, with a lantern, and with Argile holding the rope. Of course, the valuable bulls-eye lantern went out as soon as it was submerged, and then El Cid got tugged away underwater by the strong flow. It was all Argile could do to hold him, so he needed all the others to help pull on the rope to drag the half-drowned El Cid back. They lost that lantern.

They decided to return to the spider shaft. When they got back to the primary tunnel, they noticed that the web was replaced across the passage in the original spot.

Brave Sorrow ascended the ceiling shaft again, burning webs as he went, and got to the top, up about ten paces vertically. There was another passage here filled with webs heading both directions. In the roof above the hole was a pulley, so they guessed this was a mine lift in the past. But Sorrow didn't have much time to contemplate lifts or winches, since there were a bunch of scurrying angry spiders headed right for him! He half-dropped half-climbed back down the shaft, popped out into the party's passage, and screamed to block the hole.

Huilam shoved some wood over the hole and held it there with beams.

"I am NOT going up there!" declared Sorrow and Argile simultaneously.

The passage continued here. Twenty or so paces past Burrito's dead spider the webs stopped, and then the passage sloped down into another large chamber. On the left side, miners had obviously worked here on veins of gold on the walls years ago. And there was mining equipment lying corroded on the ground where it had been abandoned.

Away from the rock face, another shored passage headed right. After ten minutes of walking, it opened up into  another big room with a lake and a waterfall. The lake had no visible exit, so they guessed there was an underwater tunnel that allowed the water to flow through to the river chamber (with the rickety bridge). 

Argile went for a swim in the icy lake. He was out in the middle when he was grabbed by something, and pulled underwater. He had his sword with him, and stabbed at the thing, slicing it off. Then he swam free and clambered out. It was a large tentacle.

Sorrow and Argile climbed, well clear of the water, across the walls to the other side of the dark lake. There was daylight visible there, so they found another winding natural tunnel which exited out onto the hills in a similar fissure like the owlbear one.

Off to the Gold Hills

The party (Tylin [Ian], Moonlight [Chris], Argile [Richard], Sorrow [Jeff], Lammy [Kevin], Burrito [Darryl], El Cid [Shane] and the now-marmalading Huilam [Jamie]) were in the Smoking Loon (still disguised as the "Pepper Jack") approaching  the town of Winjammer (pop 1175). The weather had much improved during that day, and it was now just a light breeze, with big rollers. They were about half an hour out to sea when night fell.

Wizards' trunk

Almost immediately, the heavy wizards' trunk, that they had brought here to deliver, started to make a scratching noise. It wasn't a light and feathery scratching like the Canker black nappers, it was substantial and strong. They were not sure if it  started just now, or if it had been scratching the whole time and they just hadn't noticed it because of the wind and sea noises. But they were pretty sure that it only started after night fell. They decided to let sleeping dogs lie, and not attempt an opening.

Sorrow steered the finicky boat in past the breakwater, and moored at the wharf. There were three other ships moored here. 

Then Lammy, Argile, Tylin and El Cid went into the town, to the Wizards' Guild where they woke up the guild staff, and arranged to get a hand-cart to fetch the heavy trunk from the boat. It was soon delivered (with the help of the Guild staff Olaf and Eric, and the head of the guild Pieter). Pieter could not pay the four COIN delivery fee, but he gave them a signed note to confirm delivery. Thankfully, he didn't ask anything about the scratching. He also got in magical contact with Daisy Crown back in Scabport to tell her the news (he had his own conch).

Lammy bedded down for the night in the Wizards' Guild (as all wizards are entitled to do). El Cid, Argile and Tylin stayed the night at one of the three inns in Winjammer, the Copper Kettle. Argile & El Cid got rolling drunk. El Cid's alcohol-induced diarrhoea came back in spades. 

No-one went back to the Smoking Loon to tell the rest of the group where anyone was, so after an hour or two, a worried Moonlight made his way to the Wizards' Guild, and ended up waking everyone there to get an annoyed Lammy out of bed.

______________________________

Day 1

Staff  
of the
Phylactery

In the morning,  after a slap-up breakfast, Tylin spotted a job on the Copper Kettle notice board.

A wizard merchant called Chang Billet wanted a group of "competent adventurers" to find a group of mercenaries that he had hired to do a job, and who were late. They had left Winjammer 16 days ago on a mission that should have taken a week. They were sent looking for a unique wizards' staff called Staff of the Phylactery from the main gold mine of the Gold Hills (see map). The actual contract was to retrieve this staff (he gave them a picture), and/or the six adventurers. He named the group "The Billet Six". They were:

• Bertha Littlegood, dwarf tea-leaf
• Morgan Leaf, half-elf minstrel girl
• Khartoum, human Vingt-et-un priest 
• Betws-y Coed, human fighter
• Samuel Chad, human fighter
• Jacinta Whiteface, human paladin of REAL

Gold Hills environs

He would pay 12 COIN.  Tylin negotiated a pro-rata payment should they return some (not all) of the adventurers.

The group bought two pack horses and loaded them up with some mining gear, tents and stuff, and Huilam's marmalading body. El Cid also loaded on two barrels of ale.

Sorrow arranged with the Harbour Master to keep an eye on the "Pepper Jack" while they were away. It was only then that Sorrow discovered that one of the other docked ships was the schooner the Debonair - that being of the pirates that had given Huilam the magical promissory note. He kept his head down and snuck back to the boat.

Lammy arranged for the three chests of silver (3 COIN), that was currently in the Smoking Loon's hold, to be stored in the Wizards' Guild's vaults.

El Cid bought himself a war chicken (a capon) from a reputable purveyor of fighting chickens. And some hessian rooster armour for the bird too. He named it Mr Clucky. When Moonlight discovered this, he put an Animal Friendship onto it. That allowed him to teach it some tricks, and stop it crowing each morning.

Mr Clucky, war chicken

By the time they got their supplies organized, had run all their errands, and finally got going, it was three hours into the day. 

Winjammer as a walled town. As the day progressed, and the further they got from Winjammer, the farm houses that they passed were becoming more and  more armoured and encircled themselves. These were substantial stone buildings with compounds. 

The group spoke to a couple of stalwart farmers, and the predominant trouble-makers around here were bands of gnolls. Gnolls don't suffer burning from the sun (like kobolds, goblins, orcs, etc.) so are active during the day.

They stayed that night in a stone farm house. Both El Cid's ale barrels were empty by now, and the group even drank dry all the ale stores of the farmers.

Day 2 

At noon, they reached the farm compound that was the furthest from Winjammer. It was wilderness from here on out.

The farmers here had seen the Billet Six about 15 days ago. The group had lunch with the farmers. One of the farmers had a gnoll bow, which was a huge bow with a 100kg pull. Argile could handle if he used his strength feat. The farmer couldn't use it, so he gifted it to Argile.

The party then said their good-byes, then headed off towards the Gnoll Hills.

Generic Gnoll

The plains were flat and dry, and so it was easy going. Towards the end of the day, they crossed a track. Plenty of large feet tracks here: gnolls.

Just before dark, they crossed a little stream. So, Burrito back-tracked and used his skill [HUNT] to hide the party tracks up to the stream. Then the group, and horses, all walked up the stream for an hour. Here, they found a copse to rest for the night. It was clear and calm, and the stars were out.

During his watch, and with his superb IMAG eyes, Sorrow spotted some tall figures in the distance. Probably gnolls.

Day 3

While the party stayed hidden in their copse, Burrito and El Cid went scouting. They went up side of the Gnoll hills and found another copse, then returned to the group, and all made their way up to it.

 

That night, the group, they left this copse and crossed over the ridge of the Gnoll Hills. Up the top, they spotted a campfire off in the distance. Then kept travelling down the far side of the hills. They passed a tunnel which went into the hillside, but, in an act of unwavering single-mindedness (or was it cowardice and timidity?), they ignored it and kept going out onto the plains between Gnoll Hills and Gold Hills.

They found another bunch of scrub and rested here until morning.

Day 4

The day was spent crossing the plain between the Gnoll Hills and the Gold Hills.

Just before dark, they secreted themselves in another piece of rough scrub.

Day 5

The Gold Hills had been mined (by civilization) a few decades ago. The easy gold had run out and the mines were abandoned. But there were still roads and tracks from the three significant mines to the Siren river (where the gold was taken down to the nearby town, Sirensville).

The group got to a ridge and could look down onto an old road and see a mine entrance, with tailings and old abandoned equipment scattered about. It was eerily quiet.

They found a reasonable copse of scrub about two hours' from the mine entrance. There was another thicker copse a bit closer, but as they approached it, the two pack horses became skittery, so they returned to the two hour one.

Tylin, El Cd and Sorrow went scouting. There was something rotting nearby and the stink was awful. Around a bend they came across a dwarf woman, impaled on a spike, naked and chewed, rotting in the hot sun. They guessed that this was Bertha Littlegood, one of the Billet Six, but they didn't dare move the corpse for fear of detection.

The three kept exploring and ventured closer to the mine entrance. It was in the end of a valley, with the track winding its way towards the Siren river, away in the distance. They were up on the hill, above the mine entrance, when two gnolls walked out, and started to look around, then start to chatter to each other excitedly. Gnoll speech sounds like hyena laughs and barks. 

Like Ogre and Bugbear, Gnoll languages are VSO, polysynthetic, agglutinative and, as you'd expect for a talking dog, display evidentiality and mirativity in the verbs. E.g. davouhtо̄yuh : davo is a non-ironic, direct knowledge "want", uh is "he", tо̄ is "war-bow", yuh is "of-yours". So "He definitely wants your war bow". But in davanuhtо̄yuh, davan is a sarcastic, hear-say "want", so "It is said that he wants your war bow; yeah right."

The three pulled back up the hill and explored down the back side of that hill. There was another shady copse here, plus it had a spring, and was only 20 minutes from the mine; it would make a better base, but they dared not fetch the group with those gnolls near. They found a traces of a campsite, and suspected that maybe the Billet Six made camp here two weeks back.

The three waited for dark, and then skulked back to the valley edge, close enough to glance down at the mine. The gnolls were still about in the starlight, so the three gave them a wide berth, passed the impaled dwarf, and got back to the group five hours into the night.

Wizards' Trunk

Smoking Loon shallop

The Budgie Smugglers (Tylin [Ian], Moonlight [Chris], El Cid [Shane], Burrito [Darryl] and the recently-woken Lammy [Kevin]) were in the Fort Augmentin Travellers' Inn. Sorrow, Huilam and Argile had collapsed into fits of marmalade and had to be taken back to the party's boat the Smoking Loon (which currently bore the fake name 'Pepper Jack') moored at the jetty. Here, they were nursed by El Cid in the secret smuggler's storage compartments ("coffins") of the boat. 

Because he was on the Wanted List inside Fort Augmentin, El Cid was hiding in the coffins himself. All of the coffins had been badly soiled by him (despite being an ex-sailor, his sea-legs had been rather bad the last few days - that, and drinking to excess), so he had to sluice out the vomit, urine and diarrhoea slurry. 

Bilge pump

The Smoking Loon had a hand-operated bilge pump, but it was blocked, so, to wile away the time, El Cid used a bucket and a soup ladle to get the bilge level down below the pump inlet. Then he could pick at the pipe intake which was jammed with diced-carrot, kidney-stones the size of marbles, glutinous fermented elven mung-beans, and lumps of Sir Porks-a-lot's pig faeces that had been floating in the bilge since the last trip.

 
The group's mission here was to get a magical trunk out of the wizards' tower and down to the boat. They spent an hour or two reconnoitering every possible angle of attack inside the fort itself, scrupulously noting down guard positions and numbers, calculating the field-of-view of the barracks' tower searchlight, checking how the main-gate lock worked, all in preparation for their smuggling attempt that evening. 

They spoke to Sly Dunbar in the wizards' tower (loosely supervised by fort guards), and came up with a cunning plan: 

• The group would take a room out in the Inn and base themselves there.
• The storm was supposed to peak tonight, so a few hours after dark, the group would all sneak over to the wizards' tower (with enough muscle to lift the heavy trunk), relying on the rain and wind to hide them, and avoid the barracks' tower searchlight best they could. 
• Then, they would grab the trunk and take it to the gate. The fort gates were locked for the night, and only relied on the wall guards to watch them. The group figured these poor guys would be mostly hunkering down to avoid the rain. At the gate, the plan was for Moonlight to cast a Warp Wood on the plank where the padlocked gate-bolt pin was housed, which meant they could use the gate mechanism to open the gate.
• The 200-paces trip down to the jetty should be clear enough. The guards did not leave the fort at night.
• They would risk sailing out into the storm. And just drop the anchor and ride it out. [DM would allow Sorrow to drive the finicky shallop, despite marmalading.]

But while this planning was going ahead, things were happening down at the jetty.

El Cid had finally cleaned the bilge pump, and was in his coffin casually drinking. With the bilge level down, the coffin was now a bit cleaner, but it still stank of sour milk and sewerage. He heard (and felt) two people jump into the boat. He surreptitiously moved to the little door at the end of the coffin, and waited. 

The little door opened, and a bearded face peered in. El Cid did not recognize this face at all, so he savagely punched it with all the might of his IMAG black fist, crunching jaw bone and gristle. He was copiously spattered by the poor guy's blood, spittle and pieces of brain, as his black fist went right through the man's head to the back of the skull. El Cid immediately grabbed the body and dragged it deeper into the coffin. 

There was yelling outside, and then someone started to pull on the dead man's legs. A tug of war ensued, but El Cid was the stronger, and he pulled the body all the way inside; like a trap-door spider who had just caught some prey.

The other fellow outside started shouting through the hole. 

"In the name of the Knives, let him out. Now!"

"Knives?" asked El Cid. "Umm ... I thought you were pirates!"

"Well, we're not!" came the reply. "Let him out...  An', why are you in there any way?"

"I was ... resting," said El Cid.

"Eww ... in there?" said the guard. "In that stinking cramped dark hole? And ... anyway ... who are you?"

"Uh ... I am .. uhm.. Sorrow," said El Cid quickly, panicking. "Yes. Sorrow of the Insular Rogues. Guarding our boat. From pirates!"

"Well, Sorrow, in the name of the Knives, let Henry out. Now!"

"Um..." said El Cid. "I think he's dead."

"You killed him?!"

"He was a pirate!"

Silence.

El Cid peered out through the coffin end door. The other guard had left. So, he shut the door, and spooned his new friend, dead Henry.

______

There was hammering on the door of the group's room in the Fort Augmentin Travellers' Inn. A deputation of six guards were there, lead by a Corporal Turner.

"You're the Insular Rogues who own the 'Pepper Jack'?" asked the corporal.

Tylin, not quite knowing what was going on said "We are from ze 'Pepper Jack'."

"Well, your man Sorrow killed one of our guards: Private Demeter. And now he's hidden himself in your boat hold, and we don' wanna burn it to get at him. Come with us now. All of you."

Still confused. Lammy muttered "Sorrow?"

2nd Lt Pigeon

So Tylin, Lammy, Moonlight and Burrito traipsed off with the guards, sick to their stomachs.

But at the fort gate, the group was intercepted by Second Lieutenant Pigeon who ordered they all go to her office. So, the group and the squad of guards ended up in there.

"I heard there has been a killing on your boat. One of my guards." she said. "Not pleased!"

They looked rather sheepish.

"And now he.. this man Sorrow has locked himself away."

She growled.

"So," she said "We are all going to go down there to get him out. Then he will be hanged."

She paused.

"But before we go. I have some bad news for you. One of your Insular Rogues leaders, called Booker Dobbs has been killed."

Some questions flitted through their minds. They had certainly killed Booker (El Cid shot him a week or so ago), but he and Sorrow had buried the body in the wilds, so how would she, or anyone, even know he was dead? And anyway, how would she even know that Booker was from the Insular Rogues? He wouldn't be telling any one in Fort Augmentin, surely. Also, Booker Dobbs wasn't actually the Insular Rogues leader, so she got that wrong.

"My sources tell me bandits ambushed him on the Scabport road," the lieutenant continued.

"Sad news," said Tylin, smirking inwardly.

"Couldn't happen to a nicer chap," said Lammy.

Burrito and Lammy stood between Moonlight and the group of guards by the door. This gave Moonlight a clear path to the lieutenant. He cast Charm Person on her [aided by Lammy, which gives an extra die]. Moonlight was taking a considerable risk. Casting magic at Knives is a capital offence. No ifs or buts.

It went off. She gave a delightful smile.

"However," she said. "Due to the fact that you lost your leader Booker, ... I think we can call this even. One of my guards for the loss of one of yours." 

"But ma'am!" snapped Corporal Turner. "You can't do that."

Corporal Turner

"I can, and I have," she replied. "These fine gents and elves have helped Fort Augmentin in more ways than we can count, Turner."

The corporal scowled.

"Excuse ma'am," said Burrito, piping up. "Booker. He haf a trunk. Eees stuck in zee wizards' tower... Eeet no can get out."

"We should take eet 'ome," finished Tylin. "It meant a lot to 'im."

 She thought about that.

"Yes," she said. "That would be fair..."

"But lieutenant!" screamed Corporal Turner. "Priestess Delaney said..."

"I know what the priestess said."

"But the plague..." he yelled.

"If you finish that sentence, Corporal Turner, it will be 'Private Turner'"

He snapped his mouth closed sullenly. Lieutenant Pigeon turned to Tylin.

"Is it possible to get the trunk out of the wizards' tower without any person going into or coming out of it."

"Yes, ma'am!" said Tylin.

"Well then," she said to the corporal. "Delaney can't not be happy about that!"

She assigned the squad to escort the group to the wizards' tower. REAL Priestess Delaney was summoned too. She was not happy, as the corporal predicted, but she had to grit her teeth and bear it.

Wizards' Guild's trunk

The group updated Sly Dunbar through the sally gate peep hole. He gave a grin, and then got the trunk ready to travel, and opened the sally gate. Using ropes and a Wizards' Guild sack-barrow, they managed to get the trunk out of the tower and into the fort compound. Sure enough, no-one entered nor left the wizards' tower as promised. 

Out here, Priestess Delany cast Detect Disease on the trunk, and she got no reading. But she said its magic reading was way off the chart.

The guards all then carried the heavy trunk down to the jetty and loaded it into the Smoking Loon.

The group spent the night in the Smoking Loon as the rain poured down and the wind howled. The jetty and breakwater kept most of the big seas away, so it was a sensible decision. They set some watches for the night, as there were two other larger boats moored there. During the night, there was some activity (visible with infravision), but the group didn't investigate.

_________________________________________

At light, they disembarked, and headed into the big seas. The little shallop was tossed about by the big breaking swell. Everyone felt sea sick, and, as usual El Cid got it bad. He voided his stomach and bowels.

"How he get diarrhoea from sea sick?" questioned Burrito.

As soon as it was dark, they lowered the anchor, but the sea was too deep here, and they didn't want to risk beaching the shallop in the thunderous surf in the pitch black, so they put out a sea anchor. 

The night was unpleasant and wet. The wind was too strong to set up any tarpaulin shelter. No-one got much sleep, and the coffins, although drier, were particularly uncomfortable to sleep in in a big sea. Not only did you get thrown about as the boat rocked, but you got spattered by the foul bilge (with fresh El Cid diarrhoea) as it sloshed about just below you.

___________________________________

The next day, the storm had abated, and the seas were calmer, but still big. They still had a head-wind but made good progress. Just before dark, they sighted a largish town and harbour.

"Must be Winjammer."

Back to Fort Augmentin

The Budgie Smugglers (Huilam [Jamie], Sorrow [Jeff], El Cid [Shane], Tylin [Ian], Argile [Richard], Burrito [Darryl]) were worried about the vampire Magda, so they went to the Wizards' Guild and told Daisy Crown that they would take the Fort Augmentin job. Although it wasn't paying much (4 COIN), it would at least get them out of Scabport for a while. The current job, to track down the murderer of the two Kliban priests, would just have to wait.

Daisy told them that the Wizards' Guild needed to get the magical trunk (that the group had delivered a week ago) out of Fort Augmentin and transport it to the next town Winjammer up the coast. 

Plague flag

Fort Augmentin was apparently still locked down for "plague reasons", and wasn't allowing anyone to leave. Sly Dunbar was in the Fort Augmentin wizards' tower at the moment, and unlike Daisy, he could not teleport. So the party was to use him as a contact when they got there.

Planning to use the Smoking Loon boat to get to Fort Augmentin, Tylin asked Daisy about the weather. Like the Gelding priests, wizards have weather-predicting spells, so she told them the forecast for the next few days: Today the wind was fresh and strong towards the fort (perfect for sailing), but there was a change due tonight with rain and stronger winds for the next few days, blowing the wrong way.

Back at their new base, Huilam was still carrying the promissory note that he had been given by the pirates a week ago (by gentleman pirate Captain Jack of the Debonair). It was only now that Huilam realized that the note was magically cursed. If he burned it, tore it up, or left it somewhere, it would find its way back to him. He tried putting it in the faraday cage (in the old party base), but even that didn't stop it returning. However, that faraday cage and vault had been vandalized and graffitied by the undead (a few nights back), so he wasn't certain if the faraday field was broken, or if the curse worked despite it.

Lammy [Kevin] and Moonlight [Chris] were marmalading.

Burrito, now a Panadine supporter, went to the Panadine temple and told them that he was headed to Fort Augmentin, and if there was anything he could do for them. Priestess Greta Carmichael asked him to take a Panadine shrine to Fort Augmentin. She also gave him another 5 vials of holy water, bringing the party supply up to 9.

They loaded the solid marble (half a ton) Panadine shrine onto the Smoking Loon, and also three chests of silver (3 COIN) in case they needed to pay the pirates. The pirates' "bill" was 4 COIN, so this would be a down payment.

The name of the party's shallop Smoking Loon was on a rotating block and had a set of changeable names, so this trip the boat would be named the "Pepper Jack".

The boat trip to Fort Augmentin was very fast. The sea was running high, but the little shallop was stable enough. Only El Cid was ill. They passed the beached brig Witch of Endor from the other storm last week. It was now half dismantled and still surrounded by carts of salvagers and looters. There was no sign of the pirates.

2nd Lt Pigeon,
Fort Augmentin
Knives Commander

The Fort Augmentin jetty had two ships moored to it, and there was a squad of soldiers milling about, so Sorrow sailed past and headed up the coast for half a league to a beach. Here, they pulled the shallop up above the breakers and settled.

Tylin and Burrito walked to Fort Augmentin. The gate guards were okay to let them in, but they would not be allowed to leave until the REAL Priestess Delaney (replacement for the ill Deirdre) checked them for disease. The Wizards Tower was a no-go area.

Tylin knew the commander of the fort, Second Lieutenant Pigeon, from last time, so he and Burrito sought an appointment with her. She explained that the wizards were under strict quarantine; they, and their henchmen the Budgie Smugglers, were suspected as the cause of the plague. No physical contact was allowed with the wizards, but she would allow oral communication through the spy-hole on the wizards' tower sally gate.

So Tylin and Burrito talked to Sly Dunbar (out of earshot of guards). Yes, he had the trunk here, and, yes,  as soon as the party could smuggle it out, the better.

Burrito left just before dark (they close the gates at dark) with the tale that Tylin was staying the night at the inn connected to the barracks, the Fort Augmentin Travellers' Inn. Priestess Delaney had to be summoned to scan Burrito (with a Detect Disease spell) before the guards let him out. Burrito headed back to the party camp by their boat.

wizard Sly Dunbar

When it was dark, Tylin sneaked to the wizards' tower. There were a few guards on the fort walls and in the compound, and there was a searchlight on the barracks high tower to scan the compound, so Tylin had to avoid these things. Inside the wizards' tower, he chatted to Sly Dunbar face to face. 

After the meeting, Sly gave Tylin a drink of an Invisibility potion, and that allowed him to get out over the walls unseen, and back to the group. To contact Tylin later, if necessary, Sly would use the Whispering Wind spell (which allows LoS communication).

It started to rain during the night. And the wind changed to blow from anti.

Just before light, Tylin tried to sneak back inside the fort. He failed utterly and was captured by the guards, and thrown into the barracks cells.

______________________

The night was peaceful, apart from the rain and wind.

As an experiment, they tried storing the nine vials of holy water inside the hollow Panadine shrine overnight. As guessed, this stopped them going off.

Burrito headed back into the fort, and he spoke to Priestess Delaney about the Panadine shrine the group was transporting. She was happy to find a spot for it inside the fort, and she would consecrate the ground below it. That would last until a Panadine priest arrived sometime in the future to dedicate it formally to Panadine. But she needed to get it delivered. Burrito wanted to get a cart from the fort, but Delaney said just take it to the jetty via boat, and unload it there. She would organize a cart.

He also mentioned the trunk to Delaney. There was no way she would sanction it being taken from the wizards' tower.

"Those bloody wizards started all this," she growled.

So, Burrito headed back to the group with the news.

After a night in the cells, Tylin didn't have any illegal substances nor useful information, and he complied to all their demands, so the guards let him go.

Wizards' trunk

The wind was even stronger when the Smoking Loon was pushed back into the surf.  But they got in floated and made their way down to the jetty. It was shielded from the big seas by a break-water. Delaney and some guards were there with a cart, and the shrine was successfully loaded onto a cart, then driven into the fort. El Cid stayed hidden inside the Smoking Loon, but everyone else went with the cart, and into Fort Augmentin.

The Panadine shine was unloaded to the consecrated spot. So Burrito's Panadine job was done.

Since the weather was still stormy and rainy, they decided to plan for the wizards' trunk job tonight.

[ ... and hoping Lammy would awaken from his marmalade.]