27^th of Mirtul of the year 1492

With a long walk ahead of them, the party used the time to go over some of the things that have happened to them and to think about the contents of the different dreams, visions, and prophecies that they had received.

Dancer started off the conversation expressing concern about how the constable handled the capture Ilmeth. He thought that it was suspicious that Harburk and his deputies were not able to subdue and capture the combative Wheelworks owner.  There was some agreement, but Avery was the primary defender of the law in Red Larch and that he felt they were doing the best they could.

This was also when Avery brought up their relationship with Dhelosk, and that it would be very bad for all of them, especially him if they irritated the wizard anymore. This led to them discussing about how to better approach him in the future and be clearer with their communication, as well as not going back and forth with him on objects of interest.  It was also brought up that he might be one of the few sources of information related to the wider scale of things that are happening, from being able to give them some history, and general conversation on things related to the arcane. It was also brought up that Dhelosk is powerful enough to take away anything he might want if he truly wanted to. Vladimir suggested that they be much more deliberate in their discussions with him and come to an agreement on the topics before approaching.

Regarding Dhelosk, Vladimir expressed that they needed to find people that they could trust.  The constable and Dhelosk seemed to be the only two that they could approach. Dancer continued pushing more suspicion on to Harburk since he was still dissatisfied with the constable’s performance and aggressiveness with chasing the elders and the issues at hand.

They also discussed the statue and even though it has been helpful, they had some concerns because of the things that Dhelosk had warned them that could be happening. ISAC strongly defended the usefulness of the statue and that it has helped them survive more than once. Avery was concerned about the amount of power it had and was not sure if they should even be using it.

Ideas and concerns were being shared among the group when the cults were brought up.  They wondered if the cults were somehow connected or operating independently of each other, and that either option was equally valid. Vladimir brought up that the concept of elements is not only wrapped up with the cults, but also the prophecy they had found on the wall in Lance Rock. Their concern that all of that might be related and connected somehow and that they will need to investigate it further.

With what has been happening, then they needed to find the heroes that were mentioned in the prophecy. Since no one had copied it down they would need to go back to make sure they would be able to review the words more closely. Angelica brought up that they did not know if the prophecy meant them or someone else. ISAC asked about the dream Angelica had from her god, and she recited it to the group:

You stand at the edge of a vast, tempestuous sea. Dark clouds loomed overhead, casting an ominous shadow upon the horizon. The air crackled with electricity, and the sound of distant thunder resonated through the air. Istishia, appearing as a colossal figure wreathed in stormy clouds, reached out to you with a hand that sparked with lightning.

“Angelica,” the deity’s voice boomed, carrying a sense of urgency. “A tempest approaches, a tumultuous storm of great magnitude. It gathers strength, threatening to engulf all in its path. Heed my words, daughter of the tempest, for you are chosen.”

You feel a mixture of awe and trepidation, your scales tingling with anticipation. You bow her head, showing reverence to your deity.

“Seek shelter, Angelica,” Istishia commanded. “Gather your friends, those who have stood by your side in times of trial. Together, you must weather the storm that looms on the horizon. Trust in each other’s strength and find solace in the unity of your bond.”

As your deity’s words faded, the vision shifted, revealing Angelica standing among her loyal companions, their unwavering support evident in their eyes. They stood together, backs against the wind, bracing themselves for the impending storm.

“You are not alone, Angelica,” Istishia whispered, his voice gentler now. “Harness the power of water and ice that flows within you, for they shall be your shield against the coming tempest. Stand firm, weather the chaos, and emerge stronger on the other side.”

With those final words, the vision dissipated, and you awaken from you dream. You knew that your path was set before you, and that your destiny intertwined with the approaching storm. Determination surged within your heart as you vowed to gather your companions and prepare for the challenges to come. For in their unity, you would face the storm and emerge victorious, guided by the whispers of the storm god, Istishia.

She attempted to interpret the dream for the group.

“This seemed like a direct message from my god Istishia. It was more than a dream, more like a sending. That I needed to gather friends and allies to survive the upcoming storm and strengthen their bonds. I also saw the entire party together, minus Dancer standing together, and I should harness the water and ice elements to fortify herself.  Basically, gird our loins and get ready for the shit coming to us.”

When coming up with goals that each of them had, Dancer reminded them that they still potentially had bandits to clear out. When he was told that they also had a treasure map, Dancer was excited to go after those places and was confused why they had not already gone there. There was some argument about the party not really pursuing coin when Dancer reminded them of their loot aggressiveness in the tombs. ISAC guided the discussion to answer the question, “What is Evil”.  Vladimir was a bit unsure how to best define it, when Dancer asked if what they are facing is out to hurt friends and family, and if so, then it is evil.

It was also questioned about what the statue wanted, or if it had wants.  It seemed to be of an element source same as the cultists but was perfectly able and maybe even willing to operate against them implying that the entire situation might be more complex than they thought, or that there were multiple agendas that they were facing.

In parallel to these discussions, Dancer finger talked with Fwoosh about going into Ilmeth’s house later tonight and not let anyone know until their mission was complete. Fwoosh was ready for action later once everyone had gone to sleep. With everyone opening up about their personal thoughts, the different members started sharing what each of them had for personal goals. This led them reviewing what they should be doing in the near term, as well as determining where they should set up a base of operations.

Finally getting back to town and to the Blackbutter Inn, Dancer and Fwoosh headed off to bed early intending on getting up early for some undercover reconnaissance. Fogo and ISAC also headed to bed while Angelica, Avery, and Vladimir went over to the Helm at Highsun. The group that went to the Helm met the distinguished Garlen Harlathurl who was bartending there.

Garlen Harlathurl

Enamored with the menu, everyone ordered their drinks with Angelica and Avery ordering full bottles for themselves. There was some small talk around the Elders in town and their actions. Garlen seemed surprised about what they had done.  When asked about the constable, Garlen had only good things to say about him. He did bring up his failed business in Waterdeep and that he had done poorly there as a merchant and moved here as a retirement job.  A few times during the conversation a much larger man came from the cellar to bring up casks, bottles, and other things and would have a short quiet conversation with Garlen each time.

Justran Daehl

With the long day coming to an end, they all headed back to their rooms at the Blackbutter Inn for evening.  Winding down a bit, the three of them all chose to read and work on their journals.  Vladimir read his romance novel, Avery made notes in his journal, and Angelica continued reading about Mirabaran Dwarven lineage and the convoluted way that dwarves wrote about their hereditary connections was quick to put her asleep.  It did not take long before they all finally went to bed.

28^th of Mirtul of the year 1492

Waking early and before sunrise, Dancer and Fwoosh met at Ilmeth’s Wagonworks to scope out the place and see if they could find anything important left behind.  Leaving Fwoosh outside as a lookout, Dancer went in and moved through the building looking for an office and perhaps a bedroom.  Going through the workers bunkroom quickly and heading upstairs, it did not take long for Dancer to find the office.  It had already been ransacked with papers strewn all over the floor, the drawers dumped open, and the bookcases emptied on onto the floor.  

While looking around carefully, Dancer did notice that there was a spot under the desk that looked a bit odd.  When he was not able to open the spot, he moved the bookcases in front of the windows to hide any light they might need and brought Fwoosh back to get it open, and he did so easily.  Inside was a small chest, and a pair of books. They took the items and before closing the hidden spot, Dancer filled it with a bunch of the papers from the floor.  They then headed back to their rooms to get some more sleep, but before Fwoosh headed to bed, he snuck over to ISAC and stole the dagger they had found in the tombs and hid it in his bag.

Later in the morning as everyone was getting ready, ISAC approached Fwoosh and asked what he had been doing in his bag.  Fwoosh in a very convincing tone said he was looking for ISAC’s maker’s mark and that he thought that ISAC might have put it in his bag. Before heading down, Dancer looked at what he had collected from Ilmeth’s.  The two books appeared to be some sort of accounting books but were written in such a way with abbreviations and summaries that it was impossible to figure out quickly. He failed to open the chest and would have to wait for Fwoosh to open it for him.

With everyone downstairs they got a breakfast, and with some whispered words from Dancer, they went back up to Dancer’s room to investigate what they had found.  Avery took the two books to see if he could inspect them more closely, and Fwoosh opened the chest quickly.  It contained two pouches of coins, a small silver emblem of the Drow Earth symbol, and a note which read:

“Shipment came through fine, material passed. Payment coming soon as well.”

It did bring up the topic of if the elemental cults were related to each other or not.  The fact that they had multiple coins with different Drowish elemental symbols.  Even though all the representations were different, they thought they were probably related. The group went to check out the tannery to see if Fogo could recover any of his material he had left there to be processed.

No amount of knocking seemed to get Ulhro Luruth’s attention, nor get him to answer the door. With that failure on hand, he went back to the Blackbutter Inn to work another kitchen shift with Xaasz. Stopping into the Sundries store looking for some more notebooks, Endrith was quick to point out that they had bought them all yesterday, but did have some new romance novels that had come in.  Promising to buy more later, they went to their Inn waiting for Dancer.

Endrith Vallivoe

Once everyone was together again, minus Fogo who was on kneepads learning cooking from a Goblin, everyone else headed out to Lance Rock and copy down the blood written prophecy. The trip was uneventful as was copying the scrawl on the wall. Nothing seemed to have changed since they had been here last.

In the realm wh’re destiny int’rtwines,

a bodement f’retold, through ancient signs,

of elemental l’rds and prophets four,

at which hour chaos awakens, the w’rld to expl’re.

The elemental l’rds, fi’rce and unbound,

earth, air, fireth, and wat’r, profound,

with allies by their side, prophets of might,

seeking dominion, to vanquish the lighteth.

Air l’rd’s prophet, with partisan hath raised high,

earth l’rd’s prophet, war picketh to defy,

fireth l’rd’s prophet, dagg’r ablaze,

wat’r l’rd’s prophet, trident’s gentle gazeth.

Togeth’r those gents gath’r, darkness their guideth,

their weapons, unknowing, holdeth secrets inside,

keys to the gateways, wh’re chaos is b’rn,

to saveth the w’rld, a quest might not but beest sw’rn.

But h’roes shalt riseth, their spirits untamed,

to visage the prophets, their destiny unclaimed,

with courage and val’r, those gents’ll hurlyburly the odds,

to reclaim the keys and confronteth the gods.

Through treach’rous battles, those gents’ll striveth to succeedeth,

to slayeth the prophets and fulfill the decree,

to seize the weapons, the keys those gents conceal,

unlocking the pow’r to mendeth and to healeth.

With each fallen prophet, a key is revealed,

a grise clos’r to vict’ry, the darkness repealed,

sealing the gateways, wh’re chaos runs deep,

rest’ring the w’rld from et’rnal catch but a wink.

The h’roes, chosen, their hearts int’rtwined,

unit’d those gents standeth, their purpose defined,

harnessing the weapons, the keys yond ignite,

those gents sealeth the gateways, rest’ring the lighteth.

And so, the bodement shalt cometh to passeth,

a testament to the h’roes’ val’r and class,

f’r those gents possesseth the strength to defy,

to safeguard our w’rld, until the endeth of timeth.

Rememb’r this bodement, etch’d in l’re,

a tale of triumph ‘gainst the elemental roar,

embrace the h’ro within, alloweth thy spirit ignite,

to protecteth our w’rld, pres’rving its lighteth

Looking over the writing that was now flaking off the wall, they began discussing some of the content as well as some of their other experiences. Vladimir pointed out that they seem to be looking for four prophets, and they had some kind of magical weapons.  The priests that they had already met were probably working for these prophets.

Deciding that what was left of the cobbled together dragon skeleton might have some value, they used an old ratty carpet to carry the skull back. The skull was proved to be very fragile and continued to crack a little with each step they took, but they were able to get it in some condition back to their Inn.  When asking Gwendolyn about it, she suggested that they store it themselves until Dhelosk was available in the morning.

Gwendolyn Venelli

Dropping it off in one of their rooms so they would be able to attempt to sell it to Dhelosk in the morning. Wanting some dinner, everyone except Dancer headed to the Helm. Dancer stopped into the bakery to meet with Jepos. Asking about what has been happening in town and about some of the people they had encountered, Jepos seemed open in sharing.

“It was an interesting thing.  I am newly arrived and so it was not something we were aware of. In talking to Mangobarl, the town has been changing in the last several years. Things have been getting more suspicious and people acting out, but with a small rural community that happens sometimes.”

When asked about the Zhentarim in Red Larch.

“Oh, I am only here because of the group you are with. We had known the banditry was happening more, and I was sent out to look it over, which was that Ruined Moathouse.  Your group seemed kind of interesting.  The Zhentarim did not really have anything here.  Mangobarl is just a local contact, almost every town has a contact, it does not mean he does anything. He’s not a thief, he’s not a thug, he’s nothing, he is just a baker that owes us a favor.”

“No, I came to town to follow that group.  They seem to be doing some interesting things and I suggested that we learn more about it.  You here were a surprise to me, and the other one, I was not expecting him here either. Neither one of you were assigned here.  Now there are many of us, which is sort of interesting.”

Dancer, ever ready to pick on the constable, asked about him as well.

“I have not dealt with him directly but from Mangobarl and some of the others, he is just a part time law man here, who does not have much of an official position and is the husband of the butcher. The town sees him as the law, but his authority is limited, most of these small towns are run a group of elders, which are those that got caught. His authority came from them.

When asking about the constable morals and competency.

“Well, I think they made sure he did not involve him, because you can look at his actions around the sinkhole.  He argued against them and allowed your group to go in the sinkhole, which they did not want at all because it exposed the crimes they committed.  I think he is just busy and does not have time.  He is not an investigator.  He is just the local law and reprimands those get drunk in public. He is just a small-town sheriff that he has not been trained for this and was just selected because he is former military. He is probably one of the more honest people in town.”

And looking to see if there were any missions for him, Jepos revealed something interesting.

“No, but I think that the Zhentarim will be moving in little more heavily into this town.  That weird things are happening here usually means an opportunity for money. In fact, we will probably buy a business here or something. Give us more chances.”

Dancer shared his concern about Dhelosk.

“Oh, he is an interesting one. I have been trying to do research on him and it has not been an easy thing. But I do know that Dhelosk is not his real name. There is a lot of magic around the Blackbutter Inn. They all came into town three or four years ago.”

Checking in about the tanner.

“He has not been out of his house since the sinkhole, but I did hear that Albaeri ran away sometime last night or this morning. So, the tanner is the only one left, well, except the storage guy.  But there does not seem to be any evidence, and he has seemed to have avoided it all. He has been trying to help the constable gather evidence against the others.”

Dancer expressed his concern about keeping the Zhentarim presence from the party, especially with Fwoosh and wanted to know how bad it would be if they were revealed.

“Well, one of them has links to the Harpers, one of them has links to the Lord’s Alliance, and one to the Order of the Gauntlet. Two of the three are goody-two-shoes and would not appreciate us and would probably try to burn us out of town.”

“Fwoosh is an interesting thing.  He met one of our executives in town, and for whatever reason took a liking to him, and gave him his ring, and if Fwoosh comes by we are supposed to assist. I do not know what the executive’s thought was. Fwoosh has told the rest of the party that he was just given the ring on the way out of town, and that he does not even know what the symbol means and if they have not done anything at this point, it is unlikely they would in the future if he does not talk about us too much. If the baker gets burned, I can always find a new place.”

“We will be expanding our presence here soon; I am just waiting for word to come back from Waterdeep. In fact, I think a team has already gotten to the Bargewright Inn. The concerns have been the bandits, they are not ours. If you could capture some, that would be great.”

“The Ruined Moathouse, I just got a report about that. It seems to be completely covered with ghouls and giant lizards at this point. Something about an extra-large spider living in the main courtyard and filling it completely with webs.  There seems to be a huge ghoul warren underneath it.  Without whatever was keeping them from it, they seemed to have flooded the entire basement area.”

“But the bandits, there seems to be something guiding them and we just do not know what it is, some force.  They have proved to be a bit more organized than bandits should be, and there have been far too many of them.  Taking out some of the wagons they have was more like a military exercise than bandits. I had seen some of the soldier types at the Ruined Moathouse, but your friends did not really share much about them.”

Jepos Copperhand

The remainder of the party headed to the Helm for drinks and good food. As usual, the Helm was filled with local Red Larchers. It was there that Vladimir shared more about his past and family, that he was the fourth of nine children and some about his least favorite sister Olga.  He also talked about how he joined the army and met Benny. With Dancer joining them, Avery went back to the Inn to work on the ledgers and study them in greater detail. The rest ate, drank, and attempted to listen in on what the locals were talking about.

There was a lot of discussion about the elders, and that two of the elders had run away.  Some grumbling about Ilmeth having gotten killed. Gaelkur ran off the same day the sinkhole showed up, as if he knew it was going to be bad.  Everyone is wondering what is in the sinkhole.  They have heard that there is Dwarven Tomb.  There was some talk of bandits along Cairn Road. There were several complaining about the Iceshield Orcs and Uthgardt barbarians attacking farmhouses and that the Samular knights were attempting to defend as well as they could. There was also a lot of local gossip that had little relation to what they were interested in. There was an odd rumor about Thorsk Thelorn, that he had been a mercenary and has treasure buried under his house.

With what they knew, they started planning their next set of actions, and where they should be heading to.  Hunting bandits seemed high on several of their lists, but as long as there was loot, everyone was interested, especially Dancer and Vladimir. They planned on hitting the haunted tomb first and work their way around Red Larch through the different locations keeping Red Larch as a safety point, they could run to if needed.

With their next sets of days planned, out the group went back to the Blackbutter Inn and went to bed for the night. Before getting to bed, Avery informed them of what he had found after spending several hours on the ledgers.  It seemed that Ilmeth had been using some type of cypher on the ledgers and it was beyond what Avery could figure out.  He would need something more to go on to work it out.  This surprised everyone since they had only thought of Ilmeth as a drunken and poor woodworker.  They did not expect this level of sophisticated work from Ilmeth.

Before Fogo got off his shift, he did see the goblins making something several times that was not meal related.  They seemed to be working on herbs and plants and then taking those results to Xaasz where he did something else with those components. Fogo was not sure what they were doing because he had never seen anything like this previously.

29^th of Mirtul of the year 1492

Before anyone got up, Dancer went to the bakery to get his bear claw baking lesson.  While not a complete failure, his bear lumps were tasty, if only for the first inch until you got to the raw dough.

Later in the morning, they met with Dhelosk at the front desk and brought down their dragon skull for him to examine. He did not seem to be very impressed, nor seemed to have some for it, but he did bring out Xaasz who did offer up some platinum for the skull and mumbled something about grinding it up for something he was working on.  Xaasz did comment that it seemed that all the magic in the skull had already been consumed which is why it had such little value and why it was so brittle.

Dhelosk Quelbeard

Xaasz

While negotiating with Dhelosk about the skull, they party also checked in to see what magic items and potions Dhelosk might have one hand.  Fwoosh bought a pair of googles that would also him to see in the dark as well as a cloak that is able to change its color and form to almost anything.  Fwoosh was very excited about having a color changing clock. Avery was convinced to purchase a hat of wizardry giving him something a little more than he had. Fogo somehow resisted the magical staff of birdcalls.  It was a very tough internal battle Fogo went through, but somehow managed to convince himself he did not need it right now.

When asked about what kinds of things he was interested in for his research, Dhelosk answered that he would more things related to inter-dimensional space.  Putting big things in small spaces. He seemed disdainful of Dwarven magic but was interested in Drow magic much more.

Wanting to head to the haunted tomb, they realized that they did not really know where it was and that they should probably go ask for directions from Minny’s daughter. Heading to the poultry store looking for Pell and find out more about what they might be facing.  They convinced Minny to allow them to speak to her daughter about the tomb.

Minthra “Minny” Mhandyvver

Her daughter had found a stone door in the side of a hill, and that door was cracked open.  She had gone inside and there was a ghost inside that talked to her. It was a glowing person in there, but she was not able to tell if it was a human or not.  There was another stone door within and when she went to look at it, the ghost told her she was not allowed to go there and that she should go home. She had a nice conversation with the ghost and then it shooed her on her way.

Before departing, they took a quick peek at the tannery, and they found a deputy guarding in front of the door.  When asked about what had happened, they were told that Ulhro Luruth had committed suicide in the last day or two.  Still wanting his stuff Fogo asked the condition of any of the work inside and was further told that Ulhro had spiked all the tanks, and anything left there had been ruined.

And this is where the session ended.

History Lesson

Here we are with another session of the history of the savage frontier.  This is your host David Bourgh-Ettin, and this week we will be looking deeper into the Kryptgarden Forest.  Last week we talked a bit about the creatures making history, and this week we will investigate the forest that old Gnawbones resides in. It has a history that goes back at least to the minus 230^rd century.

Summary

Named after Southkrypt, this small forest is believed to be the second-most-powerful source of the evil that pervades the dwarven ruin, the first being the Sword Mountains lying just north. The eastern outskirts of the forest are often used by the inhabitants of Westbridge for hunting purposes, even they don’t delve farther than a few hours walk into it.

Description

Kryptgarden Forest, also known as Tsordvudd, was a small but ancient and foreboding forest on the Sword Coast North in northwest Faerûn and one of the so-called the Moonwoods of the North. It was a site that once housed long-lost realms of the elves and dwarves.

“Dark times have come to Kryptgarden. May gods and heroes end the corruption on this day!”

Dala Silmerselve

Name

The name ‘Kryptgarden’ arose from the dwarfhold known as Southkrypt Garden, which stood in the north. The forest was itself sometimes called Southkrypt Garden. The name also seemed to originate in the orc realm called Uruth Ukrypt, meaning “Home of Uruth” in Orcish, that rose in the Sword Mountains in the 10th century DR.

Geography

It was located east of the Sword Mountains. It lay just west of the Long Road and the village of Westbridge and north of Waterdeep.

Description

It was an old-growth forest and local humans knew little of what lay within as of the mid-1300s DR. Kryptgarden was a hilly woodland was covered in a thick layer of foul-smelling fog. Parts of the wood had an unexplained reddish hue about the forest floor and the bases of the trees in the late 1400s DR. The forest contained many ruins of bygone dwarven civilizations.

Geographical Features

A portion of Kryptgarden south of Phandalin was known as the Crooked Forest because some of the trees there had been bent by ancient creatures that dwelled there to indicate paths through the forest. Following the passage of Volothamp Geddarm through the area, the forest received more visitors than it had in decades, disturbing several treants and blights.

A deep hole in the ground—known to some as “the orifice”—in the red forest east of the Sword Mountains led to the Underdark and a passage to the Hanging City of Dolblunde.

Flora & Fauna

Small game animals lived in the forest, but few larger creatures dwelled within, as they were readily eaten by Kryptgarden’s most fearsome predator, the dragon Claugiyliamatar.

Activities

Folk from Westbridge hunted animals along the eastern edges of the forest during the 1300’s DR but did not dare go deeper than a few hours on foot. They’d stopped by the late 1400’s DR after some of their fellows went missing. Some logging also went on around the edges in the mid-1300s DR.

History

During the era of the First Flowering, the forest that later came to be known as Kryptgarden was a part of the ancient elven realm of Illefarn, which was founded circa −22,900 DR. The surface-dwelling dwarves of the briefling flourishing realm of Besilmer, from −4420 DR to −4160 DR, also had borders reaching Kryptgarden Forest. When Illefarn fell circa −1100 DR, the elf realm broke up into several smaller states; of these, Rilithar encompassed Kryptgarden Forest.

The green dragon Claugiyliamatar established her lair within the Kryptgarden Forest in the Year of the Evening Sun, 1303 DR.

In the Year of the Warrior Princess, 1489 DR, the Five Factions all gathered in the forest to deal with the rising threat of the renewed Cult of the Dragon. The cult’s Green Dragon Mask was recovered from the lair of Claugiyliamatar in Kryptgarden Forest. Old Gnawbone herself was injured while blows were struck against the Red Wizards of Thay, the Cult of the Dragon, and the Zartruss hobgoblin clan.

Rumors & Legends

Kryptgarden Forest was reputed to be one of the sources of the evil that lurked in the ruined dwarfhold of Southkrypt, and only the second most powerful of them after the Sword Mountains. In the mid-to-late 1300s DR, rumors swirled of another dwarven citadel in the hills at the heart of Kryptgarden, but these were unconfirmed.

At that time, a crazed adventurer was discovered in the plains west of Red Larch, on Kheldell Path. Supposedly the only survivor of a nine-person adventuring company, he rambled on about a strange citadel in Kryptgarden, one that housed insectoid creatures that walked upright, wielded powerful magic, threw weapons that slew a man at 500 paces, and could camouflage themselves so well they could only be detected by smell and tracking, suggesting it was a supernatural power. Moreover, he had unexplainable burns on his arms and back and had no possessions on him. However, this man was a known to be a lair by 1370 DR.

In the 1300s DR, King Witchthorn had a relationship with the Adarbrent noble family of Waterdeep. For decades, the family sent its firstborn child of each generation to pledge an oath to Witchthorn. The children performed an unknown service to the king by their eleventh year and in exchange the family businesses and their homes were protected by secret fey guardians. This arrangement was unknown to all but the eldest son and daughter of each generation.

Campaign Notes

A fairly low impact session, and the characters finally started to compare notes on the things they have seen, like the dreams and other portents that have fallen on their heads.  Consequences are still impacting some of the members of Red Larch and the town has still not settled down.  The group has begun to discuss setting up a base, whether it is in Red Larch, Lance Rock, or even the Ruined Moathouse, they have not yet decided what might be best for them.  Planning on finishing off any lingering items around Red Larch seems to be next on their agenda.

26^th of Mirtul of the year 1492

The afternoon started off nicely.  After a little sacrifice on the altar of Dwarven gods, and now this.  A cranky old dead Dwarf wielding dual axes seems to be angry at the party and he is competent for a dead guy, seems to be yelling curses, assuming you understood teeth chatter Dwarvish, and can move around tactically like there was a brain left in the skull pan, and the worst part was that he seemed to be immune to all piercing attacks.  

The combat lasted longer than anyone wanted and made a mess of most of the characters involved in it, but everyone survived and were mostly wounded, but no one died, and until they found a small onyx mirror everything seemed normal.  Looking into it showed a death that had been avoided sometime in the past.  No one really looked more deeply into the mirror for any additional clues since what they did see was horrifying to each one.

Vladimir:  You see yourself dead in the mirror – at the sight of the ambush – your body chopped by Iceshield orcs, your head next to Benny’s.

Fwoosh: It is very fascinating – You see yourself in the mirror, but you are dead – it looks like you are at the collector’s house and have been captured and tortured.

ISAC: You see yourself disassembled, a pile of parts on a table, everything is covered in dust and abandoned

Onyx Mirror

ISAC, not afraid, looked into the mirror a second time to see if he would get something new.  Instead, it seemed to start sucking his soul out as the party just watched him freeze in place. Eventually managing to get the mirror away from him and smashing it on the ground seemed to have been sufficient to free ISAC from whatever had kept him captivated.

ISAC: In your mind you are swirling in the void no body, but something is pulling you into the distance – you seem to be moving faster and faster.

Moving back to the safe shrine room, the party took a short rest.  While resting, Vladimir shared the Dwarvish book he had bought from Endrith at the Sundries store with Angelica.  The books were beautifully illuminated manuscripts written in Dwarvish. They contained a genealogical history of the Dwarf clans of Mirabar. ISAC and Vladimir also discussed death and life in general. And the fact that Vladimir was concerned about turning into a creepy skeleton dude after he dies.

At the end of that rest Fogo went back to the Blackbutter Inn so that he could complete another cooking lesson with the chef there.  The rest kept looking around and keeping to themselves, however, it seemed that ISAC’s and Vladimir’s cat killing curiosity needed to be scratched and off they headed back to the room of sarcophaguses to inspect, open, and loot as many as they could get to.

It did not take long for the rest of the party to realize that they had left, and probably where they had gone.  Joining the two wayward looters, the whole party got into the game of checking for traps and opening the sarcophaguses.  With everyone ready, they started moving on to the rest.  One in a corner released a spore cloud of yellow mold almost poisoning ISAC and Vladimir.  That only seemed to give them strength to start moving faster. In another one they found it filled with nothing but skulls, all from orcs and Drow. It did not warrant a second look, and off they went again.  They were surprised when the second to last one had nothing but a huge mirror in it that did not seem to cast a reflection when someone investigated it.  Unwilling to remove it after the last experience they continued their exploration.

In one of the sarcophaguses, they did find a note written in Dwarvish.

Note Found in the Tombs

When translated by Angelica, it stated:

“gods forgive us — we could not stop th”

The party finally got to the last one. If it was by luck or just random chance, this one was trapped and activated all the carved reliefs of Dwarves and creatures along the walls and ceilings to open their mouths and to spew out poison gas.  It was slow enough to allow everyone to escape with only a few being affected by the poison. It was at this point they decided that their looting, or as they called it retrieval exploration, had come to an end, and off to the Blackbutter Inn they went.

Angelica and Avery had headed to the Inn a bit before the rest and managed to get themselves hammered and started singing nonsensical songs made of mismatched tunes and syllables that sounded like words but was not. While in the kitchen getting yelled at in Goblin, Fogo did notice that several times during the different meal preparations, occasionally Xaasz seemed to be working on something that was not meal related.

Xaasz

To be prepared for the next morning, Vladimir went ahead and bought two Dhelosk’s special Hair of the Dog drinks so they would be ready in the morning for the two that were still attempting to sing with their foreheads pressed against the table. Fwoosh inquired about the clock on the mantel and Gwendolyn Venelli told him that it had been a gift to Dhelosk from a Gnome Workshop, and that there were several Gnomish workshops in Waterdeep.  

Gwendolyn Venelli

Being that it was late, the group bought food and drink to fill their pie holes with something that was not rations and stale water. The discussion eventually came around about what Fogo was doing in the kitchen.  Dancer who had witnessed the glorious chaos of the Blackbutter Inn kitchen explained about how the whole kitchen was being run by Goblins and that all the counters were about a foot and a half high, therefore explaining why Fogo needed knee pads to work within there.  Some things suddenly made a lot more sense the group.  Although when Dancer described that the Goblins used all their limbs, including their very nimble toes to cook, Vladimir’s stomach seemed to have some difficulty.

When Vladimir asked Gwendolyn about the Goblins, he was informed that they all had been working for Dhelosk for over 40 years, and probably longer based off the stories she had heard from Xaasz.  When thinking about it, Vladimir realized that something was not quite right, since Goblins tend to only live 30 years at best, maybe 35 in captivity. That was when Gwendolyn also revealed that Dhelosk himself is almost 300 years old.

She continued to talk about the Goblins and explained that they were almost like small green Gnomes, but instead of tinkering, they much preferred playing with chemicals, usually poison. At some point, Angelica started burping something fierce and let loose an explosion of thunder and lightning as her Dragon’s Breath was belched out point blank into the table destroying it completely. ISAC was quick to pay for the damage and everyone decided it would be best to head to their rooms and rest for the evening.

27^th of Mirtul of the year 1492

In the morning, Angelica and Avery felt like there were 50 little Dwarves hammering inside their heads and a pair of Elves with lances poking the back of their eyes.  Heading down, they were quick to quaff their Hair of the Dog. Fogo was surprised to see their normal table missing and a small burn mark on the floor in its place, but they all settled down for some breakfast and conversation. Before much time went by, Fwoosh went over to Dhelosk and gave him the book that contained a copy of all the runes that were on the floating stone in the shrine room from the tombs.  He seemed surprised and happily took it promising to investigate it and get back to Fwoosh in a week or so. Dhelosk did mention that some of the runes looked like they had come from the fifth and seventh century.

Dhelosk Quelbeard

When Fwoosh brought up the Golden Statue, he mentioned that the statue seemed to be absorbing some sort of elemental energy from specific types of creatures. The group had mostly decided to show him the current state of the statue, but ISAC seemed very reluctant in letting Dhelosk examine it. When the conversation had a lull, Dancer ran off for more Bear claws, and so Fwoosh filled the gaps asking Dhelosk about the clock.  He told Fwoosh to go and look at the back of the clock, he would be able to see the maker’s mark on it, and that there were many Gnomish workshops in Waterdeep. Once Dancer was back, the conversation once again came back around to the statue.

“So, the statue, you said that it has changed.  I did say before that it seemed to be awakening in some way, has it awakened?”

“It seemed to have awakened at least a little bit. Now it can produce fire.”

“Can I see the statue?”

“ISAC has it.”

Fwoosh went over to ISAC and tried to convince him to allow Dhelosk to examiner it, but ISAC just was not willing to let it go, even at a distance. Fwoosh ran over to Vladimir with a concerned and questioning look.

“He won’t come, something is not right with him.”

The group began trying to figure out why ISAC was not willing to show Dhelosk the statue.  No matter the argument, ISAC was not willing to take it out.  The more they argued, the more stubborn he become became. Trying a new direction, they asked Dhelosk on where they might find more information on their own.  Being told that they would have to go to the Wizard Academy in Waterdeep or go to one of the Drow kingdoms in the Underdark.  Neither location was easily accessible, and the Underdark a place of great danger.

“The Underdark is not a place for the weak of heart, it is dangerous, even me going there was a perilous situation. I would not advise attempting it anytime soon. When you are powerful enough to go, you will figure out how to get there, if you do not know how to get there, then you are probably not powerful enough to do it.”

“But you might even find an entrance in the valley somewhere. There are Drow ruins under the Sumber Hills, so there used to be entrances, or should have been entrances to the Underdark.  Although the old Dwarven ruins are sitting on top of them. If you follow the ruins deep enough, you will probably eventually find an entrance.”

“Is it normal for Dwarven ruins to be on top of Drow ruins?”

“No, there is at least a thousand years between the two.  The Drow were here, and then went away for some reason, and then the Dwarves came afterwards.”

“And the Dwarves went away for some reason?”

“The Dwarves did not last more than two or three hundred years. It was not one of the troll wars, but trolls and orcs invaded and destroyed the Dwarven areas.”

A few other questions came forth from Fogo, and he continued to apologize to Dhelosk about them keeping it back at this time.

“I have already handled it once, but now you seem reluctant to allow me to examine it again.  Is it awakening more?”

“Yes, that is what we understand.”

“When artifacts awaken, they can sometimes influence your thoughts. Just be aware as it awakens, if it is an artifact, who knows what it really is, it could be further influencing what you think and do.”

“How will we know when it is fully awakened?”

“Well, it will probably talk to you. If I can examine it, I might be able to tell what kind of awakening it is. Sometimes artifacts get more powerful and sometimes smarter.”

“Is there anything we should look out for in an awakening artifact?”

“As long as your directions align, there should not be any problems.”

“How do we know if they align?”

“It will probably tell you or attempt to influence you in a direction it wants you to go.  It could be anything.  It could just be gathering power.  It could be broken and gathering power to fix itself.  Without examining it, I cannot tell you which direction it is going.  There are a hundred possibilities.”

“Do you think it might be influencing me right now.”

“Hard to say.”

“If it has moved from one of you to another, it has potentially identified you as a group. So, it got whatever it needed from the first, and now it is getting something from the second.  This is not to say it is a bad thing, there are more good things than bad things out there when it comes to these things.  You did say it has a multitude of functions that are beneficial to you.”

With those heavy thoughts weighing them down, they then brought up the effects of the onyx mirror they had found. Dhelosk did not know much about, nor was able to help them much, but did let them know that many times that magic items that showed you the possibilities of alternate realities was something that each person was only allowed to investigate it once, but a second look, it might try to consume that person. They also brought up the second mirror and Dhelosk expressed interest in that one as well.

Bringing Fogo up to speed since he missed the last part of the exploration, and described all the things they had found, as well as a lot of coin. One point of interest was the staff they had found which and they had Avery Identify it in the public room of the Inn.  With an audience of everyone there as well as the party, he was able to determine that staff was in fact magic, but only contained some residual magic and no longer had any functions.

The conversation finally got around to the party collecting their wagon and horses from Ilmeth Waelvur.  They found the constable yelling at Albaeri Mellikho who was still hiding in her home and refusing to come out.  Harburk Tuthmarillar was not having much success with her, and was happy to be moving on somewhere else, although confronting Ilmeth was not going to go well.

Albaeri Mellikho

Harburk Tuthmarillar

Collecting his deputies, the constable and the party all went to the Wheelworks.  When approaching, Ilmeth started yelling at them to go away and to stop bothering him.  The party wanted their wagon and horses, and he refused to allow access. It went back and forth with Dancer pushing the hardest on Harburk to act.  The constable was not looking for a violent confrontation and knew that Ilmeth would calm down eventually, but Dancer just kept pushing and pushing.  Finally, the constable had enough of it all, and told Dancer to back off, and then instructed his deputies to kick in the door to Ilmeth’s place.

Ilmeth Waelvur

Ilmeth was waiting for them inside with a short sword and as the deputies tried to secure him Ilmeth cut at them and wounded several of them.  Harburk was trying to help but due a quick movement by Ilmeth catching Harburk by surprise, the constable inadvertently stabbed Ilmeth in the heart killing him.  The owner and proprietor of Ilmeth’s Wheelworks was now dead.

Ordered to head around to the side by Harburk, the party were able to get into the back area and find their wagon and horses.  The horses were in poor condition, clearly not haven eaten in several days nor had much to drink.  Their wagon on the other hand had no wheels.  A quick search only exposed broken wheels and broken wagons around the yard.  Heading over to Thelorn’s Safe Journeys, they were able to convince Thorsk to get their wagon with his large flatbed wagon and bring it back, replace the wheels, repair any damages, and add in windows on to their wagon.

Thorsk Thelorn

Now that the wagon was settled, they needed a safe place to store the horses.  Avery negotiated with the Farrowvale family, the parents of the two girls Isabella and Sophia that had been rescued from Lance Rock, to store the horses at their farm.  The family agreed and eventually the whole group joined them out at the farm dropping off the horses.  The girls were happy to see Dancer, somewhat horrified with the naked riding cat of Avery’s, but happy to see the party.  After dropping off the horses, the group had dinner with the family and afterwards they headed back into town since it was getting late, and it had been a long day already.

And this is where the session ended.

History Lesson

Once again this is David Bourgh-Ettin bringing you history from around Faerûn.  Again, we will be continuing form last week covering more of the history of the Savage Frontier.

History is not just about a place and time, but many times it is about the people, or in today’s case a creature.  A creature that has lived for several millennia. The great ancient green dragon named Claugiyliamatar. It is unknown how old she might truly be at this time, since anyone attempting that inquiry only ends up as a pile of melted goo.

Some ballads call Claugiyliamatar “Old Gnawbone” for her habit of carrying a corpse dangling from her jaws to munch on absently from time to time, just as some humans suck on unlit pipes or chew cigars. She is cunning, paranoid, and possessed of a cruel sense of humor: trapped victims have been known to escape her because she played with them to watch their pain and suffering instead of slaughtering them outright.

Claugiyliamatar lives alone, driving away male green dragons who come courting, but she has always been rumored to employ several dozen loyal human and halfling agents to work behind the scenes for her in the less savory side of business in Neverwinter and Waterdeep. These agents make profits on goods made scarce by the dragon’s attacks. Old Gnawbone seems to enjoy manipulating affairs in the cities for the sake of wielding secret power, not for the wealth it brings her.

Claugiyliamatar is fascinated by human and elven women who wield power, and she spends hours watching them from her lair through her array of crystal balls. This collection of scrying spheres marks the second thing that fascinates Claugiyliamatar: magic, especially items that allow her to take human form and participate in the things humans do (knifings in alleyways, for example, and passionate courting, and, well, drinking). Her personal spells are too weak to enable her to take human shape, so she watches the nobles of Waterdeep and the sorceresses of Neverwinter for hours at a time, learning who has magic and where it is hidden, before sending her agents forth to steal it. Woe betides an agent who tries to cheat Old Gnawbone out of even the tiniest scrap of magic: he will find himself nailed to a tree deep in the forest, drenched with blood, and left for the wolves (or other hungry forest denizens).

Having her own way is everything to Claugiyliamatar. Among other dragons, her reputation for trickery makes her best avoided. Balagos, for instance, considers her a twisted, crabbed thing given to petty silliness and, as such, beneath his notice.

She is a tireless foe who goes to ridiculous lengths to cause even small harm to someone she regards as an enemy, and this “worry-all-the-bones” trait has made most other dragons leave her alone. This is just fine with Old Gnawbone, as it leaves her free to pursue her schemes wrapped in the presumption of her own supremacy over other dragons. It also leaves her great Waterdeep as part of her territory. That there are more than a dozen steel dragons and were-dragons’ dwell in the city under her very nose, and generally regard her activities with amusement, is something she serenely ignores, even when one of her agents is imprudent enough to point it out to her.

Claugiyliamatar’s Lair

Old Gnawbone lairs in a cavern in Kryptgarden Forest, at the end of a deep ravine that runs from the base of one of the mountains that bounds the old, thickly grown woods on the north. Several tombs and abandoned dwarfholds pierce the mountain walls nearby, including the infamous monster-haunted complex known as Southkrypt. Claugiyliamatar employs both human agents and woodland creatures as guards around her lair, to lead intruders astray (sometimes with the aid of audible glamers and other spells she casts herself) into waiting traps or into one of the waiting perils of another cave.

The green dragon doesn’t seem to have a name for her abode, but to humans it’s the Deeping Cave, a name of forgotten origin that it possessed long before Claugiyliamatar arrived the early 14^th century.

The cave gapes at the end of a gloomy, vine-crossed gully overhung by gigantic old oaks and duskwoods. Within, Old Gnawbone’s lair is a weird place of creeping phosphorescent lichens, giant toadstools, and hanging mosses draped over statues of imperious human women (warriors, mostly) looted from a dozen tombs.

At the back of the cave, Claugiyliamatar slithers about in the gloom from her bed of coins to the alcove where her crystal balls glow and flicker. She often spends hours sprawled before them, watching what befalls far away, while a servant (always a man clads only in manacles and chains, though these are a decorative costume he can remove whenever desired) oils her soft scales with tree-sap and ointments made to the dragon’s own formulae from crushed and boiled forest leaves, fungi, and roots.

Claugiyliamatar is vain and believes she will stay youthful and supple if her scales are tended daily, polished with these healthy substances to a deep, almost blue, emerald hue. Those who anoint her are allowed to scoop up as many coins they can grasp in one hand (only!) from her hoard-bed as payment when they leave. Thus, attending the dragon is a popular duty among her servants — though one must be careful to do nothing to make Old Gnawbone suspect treachery; she’s been known to roll over with sudden, deliberate speed and crush a servant beneath her bulk.

Claugiyliamatar’s Domain

From Deeping Cave, Claugiyliamatar holds sway over a dominion that stretches from the southern bank of the River Mirar down the Sword Coast to the north bank of the Dessarin, and along the western fringes of the High Forest to about Dead Horse Ford, where it swings north and west in a wide arc over the Evermoors to take in Nesmé, Longsaddle, and Grunwald, to reach the Mirar south of Mirabar. If all the borders of her territory are disputed by other dragons (particularly northern Neverwinter Wood and the land between the Dessarin and the High Forest) and her ability to waltz into Waterdeep is more fantasy than something she dares do, Claugiyliamatar cares not. She rarely flies anywhere east of the Long Road and seldom leaves her lair in any case, preferring to watch through her scrying-crystals and have agents work for her.

Lance Rock, a landmark west of the Long Road south of Red Larch, looks as if a gigantic boulder were hurled down from the sky to strike deep into the ground — and that’s just what happened. A brash young adult red dragon, Smergadas, liked the look of the lands around the Dessarin. After flying about unchallenged for most of a day, he filled his belly with roaming deer and curled up for a nap — whereupon Old Gnaw- bone, who’d been watching him through one of her crystals, emerged from her lair, plucked a loose boulder almost as large as herself from atop the mountains, and flew over to drop it on him. Then she landed to fill her own belly with foolish red dragon.

Conclusion

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this ancient green dragon has been kicking around for a long time, hates being interrupted, and fundamentally is a vain, ill-tempered, vindictive creature that claims dominion over a large area of land including the Dessarin Valley, and not many dragons are willing to contest her in her claims. Wander not the northern areas of the Kryptgarden Forest lest you incur her wrath, one that she will happily fester on for decades.

Campaign Notes

The Tomb of Moving Stones has been completed.  Waking up the cranky dead Dwarf and the not so quick killing of him did not really reveal anything new.  One more of the Believers dies, this time in a fit of fury. What will happen with all those businesses that now have no owners?  When will those Dwarves arrive?  They party seemed to have been in a hurry to loot because of the worry that the Dwarves would arrive and take it all before them.

25^th of Mirtul of the year 1492

 After completing their discussion and reviewing of what they found and a tour of the tombs with the constable, the tired party wandered their way back to the Blackbutter Inn. The constable had run off to fetch his deputies to gather in the those involved and start interrogating them on what they had been doing.  As they passed near the sinkhole, they could see that most of the crowd had wandered off.

A small barricade had been built around to prevent any more mishaps with additional children falling in. Most of the preventive measures seemed to be set up ten to 15 feet from the sinkhole, obviously fearing more of a collapse.

Arriving at the Blackbutter Inn, they were immediately directed by the server to head to the back by going around the building and to wash off before entering the building.  With all the mud attacks, exploding mud devils, and having a corridor explode around them did cause all of them to far dirtier that any sane person would prefer. Gwendolyn Venelli came out with a tray of ale and offered a free meal to the team for their hard work in rescuing the children in the sinkhole.

Gwendolyn Venelli

Quickly washing up and reentering the Inn they all decided it was best to get a meal, especially since it was going to be free. Before eating, they all went to their rooms for quick clothes change. They reconvened in the main room except Dancer who wanted a warm bath in his room. Vladimir seemed a bit jealous of the individual bath and individual room that Dancer had, but he still had warm dreams of large teddy bears.  Everyone collected back and ordered food and since Dancer had not come down, Fwoosh being friendly, had ordered a large bowl of clotted cream and a spoon for the Tabaxi. Dancer’s only comment was that he liked meat too.

Vladimir started a discussion about the friends that all had escaped with Fwoosh from the Collector.  Fwoosh described their names and their specialties. Which led Dancer to ask about who was Benny. Vladimir explained more about how he knew Benny and as well as a little about the ambush that led him out of the army and eventually to Waterdeep. With the different soul baring stories coming out, ISAC explained a bit more about his awakening and that he believes that his name might be an acronym.

This brought up something that Fogo was interested in, which was if anyone belonged to any factions as he was a member of the Emerald Enclave.  Vladimir was a part of the Lord’s Alliance, Angelica was with The Order of the Gauntlet, and Fwoosh was confused if he belonged to the baker’s guild or something else.  This caused a lot of Thieves’ finger-talk with Dancer about their relationship with their faction and Dancer convincing Fwoosh to not disclose their relationship with the bakery and their faction.

With Fwoosh talking about his past and his home a clocktower, Avery noticed that there was a small clock on the mantle of the main fireplace.  This also led Fwoosh there who seemed fascinated with it. Dancer gave a little more information about his past and the source of his name and everyone shared a bit more with each other.  The group was opening a little more and becoming closer to each other.

It seemed that the party had opened enough and felt like they trusted Dancer sufficiently such that they showed him the Golden Statue and some of its capabilities.  He was enamored with the fact that once it was about ten feet away from ISAC it would disappear and reappear in ISAC’s hand. It was also mentioned that it seems to be growing in power and was awakening in some way. ISAC also explained that every time they killed an elemental type of creature the statue seemed to absorb something from them upon their death.  Dhelosk, the owner of the Blackbutter Inn is a wizard, and had identified the symbols on the statue as the four drow symbols for the elements, and that it was very old, maybe as much as 5,000 or 6,000 years old.

Golden Statue

The group continued to talk about some of their previous adventures and opened it up for Dancer to join them. He was very amenable to joining the group and adventure along with them. They did mention a little of some of the odd dreams they had but did not explain much to Dancer. He told them to consider that they had ingested something that might have caused that because it was just crazy.

Moving the discussion along, and ensuring no one was close enough to listen in, they decided to try and decipher the text they found on the door with the dwarven carving.  Angelica who had been studying Dwarven in her seminary work was able to figure out the exact words for everyone. Before working on a solution Dancer suggested that they just sell what they knew to the Dwarves and not tempt themselves with the Tomb since it was scary for Dancer since he feared the undead, curses, traps, and all the possible combinations of those.

The conversation went into circles a bit as they tried to figure out what it meant.  Fogo pushed that it could represent the four elements and might be related to the other elemental objects they had found, while Angelica suggested they might want to think about what the known attributes of Dwarves are. This seemed to have given them several new ideas.  In the next few hours, they were able to come up with a plan and items they needed to purchase the next day to enact what they thought was the solution. With what they thought to be a solid plan everyone headed up for a much-needed rest.

26^th of Mirtul of the year 1492

After rising in the morning, they found Constable Harburk Tuthmarillar waiting for them already drinking some ale.  He complained that he had not yet gotten to bed while working on the investigation and there were already issues.  It seems that someone had murdered Baragustas Harbuckler last night by dismembering him, pinning the parts on a wall, and gouging out his eyes and replacing them with some small stones.  Sometime while the sinkhole was being explored by the party, Marlandro Gaelkur had closed his shop and ran off somewhere.  This morning Elak Dornen stole all his business’s coins and valuables and snuck away leaving his very angry wife and several children behind.  The town is concerned that she will have some difficulty in being able to keep the business running without the gold to pay the workers.

Harburk Tuthmarillar

Baragustas Harbuckler

Marlandro Gaelkur

Elak Dornen

Albaeri Mellikho was arguing that she had nothing to do with it, Ilmeth Waelvur was stinking drunk and acting overly belligerent, and Ulhro Luruth was just hiding in his shop. When asked about Braelen Hatherhand and his father, Harburk explained that Rotharr had been kicked out of his house by his wife.  He had come into town, drank a bunch, and then swore vengeance on the those that did this to him before departing for parts unknown.

Albaeri Mellikho

Ilmeth Waelvur

Ulhro Luruth

All the elders implicated that were still in town were attempting to blame Baragustas for everything, but there was little evidence except a lot of finger pointing.  While Aerego Bethendur had been implicated, there was even less evidence about him participating.  What was interesting was that Aerego started helping the constable with finding some evidence and reporting in on what he knew to prove the guiltiness of the other elders.

Aerego Bethendur

While the Harburk was explaining, Dancer and Fwoosh decided that they needed to run to the bakery for some bear claws. Continuing to explain what had been happening, he finally got to Grund who just seemed guilty of being bullied into helping.  Grund was released but did not seem to be normal happy-go-luck attitude and in fact was no longer tolerating anyone stealing his pickles and had even beaten two men this morning when they came by. ISAC was curious if any of the bodies or the suspects had any tattoos, ones that matched any of the drow elemental symbols.

Grund

Arriving at the bakery and looking for Jepos, it turned out that only Mangobarl Lorren was there while Jepos was out doing something. Not waiting around, they ran back to the Blackbutter Inn.

Mangobarl Lorren

As the party described the things, they had found such as bandits having castles, the possibility of there being different four elemental cultists, that the bandits and the cultists organizations and that they might be working together, and that the elders might even be involved in all of this since the earth symbol was found in the tombs too.  Going for a stronger drink, Harburk fortified himself before asking clarifying questions about all of that. Before Harburk could depart, Vladimir suggested that the constable reach out to the military commander in Amphail. Leaving less happy than he arrived, the constable left to search for tattoos and anything else.

Jumping in, Avery went over to talk to Dhelosk before getting riled up by Fogo shortly. He purchased a spell and a lot of magic ink to allow him to copy spells into his spellbook and therefore making himself more universally useful. Once completed, it was Fogo’s turn who took advantage of Dhelosk’s kindness by getting a bunch of items identified and priced, although for some reason not the dagger with the dried blood they had found in the tombs.  Dhelosk was happy to help, especially when Fogo brought out the Lantern of Equivalent Exchange and his Ring of Free Action.  The wizard was very interested in purchasing both, but Fogo was not selling anything except a cheap magic mace, and then headed back to the table and leaving the disgruntled Dhelosk behind.

Dhelosk Quelbeard

After a small discussion with the rest of the group Fogo came back and asked about purchasing some Bags of Holding.  After admitting there were a couple available at a now premium price, Fogo relented and sold the lantern to help cover the cost of buying those useful bags.

Deciding to visit many places in parallel the party split up visiting different locations.  Fogo went to the smithy to fetch his newly made knives.  That proved to be a quick jaunt and then joined Angelica and Avery at the Allfaith’s Shrine to pick up some healing potions and fondle the dead body of Baragustas’s body to look for tattoos. Dancer, Fwoosh, ISAC, and Vladimir visited Ironhead Arms to sell all the excess arms and amor they had collected.

Laefra Tantur

At the shrine Angelica and Avery purchased a large pile of healing potions and convinced Imdarr and Lymmura to allow them to go through and inspect Baragustas’s body.  Before their search, they inquired about having Imdarr perform a remove curse if they encountered one when attempting to identify the magic dagger they had found in the tombs. They were instructed to head in the back with their discission on whether Avery would identify the dagger or not and that they should take the box with the body parts to the back of the building for their searching. Once the search was completed, the three of them headed back to the Blackbutter Inn to wait for the rest except Avery who went to his room to start copying spells.

Imdarr Relvaunder

Lymmura Auldarhk

At Ironhead Arms, the four of them sold a pile of armor and a few weapons while Dancer filled up his almost empty quivers and Fwoosh picked up some daggers. Finishing up their business they headed back to the Sundries store.

Feng Ironhead

At the Sundries store Fwoosh was surrounded by children all looking for more sweets, especially those bear claws, but they were all disappointed when all Fwoosh delivered was a pair of sourdough bread loafs. It was disappointment all the way around. Purchasing some charcoal and checking in on some better-quality rope, they were able to buy everything except the non-hemp rope. Fwoosh was able to pick up an interesting toy top that was spun using a string. Just before departing, Vladimir bought some blank books, a couple of Dwarvish books, as well getting one of the romance books (The Bard and the Rising Tower) secretly from Endrith while no one was looking.

Endrith Vallivoe

Seeking some fine wood, Dancer convinced them to head to Thelorn’s Safe Journeys so he could acquire some higher quality wood for his carving fetish. Meeting Thorsk, a large and scarred man, Dancer had a nice set of selections to choose from. Vladimir attempted to convince Thorsk to take care of his horses and wagon but was continually rebuffed. Dancer suggested they use the farm of the old woman they had rescued, but it was not something Thorsk knew about.

Thorsk Thelorn

Finished with their business and shopping the last of the wayward group headed to the Blackbutter Inn and meet up with the rest. Going over their tomb raiding plan once again, they started checking to make sure they had everything that was needed. Vladimir picked up a cask of Dwarven Ale and remembering that they still needed some tobacco and a pipe, everyone except Avery ran back to the Sundries store to fetch those.

After collecting Avery, the party headed out to the northern quarry to gain access to the Dwarven Tombs and finish looting the spaces they had not done previously. Getting the name of the old woman they saved before heading down, the group all headed into the Tombs. They made their way to the locked Dwarven door and got ready to execute their plan on opening it. Reviewing the plan once again they began executing what they thought was the solution.

Starting off with putting the coals in the eyes caused an immediate reaction which almost caused Vladimir to fall over.  A loud chunking noise started coming from the door with the loud sound occurring once a second. In a more of a panic mode, they lit the coals on fire, poured ale into the saucer, dropped a gold piece into the slot, and with the lit pipe blew smoke into the mouth.  A different noise started from within the door, and it unlocked and opened itself.  Their careful planning and discussions of the solution had paid off.  The door was open.

Stone Door with Dwarf

Description of the door: The door is a dark grey granite that still has remains of faded paint upon it.  The stone dwarven warrior stare outward at those in the hallway.  Its eyes are holes large enough to fit a small hand while there is a hole leading into the mouth, the left hand is holding a stone saucer with a small hole on the bottom of it, and finally the right hand is held out as if waiting to hold something. It is at an angle that will cause whatever is in the palm to slide into what appears to be a pouch that has a slot on the top of it.

Surrounding the carving in Dwarven on the door is the following:

Aundra e eth hallanaryr wundstr avor corruption

Jert eth vjakr avor ljef

Grasp eth murmal avor temptation

Ynsta eth aldrorz anzjon

Which translated to:

Breath in the heavenly air of corruption

Drink the water of life.

Grasp the metal of temptation.

Feel the burning sight.

Wandering down the steep ramp and a turn, they came to a large domed room that had another large floating glowing stone in the middle and the room was filled with some sort of mist that obscured the vision. When attempting to see magic, the mist blocked all of it.  Going into the room, they found three 20-foot-tall statues of Dwarves.  Each of the Dwarves had a different symbol in front of them.

Symbol of the Northern Dwarf Statue

Symbol of the Western Dwarf Statue

Symbol of the Southern Dwarf Statue

Angelica was not able to discern what gods they might have been from but speculated that these might be very old representations of the Dwarven gods. Wandering around and looking for magic more closely, the floating rock was radiating as well as all three statues, but nothing more could be discovered. She was able to determine that this room must be some sort of shrine to the Dwarven gods.

The rest of the party convinced Angelica to cast Gust of Wind in the room to attempt to get rid of the mist, but it had no effect that they could see. They next all surrounded the floating stone and started turning in a circle clockwise and back to see if that changed anything, but again, nothing seemed to change or happen.

Wondering what to do, Fwoosh stepped forward to the northern statue and offered his Pick mask as an offering.  The mask vanished and a small tattoo of a mask appeared on his hand. Excited to partake of any boons, Vladimir tried by sacrificing his old personal battle axe to the northern statue, and it too was accepted.  Vladimir felt he was stronger if he faced certain types of creatures.  

Now everyone else was in a bit of a frenzy and did not want to be left out of anything special happening.  But anything they placed on the third statue’s base caught fire and turned into ashes.  Maybe they should not have started with Grund’s old grungy and beaten and bloody studded leather. They tried a couple of other items but all of those caught fire and turned into ashes.  Thinking they needed something more expensive; Dancer ran back into town to buy back one of the armors they had sold as well as a side jaunt to pick up a couple romance books (A Fairy and his Paramour and The Dragon Mounting the Knight) that attracted his attention.  But when placed at the base of the statue, the chainmail also went up into flames and then ashes.

They were going to continue when Avery offered some advice. He stated that if this was really a shrine that gave boons, they would be very limited and if you pushed too hard, you would very likely get an anti-boon. Deciding that a new curse would be bad, they moved on to the rooms where the sarcophaguses were, but leaving Fwoosh and ISAC behind so Fwoosh could keep copying the runes on the floating stone.

Deciding that they should first using Fogo’s Detect Trap since this was a tomb, and according to Dancer, everything was probably trapped.  Moving to one end to see as many of the coffins as possible he cast his spell.  While he did notice one of the coffins trapped, it also seemed that casting the spell in a firm loud voice also awoke something they were not expecting.  In the alcove at the very end, the top was tossed off and a medium sized skeleton looking much like a dead bearded dwarf holding a pair of axes leaped out and glared at them.

Dwarven Skeleton Champion

And this is where the session ended.

History Lesson

This is David Bourgh-Ettin bringing you history from around Faerûn.  Today we will be continuing form last week covering more of the history of the Savage Frontier.

This week we will start talking about Dessarin Valley.  While most of the current west coast scholars and cities call this the savage frontier, it is equally ancient as any other area on the Sword Coast.  There are many stories of Drow, Dwarves, Orcs, and the Uthgardt.  There are many ruins and old buried secrets there, most of which we still have not found, mostly due to the danger involved with the different barbaric folks that inhabit the valley.

The earliest known inhabitants are the drow who had created an underground city and temples sometime around minus 52nd century Dalereckoning, usually shorten to DR. Not much is known about them since any records are buried very deeply in those hills, and most likely into the Underdark. It was not until about the minus 43rd century that we finally have more written records, although even those are somewhat sparse from the subsequent orc invasions.

The dwarves built a magnificent metropolis and fortifications all under the Sumber Hills called Tyar-Besil.  It was said to not only completely cover the underground of the Sumber Hills, but all the way to the Sword Mountains and the High Forest.  It was a crowning achievement for the dwarves and said to have been something so stunning with its engineering and construction that artisans came from thousands of miles to see it.  It is unfortunate that it only lasted a mere two hundred some years.  Their king Torhild Flametongue was killed in one of the many battles with giants and trolls, who both still infest the Sumber Hills to this day.

We can still find many fortifications and old ruins around the valley, but these are not usually part of Tyar-Besil.  These instead belong to a much later generation of dwarf and explorers.  In the 9th century Dalereckoning a group of adventurers settled in the valley building several strongholds.  They managed to entice several groups of dwarves at the same time who also then build different settlements and defensive works to help them old out against the constant invasions of orcs and other creatures.

Campaign Notes

Some elders ran, some are sticking it out, and at least has been murdered. The party heads back down into the tombs to try and finish off what they found before Dwarves show up and take the party’s soon to be well earned loot.  The Dwarven Shrine was a nice find a couple of boons might be helpful later. Waking the Dwarven Skeleton Champion?  That was just a bonus.

25^th of Mirtul of the year 1492

Having run out of the Swinging Sword with Harburk Tuthmarillar they were greeted by the sight of a large sinkhole over 30 feet across having opened in front of some buildings across the street from them. They could hear the screaming of children in the hole and as they watched, an old woman ran to the edge, and had it crumbled further, and she slid in as well. All the screaming was quick to draw the attention of other villagers including some of the elders.

Harburk Tuthmarillar

Albaeri Mellikho, Ilmeth Waelvur, and Ulhro Luruth were attempting to push the other villagers away from the edge and seemed to be trying to keep everyone away from the sinkhole.  Dancer noticed that the three of them seemed to be nervous about something related to the situation. There were many calls for rope, ladders, anything to help.

Albaeri Mellikho

Ilmeth Waelvur

Ulhro Luruth

The three of them could be heard yelling at the villagers that everything was in control, and that they should just go home, and the problem would be handled.  Harburk went over to assess the situation. Albaeri came over to intercept the party.  She tried to push the characters away and told them simply that they were not needed and did not need to be involved.

While she was confronting the party, Dancer and Fwoosh were finger talking that they felt there was an issue there, or that she might know more about what had happened.  As the group started ignoring Albaeri, the other two elders came over and blocked the group as well.  They were saying things like.

“The Stones should not be disturbed.”

Fogo stepped forward and strongly stated that they were involved and were going to rescue those that had fallen. As they argued with the three, they noticed that there were a few more notable people were missing from the crowd.  No one from the Blackbutter Inn, but more interestingly was that Grund was nowhere to be seen. The party attached a long length of rope to a building for a secure hold and Dancer was quick to head on down to check out the situation and the room that everyone had fallen into.

Switching his position with a child, Dancer allowed a child to go up and Fwoosh came down following that.  This started them bringing the kids up while different members slowly made their way down. While this was occurring, Ilmeth stepped forward and started a much more aggressive stance and stood up to Fogo.

“The Delvers should not be angered.”

When pushed for answers, they only got more push back and that this was a town problem, and they should just go somewhere else.  The elders will handle this. This did not stop the rescuing of the children and finally the old woman who had sprained her ankle and needed assistance. Questioning her it seemed that the town, or at least many of them were not aware of this space under the town.  Harburk had come back over where the group was working on getting everyone up from the hole and stepped in and shepherd the elders further away from the group.

Those that were in the room at the bottom of the sinkhole began investigating the space finding a large stone door to the east and a narrow passageway to the north. Dancer and ISAC struggled with the stone door but did not have the physique to open it up.  It was heavy and difficult for them to open. As the details was shared with the party members, Fogo became much more aggressive and attempted to push Ilmeth for answers but becoming very belligerent Ilmeth only continued to push back strongly.

Harburk once again pushed the three away from the party so that the group would be able to do something while the elders were arguing against any action. It did not take long with the assistance of the villagers; the rest of the party was all able to get back together in the large room under the sinkhole. Analyzing the hole above them and room itself, it occurred to them that the recent heavy thunderstorms had saturated the ground and the tremors shook enough of the dirt and rock loose to have caused the sinkhole to open.

Exploring the tunnel heading north a bit more, it reminded them of the escape tunnel from the Ruined Moathouse.  They surmised that it might heading upward and toward the Mellikho Quarry. The fact that Albaeri had been running interference, and the issues with the quarry workers might all be related. Finding some human sized footprints in the muddy passageway that were going in both directions.

Angelica and Vladimir were able to easily open the stone door opening to long corridor where they could see another pair of stone doors with Dwarven warriors carved upon them. All the corridors were all masoned stoned.  It was all crafted and well made. Using Dancer as the forward scout everyone moved forward. The southern passageway only went a short distance before ending in a dead-end. Having a choice of further east to another stone door, or to the north.  They decided to take the northern route.

Moving slowly and carefully via the northern route and a couple of turns they eventually got to a room that had several dead bodies and many greater giant rats.  Slaughtering the rats did not take long, although Vladimir did suffer several bites reminding him of his time in the Middens in Amphail only a few weeks ago.  Once the rats were dead, they were able to move forward and inspect the dead bodies.  These bodies were all in a rough shape, and someone had carved a symbol in all their foreheads that was deep enough to crave directly into the bone.

Symbol Carved into Skulls

The symbol was very recognizable to all of them except Dancer.  It was the Drow symbol for Earth. Moving forward again they found another room with a large floating stone.  Learning to be more paranoid Dancer was able to determine that there was something waiting for them in the next room.  Sending in Benny to fool anyone inside, Benny was quickly covered in some sort of Mud Breath revealing their opponents.  A set of Mud Mephits.

Mud Mephits

The battle only held a few surprises which was the Mephit abilities to breath out an immobilizing mud breath, but the worst part was that once killed, the Mephits would explode causing damage, restraining those in range, and healing the other Mephits close by. After taking care of three of them, the other two fly away much faster than what the party could easily pursue.

With the battle completed, they moved into the room with the large floating stone but seemed to be very reluctant to touch or have anything to do with it.  The strange runes on the stone glowed softly and to the party was only a nightmare waiting to pounce upon them. Moving down the southern corridor they found another larger room with a very life-like broken statue of a dwarf.  It had a small plaque attached to the frame holding it together.

“Petrified Ironstar (?) dwarf, found 1459 DR in Red Larch West Quarry in broken condition.”

Around the statue was a ring of gravel and between the two nearly a thousand coins and a dagger covered in dried blood.  Convinced this was another trap that could send them to one of the many planes of hell, they avoided crossing the thin and beckoning stone barrier. While inspecting the room, the noticed that there was a secret door on the southern wall. Deciding that it was safer than taking one of the two doors in the room, off they went.

What they discovered was that this door had not been opened in at least several hundred years, meaning that the current inhabitants of this place had not found it.  Excited with the prospect of unlooted treasure they quickly moved down the steep ramp that led downward. The passageway left to a tomb area with 19 alcoves, each one containing some sort of stone sarcophagus.  Lights appeared on the tall ceiling as they entered, and they were able to see the reliefs of many different images.  Dwarves fighting different creatures, from humans, orc, elves, and even dragons.

Suddenly afraid that all the dead things might get up and attack them, they decided it was best to not touch much here or pay consequences that they were not ready to face. Although a lengthy and healthy discussion about looting the dwarven tomb later came about. Deciding that since it had been previously undiscovered, they could close the door again and come back later when they had more time. Heading back up to the previous room and moved to the western room.  Getting everyone ready for combat, and a difficult door, Vladimir was surprised when it easily swung into the room.  They were greeted by a very large obelisk in the middle of the room with a small boy held down by rocks un front of it, and Grund looking through something through the west door on the other side of them, keeping his hands on a set of chains waiting for something.

Grund

Braelen Hatherhand

The sudden entrance seemed to have surprised him and the party. Grund did not seem to be very happy to see the party.  He was worried that the others would come back and punish him.  He continued to argue with the party that they should leave.  Trying to fool him, Fogo disguised himself as Albaeri which seemed to work for a bit, but as the arguments continued, he seemed to realize that something was not quite right since Albaeri who always seemed to yell at anyone and everyone, was not willing to say anything. If anything, it was the multitude of people talking that really caused the confusion and exposed them more than anything else. Even with calming and logical arguments, eventually Grund was not convinced which caused ISAC and Dancer to attack Grund.

While large, he was not a difficult foe for the party.  He was quickly knocked down and only because of Vladimir yelling about not killing him, Grund was only knocked unconscious, although heavily wounded. After removing all the stones from the boy, they attempted to chat with him, but the bloody and heavy-handed takedown of Grund right in front of him caused him to clam up and refuse to talk.  They had managed to completely intimidate and nearly frightened him to death.

Avery being the smallest and least threatening of the party took the boy away from Grund’s beaten and bloody body.  Feeding him some food and water, Avery was able to get him to start talking if the rest of the party was nowhere near them and out of sight. Braelen Hatherhand shared that he had been put here by his father as a punishment, and that his father is one of the believers that worship down here. He was able to name a few more of the believers and that they were concerned about the movement of the stones in the room to the far east and that they were concerned about the stones moving which seemed to cause bad luck and might be related to the tremors that have been happening. Convincing him to go back to the starting large room where the sinkhole fell into and wait for them there.

Again, while figuring out the caging system in the western hallway, Dancer was wandering around the room and once again found something on a southern wall.  Caging Grund in one of the ones in the hallway, the found another secret door, this one a bit different.  It still appeared to have been unfound by those here, but when the door was opened, it revealed a second door.

The door was a dark grey granite that still has remains of faded paint upon it.  The stone dwarven warrior stared outward at those in the hallway.  Its eyes are holes large enough to fit a small hand while there is a hole leading into the mouth, the left hand is holding a stone saucer with a small hole on the bottom of it, and finally the right hand is held out as if waiting to hold something. It is at an angle that will cause whatever is in the palm to slide into what appears to be a pouch that has a slot on the top of it.

Stone Door with Dwarf

Surrounding the carving and written in Dwarven on the door was the following:

Aundra e eth hallanaryr wundstr avor corruption

Jert eth vjakr avor ljef

Grasp eth murmal avor temptation

Ynsta eth aldrorz anzjon

The party was amazed and completely clueless since no one was able to read Dwarvish. After a short discussion, the closed the door and pretended it no longer existed. After getting the door closed, some of the members heard something on the other side of the door to the east.  Pushing the door open were the two mephits that had flown away with four men in stone masks.

Stone Mask Men

In melee the Mephits were not very difficult, but the four stone masked men proved to be much tougher.  After nearly a minute and surviving the exploding mephits, all were vanquished. After the combat, Angelica offered a prayer to her god and healed everyone in the party all at once.

And that was the end of the session.

Campaign Notes

They are finally in the Tomb of the Moving Stones.  They found two secret doors and were only able to open one of them.  Too bad no one spoke Dwarvish.

24^th of Mirtul of the year 1492

Evening was rolling in quickly and no one wanted to be wandering around outside while dark, however Fogo’s insistence on poking dead bodies would be causing a delay. With many skeletons and a few zombies standing up and starting the assault, it did not take long for Fogo and ISAC to run screaming for help away from the room.

Skeleton

Zombie

The rest of the party was able to respond with Vladimir taking the lead to block the hallway and bottlenecking the undead from coming further down.  Deciding that retreating and with the prisoners should be smarter than trying to fight the creatures in place.  The three former prisoners with Dancer grabbing the children they quickly ran outside the cave. When having retreated halfway outside the cave, the party back around and started engaging the undead once again.

Grafaerd Ulamoira

Alfred

Gef Rilisk

With Dancer repeatedly asking what was happening, and left unanswered, but the weak and slow undead were easily killed off and reduced to moldering piles. Reuniting outside they started making their way back to Red Larch. Halfway back to town tremors started up again shaking the ground and everything around them.  This time it was a bit more severe as they could hear the slight roar of the earthquake around them.

On the way back Grafaerd was chatting with the group.  He had been out here seeking his fortune using an old map he had found in a book hidden in a library in Waterdeep.  Realizing that he was over his head and should pursue a safer profession, he handed it over to the group as a reward for saving him.

Map from Grafaerd Ulamoira

Vladimir started briefing Dancer about some of the things they had faced, especially the Bleeding Eye group and their connection with bandits.  He included his favorite enemy, the Iceshield Orcs and that they were detestable in general.  The bandits have been preying on merchants, the orcs and Uthgardt on smaller undefended settlements, and that there were some other cult groups in the area. When Fwoosh started explaining about their golden statue, everyone, especially Angelica tried to shush him from speaking about it too much. Fogo was quick to talk about the unnaturalness of the weather and some of the odd microhabitats. Dancer was happy to let the party know that he was a bounty hunter and sent out to collect a bounty of 1000gp on Oreioth, the necromancer’s heads.

Oreioth (Necromancer)

The merchant was also forthcoming about the different vendors in Red Larch.  The Wheelworks was run by a drunkard, Grund was a great pickler, but not too smart, the Swinging Sword was the nicest Inn, and that the Helm was the place where all the locals hung out at night. Continuing their way back to town, the tremors did not seem to have damaged anything and they made their way to Harburk Tuthmarillar office. The two little girls were reunited with their parents which made the family whole once again and much happier than before.

Harburk Tuthmarillar

The group started describing what happened but once he got to the Ruined Moathouse, they decided that it might be better to talk among the party first and explain everything tomorrow to the constable, especially since Harburk seemed to be a bit frustrated and unhappy that bandits have a castle nearby.

Funding Grafaerd some gold, both he and Dancer were able to rent rooms from Gwendolyn Venelli.  The entire group sat down for a meal getting a little rest and good food before heading to bed. Delillia was as surly as usual, but it did not take much long for the food to arrive.  Fogo headed to the kitchen for his training with Xaasz.  He put on his knee pads and headed on back.  Consumed with curiosity Dancer followed into the back and was greeted by the small group of goblins in the kitchen making all the meals.

Gwendolyn Venelli

Delillia Quelbeard

Xaasz

While at dinner, the party began describing more about themselves and they got a little more information about Dancer himself. He explained that he was tired of adventuring alone and waking up on top of zombie piles.  Giving some background information of each other Dancer as he shared a little more about his history. Heading up to bed, Dancer left for the night.  Gathering everyone in one of the rooms, Vladimir had an internal discussion with the party about Dancer and how to have him involved.

The discussion veered toward some of happened in the caves.  That the statue seemed to have swallowed a ball of light that had flown out of the image of the eye after the vision they all had.

25^th of Mirtul of the year 1492

With everyone in bed, Dancer made sure he got up before sunrise and head to the bakery in town.  Knocking on the door he was able to gain access with a certain amount of finger talk with Mangobarl Lorren.  Bringing him back and having him speak with Jepos, dancer informed them of his task completion. Requesting his reward, Jepos suggested that Dancer come back at sunrise to collect the reward. Jepos also offered a chance to shop at the black-market store that they were running in the bakery.

Mangobarl Lorren

Jepos Copperhand

Departing for a few hours Dancer went back to the Blackbutter Inn.  In the morning, Dancer went back and collected his bounty as well as a dozen beaver tail buns.  Passing Fwoosh heading to the same direction to purchase some bear claws, they all eventually met in the dining room of the Blackbutter Inn. A struggling tired Fogo wandered down still wearing his knee pads and his apron, which was covered with blood and fruit juice. He decided to head out to the bath at Haeleeya’s and then come back once clean. When Angelica came down, it seemed that she was a bit out of sorts since she had been disturbed by a dream that consumed her.

You stand at the edge of a vast, tempestuous sea. Dark clouds loomed overhead, casting an ominous shadow upon the horizon. The air crackled with electricity, and the sound of distant thunder resonated through the air. Istishia, appearing as a colossal figure wreathed in stormy clouds, reached out to you with a hand that sparked with lightning.

“Angelica,” the deity’s voice boomed, carrying a sense of urgency. “A tempest approaches, a tumultuous storm of great magnitude. It gathers strength, threatening to engulf all in its path. Heed my words, daughter of the tempest, for you are chosen.”

You feel a mixture of awe and trepidation, your scales tingling with anticipation. You bow her head, showing reverence to your deity.

“Seek shelter, Angelica,” Istishia commanded. “Gather your friends, those who have stood by your side in times of trial. Together, you must weather the storm that looms on the horizon. Trust in each other’s strength and find solace in the unity of your bond.”

As your deity’s words faded, the vision shifted, revealing Angelica standing among her loyal companions, their unwavering support evident in their eyes. They stood together, backs against the wind, bracing themselves for the impending storm.

“You are not alone, Angelica,” Istishia whispered, his voice gentler now. “Harness the power of water and ice that flows within you, for they shall be your shield against the coming tempest. Stand firm, weather the chaos, and emerge stronger on the other side.”

With those final words, the vision dissipated, and you awaken from you dream. You knew that your path was set before you, and that your destiny intertwined with the approaching storm. Determination surged within your heart as you vowed to gather your companions and prepare for the challenges to come. For in their unity, you would face the storm and emerge victorious, guided by the whispers of the storm god, Istishia.

She relayed parts of it to the rest of the party. Given that still had time before needing to visit Harburk, Avery was able to go through and identify all the different magic items they had collected but were just using a baggage until now.  The most interesting item was the Lantern of Equivalent Exchange.

Lantern of Equivalent Exchange

Once all of that was complete, it was time to go see Harburk at the Swinging Sword to meet breakfast so they could explain what has happened more leisurely and in greater detail. The constable was waiting for them with his six heavy-set part-time deputies and butchers sitting nearby.  As they approached Harburk they were greeted by Kaylessa Irkell the owner of the Swinging Sword. Ordering some drinks, they settled down to finally have their conversation with Harburk.

Kaylessa Irkell

Taking time to describe and explain that they had discovered a swamp southeast of here and as they entered, it started to freeze over.  In the middle was an old dwarven fortress, the Ruined Moathouse.  Within were many bandits and other creatures allied with the bandits even including an ogre. There were some thoughts considering the possibility that the necromancer and the bandits were working together since there were zombies in the Moathouse, although there were also bandit zombies in Lance Rock.  Their story only got stranger when they described the Ice Hag, and finally that there were what appeared to be soldiers in the Moathouse.

Harburk started to describe that there were stories, rumors that there was a giant dwarven city complex underneath the Sumber Hills, but there was not any proof. They also informed him that they still had not visited all the possible bandit locations and that there might be more. They also updated the constable about the changes in Amphail, and that there was now a Lord Warder in charge who had brought a unit of soldiers with him. They also expressed their concern about the hippogriff riders they had seen. He mentioned to them that there was something about a place called Feathergale Spire in the hills somewhere, but he did not know exactly where that was.

It was then that the building began to shake.  A loud roaring could be heard with creaking and groaing of buildings here and around them.  Harburk jumped up and ran to the door.  They could hear all the screaming outside, and people panicking.  A giant sinkhole had opened out outside in the street.

“The children, they fell.  Someone please help us.”

And this is where the session ended.

Campaign Notes

They thought that with the rescue of the children their adventure was coming to a point where they might get some rest, but now there was a sinkhole in town and more children to rescue.

Maps

24^th of Mirtul of the year 1492

“You dare to pit yourselves against the Lord of Lance Rock? Death is your reward!”

Necromancer

As the party stared horrified, the hooded figure looked up with its sunken and rotting features and shambled toward them when the two large buckets erupted with a mass of hands and limbs and swarmed to the party.  

Zombie

Swarm of Limbs

The robed figure in the back with the four skeleton archers waited for the group to move further into the cave before ordering the archers to start firing and he retreated further into the depths of the caves. One interesting point was when Avery ran to the front of the combat to unleash his burning hands on the undead and incidentally included Vladimir within the area of effect. Vladimir was able to enjoy the pinching swarm of hands all over himself.  It seems that he is becoming more comfortable being swarmed by creatures and chewed upon. The rest of the combat did not take very long for the party to finish off the dead creatures and make their way to the end of the large cave.  Waiting for them at the end of the cave was a large armored ogre skeleton.

Armored Ogre Skeleton

It did not seem inclined to move from its guarding position and seemed like it was waiting for the party to make the first move.  While this was going on, some of the others explored the remainder of the cave.  There was a long set of stairs to the east that led up a wall to a peephole and a lever.  Behind that peephole was a small room that contained a pair of stone boxes.  Not being able to resist the urge, Avery pulled the lever which turned out to completely collapse the room behind the peephole.  There was some concern that the little girls might have been hidden in the boxes and that their mission might have already ended in failure.

Deciding to not worry about it, they moved forward and Fogo engaged the giant skeleton without much preparation which caused a lengthy and almost deadly combat since the large skeleton was one of the toughest foes they had faced and was able to do tremendous damage knocking our Angelica bounding her away from it.  But once again, once the party was fully engaged, they were able to take it out suffering only a little more than normal.

Before heading deeper into the tunnels, a tremor started shaking the grounds, nothing severe, but enough to make everyone concerned. Worried the lever at the peephole might have done something to the cavern, everyone prepared for the worst, but nothing more occurred.  Finally moving forward down the corridor to pursue the necromancer, they finally arrived at a room.  It contained a couch, several chairs, a bed, and what appeared to be a dining room table and chair.  The necromancer was pacing back and forth muttering expletives about the intruders and how they did not give him his proper reverence.

Moving in to start the attack, Fogo placed a spike growth in the room to attempt to lock down the necromancer and allow everyone else to attack.  Most of the group moved into the room preparing to engage, when their opponent cast a spell.  A spell that created a spinning jagged crown on top of Vladimir’s head.  As everyone tried to get some sort of advantage on their foe, Vladimir started attacking and pursuing Fwoosh. Shortly afterwards, the necromancer pulled back the curtain at his back and misty stepped away from the fray leaving the party to deal with the charmed Vladimir.

It only took a few rounds before everything was sorted and Vladimir came back to his senses.  Chasing after the wizard, they found a secret door with a corridor that headed down and south of their location.  It led to another larger room which had a huge stone slab as a table with what appeared to be a dragon skeleton upon it.  Once the necromancer saw the party he yelled.

“ARISE!”

Incomplete Dragon Skeleton

Which caused the skeleton to stand up and begin to attack the party.  ISAC and Vladimir moved into to attack the dragon while everyone else stuck to the north side of the room to continue chasing the wizard into the last room. The wizard gave them another point to consider.

“Can’t you see it? It’s the Eye! It sees your every move! Don’t you fear it?”

Within the room at the center stands stone covered in runes and a pedestal fashioned of severed arms arranged to clutch one another in a cone. Cradled in the uppermost hands is a glowing crystal sphere. A dark sigil with an eyelike slit floats above the sphere.  Bloody script covers one wall.  It is messy and difficult to read.

Evil Sigil

Again, combat was quick, the necromancer was a wizard, wizards are like tissue paper, he died quickly, but when he died, he burst into a black flame completely consuming him causing his to scream in great agony as he vanished. Fwoosh being ever inquisitive and no longer having a target, poked the eye with his rapier. This immediately caused the entire party to fall into darkness and all saw the following dream.

You see before you a bountiful field rich with wheat. A Bird’s cry startles you then is silent, the bubbling of a nearby brook babbles secrets you do not understand, the earth beneath your feet groans in protest and gives way. You fall deep beneath the field, the rich warmth of flame reaching out to embrace you.

You are standing on a hilltop staring at the clear night sky, a cool breeze nipping at your bare chest. There is a thunderous roar as the sky rips itself apart and the stars fall to the ground. In the skyless night the stars plummet into a nearby ocean and its water turns scarlet and still. Other stars fall on an unsuspecting town, but no one notices. The mountain erupts in black fire and silver smoke, but no one notices. A Voice calls out for them to flee, to seek shelter, to fend for their lives, but no one notices.

A Feather. A Scale. A Golden Mask. A Wicker Doll.

The village is silent and still, smoldering in the skyless night sky.

Laughter. Unrestrained laughter echoes across the silent scene, pure and guttural. A single lidless eye stretches across the sky from horizon to horizon, staring down at you as the laughter builds on itself, as though you are part of a great cosmic joke.

Once the sequence was complete everyone awakened stunned briefly, but not sufficiently to stop the destruction of the dragon skeleton.  With all immediate danger gone, they moved back to the room where the eye had been, and all that was left was some sort of floating blue globe.  It was stashed in Angelica’s vault shield and everyone started reading the bloody writing on the wall.  It read.

In the realm wh’re destiny int’rtwines,

a bodement f’retold, through ancient signs,

of elemental l’rds and prophets four,

at which hour chaos awakens, the w’rld to expl’re.

The elemental l’rds, fi’rce and unbound,

earth, air, fireth, and wat’r, profound,

with allies by their side, prophets of might,

seeking dominion, to vanquish the lighteth.

Air l’rd’s prophet, with partisan hath raised high,

earth l’rd’s prophet, war picketh to defy,

fireth l’rd’s prophet, dagg’r ablaze,

wat’r l’rd’s prophet, trident’s gentle gazeth.

Togeth’r those gents gath’r, darkness their guideth,

their weapons, unknowing, holdeth secrets inside,

keys to the gateways, wh’re chaos is b’rn,

to saveth the w’rld, a quest might not but beest sw’rn.

But h’roes shalt riseth, their spirits untamed,

to visage the prophets, their destiny unclaimed,

with courage and val’r, those gents’ll hurlyburly the odds,

to reclaim the keys and confronteth the gods.

Through treach’rous battles, those gents’ll striveth to succeedeth,

to slayeth the prophets and fulfill the decree,

to seize the weapons, the keys those gents conceal,

unlocking the pow’r to mendeth and to healeth.

With each fallen prophet, a key is revealed,

a grise clos’r to vict’ry, the darkness repealed,

sealing the gateways, wh’re chaos runs deep,

rest’ring the w’rld from et’rnal catch but a wink.

The h’roes, chosen, their hearts int’rtwined,

unit’d those gents standeth, their purpose defined,

harnessing the weapons, the keys yond ignite,

those gents sealeth the gateways, rest’ring the lighteth.

And so, the bodement shalt cometh to passeth,

a testament to the h’roes’ val’r and class,

f’r those gents possesseth the strength to defy,

to safeguard our w’rld, until the endeth of timeth.

Rememb’r this bodement, etch’d in l’re,

a tale of triumph ‘gainst the elemental roar,

embrace the h’ro within, alloweth thy spirit ignite,

to protecteth our w’rld, pres’rving its lighteth

Blue Floating Globe

As they pondered the meaning of these words, ISAC reminded them that they were here to rescues some little girl, not ponder the odd things written in blood on a wall by a necromancer madman. Moving on to the last hallway to the west, they came to the prison.  There were four men chained to the wall, and they could see the two girls huddling and tightly gripping a bundle of fur.  Within the room, was a half-elf ranger, a human merchant, a human guard, and an Iceshield Orc.

The half-elf was named Grafaerd Ulamoira, the merchant Alfred, the Mirabaran Guard Gef Rilisk, and no one cared about the orc.

Grafaerd Ulamoira

Alfred

Iceshield Orc

Gef Rilisk

It turns out that the guard had been part of a caravan coming from Mirabar and he had gotten separated some place to the north of Red Larch.  The merchant had been kidnapped by zombies, and no one really cared how the orc got there.  The child clutched bundle of fur turned out to be Dancer, a Tabaxi.  All the prisoner’s gear was in a large box near the entrance where everyone except the orc gathered up their stuff.  The orc?  Vladimir had private business with him with his weapons.  A quick one-sided duel had Vladimir coming out of the prison area covered in orc blood.

Wanting to get the girls back home, the larger group retraced their steps back to the entrance where they realized there was a short corridor that they had no yet explored.  Fogo and ISAC went forward leaving the rest in the bloodstained front room.  There was a combination of over 20 corpses in both skeleton and full body condition.  Not satisfied with their state, Fogo decided it was best to start poking dead bodies in a necromancer’s cave complex. Several of them stood up and started engaging the two in the room.

And this is where the session ended.

Campaign Notes

The Lord of Lance Rock has been killed, the girls rescued, the new party member Dancer has joined the party, and not willing to leave anything behind, a small beehive of undead have been awakened on the way out.  The Prelude is quickly coming to an end, but not quite yet.

Map of Lance Rock