The group finished up the 2nd part of the adventure at this point, coming back to Base Camp richer in coin and experience for their efforts. We've often joked about the "B" team and their lack of skills in the start of this part of the adventure, but after really running them through their paces, not a single person didn't walk away and not feel good about their character and their results.
I also broke my own rule - typically I am a stickler of not going up more than 1 level in an adventure - but the group infrequently plays the B Team and there was so much awarded, that every either went up 2 levels or in each of their split class levels with plenty left over.
What this means is that the "B" team is now solidly 3rd level and can hold their own with the "A" team should need be. They will need to because the next adventure is the "A" team's portion and then if it goes well, the entire party heads downriver to Erylond and Bork Keep to try their hand at long last on entering the Terror Dungeon.
Write up follows:
Healing was dispensed, what little we had remaining, and the group took stock of their situation. It was early, not even 4 in the morning, and we figured since we had the time we should explore some of the rooms we hadn’t gone into or searched in depth earlier. The 2nd floor was accounted for so we started at the stairs and began hitting rooms heading east down the hall.
There were two doors here, one on the left and one on the right. Beyond the one on the left was a narrower hallway heading south. The door on the right was closed but the stink of filth and feces was strong. Sybil was interested in opening it, but was talked out of it since the group strongly suggested it was the water closet and we should just move on.
So it was the left door that we opened and looked in. It was once the keep’s smoking room but it was in poor condition. The rug was dry and discolored, there was a 20” round table surrounded by 4 worn out wing backed chairs, two of them showing old repairs on the head rest part. The wooden humidor on the south end of the room had been busted open and ransacked long ago.
We looked the place over. The curtain on the window was sagging and old. Dizzy carefully peeled back the repaired section of the chair but all it showed was a replaced portion of the cushion behind. The humidor was a loss, but the table, scarred and battered, had a series of crude runic prayers to Odin and Sutur along the inner ring. Hjalgrim lit his pipe and sat in one of the chairs near the table.
The pipe smoked much less than normal and there was almost no ash to speak of. We wanted to bring the table back and spent some time figuring out how to unmount the top from the base before putting it aside to pack up when we would leave.
From there we left the smoking room and went to the hall. Two doors, one at the end and another on the left wall. The door at the end had a foul odor of rotting meat and there were some flies buzzing around it, but the left door was forced open. It was at one point an office, maybe for the Castellan, but had been repurposed for at least 8 kobolds based upon the nests in the room. There was a wooden desk that had all the drawers removed and turned upside down, firescarred a bit as if the kobolds had used it as a fireplace.
Only a few of us entered but we looked through the nests and found a few bits of kobold flotsam however we did turn up a still wax sealed bottle identified as 152 year old Orcish brewed Red Arrow Scotch. Handsome! The rest of the room was of little interest so we left but not before Sybil went to the door with the foul odor. The rest of the group backed away as the Halfling opened it. It was once a linen closet but for some reason, the kobolds have been tossing large chunks of meat in here and the meat was rotting away, covered in maggot and there were hundreds of flies.
She shut the door, gagged a bit, and rejoined the rest of the party. We decided there was zero reason to investigate the closet ever again and moved on. We went to the library next, across the hall from the chapel. The shelves had been ransacked some time ago and the kobolds had done what they could to straighten up the shelves. About a dozen still salvageable books had been placed on one of the lower shelves but on the shelf next to it was a single dark leather tome all by itself.
We fanned out and explored, made sure there were no rot grubs, and started to gather up the books to sell. Meanwhile Thalin went to the lone tome. In Common and what he guessed was Ogrish, it read “Wizard’s Spellbook. Do not Open”.
There was LOTS of test and move and tweak and inspect. A wizard’s mark was on the tome and there was a leather latch on it, making it hard to open. Through some trial and error Thalin managed to cancel out the wizard’s mark through some tracing of runes and sounding out the ogrish word for “open”. So the book can be opened, but we’d get to that later.
We decided that we should put everything in one place to gather up when it was time to leave and the smoking room by the broken humidor was a good place. The books, the table, and even the dulcimer from the music room were moved there. We then went to the basement to look around. It was pretty foul and filthy but nothing was alive down here anymore. The original racking the orcs had used was mostly gone, just some stanchions where it used to be. Dizzy was looking around and did find a 4’ diameter wood and iron round shield (looked like a table) that the Cyclops Slowfeet was hoping to find. So he took it down and the group decided to bring it upstairs with us.
While we were looking through the basement, amidst all the mess, we did find 27 gnawed leg bones that once belonged to Shassismyr the Troll Lord. For some reason, we gathered them up as well and took them along. Upstairs we checks over the last room. There was a dead kobold in one room, rotting away and left alone. There were kobold nests and sleeping areas, and we even found a holy water font that might have come from the temple area at one time.
We took the shield and placed it in the Northwest tower while the group then dug a grave in the Inner Courtyard and garden where we buried Lord Gurunts and placed a cairn over his remains. A ceremony was given and Dizzy laid the long dead orcish lord’s remains to rest. It was almost 7 when the party went up to Lord Gurunt’s room and set up the place to sleep. We replaced the font in the temple, filled it with some water and took a drink – nothing happened.
The group rested and Thalin stayed up, studying and then took a trip onto the roof with the spellbook he found, cast read magic, opened the book safely and took a look. Many of the pages were glue and pulp – useless. But the last dozen or so pages were still good and they were a full of fire based spells. 3rd and 4th level fire based spells. Very nice.
The next day was wet and rainy but Einar let us know it wouldn’t be more than one day. So we dug up more vegetables for us to travel and eat, filled our waterskins, readied packs with everything we wanted to take back, and decided to investigate the floor of the northeast tower where the crows had rooked. It was dirty inside, there were hundreds of glinting coins and shiny things mixed in with years of bird droppings (no one wanted to look, it wasn’t worth it), but just on the inside of the doorway was the red glasslike gem the larger crow had been wearing, along with a matching one on a nicer chain. We tested them out, learning they were clairvoyant gems with one being the slave to the other, and took them with us. The Shaman had been spying through the crow and this confirmed it.
We awoke the next day, Firemonth the 30th early, packed our belongings, and then headed off west to the Shattered City Lake and the Cyclops/Ogre compound like we had promised we would. Only Thalin and Dizzy entered, the rest of the party waiting outside, and they met with Mjarnur and Shassismyr once again.
They informed the two monstrous leaders that the K’Morat threat had been eliminated. They in turn were inform that Jurius, the Gnoll and his party, had been through here and informed the Ogre of what occurred from their point of view. The fact that we took care of the problem only further elevated our standing in their eyes. They wanted to toast our skill and offered us fermented pig’s blood called Froff – which after drinking it, was the sound we made spewing it back up.
On our way out Dizzy sought out Yuntwun and had the Cyclops seer told about the shield he moved from Slowfeet. We were thanked and then went on our way, 4 of the Ogre chief’s Bloodrunners leading and guarding us to the Eskerton Tunnel. We arrived unmolested and then made our way under the mountain until we arrived near Dinka’s tower. The Cyclops was pleased to see us and we stayed the night, sharing news and getting a good night’s rest.
We awoke later on the 1st of Workmonth and took the long way back through the valleys and the cold cloudy day until we saw the double peak top of Furtham’s Peak and knew we were close at long last to Base Camp and Home.
No comments:
Post a Comment