Officially halfway through. I promised 26 meetings, and we deliver. What I like about this adventure is that it is inherently implied in multiple places that you are not expected to do the adventure in a single fell swoop. You are supposed to return to Guido's Fort often (until you cannot any longer). The fact I have them doing the adventure in the winter just adds another wrinkle to the logistics of it.
As always, D&D is a resource management game. Time, hp, food, encumbrance, ammo...everything. Write up follows:
Icemonth the 11th, 11:45 AM. Our presence was upsetting the piranha birds but we wanted to wait for whatever was behind the door to either move on or calm down. Finally after 10 minutes listening to them squawk and try to get us through the iron mesh, we snuck back to the secret door and listened (heard nothing) before opening it up.
All good and quiet. We went north to the end of the hall, and checked both ways. Right was a 10’ run to the door to the piranha birds – it was a dutch door, top can open and leave bottom closed if need be. Left the passage went on, Gun was sure it met up with the main hall, but there was another door about half way down on the left. He volunteered to go check it out and approached to listen.
The door was in poor shape. No lock, but someone in the past had braced this side of the door and there were axe and bashing marks on this side – testament to it attempting to being forced from the other. The halfling shook his head and returned to the group avowing that he was happy not opening the passage. We gave the hall a quick look of secret doors (finding none), and then were at the end of the hall, looking left and right. Decision time.
According to the map – we had the area with the stitched together bugbear golem (and maybe Moray Vaco), the Doubledoor the goblin menials had mentioned to us, and possibly head off to what we assumed was King Gavin’s area. None were perfect and we had about an hour and a half before the goblins were due to wake up. So we opted to head off to the main hall since we were here and go north to the Double Doors – seeing what was there.
The doors had no lock and hung poorly, actually swinging when touched. The amount of dirt on the floor let the group know the place was well traveled. Lintel and frame showed original symbology to Aine, mostly destroyed by now. We opted to enter, pushing the doors open. It was a temple – large. 2 rows of 8 pews filled most of the chamber, a raised dais on the opposite end, with a 9’ tall pumice carved statue of Maglubiyet there.
Did not want to enter but staying in the hall was a bad idea. When Carl entered, he grew upset and faint, blood flushing his face, feeling like something bad had been here in the past. The same was when Yander entered, the paladin reporting the same. The rest of the group was just uncomfortable at best. Gun and Fjord went to the statue to look around, Gun advising the half ogre to NOT step onto the dais. Rest of the party either stayed back by the door, listening weapons out, or checking the pews.
Fjord was looking the statue over, some red gems in the eyes. They were held in place by a lowered eye lid bracket – lift the “eye lid” and the gem could be removed. Don’t Touch!! He was admonished.
Gun was able to tell that someone wearing blood splattered boots stood to the left of the statue, and did so often. Priest? The boot prints did lead to the back east wall though and stop. Possible secret door? We wanted to come closer and check it out. However, when Hrimvir did, both of his undead servants stopped working and fell over loose bones. Damn it, he gathered both of them up and brought them to the other end of the chamber.
Enough of us dared to approach and checked out that end of the room – finding the secret door we expected to find on the east wall…and another secret door on the south wall! Both were activated by moving a certain brick out. Yander and Carl were convinced the one with the footprints was most likely heading to the high priest’s chamber – but now that the place was no longer controlled by Aine, the thought was it could be Moray Vaco’s. The menial goblins we had spoken to admitted the priest did often have prayer meetings behind the double doors.
We decided to open the south door first. Yander at the front, we opened the door and it slid aside, revealing a 10’x10’x crude carved chamber with a hole in the floor heading down, a wrought iron ladder fastened there, and the stink of rotting meat and carrion filling the air. “Nope. Not going to happen.” The party shut the door and spent a minute waving the reek away. Hrimvir managed to cast his animate spell, getting one of the skeletons back upright.
Quarter after 1, we were running out of time. We opted to check the east door. Weapons at the ready, the gnome and halfling were straddling the pews bow and crossbow ready to fire. Opening the door – it was indeed a private chamber. Bed, desk, table, chairs, door on the far end of the room. And a figure, small, wearing a ragged cloak wrapped tight against itself. Muttering. Child voice.
A detect evil got nothing. We dared to enter. It was a human child; 7, 8, 9? Thin, male, shorter. It smelled like a goblin. Shaved head. It had a bowl of gruel and was eating it. And he had tattoos all over his head, face, shoulders, arms, and torso. Tattoos of strange symbols and glyphs and Maglubiyat stuff. And it was terrified.
We eventually got a chance to get it to calm down. Said his name was Illi. And he was here because Moray said he was the next incarnation of Maglubiyat. Doesn’t remember where he’s from or family name. Terrified of being beat and hurt. Not allowed to leave. He had long bloodletting scars on his shins and legs. Atlas was looking the kid over and was sure that some of the runes – were the same sort of runes that we had seen all over the graveyard.
“By Thrym. The trigger. For the undead. It’s the kid.”
Fuck. If the kid dies, the undead will rise from the grave. And the kid looked like he was pretty weak already. “Look,” Yander said, “we gotta save the kid. And the goblins are about to wake up. Not going to leave him here.”
“Lets get to the Garrison building, give me a chance to really look over the runes,” Atlas offered.
The group agreed. Mostly.
“Kid’s pretty much a goblin already,” Nevah said, fingering his bow string. “You heard him, next vessel for maglubiyat. Should nix that in the butt now and save a lot of problems.”
“We aren’t killing a kid,” the paladin said.
“Sure, sure. Not yet,” the gnome replied, looking around.
We left. It was obvious that Illi had been pretty starved and walked very slow. He was distrustful of most people but for some reason accepted the paladin. He allowed Yander to lift him up and our pace doubled, the group getting out of the lower level, up to the main floor, and then to the snow. And it was COLD. 34” of snow on the ground. Hrimvir used one of his last endure element spells on Illi and we left the Monastery main building.
Cara covered the worst of our tracks and we made it to the Garrison. It was about 2:45 – goblins had to have been up for at least 45 minutes on average by now. “How soon before they notice the kid, the next Maglubiyat is missing and go looking for him?!”
Atlas had done a detect magic and was studying the 3 rune clusters on Illi that had lit up. One of them was indeed the trigger, a tattoo along the top of his back at the base of his neck, complex and difficult. It was tied to his life force as well as proximity. If he dies (goes to -1 hp) OR if it's more than 3 miles from the graveyard, the ritual’s final piece will be enacted and the 5 to 600 undead will rise from the cemetery.
The other 2 were tied together, acting as a bolster for the other. They were location runes. Effectively, Moray could TRACK Illi by these runes – being able to find him with a location spell. The limit – 3 miles. Shit, well within the area we were in now. BUT, the runes work in tandem, law of Sympathy and Three. If one of the runes was well defaced, the location effect would drop to 1 mile. And if both were defaced, the location effect would be negated.
We looked over Gun’s map. There was no way to take the kid to Guido’s Fort – even the beach was well over 3 miles away. There was a cave at the bottom of a cliff, a mile and a half away, that might work if we could deface a rune. We looked over supplies and had magical ink and a number of needles. But only Atlas had the knowledge of the right rune – and no one else had any skill that would substitute for the wizard’s possible skill. But he would need an hour to try to deface a single rune – and we were way too close with nowhere to escape to to risk doing it here. We were going to have to leave and leave now. And hopefully try to deface a rune at camp.
So by 3 PM we gathered everything up and began walking. It was slow going, snow on the ground, and half of us cold. Illi rode on Yander’s shoulders, wrapped in a blanket and cloak. We left the monastery grounds and then went down the hill eventually to the clearing there. We discussed either staying in the clearing or hitting the tree line. Either way we were going to leave a trail, and the edge of the trees would be faster than in the trees.
It was slow going to the other end of the clearing, there we found the blaze markings and walked the trail south and east until Gun felt we were near a ridge line. From here we left the trail and pushed on south through the trees. Cara stayed back, making a false trail before doubling back and obscuring the path through the trees for at least 70 or so feet.
We were going on, but going slower and slower until about 9ish, at least 3 of the party members had nothing left to give. We had to stop. Cara had some dry kindling she had been carrying and the rest of us followed Nevah out to the trees to find whatever partially dry branches we could find. Shovels hit the snow and we were able to light a fire. We ate what food we had and according to Gun, we were about a mile and a quarter from the Monastery at this point.
Thobar and Cara hung around with Atlas who had ink, needles, and hopefully an hour to work on Illi. Nevah was grumbling under his breath but was keeping watch. Yander held Illi tightly, the young man braving the pain. The rest of the group fell asleep as Atlas began working. He tapped back and forth from ink to the young man’s skin. Blood flowed, pain was etched on his face, as Atlas worked on and on…but he was not successful. Cara hit Illi with a heal spell and we were debating on trying again or going to sleep.
So we tried again at 10:30 PM, and this time, Atlas felt confident that the tattooing over the existing location rune worked – dropping the location effect from 3 miles to 1 mile. We smothered the fire, lowered the lantern, and then took turns keeping watching. The party was exhausted. Each person who tried to stay up struggled but we managed. A few giant rats approached the camp but there were too many of us and were sent off. When enough time had passed, we all got up and exhausted, still had some healing and spells to pass around.
Yandr made a suggestion on where to go with Illi. “The closest hole?” Nevah asked. The paladin scowled at him. “No. Serious. The two witches.” Gun confirmed they were under 3 miles from the Monastery so were a good place. The witches weren’t evil, just…unknown? Plus they were powerful enough to deter any of the local monsters to fight with them. With little other ideas, we figured let’s go. Gun said 4 to 5 hours from here, so we were on our way.
We continued pushing through the dense forest till eventually we came to the next blazed trail. And then from there went up and over two rises until we came to the clearing of the witches. The snow melted at the edge of the clearing, 3 gravel paths ran through to a 20x20 thatched roof cottage. Wild flowers abounded and standing outside were two women with graying hair and wearing aprons. One had a tray of cakes, the other a rolling pin in her apron.
“Look, Rosalinda!” one of the women said to her sister as we closed. “It’s those nice people we met a few weeks ago.”
“You’re right, Rosabella. Welcome!”
We talked to them and they offered us some tea and lemon squares. Yander did most of the initial set up, and we were able to suss out that these women had no problems with us, were willing to talk, and invited us in. They also seemed to know our names and treated us well.
We hung our shoes on the shoe tree inside and followed them into their home. There were more windows than we expected from the outside, the inside was larger than the building could possibly be, and there was even a second floor. We didn’t dicker around and after eating cakes and tea, explained who Illi was, what we’ve done, and why we wanted to leave him here. We also asked about the master tattoo on his back.
They were willing to watch him, charging us 75 crowns for the 2 weeks. Removing the tattoo was going to be difficult and would require special inks and time and no guarantee. They offered to try it for 400 crowns. We tabled that for now and they were happy to deal and make deals. We did learn that there is an Ogre that they don’t like, have wolf friends (we met him), and tramples their flowers. We did sell them (trade them) the two vials of bat guano we had. We got 2 extra healing potions and Atlas traded his for a pair of web scrolls.
At the end they gave us a large syringe to stick in the dragon’s ass and get some blood. We also learned a bit about the dragon. It was 300 years old and was born when the church of Aine fell to the forces of Maglubiyat. Because it never had parents, it never learned to cast magic – but it still had all the other dragon abilities.
Illi was given big thanks and a hug from Yander and the rest of the party wished the young tortured kid well (most of the party). We had made the call with only a few days of food left and the need for Moray and the rest of Gavin’s forces to calm down to head back to Fort Guido. We left here and went west, passing a long lake and looking over the hobgoblin camp there. We could count 12ish of the greenskins, but the huts and tents led us to believe it might be twice that number.
We pressed on till the sun was going down, getting to the ridge with Maglubiyat’s statue. We tied rope and climbed down, making our tired way to the Giant Bat cave. The bats had gone so we went in, set a fire (thanks Cara for more kindling) and exhaustedly fell asleep.
We awoke early on the 13th and were gone before the Giant Bats could get to us. We did not make the beach until 12 PM where we lit the orange signal log and waited. By 2:30 Tila and her boat showed up and we paid her the 10 crowns. She told us about Cullen and his safe return. Eventually we arrived at Fort Guido (3:15 PM) where Guido met us again on the dock. We had no treasure for this trip and after giving his a single small stipend, went into the Lion’s Den where we arranged lodgings and sleeping for the night (Nevah, Atlas, Hrimvir, and Cara getting rooms, the rest of the party a space by the fire in the Common Room). We were going to buy what we needed and head off again tomorrow.
Icemonth the 13th, 3:15 PM.
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