Gelf led the party to the tomb as promised.
Ay, what d’ I tell ‘e? There be d’ tomb, like I sed. An’ the doors be open too!
The tomb, it turns out is not a building, but a hole dug into the side of a hill. The tomb was sealed with a pair of stone doors, but they are now wide open.
Inside there were four more doors; each was shut. Each door had the same two symbols on it. Guesses were made as to the meaning of the two symbols. Some examples were, farting man, wind man, fog running away from.
The tomb proved to be mostly empty, presumably having been ransacked not long before. Although they did manage to fight two monstrous spiders and find a couple of gems. The spiders managed to inject their poison into Pyrosh, which left him feeling weak for several days.
Thing have been stolen from the smith. And by things I mean all metal items that could be found. Searching the area revealed goat like tracks, which eventually led the party West-Northwest of town. Here they spotted some goat-men in the woods. Roedyn decided to move up for a closer look, at which point he was spotted. The twelve goat things then moved towards him, and stood in a big line with weapons drawn.
Many stunts were tried by the party to force the situation, since they weren’t sure if they could handle all twelve creatures. These included advancing, castings cantrips, shouting, and sheathing weapons. None of this seemed to have much effect, the only notable response – the creatures moved closer when Pyrosh decided to be daring and get into much closer range.
Eventually the party backed down and returned to Martol for the night.
End of Game Session 3.
Beginning of Game Session 4.
Roedyn awoke with a start as he heard his bedroom door being opened, followed by the clip clop of hooves on the wooden floor. Two of the goat things were entering his room.
You awaken at the sound of your bedroom door being opened, followed by the clip clop of cloven hooves on the wooden floor.
He immediately stood up on the bed and grabbed his sword, and called out to the others.
You hear Roedyn shouting for assistance, and make out some animalistic grunting noises from a nearby room.
All of them roused so quickly that the beastmen did not have time to even think about getting away. Roedyn was hit a couple of times during the short combat, and the beastmen were flanked and unable to get away – so they fought on as best they could. Roedyn had been hoping that by bouncing on the bed he would be a harder target, but instead it seemed to affect his ability to hit anything, and was not saving him from being wounded.
The two beastmen were quickly dealt with, and Roedyn did eventually hit one after ‘double bouncing’ in order to change the timing of when to swing.
Roedyn then healed himself, while The Rock went to put on his armour and look around. Pyrosh cut of the horn of one of the creatures to add to his collection of trophies.
The Rock went outside to see if he could find anything. Two more beastmen were waiting by the door, and took off when they saw him. He followed them as they fled north out of the village – taking care not to run after them so that he wouldn’t be risking ambush.
He saw the two meet up with a further eight and they all turned and ran away from the village – still heading north.
The party returned to the common house and set watches for the night.
The party awoke and prepared for the day, and chose to spend the first part of their day looking for the tracks of the beastmen. Unfortunately none of the group is very good at this in the first place, and despite the fact that there were ten creatures making the tracks, the party was unable to follow them for more than a few steps.
Disappointed by this, they decided to return to the woods and search there instead. This proved to be far more successful, not only finding that there had been camp fires there, but also that the tracks lead away to the northwest. The party followed the tracks successfully for two hours, but then lost them in the grassy plains. They all agreed to continue in the same direction however. The plan also involved having Beaky flying well above the party in the hope that he would see something that they couldn’t.
After a total of seven hours of walking they finally spotted four of the beastmen. They were about two hundred feet away. When they noticed the party, they turned and fled once more.
The party gave chase properly this time, and drew to a halt as the beastmen entered another small copse of trees. Now two-hundred feet away from the trees, the party cast a couple of spells, and began crawling through the long grass, trying to sneak up on the beastmen. Before long they were able to see a head here, and an arm there, and so Roedyn and Kafka stood up and began firing their bows at the beastmen. The first few shots were far too difficult, and resulted in several arrows being stuck into the wood of the trees themselves. So the party spread out and moved closer again, firing again. Roedyn got a good hit in, and then Kafka did the same moments later. The two beastmen that had been hit drew back behind their trees further, making them impossible to shoot.
The party kept closing in, and shooting into the trees, trying to circle around the trees to a certain extent, with The Rock going straight up the centre, Pyrosh on the left, along with Roedyn and Kafka on the right.
The Rock got into the position he wanted, and charged the closest beastman, with disastrous results, as the trees practically came alive with beastmen. The Rock quickly found himself surrounded by five of the beastmen, while another five divided themselves between Pyrosh and the two archers.
A bloody battle ensued, with Roedyn and Kafka trying to draw as many beastmen away from The Rock as possible. Alas they would not be drawn and poor Azekial “The Rock” Druss, fell under the many axe blows. The beastmen fighting him left him to bleed to death and split up to fight the three remaining party members.
Roedyn and Kafka adopted a strategy of retreat and fire, and continued to do this for several minutes. Kafka was the first party member to actually kill one of the beastmen.
Pyrosh was having a very hard time on the other flank, as he had five beastmen to deal with on his own, and they were proving difficult to hit. He took a step back and read from a scroll of colour spray, successfully casting the spell. Unfortunately the four beastmen he manage to spray were completely unaffected by this manouver. Shortly thereafter he was staggered from their blows and fell to the ground pretending to be dead. Three of the beastmen then moved off, but two remained long enough to hit him once more, knocking him unconscious and leaving him to die also. Several of the wounded beastmen retreated into the trees at this point.
All the remaining beastmen that weren’t hiding in the trees were now chasing down Roedyn and Kafka. The pair had successfully removed another beastman, and dodged some of the poisoned needles fired from their blowguns. Before long Kafka found himself outnumbered by beastmen in close combat, and switched to using his longsword.
Whether by fury or sheer luck he managed to cut down four of the beastmen without being killed himself. Roedyn was circling around the fight to fire into the beastmen without risking the chance of hitting Kafka. Kafka wasted no time in casting cure light wounds on himself once they were dealt with – one more hit would have left him in the same situation as Pyrosh, or even The Rock, who had by this time died. Pyrosh was lucky enough to stabilize on his own, and Roedyn healed Kafka back up to full health, and cast a couple of preparatory spells, before they both ran to Pyrosh’s fallen body.
Roedyn healed Pyrosh right before the remaining beastmen, who had previously retreated to the trees, rushed out and knocked him down again. Fortunately the beastmen were wounded enough at this point that they could be defeated quickly.
The party collected themselves, and searched the copse, discovering all the iron that had been stolen from Martol. The decision was made to cremate and then bury Azekial “The Rock” Druss where he lay. The party then high-tailed back to Martol with any items they thought looked useful. This included two magical axes and one masterwork axe.
Pyrosh and Kafka begin their training based on the lessons they learnt the day before. Roedyn decides that more scrolls might be a useful idea, especially since he used three the day before, just on trying to heal everybody. He then decided that this would cost too much, and hoarded his money instead.
The barge that you left behind so many days ago has finally reached Martol. On it is an elven ranger named Waylander.
You see a few ostrich creatures on your way downstream, but are untroubled by anything on your journey.
The group quickly befriend Waylander and share stories with him on their way back to Talonsong. This time the group decides to stay on the barge the whole way, as it is much faster heading down stream this way.
You have arrived back in Talonsong, fifty-three days after you left.
The party sells items, and buys items, and redistributes money a little. Now Pyrosh is the only member of the four who does not have a mighty bow. Roedyn sells his old bow, and takes possession of Waylander’s bow, giving him money in return. Waylander uses this money and all of his own, to purchase a masterwork mighty composite longbow (+2str). Kafka also purchases one of these powerful bows.
Pyrosh spent the day scribing spider climb into his spellbook.
End of Game Session 4