Beginning of Game Session 5
The party awoke, and soon heard the news that there had been a fire during the night, one tavern was burnt down, and a few surrounding houses were damaged. They went to investigate, and spoke first with the owner of the tavern. Through him they learned that the tavern was newly built, and in fact hadn’t even been opened. He complained that one of his barrels of ale had ‘turned’ and then, when he went to light the fire yesterday before opening for the first time, the entire pub had exploded into flame. He was extremely lucking to escape the pub alive.
The poor man was rather desolate after having lost his pub, and all of his possessions, as well as being badly burnt.
Curious to know what the natives might have to say about such occurrences, and also wondering if there was any significance to the totem poles scattered throughout the city, the party chose to search around for a native to talk to. After asking around in a few places, their search led them to the Rio Hall inn, and a man named Buirn.
Buirn is a tall, lightly built man, with tan skin and flowing black hair. He is in his late thirties or early fourties (this sparks off jokes about being 100 years older than him). His speech is slow and deliberate, and turns out to have a Saoun accent. This amazes the group somewhat, but he explains that a Saoun man that spent time in his village taught him their language.
By this time the party has also learnt that in addition to the murder they investigated last time they were in the city, there has been nine more such murders, including that of a cleric of Heironeous, whom was specifically seeking out the murderers, and had told of his findings to his temple. The murders were being carried out by a number of shadows that seemed to be roaming the city. He managed to destroy four of them before he himself was killed – and became a shadow also.
Buirn was able to elaborate on this – telling the group that part of Palankan tradition was to ‘empower’ the dead when they were buried, so that they could ‘look after themselves’. As a member of the Firanté tribe, he despised this, and in fact despised the Palankans in general as his tribe had a long history of war with them. Waylander gave Buirn a gold piece for his trouble, and the party left the inn.
With this information in hand, they went to the town hall to inform the mayor of the situation. Lord Trenwith was surprised and upset to learn that the city he was charged with protecting was built on a native burial ground. He was aware that shadows were causing the murders, and had already given out what meagre magic items he had to his guards. Discussion ensued about how to attract the attention of the shadows, rather than just walking around at night in the hope of finding them. The main suggestion being – deface one of the many totem poles in the city and waiting to see what happens.
They returned to Buirn to see if he had any further information on shadows, such as how to deal with them. He could offer little information on the matter, save that his people have an exceptional number of psionics, which makes dealing with the supernatural slightly easier.
Their next move was a pathetic attempt to trick some of the local guards into handing over their magic weapons, “Lord Trenwith said you have to give us your magic weapons”
The guards snickered and told the party, “We don’t believe you, where is your written request from his lordship? Push off!”
Unsure on how to proceed, the party agreed to travel to the nearest Palankan village (which is the same village they took a missionary and a diplomat to previously), to seek further information. So they bought provisions for the journey, and Roedyn discovered that he had been robbed of thirty gold pieces. They spent the afternoon travelling uneventfully.
Continuing on their walk, the group passed some trees, and Waylander easily spotted the group of kobolds that was waiting there to ambush the travellers. Kafka cast a sleep spell on the kobolds at the back – that were aiming crossbows at the party, this sent four of them to sleep. The kobolds only managed to inflict damage twice throughout the fight, which was fortunate, as for the first two rounds none of the party managed to get their aim in. Kafka began singing an inspirational song, and the results were immediate, meanwhile the two kobolds at the back that hadn’t been slept woke their pals. Once the party got their act together, the battle was over very quickly, the only other event worthy of note being that Kafka slept the 6 kobold archers a second time.
Pyrosh took the 3 jasper stones found on the kobold bodies, and a few healing spells were cast, but the party was soon on their way again.
The morning walk was quiet and peaceful, but the afternoon was interrupted by the appearance of two medium sized ostrich creatures. Pyrosh stood ready for the birds to approach, as the other three each drew their mighty composite bows, and shot at the birds. Waylander got over excited and shot his foot instead. The birds ran straight for the party but were cut down before they could harm anyone.
The party arrived at the Palankan village around noon, and spoke with the chieftain, who turned out to also be the ‘witchdoctor’. He didn’t seem to like that term however. He didn’t seem to agree that having undead walking around in the city had anything to do with him.
He did admit that it was their burial ground, and also that it was their custom to use burial rights that could create undead. But as far as he was concerned, the ‘foreigners’ had settled the land and built their city while his tribes-people had been living their nomadic life elsewhere. He offered no help as to how to deal with the shadows, stating, “They are our people, we have no problem with them. If you have a problem, you deal with it.”
He did confirm that damaging the totem poles would be likely to attract the attention of the shadows, although he wasn’t specific as to how effective it might be. Kafka decided that coming here was a waste of time, as his idea was right in the first place, and so the party set off back to Talonsong.
The party encountered two of the larger variety of ostrich creatures, and used the same tactics they had used two days before. This worked fairly well, but Pyrosh had several large bite wounds by the end of the battle. Hindsight suggested that next time he gets wounded as badly as that he should take a step back in case the others don’t manage to kill the bird quickly enough.
The rest of this day, and the next passed safely.
The party arrived back in Talonsong just after lunchtime, and immediately began planning how to deal with the shadows in detail. They spoke with Lord Trenwith and arranged to meet with several guards late in the next day.
Kafka gave a small comedic performance at the Hawkrest, but his material needs some work. The performance was acceptable, but hardly reputation building.
A fresh day, and a complete change of spell preparation, the party choosing to arm themselves up as best as possible for dealing with shadows.
Late in the day they met with the four assigned guardsmen, and defaced the chosen totem pole. They set up torches around the area, and lit them as the evening light started to fail. The waiting began…
The four party members stood around the totem pole, watching the four guards who paced around the area. Then suddenly three shadows formed beside one guard, and he was killed instantly.
Roedyn spent most of the combat casting magic weapon on three weapons. Pyrosh cast disrupt undead and then burning hands on the shadows, only burning hands proved to be effective however, as he kept missing his shots with disrupt undead.
Kafka, Waylander and the three remaining guards set to work trying to destroy the shadows with melee attacks. This proved to be quite effective, although several attacks throughout the combat slid straight through the shadows without causing any wounds. As one shade was destroyed, another rose up from the body of the slain guardsman.
By this point another guardsman was on his last legs, and Waylander ordered him to
run away, which he did happily, although it was more of a crawl, as he no longer had the strength to move far in his heavy armour. Waylander was hit shortly after this, and immediately felt physically weaker.
Roedyn then moved to join the fight, and focussed his divine power to turn the shadows, this was highly effect as everyone managed to strike a shadow as they began to flee. Only one got away.
A disagreement ensued over whether the party could take the magic sword belonging to the dead guard, but the remaining guards were having none of it.
Pyrosh commented, “We did a lot more in that fight than you guys did”
To which a guard replied, “The sword is not your property”
Waylander made a somewhat threatening remark, “There’s four of us, and only three of you, and one of you can barely stand”
The guard yelled back “There may be only three of us here, but there are many others in the city, don’t try to threaten us.”
The party then gave in and returned to the Hawkrest Inn for the night, to prepare for the next day.
End of Game Session 5
Beginning of Game Session 6
The party awoke and breakfasted to the soft pitter-patter of rain. Shortly after they finished eating;
A well-armed group of six enters the inn and takes residence in one of the upper rooms. There seems to be a slight discrepancy over money. They don’t look very friendly.
This group then heads upstairs to take up two of the bedrooms. Our party decides that this group aren’t worth bothering with just yet, and head out, searching the inns and taverns of the city for adventurers to help them against the shadows. All responses seem to be on a theme: all the other adventurers are either are out adventuring, or they are resting their wounds between adventures. Failing that, they don’t have any magical weapons, and therefore would be no help at all.
The party runs through the rain to the temple of *****.
In a soft voice the priest they talk to first, says, “How may I help you my child?”
Kafka makes comment that not many people can call him child… but then realizes the priest is also an elf, and withdraws his comment.
Their conversation with this priest leads them to a sturdy looking human male named Dellian. In a powerful voice he accepts the task of helping them defeat the shadows, and even lends a +1 heavy mace to the cause.
Spending the rest of the daylight hours at the Hawkrest Inn. Mainly they are watching to see if the other party comes back down, which eventually they do. They still don’t look very friendly, and the group decides to leave them alone for today.
Dellian, five guards, and our party congregate around a totem pole. This time the tactics have changed, and the guards are not spread out – in fact they are closer to the pole than the party. Dellian casts lesser restoration on Waylander to recover the last of his strength before the battle, then he casts greater magic weapon on Kafka’s and Roedyn’s longswords. They turn and deface the totem pole, and very soon after, five shadows come racing in over nearby rooftops.
Kafka spends his first few seconds casting mage armor, Waylander misses his target, Roedyn gets a firm hit and Pyrosh curses as his mace passes cleanly through a shadow without affecting it. Dellian used his holiness to turn undead, and all five of the shadows were instantly destroyed, which left the guards cheering. Their cheering soon stopped as five more shadows swooped in. Waylander and Pyrosh both took hits, and felt their strength quickly drained.
Kafka saw his moment and struck a shadow as hard as he could. The others were much less effective. Dellian again turned undead, and watched in surprise, as one of the shadows did not get destroyed. “That’s odd”, he said.
“What’s odd?”, asked Pyrosh
“Usually they die when I do that” Dellian commented.
This must be the powerful one that started the murders then. The guards pile in around it, and manage to cause it some pain. Everyone crowded in around it and did what they could, and eventually a guard dealt the final blow. Dellian used up all his remaining lesser restoration spells in healing Waylander and Pyrosh and found he didn’t quite have enough. So the group trouped back to his temple where one of the other priests solved the problem.
With their strength returned, they went to see Lord Trenwith once more. Dellian refused any reward and said he was happy to have helped out. The party collected a +1 longsword, and several thousand gold.
Roedyn and Waylander are showing signs of having learned a few tricks from their recent battles. Roedyn has found that he can now cast more powerful spells. The party looked around for something to do, speaking with clerics, the mayor, and finally the adventuring party that had taken up residence in the Hawkrest inn. They seemed quite unfriendly, and didn’t like talking about their past. They did mention that there were at least four tombs around the city. They had cleared three, but indicated there was a fair chance that new monsters had moved in. The fourth they decided was not worth their trouble. When asked they said this was to the south west, by a few miles.
So our intrepid adventurers bought some supplies and headed southwest. They encountered two of the larger ostrich creatures on the way, but dealt with them easily.
Late in the day they began scouring the countryside, and very quickly found a pair of doors leading into the side of a hill. The doors had two large symbols engraved into them, one of which looked like a clump of grass. The doors were forced open, to reveal a long corridor, with three doors off to the right and one door at the end. Each of the doors had some pictures on them. No one in the party had any idea what they might mean.
Kafka opened the first door on the right and was lucky he didn’t step straight into the room beyond, as there was a great big pit in front of him. Leaving this room be for the moment, they headed into the next door. Opening this door caused Kafka to be struck with a hail of fine needles. The third door held a scythe trap, but the blade simply bounced off of Kafka’s armour.
In the third room they found a crystal sword, which Kafka decided to pick up. The very moment that he touched it, a loud moan came from the only room not yet explored. Moments after it, heavy footsteps could be heard. Roedyn cast a spell, and the others rushed to the unopened door. By the sounds of it, someone was bashing the door from the other side… so Kafka opened it.
On the other side of the door was a mummy. The very sight of this caused Pyrosh and Waylander to be paralysed with fear. Kafka immediately began fighting it, and traded hits with it. Roedyn was temporarily stuck out of the battle, but he dragged Pyrosh out of the way and leapt into the fray. Kafka struck again and again, but was not enough on his own to destroy the foul creature. Roedyn struck the creature as well, and was greeted by a decaying fist to the head. Kafka took another blow before the creature was finally destroyed.
The party collected the remaining treasure and returned to the first room. By laying the coffin across the corner of the pit they were able to get into the room safely. They spend the night there while a storm raged outside.
The next morning Roedyn used his newfound powers to restore his and Kafka’s constitution. The rain was heavy, but didn’t ever look as though it was going to lessen, so the group trudged back to town in the rain.
Shortly after arriving back in town, Kafka and Roedyn both felt terribly ill. They went to a temple and were cured of the ‘Mummy Rot’ curse. This cost them 375 gp each.
The entire group spend this period training up their skills, staying inside much of the time to avoid the rain.
Part way through the two weeks, a ship arrives in port. A few days later a man happens to be drinking in the Hawkrest and overhears Pyrosh’s name. He tells Pyrosh that there is a letter waiting for him at the post office. When Pyrosh reads this letter he finds it is a simple letter from his family, telling him of everyday things, and requesting that he write home about his travels.
End of Game Session 6