Game Session Recaps

[frenzied67]

I didn't have an opportunity to review the post until now.

Correction:
"... As he moved into the room he realized what he was seeing, the Hobgoblins and Orcs had been forcing the Badger and Halfling to fight..."

The kobolds and goblins were the ones forcing the halfling to fight the badger.

Also, when Enkili shouted, “I killed your boss!” the only one to hear him was the fleeing mercenary archer. You think that he escaped via the stairs and upper guard tower.

EP 125 18th Drindos C.E. 1032

*Apologise for how late this was posted. I had it written up but failed to put it on the forum. Thank you DM, for the corrections above.

The knowledge that it would take the twenty four remaining slaves a week to recover from the monster’s song made the party indecisive. As spent as the party was, and exposed within their enemies fortress, there was a call to retreat. Enkili’s military experience made him wish they could press the attack, but even his bag of tricks was expended. Yet they all knew that guilt would hound them if they left even one soul behind. Straining, Enkili strove for one thought, one idea that help them. Realization hit him. They had cleared this one section, and a shift change of guards would not be due for at least three hours.

They could get a short rest at least, though that would not be enough for the spellcasters. Leiya was not content with that, so she lifted her voice in prayer, begging Milosta (Melwen) for a restoration of her health and spells. Inside her Handy Haversack a coin made of powerful magics glowed then faded from existence. When her Coin of Fate vanished she found herself healthy and rejuvenated completely; her spells fresh as though eight hours of rest had been had. Tilting his head at seeing this miracle happen, Grynn called upon Melana.

He did not have to expend a mystic coin though, his miracle was granted immediately. He too was healed and granted his full allotment of spells. Retreating to the room full of stupefied slaves, the party rested for an hour, patching themselves up. Only Blaylocke was denied a chance to regain all his abilities, though he did study the wand Leiya handed him. He determined that he held a Wand of Opening, an item with ten knock spells infused into it. As he was the only person who could use arcane magic, since Jolrael was not with them, he was granted custody of the wand.

After they emerged, the party made their way to the rooms they had not searched before. They looted the heaps of dead as they progressed. In the room Jolrael had drowned a lot of orcs in, the party found a gold ring, a set of brass bracers, and an ivory handled dagger. In the Orc leader’s room, where the badger still wrestled with its chain, the party uncovered a chest that held platinum and gold coins, a handful of amethysts, and a scroll showing some secret slaver trade routes.

In the Ogre’s room a small pot of coins was found with silver and copper coins predominate inside. A long bow and quiver were taken and a nice greatsword was found. The “commander” of the guards, the man with glowing red eyes, had a ring and another nice great sword. Later Blaylocke studied these items and declared the ring to be Ring of Fire Resistance, and both greatswords were magic (+1). The Hobgoblins had mixed amounts of gold silver or copper coins.

Enkili entered the kitchen/mess hall by himself, Leiya nearby in the hall. There were six doors spaced around this huge room. The fighter moved clockwise around the chamber. The north east door turned out to be the man boar pig’s room (wereboars?), and he was charged by a frothing wild pig. Quick reactions kept the fighter from being painfully gored by tusks. When his startlement ended, the fighter took two swipes to end the boars threat. He grinned when Leiya started calling into the room, asking if he was all right; his silence was his idea of a prank.

Grinning impishly Enkili remained silent except for tossing the room. Unable to contain his distraught nerves, Grynn dashed passed Leiya and entered the kitchen. He was not pleased at the fighter’s dumb attempt at humor. The priest remained in the hall in the middle of the north wall. Blaylocke had also moved closer, but he remained in the hall studying potential magic items (the ring and great swords)

On a kitchen table near the middle of the eastern wall, Enkili found a note under a tankard. At first the parchment looked blank, but he looked closer and found raised indentations all over the sheet. Very few of the raised shapes repeated themselves which clued the fighter in that this was a language. He took the sheet knowing his companions might actually be able to decipher whatever language was thereon. There were two doors in the south east corner of the kitchen. Enkili opened the northernmost of those doors and stepped in. Again the fighter was taken unaware.

A squealing Kobold darted around the big man and shot north. At this point Leiya entered the kitchen and blocked the way out with Grynn. She hurled a Sacred Flame which did catch on the little creature. It expired in a flash of fiery light. After checking to make sure the Kobold was unable to bring harm to his friends, Enkili returned to ransacking the larder he found. Other than food, there was nothing of valuable. The most southern of the south eastern rooms also held food stock.

The next door was across the room along the south western wall. A semi opulent room revealed itself, obsessively clean. Weapons and a shield were displayed on the walls, part of a martial decor that made Enkili think of the red eyed man in dark armor he had killed. A padlocked door broke the plane of the southern wall, a voice called out when he tried the handle. “Icor, I demand you release me” the woman’s voice demanded. After calling in his friends, the fighter waited until Grynn was at his side, Blaylocke was behind the priest and Leiya found a spot in the doorway. The fighter stripped the lock away with a wrench of his pry bar.

Opening the door, the three men beheld a woman whose hair writhed then rose on coils to reveal snake heads instead of locks. Grynn, Blaylocke, and Enkili all felt something trying to freeze and stiffen unnaturally within themselves. The female creature lunged for the open aperture, but the fighter was quicker, slamming the door quickly. The fighter then retreated west before he remembered the door no longer had a lock. Blaylocke and the fighter hoisted the nearby bed and set it up before the door, with Enkili leaning on it to help prevent whatever was inside from leaving. The door nob was twisted, the door banged against the bed frame with manic persistence.

Grynn, who was still shaken from the creature’s unnerving gaze, prepared his Stoneshape spell; he then waited for Enkili or Blaylocke to move aside so he could apply the magic. Enkili stepped back and lifted the stout Halforc priest into his former place. Stone ran like wax around the entire frame, sealing all cracks, and jamming every hinge. When the unnatural woman called through the door they began a dialogue.

She began by giving her name and promising not to harm them if they released her. M’Iclotha claimed she was a slave, taken as property by Icor a blind fighter who barely fed and watered her while forcing her to watch his treasure chest. Blaylocke attempted to read her with a Detect Thoughts spell, but her shocked reaction shattered the magic as it was being laid down.

Grynn asked “Clotha” how many slavers remained in the stockade, she claimed that she did not know. Icor and his band were business associates with this batch of slavers. She claimed that the only slaves in the facility were those who were bemused and a few who were taken below for “experimentation” from a fellow with a Bhelian name. All others were sold or transported from there. She did say there was a trapdoor under Icor’s bed that went to this nightmarish chamber of horrors.

Though she seemed to be hewing close to the truth, they did find the trap door, the party was reluctant to release her at first. They did talk themselves into releasing her if she wore an executioners hood that had been left in the Ogre’s room. Clotha was true to her word, she donned the hood as the stone was chipped away from the door frame and hinges. Most of the party huddled behind the bed standing on an edge, but Blaylocke moved into the north western corner of the kitchen.

Before she left the room she spoke to the bard, Enkili moved into the kitchen to make sure his friend remained unmolested. He overheard the last part of her quoting the origins of her people who had been turned into Medusa by the gods. After that she glided out of the room and began to make her way through the carnage the party had left in their wake. There was one outraged cry which cut off abruptly. Fearing the worst Enkili ran out of the kitchen, not noticing the north western door which had been closed was now open. He saw a brand new goblin statue with warding upraised hands amid the bodies of where they had tried to make a stand.

There was a chest in the closet that had been M’Iclotha’s prison. The lock was pried away to reveal gold coins, handfulls of jet, another parchment with raised bumps (braile), a silver bracelet with a black opal, and a locked brass coffer. Grynn upset Enkili by saying that they should return for the treasure, but the fighter was not having it. They did leave the coffer unopened as they stuffed Leiya's Handy Haversack to the brim, and dumping the rest into Grynn’s Bag of Holding.

The trapdoor was opened and the party started down. A few rungs down Enkili cut his hand on a rough protrusion. While trying to warn the party of this hazard the poison struck him severely (rolled a 1 for Con save). Blacking out the fighter fell the remaining forty feet of the climb. The crash below knocked the breath from him, and Enkili found his head whirling from pain and poison….

*Our next game falls on December 14th.