Session 32

RUMOURS OF WAR

Sunstrong 15 - Thistleburn 5, 4433
10 days passed during the session
2 subjective days passed in your most recent trip into the Forest of Dreams

Characters:

Gorr, ranger 5
Daqqa-Jin, barbarian 4
Robert the Unconstitutional, fighter 5
Eric Withakay, cleric 5
Salzige Brauen, necromancer 2
Lord Fesgate, fighter 4 (NPC)

Smuggling

The group headed out of the Forest of Dreams, ready to sell their ill-gotten gains in Viridistan. The Night Wolf Inn was as normal: some red-skinned Altanians and pale, fiercely painted Amazons were drinking in the tavern. Salzige attempted to interact with the warrior-women but was rebuffed, amidst the jeers of the eastern barbarians.

On the way back to Viridistan, a great traffic jam of farmers, merchants & travellers had formed outside the Great Wall. Daqqa-Jin went up to the gate and learned that due to a distant war, Emperor Seheitt was instituting new taxes. 

The party split up. Gorr, Fesgate and Salzige remained in the Forest of Dreams for a few days. Fesgate still had a broken leg, and Gorr's sanity was beginning to fray after many battles with the undead! Robert and Daqqa-Jin went through the gate on foot and proceeded into Viridistan.

In the Emerald City, everyone was talking about THE WAR! It was clear that news of the disaster on the sacred mountain [Session 18] had finally reached the general populace. Many rumours swirled. The most significiant: Shah Kijdawr is stretched thin and has few troops available to counter this new threat. Everyone is waiting for the Emperor to step in and send one of the Vasthosts north, but so far this has not happened.

Prices are up! Metal ores, lumber, wine & other goods have increased in price, leading to overall higher cost of living. Temples are sending priests & magic to help deal with the threat, increasing prices for religious services, spellcasting, scrolls, etc.

At Seven Visions, mistress Zvezdana Ozi had news. If the group wanted, she could call in that favour and put them in touch with some 'scary characters' who would be happy to buy some of the strange magical items they had recovered a few sessions ago. They decided to table this for now, and worked out a plan to smuggle their treasure into town.

The party brought their treasure to Targnol port [last seen in Session 2] where they contacted a shady character named Tilki who put them in the hold of a logging boat with a nice bribe to the captain. When they got to Viridistan they were picked up in a small dinghy and brought into town by one of the boat-people, a strange folk who live their whole lives in connected networks of boats & rafts on the waters of the Nereus Firth. This got them into the heart of town and past the guards at the Great Wall, for a simple 10% cut to their patron, Zvezdana.

She identified some of the group's items (including a robe of eyes, sweet) and they did a few errands in town & caught up on the news. Patchey, the proprietor of the Dragon's Eye Inn, gave them a letter that arrived a few days prior, which said only:

Meet me at the Green Lion statue at mid-day this week. The pelagic argosy sights land.

Knowing this was their Inquisition contact, Daqqa-Jin and Robert went to the meeting by the Green Lion, an ancient statue in the middle of a wide plaza by the sea. A shifty viridian who called himself Bolivar greeted them. He wanted to know what they had discovered about the Night Wolf Inn, but Daqqa-Jin didn't tell him anything he really liked. Some haggling (and subtle or not-so-subtle insinuations) followed. Bolivar said if they could give him something really useful about the Inn Master, or the overall agenda of the Guild, he could maybe see about helping them with a special gate pass to bypass the tax-collectors at the Great Wall.

Return to the Moonlit Zone

The group caught up with Rain in the Night Wolf Inn's smoking room. They saw a strange enigma - the animal heads on the walls animated and chanted in an unknown language. 

The elven bard explained the workings of the magical Four Winds Bar and the command words to activate it. She once owned one of these rare & powerful magic items, but traded it many years ago for her magical mandolin. The finding of this item seemed a respectable achievement. Rain listened with interest to the group's plans for the future and offered advice about the Inn's cellars.

Back in the Forest of Dreams, the group progressed further into the Moonlit Zone. They passed through the ruins of an old town now overgrown with trees. They passed by an old structure decorated with the sign of a red cross and two snakes, only glancing inside briefly. 

Coming to a clearing littered with buildings, they were spotted by a group of tall humanoids with the heads of snarling jackals & black eyes, covered in silvery fur. Battle was joined! The humanoids charged while a few of their fellows fired bows from cover.

Justin: "Just call me Michael Vick!"
DM: *laughs in horror*
Chris: "Not exactly, you didn't cast charm on them and make them fight each other!"

It didn't take long for the group to defeat their foes, with the last two jackal-men casting themselves on the group's mercy.  

Jackal-man: "We surrender! No kill!"
John: "This isn't a no-kill shelter..."

Chris: "I'll fire at the fleeing archer." *volley of arrows hit, the jackal-man dies*
Justin: "Gorr's arrows sent that one to a farm upstate!"

The group interrogated the survivors, learning a handful of details about the region and the name of their master, a moon-man named Kucmalôg.

Other Things That Happened

Gorr rested in the Forest of Dreams in the boughs of Grandfather Tree for a subjective 5 months! [recovering 5 fear points in this time] The wise tree spoke of many obscure & ancient things through the sighing of branches and the whistling of the wind. The ranger can't remember much, but perhaps in time this lore will come back to him...

Gorr is still suffering from madness at this time - he is capable of fighting at a distance with a bow but if things get too stressful or monsters/strangers get too close, I will have to make a roll to see if he loses his composure!

Salzige has been learning spells! The stone idol of a winged, monkey-like humanoid speaks to him in his dreams. After a few weeks, he awoke feverishly one morning and transcribed the spell chill touch into his spellbook. A few days later, he had terrible nightmares. Although he could not afterwards recall them, he was so shaken that for two days, even ordinary tasks were quite difficult [if he had been adventuring some penalties would have applied]

Monsters Defeated:

10 white gnolls - 8 killed, 2 surrendered (470 xp)

Treasure Found:

none

Treasure Turned In:

giant gold statue of Ahmon-Ibor
2x purple gemstone eyes (Robert kept these)
2x crimson incense (Eric kept for tithing)
silver grave trinket
silver plate set
2x silver scimitars
9x jewelry from Tannoch crypts (Gorr kept a red cross medal, Daqqa-Jin kept a gold chain)
glass-fronted scroll case (magic scrolls inside were kept)
scroll of sanctuary

Money Awarded:

Young Joe Spruce: 801 sp 

Cost of Living:

[I didn't want to spend time calculating this during the session. I will remind each of you next time]

Gorr: 235 sp
Daqqa-Jin: 97 sp
Eric: 163 sp
Robert: 168 sp
Salzige: 40 sp
Cassia: 11 sp
Xénos: 27 sp
Joe Spruce: (already deducted above)

Experience Totals:

Daqqa-Jin has reached level 4!
Robert the Swift has reached level 5!
Young Joe Spruce has reached level 3!

Session 26

THE FOUR WINDS BAR

12 Sunstrong, 4433

Characters:

Gorr, ranger 5
Daqqa-Jin, barbarian 2
Cassia, fighter 1

Lost in the Cellars

The group was resting in the Night Wolf Inn after getting lost for a while [last session] when they were approached by an Amazon warrior, an aspiring champion of Athena who wished to join the company. Since Robert the Swift was in bad shape and his Mummy Rot wasn't getting any better, they were happy to have another pair of hands and welcomed Cassia to the group.

The party returned to the library and tried their hand at the clock again. Some more experimentation by Daqqa-Jin led to a solution - after each combination, a few minutes of waiting was necessary to produce the right effect! The clock produced a rotting stench, a peal of thunder, the smell of flowers, smoke, and freezing cold before sliding aside to reveal a narrow passage.

Daqqa-Jin proceeded in and found a gleaming chromium rod floating in a black void, securing it with his backpack. The group reluctantly followed when their friend was drawn into an extradimensional gateway! The group found themselves in a sealed room with magical frescoes of clouds swirling along the floor. Touching the chromium rod (called the Four Winds Bar) to each corner of this room opened a secret door and allowed them to escape in a flurry of mist, leaving behind the skeletons of less fortunate adventurers.

Finding themselves in burial chambers of a familiar style, the group searched for a way out. They passed through the "Family Halls," "Hall of Adventurers," "Hall of Thieves," "Hall of Knights" and "Hall of Wizards," discovering many oddities & dangers.

In the Hall of Knights, the dead were stacked high up to the shadowy ceiling, covered in ancient & ornate armour. When Daqqa-Jin began searching the corpses for valuables, the group were assailed by insubstantial undead materializing out of nowhere. Daqqa-Jin fled in supernatural terror into the darkened tunnels, his friends in hot pursuit. They ended up in a high-ceilinged cavern where mobile stalactites occasionally launched downwards to impale the unwary. The barbarian's headlong flight had placed them all right in the center of danger! A few of the party were brought down to a handful of hit points and they escaped only with a careful plan and a bit of luck.

Steve: "It's like a Metroid level!"
Chris: "We are all basically one Piercer attack away from death at any time."
John: "Fuuuck, I shoulda rolled up an extra character..."

The passed through the Hall of Wizards where the skulls of the dead swivelled to follow their every move, skeletal hands rasping in anticipation. They found a golden door decorated with nymphs and satyrs and a passageway with an icy wind blowing, but decided to pass through the Hall of Slaves towards the exit. They were pursued by two large, pale, corpulent crawling creatures like bloated centipedes but decided not to engage with them, running at top speed towards the tavern stairs.

Questions & Ghosts

Back up on safe ground, the group explored more of the Inn's strange & mysterious rooms. They attempted to open a secret panel of some kind in the cloakroom, but weren't able to. Found the kitchen, staffed by odd gray-skinned people. Explored the parlour and played with a few of the musical instruments there, and found a magical horn hidden in a secret compartment!

Upstairs they explored the smoking lounge, decorated with animal head trophies and paintings of diverse adventurers from around the world including James, Rain the elven bard and a Viridian named Rory. On the balcony they found an evil-looking amulet in a stone coffer and decided to leave it alone for now.

Exploring from the library, they took a spiral staircase up through another "back passage" and ended up in the attic, emerging from a small, featureless black door. The ceiling lay close above and with no windows, everything was lit by little oil lamps. Many more guest rooms were up here, but the group descended the stairs to the 2nd floor.

In the art gallery, they saw something truly strange. Accompanied by a spectral singing, the translucent apparition of a little girl wandered past them, seemingly unaware of their presence. This ghost or illusion or whatever it was did not respond to their attempts at interaction. The group waved and asked questions eliciting no response, until Daqqa-Jin asked "Where are you?"

The ghostly child replied "Between starlight and hellfire," before vanishing.

The party barely had time to register this odd event before they saw another strange visitation: a stooped, cloaked figure with its face obscured, clutching an ornately carved staff in one wizened hand. This odd and spooky being spoke to no-one, instead tracing the path that the ghostly girl had followed, looking around the room intently before vanishing as quickly & mysteriously as it came.

After all these strange experiences the party needed some answers. They spoke with Mr. Everbleed and learned many strange facts about the Inn, about special combat training, the strange phenomena they've seen, the identity of the mysterious Guild Master - and that Rain once owned a magic item called a "Four Winds Bar" as well!

After some accelerated time in the Forest of Dreams, Eric Withakay was back up to full strength and able to use his clerical magic to heal the party and remove Robert the Swift's mummy rot - this also cured his curse of sleeplessness and he was able to get some rest for the first time in a while.

Monsters:

5 piercers (130 xp)

Treasure Obtained:

2 grave trinkets (brooch & necklace)

Bonus:

Solving the clock puzzle (1000 xp each)

Daqqa-Jin has reached level 3, good work!