The Journal of Misha Thundergrove
I have decided to start a new journal as a result of recent events to record my travels, adventures and findings in the city of Cauldron.
Year of Wild Magic, Eleint 20
The Weave is strong today. This will be a good day for a good deed in the name of our Mistress. The sky is overcast and rainy, but the wind is pleasant and warm in these southern lands. Rumors of kidnappings in the city are disturbing, and the disappearance of four children lately is an outrage.
Darius, Erold, Heion, Swyth, Vlada and I have agreed to bond together in an adventuring band. Swyth, always quick to come up with clever words named us The Wild Geese. Nobody had any objections, so The Wild Geese we are. We are all young, I am only junior to the elf in age, and there is no telling how old he actually is.
I spent eight hours in the streets preaching the word of our mistress. The people listen well and a couple of them are even interested beyond that. The incompetence of preacher Isaal isn’t to be removed in a tenday however, so I will have work to do for months to come. After a hot meal of sausage and cabbage I headed with the rest of the Wild Geese to the Tipped Tankard for some late night entertainment.
We where interrupted on our way there by shouts for help from an alley which we promptly investigated. There we interrupted three thugs from the Last Laugh thieves' guild who where giving Rufus Laro from the Temple of Tyr a beating. Apparently they had taken a bad interest in Rufus and the temple's investigation of the kidnapped children. We brought him back to the temple and was approached Jenya Urikas the priestess who explained the situation to us. They offered us each a moderate healing potion in advance and a share of 2500 gold pieces if we investigated the reason for the kidnappings and brought the responsible to justice. We promptly accepted. Jenya had invoked the power of an artifact and had been rewarded with a divination concerning the missing children.
And the resulting answer was:
"The locks are key to finding them,
Look beyond the curtain, below the cauldron,
But beware the doors with teeth,
Descend into the Malachite 'hold,
Where precious life is bought with gold
Half a Dwarf binds them, but not for long"
We proceeded to investigate the Lantern Street Orphanage. First we had to make it past headmistress Gretchyn Tashykk, a middle aged Halfling with a foul temper. After talking with her for awhile, we made it past the door. Vlada scrutinized the locks of the doors to the rooms of the missing children while I questioned Gretchyn. He recognized the locks as those made by a local master artisan. We also learned that the city guard had questioned the employees and that two half elves where looking into the mystery for the mayor's account. I donated 10 gold pieces to the orphanage, I will make sure to give her more if I can spare.
The hour was getting late so we would have to wait question the locksmith. Instead we went to the city guard's barracks and talked to the night watch. He gave us a list of the kidnapped victims which would be interesting to cross reference with the locksmith's customer log. When we excited the barracks Vlada told us we where being followed by two half elves, something we chose to disregard for the time being.
After an exhausting day I went to bed at the Morkoth, alone.
Year of Wild Magic, Eleint 21
The Weave is ever present around me, a comforting thought in such Evil Times. The sky is cloudy and rain trickles down, the wind is little more than a breeze.
The next day we proceeded with investigating some of the homes to see if more of the locksmith's locks where present there. We found little or no such evidence, and moved along to the locksmith's shop. We questioned the locksmith Keygan Ghelve but learned nothing out of the ordinary. Behind the counter he had a curtain behind which he had his stock and display of locks. We where only allowed one at a time back there, and once I was there with him he seemed to hint with his eye movements that all was not well at the top of the stairs. Using my womanly charms I asked to be brought to his private quarters and was rewarded with an assault on my life by a Skulk. The Wild Geese made short work of the Skulk to the inspired singing of Swyth.
The gnome artisan then proceeded to spill his guts, he told a story of his familiar being kidnapped by the Skulks who had made him create skeleton keys for his locks in the city. They where likely responsible for the kidnappings and lived in an old gnome stronghold of which there was an entrance below his shop. He gave us an old map and wished for the return of his familiar Starbrow and warned us of a magical plague that made people vanish.
We proceeded down the stairs with caution, for the gnomes would surely have trapped the entrance to Jzadirune, their ancient fortress. Heion found a secret door in the stairs and while investigating it Vlada managed to trigger a trap that made our two barbarians slide down into the next room. He then opened a secret door and met the gaze of two hobgoblins. Our two barbarians seemed dazed by falling down the stairs and responded slowly, but in the end both hobgoblins where brought down by our combined efforts. Darius decided he had enough and wanted to go back to the temple of Tyr and tell them of our findings. We all agreed.
We continued down the stairs and searched for traps, but behind the door to the next room two skulks waited for us. They downed Erold in two swift strikes before fleeing into dug tunnels. After patching him up, we continued into the tunnels but decided to retreat. To secure our backs I closed the door, a mistake I would later regret. Behind an illusory wall we found a magic map on the floor, and discovered that nearly all doors in the gnome fortress carry magic traps in one shape or form. We decided to call it a day as we secured a ram to force the door, the rest of the fortress seemed trapped, full of magic traps and impossible locks.
Year of Wild Magic, Eleint 22
The weave swirls around me, as if it is trying to tell me something about the gnomes’ plight. I have no idea what the weather is like today, since we are spending the entire day underground.
We pressed on and found that all doors have a letter in the center with a keyhole that Vlada can't bypass. In the end we acquired a ram and opened the door I closed with force, not the most beautiful of efforts but certainly something that would have made Hathor proud. We pressed on and found a skulk hiding in a room and after stabbing Vlada badly, I shot it through the throat with my crossbow.
Then we met a mimic, a curious creature who was nowhere near as aggressive as I have learned in my studies, he told us a lot of what to expect in the gnome fortress. He traded us the gnome's familiar for six rations of food. The Skulks kidnap people from Cauldron and rob their homes, then trade the people to hobgoblins that live in the fortress. They in turn work for the Dark Ones, who trade with a slaver named Kazmojen in the underdark. To save the children and possibly other victims, we must defeat the Skulks, the hobgoblins, the dark ones and possibly even combat Kazmojen to perhaps save the kidnapped children.
We moved on into the Skulks' tunnels and reappeared in the gnome fortress. The gnomes have more or less trapped their entire fortress. We found a monstrous spider and her two children in a room with an illusory pool. Heion demonstrated expert marksmanship by felling the mother spider with a well aimed shot through one of her myriad eyes, while I followed up with felling one of the smaller creatures with a bolt of my own. Heion then finished up the carnage with a second arrow to skewer the final smaller spider.
I must take this moment to commend Swyth and his trumpet, his expert tunes really fills our hearts with courage and turns even the meekest soldier into an expert marksman or seasoned soldier. His trumpet might give away our presence, but with it sounding we have yet to face defeat.
Vlada found another trap as we passed the room with the spiders, a torch handle made the floor tilt beneath Erold's feet and as he slammed into the room below, two Skulks emerged from the shadows. After downing a potion, his temper got the better of him and he pounded the both of them into a pulp. The torch handle had revealed a secret door where we found the corpse of a carrion crawler, stuffed with treasure.
We made our way back through the great hall and into the theater. A play was on permanent display here, most likely a favorite of the gnomes that once lived here. Beneath the stage we encountered a ferocious creature that could elongate its limbs. It grabbed hold of Vlada and almost dragged him down with him, but our combined efforts killed the creature before it could sink its stinking fangs into his flesh. In its lair we found several items of interest and most notably a key with the gnome letter "J" inscribed in the bottom.
We continued to explore the fortress through the tunnels dug by the Skulks, and found our way into the hall of the Gnome king. There a magic mouth spoke to us in riddles.
"If you wish an audience with the king,
Place your finest coin in my mouth."
In an attempt to get to talk to the gnome king, Swyth offered him a silver coin. The mouth proceeded to curse him with clumsiness in short order. I wonder what it will cost us to lift it from his poor soul? We tried with gold and platinum too but in the end we had to leave the mountain king without speaking to him, all he would say was,
"Betrayed we are by our own magic,
One by One, we fade away,
Jzadirune's lost! Oh, how tragic!
We curse the vanishing day."
We then moved into the museum which appeared to have been looted long ago. As the darkness and dust settled around us we explored the last Skulk tunnel in this part of the fortress which took us into the storage area for the theater's gear.