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The Kordovian Adventurers Guild
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6778827" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 10: LAST RITES AND WRONGS</strong></p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 28 November 2015</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>Heading back south the way they had been before, the timing synced up just right for the Kordovian adventurers to be hired on as caravan guards for the Baranford-to-Garonis route. The pay was less than when the route between the two cities had been plagued with bandit attacks, but it was an easy 20 pieces of gold each for an uneventful three-day security detail.</p><p></p><p>Once the wagon train had made it successfully to Garonis and the cargo unloaded to Grant Huntley's warehouse, the adventurers picked up their pay and immediately went shopping. They were getting low on potions - or at least potions that they weren't afraid to drink; Darrien still had his "Winkidew's special" potion of <em>cure light wounds</em> that experience from others of the same batch indicated was likely to be as easy to swallow as frog puke. Darrien happily plunked down a bag of coins at a small potion shop in Garonis, receiving in exchange a few healing potions made by alchemists who <em>didn't</em> take shortcuts like Binkadink's uncle did.</p><p></p><p>After the individual purchases had all been made and the group reassembled, they were discussing whether to continue on further south or stay the night in town. Ingebold was all for pressing on; while she'd be loathe to admit it, she seemed to have been bitten by the adventuring bug and was eager to see what other riches they might be able to procure for their little kingdom. Castillan, on the other hand, was arguing vociferously for an evening's stay at a decent inn, preferably one where he could get in some gaming with the locals and put his card-playing skills to good use, likely doubling his earnings if history was an indicator.</p><p></p><p>The discussion was cut short, however, by a commotion across the street from where the group's mule-driven wagon sat. "It's a scam, I tell you!" insisted an elderly woman being forcibly escorted from an establishment across the street. The sign above the door read "Bleakmann's Mortuary."</p><p></p><p>"I believe you're just distraught," insisted the black-clad man towering over her. "We at Bleakmann's disavow any knowledge of the incident in question. Once we've done our part, any such...incidents are entirely out of our hands."</p><p></p><p>He pushed her into the street, away from his door. "Now then, any further outrageous accusations from you and I'll be forced to call the constable. Unless you’d prefer to spent the evening in jail...? No? Then good day to you, madam."</p><p></p><p>The black-clad man then turned on his heels and returned to the mortuary, leaving the old lady fuming in the street. Then she saw the group watching the incident and her face lit up. She hurriedly crossed the street towards the group, a look of fierce determination on her face.</p><p></p><p>"Good afternoon!" she said, offering a gloved hand to Castillan, who had stepped forward as the most charismatic of the group. "My name is <strong>Coral Demogenes</strong>. Have you eaten? I would love to take to a nearby café - my treat - and make you a business proposition." Castillan made the introductions and said, with his most charming smile, they would love to listen to what she had to say.</p><p></p><p>After sitting down at the café and ordering their food, Mrs. Demogenes started her tale. "My dear <strong>Harold</strong>, he passed away last week," she began. "I had <strong>Bleakmann</strong> handle the burial, in the graveyard at the back of Pelor's Church. All seemed to go well, but I went to lay flowers on his grave this morning and I found signs that it'd been disturbed. It looked to me as if the coffin had been dug up and the hole filled back in, and sure enough, there's a coffin what looks just like the one I had poor Harold buried in, right there in the showcase at Bleakmann's! I dunno what his game is – maybe it's just as simple as selling the same coffin to poor widows like myself – but I don't like the thought of being swindled or lied to, and I certainly don't like the idea of poor Harold's remains just being dumped back into the cold ground without his coffin, if that's what they’re up to....</p><p></p><p>"So here's what I'd like to have happen," she continued, reaching into her purse and pulling out a small pouch of gold coins. "I want to hire you to look into things for me. You can't confront Bleakmann directly, he'll send the constable on you for sure, and what with you being strangers and all, I'm sure he'd be likely to take Bleakmann's side – but maybe there are other ways you could check into what he’s up to – for my sake, and for poor Harold's. I can pay you for your trouble - here are 50 gold pieces just for looking into this matter for me, with another 450 if you can prove that Bleakmann's up to no good." She looked up at Castillan. "What do you say?" she asked.</p><p></p><p>"Mrs. Demogenes, have no fear," assured the elven bounder, placing one hand upon the widow's and the other on her purse containing the down-payment. "We would be more than happy to look into this matter for you." And then their lunch arrived and no more was said on the subject.</p><p></p><p>"So how you want to deal with this?" asked Gilbert once Mrs. Demogenes had departed, after paying for the meal as promised. "We go rough up this Bleakmann?"</p><p></p><p>"Nothing quite so crude, just yet," suggested the bounder. "I think I'll go in as a customer, seeing as my dear wife just departed this mortal coil. I'd like to get a feel for the layout of the mortuary, if possible."</p><p></p><p>"Mebbe we should go talk to the clerics of Pelor," suggested Ingebold. "There's always the possibility that the old widow's simply jumpin' to conclusions. I'd hate t'be accusing this Bleakmann of wrong-doing if he's done nothing wrong."</p><p></p><p>"I agree," submitted Finoula. "Let's go find this Church of Pelor."</p><p></p><p>The clerics of Pelor's church were an agreeable lot, but they were all past their prime and didn't have a lot of input to offer. They admitted that they didn't have a guard on duty watching the graveyard behind the church where Harold Demogenes had been buried last week - but why would they, when they'd never had any such problems before? And they were all too willing to admit that they weren't in a position to oversee the graveyard at night, for they revered the Sun God and all went to bed early so they could greet the shining orb in the morning hours. They did offer to take the group to see Harold's grave, and they admitted that yes, it did look like it may have been disturbed recently, but they adamantly refused to allow the heroes to dig up the grave to see if Mr. Demogenes was indeed still buried there. It took hunting down Mrs. Demogenes to have her give the clerics her express permission to have her husband's grave dug back up before the Pelorian priests would agree to it.</p><p></p><p>"Why I always the one digging?" griped Gilbert as he started in with the shovel.</p><p></p><p>"Well, you're so big and strong," piped up Binkadink, standing just an inch or two over three feet tall; the wizard was almost twice his height at an inch under six feet tall. "I'd offer to do it, but it would take me forever. And you're doing such a fine job of it!"</p><p></p><p>"Why you not have your bunny over here helping me?"</p><p></p><p>"It's Obvious," smirked the gnome. "He could dig a hole, sure enough, but the dirt would be flying everywhere. He's not as precise as you are."</p><p></p><p>"You're doing a great job," added Darrien. The wizard sniffed in irritation but continued on, glancing over every now and then to see if Finoula was at all impressed with his expertise in the manly art of hole-digging. (She wasn't.) But eventually the hole was deep enough that Gilbert's shovel should have hit the top of the coffin. There was no way around it: coffin and body were both gone.</p><p></p><p>"Just my luck, I find ghoul tunnel down here," griped Gilbert. "Harold probably already a midnight snack."</p><p></p><p>"That's a horrible thought!" chided Finoula. But there were no tunnels visible in the hole Gilbert had dug, and after another half foot deeper even he agreed there was nothing further to be learned by any additional digging. The others helped haul him up out of the hole and Obvious began pushing the dirt back into the hole with his hind legs.</p><p></p><p>"Okay, what's next?" asked Darrien once the hole had been filled back in.</p><p></p><p>"I'm going to go check out Bleakmann's Mortuary," replied Castillan.</p><p></p><p>"I check out neighboring businesses," added Gilbert. "Maybe they tell us about Bleakmann."</p><p></p><p>"I'll come with ye," offered Ingebold.</p><p></p><p>"I think I'll go with Castillan," said Finoula, "only I'll hang back a little and see if Malaterminus can sense any evil around Bleakmann's place."</p><p></p><p>"Then I guess Binkadink and I can check out some of the other neighboring businesses, too," decided Darrien. The gnome nodded; he had no particular plans of his own.</p><p></p><p>The group returned to the street in front of Bleakmann's Mortuary. There were three buildings on that block: next to the mortuary was "Granny's Candies" and next to that was something called "Kendrick's Automatons." Darrien and Binkadink took a long walk around the back of the three buildings, to see if there were any back entrances they should know about. The only other door into any of the buildings besides their normal front doors was a door leading into the back of the mortuary; as it connected to a back alleyway, it seemed like a surreptitious way for the bodies of the deceased to be delivered without gathering a lot of notice.</p><p></p><p>Castillan walked directly to Bleakmann's Mortuary and stepped through the front door. On either side of the main entrance was a large display window showing a variety of caskets, from the simple pine box to a quite elaborate coffin of expensive woods, exquisitely carved in elaborate patterns. As he entered, a tall man in black rose up from his desk in an adjoining room and walked over to meet him. "May I help you?" he asked politely.</p><p></p><p>"Yes," replied Castillan. "It's my wife - she just passed away, somewhat suddenly. I was wondering if I could look at your caskets? I-- I'll need something to bury her in...." For added effect, the elven bounder made a face to give the impression he was holding back tears.</p><p></p><p>"Certainly," responded Bleakmann, taking Castillan to the display windows and showing off his wares. Castillan asked about cost and quality of workmanship, but while doing so he was also looking for signs that any of the caskets had been reused, and he also had his delicate elven senses attuned to see if he could detect any secret doors. Meanwhile, just outside, Finoula stood in the street and unsheathed Malaterminus. Not wanting to arouse suspicion, she took out a rag and started polishing the blade. "Anything?" she asked her intelligent sword.</p><p></p><p>"I do not detect the presence of evil in the mortician," replied the sword via its telepathic means. "If Bleakmann is involved in evil acts, it is not part of his normal nature to do so."</p><p></p><p>Finding no secret doors in the main passageways, Castillan turned the corner down a hall and asked, "And what's in here? Viewing chambers?"</p><p></p><p>"Yes," replied Bleakmann, showing him the two rooms set aside for such use. Neither was currently being used for a wake, so there was just a display coffin on a wheeled cart in each room. Castillan detected no secret doors in either of the rooms, but there was another door at the end of the hall that was marked for employees only. He desperately wanted to check on the other side of that door but could think of no logical reason for Bleakmann to entertain such a request without arousing suspicions. "All right, thank you for your time," said Castillan. "I need to decide a few things. I'll let you know my decision by tonight. How late are you open?"</p><p></p><p>"We generally close at six bells," replied Bleakmann, "but if you need, we can stay open later to discuss your wishes for the burial of your wife."</p><p></p><p>"Thank you, that's very kind. I'll try to be back by four bells or so." And Castillan exited the mortuary, having found nothing concrete tying Bleakmann to anything untoward. He approached Finoula and was told Malaterminus's findings. "Hopefully the others are having better luck," he said.</p><p></p><p>Next door, Gilbert, Darrien, and Ingebold were chatting up <strong>Granny Fanny</strong>, the owner and sole worker in the candy shop. As it turned out, she was friends with Coral Demogenes; the two played cards every weekend. She asked if that had been her friend arguing with Bleakmann earlier that afternoon, and upon being questioned about him, offered up that there had never been any complaints about Bleakmann's Mortuary that she could recall. The place had been there for decades; the current Bleakmann was the son of the original mortician who started the business.</p><p></p><p>"What about next door?" asked Gilbert. "Automaton sales? What that all about?"</p><p></p><p>"Well now, that's a different story altogether," admitted Granny Fanny. "They've only been open about a month or so. I don't know much about the owner or his salesmen; they tend to keep to themselves. Or at least they're not fans of candy - none of them have ever stepped foot into this shop."</p><p></p><p>"That crazy!" commiserated Gilbert. "This candy very good!" Indeed, Granny Fanny had been feeding all three of the adventurers samples of her wares during their conversation; feeling guilty otherwise, Ingebold purchased a small helping of the elderly lady's hard candies before leaving the shop with her two companions.</p><p></p><p>"I think we check out automaton shop now," suggested Gilbert, as his group met up with Finoula and Castillan. "Where that gnome?"</p><p></p><p>"He's across the street, keeping an eye on everything," replied Darrien. He waved him over and the six adventurers entered Kendrick's Automaton Sales. They were immediately accosted by two salesmen eager to sell the heroes a mechanical servant. Looking around the "showroom," the heroes could see four different automatons standing along the back walls of the room. Each looked more or less like a suit of plate mail armor, although in places where one might normally expect to see skin there was only wood. And the slits in the helmets were too thin to see any details of the faces within.</p><p></p><p>"Good afternoon," beamed one of the salesmen, a thin man in spotless white robes. "Can I interest you in the purchase of an automaton?"</p><p></p><p>"We just looking for now," replied Gilbert. "What all they do?"</p><p></p><p>"Why, anything you tell them to do!" replied the salesman eagerly. "Take him to your orchards and he'll pick apples tirelessly all day and night! Take him to your farm and he'll dig up the soil so it's ready for planting! Send him to the well with an empty barrel and he'll bring it back full to the brim!"</p><p></p><p>"Can they be used to kill?" asked Darrien.</p><p></p><p>"Why certainly, if told to do so!" admitted the salesman in white, eager to agree with a potential buyer. However, the other salesman, a larger man in black robes, was quick to point out, "Kendrick's is not responsible for the deaths of anyone killed with one of our automatons. It's no different than selling a sword; what you do with your automaton once you purchase it is your business, not ours."</p><p></p><p>"But yes, an automaton makes for a wonderful defender!" exclaimed the salesman in white, a much more eager individual. "He'll protect your home 24 hours a day if needs be, and he never complains! Never needs sleep! Never asks for payment for his work! Why, an automaton pays for itself in no time!"</p><p></p><p>"Just how much is an automaton?" asked Finoula, taking Malaterminus out of his scabbard again and wiping him down with a cloth, as if this were normal behavior inside a place of commerce. She pointed her blade at the nearest one. "Say, this one?"</p><p></p><p>"Two thousand gold pieces," the salesman in white answered Finoula's spoken question. In the meantime, Malaterminus was reporting to his mistress that while he was not detecting evil from the automatons, the signal he was getting seemed "muffled" somehow. "I believe there are auras of evil emanating from the constructs, but being hidden," he said over the telepathic bond he shared with Finoula. "There are spells capable of such things."</p><p></p><p>"Two thousand?" cried Castillan in a shocked voice. Apparently the thought of willingly parting with that much money caused him actual pain.</p><p></p><p>"Yes, I know, it seems like a lot of money at first," replied the salesman in black. "But as my associate has pointed out, it will pay for itself in no time at all. Just think of how much work you can get out of a device that never tires, never complains about boring duties, and never needs sleep. You'd have to pay three people to do what it can do all by itself, and those salaries add up quickly."</p><p></p><p>"I think I confer with my associates," said Gilbert. "We decide if we want to buy one."</p><p></p><p>"Very well," replied both salesmen, stepping away to let them talk among themselves but obviously eager to pounce back in at any moment to make the sale.</p><p></p><p>"What do you think?" asked Finoula. "Malaterminus thinks the automatons have evil auras being magically suppressed."</p><p></p><p>"I think I'd like to open up one of those helmets and see what's inside," remarked Darrien.</p><p></p><p>"I don't think you like what you see if you do," replied Gilbert.</p><p></p><p>"Why? What do you think is inside?" asked Finoula.</p><p></p><p>"I not surprised if we pop open helmet, say hello to Mr. Demogenes inside."</p><p></p><p>"You're kidding!" exclaimed Castillan in a voice a little too loud for Gilbert's liking. "Dead bodies being sold as automatons?"</p><p></p><p>"You shut noisy elf mouth!" hissed Gilbert. "We not want salesmen alerted to suspicions."</p><p></p><p>"But how can we find out for sure?" asked Binkadink. "Do we buy one, so we can pry it apart and see what's inside?"</p><p></p><p>"Did you hear the part about <em>two thousand gold pieces</em>?" demanded Castillan.</p><p></p><p>"I have better idea. Follow me," commanded Gilbert, heading over to the nearest automaton. Seeing this, both the salesmen approached the group, sensing an eagerness to purchase one of their expensive wares. But before either could get a word out, arcane syllables began spilling out of Gilbert's mouth. "You!" he commanded, pointing to an automaton. "You come here!" The automaton, which had remained motionless during the entire time the adventurers had been inside the building, took a few shambling steps forward, to stand as directed in front of Gilbert. "Open up helmet!" he commanded, and the automaton made a move as if to comply, but with no luck - the helmet was secured in place with no way to open it.</p><p></p><p>"This is most unusual!" declared the salesman in black, turning to the salesman in white in anger. "Did you give them the command word? We're not supposed to give them the command word until after the sale has been completed!"</p><p></p><p>"But I didn't--" began the salesman in white.</p><p></p><p>"ENOUGH!" shouted Gilbert, instantly silencing the two salesmen. "Nobody give me command word. I cast spell. I cast <em>command undead</em> spell! Now then, would either of you two imbeciles like to explain to me why a <em>command undead</em> spell caused what you're claiming is strictly an arcane construct to obey my orders? WELL?" The salesmen looked at each other in shock; neither seemed to have noticed that Gilbert Fung's speech mannerisms had altered significantly during the course of his diatribe, merely that his face radiated a dark fury and they suddenly felt a concern for their own safety.</p><p></p><p>"But, we didn't--" began one salesman.</p><p></p><p>"<strong>Kendrick</strong> assured us--" began the other.</p><p></p><p>"What's going on here?" demanded Kendrick, stepping out of his office at the commotion. He looked at the frightened salesmen, then at the furious Gilbert Fung and his quintet of career adventurers, and his mind held room for only one thought. Giving it voice, he called out: "Automatons! Kill everyone in this room!" before grabbing up his two salesmen by the collars of their robes and dragging them into his office with him.</p><p></p><p>The automatons all came to stumbling life and advanced upon the group. But Gilbert's spell was still in effect, at least on the one closest to him; he took advantage to give it a new set of orders. "Break down that door!" he commanded, pointing at the office into which Kendrick and his salesmen had dashed. Ingebold raised her holy symbol, but was spending too much of her concentration trying to line up the remaining three automatons into her area of effect, and as a result her turning attempt failed. But Binkadink sprang forth eager for battle, his glaive crashing into the armor of the nearest undead construct. Darrien shot arrows at them as well, while Malaterminus got to help Finoula carve up another one. Wrath, standing by his mistress, opted not to sink his teeth into a being made of metal, but he snarled a warning in any case. Castillan, standing closest to the door to the street, silently flipped the sign on the door from "OPEN" to "CLOSED" before joining the combat. By the time Gilbert's captive automaton had smashed his way into Kendrick's office, the other three had been destroyed; Ingebold's second turning attempt had exploded their skeletal insides to dust, causing the merged outer pieces of plate mail armor to crash to the floor in a clattering cacophony.</p><p></p><p>The adventurers poured into the cramped office area, where Kendrick and his two associates cowered in fear. Finoula pointed her sword directly at Kendrick and asked "Well?" Kendrick sputtered in fear and outrage, but the question hadn't been directed his way. Telepathically, Malaterminus answered: "The two underlings are not evil. Neither is Kendrick yet, for that matter, but he's close - I'd say he's headed that way, on the fast track as it were." Finoula relayed the information to the others.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert grabbed up Kendrick by his collar and pulled him close. "I should kill you right now," he snarled. Ingebold opened her mouth to intervene, but then he continued, "But I won't. But have no fear, you're going to pay for your sins, Kendrick. And you!" he said, focusing on the other two salesmen, "How stupid do you have to be to not realize what you're mixed up in like this? I'd be willing to believe you were both willfully ignorant, looking only at the two thousand pieces of gold with each sale." He had the automaton force all three into a side room - where a salesman could have the buyer sign the necessary paperwork, pay over the cost of the automaton, and have the command words transferred over in private - after Castillan had determined there were no secret exits from the room. He then tied up Kendrick with the sash of the salesman's own robes, stuffed a rag in his mouth, and told the other two they'd be dead meat if they helped Kendrick escape in any way. The wizard then stationed the automaton just outside the door with orders to kill the first person to open the door.</p><p></p><p>In the meantime, Binkadink, Castillan, Darrien, and Finoula had crossed the showroom and opened the door in the far corner, which led downstairs into darkness. "You think it's safe to leave them up there with Gilbert?" asked Binkadink.</p><p></p><p>"Ingebold's up there with him," pointed out Finoula. "She won't let him kill them."</p><p></p><p>"So...what's his deal?" asked Castillan, voicing the question they'd all been thinking. "He no talk like this no more. Now he's Mister Eloquent, all of a sudden, with a heavy dose of indignation and intimidation."</p><p></p><p>"I guess he really hates undead," offered up Darrien.</p><p></p><p>"Yeah, but the way he's speaking now? Was he just faking it all this time before?" But nobody answered Castillan's question, for they had by then made it down the stairs and discovered a large basement room, where two partially-assembled automatons stood motionless in the dim light of a few candles. One had armor on its head, torso, and legs, with only its skeletal arms showing it for what it truly was. The other had its skull still bare but was otherwise covered in plate mail armor. Between the two stood a pale-skinned necromancer, strapping on carved pieces of wood onto the first skeleton's right arm, so it wouldn't rattle around once its plate armor was grafted on. So engrossed was he in his work, <strong>Moonghost</strong> had failed to notice the adventurers' conversation as they descended the stairs from above.</p><p></p><p>Little Binkadink was the first to strike, cutting the necromancer deep with his glaive. Moonghost cried out in pain and crawled off to the corner, commanding the partially-disguised undead to slay the intruders. Darrien managed to place an arrow inside the eye socket of the helmetless automaton with a well-placed shot but it had no discernable effect, which was in and of itself rather creepy. Finoula and Wrath rushed forward, the ranger taking on an automaton while her wolf went after the much softer skin of the necromancer. "Get over here, you idiots!" Moonghost cried while the timber wolf chomped down on his left calf.</p><p></p><p>"Reinforcements!" called Castillan, running over to the doorway across the room from where he could hear the rush of what sounded like several sets of bare feet on the stone floor. The room beyond had no illumination at all, so it was only once the half dozen ghouls approached the assembly room, lit by a pair of Moonghost's candles and Castillan and Binkadink's twin sunrods, that the bounder saw what he was up against. He had time to snap his fingers on both hands, swapping out his short sword for his bow, and still have time to send an arrow straight through the neck of the closest ghoul before they swarmed the doorway. By this time Binkadink had made short work of both partially-finished automatons, and Finoula stabbed Malaterminus through the necromancer's bare chest, ending his life as well. Darrien and Castillan switched back to their swords and covered the doorway between the two rooms, keeping the ghouls at bay. Behind them, they could hear Ingebold and Gilbert coming down the stairs to join up with the rest of the group.</p><p></p><p>Three of the ghouls having been slain, Castillan bounded into the farther room and backed himself into a corner, drawing two of the remaining over by him and thinning out the herd a bit. This allowed Darrien and Finoula to cover those scrambling back to the doorway. And coming up as a sort of backup force was a strange sight: an animated skeleton with strips of muscle, skin, organs, and fat hanging off of it. Noticing the bloodstains around the ghouls they were fighting, Finoula felt the gorge rising in her throat as she realized the ghouls had likely been in the process of eating all of the fleshy material off of an animated zombie when she and the rest of the group had arrived downstairs and battled the necromancer. It made sense: animate a corpse, strip it of flesh until it was only skeletal so it wouldn't give off an odor of decay, cover it in armor, and sell it to an unwitting dupe as a magical construct. Disgusted by the notion, she stepped through the doorway and met the nearest ghoul with a powerful strike downwards that cut through its shoulder and halfway through its torso. She had to kick it in the chest to free her longsword, but the ghoul fell backwards and did not get back up.</p><p></p><p>The remaining ghouls and skeletal zombie were quickly dispatched, and then the group made a quick sweep of the rest of the basement level. They discovered a small collection of gems, which, judging by the finished automatons upstairs, would have been inscribed with arcane markings and mounted on the helmets to act as a sort of control point - probably allowing the "command words" to control the automatons to be changed once they were sold to a new owner. Castillan snatched them up, noting their likely value. Looking around, the group found Moonghost's simple quarters, a reanimation chamber where the recently slain were brought back to a lifeless animation, and two sets of stairs, one leading up and one leading further down. Darrien scouted down the lower stairs and reported back that they led to a series of ghoul warrens - fortunately empty, as the adventurers had slain them all upstairs - and a winding tunnel that the ranger surmised likely led to a hidden exit near the church of Pelor's cemetery. The fact that a dirt-stained coffin stood against the wall near the lower stairs gave further evidence that this was all part of a matter of course for the folks behind this fake automaton scheme.</p><p></p><p>"I'll bet one of those armor suits really Mr. Demogenes," said Gilbert.</p><p></p><p>"Oh, you're back to talking that way again, are you?" asked Castillan.</p><p></p><p>"It's more or less a habit by now," admitted Gilbert, smiling. "Yes, I'm perfectly fluent in the common tongue of this region, but I've found that when I talk like this, people think I stupid, no think I be much threat." He shrugged. "I take any advantage I get."</p><p></p><p>By common consensus, the group decided to take the stairs going back up to the street level. Deciding the distance between that stairwell and the one they had taken downstairs from the automaton shop likely put them underneath Bleakmann's Mortuary, Binkadink halted the group on the stairwell. "Hang on one minute," he advised. Returning back to the nearest slain ghoul, he used his glaive to chop off its head, then returned to the group holding his grisly trophy by the hair. "Let's go," he said, smiling a grim smile.</p><p></p><p>Castillan led the way, and sure enough he found himself in the back part of Bleakmann's Mortuary. He saw an actual morgue but headed straight for the public area of the building, turning the corner and heading for Bleakmann's office. The mortician rose from his chair when he recognized Castillan, eager for more business but puzzled because he hadn't heard the door to the front street open. "Have you come to a decision?" he asked pleasantly.</p><p></p><p>"Yes," replied the elven bounder. "I've decided to shut down your nasty little scheme."</p><p></p><p>"My nasty--?" started Bleakmann, beginning to profess his innocence of whatever Castillan thought he was up to, but then Binkadink entered the office and dropped the severed ghoul head directly onto his desk. The blood drained from Bleakmann's face, and he crumpled instantly. "It was all the necromancer's idea," he offered up. "He came to me. I wasn't going to go along with it, but when you think about it, nobody's really using the bones anymore, so there's really no harm being done to anyone's loved ones...."</p><p></p><p>Gilbert Fung had several spells prepared, ready to be cast with but a few arcane syllables, a gesture or two, and possibly an item from his pouch of material components. But he surprised even himself when his instinctive reaction to Bleakmann's excuses wasn't to cast a spell, combat or otherwise, but to curl his right hand into a fist and send it smashing directly into Bleakmann's face. He felt the surprisingly pleasant sensation of blood from the mortician's nose spill over onto his knuckles, and glared his best glare as Bleakmann staggered backwards to crash in a heap at the back of his office. He bent over the thin man, his own stout figure towering above the frightened mortician. "You NEVER desecrate the bones of anyone's ancestors!" he snarled. "You got greedy, you got stupid - now you're going to get what's coming to you!" He gestured and Castillan and Darrien grabbed Bleakmann up by his arms, frog-walking him out the front door. They went straight from Bleakmann's Mortuary to Kendrick's Automaton Sales, to pick up the three salesmen.</p><p></p><p>"Wh-what are you going to do to us?" asked Kendrick,</p><p></p><p>"We not do anything to you but turn you over to constables," replied Gilbert, falling back to his sing-song pidgin version of the common tongue. "But we show them what you up to, what you do to dead bodies...and then I think we stick around for the hanging."</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>And Gilbert turned out to be correct in that regard. We didn't role-play this part, but Kendrick and Bleakmann both got the noose; the salesmen in the black and white robes truly had no idea that the automatons were anything but what they had been told they were - magical constructs - and were thus allowed to go free, on the condition that they left Garonis immediately and never came back.</p><p></p><p>Also not mentioned in my write-up is the part where the group returned to Kendrick's to check out the secret door Castillan sensed in Kendrick's office - which, sure enough, was a hidden vault where he stored the cash he made from his sales. He had only sold a small handful thus far, but the adventurers were more than happy to relieve his vault of the coins. They left the tracking down of the few automatons that had been sold thus far for the Garonis officials.</p><p></p><p>Dan, who runs Gilbert, is a big fan of passing notes to the DM during play. One of his earliest notes he sent me was an explanation that Gilbert is perfectly fluent in Common, but prefers to play the fool to allow others to underestimate him. (Granted, this might have been in response to Vicki, his wife, asking him in exasperation during our second or third game session, "Gah! Are you going to talk like that during the entire campaign?") He also passed me a note during this game session that Gilbert has an undying hatred of undead, in part because his stepfather is a life-focused druid and his mother has taught him to have a deep respect for one's ancestors. I suspect this had not originally been part of his background, but was rather a good, in-game reason for him to drop the Short Round accent. However, whether he continues to talk in a normal voice around the other PCs or keeps up with the pidgin Common remains to be seen. Personally, while it was very jarring at first, I've become used to it and now it's so associated with Gilbert Fung in my mind that it seems really weird for Gilbert to be talking normally. And the other players, who didn't have the benefit of reading notes passed to the DM, had no idea that Gilbert was as fluent in their shared language as they all were. I actually like that, when a player's PC has a secret that gets revealed during the course of play.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>T-Shirt "Worn": An Iron Man 2 T-shirt since the automatons, like the Iron Man and War Machine suits of armor on the shirt, moved around because there was someone inside of them. Since this was the second adventure in the same game session, I actually was still wearing the Yellow Submarine T-shirt I had worn when we ran through "A Boring Little Adventure" and only remembered my Iron Man 2 T-shirt was in my bag about halfway through this adventure. Instead of going into the bathroom to switch shirts (as I would normally do under these circumstances), I just briefed everyone on my T-shirt choice for the adventure and pressed on wearing the Beatles shirt.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6778827, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 10: LAST RITES AND WRONGS[/b] Game Session Date: 28 November 2015 - - - Heading back south the way they had been before, the timing synced up just right for the Kordovian adventurers to be hired on as caravan guards for the Baranford-to-Garonis route. The pay was less than when the route between the two cities had been plagued with bandit attacks, but it was an easy 20 pieces of gold each for an uneventful three-day security detail. Once the wagon train had made it successfully to Garonis and the cargo unloaded to Grant Huntley's warehouse, the adventurers picked up their pay and immediately went shopping. They were getting low on potions - or at least potions that they weren't afraid to drink; Darrien still had his "Winkidew's special" potion of [i]cure light wounds[/i] that experience from others of the same batch indicated was likely to be as easy to swallow as frog puke. Darrien happily plunked down a bag of coins at a small potion shop in Garonis, receiving in exchange a few healing potions made by alchemists who [i]didn't[/i] take shortcuts like Binkadink's uncle did. After the individual purchases had all been made and the group reassembled, they were discussing whether to continue on further south or stay the night in town. Ingebold was all for pressing on; while she'd be loathe to admit it, she seemed to have been bitten by the adventuring bug and was eager to see what other riches they might be able to procure for their little kingdom. Castillan, on the other hand, was arguing vociferously for an evening's stay at a decent inn, preferably one where he could get in some gaming with the locals and put his card-playing skills to good use, likely doubling his earnings if history was an indicator. The discussion was cut short, however, by a commotion across the street from where the group's mule-driven wagon sat. "It's a scam, I tell you!" insisted an elderly woman being forcibly escorted from an establishment across the street. The sign above the door read "Bleakmann's Mortuary." "I believe you're just distraught," insisted the black-clad man towering over her. "We at Bleakmann's disavow any knowledge of the incident in question. Once we've done our part, any such...incidents are entirely out of our hands." He pushed her into the street, away from his door. "Now then, any further outrageous accusations from you and I'll be forced to call the constable. Unless you’d prefer to spent the evening in jail...? No? Then good day to you, madam." The black-clad man then turned on his heels and returned to the mortuary, leaving the old lady fuming in the street. Then she saw the group watching the incident and her face lit up. She hurriedly crossed the street towards the group, a look of fierce determination on her face. "Good afternoon!" she said, offering a gloved hand to Castillan, who had stepped forward as the most charismatic of the group. "My name is [b]Coral Demogenes[/b]. Have you eaten? I would love to take to a nearby café - my treat - and make you a business proposition." Castillan made the introductions and said, with his most charming smile, they would love to listen to what she had to say. After sitting down at the café and ordering their food, Mrs. Demogenes started her tale. "My dear [b]Harold[/b], he passed away last week," she began. "I had [b]Bleakmann[/b] handle the burial, in the graveyard at the back of Pelor's Church. All seemed to go well, but I went to lay flowers on his grave this morning and I found signs that it'd been disturbed. It looked to me as if the coffin had been dug up and the hole filled back in, and sure enough, there's a coffin what looks just like the one I had poor Harold buried in, right there in the showcase at Bleakmann's! I dunno what his game is – maybe it's just as simple as selling the same coffin to poor widows like myself – but I don't like the thought of being swindled or lied to, and I certainly don't like the idea of poor Harold's remains just being dumped back into the cold ground without his coffin, if that's what they’re up to.... "So here's what I'd like to have happen," she continued, reaching into her purse and pulling out a small pouch of gold coins. "I want to hire you to look into things for me. You can't confront Bleakmann directly, he'll send the constable on you for sure, and what with you being strangers and all, I'm sure he'd be likely to take Bleakmann's side – but maybe there are other ways you could check into what he’s up to – for my sake, and for poor Harold's. I can pay you for your trouble - here are 50 gold pieces just for looking into this matter for me, with another 450 if you can prove that Bleakmann's up to no good." She looked up at Castillan. "What do you say?" she asked. "Mrs. Demogenes, have no fear," assured the elven bounder, placing one hand upon the widow's and the other on her purse containing the down-payment. "We would be more than happy to look into this matter for you." And then their lunch arrived and no more was said on the subject. "So how you want to deal with this?" asked Gilbert once Mrs. Demogenes had departed, after paying for the meal as promised. "We go rough up this Bleakmann?" "Nothing quite so crude, just yet," suggested the bounder. "I think I'll go in as a customer, seeing as my dear wife just departed this mortal coil. I'd like to get a feel for the layout of the mortuary, if possible." "Mebbe we should go talk to the clerics of Pelor," suggested Ingebold. "There's always the possibility that the old widow's simply jumpin' to conclusions. I'd hate t'be accusing this Bleakmann of wrong-doing if he's done nothing wrong." "I agree," submitted Finoula. "Let's go find this Church of Pelor." The clerics of Pelor's church were an agreeable lot, but they were all past their prime and didn't have a lot of input to offer. They admitted that they didn't have a guard on duty watching the graveyard behind the church where Harold Demogenes had been buried last week - but why would they, when they'd never had any such problems before? And they were all too willing to admit that they weren't in a position to oversee the graveyard at night, for they revered the Sun God and all went to bed early so they could greet the shining orb in the morning hours. They did offer to take the group to see Harold's grave, and they admitted that yes, it did look like it may have been disturbed recently, but they adamantly refused to allow the heroes to dig up the grave to see if Mr. Demogenes was indeed still buried there. It took hunting down Mrs. Demogenes to have her give the clerics her express permission to have her husband's grave dug back up before the Pelorian priests would agree to it. "Why I always the one digging?" griped Gilbert as he started in with the shovel. "Well, you're so big and strong," piped up Binkadink, standing just an inch or two over three feet tall; the wizard was almost twice his height at an inch under six feet tall. "I'd offer to do it, but it would take me forever. And you're doing such a fine job of it!" "Why you not have your bunny over here helping me?" "It's Obvious," smirked the gnome. "He could dig a hole, sure enough, but the dirt would be flying everywhere. He's not as precise as you are." "You're doing a great job," added Darrien. The wizard sniffed in irritation but continued on, glancing over every now and then to see if Finoula was at all impressed with his expertise in the manly art of hole-digging. (She wasn't.) But eventually the hole was deep enough that Gilbert's shovel should have hit the top of the coffin. There was no way around it: coffin and body were both gone. "Just my luck, I find ghoul tunnel down here," griped Gilbert. "Harold probably already a midnight snack." "That's a horrible thought!" chided Finoula. But there were no tunnels visible in the hole Gilbert had dug, and after another half foot deeper even he agreed there was nothing further to be learned by any additional digging. The others helped haul him up out of the hole and Obvious began pushing the dirt back into the hole with his hind legs. "Okay, what's next?" asked Darrien once the hole had been filled back in. "I'm going to go check out Bleakmann's Mortuary," replied Castillan. "I check out neighboring businesses," added Gilbert. "Maybe they tell us about Bleakmann." "I'll come with ye," offered Ingebold. "I think I'll go with Castillan," said Finoula, "only I'll hang back a little and see if Malaterminus can sense any evil around Bleakmann's place." "Then I guess Binkadink and I can check out some of the other neighboring businesses, too," decided Darrien. The gnome nodded; he had no particular plans of his own. The group returned to the street in front of Bleakmann's Mortuary. There were three buildings on that block: next to the mortuary was "Granny's Candies" and next to that was something called "Kendrick's Automatons." Darrien and Binkadink took a long walk around the back of the three buildings, to see if there were any back entrances they should know about. The only other door into any of the buildings besides their normal front doors was a door leading into the back of the mortuary; as it connected to a back alleyway, it seemed like a surreptitious way for the bodies of the deceased to be delivered without gathering a lot of notice. Castillan walked directly to Bleakmann's Mortuary and stepped through the front door. On either side of the main entrance was a large display window showing a variety of caskets, from the simple pine box to a quite elaborate coffin of expensive woods, exquisitely carved in elaborate patterns. As he entered, a tall man in black rose up from his desk in an adjoining room and walked over to meet him. "May I help you?" he asked politely. "Yes," replied Castillan. "It's my wife - she just passed away, somewhat suddenly. I was wondering if I could look at your caskets? I-- I'll need something to bury her in...." For added effect, the elven bounder made a face to give the impression he was holding back tears. "Certainly," responded Bleakmann, taking Castillan to the display windows and showing off his wares. Castillan asked about cost and quality of workmanship, but while doing so he was also looking for signs that any of the caskets had been reused, and he also had his delicate elven senses attuned to see if he could detect any secret doors. Meanwhile, just outside, Finoula stood in the street and unsheathed Malaterminus. Not wanting to arouse suspicion, she took out a rag and started polishing the blade. "Anything?" she asked her intelligent sword. "I do not detect the presence of evil in the mortician," replied the sword via its telepathic means. "If Bleakmann is involved in evil acts, it is not part of his normal nature to do so." Finding no secret doors in the main passageways, Castillan turned the corner down a hall and asked, "And what's in here? Viewing chambers?" "Yes," replied Bleakmann, showing him the two rooms set aside for such use. Neither was currently being used for a wake, so there was just a display coffin on a wheeled cart in each room. Castillan detected no secret doors in either of the rooms, but there was another door at the end of the hall that was marked for employees only. He desperately wanted to check on the other side of that door but could think of no logical reason for Bleakmann to entertain such a request without arousing suspicions. "All right, thank you for your time," said Castillan. "I need to decide a few things. I'll let you know my decision by tonight. How late are you open?" "We generally close at six bells," replied Bleakmann, "but if you need, we can stay open later to discuss your wishes for the burial of your wife." "Thank you, that's very kind. I'll try to be back by four bells or so." And Castillan exited the mortuary, having found nothing concrete tying Bleakmann to anything untoward. He approached Finoula and was told Malaterminus's findings. "Hopefully the others are having better luck," he said. Next door, Gilbert, Darrien, and Ingebold were chatting up [b]Granny Fanny[/b], the owner and sole worker in the candy shop. As it turned out, she was friends with Coral Demogenes; the two played cards every weekend. She asked if that had been her friend arguing with Bleakmann earlier that afternoon, and upon being questioned about him, offered up that there had never been any complaints about Bleakmann's Mortuary that she could recall. The place had been there for decades; the current Bleakmann was the son of the original mortician who started the business. "What about next door?" asked Gilbert. "Automaton sales? What that all about?" "Well now, that's a different story altogether," admitted Granny Fanny. "They've only been open about a month or so. I don't know much about the owner or his salesmen; they tend to keep to themselves. Or at least they're not fans of candy - none of them have ever stepped foot into this shop." "That crazy!" commiserated Gilbert. "This candy very good!" Indeed, Granny Fanny had been feeding all three of the adventurers samples of her wares during their conversation; feeling guilty otherwise, Ingebold purchased a small helping of the elderly lady's hard candies before leaving the shop with her two companions. "I think we check out automaton shop now," suggested Gilbert, as his group met up with Finoula and Castillan. "Where that gnome?" "He's across the street, keeping an eye on everything," replied Darrien. He waved him over and the six adventurers entered Kendrick's Automaton Sales. They were immediately accosted by two salesmen eager to sell the heroes a mechanical servant. Looking around the "showroom," the heroes could see four different automatons standing along the back walls of the room. Each looked more or less like a suit of plate mail armor, although in places where one might normally expect to see skin there was only wood. And the slits in the helmets were too thin to see any details of the faces within. "Good afternoon," beamed one of the salesmen, a thin man in spotless white robes. "Can I interest you in the purchase of an automaton?" "We just looking for now," replied Gilbert. "What all they do?" "Why, anything you tell them to do!" replied the salesman eagerly. "Take him to your orchards and he'll pick apples tirelessly all day and night! Take him to your farm and he'll dig up the soil so it's ready for planting! Send him to the well with an empty barrel and he'll bring it back full to the brim!" "Can they be used to kill?" asked Darrien. "Why certainly, if told to do so!" admitted the salesman in white, eager to agree with a potential buyer. However, the other salesman, a larger man in black robes, was quick to point out, "Kendrick's is not responsible for the deaths of anyone killed with one of our automatons. It's no different than selling a sword; what you do with your automaton once you purchase it is your business, not ours." "But yes, an automaton makes for a wonderful defender!" exclaimed the salesman in white, a much more eager individual. "He'll protect your home 24 hours a day if needs be, and he never complains! Never needs sleep! Never asks for payment for his work! Why, an automaton pays for itself in no time!" "Just how much is an automaton?" asked Finoula, taking Malaterminus out of his scabbard again and wiping him down with a cloth, as if this were normal behavior inside a place of commerce. She pointed her blade at the nearest one. "Say, this one?" "Two thousand gold pieces," the salesman in white answered Finoula's spoken question. In the meantime, Malaterminus was reporting to his mistress that while he was not detecting evil from the automatons, the signal he was getting seemed "muffled" somehow. "I believe there are auras of evil emanating from the constructs, but being hidden," he said over the telepathic bond he shared with Finoula. "There are spells capable of such things." "Two thousand?" cried Castillan in a shocked voice. Apparently the thought of willingly parting with that much money caused him actual pain. "Yes, I know, it seems like a lot of money at first," replied the salesman in black. "But as my associate has pointed out, it will pay for itself in no time at all. Just think of how much work you can get out of a device that never tires, never complains about boring duties, and never needs sleep. You'd have to pay three people to do what it can do all by itself, and those salaries add up quickly." "I think I confer with my associates," said Gilbert. "We decide if we want to buy one." "Very well," replied both salesmen, stepping away to let them talk among themselves but obviously eager to pounce back in at any moment to make the sale. "What do you think?" asked Finoula. "Malaterminus thinks the automatons have evil auras being magically suppressed." "I think I'd like to open up one of those helmets and see what's inside," remarked Darrien. "I don't think you like what you see if you do," replied Gilbert. "Why? What do you think is inside?" asked Finoula. "I not surprised if we pop open helmet, say hello to Mr. Demogenes inside." "You're kidding!" exclaimed Castillan in a voice a little too loud for Gilbert's liking. "Dead bodies being sold as automatons?" "You shut noisy elf mouth!" hissed Gilbert. "We not want salesmen alerted to suspicions." "But how can we find out for sure?" asked Binkadink. "Do we buy one, so we can pry it apart and see what's inside?" "Did you hear the part about [i]two thousand gold pieces[/i]?" demanded Castillan. "I have better idea. Follow me," commanded Gilbert, heading over to the nearest automaton. Seeing this, both the salesmen approached the group, sensing an eagerness to purchase one of their expensive wares. But before either could get a word out, arcane syllables began spilling out of Gilbert's mouth. "You!" he commanded, pointing to an automaton. "You come here!" The automaton, which had remained motionless during the entire time the adventurers had been inside the building, took a few shambling steps forward, to stand as directed in front of Gilbert. "Open up helmet!" he commanded, and the automaton made a move as if to comply, but with no luck - the helmet was secured in place with no way to open it. "This is most unusual!" declared the salesman in black, turning to the salesman in white in anger. "Did you give them the command word? We're not supposed to give them the command word until after the sale has been completed!" "But I didn't--" began the salesman in white. "ENOUGH!" shouted Gilbert, instantly silencing the two salesmen. "Nobody give me command word. I cast spell. I cast [i]command undead[/i] spell! Now then, would either of you two imbeciles like to explain to me why a [i]command undead[/i] spell caused what you're claiming is strictly an arcane construct to obey my orders? WELL?" The salesmen looked at each other in shock; neither seemed to have noticed that Gilbert Fung's speech mannerisms had altered significantly during the course of his diatribe, merely that his face radiated a dark fury and they suddenly felt a concern for their own safety. "But, we didn't--" began one salesman. "[b]Kendrick[/b] assured us--" began the other. "What's going on here?" demanded Kendrick, stepping out of his office at the commotion. He looked at the frightened salesmen, then at the furious Gilbert Fung and his quintet of career adventurers, and his mind held room for only one thought. Giving it voice, he called out: "Automatons! Kill everyone in this room!" before grabbing up his two salesmen by the collars of their robes and dragging them into his office with him. The automatons all came to stumbling life and advanced upon the group. But Gilbert's spell was still in effect, at least on the one closest to him; he took advantage to give it a new set of orders. "Break down that door!" he commanded, pointing at the office into which Kendrick and his salesmen had dashed. Ingebold raised her holy symbol, but was spending too much of her concentration trying to line up the remaining three automatons into her area of effect, and as a result her turning attempt failed. But Binkadink sprang forth eager for battle, his glaive crashing into the armor of the nearest undead construct. Darrien shot arrows at them as well, while Malaterminus got to help Finoula carve up another one. Wrath, standing by his mistress, opted not to sink his teeth into a being made of metal, but he snarled a warning in any case. Castillan, standing closest to the door to the street, silently flipped the sign on the door from "OPEN" to "CLOSED" before joining the combat. By the time Gilbert's captive automaton had smashed his way into Kendrick's office, the other three had been destroyed; Ingebold's second turning attempt had exploded their skeletal insides to dust, causing the merged outer pieces of plate mail armor to crash to the floor in a clattering cacophony. The adventurers poured into the cramped office area, where Kendrick and his two associates cowered in fear. Finoula pointed her sword directly at Kendrick and asked "Well?" Kendrick sputtered in fear and outrage, but the question hadn't been directed his way. Telepathically, Malaterminus answered: "The two underlings are not evil. Neither is Kendrick yet, for that matter, but he's close - I'd say he's headed that way, on the fast track as it were." Finoula relayed the information to the others. Gilbert grabbed up Kendrick by his collar and pulled him close. "I should kill you right now," he snarled. Ingebold opened her mouth to intervene, but then he continued, "But I won't. But have no fear, you're going to pay for your sins, Kendrick. And you!" he said, focusing on the other two salesmen, "How stupid do you have to be to not realize what you're mixed up in like this? I'd be willing to believe you were both willfully ignorant, looking only at the two thousand pieces of gold with each sale." He had the automaton force all three into a side room - where a salesman could have the buyer sign the necessary paperwork, pay over the cost of the automaton, and have the command words transferred over in private - after Castillan had determined there were no secret exits from the room. He then tied up Kendrick with the sash of the salesman's own robes, stuffed a rag in his mouth, and told the other two they'd be dead meat if they helped Kendrick escape in any way. The wizard then stationed the automaton just outside the door with orders to kill the first person to open the door. In the meantime, Binkadink, Castillan, Darrien, and Finoula had crossed the showroom and opened the door in the far corner, which led downstairs into darkness. "You think it's safe to leave them up there with Gilbert?" asked Binkadink. "Ingebold's up there with him," pointed out Finoula. "She won't let him kill them." "So...what's his deal?" asked Castillan, voicing the question they'd all been thinking. "He no talk like this no more. Now he's Mister Eloquent, all of a sudden, with a heavy dose of indignation and intimidation." "I guess he really hates undead," offered up Darrien. "Yeah, but the way he's speaking now? Was he just faking it all this time before?" But nobody answered Castillan's question, for they had by then made it down the stairs and discovered a large basement room, where two partially-assembled automatons stood motionless in the dim light of a few candles. One had armor on its head, torso, and legs, with only its skeletal arms showing it for what it truly was. The other had its skull still bare but was otherwise covered in plate mail armor. Between the two stood a pale-skinned necromancer, strapping on carved pieces of wood onto the first skeleton's right arm, so it wouldn't rattle around once its plate armor was grafted on. So engrossed was he in his work, [b]Moonghost[/b] had failed to notice the adventurers' conversation as they descended the stairs from above. Little Binkadink was the first to strike, cutting the necromancer deep with his glaive. Moonghost cried out in pain and crawled off to the corner, commanding the partially-disguised undead to slay the intruders. Darrien managed to place an arrow inside the eye socket of the helmetless automaton with a well-placed shot but it had no discernable effect, which was in and of itself rather creepy. Finoula and Wrath rushed forward, the ranger taking on an automaton while her wolf went after the much softer skin of the necromancer. "Get over here, you idiots!" Moonghost cried while the timber wolf chomped down on his left calf. "Reinforcements!" called Castillan, running over to the doorway across the room from where he could hear the rush of what sounded like several sets of bare feet on the stone floor. The room beyond had no illumination at all, so it was only once the half dozen ghouls approached the assembly room, lit by a pair of Moonghost's candles and Castillan and Binkadink's twin sunrods, that the bounder saw what he was up against. He had time to snap his fingers on both hands, swapping out his short sword for his bow, and still have time to send an arrow straight through the neck of the closest ghoul before they swarmed the doorway. By this time Binkadink had made short work of both partially-finished automatons, and Finoula stabbed Malaterminus through the necromancer's bare chest, ending his life as well. Darrien and Castillan switched back to their swords and covered the doorway between the two rooms, keeping the ghouls at bay. Behind them, they could hear Ingebold and Gilbert coming down the stairs to join up with the rest of the group. Three of the ghouls having been slain, Castillan bounded into the farther room and backed himself into a corner, drawing two of the remaining over by him and thinning out the herd a bit. This allowed Darrien and Finoula to cover those scrambling back to the doorway. And coming up as a sort of backup force was a strange sight: an animated skeleton with strips of muscle, skin, organs, and fat hanging off of it. Noticing the bloodstains around the ghouls they were fighting, Finoula felt the gorge rising in her throat as she realized the ghouls had likely been in the process of eating all of the fleshy material off of an animated zombie when she and the rest of the group had arrived downstairs and battled the necromancer. It made sense: animate a corpse, strip it of flesh until it was only skeletal so it wouldn't give off an odor of decay, cover it in armor, and sell it to an unwitting dupe as a magical construct. Disgusted by the notion, she stepped through the doorway and met the nearest ghoul with a powerful strike downwards that cut through its shoulder and halfway through its torso. She had to kick it in the chest to free her longsword, but the ghoul fell backwards and did not get back up. The remaining ghouls and skeletal zombie were quickly dispatched, and then the group made a quick sweep of the rest of the basement level. They discovered a small collection of gems, which, judging by the finished automatons upstairs, would have been inscribed with arcane markings and mounted on the helmets to act as a sort of control point - probably allowing the "command words" to control the automatons to be changed once they were sold to a new owner. Castillan snatched them up, noting their likely value. Looking around, the group found Moonghost's simple quarters, a reanimation chamber where the recently slain were brought back to a lifeless animation, and two sets of stairs, one leading up and one leading further down. Darrien scouted down the lower stairs and reported back that they led to a series of ghoul warrens - fortunately empty, as the adventurers had slain them all upstairs - and a winding tunnel that the ranger surmised likely led to a hidden exit near the church of Pelor's cemetery. The fact that a dirt-stained coffin stood against the wall near the lower stairs gave further evidence that this was all part of a matter of course for the folks behind this fake automaton scheme. "I'll bet one of those armor suits really Mr. Demogenes," said Gilbert. "Oh, you're back to talking that way again, are you?" asked Castillan. "It's more or less a habit by now," admitted Gilbert, smiling. "Yes, I'm perfectly fluent in the common tongue of this region, but I've found that when I talk like this, people think I stupid, no think I be much threat." He shrugged. "I take any advantage I get." By common consensus, the group decided to take the stairs going back up to the street level. Deciding the distance between that stairwell and the one they had taken downstairs from the automaton shop likely put them underneath Bleakmann's Mortuary, Binkadink halted the group on the stairwell. "Hang on one minute," he advised. Returning back to the nearest slain ghoul, he used his glaive to chop off its head, then returned to the group holding his grisly trophy by the hair. "Let's go," he said, smiling a grim smile. Castillan led the way, and sure enough he found himself in the back part of Bleakmann's Mortuary. He saw an actual morgue but headed straight for the public area of the building, turning the corner and heading for Bleakmann's office. The mortician rose from his chair when he recognized Castillan, eager for more business but puzzled because he hadn't heard the door to the front street open. "Have you come to a decision?" he asked pleasantly. "Yes," replied the elven bounder. "I've decided to shut down your nasty little scheme." "My nasty--?" started Bleakmann, beginning to profess his innocence of whatever Castillan thought he was up to, but then Binkadink entered the office and dropped the severed ghoul head directly onto his desk. The blood drained from Bleakmann's face, and he crumpled instantly. "It was all the necromancer's idea," he offered up. "He came to me. I wasn't going to go along with it, but when you think about it, nobody's really using the bones anymore, so there's really no harm being done to anyone's loved ones...." Gilbert Fung had several spells prepared, ready to be cast with but a few arcane syllables, a gesture or two, and possibly an item from his pouch of material components. But he surprised even himself when his instinctive reaction to Bleakmann's excuses wasn't to cast a spell, combat or otherwise, but to curl his right hand into a fist and send it smashing directly into Bleakmann's face. He felt the surprisingly pleasant sensation of blood from the mortician's nose spill over onto his knuckles, and glared his best glare as Bleakmann staggered backwards to crash in a heap at the back of his office. He bent over the thin man, his own stout figure towering above the frightened mortician. "You NEVER desecrate the bones of anyone's ancestors!" he snarled. "You got greedy, you got stupid - now you're going to get what's coming to you!" He gestured and Castillan and Darrien grabbed Bleakmann up by his arms, frog-walking him out the front door. They went straight from Bleakmann's Mortuary to Kendrick's Automaton Sales, to pick up the three salesmen. "Wh-what are you going to do to us?" asked Kendrick, "We not do anything to you but turn you over to constables," replied Gilbert, falling back to his sing-song pidgin version of the common tongue. "But we show them what you up to, what you do to dead bodies...and then I think we stick around for the hanging." - - - And Gilbert turned out to be correct in that regard. We didn't role-play this part, but Kendrick and Bleakmann both got the noose; the salesmen in the black and white robes truly had no idea that the automatons were anything but what they had been told they were - magical constructs - and were thus allowed to go free, on the condition that they left Garonis immediately and never came back. Also not mentioned in my write-up is the part where the group returned to Kendrick's to check out the secret door Castillan sensed in Kendrick's office - which, sure enough, was a hidden vault where he stored the cash he made from his sales. He had only sold a small handful thus far, but the adventurers were more than happy to relieve his vault of the coins. They left the tracking down of the few automatons that had been sold thus far for the Garonis officials. Dan, who runs Gilbert, is a big fan of passing notes to the DM during play. One of his earliest notes he sent me was an explanation that Gilbert is perfectly fluent in Common, but prefers to play the fool to allow others to underestimate him. (Granted, this might have been in response to Vicki, his wife, asking him in exasperation during our second or third game session, "Gah! Are you going to talk like that during the entire campaign?") He also passed me a note during this game session that Gilbert has an undying hatred of undead, in part because his stepfather is a life-focused druid and his mother has taught him to have a deep respect for one's ancestors. I suspect this had not originally been part of his background, but was rather a good, in-game reason for him to drop the Short Round accent. However, whether he continues to talk in a normal voice around the other PCs or keeps up with the pidgin Common remains to be seen. Personally, while it was very jarring at first, I've become used to it and now it's so associated with Gilbert Fung in my mind that it seems really weird for Gilbert to be talking normally. And the other players, who didn't have the benefit of reading notes passed to the DM, had no idea that Gilbert was as fluent in their shared language as they all were. I actually like that, when a player's PC has a secret that gets revealed during the course of play. - - - T-Shirt "Worn": An Iron Man 2 T-shirt since the automatons, like the Iron Man and War Machine suits of armor on the shirt, moved around because there was someone inside of them. Since this was the second adventure in the same game session, I actually was still wearing the Yellow Submarine T-shirt I had worn when we ran through "A Boring Little Adventure" and only remembered my Iron Man 2 T-shirt was in my bag about halfway through this adventure. Instead of going into the bathroom to switch shirts (as I would normally do under these circumstances), I just briefed everyone on my T-shirt choice for the adventure and pressed on wearing the Beatles shirt. [/QUOTE]
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