Dr Midnight
Explorer
Session 1 - Chapter 1
SAVING ALEIGNE
SAVING ALEIGNE
Five arrows flew at them. Gerrit Applecatcher saw the one that might have hit him and smacked it with a backhand blow, snapping it in two.
The halfling and his traveling companion, an elf named Arianna, were in yet another bad situation. They were on a swaying platform that was suspended by ropes over a fifty foot drop. The catwalk to the north held a minotaur with a greataxe and three goblins with shortbows. On the catwalk to the south stood an ogre (armed with another greataxe) and two more goblins with shortbows. The platform swung slowly from ledge to ledge. As it reached the ledge, the larger creature would swing its greataxe at them. As they swung back, the goblins would fire.
Gerrit and Arianna had walked right into this trap. Neither had the skill or careful foresight of a rogue or trapfinder, so they found themselves in the middle of predicaments like this from time to time. It was no accident, though, that they still lived- both were fearsomely skilled. Gerrit was a holy monk of the order of Vennia. He had the piety of a man in the service of a goddess and the reflexes and combat training of a boxer. Arianna was an elf’s elf- deeply connected with nature at its root and able to hit a tossed apple with three arrows before it struck the ground.
They’d come today to retrieve Aleigne Foritelle, the seven year old daughter of an Ortilan blackmith. She’d been abducted by three ogres two nights past- assumedly to be sold on the dark market. Child meat was a delicacy to some monsters that could pay the price, and even to some beastly nobles from more savage lands. Aleigne would be sold for several hundred gold pieces and then be used for food- or, if she was lucky, enslaved.
The constabulary of Ortil had declined to pay the fee to have a group of mercenaries seek out the kidnapers’ lair. The reason was simple numbers- Aleigne’s family was of the working class. Her father was a simple blacksmith and what with the Five Kings’ War going on, the city couldn’t spare the coin to retrieve a poor family’s child. Had it been the magistrate’s son or a friend of the royal family it would be a different story… but as it happened it was little Aleigne.
This is where the two adventurers came in. The poor of Ortil band together in times of need, and they reached out to Arianna and Gerrit. The two of them had performed free services for the public before. Arianna was not opposed to taking some payment, but Gerrit’s willingness to put his own life in danger for the well-being of others often moved her to do the same and together the two had earned a loyal following in Ortil as the people’s group.
Arianna pulled and fired three arrows in one fluid blur. One of the arrows shattered off of a goblin’s buckler, but the other two found their marks, killing the goblins instantly.
Gerrit leaped from the platform and sailed over open space. Beneath him, the pit’s bottom could not be seen, and sharpened wooden stakes rose from the darkness. He kicked out and the remaining goblin ducked. Gerrit flipped off the wall and landed beside him, then pointed down the hallway. “Run.”
The goblin looked unfazed. “Uh… no.”
Gerrit fell into his fighting stance. “Your choice.”
Arianna, who remained on the swinging platform, had swung up within reach of the minotaur. It roared and hacked at her with its greataxe. She ducked the clumsy blow with ease, but the rope holding the northeast corner of the platform up was cut with a twang. The platform tilted and swayed just a bit as it began to swing back to the south. Arianna pulled two arrows and drilled them into the minotaur’s chest, keeping her balance all the while. The goblins on the south ledge fired on her and missed. She noted their sloppy archery techniques with distaste even as she took aim at the ogre.
The goblin beside Gerrit dropped its bow, drew its morningstar and swung. The blow whistled over Gerrit’s head and the halfling carried his motion into a spinning roundhouse kick followed by a spinning back kick. The goblin’s lifeless body bounced off of the minotaur, who began stomping towards the halfling eagerly.
The ogre took a swing at Arianna. The blade skirted along her ribcage, taking some meat with it. She’d already been struck in the opening moments of the trap, and now was feeling less confident. She took two arrows from her quiver and planted them in the ogre’s eye sockets. Dying, it fell forward and its face smashed against the platform, driving the arrows up through the back of its head. He tumbled down into the darkness, dead.
As the platform fell away to the north again, the two goblins fired. One arrow found her and she fell to the platform, barely conscious. Her blood pumped out over the swinging plane and her lungs wheezed feebly.
Gerrit somersaulted forward, under the minotaur’s swing. He lashed out with a kick to a pressure point in the monster’s knee and jumped back towards the platform, which was swinging in his direction. He had jumped nimbly but misjudged the platform’s stability and it rocked as he landed. He sprawled to the ground beside Arianna. To the north, the minotaur raised its greataxe for a triumphant killing blow on the prone halfling. Gerrit’s hand reached out and slapped Arianna’s calf, delivering a healing spell. He then rolled over, avoiding being cut in two and coming just short of rolling over the edge of the platform. The axe came down and cut along his back painfully.
Arianna, on cue, flung her legs over her head and rolled back to a kneel with an arrow already nocked and drawn. It fired up and into the minotaur, killing him.
The two adventurers stepped off the platform onto the north ledge. They looked back at the southern ledge and the two goblins there dropped their bows and ran. They’d seen enough.
Here on the northern ledge there was a wooden door, and behind it was the sound of sniffling. Gerrit opened the door on a small closet-shaped room. Aleigne was huddled into a corner and she gasped as the door opened.
“Aleigne?” Arianna said. “Are you alright?” The girl hesitated, then nodded. Her cheeks were tearstained and her arms were bruised, but aside from this, she was fine.
“Are… are they all gone?” Aleigne asked.
A sound from the southern corridor. Arianna looked back and smiled to see Jade, her animal companion, walking forward. The black leopard licked goblin blood from its paws and looked to her master.
“Yes,” Arianna answered. “They’re all dead. Let’s get you home.”
Back in Ortil, there was all due fanfare- which is to say that Aleigne’s father cried and shrieked with joy, the lower class cheered, and there would be drinks on the house at The Stag & Boar Pub.
Later that night at the pub, the ale flowed freely. Pints of lager were ladled out from an immense barrel into clay steins. The owner of the pub even tapped one of his kegs of fine dwarven spirits that crashed down the throat like a fiery battering ram.
Gerrit and Arianna sat and tried to deflect the adulation, reshape it into fellowship. It didn’t always work. The two of them were well known and loved among the workers. Sometimes it was hard to shake the compliments and back-patting.
An unkempt and jolly man clapped two more glasses on the table in front of the heroes and sat down. “Another round for the two-a yez! Say, I been thinkin’. You should have for a name.”
Arianna took a sip of her drink and looked up. “What?”
“Well, you been doin’ this so long and it’s just the pair of yez. Time to admit yer an adventurin’ party and come up with a decent name. All the good parties got names- The Order of Honor, The Shield of Brilliance, Edmund’s Regulars… “
“I don’t know, Froffin,” Gerrit said. “All the good names are taken. Do you have any ideas?”
Froffin demurred. “Um. Well. I do got one idea. It’s not great, but… I was thinkin’ like The Disciples of Virtue’s Path or somethin’. Cause you, Gerrit, you’re all religious. And you Arianna, you’re… um… an elf.”
Arianna smiled. “And elves are virtuous?”
“I dunno. I’m drunk.”
“Don’t mind him,” Hortor laughed from an adjacent table. “The way Froffin goes on, you can call yourselves the ‘Too-Polite-To-Say-Shut-Up Friends Of A Sodded Lush.”
Everyone laughed, no one more than Froffin.
The door to the tavern opened and the laughter died out. Standing in the doorway was a man no one had seen before, leastwise in the Stag & Boar. He was thin and his legs and arms were wrapped loosely in some kind of fabric. His head and torso were covered in some kind of drapery, and the hood hid his face. He looked around the room and stepped inside.
It was clear that he had the room’s attention, so he spoke. “I’m looking for one known as Arianna.” His voice was cool and surprisingly human- a dark hooded man in a tavern at night was expected to have a burbled rasp or crushed ice sort of speech.
Arianna raised her hand. “I’m here.”
The man stepped towards her with his arms held slightly spread from his sides. Arianna’s keen eyes saw inside the hood despite the shadows. He was merely a man, no older than perhaps twenty-three.
“I’ve got something for you,” he said. He reached up and across his chest, towards his sword. The tavern’s patrons all tensed, ready to spring from their chairs and fight to the death to protect the elf. Jade, who’d been slumbering at Arianna’s side, looked up and growled deeply in her throat. The man’s hand passed beyond his sword hilt and into the folds of his tunic.
He pulled out a piece of parchment that was folded over and sealed with a glob of burgundy wax. He handed it to the elf, turned and left.
“Well that was unnecessarily dramatic,” Gerrit said as the mood relaxed once more. “What does it say?”
“Read,” she corrected with a smile. “The written word cannot ‘say’ anything.” The halfling rolled his eyes.
Arianna broke the seal and opened the letter. There was a folded map. She put this aside and read the letter aloud. “’Dearest Arianna. You do not know me, but we are closer than you think. I believe you are my last living relative. I would be most honored if you would travel to my home on Farplane for a visit. Tell no one you do not trust about our relation, as some will not understand.’ It’s signed ‘your great-uncle, Count Strahd Von Zarovich.’”
Gerrit blinked. “Who?”
Arianna shrugged. “Never heard of ‘im.”
Dr Midnight's
EXPEDITION TO CASTLE RAVENLOFT
EXPEDITION TO CASTLE RAVENLOFT
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