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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wsclark" data-source="post: 807" data-attributes="member: 97">Session XII - Look, There's More Bodies OutsideFrosting 28th, 744 YNDIt is starting to get well into the evening when our heroes find the books they were looking for. They are at Driscall's house with Pug upstairs on the second floor watching over the tied, unconscious body of Driscall on his bed while all the others are taking a quick breather in the basement after confronting 4 guards of The Sentinel of the True Way. The group in the basement starts examining the 35 books on the table mostly containing information discussing magical, scientific or even depraved, evil philosophy. Three of the books do catch their eyes.The first is Raspar's Silver Book. The covers of this book are made of very thinly pounded silver, bound with copper wire. On the front of the book is a symbol: a serpent wrapped around a hand, and the name "RASPAR." The book contains spells ranging from 0 to 2nd level.The second is the Book of Carlisle. The book's covers were once fine leather but have been bleached by the sun and look water damaged as well. The pages are all dogeared, but the spells recorded in the book, ranging from 0 to 2nd level, are intact.The third book is The Leaf and Twig. This druidic book of herbs and medicine allows anyone to learn the Profession (herbalism) proficiency as if it were a class skill so long as she has the book to reference (else it drops to a cross-class skill).The group begins to pack up the books, while Pug feels a shiver go up and down his spine. He goes downstairs to the main level, calling out to the group to see if see or hear anything funny. Then there is a knock on the door. Pug, beginning to get worried, calls down to the basement "Shaedra, do you detect any evil?" She replies, "Yes, somewhere upwards from where I am, toward the street."The group in the basement quickly makes it way up to the main floor. Much discussion ensues. Pug, Shaedra and Rufio go up to the second floor as it is the only floor to have any windows. Shaedra tries to see who is at the front door, but the second floor of the house overhangs the first and it is not possible to see the front door. The rest of the street is empty. They forego the idea of climbing out the window down to the street and instead return to the main level. After some more discussion, Daloren opens the door with everyone ready for whoever is there. Standing in the entranceway is no one. In fact, nothing is outside of the house. (DM's note: I handed an index card to Pug earlier describing the shiver and at this point, I also handed one to Lulla that said "There is nothing outside the house." It took a while before she realized that this included Marty, her pony.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  )Daloren announces that there is no one to be seen, so Rufio heads out into the street first. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Rufio is hit by two crossbow bolts and an arrow, and is now face down unconscious in the street about ten feet from the doorway.(DM's note: [rant] Ring! The bloody phone rings at this point, about 1/3 of the way into the session. It's work with a production problem, which means I absolutely have to handled it. I was POed about it, especially since the operator at the other end is a dolt. It takes me an hour to straighten things out, including dialing into work to make sure everything is ok. It totally ruins the mood for me, especially since the problem should not have occurred in the first place, since the idiot didn't follow directions the first time from the first person he spoke to. By not following the directions, he made things worse and that meant I had to get involved to fix the situation. And to top it all off, the original problem occurred 1 1/2 hours before he called me! Needless to say, the first person contacted and I spoke to his supervisor the next morning about it. [/rant] So, if this session seems a little shorter than the others, this is why.Shaedra moves out of the building to pull Rufio into an alley so that she can lay on hands to heal him. She is also shot at, but they totally miss her. Someone moves down the street to the alley where Shaedra is and tries unsuccessfully to attack her. Daloren heads to her aid, taking down the assailant. Thalen heads out of the build, down the other direction, stopping at an alley where he sees a dwarf with a hand axe waiting for him. Another thug comes down the street to attack Daloren, to no effect. Pug moves out to help Daloren while Lulla realizes that Marty is missing. She listens carefully to see if she can detect anything, hearing the clatter of hooves down past where Daloren and Pug are.More arrows and bolts fly, coming from both directions of the street. Daloren is hit with an arrow. Shaedra heals Rufio. Daloren and Pug try to take down the second thug wounding him, while two more dwarves accost Thalen. All of a sudden an enraged half-orc barbarian comes charging at Pug, but in his rage, misses him. Thalen is now dealing with three dwarves who are having trouble hitting him and vice versa. The archer doesn't miss him, however, and Thalen now has an arrow in his side. Lulla moves up towards Pug and Daloren searching for Marty.Rufio decides to investigate down the alley way the he and Shaedra are in, but it is difficult seeing anything in the dark. Shaedra moves up to help Daloren and Pug out and is unable to hit the thug who misses Daloren. Daloren takes him out with his sword, while Pug puts the raging barbarian to rest. Another crossbow bolt flies toward Daloren, missing, while the same happens with an arrow aimed at Thalen. Thalen finally manages to hit one of the dwarves, but he is still standing. The dwarves continue to show how inept they are at their attempts to hit Thalen. Lulla hears Marty further down the street and heads in that direction seeing Marty held by someone around a corner.Rufio comes running out of the alleyway at the sound of surprise from Lulla upon find her pony reaching the spot where see is at. The person holding the reigns to the pony drops them and runs away to the next street and around the corner. Shaedra charges one of the dwarves flanking Thalen, delivering a killing blow. Pug starts heading down the street past where Shaedra and Thalen are, trying to see if there are any others in that direction. The dwarves continue to attack Thalen, but are still having no success. An arrow flies at Pug, missing him and Pug still can not tell where it came from.Rufio runs after the flee fugitive, runs the corner in the direction the fugitive went and stops to try and find a trail. Shaedra takes down a second dwarf while Daloren and Lulla calm down Marty. Thalen finally takes out the remaining dwarf while Shaedra and Pug hear the patter of feet fleeing across the rooftops. There is no way they are going to catch that one. Meanwhile, Rufio has lost the trail of the other.The group gathers to six dead bodies, putting them in Driscall's house. The strip the bodies of anything they think that they might be able to sell, take the books and head back to the inn where they are staying. (DM's note: The group is in a really sleazy part of the city and I was trying to decide if a city patrol should show up or the locals were to get involved in some way. Since I couldn't decide, I rolled a d20, getting a 1. Ok, nothing showed up, but I decided that the two that escaped followed the group back to the inn and would keep tabs on them. This will fit in nicely with the next module, Forging Darkness.)Snowfall 1st, 744 YNDAfter getting a night's sleep, the group sends a runner in the morning to Geolain, explaining briefly to him that they had the books and would bring them by later that day. They just needed to get some rest. The group decides to go and sell the stuff they got the night before, except for Daloren, who decides to read up on some of the books. Later that afternoon, the haul all the books to Geolains, giving him every last one. He is quite pleased and draws a map for them. It shows Halaan to be somewhere in the Reelio jungle, a 5 to 6 day voyage by ship from Zoa. He strongly recommends that they travel by sea as the jungles are known to contain many orc villages. The party considers their options.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What will the two escapee's following the group do?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What will Driscall do once he is free and finds ten dead bodies in his house?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Will the city militia be contacted about the sale of ten sets of armor and weapons once those bodies are found?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">How will Marty react to a trip aboard a ship?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">How will Lulla react to Marty on the ship?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">How will the rest of the group react to Lulla and Marty?</li> </ul>(DM's note: I was thinking about how the group was going to get the pony to travel by ship. I'm going to have the pony be nonchalant about getting on board. However, sometime into the voyage, the pony is going to get seasick. This should provide a bit of fun when Marty starts throwing up  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  )Stay tuned....more coming after the session this Thursday!</blockquote>

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