Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 3616072" data-attributes="member: 1210">The interior of the observatory- for so Otis calls it- is a shambles. Especially after the acidic explosion of the strange guardian creature that the party fought two days before, the entire area above the church is pocked with holes, burns and scars. The twisted metal of the observing device (or at least, our heroes presume that is what the ruined device is, as it points at the sky outside and dominates the chamber) creaks and groans from time to time. “It’s probably not safe to stay here too long,” Sir Fwaigo warns the others. As a trained smith, he knows the signs of metal fatigue when he sees and hears them. “I’m surprised that more of the place hasn’t collapsed on itself already.”A quick search turns up a few somewhat interesting, acid-scarred pieces of metal and the ruined remains of a few pieces of clothing, but there is nothing worth looting. Nor are there any signs of the people of this strange abandoned village. “We’ve barely begun looking,” Sheriff Jorgen mutters to himself.***The inn is the next building that our heroes check out. It is three storeys tall. The board out front bears the sign of a howling dog. Hitching posts, for horses, stand unused out front, and windows line the building. Some of these are shuttered, but others are open. Many of them seem to have once had glass in them, but most of that has been shattered. One side of the building looks as though a good-sized fire burned on it, but it still looks structurally sound at a glance.Written across the front of the building in what looks like blood, in Kamendan, are the words Come out or we will find you!“Hey!” exclaims Sir Fwaigo. “That’s written in Kamendan! That’s our language!” He looks puzzled. “What do you think that means?”“It means that Harth was here,” Otis declares. There is venom in his voice.Sir Colder moves up and examines the wall. “I wonder whose blood that is?” he muses. “Maybe Harth found one of the villagers,” suggests Sir Jorgen. He is growing angry. Harth, he thinks harshly. We’ll have justice for whatever you did here.The ground floor of the Inn of the Howling Dog consists of a common room, a kitchen, an office and a curtained off private room. A search of the office turns up many volumes of unreadable papers that have the look of inventories, payroll records, bills, shipping manifests and other documents related to running a business. The kitchen has pretty clearly been looted thoroughly.  However, the party’s search yields a tantalizing clue: carved in a wooden table is a crude cut of Harth’s heraldry. They also find a trap door that appears to lead into a basement.Finally, the party investigates the common room. A number of emptied bottles and dirty wine cups attest to the fact that a group of people spent a number of days here.  Dahlia inspects the signs and ascertains that the stuff here is only about two weeks old. “If that was Harth and his men...” Jorgen smiles grimly. “We’re catching up.”“‘If?’” exclaims Cedric. “Of courthe it wath Harth! We thaw hith thign in the kitthen!”The party ascends to the second floor of this building, which appears to consist of a long hallway snaking around the perimeter of the building, with doors along the wall every few paces. Near the end of the hallway where our heroes stand at the top of the stairs, a 10’ diameter hole is disintegrated into the wall. “Are those blood stains?” Kyle gestures, but before anyone can do more than peer in the direction that he has indicated, a horrendous thing roars from within the room, and the door that leads to the room is thrown wide open! It is like a nightmare collection of vague threatening features. Spiky blades seem to radiate from it; it has tremendous, dangerous-looking claws; its maw is like that of a shark. Worse yet, its form seems to waver and shift as our heroes look upon it. Sir Colder instantly fires a crossbow bolt at it, but the shock of its terrifying appearance throws his aim off and he misses. Sir Fwaigo’s hand drops to the hilt of his sword, but then there is a ripple of unseen energy and the smell of burning metal. His hand jerks back, and he reels, numbed and unable to act. The creature has put him in a brain lock!Sir Colder casts his crossbow aside, pulls forth his longspear and strikes. Again, his blow goes wide. Then Goer, recovering from the brain lock, slams the door shut on the creature!Our heroes rally, preparing to aid one another against the strange beast as soon as it throws the door open again. It does so, and lashes out at Goer with an ego whip! Sir Fwaigo staggers but recovers himself, and strikes at the monster with his sword- but his blow does nothing! It bounces harmlessly from the beast’s weird, shifting form. Then Me rushes in, slamming the party’s new-found magical mace (from the ruins of the church) into the creature, slamming it hard.* Upon seeing this, Lord Cedric cries, “Magic ith the key!” and casts magic weapon on his former squire’s blade. “Thank you, my lord!” cries Sir Fwaigo. He quickly validates Cedric’s hypothesis- now that it is enchanted, his blade does seem effective against the weird monster! Between Goer’s blade and Sir Percival’s brute strength, our heroes manage to defeat the creature rather neatly, although Percival takes a blow to the mind that he can scarce afford!** After they slay it, the monster’s remains seem to... evaporate? Strange.“Feh,” snorts Lord Cedric. “Let uth return below and theek a better plathe to ekthplore. Thith ith a plath where commonerth would thtay. Perhapth we will find better thingth elthewhere.”Sir Colder bows. “As you wish, my lord.”The party files back down the stairs, heads outside onto the street and moves to what appears to be a general store. It looks both abandoned and looted, but the party presses on inside just in case. Within they find a basement. There, only dimly-lit from the maroon sky outside and a lantern of their own, they find a wine cellar. It appears to have several nice-looking bottles in it. Cedric smacks his lips and cries, “Gather the wine!” He quickly uncorks a bottle and takes a liberal drink before passing it around. Suddenly something jerks the sheriff’s legs out from under him. Aghast, our heroes look down- to see worms slithering all over their feet and ankles. Almost like a net of long, tough roots made out of stringy flesh, none of the worms seem to have ends.  They glow faintly green.The worms- the net- whatever it is, or they are- starts to tighten.Next Time: The thing in the cellar! The thing in the house! And the missing villagers!*Crit for 46 hp of damage. Ouch!! <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=":)" />**Poor Me... he took 4 points of Int damage.</blockquote>

Verification