Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9823119" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 12: COMING DOWN FROM THEIR PERCHESPC Roster:  Adrielle, human/merfolk scout 3                     Brendan Conaill, human monk 3                     Kruz Taszan, changeling rogue 3                     Shiroko, snow fox hengeyokai wu jen 3NPC Roster: Hoppy, mongrelfolk adept 3Game Session Date: 6 December 2025 - - -It was early evening, and the group was eating dinner at Mrs. Geshuku's Boardinghouse, sampling the exotic dishes the owner had prepared.  (Shiroko had given up trying to teach Brendan and Hoppy how to use chopsticks, although Adrielle and Kruz had mastered the art fairly easily.)  Fumiko, one of the maids who worked in the building, approached them, bowed, and said, "Please to excuse the interruption, but there is a gentleman at the front desk asking for you by name."  Intrigued, they rose up from their seats and followed Fumiko back to the front desk area, where they found an elderly gentleman dressed in a butler's finery standing there.  He looked familiar, and it took Kruz a moment to recall where he'd seen the man before: he was the butler who answered the door at the Wentworth estate when they had unknowingly delivered the severed finger of Waylon Wentworth to his parents.  He'd even tipped them each a copper piece for their efforts."Please forgive me for barging in on you like this," he began.  "I am Denton Cogswell, in service to Lord and Lady Wentworth, who have sent me to fetch you to their estate on a matter of great urgency.  I have a horse and carriage waiting outside, if you would be so kind as to accompany me?"Intrigued, the five followed Cogswell outside, where there was indeed a black carriage waiting just outside the building.  He opened the side door to the vehicle, ushered everyone inside, and then took the reins in the front of the carriage, driving it back to the Wentworth estate."Any idea what this is all about?" asked Brendan when they arrived and Cogswell opened the carriage door to let them out."I'm afraid I have no idea," admitted the butler, "but I am sure Lord Wentworth will explain everything to your satisfaction."  He led them to a library in the manor home, where Lord and Lady Wentworth were already sitting, awaiting their arrival.  Cogswell ushered them inside, then shut the library doors for privacy."Thank you for coming to our assistance so quickly," began Lord Wentworth.  "Cogswell found this on the front porch this afternoon."  He indicated a battered leather backpack sitting on a low table before the sofa upon which he and his wife sat, and pulled out a sheet of parchment from the container's interior, handing it to Brendan.  Then monk looked it over, the others reading over his shoulder (save for Hoppy, who faded into the background as he tended to do whenever around people far above his pitiful station in life).  It read:Lady Wentworth had her face buried in a handkerchief, wiping away the tears, but she was too polished a noblewoman to make a scene in front of the hirelings."I have gathered the ransom," Lord Wentworth continued, "although I must admit to being a little insulted as to the minimal amount required.  But that is not the point: I will not stand here and allow such lowlifes as those responsible for my son's kidnapping to profit from such actions!  I would ask that you deliver the ransom, in this backpack, at midnight tonight, as demanded in the letter - but then I want you to kill each and every member of the band that took him!  I want to make it perfectly clear to the lowlife scum who think preying upon the nobility is a means of quick riches to be immediately disabused of the very notion!  Do this for me - for us - and I will gladly pay each and every one of you the ransom total.  What do you say?  You rescued Waylon and his cronies when they were tricked into gambling more than they could pay - will you help us again?""Of course," agreed Adrielle immediately.  Waylon Wentworth had seemed a fine young man, and she hated the thought of his life being threatened by ignorant savages who couldn't even spell correctly."Does Waylon have any enemies you can think of?" Brendan asked.  "He hasn't run up any more gambling debts, has he?""No, no, he's learned that lesson," Lord Wentworth replied.  "I can think of no one with any particular enmity towards Waylon.""He's a good boy," added Lady Wentworth, speaking for the first time."I will put Cogswell at your disposal," stated Lord Wentworth.  "He can bring you by carriage to the gravel pit, you can make the exchange and take out the ruffians, and then he can bring you all back here with Waylon for your payment.""It wouldn't be a bad idea to scope out the gravel pit ahead of time," suggested Kruz.  "The note says we'll make the exchange at midnight, so I imagine we'd want to be there 10 or 15 minutes early.  It's what, about 8 bells now?"  Lord Wentworth looked at a timepiece on the mantel and confirmed the hour.  "Then we have time to make preparations," the changeling rogue added.  "Let's go check out this gravel pit and get the lay of the land."Thus it was that some 20 minutes later, Cogswell brought the horse-drawn carriage to a halt a block down the street from the entrance to the gravel pit at the south end of Port Duralia.  The heroes got out and silently skirted around the entire area, moving clockwise around the fenced-in quarry until arriving back at the front gate.  The fence was 10 feet tall, made of iron posts spaced too close together to allow even a child or a halfling to slip between them, and was topped with spikes to prevent anyone from easily climbing up and over.  The pit itself looked to be about 10-12 feet deep.  It took up most of the back half of the fenced-in area, with a tool shed, an office, and a metal crane (from which dangled a large bucket on a chain, presumably how the gravel was brought up from the pit) up at ground level.  A makeshift shelter made of sheets of pressed wood sat at the bottom of the pit, towards the back, and a sturdy-looking wooden ladder at the front end provided access down into the pit, which held a couple of small puddles in shallow depressions on the ground from a recent rain.  The front gate swung outwards towards the street, but was presently locked tight with a chain and padlock.  The owners, a group of dwarves, were not present (and likely had nothing to do with the exchange of kidnap victim and ransom, the gravel pit likely selected due to its general isolation from the rest of the city) - the place was currently populated only by the five heroes, who were all on the outside looking in.Kruz, examining the padlock on the gate, decided he could probably pick it when they came back closer to midnight, but Adrielle suggested they should just all use potions of spider climb to walk up and over the fence.  "I'll set up camp on the roof of the shed," Kruz decided.  "That way, I can shoot down into the pit at the kidnappers with my crossbow.""Who's going to be carrying the ransom?" asked Shiroko."Hoppy," declared Brendan.  "We'll all be busy fighting the kidnappers, and he doesn't normally carry a weapon."  The sinborn opted not to point out the club he kept in an inside pocket in his robes, not wanting to contradict one of the people to whom he owed a life-debt, and readily agreed he'd carry the ransom."Okay, then," said Brendan.  "I think we've seen enough.  Let's go back to the Wentworth estate, pick up the ransom money, distribute any potions we want on hand, and be back here by quarter to midnight."Upon their return to the gravel pit several hours later, all was seemingly as quiet as during their last visit, although there had been at least one change during the intervening interval: the padlock on the front gate was now unlocked and sat upon the ground beside the length of chain that had been used to hold the gate in place.  Brendan, his skull mask in place granting him full darkvision, was the first to notice that and he pointed it out to the others.  "Looks like they're already here," he whispered to the group.Hoppy, backpack in hand, stepped out of the carriage behind Brendan and shifted its weight upon his back, the coins inside jingling a bit as he did so.  Shiroko stepped down from the carriage and then shifted into her animal form; one moment, a young woman with white fox ears in a kimono stood there on the street by the carriage, and the next there stood in her place a snow fox, her white pelt shining in the moonlight.  She had a reason for her transformation: perhaps the kidnappers would think her to be nothing more than a local mutt or something, granting her the element of surprise - plus, she was pretty sure at this size she'd be able to squeeze between the bars of the iron fence."Let's go," said Brendan, leading the way toward the closed but unlocked gate.  They'd decided he, Adrielle, and Hoppy would go through the front gate and be the "obvious" agents for the exchange, while Shiroko and Kruz would be less obvious and hopefully be a complete surprise to the kidnappers when it came time for combat.  Adrielle drank down her potion of spider climb just in case, said "Come on, Hoppy," and followed the skull-faced monk.  Hoppy limped behind her with his uneven gait.The latch on the gate opened easily and the whole thing swung outward towards the street, although it hadn't been oiled in a while and squeaked noisily in the otherwise silent evening air.  But hopefully that would draw the kidnappers' attention, away from the tool shed and the changeling rogue spider climbing up and over the fence, to lie flat upon the roof of the shed with his crossbow out and pointed down towards the pit.Adrielle walked up to the ladder and looked down into the pit.  She saw no one, but a voice coming from inside the makeshift structure called up, "Bring the money down here!""How do we know you have Waylon, and that he's even still alive?" the scout called back down.  There was the sound of grumbling from the shack, and then a young man's voice - identifiably that of Waylon Wentworth - called out, "Who's there?  What do you want from me?"  Satisfied, the scout began climbing down the ladder.  When she got to the bottom, she activated a sunrod and tossed it over by the shack.Shiroko loped west along the southern fence around the quarry, moving in an unhurried gait, when she saw movement just ahead.  A cloaked figure was hunched down and moving toward her, a loaded shortbow in his hands and a black beak sticking out from his face.  A kenku, Shiroko realized, and then saw another behind him, and another still even further behind that one.  They were slinking forward, headed east.  There weren't many spells she could cast while in her fox form, but one exception - and only because she'd spent weeks learning how to do so - was dancing lights.  Activating it now behind the third approaching kenku sneak, she saw a whole line of them headed her way, and another line headed to the northern side of the quarry's fence.  It looked like they planned on surrounding the gravel pit where the transfer was to take place - not good!Brendan and Adrielle spotted the kenku archers sneaking along the north side of the fence and realized the bird-men were going to try to surround them while they were down in the pit.  The monk, who had just climbed down the ladder after Hoppy, wasn't about to let that happen, so he went bolting back up the ladder as fast as he could, racing for the open gate.  Three of the nearest archers saw him and shot arrows his way; he caught one in mid-flight and flung it away as he ran, but the others hit him, in the arm and the thigh.  But that wasn't the only shooting going on, for Kruz had seen the kenku archers over by Shiroko and fired his crossbow, catching the first one in the throat and killing him instantly.Adrielle and Hoppy made a run for it, heading for the shack, which offered the only bit of protection down in the pit.  The scout got hit by two arrows being shot down her way, but neither was a direct hit, and they veered off her leather armor without drawing too much blood.  But now other kenku archers were lining up along both sides of the fence.  One took a shot at Brendan from the back end of the quarry, but the arrow missed.The kenku were now aware there was a foe with a crossbow up on the roof of the tool shed inside the fence, and one pointed a clawed finger at him.  Shiroko recognized the words to a magic missile spell as twin beams of glowing light went streaking from the kenku sorcerer's finger to strike the prone rogue.  Shiroko retaliated with the only other spell she could cast while in animal form, an ice knife that only required the willpower of her mind and a single drop of water, of which there was plenty in puddles all around after the recent rain.  A nearby puddle of water suddenly gave birth to a sharp blade made of solid ice, which went hurtling towards the kenku sorcerer.  It struck him in the chest, and he frantically looked this way and that to find the spellcaster responsible, not realizing it was the white-furred fox standing nearby.Adrielle scooped up the sunrod from the ground by the shack's door and pulled the door open, rushing inside.  With the illumination in her hand, she could see a young man in a noble's clothing - presumably Waylon, although he was slumped forward and had a cloth bag over his head - sitting in a chair with his hands bound behind him.  Of the kidnapper who had called out to her earlier there was no sight, as the small room was otherwise empty save for a few sheets of extra plywood stacked up diagonally against the back wall of the room.  She pulled the heavy crossbow from her back and bent over to crank it into its loaded position, saying, "We're here to bring you home, Waylon."  There was no answer.Brendan ran through the open gate as a pair of kenku approached from opposite directions.  He'd been unwinding his spiked chain from around his torso - he wore it like a bandolier when not actively wielding it - and swung one end of it to crush the skull of the closest kenku.  Kruz shot another of the ones over by Shiroko, hitting him in the base of his skull and slaying him instantly.  The group was definitely outnumbered - by about three to one, by the looks of it - but so far, their opponents weren't all that tough.Hoppy entered the makeshift structure behind Adrielle and moved to untie Waylon's bonds.  In doing so, he noted the young man had only three fingers and a thumb on his left hand, another indication this was really Waylon.  But when he pulled the bag from his head, the sinborn could instantly see his throat had been cut, and the blood on his shirt had dried many hours ago.  This was a setup - and Hoppy knew full well a kenku's ability to mimic any voice he had heard before was the equal of that of a mongrelfolk, which explained how they'd heard Waylon's voice earlier.  He looked over to Adrielle to see what they should do, but she was in shock at the sight of the dead lad they had been sent to rescue.Several kenku archers shot at Brendan with their shortbows, while others readied to shoot down at anyone exiting the shack below.  While Brendan fought off those in his general vicinity, he couldn't help but notice how well planned out this trap had been; had all five of the heroes gone down into the pit, they'd be picking them off like fish in a barrel!Unseen behind the spare sheets of plywood at the back of the shack, a black-clawed hand darted out and tossed a glass flask of liquid at the wall behind Adrielle.  Upon shattering, the compound exploded into a misty cloud of nauseating vapors, quickly filling the interior of the shack and spilling out the front door.  Neither Adrielle nor Hoppy were able to avoid the stinking cloud's effects, and they doubled over, dry heaving and virtually helpless.  The kenku who'd thrown the glass grenade, in the meantime, snuck out of the structure through an unnailed flap in the back, escaping before the cloud could reach him.Shiroko knew full well which of the several kenku before her was the spellcaster (he had no shortbow, for one thing) and bit him on the leg.  The kenku kicked her away, backed up, and cast another magic missile spell her way.  Severely hurt by the spell's impact, the hengeyokai decided discretion was the better part of valor and turned to flee to the east.  It would take her several seconds to transform back into her hybrid form, so she could cast the rest of her spells, and she figured it would be safer to do so on the far side of the tool shed.Adrielle couldn't see though the billowing clouds of nauseating vapors, but her spider climb potion was still in effect, so she ran up the wall to the back of the shack, feeling around for air currents indicating another way out.  She found the loose board through which the kenku had escaped and dropped to the ground, pushing her way through the narrow opening.  She tried to call for Hoppy to follow her, but her lungs were on fire and she couldn't get the wind to talk.Brendan took out another kenku rogue with his chain, which was now extended to its full length and proving to be quite deadly to the bird-men, who scrambled to avoid its spiked length when it swung their way; if nothing else, it was disrupting their aim, as few of the arrows shot his way made it to him.  This was fortunate, for although he was pretty good at swatting arrows out of the air before they hit, him, he needed his hands free to do so and with his chain fully extended both hands were already in use.Kruz missed with a crossbow bolt aimed at the kenku sorcerer as down in the pit, Hoppy raced out of the shack's front door, limping and coughing.  A cloud of green vapors trailed him, but he was shot twice by a pair of archers to the north side of the quarry, shooting through the gaps between the iron fenceposts.  The mongrelfolk adept tried ignoring the pain and just kept heading for the ladder, the only way he knew of to escape the pit.  The sorcerer backed away from the fence until he could get a better look at the rogue shooting bolts down at him from the roof of the tool shed, and fired another magic missile spell his way.  Meanwhile, at the side of the shed, Shiroko transformed back into her hybrid form in the safety of the shadows.  Her first action back in humanoid form with all her gear was to drink down a potion of cure light wounds to restore a bit of her vitality for the rest of the fight.Adrielle staggered out into the clear midnight air, exiting from the back of the makeshift structure, only to find there were kenku archers up there above her with arrows pointed her way.  She dropped flat and a bevy of arrows went flying over her head, and then she rolled to the side to avoid getting hit by another couple being aimed down her way.  She worried about Hoppy, but had no idea where he had gone.Brendan leaped and kicked the gate with his foot, sending it flying into the face of a kenku approaching from the other side; it sent the bird-man staggering to the ground and gave the monk enough time to slay another kenku with a blow to the head from his chain's end.  Kruz hit one of the kenku firing down at Adrielle, but the angle was bad and the bolt just grazed the archer instead of dropping him.  Hoppy had by this time reached the ladder and started climbing, going slowly due to the hoof at his right foot not being particularly well-adapted to ladder climbing - it kept slipping.  But most of the archers had already written the sinborn off as inconsequential, most of them more worried about that crazy guy with the chain that was killing off their numbers one by one over by the gate.Brendan took another arrow to the chest as the kenku sorcerer fired off another magic missile spell up at Kruz.  Then the monk's chain claimed another victim, its spiked end cutting into the side of an archer's head before he could duck.  Kruz sat up and fired another bolt at the sorcerer before moving away from the fence and dropping prone on the rooftop over by the front of the shed, far enough away that the sorcerer was no longer in view.  The changeling knew if he couldn't see the sorcerer, then the sorcerer likely wouldn't be able to see him, and those damned magic missile spells were getting to be annoying.Hoppy made it back up the ladder with no further damage than an arrow hitting him in the back of the backpack, the arrowhead being stopped by the coins before it could pierce the mongrelfolk's flesh.  He staggered over by Shiroko and shook his mismatched head to clear it of the nausea he'd been feeling, until he was able to get a good look at the hengeyokai, who still had wounds where the magic missile spell had struck her.  Without a further word, Hoppy laid a hand upon her twin wound-marks and cast a cure light wounds spell, healing her instantly.  "Thank you, Hoppy," said the wu gen gratefully, as she turned to see where she could to the most good in the battle raging all around them."Screw this!  Swords!" called one of the kenku surrounding Brendan, and all seven of them dropped their bows to the ground and pulled out the short swords at their belts.  Then, as one, they all cawed in fury and leaped to the attack.  The nimble monk wasn't able to fight them all off at once, as everywhere he looked there were sword-blades stabbing at him, cutting him up but good.  Three other archers, standing guard to the north awaiting Adrielle to come back out of the shack's front door - they hadn't seen her exit from the back and had no idea she was on the other side of the shack from them - set their arrows ablaze with a torch and shot at the shack, setting one wall ablaze.  If she was going to just stay in there and hide, they'd force her out!The kenku sorcerer had run to the east along the fenceline and spotted Shiroko in her normal form for the first time, but he reasoned by her white-furred ears that this was the fox that had bit him.  He cast a magic missile her way, striking her in the back.  She spun around and cast a lightning blade spell, opting to hurl the spell's full electrical output his way in one fell swoop.  The sorcerer got the worst of that exchange, by far.  Then Kruz stood up, aimed over the fence, and put a final crossbow bolt into the head of the sorcerer, killing him instantly.As Adrielle staggered by the side of the pit wall - she'd gotten a bigger dose of the stinking cloud and it was taking her longer to overcome its effects than it took Hoppy - Brendan sent a closed fist (they were in too tight-quarters to be able to use his spiked chain effectively) into the throat of one of the kenku surrounding him, killing him instantly.  But there were still six kenku rogues stabbing at him with their blades, and it was more than he could manage to avoid each thrust sent his way.  A few of the archers not currently targeting Brendan - he was now surrounded on all sides by their comrades, making targeting him a bit problematic - shot at Kruz instead, although none struck true.  The other archers to the north ran over towards the gate to aid their black-feathered brethren in killing the human who refused to die.Shiroko saw her opportunity and cast a hail of stone spell centered in such a way that she slew three of the kenku surrounding Brendan, opening up a window through which he could escape being surrounded on all sides.  (A few of the falling stones hit Brendan as well, but the wu jen had figured he'd be able to survive that bit of damage and take advantage of the newly-opened escape route.)  He did just that, escaping the scrum all about him and then spinning about, sending the end of his chain swinging into the side of a kenku's head.  Sadly, for once, the attack didn't drop the foe, but the blood seeping into his feathers showed he'd been badly hurt nonetheless.Adrielle managed to hug close to the side of the pit's southern wall and climb her way to the top, aided by the still-active spider climb potion she'd gulped down earlier.  Kruz stood on the roof and shot a bolt at one of the kenku surrounding Brendan, catching him between the shoulder blades and dropping him lifelessly to the ground.  Hoppy, seeing the situation in which the monk had gotten himself, limped over his way to see if he could assist.  Before he could get there, Shiroko had cast another hail of stone spell, slaying another trio of kenku.Adrielle spider climbed up and over the iron fence, glad the archers who'd been firing down at her earlier had gone to aid in the fight against the more immediate threat.  She dropped down to the outside of the quarry and headed east, her head now clear from the effects of the stinking cloud.  She saw a kenku rogue climbing up the ladder and figured this was the one who'd tossed he glass grenade inside the shack.  Snarling, she aimed her heavy crossbow at him and let fly, piercing him in the back of the head.  He dropped back down lifelessly into the pit.Brendan killed another kenku with his spiked chain; it might have been the one he'd hit but failed to drop earlier, but it was getting hard to keep them apart and blood loss was making it difficult for him to concentrate.  But Kruz killed another one right as he was about to stab the monk from behind, and then Hoppy reached out and cast a cure light wounds spell on Brendan.  It wasn't enough to close up all of the wounds he'd taken thus far, but it was enough to clear his head and gain his focus back into the fight.A kenku shot at Brendan but missed as Shiroko headed out of the gate.  Adrielle reloaded her heavy crossbow, but it wasn't needed, as Brendan finished off the last of the kenku willing to engage with him in a melee brawl.  Then, looking around, there were only dead kenku to be seen; any still alive - if any - had already fled.  Hoppy used a few charges from his wand to restore Brendan to full fighting trim."We need to fetch Waylon's body," Adrielle reminded the group, and three of them went down to attend to that, while Kruz and Hoppy gathered what weapons were salvageable from the slain kenku; fortunately, with the recent rain, the shack's wood was still pretty damp and the three fire-arrows hadn't gotten very far in burning down the structure.  They lifted the young nobleman's body from the chair and Brendan carried his limp form over his shoulder.  It was a sad group that returned to Cogswell and the coach, for they'd slain the kidnappers but there had been nothing they could have done to rescue Waylon alive; by their estimation, the lad had already been dead by the time the kenku had dropped off the backpack and the ransom note - with words cleverly misspelled to make them think they were dealing with low-intellect thugs instead of Sinister's kenku rogues seeking revenge on the heroes who'd rescued the four young noblemen they'd captured some months earlier.Lady Wentworth was inconsolable at the sight of her dead son, but her husband saw the reality of the situation and realized there had been nothing the heroes could have done to save his life.  He paid over the fee he'd promised, 250 pieces of gold to each of the five, and vowed to have Waylon raised back to life.  "Waylon hasn't been dead long enough to prevent him from being restored back to life," he told his wife.  "You'll see, in a couple of days we'll have him back among the living, and all will be as it was."At that moment, he had no idea just exactly how wrong he might be. - - - The players had a fun time with this adventure, especially Dan, who got a chance to bring his PC's new spiked chain to bear against a ton of low-level threats.  (The kenku archers were all 1st-level rogues, but there were 14 of them, and once they went with their short swords their "Great Ally" racial ability really aided them in hitting him consistently.  I made the kenku sorcerer 4th-level so he could be a magic missile machine; he didn't have much else in the way of attack spells, as the rest of his itinerary was along the lines of the knock spell that had opened the padlock at the pit's front gate.) - - - T-shirt worn: My wolf T-shirt, as it was the same gaming session as the previous adventure.</blockquote>

Verification