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Dreams of Erthe
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 8166455" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 5: RACE AGAINST THE MOON</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 1</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 1</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 1</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 1</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 1</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 30 December 2020</p><p></p><p>- - -</p><p></p><p>“I have determined the gemcutter best suited to carve the dreamstones you have gathered,” advised the Queen of Dreams. “While his name is unknown to me – most people do not announce their names while dreaming – I have been able to determine the location of where he sleeps.” She gave an address in Port Duralia, one Xandro recognized as being in a neighborhood of the upper classes. “He is, by appearance, a dwarven gentleman who shaves the sides of his beard, leaving only the spaces around his mouth unshaven. You should be able to track him down. I will visit his dreams and reinforce the idea he should aid you, but alas I have no control over how much of it will be retained once he awakens.”</p><p></p><p>She walked over to a table that hadn't been there a mere moment before – for such were the ways of things in the Dreamlands – and highlighted an elaborate diagram showing the ways in which the dreamstones were to be cut and what runes should be etched into them. “You will need a copy of this made in the Waking World,” the Queen of Dreams informed the group. She looked over at Thurloe, who even in his dreams appeared in his full armor and with his bastard sword in its sheath upon his back. Despite his appearance, though, the Queen of Dreams was well aware he had been studying the arcane arts in addition to swordcraft in his spare time, through a tome of magical spells his wizardly mentor had left for him before her sudden departure. “As your magical studies make you the most familiar with carefully inscribing arcane writings, you will perform the copying,” she informed him, pulling back a chair from the table and indicating he should be seated.</p><p></p><p>At her urging, Thurloe sat down at the table and reached for the quill, parchment, and inkwell waiting for him there. “Do your best to make an exact duplicate,” the Queen of Dreams instructed him.</p><p></p><p>“How exactly is this going to help?” asked Thurloe, studying the diagram and carefully inscribing a duplicate on the blank sheet of parchment. “Is this supposed to help me remember it in detail, so I can redraw it when I wake up?”</p><p></p><p>The Queen suppressed a quiet smirk. “Not exactly,” she said. “Those of you capable of recalling the memory of your time spent in the Dreamlands upon awakening have several other abilities as well. One is your ability to tap into the dream energy of this plane to cast your special abilities, like your own <em>touch of fatigue</em>. Another is the ability to have your body in the Mortal World mirror the actions you take here in the Dreaming Lands.”</p><p></p><p>“You mean, like sleepwalking?” asked Alewyth.</p><p></p><p>“Very much so,” smiled the Queen of Dreams. “Thurloe, in the Mortal World, has risen from his bed and is drawing a diagram quite exactly like the one he's drawing here.” Thurloe looked down at the parchment before him and took extra care to get everything right in his duplicate.</p><p></p><p>“Take care with the handwriting,” advised Zander. “We want to be able to read what it is you're writing.”</p><p></p><p>“Shut up and get out of my light,” grumbled the fighter, concentrating hard on his task. The others left him to his drawing.</p><p></p><p>The next morning, sure enough when Thurloe awoke there was a completed diagram, in his own handwriting, on a sheet of parchment at the writing table in his room. It looked, to his eyes, to be identical to the one he recalled inscribing in his dreams last night. "That's pretty weird," he said to himself as he got dressed for the day.</p><p></p><p>Once everyone had gathered together and eaten a quick breakfast, and Alewyth and Wakuren had completed their morning prayers and prepared their spells for the day, the group as a whole mounted their horses and the mule-driven wagon and headed over to the house of the dwarven gemcutter, going by the memory of the location on the Queen's map in the Dreamlands. Xandro, well-versed in the layout of the city of Port Duralia, had no trouble finding the exact building: a one-story stone dwelling in a good neighborhood. The house was a small manor home, with a sturdy-looking wooden door at the building's front. Everyone dismounted and Alewyth knocked boldly at the door, the group having decided to make her their official spokeswoman since they'd be dealing with a dwarven gemcutter. Wakuren stood at the back of the group, not wanting his orcish features to be the first thing the dwarf might see upon opening the door. But his gesture was for naught, for there was no answer to Alewyth's knocks.</p><p></p><p>"Nobody's home," Zander observed. "Now what?"</p><p></p><p>Xandro made a circuit around the building, to make sure the dwarf wasn't out back or anything. He returned, shaking his head. "Nobody home," he acknowledged. "Let's go talk to the neighbors."</p><p></p><p>The dwarf's neighbors were more than willing to talk to Alewyth, once they saw her holy symbol of Aerik and she explained they were worried about him. They learned the man's name was <strong>Kerndell Lapidarius</strong>, he had lived there for at least the last 30 years, he owned a jewelry shop on the Trade Way, he'd been looking a bit haggard the last couple of days (something to do with a brother or cousin, the neighbor recalled), and his jewelry shop had been closed for the last three days. They were more than happy to give Alewyth directions to Kerndell's shop, so that was the next place they hit up.</p><p></p><p>However, the shop was still closed, with a handwritten sign attached to the front door with a nail stating the shop was closed due to a family emergency. No further details were given.</p><p></p><p>"Bummer," groused Thurloe. "We're getting nowhere."</p><p></p><p>"So what do we do? Break in and look for clues?" asked Zander.</p><p></p><p>"I'll not be breaking into a jewelry store," asserted Alewyth. "That's a good way to be thrown into the city dungeons!" Thurloe started rolling his eyes at the dwarf's good nature, but then she surprised him by adding, "...We'd be better off breaking into his house and looking around - we'd be more likely able to talk our way out of trouble there than breaking into a place of business."</p><p></p><p>However, upon returning to the Lapidarius home, it turned out that breaking in was no longer required; Alewyth knocked again at the door just in case and this time after a half minute or so an elderly human woman answered the door. "May I help you?" asked <strong>Mrs. Applegate</strong>, a widowed housekeeper under Mr. Lapidarius's employ. After they explained their prior visit, Mrs. Applegate apologized for not having been there earlier for she'd just now returned from the market with the day's purchases. "But come in, come in," she said, leading the group into a well-maintained sitting room. "I'm afraid Mr. Lapidarius is not at home, however - he appears to have stepped out this morning. Skipped his breakfast and everything."</p><p></p><p>"Do you happen to know where he might have gone?" asked Alewyth.</p><p></p><p>"No, I'm afraid not. Something to do with his cousin, I imagine." Mrs. Applegate gave them the details of Kerndell's recent activities: three days ago, his cousin <strong>Jorndell Craghammer</strong>, a dwarven warrior, showed up to consult with Kerndell about something. Jorndell's right arm was wrapped in bloody bandages, and whatever they talked about had seemed to upset Kerndell greatly. They argued and Jorndell left; since then, Kerndell had been very agitated but Mrs. Applegate didn't know any specifics. "You might try asking at the Temple, though," she suggested. "Mr. Lapidarius is a frequent visitor and a firm supporter of the Temple of Aerik." She gifted Alewyth with a wide smile, which the dwarven priestess returned.</p><p></p><p>"Thank you very much, Mrs. Applegate," said Alewyth. "We will make inquiries at the Temple, then."</p><p></p><p>The temple clerics were more than happy to tell Alewyth, a fellow adherent of their faith, what they could. "Brother Kerndell made some inquiries into the disease of lyncanthropy," the head cleric informed her. "We lent him a tome on the subject, as he has been a strong supporter of the temple for many years."</p><p></p><p>"Did he mention why he was interested in lycanthropy?" pressed Xandro, although he was fairly certain it had something to do with Jorndell's wounded arm.</p><p></p><p>"No, but we did explain to him how the disease could be prevented and cured," the priest replied. He explained to the group what he had told Kerndell earlier: a <em>remove disease</em> or <em>heal</em> spell cast upon the afflicted within three days of the bite that caused the disease would prevent it from transforming the poor victim into a werebeast; failing that, it would take a <em>remove curse</em> or <em>break enchantment</em> spell cast upon the victim on one of the three days of the full moon.</p><p></p><p>"When's the next full moon?" asked Zander.</p><p></p><p>"Tonight," replied the head cleric, grimly.</p><p></p><p>Heading back to the Lapidarius home, the group discussed what had likely happened. "Jorndell gets himself bitten by a werebeast of some type, tells Kerndell about it, and now he's trying to get him cured before the full moon rises tonight," summarized Xandro.</p><p></p><p>"So where is he now?" asked Alewyth.</p><p></p><p>"And what were he and his cousin fighting about?" Wakuren wanted to know.</p><p></p><p>"Maybe Jorndell doesn't believe anything'll happen to him," suggested Zander. "Or, worse yet, maybe he <em>wants</em> to become a werebeast." The others gave him querulous looks. "What? I could see some people thinking it might be a good thing, being stronger, faster, tougher."</p><p></p><p>"Yeah, and turning into an unthinking beast three nights out of the month," scoffed Thurloe.</p><p></p><p>"Not everybody thinks these things all the way through," observed Wakuren.</p><p></p><p>Mrs. Applegate ushered them back into the sitting room upon their return to the missing dwarf's house and they filled her in on what they had learned. She had put the groceries away by that time and pointed out she'd found one of the knives missing from the kitchen. It was one of a set of six, all with silver blades. "He's out hunting the werebeasts that did this to his cousin," suggested Wakuren.</p><p></p><p>"Oh dear!" gasped Mrs. Applegate at the thought of her mild-mannered jeweler engaging in a fight with a lycanthrope.</p><p></p><p>"The temple clerics told us he had borrowed a book on lycanthropes," prompted Alewyth. "Would you happen to know where Mr. Lapidarius might have it?"</p><p></p><p>"It'll be downstairs in his study, more than likely," guessed the elderly housekeeper, grabbing a candle and leading the way down a long set of stairs. The one-story house was aboveground but Kerndell Lapidarius, a dwarf, preferred spending his free time under the ground level. An extensive basement under the house above contained his bedroom, study, and a cellar stocked with kegs of dwarven ale, while Mrs. Applegate's living quarters were upstairs. But the borrowed book was downstairs on a low table before a sofa. Several pages had been bookmarked; Alewyth quickly noted these dealt with wererats in particular.</p><p></p><p>Wakuren, in the meantime, had found another book lying open on the table and looked at it. It depicted the sewers beneath the city of Port Duralia, with two different sections circled with a question mark nearby. "Looks like he's been narrowing down possible lair locations for the wererats who bit his cousin."</p><p></p><p>"It seems kind of risky, a gemcutter going into a wererat lair armed with a silver kitchen knife," pointed out Thurloe. "Is he that much of a vengeance guy?"</p><p></p><p>"I should say not!" huffed Mrs. Applegate.</p><p></p><p>"More likely, he's gone to get his cousin back from the wererats and drag him to the Temple of Aerik to get cured," surmised Alewyth. She turned to the housekeeper. "Mrs. Applegate, do you think it would be possible for us to borrow the rest of the knives in your set?"</p><p></p><p>"Certainly, if it will help you bring back Mr. Lapidarius safe and sound."</p><p></p><p>"Thank you. We have a dozen dreamstones we'll leave here as collateral," she said, handing over the small pouch containing the gems they'd gathered in the mountains to the north and which they'd hoped Kerdndell Lapidarius could carve into shape for them. "Got a good idea where we should start looking?" the priestess asked Wakuren and Xandro, who were studying the sewer maps.</p><p></p><p>The bard put his finger down on one of the two circled areas. "We ought to start here," he said. "It's situated below a rougher section of town - it would make sense that the wererats would lair there. Quite a lot of them are thieves; they'd have a better time of it blending in when they're in their human forms."</p><p></p><p>"Human?" Alewyth asked.</p><p></p><p>"Human, dwarven, elven - whatever. As far as I know, anybody bitten by a wererat has a chance of becoming one."</p><p></p><p>The group said their farewells to the worried housekeeper and headed to the rough part of town, where the sewer map showed the wererat lair was likely to be located. "No open flames," advised Thurloe. He activated a sunrod and Zander removed the <em>everburning torch</em> he'd recovered from a kenku nest, secure in the knowledge that its flames were merely illusory. Then Thurloe pulled open a manhole cover and started climbing the ladder down into the sewers. Wakuren activated his <em>ring of invisibility</em> while Zander followed the fighter down into the sewers, casting a <em>mage armor</em> spell upon himself as he did so. Xandro followed the dwarf, unstrapping his lute from his back and playing a melody meant to inspire courage among his team. He was glad to see that although the sewer waters were high, they didn't reach the ledge to which the ladder had led them. Alewyth and the now-invisible Wakuren followed down the vertical shaft, the half-orc pulling the manhole closed above him before descending the rusting metal ladder.</p><p></p><p>"Which way?" asked Zander. Thurloe started heading west and soon found a wooden board laying on the ledge. From the light of his sunrod, he could see another ledge on the other side of the sewer waters; the board looked to be at least 12 feet long, long enough to span the 10-foot width of the sewers to get to the other side. Judging this to be a makeshift bridge, he maneuvered the board into place and crossed over to the other side of the sewer waters, the slightly soggy board easily supporting his weight. There was another board of similar size along the new ledge leading south, no doubt a similarly temporary bridge used by those traveling the other way. There was a wooden door in the wall just ahead, beads of moisture coating its surface; Thurloe crept up to it, wary for enemies. Wakuren crossed the bridge and slid past the fighter, scanning the area with his natural darkvision. This new ledge went south for 30 feet or more and then rounded a corner. Heading to the corner, Wakuren spotted a pair of zombies standing on either side of a more permanent bridge leading further south. These zombies were motionless and not at all human; while humanoid in build their heads were those of large frogs or toads. Each stared directly ahead and was quite motionless, obviously unaware of the invisible Wakuren's presence. The half-orc cleric called over to Thurloe and told him of his discovery.</p><p></p><p>"Guards, huh?" murmured the fighter. "Might be an indication we're in the right place." He then kicked through the soggy-looking door before him, having already determined it was locked. The door smashed inward in splinters, revealing a large room just beyond filled with crates, boxes, and assorted stolen goods - and a pair of startled wererats in their hybrid forms, humanoid rats wielding short swords. Among them stood a dwarf holding a battleaxe, a dirty bandage with days-old bloodstains wrapped around his left arm.</p><p></p><p>By then, Zander had crossed the bridge and could see one of the wererats in the light of Thurloe's sunrod from his position just behind the human fighter. The elven sorcerer cast a <em>magic missile</em> at the wererat, still too startled to react to the smashing in of the door to their hidden lair. The darting energy shocked the wererat into action and it leapt at Thurloe, short sword out and swinging. Thurloe caught the blade with his own bastard sword and pushed it off to the side.</p><p></p><p>The other wererat grabbed a crossbow from his back and dashed away to the south, out through a doorway leading to the bridge whose southern edge was guarded by the pair of bullywug zombies. The wererat leaned over the western edge of the bridge's stone rails, but he couldn't see the intruders on the ledge outside the door Thurloe had smashed through; the walls of the lair were blocking his sight. (Wakuren saw him just fine, though: the wererat headed south past the zombies and went west up to another, much wider bridge that spanned a wider section of sewer waters rolling beneath, from where he'd most definitely be able to see the adventurers on the ledge.)</p><p></p><p>Alewyth and Xandro stepped across the makeshift bridge to stand behind Zander, waiting for an opportunity to enter the room once Thurloe got out of the doorway. But the fighter was now not only battling the sword-wielding wererat but Jorndell as well, who was swinging his axe for all it was worth. Defending against two foes at once, it wasn't surprising that Jorndell's axe made it past Thurloe's defenses, but Wakuren had sidled up behind the fighter in the meantime and cast a <em>cure light wounds</em> spell upon Thurloe that healed up the worst of his damage thus far.</p><p></p><p>But the mere fact that he'd been attacked by the dumbass dwarf who Kerndell had apparently tried to rescue in the first place (which raised the question in the fighter's mind: just where <em>was</em> Kerndell, after all?) was enough to cause Thurloe to see red. Ignoring the wererat for the moment, Thurloe rounded on the dwarven warrior and brought his bastard sword crashing down upon him, dropping him unconscious and bleeding out with one powerful stroke of his blade. Zander took the opportunity to scoot past his friend and fully enter the lair, casting a second <em>magic missile</em> spell at the wererat he'd hit before with such a spell. Hissing in pain, the wererat lunged at the elven sorcerer, stabbing out with the blade of his short sword. The elf managed to avoid the strike - but it had been close!</p><p></p><p>The second wererat was climbing the steps to the longer bridge as a squeaking sound was heard by Alewyth and Xandro, still standing along the ledge outside the lair's western entrance door, now in smithereens. Looking aghast at the filthy sewer waters behind them, they saw what could only be hundreds - if not thousands - of rats swimming determinedly through the nasty waters like a great, furry mass. They were being propelled forward not only by their own efforts but also by the sluggish current of the sewer waters, coming from the west and then heading south past the wererat lair. Alewyth's mouth curled in distaste at the thought of the rat swarm advancing upon her and covering her in a multitude of sewer-drenched vermin.</p><p></p><p>But then a half dozen tiny spears came hurling in her direction, some of them hitting her and some striking Xandro, who had been continuing his tune upon his lute. Squinting at the approaching mass of swimming rats, the dwarven priestess saw a half dozen tiny little men riding upon the backs of a few of the rats in the teeming swarm, their hairless bodies seemingly misshapen and covered in wrinkles. Each of these jermlaine had plenty more weapons strapped to their backs and with evil grins each pulled out another tiny spear, ready to launch them at the enemies of their wererat allies as needed. Alewyth cast a <em>protection from evil</em> spell upon herself, certain of the approaching swarm's evil intents. Xandro crossed back over the wooden plank bridge, getting back to the original ledge. He continued playing his lute, hoping the magical effects would prove beneficial to his friends in the combats ongoing and to soon follow.</p><p></p><p>The wererat fighting Zander backed away in a tactical retreat, the <em>magic missiles</em> seemingly haven taken a bit of the fight out of him. But by now his partner was at the top of the southernmost bridge and had a good view of Thurloe's broad back. He fired his light crossbow and hissed in irritation as the bolt went wide, striking the side of the brick structure to the right of the doorway. Wakuren, still invisible, stepped into the room and stabilized the unconscious Jorndell with a <em>cure minor wounds</em> spell, just enough to close up his wounds but not enough to restore him to consciousness just yet - the half-orc wisely decided it was best if he remained out of the rest of the fight if possible.</p><p></p><p>Thurloe, unaware of the botched crossbow bolt attack behind him, crossed the room and brought his bastard sword crashing into the wounded wererat cowering in the corner. It cried out in pain, collapsed to the floor, and reverted to its human form upon death. "One down!" Thurloe called to his companions. Zander scooted over to stand beside the fallen wererat; it was away from combat and the sorcerer would greatly prefer not getting involved in any direct melee conflicts if he could help it. While looking around for potential hidden enemies, Zander noticed a silver knife on the floor, looking suspiciously similar to the one he himself held. Closer examination showed they were both from the same cutlery set - Kerndell must have made it at least this far.</p><p></p><p>As Alewyth had expected, the rat swarm veered sideways from the current and headed in her direction, already dozens of furry bodies crawling up from the slimy sewer water and onto the ledge upon which she stood. She had her warhammer out and was crushing the soaked bodies as fast as she could, but with every one she smashed it seemed another three took its place. She felt the bites of multiple teeth piercing the skin of her legs through her armor and winced at the thought of the disease many of the rats were likely carrying - she'd just have to hope her sturdy dwarven constitution was up to the task of fighting off whatever bugs these filthy rats might carry. But the jermlaine were still active, hurling their tiny weapons at both Alewyth and Xandro, almost causing the bard to stop his song in frustration. There were now enough rats on the ledge around Alewyth that heading back over by her side was no longer an option; he was pretty much stuck here.</p><p></p><p>Seeing the rats likely had the others taken care of, the second wererat ran back the way he'd come and raced to defend his lair, ordering the bullywug zombies to accompany him. They complied wordlessly, stumbling after the wererat over the smaller bridge leading to their stash of stolen goods.</p><p></p><p>Unseen by any of the current combatants, another force was fast approaching the wererat lair by a different side tunnel than the ones the rats and jermlaine had taken; this one ran parallel but was some 30-40 feet south. Down its length swam a quintet of bullywugs, nearly all but their bulging eyes below the surface of the sewer waters. They entered the south-flowing stretch of water and swam determinedly to the east, over to a section below the bridge the wererat and zombies were just now traversing, to a different entry door into the room of loot than the one Thurloe had smashed open, this one in the southeastern corner of the room. The wererats and bullywugs had been fighting for ages it seemed, each wanting to rule over the sewers beneath the city and neither fully able to defeat the other, but now the wererats had taken it too far, for bullywug scouts had reported the wererats had had their own fallen dead reanimated as zombie corpses. Using their own dead against them - that was going too far! The bullywug cleric and his four fighters would see an end to these wererat vermin once and for all!</p><p></p><p>Wakuren had gone back outside to the ledge - just barely missing the last of the bullywugs as they swam on by - at the sound of Alewyth's cries. Bringing his shield to bear, he used it to full advantage, crushing rat bodies beneath it with each swing. The attacks against the swarming vermin canceled out his magical <em>invisibility</em>, but the half-orc wasn't concerned - it was more important aiding his friends.</p><p></p><p>With battle having stopped for now in the loot room, Thurloe looked around and saw a pair of silver candlesticks - probably worth a bit of coin in their own right, but also decent bludgeoning weapons to be used against any other wererats they might happen to encounter in this den. Zander dragged the wererat corpse out of the door Thurloe smashed in, thinking perhaps if there was "free food" available the rat swarm would take advantage of it instead of trying to eat them. But the rats were into a frenzy already, biting at Alewyth and now Wakuren as well. However, the jermlaine had mostly stopped throwing their spears at the heroes, for they'd spotted the bullywugs and knew them to be a much-hated enemy of their wererat allies; they directed their javelin attacks toward the bullywugs instead. Xandro swapped his lute for his crossbow, sending a bolt into the furry mass, fully realizing it wasn't going to do the swarm as a whole much damage but it was at least <em>something</em> - he felt helpless, trapped on this side of the far ledge but unwilling to wade into the mass of furry bodies. Fortunately, a few of the rats at the southern edge of the swarm had discovered the lifeless form of the slain wererat and decided to go chew on him for a bit. Alewyth took advantage of their redirected attention to slay one of the jermlaine with her warhammer and that was all it took for the other jermlaine to decide they'd had enough: at their direction, five rats broke off from the swarm and swam south, each ridden by one of the wrinkly-skinned humanoids.</p><p></p><p>The lone remaining wererat and his zombie guards didn't see the approaching bullywugs on their way back into the loot room. Upon the wererat's orders, the shambling zombies preceded him into the den. Zander was the first to spot them and called out a warning; Wakuren activated his <em>ring of invisibility</em> again and headed back towards the loot room, confident that Alewyth and Xandro could deal with the rat swarm and their jermlaine allies. Thurloe held his bastard sword at the ready by the doorway and waited for a zombie to stumble into range - it wasn't as if these things were known for their tactical brilliance. He didn't have long to wait, either - but long enough to try to recall at the last minute whether zombies were easier taken down with slashing or bludgeoning weapons. At the last minute, he sheathed his bastard sword and used a candlestick as a club to bash into the skull of the first bullywug zombie to enter the room. The side of the skull caved in a bit but the undead thing barely seemed to notice, continuing its stagger into the room. With a curse, Thurloe recalled it was <em>skeletons</em> who didn't like bludgeoning damage, not zombies - before you actually entered combat with such undead yourselves, it was hard to remember this kind of stuff!</p><p></p><p>The wererat leaped into combat behind his zombie, striking at Thurloe with his short sword. Alewyth, having heard Zander's warning about approaching zombies, waded through rat bodies and entered the room past the smashed-in door, her holy symbol of Aerik held before her. She tried turning them, blasting them with Aerik's holy energy, but she failed to focus her attention correctly the first time and the attempt failed. Xandro continued shooting at the rats and eventually they lost interest, although a few of them took a few nibbles out of the corpse of the dead wererat before departing back into the filthy waters and following their jermlaine leaders out of combat. Breathing a sigh of relief at their departure, the bard crossed back over the makeshift bridge to meet back up with the rest of his group.</p><p></p><p>By the time Wakuren, now invisible once again, had re-entered the wererat den the bullywugs outside had all crawled up onto the southern ledge and surrounded the door. But inside the room, the combat was blazing hot and furious. Zander stabbed forward with his silver knife at the wererat, ignoring his distaste for hand-to-hand combat because he wanted to pull his own weight in this battle (and fearful of casting his last <em>magic missile</em> spell - he had just enough arcane energy remaining for one final use of the spell - in case he might need it later). The silver blade sliced open a wound in the wererat's fur that seemed to burn the lycanthrope. Thurloe wheeled on the rat-man and clonked him a good one on the side of his furry muzzle with his silver candlestick, knocking loose a tooth or two in the process. But then the first zombie brought a web-fingered hand slamming into Thurloe's head, knocking him off to the side for a moment as the second bullywug zombie staggered into the room. But then Alewyth tried turning the zombies a second time and this time it worked: with low moans, the undead forms flinched from her holy symbol and slouched away, back the way they'd come.</p><p></p><p>Wakuren popped back into sudden visibility, a silver knife sticking into the side of the astonished wererat, who spat blood from his mouth and fell to the floor, his body still very much furred and his pink tail sticking out of his breeches, indicating he was merely unconscious, not yet dead.</p><p></p><p>"That looks like it!" crowed Thurloe, glad to have finally overcome their foes. But his celebration was premature, for at that very moment the southern door of the lair exploded inwards and five burly bullywugs stepped into the cluttered room. "Kill everyone!" bellowed the bullywug cleric. "They're likely wererats!"</p><p></p><p>Wakuren stepped forward, his shield held to the side and his bloody knife, with which he had just brought down the second wererat, held out before him by its silver blade. "We are not your enemies!" he called to the bullywugs. "Look: the silver of this blade does me no harm! And we have just slain the two wererats we found lairing here!"</p><p></p><p>"Well, we almost have," countered Thurloe, standing above the fallen wererat who had yet to revert to human form. But with one final swipe of his bastard sward, the fighter parted the wererat's head from its body and both changed form in an instant. He tossed the now-human head over to the bullywug cleric. "Here you go," he said. "A token of our good intentions. We got nothing against you guys."</p><p></p><p>"Where is cleric?" demanded the mudlord - the bullywug spellcaster leading the small troupe of frog-man fighters. "These rats" - here he indicated the two dead humans on the floor before him, each of them apparently known to him personally - "didn't have the power to raise our dead as zombies!"</p><p></p><p>"As to that, we cannot say," Wakuren promised the mudlord. "Perhaps he is elsewhere. But we have encountered no cleric allied with the wererats we slew." The mudlord narrowed his bulging eyes, huffed in irritation, but spun about and indicated for his troops to follow him. "We leave," he announced to the heroes. He fully intended to track down the bullywug zombies Alewyth had turned and put them out of their miserable undead states, so they could be returned to the soothing sewer waters of their birth.</p><p></p><p>Combat having been averted, the heroes gathered together and the two clerics tended to the wounds of those who had been hurt. Zander pointed out the knife he'd found, opining it was undoubtedly Kerndell's. "He's got to be around here somewhere," the elf stated.</p><p></p><p>As a group, the heroes headed south the way the wererat and his zombie bodyguards had come, turning west at the end of the smaller overpass and then going over the larger bridge spanning the flowing sewer waters. There was a side room just ahead and Wakuren, in the lead, spotted a pair of skeletal frog-men standing guard before a metal door. "Good thing those bullywugs didn't know about this," he told the others. They'd been itching for a fight and Wakuren was well aware fighting off five unharmed bullywugs might have been more than the group would have been able to handle after their previous sewer battles.</p><p></p><p>"So what's the plan?" Zander asked.</p><p></p><p>"Bludgeoning weapons is the way to go against skeletons," Thurloe advised, wanting to get full credit for that piece of knowledge.</p><p></p><p>"We could just turn 'em," suggested Alewyth. "That worked fine against the zombies." Eventually it was decided Wakuren would enter the room invisibly, get into position on the far side, and then try turning them from there - so that when they tried to flee, they'd exit from the side doorway which looked to be the only way into or out of the room. "And we can all give 'em a good whacking as they try to pass on by," chuckled Alewyth.</p><p></p><p>It was a good plan - but one that failed once Wakuren's first attempt to turn them failed, just as Alewyth's first turning attempt against the zombies hadn't worked out. Turning undead, it seemed, was something that took a bit of practice when you weren't used to it.</p><p></p><p>"Guess we'll do this the old-fashioned way," commented Thurloe wryly as he stepped into the room and sent a silver candlestick crashing into the skull of one of the bullywug skeletons. The sudden attack caused the skeleton to collapse into a pile of unmoving bones, whatever necromantic energy had been holding the thing together dissipating upon the creature's "death" - if you wanted to call it that. (Thurloe certainly did; "causing a skeleton's death" sounded so much cooler than "causing a skeleton to fall apart.") The other skeleton surged forward at Wakuren, the half-orc now fully visible after his turning attempt, swinging a rusty scimitar at the cleric's head. Wakuren deflected the blow off of his shield. Then Zander stepped up and slew the skeleton with the other silver candlestick, which Thurloe had handed to him since he lacked a good bludgeoning weapon.</p><p></p><p>Xandro entered the room and saw the door was locked. Looking about, he spotted a keyring on a hook in the far corner and used it to open the door. Inside, as expected, was Kerndell Lapidarius, his combat expertise nowhere near his skills as a gemcutter, and though he'd successfully tracked the wererats to their lair he had been unable to overpower them and rescue his cousin - who, it had turned out, didn't want anything to do with "rescue" in any case, as he fully planned on joining the wererats as a hired sword and saw lycanthropy as a set of bonus powers gained as an admission rite in joining a select group.</p><p></p><p>"Your cousin's an idiot," Thurloe told the gemcutter.</p><p></p><p>"In this, I fear, we are in full agreement," replied Kerndell. "But he's okay?"</p><p></p><p>"He's unconscious but still alive," Alewyth promised him as she helped him from the cramped cell in which he'd been imprisoned since his capture. Jorndell had at least argued against killing his cousin, but only because he'd convinced the wererats there might be a way to get some money off of him - he was a well-respected jeweler, after all.</p><p></p><p>The group returned to the room with the stolen goods and they maneuvered Jorndell's limp form onto Wakuren's heavy steel shield so they could carry him back to the ladder to the surface. Then they'd help Kerndell bring his cousin to the Temple of Aerik to be cured of his lycanthropy - and just in time, too, for the full moon would be rising this very night.</p><p></p><p>"Sounds like you guys ought to be able to take it from here," Thurloe told Alewyth and Wakuren, seeing them off with Kerndell and his unconscious cousin. "We'll catch up with you later!"</p><p></p><p>"What's going on?" Zander asked once the clerics had departed with the dwarven cousins.</p><p></p><p>"We're going back down there!" the fighter informed the other two. "There's some good stuff in there among the stolen loot - no sense in it going to waste! Xandro, you go get the mules and the wagon and bring 'em back here while Quilson and I start piling up the good stuff on the ledge by the ladder!"</p><p></p><p>"Alewyth and Wakuren aren't going to like this," Xandro pointed out.</p><p></p><p>"Yeah, well, that's why they're not here!" Thurloe replied. "Now get going!"</p><p></p><p>- - -</p><p></p><p>In gratitude for helping him save his cousin, Kerndell Lapidarius agreed to carve runes onto dreamstones as indicated in the hand-drawn diagrams with which Thurloe provided him. The gemcutter told the group they'd be ready in two days and refused to discuss any offers of payment.</p><p></p><p>And after this, having been the fifth adventure in my new "let's not track experience points" experimental campaign, we then proceeded to upgrade the PCs to 2nd level. Joey tempted Fate by pointing out how sucky it would be to roll a "1" for his new hit points and then did just that, bringing Zander Quilson up from a 1st-level sorcerer with 4 hp to a 2nd-level sorcerer with 5 hp. (Fate apparently doesn't like being mocked!) Dan decided to have Thurloe continue on as a fighter; he'll pick up his wizard levels later (possibly much later) before becoming a spellsword, having decided this party could use a tough front-line fighter more than another spellcaster. Logan had Wakuren add a level of paladin, and I realized I had originally misunderstood (or forgotten) his concept: he'll only be adding half of his paladin levels when determining Wakuren's clerical spellcasting level. So now, as a Cleric 1/Paladin 1, Wakuren casts cleric spells as a 1st-level cleric; he'll cast cleric spells as a 2nd-level cleric at 3rd level (Clr2/Pal1), but then at 4th level (Clr2/Pal2) he'll cast cleric spells as a 3rd-level cleric. All clear? It took me a while to grasp the concept, too.</p><p></p><p>- - -</p><p></p><p>T-shirt worn: It was still the same gaming session as adventure #4, so I was still wearing my “Happy Happy Happy” T-shirt.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 8166455, member: 508"] [B]ADVENTURE 5: RACE AGAINST THE MOON[/B] PC Roster: [INDENT]Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 1[/INDENT] [INDENT] Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 1[/INDENT] [INDENT] Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 1[/INDENT] [INDENT] Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 1[/INDENT] [INDENT] Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 1[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 30 December 2020 - - - “I have determined the gemcutter best suited to carve the dreamstones you have gathered,” advised the Queen of Dreams. “While his name is unknown to me – most people do not announce their names while dreaming – I have been able to determine the location of where he sleeps.” She gave an address in Port Duralia, one Xandro recognized as being in a neighborhood of the upper classes. “He is, by appearance, a dwarven gentleman who shaves the sides of his beard, leaving only the spaces around his mouth unshaven. You should be able to track him down. I will visit his dreams and reinforce the idea he should aid you, but alas I have no control over how much of it will be retained once he awakens.” She walked over to a table that hadn't been there a mere moment before – for such were the ways of things in the Dreamlands – and highlighted an elaborate diagram showing the ways in which the dreamstones were to be cut and what runes should be etched into them. “You will need a copy of this made in the Waking World,” the Queen of Dreams informed the group. She looked over at Thurloe, who even in his dreams appeared in his full armor and with his bastard sword in its sheath upon his back. Despite his appearance, though, the Queen of Dreams was well aware he had been studying the arcane arts in addition to swordcraft in his spare time, through a tome of magical spells his wizardly mentor had left for him before her sudden departure. “As your magical studies make you the most familiar with carefully inscribing arcane writings, you will perform the copying,” she informed him, pulling back a chair from the table and indicating he should be seated. At her urging, Thurloe sat down at the table and reached for the quill, parchment, and inkwell waiting for him there. “Do your best to make an exact duplicate,” the Queen of Dreams instructed him. “How exactly is this going to help?” asked Thurloe, studying the diagram and carefully inscribing a duplicate on the blank sheet of parchment. “Is this supposed to help me remember it in detail, so I can redraw it when I wake up?” The Queen suppressed a quiet smirk. “Not exactly,” she said. “Those of you capable of recalling the memory of your time spent in the Dreamlands upon awakening have several other abilities as well. One is your ability to tap into the dream energy of this plane to cast your special abilities, like your own [I]touch of fatigue[/I]. Another is the ability to have your body in the Mortal World mirror the actions you take here in the Dreaming Lands.” “You mean, like sleepwalking?” asked Alewyth. “Very much so,” smiled the Queen of Dreams. “Thurloe, in the Mortal World, has risen from his bed and is drawing a diagram quite exactly like the one he's drawing here.” Thurloe looked down at the parchment before him and took extra care to get everything right in his duplicate. “Take care with the handwriting,” advised Zander. “We want to be able to read what it is you're writing.” “Shut up and get out of my light,” grumbled the fighter, concentrating hard on his task. The others left him to his drawing. The next morning, sure enough when Thurloe awoke there was a completed diagram, in his own handwriting, on a sheet of parchment at the writing table in his room. It looked, to his eyes, to be identical to the one he recalled inscribing in his dreams last night. "That's pretty weird," he said to himself as he got dressed for the day. Once everyone had gathered together and eaten a quick breakfast, and Alewyth and Wakuren had completed their morning prayers and prepared their spells for the day, the group as a whole mounted their horses and the mule-driven wagon and headed over to the house of the dwarven gemcutter, going by the memory of the location on the Queen's map in the Dreamlands. Xandro, well-versed in the layout of the city of Port Duralia, had no trouble finding the exact building: a one-story stone dwelling in a good neighborhood. The house was a small manor home, with a sturdy-looking wooden door at the building's front. Everyone dismounted and Alewyth knocked boldly at the door, the group having decided to make her their official spokeswoman since they'd be dealing with a dwarven gemcutter. Wakuren stood at the back of the group, not wanting his orcish features to be the first thing the dwarf might see upon opening the door. But his gesture was for naught, for there was no answer to Alewyth's knocks. "Nobody's home," Zander observed. "Now what?" Xandro made a circuit around the building, to make sure the dwarf wasn't out back or anything. He returned, shaking his head. "Nobody home," he acknowledged. "Let's go talk to the neighbors." The dwarf's neighbors were more than willing to talk to Alewyth, once they saw her holy symbol of Aerik and she explained they were worried about him. They learned the man's name was [B]Kerndell Lapidarius[/B], he had lived there for at least the last 30 years, he owned a jewelry shop on the Trade Way, he'd been looking a bit haggard the last couple of days (something to do with a brother or cousin, the neighbor recalled), and his jewelry shop had been closed for the last three days. They were more than happy to give Alewyth directions to Kerndell's shop, so that was the next place they hit up. However, the shop was still closed, with a handwritten sign attached to the front door with a nail stating the shop was closed due to a family emergency. No further details were given. "Bummer," groused Thurloe. "We're getting nowhere." "So what do we do? Break in and look for clues?" asked Zander. "I'll not be breaking into a jewelry store," asserted Alewyth. "That's a good way to be thrown into the city dungeons!" Thurloe started rolling his eyes at the dwarf's good nature, but then she surprised him by adding, "...We'd be better off breaking into his house and looking around - we'd be more likely able to talk our way out of trouble there than breaking into a place of business." However, upon returning to the Lapidarius home, it turned out that breaking in was no longer required; Alewyth knocked again at the door just in case and this time after a half minute or so an elderly human woman answered the door. "May I help you?" asked [B]Mrs. Applegate[/B], a widowed housekeeper under Mr. Lapidarius's employ. After they explained their prior visit, Mrs. Applegate apologized for not having been there earlier for she'd just now returned from the market with the day's purchases. "But come in, come in," she said, leading the group into a well-maintained sitting room. "I'm afraid Mr. Lapidarius is not at home, however - he appears to have stepped out this morning. Skipped his breakfast and everything." "Do you happen to know where he might have gone?" asked Alewyth. "No, I'm afraid not. Something to do with his cousin, I imagine." Mrs. Applegate gave them the details of Kerndell's recent activities: three days ago, his cousin [B]Jorndell Craghammer[/B], a dwarven warrior, showed up to consult with Kerndell about something. Jorndell's right arm was wrapped in bloody bandages, and whatever they talked about had seemed to upset Kerndell greatly. They argued and Jorndell left; since then, Kerndell had been very agitated but Mrs. Applegate didn't know any specifics. "You might try asking at the Temple, though," she suggested. "Mr. Lapidarius is a frequent visitor and a firm supporter of the Temple of Aerik." She gifted Alewyth with a wide smile, which the dwarven priestess returned. "Thank you very much, Mrs. Applegate," said Alewyth. "We will make inquiries at the Temple, then." The temple clerics were more than happy to tell Alewyth, a fellow adherent of their faith, what they could. "Brother Kerndell made some inquiries into the disease of lyncanthropy," the head cleric informed her. "We lent him a tome on the subject, as he has been a strong supporter of the temple for many years." "Did he mention why he was interested in lycanthropy?" pressed Xandro, although he was fairly certain it had something to do with Jorndell's wounded arm. "No, but we did explain to him how the disease could be prevented and cured," the priest replied. He explained to the group what he had told Kerndell earlier: a [I]remove disease[/I] or [I]heal[/I] spell cast upon the afflicted within three days of the bite that caused the disease would prevent it from transforming the poor victim into a werebeast; failing that, it would take a [I]remove curse[/I] or [I]break enchantment[/I] spell cast upon the victim on one of the three days of the full moon. "When's the next full moon?" asked Zander. "Tonight," replied the head cleric, grimly. Heading back to the Lapidarius home, the group discussed what had likely happened. "Jorndell gets himself bitten by a werebeast of some type, tells Kerndell about it, and now he's trying to get him cured before the full moon rises tonight," summarized Xandro. "So where is he now?" asked Alewyth. "And what were he and his cousin fighting about?" Wakuren wanted to know. "Maybe Jorndell doesn't believe anything'll happen to him," suggested Zander. "Or, worse yet, maybe he [I]wants[/I] to become a werebeast." The others gave him querulous looks. "What? I could see some people thinking it might be a good thing, being stronger, faster, tougher." "Yeah, and turning into an unthinking beast three nights out of the month," scoffed Thurloe. "Not everybody thinks these things all the way through," observed Wakuren. Mrs. Applegate ushered them back into the sitting room upon their return to the missing dwarf's house and they filled her in on what they had learned. She had put the groceries away by that time and pointed out she'd found one of the knives missing from the kitchen. It was one of a set of six, all with silver blades. "He's out hunting the werebeasts that did this to his cousin," suggested Wakuren. "Oh dear!" gasped Mrs. Applegate at the thought of her mild-mannered jeweler engaging in a fight with a lycanthrope. "The temple clerics told us he had borrowed a book on lycanthropes," prompted Alewyth. "Would you happen to know where Mr. Lapidarius might have it?" "It'll be downstairs in his study, more than likely," guessed the elderly housekeeper, grabbing a candle and leading the way down a long set of stairs. The one-story house was aboveground but Kerndell Lapidarius, a dwarf, preferred spending his free time under the ground level. An extensive basement under the house above contained his bedroom, study, and a cellar stocked with kegs of dwarven ale, while Mrs. Applegate's living quarters were upstairs. But the borrowed book was downstairs on a low table before a sofa. Several pages had been bookmarked; Alewyth quickly noted these dealt with wererats in particular. Wakuren, in the meantime, had found another book lying open on the table and looked at it. It depicted the sewers beneath the city of Port Duralia, with two different sections circled with a question mark nearby. "Looks like he's been narrowing down possible lair locations for the wererats who bit his cousin." "It seems kind of risky, a gemcutter going into a wererat lair armed with a silver kitchen knife," pointed out Thurloe. "Is he that much of a vengeance guy?" "I should say not!" huffed Mrs. Applegate. "More likely, he's gone to get his cousin back from the wererats and drag him to the Temple of Aerik to get cured," surmised Alewyth. She turned to the housekeeper. "Mrs. Applegate, do you think it would be possible for us to borrow the rest of the knives in your set?" "Certainly, if it will help you bring back Mr. Lapidarius safe and sound." "Thank you. We have a dozen dreamstones we'll leave here as collateral," she said, handing over the small pouch containing the gems they'd gathered in the mountains to the north and which they'd hoped Kerdndell Lapidarius could carve into shape for them. "Got a good idea where we should start looking?" the priestess asked Wakuren and Xandro, who were studying the sewer maps. The bard put his finger down on one of the two circled areas. "We ought to start here," he said. "It's situated below a rougher section of town - it would make sense that the wererats would lair there. Quite a lot of them are thieves; they'd have a better time of it blending in when they're in their human forms." "Human?" Alewyth asked. "Human, dwarven, elven - whatever. As far as I know, anybody bitten by a wererat has a chance of becoming one." The group said their farewells to the worried housekeeper and headed to the rough part of town, where the sewer map showed the wererat lair was likely to be located. "No open flames," advised Thurloe. He activated a sunrod and Zander removed the [I]everburning torch[/I] he'd recovered from a kenku nest, secure in the knowledge that its flames were merely illusory. Then Thurloe pulled open a manhole cover and started climbing the ladder down into the sewers. Wakuren activated his [I]ring of invisibility[/I] while Zander followed the fighter down into the sewers, casting a [I]mage armor[/I] spell upon himself as he did so. Xandro followed the dwarf, unstrapping his lute from his back and playing a melody meant to inspire courage among his team. He was glad to see that although the sewer waters were high, they didn't reach the ledge to which the ladder had led them. Alewyth and the now-invisible Wakuren followed down the vertical shaft, the half-orc pulling the manhole closed above him before descending the rusting metal ladder. "Which way?" asked Zander. Thurloe started heading west and soon found a wooden board laying on the ledge. From the light of his sunrod, he could see another ledge on the other side of the sewer waters; the board looked to be at least 12 feet long, long enough to span the 10-foot width of the sewers to get to the other side. Judging this to be a makeshift bridge, he maneuvered the board into place and crossed over to the other side of the sewer waters, the slightly soggy board easily supporting his weight. There was another board of similar size along the new ledge leading south, no doubt a similarly temporary bridge used by those traveling the other way. There was a wooden door in the wall just ahead, beads of moisture coating its surface; Thurloe crept up to it, wary for enemies. Wakuren crossed the bridge and slid past the fighter, scanning the area with his natural darkvision. This new ledge went south for 30 feet or more and then rounded a corner. Heading to the corner, Wakuren spotted a pair of zombies standing on either side of a more permanent bridge leading further south. These zombies were motionless and not at all human; while humanoid in build their heads were those of large frogs or toads. Each stared directly ahead and was quite motionless, obviously unaware of the invisible Wakuren's presence. The half-orc cleric called over to Thurloe and told him of his discovery. "Guards, huh?" murmured the fighter. "Might be an indication we're in the right place." He then kicked through the soggy-looking door before him, having already determined it was locked. The door smashed inward in splinters, revealing a large room just beyond filled with crates, boxes, and assorted stolen goods - and a pair of startled wererats in their hybrid forms, humanoid rats wielding short swords. Among them stood a dwarf holding a battleaxe, a dirty bandage with days-old bloodstains wrapped around his left arm. By then, Zander had crossed the bridge and could see one of the wererats in the light of Thurloe's sunrod from his position just behind the human fighter. The elven sorcerer cast a [I]magic missile[/I] at the wererat, still too startled to react to the smashing in of the door to their hidden lair. The darting energy shocked the wererat into action and it leapt at Thurloe, short sword out and swinging. Thurloe caught the blade with his own bastard sword and pushed it off to the side. The other wererat grabbed a crossbow from his back and dashed away to the south, out through a doorway leading to the bridge whose southern edge was guarded by the pair of bullywug zombies. The wererat leaned over the western edge of the bridge's stone rails, but he couldn't see the intruders on the ledge outside the door Thurloe had smashed through; the walls of the lair were blocking his sight. (Wakuren saw him just fine, though: the wererat headed south past the zombies and went west up to another, much wider bridge that spanned a wider section of sewer waters rolling beneath, from where he'd most definitely be able to see the adventurers on the ledge.) Alewyth and Xandro stepped across the makeshift bridge to stand behind Zander, waiting for an opportunity to enter the room once Thurloe got out of the doorway. But the fighter was now not only battling the sword-wielding wererat but Jorndell as well, who was swinging his axe for all it was worth. Defending against two foes at once, it wasn't surprising that Jorndell's axe made it past Thurloe's defenses, but Wakuren had sidled up behind the fighter in the meantime and cast a [I]cure light wounds[/I] spell upon Thurloe that healed up the worst of his damage thus far. But the mere fact that he'd been attacked by the dumbass dwarf who Kerndell had apparently tried to rescue in the first place (which raised the question in the fighter's mind: just where [I]was[/I] Kerndell, after all?) was enough to cause Thurloe to see red. Ignoring the wererat for the moment, Thurloe rounded on the dwarven warrior and brought his bastard sword crashing down upon him, dropping him unconscious and bleeding out with one powerful stroke of his blade. Zander took the opportunity to scoot past his friend and fully enter the lair, casting a second [I]magic missile[/I] spell at the wererat he'd hit before with such a spell. Hissing in pain, the wererat lunged at the elven sorcerer, stabbing out with the blade of his short sword. The elf managed to avoid the strike - but it had been close! The second wererat was climbing the steps to the longer bridge as a squeaking sound was heard by Alewyth and Xandro, still standing along the ledge outside the lair's western entrance door, now in smithereens. Looking aghast at the filthy sewer waters behind them, they saw what could only be hundreds - if not thousands - of rats swimming determinedly through the nasty waters like a great, furry mass. They were being propelled forward not only by their own efforts but also by the sluggish current of the sewer waters, coming from the west and then heading south past the wererat lair. Alewyth's mouth curled in distaste at the thought of the rat swarm advancing upon her and covering her in a multitude of sewer-drenched vermin. But then a half dozen tiny spears came hurling in her direction, some of them hitting her and some striking Xandro, who had been continuing his tune upon his lute. Squinting at the approaching mass of swimming rats, the dwarven priestess saw a half dozen tiny little men riding upon the backs of a few of the rats in the teeming swarm, their hairless bodies seemingly misshapen and covered in wrinkles. Each of these jermlaine had plenty more weapons strapped to their backs and with evil grins each pulled out another tiny spear, ready to launch them at the enemies of their wererat allies as needed. Alewyth cast a [I]protection from evil[/I] spell upon herself, certain of the approaching swarm's evil intents. Xandro crossed back over the wooden plank bridge, getting back to the original ledge. He continued playing his lute, hoping the magical effects would prove beneficial to his friends in the combats ongoing and to soon follow. The wererat fighting Zander backed away in a tactical retreat, the [I]magic missiles[/I] seemingly haven taken a bit of the fight out of him. But by now his partner was at the top of the southernmost bridge and had a good view of Thurloe's broad back. He fired his light crossbow and hissed in irritation as the bolt went wide, striking the side of the brick structure to the right of the doorway. Wakuren, still invisible, stepped into the room and stabilized the unconscious Jorndell with a [I]cure minor wounds[/I] spell, just enough to close up his wounds but not enough to restore him to consciousness just yet - the half-orc wisely decided it was best if he remained out of the rest of the fight if possible. Thurloe, unaware of the botched crossbow bolt attack behind him, crossed the room and brought his bastard sword crashing into the wounded wererat cowering in the corner. It cried out in pain, collapsed to the floor, and reverted to its human form upon death. "One down!" Thurloe called to his companions. Zander scooted over to stand beside the fallen wererat; it was away from combat and the sorcerer would greatly prefer not getting involved in any direct melee conflicts if he could help it. While looking around for potential hidden enemies, Zander noticed a silver knife on the floor, looking suspiciously similar to the one he himself held. Closer examination showed they were both from the same cutlery set - Kerndell must have made it at least this far. As Alewyth had expected, the rat swarm veered sideways from the current and headed in her direction, already dozens of furry bodies crawling up from the slimy sewer water and onto the ledge upon which she stood. She had her warhammer out and was crushing the soaked bodies as fast as she could, but with every one she smashed it seemed another three took its place. She felt the bites of multiple teeth piercing the skin of her legs through her armor and winced at the thought of the disease many of the rats were likely carrying - she'd just have to hope her sturdy dwarven constitution was up to the task of fighting off whatever bugs these filthy rats might carry. But the jermlaine were still active, hurling their tiny weapons at both Alewyth and Xandro, almost causing the bard to stop his song in frustration. There were now enough rats on the ledge around Alewyth that heading back over by her side was no longer an option; he was pretty much stuck here. Seeing the rats likely had the others taken care of, the second wererat ran back the way he'd come and raced to defend his lair, ordering the bullywug zombies to accompany him. They complied wordlessly, stumbling after the wererat over the smaller bridge leading to their stash of stolen goods. Unseen by any of the current combatants, another force was fast approaching the wererat lair by a different side tunnel than the ones the rats and jermlaine had taken; this one ran parallel but was some 30-40 feet south. Down its length swam a quintet of bullywugs, nearly all but their bulging eyes below the surface of the sewer waters. They entered the south-flowing stretch of water and swam determinedly to the east, over to a section below the bridge the wererat and zombies were just now traversing, to a different entry door into the room of loot than the one Thurloe had smashed open, this one in the southeastern corner of the room. The wererats and bullywugs had been fighting for ages it seemed, each wanting to rule over the sewers beneath the city and neither fully able to defeat the other, but now the wererats had taken it too far, for bullywug scouts had reported the wererats had had their own fallen dead reanimated as zombie corpses. Using their own dead against them - that was going too far! The bullywug cleric and his four fighters would see an end to these wererat vermin once and for all! Wakuren had gone back outside to the ledge - just barely missing the last of the bullywugs as they swam on by - at the sound of Alewyth's cries. Bringing his shield to bear, he used it to full advantage, crushing rat bodies beneath it with each swing. The attacks against the swarming vermin canceled out his magical [I]invisibility[/I], but the half-orc wasn't concerned - it was more important aiding his friends. With battle having stopped for now in the loot room, Thurloe looked around and saw a pair of silver candlesticks - probably worth a bit of coin in their own right, but also decent bludgeoning weapons to be used against any other wererats they might happen to encounter in this den. Zander dragged the wererat corpse out of the door Thurloe smashed in, thinking perhaps if there was "free food" available the rat swarm would take advantage of it instead of trying to eat them. But the rats were into a frenzy already, biting at Alewyth and now Wakuren as well. However, the jermlaine had mostly stopped throwing their spears at the heroes, for they'd spotted the bullywugs and knew them to be a much-hated enemy of their wererat allies; they directed their javelin attacks toward the bullywugs instead. Xandro swapped his lute for his crossbow, sending a bolt into the furry mass, fully realizing it wasn't going to do the swarm as a whole much damage but it was at least [I]something[/I] - he felt helpless, trapped on this side of the far ledge but unwilling to wade into the mass of furry bodies. Fortunately, a few of the rats at the southern edge of the swarm had discovered the lifeless form of the slain wererat and decided to go chew on him for a bit. Alewyth took advantage of their redirected attention to slay one of the jermlaine with her warhammer and that was all it took for the other jermlaine to decide they'd had enough: at their direction, five rats broke off from the swarm and swam south, each ridden by one of the wrinkly-skinned humanoids. The lone remaining wererat and his zombie guards didn't see the approaching bullywugs on their way back into the loot room. Upon the wererat's orders, the shambling zombies preceded him into the den. Zander was the first to spot them and called out a warning; Wakuren activated his [I]ring of invisibility[/I] again and headed back towards the loot room, confident that Alewyth and Xandro could deal with the rat swarm and their jermlaine allies. Thurloe held his bastard sword at the ready by the doorway and waited for a zombie to stumble into range - it wasn't as if these things were known for their tactical brilliance. He didn't have long to wait, either - but long enough to try to recall at the last minute whether zombies were easier taken down with slashing or bludgeoning weapons. At the last minute, he sheathed his bastard sword and used a candlestick as a club to bash into the skull of the first bullywug zombie to enter the room. The side of the skull caved in a bit but the undead thing barely seemed to notice, continuing its stagger into the room. With a curse, Thurloe recalled it was [I]skeletons[/I] who didn't like bludgeoning damage, not zombies - before you actually entered combat with such undead yourselves, it was hard to remember this kind of stuff! The wererat leaped into combat behind his zombie, striking at Thurloe with his short sword. Alewyth, having heard Zander's warning about approaching zombies, waded through rat bodies and entered the room past the smashed-in door, her holy symbol of Aerik held before her. She tried turning them, blasting them with Aerik's holy energy, but she failed to focus her attention correctly the first time and the attempt failed. Xandro continued shooting at the rats and eventually they lost interest, although a few of them took a few nibbles out of the corpse of the dead wererat before departing back into the filthy waters and following their jermlaine leaders out of combat. Breathing a sigh of relief at their departure, the bard crossed back over the makeshift bridge to meet back up with the rest of his group. By the time Wakuren, now invisible once again, had re-entered the wererat den the bullywugs outside had all crawled up onto the southern ledge and surrounded the door. But inside the room, the combat was blazing hot and furious. Zander stabbed forward with his silver knife at the wererat, ignoring his distaste for hand-to-hand combat because he wanted to pull his own weight in this battle (and fearful of casting his last [I]magic missile[/I] spell - he had just enough arcane energy remaining for one final use of the spell - in case he might need it later). The silver blade sliced open a wound in the wererat's fur that seemed to burn the lycanthrope. Thurloe wheeled on the rat-man and clonked him a good one on the side of his furry muzzle with his silver candlestick, knocking loose a tooth or two in the process. But then the first zombie brought a web-fingered hand slamming into Thurloe's head, knocking him off to the side for a moment as the second bullywug zombie staggered into the room. But then Alewyth tried turning the zombies a second time and this time it worked: with low moans, the undead forms flinched from her holy symbol and slouched away, back the way they'd come. Wakuren popped back into sudden visibility, a silver knife sticking into the side of the astonished wererat, who spat blood from his mouth and fell to the floor, his body still very much furred and his pink tail sticking out of his breeches, indicating he was merely unconscious, not yet dead. "That looks like it!" crowed Thurloe, glad to have finally overcome their foes. But his celebration was premature, for at that very moment the southern door of the lair exploded inwards and five burly bullywugs stepped into the cluttered room. "Kill everyone!" bellowed the bullywug cleric. "They're likely wererats!" Wakuren stepped forward, his shield held to the side and his bloody knife, with which he had just brought down the second wererat, held out before him by its silver blade. "We are not your enemies!" he called to the bullywugs. "Look: the silver of this blade does me no harm! And we have just slain the two wererats we found lairing here!" "Well, we almost have," countered Thurloe, standing above the fallen wererat who had yet to revert to human form. But with one final swipe of his bastard sward, the fighter parted the wererat's head from its body and both changed form in an instant. He tossed the now-human head over to the bullywug cleric. "Here you go," he said. "A token of our good intentions. We got nothing against you guys." "Where is cleric?" demanded the mudlord - the bullywug spellcaster leading the small troupe of frog-man fighters. "These rats" - here he indicated the two dead humans on the floor before him, each of them apparently known to him personally - "didn't have the power to raise our dead as zombies!" "As to that, we cannot say," Wakuren promised the mudlord. "Perhaps he is elsewhere. But we have encountered no cleric allied with the wererats we slew." The mudlord narrowed his bulging eyes, huffed in irritation, but spun about and indicated for his troops to follow him. "We leave," he announced to the heroes. He fully intended to track down the bullywug zombies Alewyth had turned and put them out of their miserable undead states, so they could be returned to the soothing sewer waters of their birth. Combat having been averted, the heroes gathered together and the two clerics tended to the wounds of those who had been hurt. Zander pointed out the knife he'd found, opining it was undoubtedly Kerndell's. "He's got to be around here somewhere," the elf stated. As a group, the heroes headed south the way the wererat and his zombie bodyguards had come, turning west at the end of the smaller overpass and then going over the larger bridge spanning the flowing sewer waters. There was a side room just ahead and Wakuren, in the lead, spotted a pair of skeletal frog-men standing guard before a metal door. "Good thing those bullywugs didn't know about this," he told the others. They'd been itching for a fight and Wakuren was well aware fighting off five unharmed bullywugs might have been more than the group would have been able to handle after their previous sewer battles. "So what's the plan?" Zander asked. "Bludgeoning weapons is the way to go against skeletons," Thurloe advised, wanting to get full credit for that piece of knowledge. "We could just turn 'em," suggested Alewyth. "That worked fine against the zombies." Eventually it was decided Wakuren would enter the room invisibly, get into position on the far side, and then try turning them from there - so that when they tried to flee, they'd exit from the side doorway which looked to be the only way into or out of the room. "And we can all give 'em a good whacking as they try to pass on by," chuckled Alewyth. It was a good plan - but one that failed once Wakuren's first attempt to turn them failed, just as Alewyth's first turning attempt against the zombies hadn't worked out. Turning undead, it seemed, was something that took a bit of practice when you weren't used to it. "Guess we'll do this the old-fashioned way," commented Thurloe wryly as he stepped into the room and sent a silver candlestick crashing into the skull of one of the bullywug skeletons. The sudden attack caused the skeleton to collapse into a pile of unmoving bones, whatever necromantic energy had been holding the thing together dissipating upon the creature's "death" - if you wanted to call it that. (Thurloe certainly did; "causing a skeleton's death" sounded so much cooler than "causing a skeleton to fall apart.") The other skeleton surged forward at Wakuren, the half-orc now fully visible after his turning attempt, swinging a rusty scimitar at the cleric's head. Wakuren deflected the blow off of his shield. Then Zander stepped up and slew the skeleton with the other silver candlestick, which Thurloe had handed to him since he lacked a good bludgeoning weapon. Xandro entered the room and saw the door was locked. Looking about, he spotted a keyring on a hook in the far corner and used it to open the door. Inside, as expected, was Kerndell Lapidarius, his combat expertise nowhere near his skills as a gemcutter, and though he'd successfully tracked the wererats to their lair he had been unable to overpower them and rescue his cousin - who, it had turned out, didn't want anything to do with "rescue" in any case, as he fully planned on joining the wererats as a hired sword and saw lycanthropy as a set of bonus powers gained as an admission rite in joining a select group. "Your cousin's an idiot," Thurloe told the gemcutter. "In this, I fear, we are in full agreement," replied Kerndell. "But he's okay?" "He's unconscious but still alive," Alewyth promised him as she helped him from the cramped cell in which he'd been imprisoned since his capture. Jorndell had at least argued against killing his cousin, but only because he'd convinced the wererats there might be a way to get some money off of him - he was a well-respected jeweler, after all. The group returned to the room with the stolen goods and they maneuvered Jorndell's limp form onto Wakuren's heavy steel shield so they could carry him back to the ladder to the surface. Then they'd help Kerndell bring his cousin to the Temple of Aerik to be cured of his lycanthropy - and just in time, too, for the full moon would be rising this very night. "Sounds like you guys ought to be able to take it from here," Thurloe told Alewyth and Wakuren, seeing them off with Kerndell and his unconscious cousin. "We'll catch up with you later!" "What's going on?" Zander asked once the clerics had departed with the dwarven cousins. "We're going back down there!" the fighter informed the other two. "There's some good stuff in there among the stolen loot - no sense in it going to waste! Xandro, you go get the mules and the wagon and bring 'em back here while Quilson and I start piling up the good stuff on the ledge by the ladder!" "Alewyth and Wakuren aren't going to like this," Xandro pointed out. "Yeah, well, that's why they're not here!" Thurloe replied. "Now get going!" - - - In gratitude for helping him save his cousin, Kerndell Lapidarius agreed to carve runes onto dreamstones as indicated in the hand-drawn diagrams with which Thurloe provided him. The gemcutter told the group they'd be ready in two days and refused to discuss any offers of payment. And after this, having been the fifth adventure in my new "let's not track experience points" experimental campaign, we then proceeded to upgrade the PCs to 2nd level. Joey tempted Fate by pointing out how sucky it would be to roll a "1" for his new hit points and then did just that, bringing Zander Quilson up from a 1st-level sorcerer with 4 hp to a 2nd-level sorcerer with 5 hp. (Fate apparently doesn't like being mocked!) Dan decided to have Thurloe continue on as a fighter; he'll pick up his wizard levels later (possibly much later) before becoming a spellsword, having decided this party could use a tough front-line fighter more than another spellcaster. Logan had Wakuren add a level of paladin, and I realized I had originally misunderstood (or forgotten) his concept: he'll only be adding half of his paladin levels when determining Wakuren's clerical spellcasting level. So now, as a Cleric 1/Paladin 1, Wakuren casts cleric spells as a 1st-level cleric; he'll cast cleric spells as a 2nd-level cleric at 3rd level (Clr2/Pal1), but then at 4th level (Clr2/Pal2) he'll cast cleric spells as a 3rd-level cleric. All clear? It took me a while to grasp the concept, too. - - - T-shirt worn: It was still the same gaming session as adventure #4, so I was still wearing my “Happy Happy Happy” T-shirt. [/QUOTE]
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