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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 8399999" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 15: OVERNIGHT VISITORSPC Roster:Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 3             Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 3             Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 1/paladin 2             Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 3             Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 3Game Session Date: 11 September 2021 - - -The sound of hooves racing towards them from behind caused Wakuren to lead the mules Perseverance and Mica over to the right hand side of the road, anticipating somebody needed to get by them in a hurry.  But as they got closer, the two riders slowed their mounts and matched the group's leisurely pace.  Thurloe, Alewyth, Xandro and Zander looked over from the saddles of their own respective mounts and saw the two newcomers were paladins of Telgrane, the God of Fire.  This was evident not only by the holy symbols and the fire emblems on the armor they wore and the shields they carried over one arm, but also by their horribly disfigured faces, for paladins of Telgrane found beauty in the marks seared into mortal flesh by the holy touch of fire, and their own healing spells left such burn marks as they were."Greetings," one called out to the group at large.  "Have you been traveling all this day?""Aye, since shortly after sunup," replied Alewyth, "stopping only for meals and the occasional relief break.""We bring warning," the other replied, looking over at Thurloe with suspicious eyes.  "There have been reports of bandits along this stretch of road."  Thurloe looked right back at the scarred paladin, not liking the way the holy man was looking at him but not willing to be the first to break eye contact.  Eventually, the paladin looked away and the fighter mentally congratulated himself for having won this particular staring contest.  "Be alert," cautioned the other paladin, and then with a flick of their reins the pair brought their light horses galloping down the road ahead of the slower-moving group."Nice bunch," muttered Thurloe, who hadn't really liked the looks of either of them; choosing to walk around with horrible-looking scars was just weird to him, even if they weren't painful to the paladins - it evinced a particular zealotry the fighter found distasteful.  But then they passed a sign advertising it being 10 more miles to the town of Shandoh Valley and his face lit up.  "Hey!" he said.  "My aunt and uncles live near here!  I bet we can stay overnight with them before pressing on in the morning."  It was late afternoon and he figured they could make it by suppertime, which would be especially fortuitous because his Aunt Charlotte was an excellent cook.But the skied clouded over and the rains started not soon afterwards, and the going got slower in the downpour.  As a result, it was after sundown by the time the group rode up to the Pulver residence, where Charlotte and Marten Pulver, the couple who had raised Thurloe since he was little and his own parents had been killed, lived in their two-story house.  Marten's leatherworking shop stuck out of the side of the building's lower level.Thurloe slid off of Horse and walked up to the front door, giving it a good solid knocking to be heard over the rain, which fortunately was starting to slow down and become a drizzle.  He was soaked to the skin, though, as were all of them, and couldn't wait to get inside and dry off.  And knowing his Aunt Charlotte, she'd be willing to whip up some vittles even though dinnertime had come and gone....The door opened and there stood Uncle Marten.  "Thurloe!" he said, surprise in his voice.  "I didn't know you were going to be in town!"  His eyebrows, which had risen in surprise in unexpectedly seeing his nephew, now furrowed in a frown.  "You should have let us know you were coming, boy...this really isn't a good time for a visit....""No?" asked Thurloe, his own face taking on the semblance of a frown.  "Why not?""Well, we've got visitors," replied Marten, stealing a glance over his shoulder.  "From out of town.  Could mean big business for us, they're looking to order a whole lot of leather goods...say!  Why don't you head on over to Claude's and stay the night there?  We can meet up in the morning, after our visitors have gone.  They'll just be here the one night.""Yeah?" asked Thurloe.  "Okay, that'll work."  He turned back and motioned for Wakuren to come over to the front door by him and the half-orc complied, tying the end of the mules' reins to the wagon and stepping down.  "Hey, Uncle Marten, you don't think Uncle Claude will have any issues with having a half-orc stay overnight at his place with us, do you?  Wakuren here is a good guy.""What?  No, no, of course not," assured Marten.  "Claude don't judge a man by his looks, you know that.""Okay then, Uncle Marten, I guess we'll see you in the morning then.  We'll be over at Uncle Claude's.""Sounds good, Thurloe my boy.  We'll talk in the morning.""That we will," agreed Thurloe, but the older man was already closing the door on him.  The fighter turned to Wakuren and asked, "Well?""He's not evil, just really, really nervous," the cleric-paladin of Cal replied, knowing full well why the ever-suspicious Thurloe had called him up to meet his uncle in the first place.  The half-orc took a step back, gazing up at the house before him, concentrating on detecting the auras of evil as he'd been taught back in the Temple of Cal in Port Duralia.  "I am, however, detecting three separate sources of evil inside the house, all on the upper level.""Okay, then," Thurloe said, heading back to Horse and pulling himself back up into the saddle as Wakuren climbed back into the wagon.  "Let's go, guys - Uncle Claude's farm is just over the hill!""What's going on?" asked Alewyth from the saddle of her dire goat, Pyrite."We're pretending to go to my other uncle's farm," Thurloe replied, leading the group up the hill and around a bend.  Once they were hidden behind a grove of trees, he motioned for Wakuren to halt the mules.  "But I want you guys to go back there on foot and keep watch on the house.  Zander and I are going to go make sure Uncle Claude's okay, then we'll be right back.""What are we watching for?" asked Xandro, not having heard any of the conversation at Marten and Charlotte's door."Those bandits we were warned about," Thurloe answered.  "I think there are three of them upstairs in my aunt and uncle's house.  You guys see if they stay where they're at or leave on their own - or if any other bandits meet up with them here.  Once Zander and I get back from Claude's we'll sneak in and take them by surprise."  Then with a kick of his heels he sent Horse dashing forward to Claude's dairy farm, with Zander likewise prodding Eddy forward.Alewyth dismounted from her dire goat and tied his reins to a tree.  Wakuren did likewise with the reins of the mules and Xandro climbed down from White.  "Okay, let's go," sighed Alewyth, already missing the warm fire and good food Thurloe had all but promised them would be waiting for them when they got to his Aunt Charlotte's house.  She wiped the drizzle from her face and stealthily made her way back down the road to the Pulver place, Xandro and Wakuren following in her wake.Just up the road, Thurloe and Zander pulled their horses to a halt just outside the farmhouse Thurloe recalled with such fond memories from his childhood.  Uncle Claude Pulver, Marten's brother, had been an adventurer for a short while before deciding to settle down and raise cows and he'd filled young Thurloe's head with thrilling tales of his exploits - far too many exploits for them all to have happened in the short time Claude claimed to have been off on the adventuring life, but to little Thurloe at the time they were magical tales so awesome they no doubt led to his own desires to make his own fortune following in his uncle's footsteps.  And now here he was, not only an adventurer but a dreamwalker, saving people who got caught up in their own dreams....Thurloe knocked on the wooden door to the farmhouse and it was answered much more quickly than Marten had managed back at his own home.  But then that was to be expected, for the main entrance into Claude's farmhouse was in through the kitchen, where the farmer spent a good chunk of his time when not out dealing with the cows or chickens.  "Thurloe!" called out Claude with delight in his voice and an expression of happiness on his face.  "Well I'll be!  Come on in - you too, you look soaked out in all this rain!""I can't stay too long, I just wanted to see if you're okay, then Zander and I are going to go back to Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Bob's house.""Who?" asked Claude, a look of total confusion on his face.  "You got some aunts and uncles I don't know about?"  But of course Thurloe didn't; he was just being his usual untrusting self and thought he'd see if he could trip up his Uncle Claude; after all, a simple hat of disguise could easily make any stranger look like the uncle Thurloe had known all of his life."No, of course not - I'm just messing with you," Thurloe said.  "But we gotta get back to Uncle Marten and Aunt Charlotte's - I think there's a group of bandits holed up there with them and we're gonna go root them out.""Well, then you just hang on one minute, while I go gear up," Claude replied.  "I still got my armor and sword from my old adventuring days - I'm coming with you!""That's not necessary--" began Thurloe before getting cut off.  "He's my little brother and I'm coming with you, end of story!" Claude admonished.  "Now hang on, I won't be but a minute."  And with that he passed through the sitting room and into his bedroom, heading over to the closet where Thurloe knew he kept his old adventuring gear; as a child, Thurloe had often marveled over the cool longsword and the leather armor his uncle kept from his "younger days of glory."  Zander, in the meantime, stood by the kitchen stove, where the blazing fire dried off the worst of the wetness that had soaked him to the bone.Claude returned as promised not too much longer, the leather armor perhaps a tighter fit than it had been in his younger days but still functional.  He wore his scabbard at a belt on his hip and in a practiced action pulled the length of the blade out with a swish that Thurloe knew so well.  "Lead on, my boy," Claude said.Thurloe turned to face the doorway back into the sitting room and was quite surprised when the point of his uncle's fabled sword went plunging through his back, cutting through his own armor behind him but failing to poke back through the front part; the blade was buried through his midsection, though, and blood welled in the fighter's mouth."Urggh," Thurloe said quite involuntarily, causing Zander to look over his way from the warm fire in the kitchen.  Seeing his friend under some type of attack, Zander rushed over to him, pushing past the staggering human fighter and into the bedroom, looking for the enemy.  By then, Claude had pulled the sword from Thurloe's back and plunged it into the elf's side as he pushed past him and into the room.  Zander fell to the floor clutching his side, his own life-blood gushing through his fingers.  His eyes rolled back into his head and he passed out from the shock and the pain.Thurloe spun around and managed to get his own bastard sword in his hand as he faced his treacherous uncle.  And then a strange thing happened, causing the fighter to wonder if he was seeing things: the door to the bathroom opened up and out stepped another Claude, dressed in the overalls his uncle had been wearing when Thurloe and Zander first arrived at the farmhouse.  "Hey!" complained this second Claude.  "I thought we agreed I was going to be the farmer!"Thurloe put all further thoughts to the back of his mind as he concentrated on one thing and one thing only: killing these imposters.  His sword struck out with as much strength as the fighter could muster; fortunately, despite having just been stabbed in the back (which tends to lower one's effectiveness a bit), he had his magical torc to boost his strength as needed.  His blade cut through Uncle Claude's armor and the farmer fell back toward his identical twin.  That was all Thurloe needed; trusting Zander wouldn't bleed out in the meantime, he staggered back into the sitting room, pulling the door closed behind him.  Then he staggered a few paces away, fumbling at his belt for the healing potions he kept there.  Flipping the cork out of the end of a potion of cure moderate wounds, he upended it and drank down the concoction, feeling a warmth suffuse through his body as the wounds in his midsection closed up.  Then, having gotten his second wind, he stepped forward again and pulled the door back open, having closed it just to slow down what he had assumed was to have been the inevitable pursuit from his two imposter uncles.But his uncles were bent over Zander's unmoving form.  For one ghastly moment Thurloe feared they were slitting his throat to make sure he was well and truly dead, but they were more interested in looting his pockets.  The one Thurloe had stabbed in retaliation had pulled a healing potion from the elf's belt and was greedily drinking it down, while the "Claude" in overalls had discovered Zander's jade cooshee and was trying to figure out how to activate it.Before the armored Claude had a chance to finish the stolen potion, Thurloe's bastard sword had stabbed him through the forehead.He fell backward, hitting the wooden floor with a solid thunk.  But by the time he lay flat upon his back, staring up at the ceiling with unseeing eyes, Claude's features had melded into the creature's face, revealing it to be a gray-skinned humanoid with narrow limbs, a bald head, and no visible nose or ears.  "Doppelganger!" Thurloe cried, for he'd heard of such monsters, shapeshifters who took the forms of others for their own benefit.Now that he knew what he was up against, he turned to face the other "Claude" - and was surprised to see this one had somehow picked up a longsword of his own.  He swung his blade at Thurloe, but the fighter caught the strike on his buckler and cut him down with another torc-enhanced strike of his own weapon.  This second version of his Uncle Claude fell to the floor dead, its features blurring into another copy of the dead doppelganger lying on the other side of Claude's bed.But Thurloe wasn't worried about them, sure that if they were both reverting to their normal forms it was probably because they were already dead.  Now he just had to make sure the elf wasn't dead as well!  Dropping his blade, he grabbed up another healing potion from Zander's belt and propped the elf up on his lap, holding his head back and pouring the contents of the flask down the sorcerer's mouth.  Zander swallowed involuntarily, coughed, and sat back up.  "You okay?" Thurloe demanded, and when Zander nodded feebly he said, "Good enough - we gotta get back to the other house!"  Now that Thurloe knew there were doppelgangers about he was worried those were no ordinary bandits hanging out at his Uncle Marten's and Aunt Charlotte's.  He pulled Zander to his feet and the two scrambled back out of the farmhouse and pulled themselves up onto their horses, then turned them back the way they'd come.Back at the Pulver residence, the other three were not having a good time of it: they were wet (and it was still drizzling out, with no signs of letting up any time soon) and stakeout duty was boring!  At least Wakuren could still see the three separate sources of evil upstairs, but they had hardly moved the whole time they'd been watching the house.  The half-orc was behind the house, where he could see the kitchen window, while Alewyth was behind a tree where she could see the front door and Xandro was stationed off to the east, keeping a watch on the door that led to Marten's leatherworking shop.But after a good long while, Wakuren was getting bored, for the sources of evil hadn't hardly moved and he was starting to suspect they were all asleep.  If that were indeed the case, then the sooner they went inside and dealt with the situation, the sooner the heroes could get themselves warm by a fire and maybe get some of that food Thurloe was bragging his aunt cooked so well.  Sneaking quietly over to the kitchen door, Wakuren tried the handle and just as he had suspected - this was farm country, after all - it was unlocked.  He stepped into the kitchen, closing the door quietly behind him.But the opening and closing of the door hadn't gone unnoticed, for Alewyth had heard it and started creeping along the western side of the building to go check it out, even though that meant abandoning her post at the front door.  She didn't think that would be such a big deal, though, for Xandro could see the front door to the house as well as the door to the leatherworking shop from his vantage point, so if there were any changes to the status at either portal the bard should be able to see it.Fortunately, Wakuren saw Alewyth creeping by the side of the house through one of the kitchen windows and opened it a crack.  "Pssst!" he called to her quietly.  She veered over to the window to see what the half-orc wanted.  "Go get Xandro," he whispered.  "I think the three of us can take them."  Alewyth gave her friend a silent thumbs up and went back the way she'd come, to signal Xandro to head over her way.Unfortunately, by the time she got back to her original post she could see the bard had abandoned his; he'd seen her leave and was going to go see what was up, although he'd gone around the eastern side of the house to do so.  For a moment, Alewyth envisioned Xandro and herself running around the house in circles trying to find each other, but fortunately when she went over to the back door by the kitchen she could see Xandro approaching from the other direction.  "There you are," the bard hissed.  "What's going on?"Alewyth brought him quickly up to speed and then they both silently entered the kitchen through the unlocked door, closing it quietly behind them.  The whole downstairs level was dark and quiet; apparently everyone was still upstairs.By this time, Wakuren had made it up the stairs, activating his ring of invisibility as he did so.  There was a short hallway ahead; Wakuren went straight to the closest door, walking slowly so the tread of his booted feet wouldn't be heard by whoever was on the other side of the door, for his detect evil was still "pinging" an aura of evil just ahead.  Cautiously turning the doorknob and slowly opening the door, he saw a half-orc wearing leather armor sitting on a bed with a homemade quilt, rubbing his bare feet and expelling a sigh of intense relief.  His leather boots sat on the floor before him where he'd apparently kicked them off.  After determining the half-orc was alone (and that he was indeed the owner of the aura of evil he had detected), Wakuren closed the door with as much care as he had opened it.The next door along the hallway was on the other side, and opening it as carefully as he had the first one, Wakuren saw a middle-aged woman sitting upon a full-sized bed.  Her head was held at the side at an uncomfortable angle, but this was so the much younger woman bending over her could nestle her face up against the older woman's neck.  Years of classroom training about the various types of undead came flooding into the forefront of Wakuren's mind as he realized he was very likely meeting up with a vampire feeding.  He assumed that was Thurloe's Aunt Charlotte providing the blood to the young blond vampiress; looking around the rest of the room, he saw Uncle Marten standing just beside the door, staring dazedly off into space.  She's probably dominated the two of them, Wakuren thought to himself.  But then he silently closed the door and backtracked to the top of the stairs, where he met up with Alewyth and Xandro, who by this time had made their own stealthy way to the upper level of the house.  Whispering as quietly as he could while still making himself heard to his companions, Wakuren briefed them about the half-orc in the one room and the female vampire in the master bedroom with Thurloe's aunt and uncle.Alewyth cast a protection from evil spell upon herself, while Xandro got a wooden torch from his pack and a dagger from his belt and started whittling himself a stake.  Wakuren told them to stay where they were while he checked out the third source of evil, in a different room around the corner.  Still invisible and as quietly as he could, he opened the door and looked inside, seeing everything perfectly fine with his darkvision despite there being no light source in the room, for the two bedroom windows had their curtains pulled tight across them.  This room was a guest bedroom, slightly smaller than the other one, but it also held a half-orc in studded leather armor, only this one had already pulled the quilt over him and was already well on his way to sleep.  Stepping slowly inside, Wakuren raised his shield and brought it down with full force upon the half-orc's throat.  He made a low gurgling sound as he died in bed, which Wakuren was fairly certain wouldn't have been heard by anyone inside another room with a closed door between them.Alewyth cast a bless spell upon the three of them after Wakuren reported back that he'd killed one of the bandits.  Then he indicated that he and Xandro would go deal with the other half-orc while Alewyth went in to face the vampire, since her protection from evil spell would prevent the vampire from being able to take control of her mind in the same fashion she'd apparently already taken hold of Thurloe's relatives.  With that settled, Wakuren reactivated his ring of invisibility (for he'd popped back into the visible spectrum when he attacked the sleeping half-orc) and opened the door to what had been Thurloe's room growing up.Xandro wasted no time on creeping and silence, feeling fast and deadly was the way to go.  With only the moonlight streaming in from one of the windows to see by, he raced into the room, leading with the point of his rapier.  The blade caught the half-orc in the side of his neck as he looked up at the sudden noise of the bard's bootsteps on the wooden floor - and he managed to grab one of his throwing axes from his back and made a half-hearted attempt at retaliating against Xandro, but he was already bleeding too much by this point and he staggered forward, collapsing to the floor in a heap.  Xandro confirmed the kill with another stab at the back of his neck with his blade.  Seeing this, Wakuren changed course and went to go follow Alewyth into the master bedroom to face the vampire.The dwarven priestess, however, had run into a bit of difficult there, for in opening the door to the master bedroom she'd run straight into Marten, who had apparently been given orders not to allow anyone to disturb his mistress's feeding.  Not wanting to hurt Thurloe's uncle, Alewyth cast a cause fear spell at him.  His eyes widened in shock and horror and the leatherworker turned to flee - at least as far as the door to his own closet, which was all the distance the bedroom allowed.But that opened the entryway into the bedroom and Wakuren took it, slipping past the priestess of Aerik and reaching out a hand to push the vampire away from Charlotte Pulver.  He had infused his hand with a cure light wounds spell, the most powerful healing spell the cleric-paladin had been able to master thus far, and had further enhanced it with his magic ring.  The positive energy burned the vampire spawn, Triska, as if the half-orc's hand had been coated in acid.  "Ow!" screamed Triska in a petulant voice, "You little bugger!  That hurt!"Triska pushed Charlotte away from her and the woman fell onto her side upon the bed, twin rivulets of blood leaking from her neck where it had been pierced by the vampire spawn's fangs.  The blond woman stared regally down her nose at Wakuren and commanded, "Cease your attacks upon me at once!"  But when Wakuren made no indication he was going to obey the undead's wishes she cried out again in her most put-upon whine, "No fair!  You half-orcs are supposed to be easy to control!"Alewyth had seen the effect positive energy had had on the undead monster before her and upped the level of pain by casting a cure moderate wounds spell through her hand, reaching out to touch Triska and dealing twice as much pain and discomfort as Wakuren's lower-level spell had inflicted.  "Ow!  Stupid dwarven bitch!" Triska whined, pulling her arm away from the dwarf's touch; Alewyth couldn't help but see the smoke pouring out of the area where she'd made contact with the undead thing's arm.  And then Wakuren added to her pain, converting one of his prepared spells into healing energy and blasting the positive power into the vampire spawn's body with a touch of his hand.  Triska's verbal response - of an even fouler type than she'd managed thus far, the half-orc imagined - was ripped from her lips as she exploded into a cloud of mist."You got her!" Xandro exclaimed as he ran into the room to help fight the vampire; he'd gotten there just in time to see her body discorporate into a dark fog.  But the clouds of vapor didn't dissipate as the young bard had expected; rather, the mist drifted across the room, where it was siphoned into a small, wooden box lying upon a dresser pushed up against one wall.  Xandro examined it and saw it was in the form of a little coffin, about six inches long.There was a sudden clomping of footsteps upon the stairs and the three heroes whirled to face the doorway, expecting possible reinforcements from among the bandits' posse.  But then Thurloe and Zander ran into the room, seeing Marten and Charlotte shake their heads as if coming out of a bout of sleepwalking.  "Is everyone okay?" Thurloe asked.  Everyone was, although Charlotte expressed surprise to see her nephew there in her house, not having been aware of his arrival earlier that night when Marten had been sent to get rid of whoever was at the door."Okay, this is going to sound weird, but now that I know you two are all right we need to get back to Claude's - Zander and I took out a pair of doppelgangers and we need to see if he's okay."  That caused all kinds of commotion and questions, but Thurloe said he'd explain everything as soon as they got back and the five adventurers raced back to Claude's dairy farm, where they eventually found him tied up and gagged in one of the cow stalls in the barn.  That wasn't all they found, either: inside the shed where Claude kept both his wagon and his horse they found two other horses, horses that looked somewhat familiar.  Exactly where they'd seen these two horses before became apparent when they discovered the two sets of Telgranian armor hidden in the back of the wagon."Sonnuvabitch!" exclaimed Thurloe.  "Those damned doppelgangers were the two paladins we met up with earlier today!"  In hindsight, he realized the one that had been staring at him funny had probably been reading his mind and finding out there was a dairy farmer named Claude Pulver whose farm would make a good place to stay overnight and ransack for any goods that might be on hand to steal.  Which meant there probably weren't even any bandits on the road as they had claimed, which in turn meant the vampire and her two half-orc bodyguards likely had nothing to do with the doppelgangers in the first place.  So what were they doing showing up at his aunt and uncles the same night a pair of doppelgangers decided to rip off a dairy farmer?Thurloe had never met up with any doppelgangers before (that he knew of, anyway - who could really tell with shapeshifters?) but he decided right then and there that he hated the stupid things with a passion."Never you mind," soothed Aunt Charlotte upon their return.  "You saved us all, and that's what matters.  Now, how about we get you all into some dry clothes - and I bet you could all do with a bowl or two of some hot stew, couldn't you?"That, at least, was an easy question to answer. - - -This adventure I had intended to consist of two nearby locations with two unconnected sets of adversaries, taking advantage of the backstory Dan had given me about his aunt and two uncles.  But then the group (mostly Dan) decided it made sense to split the party, and they ended up going through the whole adventure in "hard mode," with two PCs taking on one threat by themselves and the other three taking on a different threat all by themselves, when I had intended for all five PCs to be fighting them one at a time in sequence.  But it worked out this way, although there were a couple of moments of nail-biting worry (especially when Joe hadn't been paying attention to who had stabbed Thurloe in Claude's bedroom and basically offered himself up - all 9 hp of himself - to the first doppelganger who took him out with an attack of opportunity).  But that's what makes it so much fun as a DM: seeing how the players react to the situations you present them with.And the PCs are now at 4th level as a result of this adventure.  Everyone else took one more level in the classes they've each been advancing in thus far, but Thurloe (who wants to become a spellsword eventually) decided to take his first level of wizard; apparently he's been studying that beginner's spellbook he was given in the first adventure during his off-time. - - -T-shirt worn: This was the same session as "Middlewich Manor" so I was still wearing my Red Cross shirt, but the "blood" aspect of it went well with the vampire spawn's blood drain attack, so it was just as appropriate if not more so (because Charlotte, Marten, and Claude Pulver are all Thurloe's blood relatives on top of everything else).</blockquote>

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