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Session #22: "Setting Them on Their Way"
RL evening of Nov 25th, 2003
The party had agreed to rest, recoup, then head to the surface. The people they had freed from the goblins needed to be brought home....and they needed care no one in the party could give.
Clearly the former slaves must be brought back.
And then there was the pesky problem of what to do with the captive goblins and their de-facto leader, the goblin sergeant Glebesh. Garret had given his word that no harm would come to him. What else to do with him, this far in the wilderness, but to set him free. And without weapons or food, how long would the crafty goblin last, with three goblin females and a baby in tow? This last, at least, was not the adventurers problem.
End of Session #22
P.S. DM’s note: If the gentle reader did not notice; Garret is gone! Long live Garret! In his place (with the same player) stands the elven ranger Mor’Elandi. Welcome!
Session #22: "Setting Them on Their Way"
RL evening of Nov 25th, 2003
The party had agreed to rest, recoup, then head to the surface. The people they had freed from the goblins needed to be brought home....and they needed care no one in the party could give.
- Kaezebeth, the old elven woman, was in the best shape of the former slaves. Her only serious physical condition was her hobbled feet; the goblin king had apparently crushed, then healed them badly on purpose, so that she could only walk slowly, and only with great pain.
- Zook, the gnome woman who made the goblin’s potions, was physically healthy enough, but her personality had been so savaged by Calebbleed that she was beyond care or conversation. Zook would only whisper mono-syllabic responses to any query. She just sat, rocking back and forth hugging her spell-book, and watched Rowan use the gnome’s equipment to make magical potions.
- Merrick was clearly emotionally traumatized by his year-long ordeal, but he could not express it...his tongue had been cut out by the viscious goblin king. For what reason other than cruelty, none could say.
- And the flayed and tortured elven woman adventurer, “Faellon”, apparently, was in such a state of shock that she continued to cringe at even the gentle touch of Thaile’s healing.
Clearly the former slaves must be brought back.
And then there was the pesky problem of what to do with the captive goblins and their de-facto leader, the goblin sergeant Glebesh. Garret had given his word that no harm would come to him. What else to do with him, this far in the wilderness, but to set him free. And without weapons or food, how long would the crafty goblin last, with three goblin females and a baby in tow? This last, at least, was not the adventurers problem.
Rowan said:From the journals of Rowan, Druid of Eaglesford
AS we went up, Garrett and Thaile were a little worried about whether goblins might still be above waiting to ambush us. We moved upward, captives and others in tow. Our entry had been blocked soon after we entered, so we’d need some way to take care of that. First, Riva climbed up and tried to move the large stone blocking the hole. He made a valiant effort, but he was unable to budge it even a little bit.
I decided to give it a try. I cast Spider Climb, climbed up there, and cast Stone Shape on the block. I got it unstuck, alright...of course, when a rock becomes unstuck from above your head, what does it do?
Yep, it fell on me, and knocked me back down the hole. In the end it turned out to be fine, though, with Thaile’s healing there...but I would have preferred the rocks not to fall on me.
We all climbed out and made our way up, exiting the second tower. It was late afternoon and I know that I was very happy to see the sky and sun again. Being underground is not natural, whatever Riva may think!
We checked the courtyard for bad guys. No such luck. ..And the goblin and wolf bodies we had left behind were no longer there. We probably should have burned them, but there is no changing the past! Thaile in particular thought they might come back as undead to harm us.
Thaile and Lissia went up to the top of the second Tower to look over the area. As they moved upward, they found themselves confronted by an elf on the stairway. He aimed a bow at them and demanded that they halt and state their business here. He also asked them who they were and where they came from.
Thaile refused to speak, though Lissia volunteered that we had killed some goblins.
The man had long blonde hair and was wearing shiny chain mail. With the longbow still up, he asked again who they were and where they came from.
Lissia, ever helpful, piped up she was from Three Oaks. Thaile guardedly said that she was from Eaglesford. He replied that he was from far to the West. He also pointed the bow downward, instead of at Thaile’s heart, indicating that he no longer felt obliged to kill her. Lissia suggested that he come down and meet the rest of the party and asked him which god he follows. Thellyne, was his answer to the god question and yes, he would be delighted to meet the rest of the party, when he was ready to do so. He then went back up the stairs toward the top floor of the tower, after tossing back that his name is Mor’Elandi.
Thaile followed him up, surprised to reach the top floor and not see him anywhere, especially when he had been in front of her a moment before. After a moment though, he popped up out of nowhere. A bit surprised, they looked over the valley to get a bearing on what was happening around the ancient fortress.
No goblin armies were in evidence, but as she looked, Thaile did see something going on at the bottom of the cliffs, about a mile or so away. Someone was excavating down there, doing some serious digging. Mor’Elandi sent his owl down to check it out. Thaile again invited him to come and meet the rest of the party, but he did not answer her and had disappeared by the time she reached the courtyard again.
Meanwhile, Riva and I had found another of the perfectly round holes in the outer wall of the fortress. It had been the goblin’s wolf den, with 45 pups and 8-12 adults. Of course, we had taken care of that problem. I continued through, followed by Riva to see the outside of the fortress. The cliff cut quite close to the wall, and from where we stood, we could see that Tower 4 was also mostly collapsed, the cliff face having come too close to it’s foundation. We looked around for a little while and then went back.
Back in the courtyard, Garrett, Kytum-up, and Tieran had gotten the command word for Thaile’s circlet out of Glebesh. He said that the command word was Calableed’s name and that it worked to disguise the wearer, to make him or her look like whatever they chose to. Zook sat quietly studying the spell book that I had noticed she had during the two days of potion brewing. She said it was her own and there was no need to keep it from her, though I did mention to Tieran that she had it. He asked to see it, but she didn’t want anyone to look at it.
Riva tried on the filthy armor that Calableed had been wearing and it revealed itself to be a mithril shirt, with Calableed’s name on it in gold links in infernal, which our well-educated dwarven battlerager was able to read. (Where does he learn all of these languages?) Riva informed us that it’s pretty expensive armor, but it will serve him well as we move onward.
Thaile arrived back soon after Riva and I did and told us that there was a guy up in the tower. Then she looked around and her “guy” didn’t show up.
Riva, Thaile, Tieran, and Garret explored the other towers, just to be sure that there were no nasty surprises lurking above. All of the towers were vacant, so we sent the goblins on their way and they wasted no time in getting out of there. I watched them go, since I didn’t trust Garrett to allow them to live. I worry about Garret, since he seems to have begun to see killing as an enjoyable thing rather than something that one should resort to only when necessary. The slaughter of the non-combatant goblins has been disturbing to me, it is not like the Garret I have known for so long to commit such an act.
When I rejoined the group we talked about who should accompany Kazubeth, Zook, and Merrick back to Scanton, since they would probably not make it there undefended. I volunteered to go, since no one else seemed to want to leave, but after much discussion we decided that Garrett and Lissia would go with them, then Garrett would continue to Eaglesford to find out how things were going there. We asked Zook for a look at her spellbook, but she didn’t want us to see it, it was hers, so in the end, we got her to give her word that she would help and not harm any of the travelers.
As we were discussing this, Thaile’s new friend finally made an appearance. Thaile introduced him to us and to my mind he seems overwhelmingly pompous, and so I have given him the name Pompous Elf Boy....or PEB, though I would not say it to him as I would not want to hurt his feelings. I am a nice girl, after all.
We spent the night in Tower 1, where we had battled Makkesh not all that long ago. The new guy (PEB) decided to stay with us and to accompany us below the next day.
We set watches and the night passed for the most part uneventfully. On third watch, in the early hours of the morning, well before dawn, I saw what might have been a torch below in the valley, but it was quickly gone and I saw nothing more. In the morning, I mentioned it to the others and remembered about the mist rising from the pile of rubble in the throne room. Kytum-up was quite concerned about the mist, but there was nothing to do for it until we got below and were able to find out what had happened.
We bid farewell to Garrett, Lissia, and the others and Thaile asked Darmon to bless their journey. Then the rest of us went below to find the Kobold kingdom and return the idol to its proper place. Oh, before we went down though, Kytum-up swore Mor’Elandi to secrecy, though he swore only not to reveal anything at this time. I still think he’s unbearably pompous and very bossy, but perhaps that is just his way.
We moved back down to the throne room and began clearing the rubble from the entrance to the Kobold lair. During the long process of rubble removal, Tieran went down to the room where the symbol had been and found that it was no longer there.
When he entered the room, however, it reappeared and he and Riva (who had accompanied him) both ran away, or rather, Riva dragged Tieran at the end of the rope that bound them together (Tieran had not wanted to fall in to the deep pit). So, Riva ran, pulling his new wizard-pull toy along the rocky and sometimes rubble-strewn hallways until they found a place to cower in fear for a while.
After the fear left them, they returned to the area and Tieran realized that he had hit bottom when Riva had dragged him through the pit. Oh, and the makeshift bridge was sticking out of the hole. It was an illusion of a deep pit when in fact it was a shallow hole, perhaps six feet deep. Tieran climbed down to look for secret doors or anything of interest, but found nothing.
When Riva returned, the rubble removal went somewhat faster, him being the strongest among us, but it was still a long slow process. Kytum-up had a specific order that stones had to be removed in as well, making the process take a little longer. Kytum-up also insisted at being at the end of our line as we worked our way down. He was filling in the passage behind us with stones. I thought this was pretty strange, especially the way he did it; he just sort of “tossed” the rocks back while closing his eyes. I really don’t get thay. Still, we finally worked our way down through the huge pile of collapsed ceiling to a hidden staircase. It was mostly choked with rubble, so we had to squeeze and wiggle along.
We began to head downward, Kytum-up worried about the steam which was not normal. Tieran got stuck, so Riva had to pull him free (I guess Tieran needs to eat a little less!). We could not see more than a few feet in front of us. As Riva and Kytum-up reached the bottom of the stairway, a commanding female voice, strangely accented, came out of the mist. “Stop”, it said. Then Riva saw a large snake, with the head of a woman, rise out of the mists. It’s voice was strange; while I heard strangely accented common, Riva heard dwarvish and Kytum-up heard draconic. Her body was that of a snake, very large, her head female, humanoid with flowing golden hair with black streaks, but it was ethereal, as if it were not all here somehow. (Later Tieran tried to explain other planes to me, but it made very little sense to me).
“Who is the initiate”, the snake-woman asked. “Where is your totem?”
We suggested that Kytum-up show the idol, which he did. This seemed to be the right answer, for the snake-woman continued.
“You bring others, excellent idea, for such a long journey.”
We were very confused and a little concerned about all of this as she continued. “Like all things there are nine, three by three, as it should be.”
The ethereal snake woman continued, “You stand in the beginning place; your path stetches out in front of you. As you start, you must master the nine mysteries of beginning, each a pair of principles. To your right, is the Mystery of Purpose. To you left is the Mystery of Purity. Which do you chose?”
We were pretty confused by all of this. Tieran asked the snake-woman what lies ahead. Her reply was that “our masters should have taught us that”.
Wonderful. Yet again, we blindly wander into a situation that we are probably not prepared for and are not even sure what we are supposed to do. Oh well, guess that’s just what we do now, after all, we DID want to find something more exciting than Eaglesford.
We chose the path to the Right, the Path of Purpose. As we moved into what proved to be a maze of corridors, rubble, and rooms of various sizes, I mentioned that this must be the Test of the Gods that Kytum-up mentioned. Everyone stopped and stared at me as if I had suddenly grown an extra head and then they made the usual demands for more information. I told them that Kytum-up had mentioned this, but thought that it was of no importance as we would not be going there. Well, he was wrong....oh, and he was glaring at me for revealing the deep dark secret.
As we wandered through the steam-filled maze, we tried to keep turning right to keep our bearings. We could barely see 5 feet in front of us from all of the steam. We wandered for a while when Kytum-up noticed that the idol had disappeared from his pack! Thaile just about died when she saw that it was gone! We had seen no one, nor had we seen it taken, it was just there one moment, gone the next. We continued to wander still trying to keep to the right. We came upon a few rooms and then a rubble filled passage. So, we turned around and went back the other way.
We saw a large open area to our left. The ground was strange, rising in a cone, the stone looking oddly like a coil of rope sitting there, a mound in the center of the room, bits of the ceiling dripping down from above as if it had been suddenly melted and the ceiling of the room had pooled on the floor and then hardened again. It was very strange.
Riva climbed to the top of the cone to look around. When he came back down, he was hit by a blast of steam and heard laughter retreating from somewhere behind him.
We continued to wander, finding nothing of note, until we came to a dead end room with some rubble. On one of the pieces of rubble Mor’Elandi found a fragment of a carving of intertwined snakes in the same style as the idol.
As we continued to wander, Riva and Thaile both noticed that they were missing stuff and I caught a glimpse of something strange, with four arms, very quick. The thief!!
I changed to a wolf and moved to the head of the line to try to find it, but I couldn’t catch the scent. Mor’Elandi suggested that we tie ourselves together, with slack in between to make sure that we stay together. So, we did that, me at the head, Riva next, then Kytum-up, Thaile, Tieran, and at the end, Mor’Elandi who imperiously kept telling us what way to go, even though he did not want to go first.
We continued to walk for a while, the mist obscuring our vision when I saw something ahead of me, a smallish female figure with wings (and big, fluffy clouds of steam). It breathed steam on Riva and me before running away. I began to chase it, but was having trouble, being tied to everyone else. Riva solved that problem by cutting the rope that tied me to him and then the rope that tied him to everyone else and the two of us ran on, trying to catch the steam woman.
As I dashed away in wolf form, I thought I heard Mor’Elandi say something about tactics. Boy, does that guy sound like Garret, or what?
End of Session #22
P.S. DM’s note: If the gentle reader did not notice; Garret is gone! Long live Garret! In his place (with the same player) stands the elven ranger Mor’Elandi. Welcome!
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