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Story Hour
Erkonin (Campaign #1) [Session 46: Making Deals with Devils is Stupid as well as Bad]
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<blockquote data-quote="prabe" data-source="post: 8046305" data-attributes="member: 7016699"><p>Session 3: Ghasts, Ghouls, Zombies, And What Was That Thing?</p><p></p><p>Dramatis Personae:</p><p></p><p>Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Sorcerer (Shadow)</p><p>Mo - Goliath Bard</p><p>Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk</p><p>Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard</p><p>Taman - Human (variant) Rogue</p><p>Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin</p><p></p><p>GM: - Everyone Else</p><p></p><p></p><p>1 Sunnin 748 (evening of the same day) (Campaign day 2)</p><p></p><p>We started just after clearing Kell’s Boarding House of Shadows (so many Shadows!) and finding all the treasure (see above for how it got allocated). Fiona identified the items and the party took an hour to take a short rest.</p><p></p><p>Joybell and Taman went down to the basement while everyone else was resting -- in part to look for any sign of a shadowpool forming and to move things around just in case there were resonances and correspondences forming. Mostly so that Joybell could practice with her new flail. The first time she took a swing and hit something, the flail glowed bright like a torch.</p><p></p><p>Joybell, after bounding back upstairs: Guys, guys, guys!!! Look at what it does!</p><p>Fiona: I just told you it would do that. Like a minute ago.</p><p></p><p>After the others finished resting, we all went up to the upper level to look for a shadowpool and move things around some in the attic to be on the safe side. We spent some time looking around the owner’s room up on the third floor but didn’t find anything particularly useful or informative.</p><p></p><p>None of the bodies had tools or equipment of dockworkers on them and Kell’s was on the other side of the river (across Allacross bridge) from Pierton. Nothing at the boarding house connected this establishment or any of the people in it to Istin’s Yard or the Istin family.</p><p></p><p>We stepped outside and Joybell did her Divine Sense (detect undead) thing that would have been so terribly clever to have used during the fight in the house with all the shadows, but she totally forgot about it. There were no undead in her range (60’). As we were all out in front of the building, wearing our armbands, a group of 4 guards came by moving double time toward Fisher’s Walk. They told us that Commander Mogree had sent them to Fisher’s Walk because something was going on there. Mogree was back in headquarters -- he had sent them to find out what was going on and send a report back. He’d heard about ghouls eating people there.</p><p></p><p>We told the guards about the 12 dead people in the building and the whole bunch of shadows we’d killed in the house. One of them stayed at the boarding house to start dealing with identifying the dead. One went back to report to Commander Mogree. The last two went with us to lead us (well, “lead us” from sort of the middle of the pack, because they didn’t feel a need to run into the bad stuff before we did) to where things were going on.</p><p></p><p>We double-timed toward Fisher’s Walk -- initially at Joybell’s best pace, which was slowing everyone down. So Mo picked her up and she rode on his shoulders so the group could go faster.</p><p></p><p>We got to Fisher’s Walk and found four corpses scattered around an intersection with some guards keeping people out of the intersection. The corpses had been partially eaten. The guards told us that the monsters attacked people with their claws, then the victims stopped moving (though they were clearly still alive) and the ghouls would then start eating them, without waiting for them to actually die.</p><p></p><p>The ghouls that attacked these four victims took some bites out of them, then left, moving toward Upport. (They had come out of Upport and were returning there.)</p><p></p><p>We headed in that direction, then as we got into the Upport neighborhood, we saw 3 Ghouls, each with a non-moving victim. We weren’t sure if the victims were dead or not; they could have just been paralyzed. As we ran up, Taman shot at the one closest to us and Mo used his new Wand of Magic Missiles on it.</p><p></p><p>The two in the back took big bites out of their victims (one of which was clearly still alive -- we could see arterial spray) but didn’t move toward us. The one in the front of the group moved into a position of cover around a corner of a building from us. So we diverted our fire to the ones in the back that we had clear shots on -- Orryk shot an arrow and Fiona used her fire bolt. The Guards moved up, but not too far up. They didn’t want to really engage these things.</p><p></p><p>Imaktis surprised at least some of the party by casting Magic Missile (Joybell was shocked) -- spreading the damage between the two wounded ones. Taman moved into position to shoot the closest one. Mo used the Wand of Magic Missiles again, to great effect. Joybell did pretty well with her Javelins, despite throwing them at long range.</p><p></p><p>When all of the ghouls had dropped, we tried to stabilize the victims. One of them was still alive and we were able to save that one. The other two were already dead before we were able to get to them. We searched the bodies of the ghouls looking for anything in pockets or on their persons or if they had any sign of being shipwrights. The ghouls were about the height of humans but emaciated-looking (not freshly dead like the zombies on the ship). They were all basically wearing tattered pants (“Bruce Banner pants”) with a symbol of a stylized ram’s head carved on their chests. Joybell and Imaktis recognized it as a symbol of Orcus, the demon-lord of undead who wants to make everything undead.</p><p></p><p>Joybell: That doesn’t even make sense...</p><p></p><p>As we were searching the ghouls, some of the windows along the street opened and heads started peeking out. We asked the people about what they saw -- they told us that the ghouls were heading toward Upport, where they had originally come from.</p><p></p><p>Taman and Imaktis found three sets of tracks coming out of Upport, just as the witnesses said. The guards decided not to come with us -- one of them stayed with the stabilized but still unconscious survivor and the other went back to HQ and reported about this to Commander Mogree.</p><p></p><p>We headed on toward Upport with Taman and Imaktis back-tracking the ghouls. As we were heading along three ghouls came out from around a corner toward us. At least we thought at first that it was three ghouls -- but as one came toward us very aggressively, we noticed that it smelled very very especially bad, so it appeared to be something different. (The players recognized it as a Ghast, but Joybell at least thought of it as a stinky-ghoul.) (2 Ghouls, 1 Ghast.)</p><p></p><p>The ghast dropped Taman right off with one blow, which made Orryk nervous and Joybell really unhappy. She moved up next to Imaktis and tried to protect him with her shield but the thing got a hit anyway. Then Imaktis hit with his Shillelagh.</p><p></p><p>Fiona cast Thunderwave on the two ghouls -- she pushed one back 10’ but the other one saved. Taman was healed by Mo with a Healing Word -- when he got to his feet he moved around to take cover behind tiny little Joybell.</p><p></p><p>Mo played a Thunderwave on his flute and pushed back the same one -- he was back almost to where he started, then the ghoul dropped in that spot -- but the other one saved.</p><p></p><p>Orryk was visibly shaken by seeing Taman dropped in a single hit by the ghast. He backed off to attack with his bow. He dropped the ghast. At that, the remaining ghoul tried to run away. Fiona cast a firebolt on it.</p><p></p><p>Taman ran to the corner behind the fleeing ghoul -- to follow behind as the ghoul went to wherever it was going. Joybell did a double move to try and catch up to him.</p><p></p><p>Orryk took a look at the defeated ghoul and ghast -- they were both wearing the Bruce Banner pants with the symbol of Orcus carved on their chests, but the ghast had a more ornate version of that symbol. There were no runes or anything resembling language associated with either of the Orcus symbols carved on the chests of the monsters.</p><p></p><p>Imaktis moved right up behind the fleeing ghoul, to see how motivated it really was to run away. The answer was not that much, because it turned around to attack Imaktis. Orryk shot it and Taman moved around to the side to take a shot at it from across the street. Joybell got a hit with her glowing flail. The ghoul was killed.</p><p></p><p>Taman resumed backtracking the ghouls and ghasts, following the path back toward Upport.</p><p></p><p>We came up on four monsters -- three of them looked like ghouls and the fourth looked different, like one of the stinky-ghouls with the more ornate symbol on its chest (3 Ghouls, 1 Ghast). Orryk was still shaken from Taman being dropped so easily in the previous combat. The three ghouls closed distance with us, but the different one, the ghast, stayed back.</p><p></p><p>Fiona shot it with a Fire Bolt and Imaktis cast a Guiding Bolt on it. With the four of them pretty well clustered together, Orryk, still shaking with fear from the previous combat, threw a bead from the Necklace of Fireballs into the group. The ghast and one of the ghouls were killed immediately. The other two ghouls moved up to attack Orryk. Mo viciously mocked one of the ghouls, giving it disadvantage on its attacks. Joybell dropped one of them with her flail, noting that it was softened up by the fireball.</p><p></p><p>After the last ghoul dropped, we took a short rest there, finding a quiet little alcove on the street. The path we’d been following from the first sighting of the victims in Fisher’s Walk was something of a random walk through this part of the city -- not a straight line at all.</p><p></p><p>After we rested, we continued following the tracks well into Upport. This is the area where logs come into the town on riverboats coming down from the inland forests. The logs go to lumber yards and sawmills and gets turned into lumber which is used in, among other places, the shipyards. We followed the tracks to a lumber yard -- an area defined not by a fence but by an area cleared of the grasses and plants that surround the area. There were 10’ high piles of logs and lumber around the yard and a building in the middle (approximately 60’x60’, ish) that appeared to be the sawmill.</p><p></p><p>We were able to take a bit of time to look around the yard when we got there. There were 12 Zombies spaced out around the central building.</p><p></p><p>Taman shot the nearest zombie -- it started making a low, moaning yell, which was taken up by the zombie next to it, then the zombie next to that, all the way around the line until all 12 were wailing. The nearest zombies started moving in our direction, but some of the more distant ones were moving in other directions. 4 Ghouls and 1 Ghast came out of the building and started moving toward us.</p><p></p><p>Orryk and Taman were advocating attacking at range and moving back -- staying out of melee with them, especially the ghouls with their paralyzing attack. Excellent advice, which we only sort of followed, at best.</p><p></p><p>One of the ghouls was completely evaporated when FIona critted it and did max damage with a fire bolt! Nice!</p><p></p><p>Orryk followed his own advice, shooting and falling back. Mo, who was well behind the front line, Viciously Mocked the nearest one but held his ground.</p><p></p><p>Imaktis moved up and cast Sacred Flame on the nearest zombie, saying “None shall pass”. Joybell moved up next to Imaktis, not wanting him to be facing all of the enemy on his own, and threw a javelin at the lead zombie, which killed it.</p><p></p><p>There really were quite a lot of opponents, with all those zombies (which can be tough as nails to actually drop) and the ghouls and the ghast.</p><p></p><p>Orryk told us again to fall back. Imaktis followed his suggestion -- attacking and then falling aback about 10 or 15 feet. Joybell did the same, moving back to stay within five feet of Imaktis so she could continue to protect him with her shield -- which was good because she was able to protect him from a ghoul’s paralyzing claw attack.</p><p></p><p>As we were dealing with all the monsters we had already, another Bad Thing came out of the sawmill. It looked similar to the Wight we fought on the ship at Istin’s Yard but it wasn’t wearing armor, or wielding a short sword and short bow. Fiona and Imaktis noticed that he had a Mage Armor spell up.</p><p></p><p>It shot two back beams out of its hands -- one at Joybell and one at Imaktis. It missed Imaktis but did necrotic damage to Joybell, bleaching and dessicating her skin where the beam touched her.</p><p></p><p>After that attack, Imaktis still didn’t fall back, so Joybell stayed with him, though Orryk was still urging us to fall back and stay out of range. With a couple of ghouls, the wight and several zombies coming up on Imaktis and Joybell, and Taman pretty close as well, Orryk moved up and threw another fireball bead from the Necklace of Fireballs. He got two zombies, the ghast, two ghouls and the wight.</p><p></p><p>Orryk: Next time, I’m letting you all die. Fall back!</p><p></p><p>The zombies were essentially evaporated and the ghouls and ghast were dropped. The wight took damage, but wasn’t dropped.</p><p></p><p>There was one zombie left right in front of Imaktis and Joybell. Imaktis took a swing at it, then picked Joybell up and moved back fifteen feet with her. Joybell moved up from that position to attack the zombie, then backed up to slightly behind Imaktis, but where she could still protect him with her shield, which she did. Then Taman dropped that one.</p><p></p><p>Through all of this the zombies were continuing their bellowing all around the yard as they were shuffling their way toward us.</p><p></p><p>The wight, after taking damage from the fireball, retreated back into the sawmill building.</p><p></p><p>Taman moved around to the side and took a position hiding behind one of the piles of logs where he could see anything coming out of the building and took a shot at one of the zombies, then fell back and hid again.</p><p></p><p>Imaktis and Joybell were the front line with Fiona and Mo about 10 or 15 feet behind (with Fiona throwing Fire Bolts and Mo using either Vicious Mockery to impose disadvantage or shooting things with the wand of Magic Missile). Taman was well around to the side behind the pile of logs and Orryk was circling around in that direction, shooting things with his bow (or moving up to throw darts). Orryk was still telling Joybell and Imaktis to fall back.</p><p></p><p>The zombies were getting up to Imaktis and Joybell one at a time, which seemed like it would work out just fine, except that zombies can be slow to kill which makes a defeat in detail more challenging.</p><p></p><p>While the main line of fighting was about 50 feet away from the building, Taman came out from his position of hiding behind the log pile and went to the door of the building and peeked inside to where the wight was. He saw the wight drinking something, but was not himself seen. Taman then backed around the corner and hid there.</p><p></p><p>Imaktis stayed in position with several (at least four or five) zombies getting very close to the front line. This left Joybell very torn -- Orryk was giving good advice to fall back, but she didn’t want Imaktis there on his own with three zombies right on him and more very close.</p><p></p><p>Joybell: I’m sorry, Orryk! But he’s up here and needs support!</p><p>Orryk: It’s his decision…</p><p></p><p>Taman went back to the door of the building and took a shot at the wight through the door then dropped back around the corner. It came back out of the building and could clearly see Taman, though Taman was trying to sneak. It cast Hold Person on him and Taman was paralyzed. Joybell could see Taman and that he was suddenly frozen -- she called out; “Oh, no! Taman!” -- then took a swing and dropped the zombie right in front of her.</p><p></p><p>Two more zombies immediately moved up (as expected) so Imaktis and Joybell had four zombies in a line in front of them.</p><p></p><p>Taman didn’t manage to shake off the Hold Person on his own turn but Fiona hit the wight with a Fire Bolt and broke its concentration on the Hold Person. Orryk came out from behind the pile of logs and took a shot at the wight, but wasn’t able to hit it. Mo tried and failed to Viciously Mock a zombie. Imaktis used Mo’s inspiration to hit with a Guiding Bolt.</p><p></p><p>Once again, the wight retreated, along the side of the building toward the driveway at the back. Taman took a shot at it as it retreated. Orryk missed the wight. Mo used the last charge on the Wand of Magic Missile to take down the wight -- and then the wand did not crumble to dust with its last charge expended. Yay!</p><p></p><p>Imaktis and Joybell, with their big line of zombies, were trying to focus fire on the zombies in turn, but had an iron zombie that survived many hits with only one hit point. Finally, Mo managed to drop the iron zombie with an attack with his rapier.</p><p></p><p>With all the worst monsters (the ghouls, ghast, and wight) gone, the end of the combat was a lengthy slug-fest against the few remaining zombies. Fiona moved around to where she could Fire Bolt to good effect. Orryk was throwing darts from off to the side, then moved up to attack with his quarterstaff and fists.. Taman moved up behind them and was attacking from there. Mo was around the side using his rapier.</p><p></p><p>Taman dropped another one. Orryk hit one twice, but it survived that. Mo finally dropped the last one.</p><p></p><p>Joybell moved to a corner of the building where her Divine Sense ability would cover the entire sawmill, and sensed for undead. None. Then she moved over to the driveway out into the night. None.</p><p></p><p>Good.</p><p></p><p>Taman went into the sawmill and looked for traps and found none that did damage -- there were some that were in the nature of alarms (like the Zombie Wail alarm outside). There was a shadowpool in the sawmill -- Fiona recognized it as the work of the same person who made the shadowpool on the ship. We moved things around to break the correspondences and stop it.</p><p></p><p>Orryk took a look at the body of the wight -- it had a pendant with a symbol of Orcus (like we’ve seen carved on the chests of the ghouls and ghasts). Joybell was completely grossed out by the evil symbol and said that it should be destroyed, but the others argued against it and she backed down. For now.</p><p></p><p>The ghouls and the ghasts were like the others we’d seen -- Bruce Banner pants and the symbol carved on their chests. The zombies were less fresh than the ones at the shipyard had been. By and large they weren’t wearing work-clothes or tool-belts or anything that would suggest that they were at work at the sawmill when they were killed.</p><p></p><p>Looking around the sawmill, especially the desk in the corner that passed for an “office” we found that no work had happened here for at least a month. Looking at the records, it appeared that the lumberyard had been having business problems and work may have stopped because it went into bankruptcy. The records indicate that they had sold wood to Istin’s Yard, but didn’t appear to have a deeper connection to Istin’s than to any of the other shipyards they sold wood to.</p><p></p><p>Imaktis (or maybe Mo) wondered if the shadowpools were perhaps connected to distressed businesses -- either because the buildings are empty and available or because people associated with the businesses were making deals with dark powers.</p><p></p><p>In the sawmill we found:</p><p></p><p>Potion of Stone Giant Strength (Joybell)</p><p>Potion of Clairvoyance (Fiona)</p><p>Potion of Fire Breath (Orryk, as it is relevant to his interests)</p><p>Oil of Etherealness (Taman, but he’s carrying it for the party)</p><p>Flute of Scribing (Mo)</p><p>70gp</p><p>900sp</p><p>2300cp</p><p>2 bloodstones (50gp each)</p><p>4 tiger eyes (50gp each)</p><p>4 zircons (50gp each)</p><p></p><p>(This came to 45 gp, 150sp and 383cp each, with 2cp left over.)</p><p></p><p>It appears that at least some of this treasure is coming out of the Shadowfell -- some of the coins are not locally minted (though they have the correct amount of the correct metals).</p><p></p><p>The first thing we want to do next session is report to Commander Mogree.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>We all leveled up to Level 3.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="prabe, post: 8046305, member: 7016699"] Session 3: Ghasts, Ghouls, Zombies, And What Was That Thing? Dramatis Personae: Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Sorcerer (Shadow) Mo - Goliath Bard Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard Taman - Human (variant) Rogue Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin GM: - Everyone Else 1 Sunnin 748 (evening of the same day) (Campaign day 2) We started just after clearing Kell’s Boarding House of Shadows (so many Shadows!) and finding all the treasure (see above for how it got allocated). Fiona identified the items and the party took an hour to take a short rest. Joybell and Taman went down to the basement while everyone else was resting -- in part to look for any sign of a shadowpool forming and to move things around just in case there were resonances and correspondences forming. Mostly so that Joybell could practice with her new flail. The first time she took a swing and hit something, the flail glowed bright like a torch. Joybell, after bounding back upstairs: Guys, guys, guys!!! Look at what it does! Fiona: I just told you it would do that. Like a minute ago. After the others finished resting, we all went up to the upper level to look for a shadowpool and move things around some in the attic to be on the safe side. We spent some time looking around the owner’s room up on the third floor but didn’t find anything particularly useful or informative. None of the bodies had tools or equipment of dockworkers on them and Kell’s was on the other side of the river (across Allacross bridge) from Pierton. Nothing at the boarding house connected this establishment or any of the people in it to Istin’s Yard or the Istin family. We stepped outside and Joybell did her Divine Sense (detect undead) thing that would have been so terribly clever to have used during the fight in the house with all the shadows, but she totally forgot about it. There were no undead in her range (60’). As we were all out in front of the building, wearing our armbands, a group of 4 guards came by moving double time toward Fisher’s Walk. They told us that Commander Mogree had sent them to Fisher’s Walk because something was going on there. Mogree was back in headquarters -- he had sent them to find out what was going on and send a report back. He’d heard about ghouls eating people there. We told the guards about the 12 dead people in the building and the whole bunch of shadows we’d killed in the house. One of them stayed at the boarding house to start dealing with identifying the dead. One went back to report to Commander Mogree. The last two went with us to lead us (well, “lead us” from sort of the middle of the pack, because they didn’t feel a need to run into the bad stuff before we did) to where things were going on. We double-timed toward Fisher’s Walk -- initially at Joybell’s best pace, which was slowing everyone down. So Mo picked her up and she rode on his shoulders so the group could go faster. We got to Fisher’s Walk and found four corpses scattered around an intersection with some guards keeping people out of the intersection. The corpses had been partially eaten. The guards told us that the monsters attacked people with their claws, then the victims stopped moving (though they were clearly still alive) and the ghouls would then start eating them, without waiting for them to actually die. The ghouls that attacked these four victims took some bites out of them, then left, moving toward Upport. (They had come out of Upport and were returning there.) We headed in that direction, then as we got into the Upport neighborhood, we saw 3 Ghouls, each with a non-moving victim. We weren’t sure if the victims were dead or not; they could have just been paralyzed. As we ran up, Taman shot at the one closest to us and Mo used his new Wand of Magic Missiles on it. The two in the back took big bites out of their victims (one of which was clearly still alive -- we could see arterial spray) but didn’t move toward us. The one in the front of the group moved into a position of cover around a corner of a building from us. So we diverted our fire to the ones in the back that we had clear shots on -- Orryk shot an arrow and Fiona used her fire bolt. The Guards moved up, but not too far up. They didn’t want to really engage these things. Imaktis surprised at least some of the party by casting Magic Missile (Joybell was shocked) -- spreading the damage between the two wounded ones. Taman moved into position to shoot the closest one. Mo used the Wand of Magic Missiles again, to great effect. Joybell did pretty well with her Javelins, despite throwing them at long range. When all of the ghouls had dropped, we tried to stabilize the victims. One of them was still alive and we were able to save that one. The other two were already dead before we were able to get to them. We searched the bodies of the ghouls looking for anything in pockets or on their persons or if they had any sign of being shipwrights. The ghouls were about the height of humans but emaciated-looking (not freshly dead like the zombies on the ship). They were all basically wearing tattered pants (“Bruce Banner pants”) with a symbol of a stylized ram’s head carved on their chests. Joybell and Imaktis recognized it as a symbol of Orcus, the demon-lord of undead who wants to make everything undead. Joybell: That doesn’t even make sense... As we were searching the ghouls, some of the windows along the street opened and heads started peeking out. We asked the people about what they saw -- they told us that the ghouls were heading toward Upport, where they had originally come from. Taman and Imaktis found three sets of tracks coming out of Upport, just as the witnesses said. The guards decided not to come with us -- one of them stayed with the stabilized but still unconscious survivor and the other went back to HQ and reported about this to Commander Mogree. We headed on toward Upport with Taman and Imaktis back-tracking the ghouls. As we were heading along three ghouls came out from around a corner toward us. At least we thought at first that it was three ghouls -- but as one came toward us very aggressively, we noticed that it smelled very very especially bad, so it appeared to be something different. (The players recognized it as a Ghast, but Joybell at least thought of it as a stinky-ghoul.) (2 Ghouls, 1 Ghast.) The ghast dropped Taman right off with one blow, which made Orryk nervous and Joybell really unhappy. She moved up next to Imaktis and tried to protect him with her shield but the thing got a hit anyway. Then Imaktis hit with his Shillelagh. Fiona cast Thunderwave on the two ghouls -- she pushed one back 10’ but the other one saved. Taman was healed by Mo with a Healing Word -- when he got to his feet he moved around to take cover behind tiny little Joybell. Mo played a Thunderwave on his flute and pushed back the same one -- he was back almost to where he started, then the ghoul dropped in that spot -- but the other one saved. Orryk was visibly shaken by seeing Taman dropped in a single hit by the ghast. He backed off to attack with his bow. He dropped the ghast. At that, the remaining ghoul tried to run away. Fiona cast a firebolt on it. Taman ran to the corner behind the fleeing ghoul -- to follow behind as the ghoul went to wherever it was going. Joybell did a double move to try and catch up to him. Orryk took a look at the defeated ghoul and ghast -- they were both wearing the Bruce Banner pants with the symbol of Orcus carved on their chests, but the ghast had a more ornate version of that symbol. There were no runes or anything resembling language associated with either of the Orcus symbols carved on the chests of the monsters. Imaktis moved right up behind the fleeing ghoul, to see how motivated it really was to run away. The answer was not that much, because it turned around to attack Imaktis. Orryk shot it and Taman moved around to the side to take a shot at it from across the street. Joybell got a hit with her glowing flail. The ghoul was killed. Taman resumed backtracking the ghouls and ghasts, following the path back toward Upport. We came up on four monsters -- three of them looked like ghouls and the fourth looked different, like one of the stinky-ghouls with the more ornate symbol on its chest (3 Ghouls, 1 Ghast). Orryk was still shaken from Taman being dropped so easily in the previous combat. The three ghouls closed distance with us, but the different one, the ghast, stayed back. Fiona shot it with a Fire Bolt and Imaktis cast a Guiding Bolt on it. With the four of them pretty well clustered together, Orryk, still shaking with fear from the previous combat, threw a bead from the Necklace of Fireballs into the group. The ghast and one of the ghouls were killed immediately. The other two ghouls moved up to attack Orryk. Mo viciously mocked one of the ghouls, giving it disadvantage on its attacks. Joybell dropped one of them with her flail, noting that it was softened up by the fireball. After the last ghoul dropped, we took a short rest there, finding a quiet little alcove on the street. The path we’d been following from the first sighting of the victims in Fisher’s Walk was something of a random walk through this part of the city -- not a straight line at all. After we rested, we continued following the tracks well into Upport. This is the area where logs come into the town on riverboats coming down from the inland forests. The logs go to lumber yards and sawmills and gets turned into lumber which is used in, among other places, the shipyards. We followed the tracks to a lumber yard -- an area defined not by a fence but by an area cleared of the grasses and plants that surround the area. There were 10’ high piles of logs and lumber around the yard and a building in the middle (approximately 60’x60’, ish) that appeared to be the sawmill. We were able to take a bit of time to look around the yard when we got there. There were 12 Zombies spaced out around the central building. Taman shot the nearest zombie -- it started making a low, moaning yell, which was taken up by the zombie next to it, then the zombie next to that, all the way around the line until all 12 were wailing. The nearest zombies started moving in our direction, but some of the more distant ones were moving in other directions. 4 Ghouls and 1 Ghast came out of the building and started moving toward us. Orryk and Taman were advocating attacking at range and moving back -- staying out of melee with them, especially the ghouls with their paralyzing attack. Excellent advice, which we only sort of followed, at best. One of the ghouls was completely evaporated when FIona critted it and did max damage with a fire bolt! Nice! Orryk followed his own advice, shooting and falling back. Mo, who was well behind the front line, Viciously Mocked the nearest one but held his ground. Imaktis moved up and cast Sacred Flame on the nearest zombie, saying “None shall pass”. Joybell moved up next to Imaktis, not wanting him to be facing all of the enemy on his own, and threw a javelin at the lead zombie, which killed it. There really were quite a lot of opponents, with all those zombies (which can be tough as nails to actually drop) and the ghouls and the ghast. Orryk told us again to fall back. Imaktis followed his suggestion -- attacking and then falling aback about 10 or 15 feet. Joybell did the same, moving back to stay within five feet of Imaktis so she could continue to protect him with her shield -- which was good because she was able to protect him from a ghoul’s paralyzing claw attack. As we were dealing with all the monsters we had already, another Bad Thing came out of the sawmill. It looked similar to the Wight we fought on the ship at Istin’s Yard but it wasn’t wearing armor, or wielding a short sword and short bow. Fiona and Imaktis noticed that he had a Mage Armor spell up. It shot two back beams out of its hands -- one at Joybell and one at Imaktis. It missed Imaktis but did necrotic damage to Joybell, bleaching and dessicating her skin where the beam touched her. After that attack, Imaktis still didn’t fall back, so Joybell stayed with him, though Orryk was still urging us to fall back and stay out of range. With a couple of ghouls, the wight and several zombies coming up on Imaktis and Joybell, and Taman pretty close as well, Orryk moved up and threw another fireball bead from the Necklace of Fireballs. He got two zombies, the ghast, two ghouls and the wight. Orryk: Next time, I’m letting you all die. Fall back! The zombies were essentially evaporated and the ghouls and ghast were dropped. The wight took damage, but wasn’t dropped. There was one zombie left right in front of Imaktis and Joybell. Imaktis took a swing at it, then picked Joybell up and moved back fifteen feet with her. Joybell moved up from that position to attack the zombie, then backed up to slightly behind Imaktis, but where she could still protect him with her shield, which she did. Then Taman dropped that one. Through all of this the zombies were continuing their bellowing all around the yard as they were shuffling their way toward us. The wight, after taking damage from the fireball, retreated back into the sawmill building. Taman moved around to the side and took a position hiding behind one of the piles of logs where he could see anything coming out of the building and took a shot at one of the zombies, then fell back and hid again. Imaktis and Joybell were the front line with Fiona and Mo about 10 or 15 feet behind (with Fiona throwing Fire Bolts and Mo using either Vicious Mockery to impose disadvantage or shooting things with the wand of Magic Missile). Taman was well around to the side behind the pile of logs and Orryk was circling around in that direction, shooting things with his bow (or moving up to throw darts). Orryk was still telling Joybell and Imaktis to fall back. The zombies were getting up to Imaktis and Joybell one at a time, which seemed like it would work out just fine, except that zombies can be slow to kill which makes a defeat in detail more challenging. While the main line of fighting was about 50 feet away from the building, Taman came out from his position of hiding behind the log pile and went to the door of the building and peeked inside to where the wight was. He saw the wight drinking something, but was not himself seen. Taman then backed around the corner and hid there. Imaktis stayed in position with several (at least four or five) zombies getting very close to the front line. This left Joybell very torn -- Orryk was giving good advice to fall back, but she didn’t want Imaktis there on his own with three zombies right on him and more very close. Joybell: I’m sorry, Orryk! But he’s up here and needs support! Orryk: It’s his decision… Taman went back to the door of the building and took a shot at the wight through the door then dropped back around the corner. It came back out of the building and could clearly see Taman, though Taman was trying to sneak. It cast Hold Person on him and Taman was paralyzed. Joybell could see Taman and that he was suddenly frozen -- she called out; “Oh, no! Taman!” -- then took a swing and dropped the zombie right in front of her. Two more zombies immediately moved up (as expected) so Imaktis and Joybell had four zombies in a line in front of them. Taman didn’t manage to shake off the Hold Person on his own turn but Fiona hit the wight with a Fire Bolt and broke its concentration on the Hold Person. Orryk came out from behind the pile of logs and took a shot at the wight, but wasn’t able to hit it. Mo tried and failed to Viciously Mock a zombie. Imaktis used Mo’s inspiration to hit with a Guiding Bolt. Once again, the wight retreated, along the side of the building toward the driveway at the back. Taman took a shot at it as it retreated. Orryk missed the wight. Mo used the last charge on the Wand of Magic Missile to take down the wight -- and then the wand did not crumble to dust with its last charge expended. Yay! Imaktis and Joybell, with their big line of zombies, were trying to focus fire on the zombies in turn, but had an iron zombie that survived many hits with only one hit point. Finally, Mo managed to drop the iron zombie with an attack with his rapier. With all the worst monsters (the ghouls, ghast, and wight) gone, the end of the combat was a lengthy slug-fest against the few remaining zombies. Fiona moved around to where she could Fire Bolt to good effect. Orryk was throwing darts from off to the side, then moved up to attack with his quarterstaff and fists.. Taman moved up behind them and was attacking from there. Mo was around the side using his rapier. Taman dropped another one. Orryk hit one twice, but it survived that. Mo finally dropped the last one. Joybell moved to a corner of the building where her Divine Sense ability would cover the entire sawmill, and sensed for undead. None. Then she moved over to the driveway out into the night. None. Good. Taman went into the sawmill and looked for traps and found none that did damage -- there were some that were in the nature of alarms (like the Zombie Wail alarm outside). There was a shadowpool in the sawmill -- Fiona recognized it as the work of the same person who made the shadowpool on the ship. We moved things around to break the correspondences and stop it. Orryk took a look at the body of the wight -- it had a pendant with a symbol of Orcus (like we’ve seen carved on the chests of the ghouls and ghasts). Joybell was completely grossed out by the evil symbol and said that it should be destroyed, but the others argued against it and she backed down. For now. The ghouls and the ghasts were like the others we’d seen -- Bruce Banner pants and the symbol carved on their chests. The zombies were less fresh than the ones at the shipyard had been. By and large they weren’t wearing work-clothes or tool-belts or anything that would suggest that they were at work at the sawmill when they were killed. Looking around the sawmill, especially the desk in the corner that passed for an “office” we found that no work had happened here for at least a month. Looking at the records, it appeared that the lumberyard had been having business problems and work may have stopped because it went into bankruptcy. The records indicate that they had sold wood to Istin’s Yard, but didn’t appear to have a deeper connection to Istin’s than to any of the other shipyards they sold wood to. Imaktis (or maybe Mo) wondered if the shadowpools were perhaps connected to distressed businesses -- either because the buildings are empty and available or because people associated with the businesses were making deals with dark powers. In the sawmill we found: Potion of Stone Giant Strength (Joybell) Potion of Clairvoyance (Fiona) Potion of Fire Breath (Orryk, as it is relevant to his interests) Oil of Etherealness (Taman, but he’s carrying it for the party) Flute of Scribing (Mo) 70gp 900sp 2300cp 2 bloodstones (50gp each) 4 tiger eyes (50gp each) 4 zircons (50gp each) (This came to 45 gp, 150sp and 383cp each, with 2cp left over.) It appears that at least some of this treasure is coming out of the Shadowfell -- some of the coins are not locally minted (though they have the correct amount of the correct metals). The first thing we want to do next session is report to Commander Mogree. We all leveled up to Level 3. [/QUOTE]
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Erkonin (Campaign #1) [Session 46: Making Deals with Devils is Stupid as well as Bad]
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