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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: 8126199" data-attributes="member: 7016699"><p>Session 19: More of the Crazy and Back to Pelsoreen</p><p></p><p>Dramatis Personae:</p><p></p><p>Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)</p><p>Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)</p><p>Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)</p><p>Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger</p><p>Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)</p><p>Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Shadow Sorcerer</p><p></p><p>GM - Everyone Else</p><p></p><p></p><p>A bit of retconning before we got going: Barney did not create a living boulder-thing for us to take back to Tall Orchard to help the halflings, as those only last for a minute and have a very limited range. Instead…</p><p></p><p>Barney said that he would summon an earth elemental with a control gem and let us take it back to Tall Orchard to help with the rebuilding. It would be able to help in any way the villagers needed. He summoned an elemental through the gate and then closed it.</p><p></p><p></p><p>2 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 33) (immediately after)</p><p></p><p>After we talked with the galeb duhr, Barney, and while FIona was identifying the magical treasure, Joybell cut up this gorgon to see if she could find the source of the petrification breath -- starting at the nostrils and working backwards. She found something in the sinuses that seemed like a strong candidate and collected that. Mo suggested we could bottle it or extract it and have Essence of Gorgon Snot. Joybell thought about that idea for a second and realized that she couldn’t really do anything with it with her herbalism kit. It was going to take someone good with alchemist’s equipment to make anything out of it.</p><p></p><p>She put a wad of the gorgon snot (well the part of its sinuses that seemed to be connected to the petrifying breath anyway) into her iron pot and put that into the bag of holding. She also put the longsword that she left the Basalt Henge with into the bag of holding for the party to sell when we get to someplace Nicer Than Pelsoreen.</p><p></p><p>Orryk asked Barney about the other side of the gate and whether there was a city nearby on the Plane of Earth. Barney said that he didn’t remember there being one.</p><p></p><p>Barney, pointing to the sunset: I have seen over 700,000 of those.</p><p></p><p>That translated to over 2000 years that he had been guarding this portal, since before the Severance. Joybell asked him if he knew anything about the Severance, since as an extra-planar being he might have had a different perspective. He said he was summoned by a druid to guard the gate. He didn’t personally notice the Severance, though he noticed some of the effects, and he wasn’t personally affected by it.</p><p></p><p>Joybell asked if we could see the gate, just to look at it like we had the fire gate at the Primal Atoll. He told us that the gate was currently closed and inactive, but there was still something to see. Barney told us that the borders between this world and the other planes are very porous, especially since the Severance, but this gate is from before that and is pretty stable. It mostly doesn’t open accidentally. The myrriq didn’t come through here -- it had been wandering around on this world for a few years before it came to this gate a couple of weeks ago.</p><p></p><p>We were led into a cave where there was a patch on the wall like the inside of a geode -- the crystals were swirling and moving around each other. Very pretty!</p><p></p><p>Mo: Aren’t we on the plane of earth. There’s all this earth around us…</p><p></p><p>Orryk and Taman both made careful note of the location of this gate on their maps.</p><p></p><p>We spent some time talking about if we really needed to give the elemental to the halflings at Tall Orchard. Well, Orryk raised the question, anyway. We discussed the logistical difficulties of going to Pelsoreen, getting it into the teleportation circle for the trip back to Embernook, etc. As part of this discussion, we asked Barney if the elemental was always there or if it could be dismissed and summoned again using the gem. He said that it was always there.</p><p></p><p>Joybell asked Orryk if she could look at the elemental’s control gem. He said yes and let her look at it. While he was still holding it. He didn’t let it go. For a second.</p><p></p><p>On that note, we made our usual precautions to rest. WIth the addition of the earth elemental patrolling around us, gliding through the earth with only its head out of the ground as a moving rock.</p><p></p><p>The night passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>3 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 34)</p><p></p><p>The first thing in the morning Joybell cast find steed again (or as she thinks of it “find Scooby”). Fiona cast a sending to let the halflings of Tall Orchard know that it was safe for them to return to their village.</p><p></p><p>We headed out toward Tall Orchard, following the direct and cleared gorgon trail (which we figured would shave several hours off of the travel time). The earth elemental sometimes walked, sometimes earth-glided. From the sound the elemental made when the rocks that made up its body ground against each other, it came to be called Gurn. As we traveled, Orryk studied everything he could about Gurn -- how it moved, how it passed in and out of the earth, how he was able to control it. He traveled at the back of the party because he was mostly interested in Gurn and what it could to.</p><p></p><p>We followed the trail back to where we’d buried the first gorgon head (after preserving it with a gentle repose spell). As we arrived at the spot where we’d first fought the myrriq and killed the gorgon, Taman saw three <em>huge</em> figures moving through the forest.</p><p></p><p>Mo cast the rope trick and we all climbed up into it. (Mo passed Scooby up to Joybell once she was in it). Imaktis dithered a bit and thought about staying out, but then he went up into it as well. Orryk had Gurn gliding around under the ground beneath the rope trick.</p><p></p><p>Three hill giants plodded through the clearing. They didn’t appear to be heading toward Tall Orchard or any particular place. Certainly not any place we felt a need to stop hill giants from getting to. So we let them go by. They’re evil, lazy, destructive and dumb, but this is their natural environment. And they weren’t heading toward Tall Orchard.</p><p></p><p>Of course this meant that we were forgetting the lesson that if we let things go by we only fight them again later when it’s worse. But we figured it was okay in this case.</p><p></p><p>Once the giants passed, we came out of the rope trick and dug up the gorgon head. Then Gurn grabbed it by one of the horns and carried it as we continued on our way to Tall Orchard. Orryk continued to be really focused on Gurn and not so much on the outside.</p><p></p><p>We arrived back at Tall Orchard toward the end of the day.</p><p></p><p>We could see across the small village center that the halflings were arriving at the village at almost the same time, coming from the opposite direction. Between us and them, we could see a troll. It was looking toward where it could hear the halflings in the town until it heard us, then it turned in our direction.</p><p></p><p>Taman: What the hell is that?!</p><p></p><p>Then he took a shot with his longbow at it.</p><p></p><p>Orryk took a shot with his shortbow and had Gurn sink into the ground and then rise up in front of the troll. Joyell rode Scooby to about 10 feet away from the troll -- then she jumped off and engaged the troll, while Scooby circled around toward the halflings to protect them. Joybell attacked with her new sword and got one hit.</p><p></p><p>Fiona cast a scorching ray on the troll and got one hit with fire damage. Mo cast a shatter spell on it and it reeled from the damage it took. Then he inspired Imaktis.</p><p></p><p>Mo: Kill it.</p><p>Imaktis: Okay.</p><p></p><p>Because of Fiona’s scorching ray, the troll wasn’t going to regenerate any damage this turn.</p><p></p><p>Another troll came out from between a couple of buildings to the north and attacked Joybell with two swinging claws and a bite. Only the bite hit. The one Joybell had attacked missed with all three of its attacks. Then a third troll came out from behind a building to the south but it couldn’t get into a good place to attack her, or anyone else. (Total: 3 trolls)</p><p></p><p>It did however move into a good formation for FIona.</p><p></p><p>Taman moved and dashed to stab the one that came from between the buildings to the north for a nice lot of sneaky damage. Orryk tried to use his water whip ability to knock that same one prone, but it it saved and wasn’t pulled over. Gurn took two slam attacks on the same one and hit it once for a lot of damage. Unfortunately, the second slam missed. Orryk then shot at it twice with his bow and got one hit.</p><p></p><p>Imaktis missed the first one with a firebolt then cast shillelagh and closed on it, but wasn’t able to get into position to attack. Joybell hit it twice, dropping it, but we knew that since it hadn’t taken fire damage yet, it would be regenerating.</p><p></p><p>FIona, seeing her cue in the cluster of enemies, cast a fireball on top of all three of them, including the one that was dropped. The downed one automatically failed the save and began to burn. The one that came from the north was screaming and on fire and the one that came from the south was very unhappy looking and lightly smoldering.</p><p></p><p>Mo cast a high-level blindness spell on the two remaining trolls. After that both of the trolls were screaming -- one from the fire and the other from being blinded.</p><p></p><p>The blinded troll then attacked Imaktis -- at least that’s who it seemed to be attacking, but its blind flails missed entirely. Frustrated, it shook its head and appeared to be able to see, but it couldn’t attack again immediately. The other one ignored Joybell and turned around to attack Taman, but it also missed wildly.</p><p></p><p>Taman, in return, attacked it, taking advantage of distraction to sneak attack. He dropped it with his attack, but knew that it would regenerate if someone couldn’t get fire or acid on it soon.</p><p></p><p>Orryk had Gurn slam twice at the one left standing but it missed both times. Orryk then took two shots with his bow and hit once.</p><p></p><p>Imaktis, in an attempt to deal with the one that just needed a bit of fire damage to keep it from regenerating, took a shot at it with a firebolt. Unfortunately, because it was prone he was unable to get a good shot at it and missed.</p><p></p><p>Joybell moved around the smoldering dropped troll to attack the one that was still standing. Fiona cast another fireball at ground zero on the trolls (and Taman, Imaktis and Joybell). The one that was still standing didn’t drop but the other two were burning corpses at the end of it.</p><p></p><p>Mo then viciously mocked the one remaining. “All of your friends are dead. Why don’t you join them?” And it died, mocked to death.</p><p></p><p>We attempted to loot the bodies, but the trolls had no loot. Orryk put out the fires using his ability to control flame and Gurn took the bodies out into the forest.</p><p></p><p>Joybell went to talk to the villagers and asked them about whether the trolls are a regular threat. They said that while the trolls have been in the area for a while, they didn’t generally come into the village to cause problems. Joybell told them that the source of the bulette and other hazards in the area was gone so they should be more or less back to normal now. She also told them that Gurn would be staying with them, under their control for a year. Then he would return to the plane of earth. She suggested that he could help them rebuild and possibly help survivors of other villages relocate to Tall Orchard.</p><p></p><p>Orryk spent the evening “teaching” the halflings’ cleric how to control Gurn. Mostly he was controlling Gurn while the halfling was there watching and maybe occasionally trying to get his hand on the control gem without success.</p><p></p><p>We made camp with our usual precautions. Orryk still had control of Gurn and had him bolstering our watches with a mostly subterranean patrol around the tiny hut.</p><p></p><p>The night passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>4 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 35)</p><p></p><p>In the morning we hitched up Horse 1 and Horse 2 to the wagon. Gurn put the gorgon head into the wagon and we covered it with a tarp.</p><p></p><p>As we left, Joybell and Mo told Tilia and Allard, the halfling teens we’d initially met, and the town elders that we could be contacted through the Administrator in Embernook. He’d hold letters for us if they were sent to him. Orryk and Joybell (at least) left the copper and silver coins they got from the myrriq’s hoard with the people of Tall Orchard to help them pay for rebuilding and reconstruction. (And so we didn’t have to haul it around with us.)</p><p></p><p>As we walked through the town, Orryk enjoyed his last few minutes of controlling Gurn, then, at or just beyond the borders of the village, he passed over the control gem, reluctantly, to the halfling cleric. Mo and Joybell talked about the value of setting up some sort of communication network so that people could get in touch with us if they needed our help -- sending a letter to us through the Administrator is not a quick way to communicate and emergency.</p><p></p><p>We traveled the six hours to Rodzun without incident and decided to press on for another four to get to Lunn, since the days were still quite long. Once we were on the main road, we moved pretty quickly so we could get to Lunn without it being too dark when we got there.</p><p></p><p>Orryk was Sad Orryk the whole way. We need to get him an elemental again.</p><p></p><p></p><p>In Lunn we found the most perfect inn -- called the Flying Turtle. Of course we stayed there. (There was another inn, but we didn’t care -- the Flying Turtle was the obvious choice.) Mo offered to perform for our lodgings (at a discount) but didn’t play his flute and sing this time -- instead he did a stand-up routine focusing on Dwarvish humor (rather earthy). He was an absolute riot and everyone loved him.</p><p></p><p>At the inn, we made our usual precautions and the night passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>5 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 36)</p><p></p><p>First thing the next morning, while we were having breakfast right around dawn (while the light was still quite dim in the town) there was a commotion out on the streets. The moment we heard screams, Joybell jumped on Scooby and ran outside.</p><p></p><p>Fiona took a last bite of her eggs, looked around for a second, then cast mage armor on herself.</p><p></p><p>When Joybell got to the door of the Flying Turtle’s tavern room, she saw a big long skinny thing with no skin wrapped around a person on the street, babbling crazily. The limbs didn’t bend right and it moved in a disturbingly off way. There were also 10 small creatures shaped like balls with big teeth in mouths that were continuously disappearing and reappearing in different locations on the creature’s body. They were also gibbering and babbling. There were two of them around the same civilian the tall lanky boneless looking thing was wrapped around and four around each of two other civilians. (1 Skinned One, 10 Star-Spawn Grues).</p><p></p><p>Taman moved out of the tavern, keeping his back to the wall by the door, and shot the skinned one with his longbow. When the arrow hit, the skinned one’s arms tightened around the civilian it was holding and that civilian went limp in its arms. Oh!</p><p></p><p>Fiona moved to just inside the door and took a shot at the skinned one with a firebolt and got a great shot for 15 points of damage. For good or ill, the civilian in its arms was already apparently dead, so this caused no further damage to be passed along to him.</p><p></p><p>The grues attacked. Four of them ripped a civilian apart just outside the door to the inn. The other four attacking a civilian got some hits, but didn’t kill her. The two that had been next to the skinned one came over to Taman, but weren’t able to attack.</p><p></p><p>Orryk, still annoyed at the world because he’d had an elemental under his control briefly and now didn’t, threw daggers from his Belt of Many Daggers at one of the ones on Taman and did a nice chunk of damage. Then he used his fists of unbroken air to punch it as well.</p><p></p><p>Orryk: If Gurn was here….</p><p></p><p>Mo moved next to FIona and viciously mocked the one that Orryk attacked (“Screw you guys!”) and then inspired Taman. Imaktis moved up and cast his spirit guardians -- flying turtles in the Flying Turtle!</p><p></p><p>The skinned one dropped his dead victim and moved up to the civilian that had been hurt by four grues and attacked twice. Joybell was preparing to scream in anger at having to watch it kill the civilian, but it missed both times.</p><p></p><p>Joybell rode over there on Scooby -- stopping a few feet away then sending Scooby off to protect any civilians not currently under attack before she closed on the skinned one on foot. She attacked but appeared to be hindered in her attacks by the small grues all around and missed both times.</p><p></p><p>The other civilians in the street screamed and scattered into houses and places of business, closing and locking doors behind them.</p><p></p><p>Taman drew his rapier and stabbed the same one Orryk attacked, dropping it. Then he turned to the other one on him, feeling a bit less nervous now that he wasn’t outnumbered.</p><p></p><p>We noticed that when the grues died, they sort of broke apart into flickering image fragments (like a hologram breaking into static), leaving no corpse or even residue behind.</p><p></p><p>Fiona stepped out of the building and found herself in a target rich environment. She cast scorching ray at the skinned one and two of her three rays hit.</p><p></p><p>The grues moved -- one group moved to surround Joybell and another to surround Fiona. Most of the ones on Fiona moved into Imaktis’ cloud of spirit turtles and took damage. All of the attacks of the four grues on FIona missed. The one remaining on Taman attacked him and missed. And the four on Joybell all missed.</p><p></p><p>Orryk moved to where he could back up Taman and threw two daggers at Taman’s grue, dropping it (with 21 points of damage!). Then he turned and did a flurry of blows with his fists of unbroken air on one of the ones on Fiona.</p><p></p><p>Mo moved out into the street and used 3 charges off the wand of magic missile to hit three of the four on Joybell (two of them with two darts each). None of them dropped but they all took some damage. Imaktis used a dash action to come up behind the grues on Joybell -- getting his spirit guardians into play against them.</p><p></p><p>Joybell attacked the skinned one, again hindered by the grues all around her, and managed to get one hit, despite them.</p><p></p><p>Imaktis noticed that the skinned one didn’t take as much damage as he should have from Joybell’s blow. It seemed like his shadow was absorbing some of the damage. (Joybell had two opportunities to notice this and failed both of them.)</p><p></p><p>The skinned one attacked Joybell and missed. He also failed to move out of the cloud of spirit turtles.</p><p></p><p>Taman moved over and sneak attacked one of the ones on FIona, doing enough damage to drop it.</p><p></p><p>Fiona cast misty step and moved out into the middle of the road and away from trouble. Then she firebolted one of the ones that had been attacking her for 15 points of damage. But that didn’t drop it.</p><p></p><p>On the grues’ turn, most of the ones in Imaktis’ spirit guardians cloud dropped to the claws of the tiny flying turtles. Only one stayed up. The two on Taman (formerly on Fiona) both missed.</p><p></p><p>Orryk moved into melee with one of the two on Taman and attacked with two daggers, getting two hits. He then did a flurry of blows - the first punch dropped one and the second punch dropped the other.</p><p></p><p>Mo viciously mocked the skinned one, but it saved. Then he inspired Imaktis. Imaktis, inspired, cast guiding bolt on the skinned one and it died in a brilliant flash of sparkling light. Joybell attacked the last grue and dropped it with a critical hit.</p><p></p><p>The civilian that had been surrounded and threatened (and even attacked) for several rounds broke out of her paralytic fear, screamed, and ran into the nearest building.</p><p></p><p>We got a look at the skinned one -- it looked like a big, deformed, skinless, slightly glistening humanoid dead guy. He didn’t appear to have any internal structure, no bones or cartilage. He did have internal organs, just no bones and no skin.</p><p></p><p>Imaktis: He probably left tracks.</p><p></p><p>Taman and Imaktis were both able to track the trail of bodily fluids and slime left by the skinned one. They came into town from Orlimmun, the next town on the way to Pelsoreen. So backtracking the monster would even be right on our way.</p><p></p><p>We put the skinned one’s body onto our cart, with the thought that Black Irnod might be interested in him when we got back to Pelsoreen. Then we loaded up the rest of our things, finished our breakfasts, and headed out toward Orlimmun.</p><p></p><p>After only about 15 minutes, we found a wagon on the side of the road. The trail of bodily fluids started there. In the back, we found a corpse that was literally nothing but skin and bones -- the parts that were missing from the skinned one. The empty skin was slumped back against the side of the wagon and had a book sitting in its lap. A few steps away from the wagon in the road we found the body of what we assumed had been the driver -- he had a bunch of open holes, like huge cysts the size of grapefruits had developed on his body and burst open. Or like things had hatched out of his body.</p><p></p><p>Glancing at the outside of the book, carefully, Fiona and Orryk didn’t see anything ominous about it. There was no title or marking on it -- it was just an ordinary looking book bound normally in ordinary looking leather.</p><p></p><p>Imaktis cast detect magic and found that the book is definitely magical and had elements of transmutation, conjuration and necromancy magic on it.</p><p></p><p>Fiona sat down and performed the ritual to cast identify and learned that it’s a book of the Hunger Between Worlds. Reading it is dangerous. Reading it out loud is even more so.</p><p></p><p>While she was doing that, the rest of us looked in the cart to see if we saw anything else. We found a traveler’s trunk or chest. Inside were some coins (amounting to 18gp in value total) and some papers which turned out to be correspondence.</p><p></p><p>The envelopes had all been discarded, so we had nothing with either the address of the recipient or the senders. All of the letters were written in different handwriting but they were all addressed to “Jorlas”. All of them were personal enough that there was no last name given.</p><p></p><p>One of the letters particularly caught our attention -- it told Jorlas (presumably the skinned one) to go to New Arvai to meet Elledrian, an elf librarian at the School of the World, and pick up a package, a book. He was to meet the letter-writer on the cart-track heading east from Rodzun. The letter was signed only with N.</p><p></p><p>Another letter gave Jorlas “greetings from the shadows of Promontory.” Taman remembered that Promontory is a neighborhood in Erlin, a city on the river between Embernook and New Arvai.</p><p></p><p>(Note: These letters are at the end of this session’s notes, they will be available as a handout and are also on the shared drive now.)</p><p></p><p>As we were looking at the letters and the cart, we noticed that Imaktis’ eyes weren’t pink any longer.</p><p></p><p>Joybell: Aw. It looked festive!</p><p></p><p>We left their wagon on the side of the road (on the grounds that it was not better than our wagon), but took the bodies (including all the parts of the skinned one) and cremated them.</p><p></p><p>Before we continued on our way, Joybell asked Orryk to take the orrery we got from the cleric of the Servants of the Hunger (see Session 9) out of the bag of holding. After a few moments of spinning, it began to point to this new book. When we put the book into the bag of holding, the orrery went back to spinning without indicating a direction.</p><p></p><p>Right. Both of those were left in the bag.</p><p></p><p>We took the box of letters to Jorlas and continued on our way to Tummeleen. We passed through Orlimmun around lunch time and continued without more than a brief rest stop. When we got to Tummeleen, we stayed again at the same in we’d been at on the way out -- the Sterling Scythe.</p><p></p><p>Mo played music at the inn, but it was a weird and unsettling day and it was not his best performance. Despite that, we did get our usual discount at the inn and he made 3gp in tips, because Tummeleen was hopping.</p><p></p><p>During the evening meal, Joybell asked the innkeeper if the two people from the cart -- Jornas and the driver who had the grues burst out of him - had stayed there, but the descriptions (as best she could give them) didn’t ring a bell.</p><p></p><p>Joybell: Have you heard of anyone in these parts whose name begins with N who might be into books?</p><p>Innkeeper, puzzled: No…</p><p></p><p>There was a three-cart trade caravan out of Pelsoreen staying at the Sterling Scythe for the night. They were traveling together for safety, but one was a spice merchant, one a fabric merchant and the third, much like the halflings we rescued from the ogres on the way out, a group of traveling artisans offering their skills in the small towns they went through. They were heading out to Rodzun and back, but didn’t seem to plan to head out into the smaller villages beyond Rodzun (like Tall Orchard).</p><p></p><p>We asked the fabric merchants if they were interested in the silk robes we’d gotten from the myrriq. They purchased them for 250gp each. (Which divided to 83gp each and 2 for the party kitty)</p><p></p><p>Joybell asked the innkeeper after those halflings we’d rescued and was told that they got gentle repose cast on their brother’s body and then headed to Pelsoreen. Hopefully they were able to get someone to resurrect him there.</p><p></p><p>Joybell, to the merchants: How are things in Pelsoreen? We left when there was this cold going around and there was some craziness with the slaves.</p><p>Merchant: They started looking at records and sorting things out to free people who shouldn’t have been slaves. Then right as we were leaving, we heard that some of the clerics of the Enthroned had made it all go away.</p><p>Joybell: Do you know of anyone whose name begins with N who might be interested in library books?</p><p>Merchant: No…</p><p>Joybell: Okay, thanks!</p><p></p><p>We then rested for the night, taking our usual precautions. It passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>6 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 37)</p><p></p><p>In the morning, before we left our room, Fiona cast a sending to Tulmor.</p><p></p><p>Fiona: We found another book of madness. Please advise. We’re a day out from Pelsoreen.</p><p>Tulmor, immediately: naughty word! <<long pause, but Fiona could tell that the spell’s connection remained open>> Book in bag of holding. Go to Pelsoreen. Moving probably safer than standing still.</p><p></p><p>This put Taman on edge and he spent the day on high alert as we traveled.</p><p></p><p>As we traveled this last day back to Pelsoreen, Mo named Horse 1 and Horse 2, Mr. Ed and Secretariat, respectively. Amazingly, despite having been named, the horses survived the day’s travel back to Pelsoreen.</p><p></p><p>The whole day’s travel was without incident and we were even fortunate that the causeway was up when we arrived, so we could cross straight into the city. (By certain broad values of fortunate, anyway.)</p><p></p><p>The causeway cost 1sp per person or mount and 1gp for the cart. So we just gave them the two extra gold from splitting up the proceeds of selling the robes the night before and crossed into Pelsoreen.</p><p></p><p>Taman started looking around for people following us as soon as we were in the city.</p><p></p><p>It looked pretty much like it did when we first arrived there. It was kind of late-ish in the day (the causeway is up just before sunset), but we went to Urlott’s with the gorgon head first, because we didn’t want to have to worry about it once we were in the city.</p><p></p><p>Taman: There are too many libraries in this city.</p><p>Fiona: <<blank disbelief>></p><p></p><p>We gave the librarian at Urlott’s the gorgon head -- he received it with glee -- and got in return a library card allowing Fiona and Orryk entrance to the library.</p><p></p><p>We took a slightly round-about route from there to the Iron Steed so we could go past the House of Masks to see if it was occupied. Nothing was obvious from the street outside, so Mo cast clairvoyance, holding his hands over his eyes like a junior birdman hand-mask.</p><p></p><p>The circles over his eyes flared bright then glowed and he was looking into the back room of the House of Masks. He placed the clairvoyance sensor so he could see both of the storage rooms (but not the teleportation circle). It didn’t look the way we left it, but it wasn’t clear whether the place was reoccupied by Masks or if someone was squatting there. There were some supplies, but not as many as there had been. So Mo moved his hands away and held them out vibrating them, then covered his ears and listened for a moment through the spell -- he heard some movement from upstairs. When we looked at the upstairs windows, we could see a small amount of light.</p><p></p><p>Mo cast the spell again, this time placing the sensor in the barracks room upstairs. He could see 8 Masks moving around. They weren’t sleeping - they were resetting the barracks and fixing things up.</p><p></p><p>We don’t know if the teleportation circle had been repaired, but guessed most likely not because the Cracked Shield orcs busted it up good and that would take a bit of time to undo.</p><p></p><p>We continued on our way to the Iron Steed.</p><p></p><p>Orryk: If we had an earth elemental, we could just send it in to deal with them…</p><p></p><p>Later, after we’d had our dinners and were in our room at the inn, we talked a bit about the fact that it was not going to be difficult for the new Masks to figure out who had destroyed their operation here. Some of the citizens knew it was us even before Joybell failed to keep quiet about it. And we figured word like that would travel. We weren’t sure how good the Masks would be at extracting information from people (at least without breaking them in the process) and we weren’t sure how quickly word would spread that we were back in town. But we definitely need to stay on alert for the Masks to come after us.</p><p></p><p>Taman: Are we going to kill these new Masks?</p><p>Orryk: If they’re just going to go kidnap more kids to make more Masks, that’s not a good idea.</p><p>Joybell: I agree with Orryk. I hate it. We need to find their home base and destroy them there. Entirely. If we kill these, more kids will be hurt.</p><p></p><p>We then made our usual precautions and set watches, in case the Masks came for us. And in case cultists figured out how to track the Book of Madness in the bag of holding. Taman and Joybell had the first watch, Mo and Imaktis the second and Orryk and Fiona the third.</p><p></p><p>With, or despite, all of our precautions, the night passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>7 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 38)</p><p></p><p>Over breakfast we made a plan for the day. Orryk and Fiona were going to head to Urlott’s to do research there -- into the House of Masks and what kind of weird magic could turn pre-pubescent children into goliath-sized assassins with a hive mind. Joybell wanted to go talk to Black Irnod to see if he could do anything with the gorgon snot (or recommend someone who could). She also wanted to check in with the Cracked Shield and see how they’d weathered the pink-eye plague and how the Orcphans were doing. Taman planned to go with Joybell to keep her out of trouble. And Mo and Imaktis, after realizing that they didn’t know where to start with their idea of finding a genie to kill, decided to go with Taman and Joybell.</p><p></p><p>When we left the inn, we had two tails. So at least two of the Corporations had figured out that we were back.</p><p></p><p>It was just a matter of time before the Masks did as well.</p><p></p><p>We ended there as we were heading out of the inn to drop Orryk and Fiona at the library to do their research.</p><p></p><p>Treasure:</p><p></p><p>We converted 2 silk robes (250 gp each) into gold.</p><p></p><p>18gp worth of assorted coinage from the wagon where we found the Book of Madness</p><p></p><p>Dividing that up each of us got:</p><p></p><p>89gp (the 2 gp left over went immediately to pay the toll at the causeway to Pelsoreen)</p><p></p><p>Book of Madness (Crazy Book 2, in the bag of holding)</p><p>Box of letters to Jorlas</p><p></p><p>Party Kitty:</p><p></p><p>We paid for 1 night of lodging at the Iron Steed in Pelsoreen (at 6 gp/night) and 2 nights of travel on the road (at 3 gp/night, because Mo sang us a discount). So taking out 12 gp for lodging, the party kitty currently has: 1 pp, 7 gp, 14 sp, and 14 cp</p><p></p><p>Note: The letters we found with the Book of Madness are below.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Jorlas —</p><p></p><p>Greetings from the shadows of Promontory! I'm thankful this morning that the winds are blowing off the Hochor, so neither Feedlot nor The Silos are spreading their smells over my breakfast.</p><p></p><p>I know you have a reputation to uphold, as a finder of things, but it's been months since you've been here for more than a week at a time, and the kids are missing you in their lives (and I am missing you in our bed). Maybe you could take a few months off, when you finish this job you're on now?</p><p></p><p>Last letter, you said you expected to be in New Arvai for a while. I heard from Allina that her Talnan got the pox while he was there, and he gave it to her. So if you're lonely of an evening, there, go ahead and spend more to keep us both healthy.</p><p></p><p>Timma and Ennert are doing well. Ennert has been going down the Ladder to Shift Beach a lot, lately, and he's been bringing back fish that have been good eating indeed. Timma has just started trying to help me with chores and errands around the house.</p><p></p><p>All my love and loyalty,</p><p></p><p>Martra</p><p></p><p></p><p>Jorlas —</p><p></p><p>Good that you tracked down the book. Better that it hasn't been at the School of the World for long. You probably won't be able to steal it from them; mages protect their libraries well.</p><p></p><p>There's an elf working there as a librarian, name of Elledrian. Ask him if the Raven Queen knows where he is. Once you do that, you can probably get him to give you the book. I'd be happy to come and negotiate on my own behalf, but I'd rather not take the risk of meeting my cousin.</p><p></p><p>Once you have the book, you'll need to start moving. There are people looking for the book with ways to find it. Go to Pelsoreen, then head east. The main road ends at Rodzun, but you can keep going east on a cart-track. I'll meet you on that cart-track, and then you can get back to your wife and kids.</p><p></p><p>—N</p><p></p><p></p><p>Dearest Martra—</p><p></p><p>This job has been trying, indeed, and I hope that my employer (whose name I have promised not to disclose to anyone) lives up to their word and pays me exceedingly well.</p><p></p><p>I received your letter right before I left New Arvai. I assure you I am not coming home bearing a pox, just the more conventional gifts a traveler picks up for his family. I just left Pelsoreen, on a cart, with a hired driver named Landrim. He's a quiet guy, content to drive and leave me to my thoughts.</p><p></p><p>I wish I were home right now. The book I have found scares me like no other item I have held. In the quiet I swear I can hear it whispering my name, and my dreams at night are of a writhing blackness</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="prabe, post: 8126199, member: 7016699"] Session 19: More of the Crazy and Back to Pelsoreen Dramatis Personae: Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore) Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant) Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker) Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients) Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Shadow Sorcerer GM - Everyone Else A bit of retconning before we got going: Barney did not create a living boulder-thing for us to take back to Tall Orchard to help the halflings, as those only last for a minute and have a very limited range. Instead… Barney said that he would summon an earth elemental with a control gem and let us take it back to Tall Orchard to help with the rebuilding. It would be able to help in any way the villagers needed. He summoned an elemental through the gate and then closed it. 2 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 33) (immediately after) After we talked with the galeb duhr, Barney, and while FIona was identifying the magical treasure, Joybell cut up this gorgon to see if she could find the source of the petrification breath -- starting at the nostrils and working backwards. She found something in the sinuses that seemed like a strong candidate and collected that. Mo suggested we could bottle it or extract it and have Essence of Gorgon Snot. Joybell thought about that idea for a second and realized that she couldn’t really do anything with it with her herbalism kit. It was going to take someone good with alchemist’s equipment to make anything out of it. She put a wad of the gorgon snot (well the part of its sinuses that seemed to be connected to the petrifying breath anyway) into her iron pot and put that into the bag of holding. She also put the longsword that she left the Basalt Henge with into the bag of holding for the party to sell when we get to someplace Nicer Than Pelsoreen. Orryk asked Barney about the other side of the gate and whether there was a city nearby on the Plane of Earth. Barney said that he didn’t remember there being one. Barney, pointing to the sunset: I have seen over 700,000 of those. That translated to over 2000 years that he had been guarding this portal, since before the Severance. Joybell asked him if he knew anything about the Severance, since as an extra-planar being he might have had a different perspective. He said he was summoned by a druid to guard the gate. He didn’t personally notice the Severance, though he noticed some of the effects, and he wasn’t personally affected by it. Joybell asked if we could see the gate, just to look at it like we had the fire gate at the Primal Atoll. He told us that the gate was currently closed and inactive, but there was still something to see. Barney told us that the borders between this world and the other planes are very porous, especially since the Severance, but this gate is from before that and is pretty stable. It mostly doesn’t open accidentally. The myrriq didn’t come through here -- it had been wandering around on this world for a few years before it came to this gate a couple of weeks ago. We were led into a cave where there was a patch on the wall like the inside of a geode -- the crystals were swirling and moving around each other. Very pretty! Mo: Aren’t we on the plane of earth. There’s all this earth around us… Orryk and Taman both made careful note of the location of this gate on their maps. We spent some time talking about if we really needed to give the elemental to the halflings at Tall Orchard. Well, Orryk raised the question, anyway. We discussed the logistical difficulties of going to Pelsoreen, getting it into the teleportation circle for the trip back to Embernook, etc. As part of this discussion, we asked Barney if the elemental was always there or if it could be dismissed and summoned again using the gem. He said that it was always there. Joybell asked Orryk if she could look at the elemental’s control gem. He said yes and let her look at it. While he was still holding it. He didn’t let it go. For a second. On that note, we made our usual precautions to rest. WIth the addition of the earth elemental patrolling around us, gliding through the earth with only its head out of the ground as a moving rock. The night passed without incident. 3 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 34) The first thing in the morning Joybell cast find steed again (or as she thinks of it “find Scooby”). Fiona cast a sending to let the halflings of Tall Orchard know that it was safe for them to return to their village. We headed out toward Tall Orchard, following the direct and cleared gorgon trail (which we figured would shave several hours off of the travel time). The earth elemental sometimes walked, sometimes earth-glided. From the sound the elemental made when the rocks that made up its body ground against each other, it came to be called Gurn. As we traveled, Orryk studied everything he could about Gurn -- how it moved, how it passed in and out of the earth, how he was able to control it. He traveled at the back of the party because he was mostly interested in Gurn and what it could to. We followed the trail back to where we’d buried the first gorgon head (after preserving it with a gentle repose spell). As we arrived at the spot where we’d first fought the myrriq and killed the gorgon, Taman saw three [I]huge[/I] figures moving through the forest. Mo cast the rope trick and we all climbed up into it. (Mo passed Scooby up to Joybell once she was in it). Imaktis dithered a bit and thought about staying out, but then he went up into it as well. Orryk had Gurn gliding around under the ground beneath the rope trick. Three hill giants plodded through the clearing. They didn’t appear to be heading toward Tall Orchard or any particular place. Certainly not any place we felt a need to stop hill giants from getting to. So we let them go by. They’re evil, lazy, destructive and dumb, but this is their natural environment. And they weren’t heading toward Tall Orchard. Of course this meant that we were forgetting the lesson that if we let things go by we only fight them again later when it’s worse. But we figured it was okay in this case. Once the giants passed, we came out of the rope trick and dug up the gorgon head. Then Gurn grabbed it by one of the horns and carried it as we continued on our way to Tall Orchard. Orryk continued to be really focused on Gurn and not so much on the outside. We arrived back at Tall Orchard toward the end of the day. We could see across the small village center that the halflings were arriving at the village at almost the same time, coming from the opposite direction. Between us and them, we could see a troll. It was looking toward where it could hear the halflings in the town until it heard us, then it turned in our direction. Taman: What the hell is that?! Then he took a shot with his longbow at it. Orryk took a shot with his shortbow and had Gurn sink into the ground and then rise up in front of the troll. Joyell rode Scooby to about 10 feet away from the troll -- then she jumped off and engaged the troll, while Scooby circled around toward the halflings to protect them. Joybell attacked with her new sword and got one hit. Fiona cast a scorching ray on the troll and got one hit with fire damage. Mo cast a shatter spell on it and it reeled from the damage it took. Then he inspired Imaktis. Mo: Kill it. Imaktis: Okay. Because of Fiona’s scorching ray, the troll wasn’t going to regenerate any damage this turn. Another troll came out from between a couple of buildings to the north and attacked Joybell with two swinging claws and a bite. Only the bite hit. The one Joybell had attacked missed with all three of its attacks. Then a third troll came out from behind a building to the south but it couldn’t get into a good place to attack her, or anyone else. (Total: 3 trolls) It did however move into a good formation for FIona. Taman moved and dashed to stab the one that came from between the buildings to the north for a nice lot of sneaky damage. Orryk tried to use his water whip ability to knock that same one prone, but it it saved and wasn’t pulled over. Gurn took two slam attacks on the same one and hit it once for a lot of damage. Unfortunately, the second slam missed. Orryk then shot at it twice with his bow and got one hit. Imaktis missed the first one with a firebolt then cast shillelagh and closed on it, but wasn’t able to get into position to attack. Joybell hit it twice, dropping it, but we knew that since it hadn’t taken fire damage yet, it would be regenerating. FIona, seeing her cue in the cluster of enemies, cast a fireball on top of all three of them, including the one that was dropped. The downed one automatically failed the save and began to burn. The one that came from the north was screaming and on fire and the one that came from the south was very unhappy looking and lightly smoldering. Mo cast a high-level blindness spell on the two remaining trolls. After that both of the trolls were screaming -- one from the fire and the other from being blinded. The blinded troll then attacked Imaktis -- at least that’s who it seemed to be attacking, but its blind flails missed entirely. Frustrated, it shook its head and appeared to be able to see, but it couldn’t attack again immediately. The other one ignored Joybell and turned around to attack Taman, but it also missed wildly. Taman, in return, attacked it, taking advantage of distraction to sneak attack. He dropped it with his attack, but knew that it would regenerate if someone couldn’t get fire or acid on it soon. Orryk had Gurn slam twice at the one left standing but it missed both times. Orryk then took two shots with his bow and hit once. Imaktis, in an attempt to deal with the one that just needed a bit of fire damage to keep it from regenerating, took a shot at it with a firebolt. Unfortunately, because it was prone he was unable to get a good shot at it and missed. Joybell moved around the smoldering dropped troll to attack the one that was still standing. Fiona cast another fireball at ground zero on the trolls (and Taman, Imaktis and Joybell). The one that was still standing didn’t drop but the other two were burning corpses at the end of it. Mo then viciously mocked the one remaining. “All of your friends are dead. Why don’t you join them?” And it died, mocked to death. We attempted to loot the bodies, but the trolls had no loot. Orryk put out the fires using his ability to control flame and Gurn took the bodies out into the forest. Joybell went to talk to the villagers and asked them about whether the trolls are a regular threat. They said that while the trolls have been in the area for a while, they didn’t generally come into the village to cause problems. Joybell told them that the source of the bulette and other hazards in the area was gone so they should be more or less back to normal now. She also told them that Gurn would be staying with them, under their control for a year. Then he would return to the plane of earth. She suggested that he could help them rebuild and possibly help survivors of other villages relocate to Tall Orchard. Orryk spent the evening “teaching” the halflings’ cleric how to control Gurn. Mostly he was controlling Gurn while the halfling was there watching and maybe occasionally trying to get his hand on the control gem without success. We made camp with our usual precautions. Orryk still had control of Gurn and had him bolstering our watches with a mostly subterranean patrol around the tiny hut. The night passed without incident. 4 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 35) In the morning we hitched up Horse 1 and Horse 2 to the wagon. Gurn put the gorgon head into the wagon and we covered it with a tarp. As we left, Joybell and Mo told Tilia and Allard, the halfling teens we’d initially met, and the town elders that we could be contacted through the Administrator in Embernook. He’d hold letters for us if they were sent to him. Orryk and Joybell (at least) left the copper and silver coins they got from the myrriq’s hoard with the people of Tall Orchard to help them pay for rebuilding and reconstruction. (And so we didn’t have to haul it around with us.) As we walked through the town, Orryk enjoyed his last few minutes of controlling Gurn, then, at or just beyond the borders of the village, he passed over the control gem, reluctantly, to the halfling cleric. Mo and Joybell talked about the value of setting up some sort of communication network so that people could get in touch with us if they needed our help -- sending a letter to us through the Administrator is not a quick way to communicate and emergency. We traveled the six hours to Rodzun without incident and decided to press on for another four to get to Lunn, since the days were still quite long. Once we were on the main road, we moved pretty quickly so we could get to Lunn without it being too dark when we got there. Orryk was Sad Orryk the whole way. We need to get him an elemental again. In Lunn we found the most perfect inn -- called the Flying Turtle. Of course we stayed there. (There was another inn, but we didn’t care -- the Flying Turtle was the obvious choice.) Mo offered to perform for our lodgings (at a discount) but didn’t play his flute and sing this time -- instead he did a stand-up routine focusing on Dwarvish humor (rather earthy). He was an absolute riot and everyone loved him. At the inn, we made our usual precautions and the night passed without incident. 5 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 36) First thing the next morning, while we were having breakfast right around dawn (while the light was still quite dim in the town) there was a commotion out on the streets. The moment we heard screams, Joybell jumped on Scooby and ran outside. Fiona took a last bite of her eggs, looked around for a second, then cast mage armor on herself. When Joybell got to the door of the Flying Turtle’s tavern room, she saw a big long skinny thing with no skin wrapped around a person on the street, babbling crazily. The limbs didn’t bend right and it moved in a disturbingly off way. There were also 10 small creatures shaped like balls with big teeth in mouths that were continuously disappearing and reappearing in different locations on the creature’s body. They were also gibbering and babbling. There were two of them around the same civilian the tall lanky boneless looking thing was wrapped around and four around each of two other civilians. (1 Skinned One, 10 Star-Spawn Grues). Taman moved out of the tavern, keeping his back to the wall by the door, and shot the skinned one with his longbow. When the arrow hit, the skinned one’s arms tightened around the civilian it was holding and that civilian went limp in its arms. Oh! Fiona moved to just inside the door and took a shot at the skinned one with a firebolt and got a great shot for 15 points of damage. For good or ill, the civilian in its arms was already apparently dead, so this caused no further damage to be passed along to him. The grues attacked. Four of them ripped a civilian apart just outside the door to the inn. The other four attacking a civilian got some hits, but didn’t kill her. The two that had been next to the skinned one came over to Taman, but weren’t able to attack. Orryk, still annoyed at the world because he’d had an elemental under his control briefly and now didn’t, threw daggers from his Belt of Many Daggers at one of the ones on Taman and did a nice chunk of damage. Then he used his fists of unbroken air to punch it as well. Orryk: If Gurn was here…. Mo moved next to FIona and viciously mocked the one that Orryk attacked (“Screw you guys!”) and then inspired Taman. Imaktis moved up and cast his spirit guardians -- flying turtles in the Flying Turtle! The skinned one dropped his dead victim and moved up to the civilian that had been hurt by four grues and attacked twice. Joybell was preparing to scream in anger at having to watch it kill the civilian, but it missed both times. Joybell rode over there on Scooby -- stopping a few feet away then sending Scooby off to protect any civilians not currently under attack before she closed on the skinned one on foot. She attacked but appeared to be hindered in her attacks by the small grues all around and missed both times. The other civilians in the street screamed and scattered into houses and places of business, closing and locking doors behind them. Taman drew his rapier and stabbed the same one Orryk attacked, dropping it. Then he turned to the other one on him, feeling a bit less nervous now that he wasn’t outnumbered. We noticed that when the grues died, they sort of broke apart into flickering image fragments (like a hologram breaking into static), leaving no corpse or even residue behind. Fiona stepped out of the building and found herself in a target rich environment. She cast scorching ray at the skinned one and two of her three rays hit. The grues moved -- one group moved to surround Joybell and another to surround Fiona. Most of the ones on Fiona moved into Imaktis’ cloud of spirit turtles and took damage. All of the attacks of the four grues on FIona missed. The one remaining on Taman attacked him and missed. And the four on Joybell all missed. Orryk moved to where he could back up Taman and threw two daggers at Taman’s grue, dropping it (with 21 points of damage!). Then he turned and did a flurry of blows with his fists of unbroken air on one of the ones on Fiona. Mo moved out into the street and used 3 charges off the wand of magic missile to hit three of the four on Joybell (two of them with two darts each). None of them dropped but they all took some damage. Imaktis used a dash action to come up behind the grues on Joybell -- getting his spirit guardians into play against them. Joybell attacked the skinned one, again hindered by the grues all around her, and managed to get one hit, despite them. Imaktis noticed that the skinned one didn’t take as much damage as he should have from Joybell’s blow. It seemed like his shadow was absorbing some of the damage. (Joybell had two opportunities to notice this and failed both of them.) The skinned one attacked Joybell and missed. He also failed to move out of the cloud of spirit turtles. Taman moved over and sneak attacked one of the ones on FIona, doing enough damage to drop it. Fiona cast misty step and moved out into the middle of the road and away from trouble. Then she firebolted one of the ones that had been attacking her for 15 points of damage. But that didn’t drop it. On the grues’ turn, most of the ones in Imaktis’ spirit guardians cloud dropped to the claws of the tiny flying turtles. Only one stayed up. The two on Taman (formerly on Fiona) both missed. Orryk moved into melee with one of the two on Taman and attacked with two daggers, getting two hits. He then did a flurry of blows - the first punch dropped one and the second punch dropped the other. Mo viciously mocked the skinned one, but it saved. Then he inspired Imaktis. Imaktis, inspired, cast guiding bolt on the skinned one and it died in a brilliant flash of sparkling light. Joybell attacked the last grue and dropped it with a critical hit. The civilian that had been surrounded and threatened (and even attacked) for several rounds broke out of her paralytic fear, screamed, and ran into the nearest building. We got a look at the skinned one -- it looked like a big, deformed, skinless, slightly glistening humanoid dead guy. He didn’t appear to have any internal structure, no bones or cartilage. He did have internal organs, just no bones and no skin. Imaktis: He probably left tracks. Taman and Imaktis were both able to track the trail of bodily fluids and slime left by the skinned one. They came into town from Orlimmun, the next town on the way to Pelsoreen. So backtracking the monster would even be right on our way. We put the skinned one’s body onto our cart, with the thought that Black Irnod might be interested in him when we got back to Pelsoreen. Then we loaded up the rest of our things, finished our breakfasts, and headed out toward Orlimmun. After only about 15 minutes, we found a wagon on the side of the road. The trail of bodily fluids started there. In the back, we found a corpse that was literally nothing but skin and bones -- the parts that were missing from the skinned one. The empty skin was slumped back against the side of the wagon and had a book sitting in its lap. A few steps away from the wagon in the road we found the body of what we assumed had been the driver -- he had a bunch of open holes, like huge cysts the size of grapefruits had developed on his body and burst open. Or like things had hatched out of his body. Glancing at the outside of the book, carefully, Fiona and Orryk didn’t see anything ominous about it. There was no title or marking on it -- it was just an ordinary looking book bound normally in ordinary looking leather. Imaktis cast detect magic and found that the book is definitely magical and had elements of transmutation, conjuration and necromancy magic on it. Fiona sat down and performed the ritual to cast identify and learned that it’s a book of the Hunger Between Worlds. Reading it is dangerous. Reading it out loud is even more so. While she was doing that, the rest of us looked in the cart to see if we saw anything else. We found a traveler’s trunk or chest. Inside were some coins (amounting to 18gp in value total) and some papers which turned out to be correspondence. The envelopes had all been discarded, so we had nothing with either the address of the recipient or the senders. All of the letters were written in different handwriting but they were all addressed to “Jorlas”. All of them were personal enough that there was no last name given. One of the letters particularly caught our attention -- it told Jorlas (presumably the skinned one) to go to New Arvai to meet Elledrian, an elf librarian at the School of the World, and pick up a package, a book. He was to meet the letter-writer on the cart-track heading east from Rodzun. The letter was signed only with N. Another letter gave Jorlas “greetings from the shadows of Promontory.” Taman remembered that Promontory is a neighborhood in Erlin, a city on the river between Embernook and New Arvai. (Note: These letters are at the end of this session’s notes, they will be available as a handout and are also on the shared drive now.) As we were looking at the letters and the cart, we noticed that Imaktis’ eyes weren’t pink any longer. Joybell: Aw. It looked festive! We left their wagon on the side of the road (on the grounds that it was not better than our wagon), but took the bodies (including all the parts of the skinned one) and cremated them. Before we continued on our way, Joybell asked Orryk to take the orrery we got from the cleric of the Servants of the Hunger (see Session 9) out of the bag of holding. After a few moments of spinning, it began to point to this new book. When we put the book into the bag of holding, the orrery went back to spinning without indicating a direction. Right. Both of those were left in the bag. We took the box of letters to Jorlas and continued on our way to Tummeleen. We passed through Orlimmun around lunch time and continued without more than a brief rest stop. When we got to Tummeleen, we stayed again at the same in we’d been at on the way out -- the Sterling Scythe. Mo played music at the inn, but it was a weird and unsettling day and it was not his best performance. Despite that, we did get our usual discount at the inn and he made 3gp in tips, because Tummeleen was hopping. During the evening meal, Joybell asked the innkeeper if the two people from the cart -- Jornas and the driver who had the grues burst out of him - had stayed there, but the descriptions (as best she could give them) didn’t ring a bell. Joybell: Have you heard of anyone in these parts whose name begins with N who might be into books? Innkeeper, puzzled: No… There was a three-cart trade caravan out of Pelsoreen staying at the Sterling Scythe for the night. They were traveling together for safety, but one was a spice merchant, one a fabric merchant and the third, much like the halflings we rescued from the ogres on the way out, a group of traveling artisans offering their skills in the small towns they went through. They were heading out to Rodzun and back, but didn’t seem to plan to head out into the smaller villages beyond Rodzun (like Tall Orchard). We asked the fabric merchants if they were interested in the silk robes we’d gotten from the myrriq. They purchased them for 250gp each. (Which divided to 83gp each and 2 for the party kitty) Joybell asked the innkeeper after those halflings we’d rescued and was told that they got gentle repose cast on their brother’s body and then headed to Pelsoreen. Hopefully they were able to get someone to resurrect him there. Joybell, to the merchants: How are things in Pelsoreen? We left when there was this cold going around and there was some craziness with the slaves. Merchant: They started looking at records and sorting things out to free people who shouldn’t have been slaves. Then right as we were leaving, we heard that some of the clerics of the Enthroned had made it all go away. Joybell: Do you know of anyone whose name begins with N who might be interested in library books? Merchant: No… Joybell: Okay, thanks! We then rested for the night, taking our usual precautions. It passed without incident. 6 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 37) In the morning, before we left our room, Fiona cast a sending to Tulmor. Fiona: We found another book of madness. Please advise. We’re a day out from Pelsoreen. Tulmor, immediately: naughty word! <<long pause, but Fiona could tell that the spell’s connection remained open>> Book in bag of holding. Go to Pelsoreen. Moving probably safer than standing still. This put Taman on edge and he spent the day on high alert as we traveled. As we traveled this last day back to Pelsoreen, Mo named Horse 1 and Horse 2, Mr. Ed and Secretariat, respectively. Amazingly, despite having been named, the horses survived the day’s travel back to Pelsoreen. The whole day’s travel was without incident and we were even fortunate that the causeway was up when we arrived, so we could cross straight into the city. (By certain broad values of fortunate, anyway.) The causeway cost 1sp per person or mount and 1gp for the cart. So we just gave them the two extra gold from splitting up the proceeds of selling the robes the night before and crossed into Pelsoreen. Taman started looking around for people following us as soon as we were in the city. It looked pretty much like it did when we first arrived there. It was kind of late-ish in the day (the causeway is up just before sunset), but we went to Urlott’s with the gorgon head first, because we didn’t want to have to worry about it once we were in the city. Taman: There are too many libraries in this city. Fiona: <<blank disbelief>> We gave the librarian at Urlott’s the gorgon head -- he received it with glee -- and got in return a library card allowing Fiona and Orryk entrance to the library. We took a slightly round-about route from there to the Iron Steed so we could go past the House of Masks to see if it was occupied. Nothing was obvious from the street outside, so Mo cast clairvoyance, holding his hands over his eyes like a junior birdman hand-mask. The circles over his eyes flared bright then glowed and he was looking into the back room of the House of Masks. He placed the clairvoyance sensor so he could see both of the storage rooms (but not the teleportation circle). It didn’t look the way we left it, but it wasn’t clear whether the place was reoccupied by Masks or if someone was squatting there. There were some supplies, but not as many as there had been. So Mo moved his hands away and held them out vibrating them, then covered his ears and listened for a moment through the spell -- he heard some movement from upstairs. When we looked at the upstairs windows, we could see a small amount of light. Mo cast the spell again, this time placing the sensor in the barracks room upstairs. He could see 8 Masks moving around. They weren’t sleeping - they were resetting the barracks and fixing things up. We don’t know if the teleportation circle had been repaired, but guessed most likely not because the Cracked Shield orcs busted it up good and that would take a bit of time to undo. We continued on our way to the Iron Steed. Orryk: If we had an earth elemental, we could just send it in to deal with them… Later, after we’d had our dinners and were in our room at the inn, we talked a bit about the fact that it was not going to be difficult for the new Masks to figure out who had destroyed their operation here. Some of the citizens knew it was us even before Joybell failed to keep quiet about it. And we figured word like that would travel. We weren’t sure how good the Masks would be at extracting information from people (at least without breaking them in the process) and we weren’t sure how quickly word would spread that we were back in town. But we definitely need to stay on alert for the Masks to come after us. Taman: Are we going to kill these new Masks? Orryk: If they’re just going to go kidnap more kids to make more Masks, that’s not a good idea. Joybell: I agree with Orryk. I hate it. We need to find their home base and destroy them there. Entirely. If we kill these, more kids will be hurt. We then made our usual precautions and set watches, in case the Masks came for us. And in case cultists figured out how to track the Book of Madness in the bag of holding. Taman and Joybell had the first watch, Mo and Imaktis the second and Orryk and Fiona the third. With, or despite, all of our precautions, the night passed without incident. 7 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 38) Over breakfast we made a plan for the day. Orryk and Fiona were going to head to Urlott’s to do research there -- into the House of Masks and what kind of weird magic could turn pre-pubescent children into goliath-sized assassins with a hive mind. Joybell wanted to go talk to Black Irnod to see if he could do anything with the gorgon snot (or recommend someone who could). She also wanted to check in with the Cracked Shield and see how they’d weathered the pink-eye plague and how the Orcphans were doing. Taman planned to go with Joybell to keep her out of trouble. And Mo and Imaktis, after realizing that they didn’t know where to start with their idea of finding a genie to kill, decided to go with Taman and Joybell. When we left the inn, we had two tails. So at least two of the Corporations had figured out that we were back. It was just a matter of time before the Masks did as well. We ended there as we were heading out of the inn to drop Orryk and Fiona at the library to do their research. Treasure: We converted 2 silk robes (250 gp each) into gold. 18gp worth of assorted coinage from the wagon where we found the Book of Madness Dividing that up each of us got: 89gp (the 2 gp left over went immediately to pay the toll at the causeway to Pelsoreen) Book of Madness (Crazy Book 2, in the bag of holding) Box of letters to Jorlas Party Kitty: We paid for 1 night of lodging at the Iron Steed in Pelsoreen (at 6 gp/night) and 2 nights of travel on the road (at 3 gp/night, because Mo sang us a discount). So taking out 12 gp for lodging, the party kitty currently has: 1 pp, 7 gp, 14 sp, and 14 cp Note: The letters we found with the Book of Madness are below. Jorlas — Greetings from the shadows of Promontory! I'm thankful this morning that the winds are blowing off the Hochor, so neither Feedlot nor The Silos are spreading their smells over my breakfast. I know you have a reputation to uphold, as a finder of things, but it's been months since you've been here for more than a week at a time, and the kids are missing you in their lives (and I am missing you in our bed). Maybe you could take a few months off, when you finish this job you're on now? Last letter, you said you expected to be in New Arvai for a while. I heard from Allina that her Talnan got the pox while he was there, and he gave it to her. So if you're lonely of an evening, there, go ahead and spend more to keep us both healthy. Timma and Ennert are doing well. Ennert has been going down the Ladder to Shift Beach a lot, lately, and he's been bringing back fish that have been good eating indeed. Timma has just started trying to help me with chores and errands around the house. All my love and loyalty, Martra Jorlas — Good that you tracked down the book. Better that it hasn't been at the School of the World for long. You probably won't be able to steal it from them; mages protect their libraries well. There's an elf working there as a librarian, name of Elledrian. Ask him if the Raven Queen knows where he is. Once you do that, you can probably get him to give you the book. I'd be happy to come and negotiate on my own behalf, but I'd rather not take the risk of meeting my cousin. Once you have the book, you'll need to start moving. There are people looking for the book with ways to find it. Go to Pelsoreen, then head east. The main road ends at Rodzun, but you can keep going east on a cart-track. I'll meet you on that cart-track, and then you can get back to your wife and kids. —N Dearest Martra— This job has been trying, indeed, and I hope that my employer (whose name I have promised not to disclose to anyone) lives up to their word and pays me exceedingly well. I received your letter right before I left New Arvai. I assure you I am not coming home bearing a pox, just the more conventional gifts a traveler picks up for his family. I just left Pelsoreen, on a cart, with a hired driver named Landrim. He's a quiet guy, content to drive and leave me to my thoughts. I wish I were home right now. The book I have found scares me like no other item I have held. In the quiet I swear I can hear it whispering my name, and my dreams at night are of a writhing blackness [/QUOTE]
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Erkonin (Campaign #1) [Session 46: Making Deals with Devils is Stupid as well as Bad]
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