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Story Hour
Erkonin (Campaign #2) [Session 45: Rajalmin's Agent]
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<blockquote data-quote="prabe" data-source="post: 8107421" data-attributes="member: 7016699"><p>Session 14: On the Way to Lonoj</p><p></p><p>Dramatis Personae:</p><p></p><p>Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)</p><p>Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest)</p><p>Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul)</p><p>Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster)</p><p>Marxine Deepfoot - Dwarf Fighter (Champion)</p><p></p><p>GM - Everyone Else</p><p></p><p></p><p>11 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 42, night) (immediately after)</p><p></p><p>We had been fighting ghouls and ghasts in the storm sewers of Erlin and had followed the stench of ghast and a blood trail from the sewer where we’d had a pretty big fight to the edge of a large junction area in the sewers where several pipes flowed into an overflow area. There was some rubble and debris that had washed into the sewers on the floor, lots of ghouls (the stench indicated that some of those might have been ghasts), and maybe some spectres barely visible on the edge of the room.</p><p></p><p>We watched the ghouls milling around a bit and realized that we were in a safe place -- they weren’t going to inadvertently stumble on us and if they did we were in a defensible position -- so we decided to give up on the remaining time with Elama’s spirit guardians and Aldalomiel’s pass without trace and take a short rest. During the rest we observed the room and talked strategy.</p><p></p><p>Elderron: I think we can announce our presence with a fireball.</p><p></p><p>We all agreed with that strategy.</p><p></p><p>Elama blessed Marxine, Vinya, and Aldalomiel. Marxine quaffed her potion of giant strength. Then Elderron proceeded as planned -- with a very big booming fireball.</p><p></p><p>That blew up three of the ghouls right out of the gate. The spectres, which had no idea where the big boom had come from, moved away from the source of the fire.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel took a shot at one of the ghasts, the smelly ghouls, and missed once then hit solidly. It made angry noises as it turned toward where we were cloaked in darkness.</p><p></p><p>Unlike the spectres, the ghasts moved toward us. One attacked Marxine and one attacked Vinya. They established the pattern for the undead for most of the combat -- they missed.</p><p></p><p>The mysterious, not-spectre incorporeal thing flew over to where it could attack either Marxine or Vinya. It swung wildly, missing both.</p><p></p><p>Elama observed that there were four things bunched up right in front of Vinya and Marxine (two ghasts, one ghoul and the not-a-spectre floaty thing) cast a shatter spell, calling on the divine energy of the tempest to do as much damage as possible. One of the ghasts was immediately killed. The others were badly hurt, but didn’t drop.</p><p></p><p>The rest of the ghouls started moving in our direction. The Swol Ghoul that survived the shatter spell and one of the others attacked the unarmored elves (Elderron and Vinya). They missed horribly.</p><p></p><p>VInya dropped a ghoul (not Swol Ghoul) with her quarterstaff, then summoned her ki and stepped back a few feet so she could shoot a sunbolt at the floaty incorporeal thing (the wraith). Marxine then hit the incorporeal thing with her magic maul and dropped it. Woot! Then she attacked again and dropped the ghast in front of her.</p><p></p><p>Elderron misty stepped to get out of the front line then cast toll the dead on the ghoul that had attacked him.</p><p></p><p>The spectres, which had fled to the other side of the room when the fireball went off, came back, moving about halfway (or slightly less) and dodged. Aldalomiel, seeing this, put her hunter’s mark on one of them and shot it twice, dropping it. Elama cast a guiding bolt on the other spectre, hitting it and leaving it with a glow that would make it easier for others to hit.</p><p></p><p>Marxine and Aldalomiel were attacked -- Marxine by three ghouls -- but with all those attacks swinging around, only Marxine was hit and she was only hit once. After Vinya popped a ghoul a couple of times with her quarterstaff, Marxine dropped Aldalomiel’s ghoul with her first swing and Vinya’s with her second, leaving only two, both unhurt. At least until Elderron magic missiled one.</p><p></p><p>The remaining spectre, still glowing from the guiding bolt, attacked Vinya, but continued with the monster’s theme of missing all around. Aldalomiel put it out of its undead misery with her first arrow. Her second arrow dropped one of the two ghouls.</p><p></p><p>The last ghoul hit Marxine, then we all piled on it with gusto until Marxine knocked it down and continued attacking it until it was really entirely dead.</p><p></p><p>We explored the room. Elama spotted some stuff down one of the sewer passages that led into the room. Lots of stuff.</p><p></p><p>569 cp</p><p>6502 sp</p><p>2069 gp</p><p>75 pp</p><p></p><p>5 art pieces, each worth 250 gp: 1 robe with silver embroidery, two silver necklaces with bloodstone pendants, 2 gold birdcages with electrum humanoid skeletons with bat wings inside.</p><p></p><p>Elderron, seeing the birdcages: I’m keeping Oda in his pocket dimension.</p><p></p><p>We also found some items, which we identified later:</p><p></p><p>1 Potion of Healing</p><p>1 Potion of Greater Healing</p><p>1 Rod of Alertness (very cool item)</p><p>1 Spell Scroll of Banish Shadow, which might have been more handy earlier</p><p>1 Mystery Key (has a chance to open any lock, but it only works once)</p><p></p><p>Elama lit up her sword and her shield and went to look at the puddle of super-darkness. The magical light dimmed in the area of the puddle.</p><p></p><p>Elderron recognized it for what it is -- a shadowpool, a portal to the Shadowfell. Unlike portals to more distant planes, it doesn’t take a lot of magic to make a portal to the Shadowfell. All it takes is for the arrangement of things in this plane and the Shadowfell to match up and align, and to stay aligned for a number of weeks. It’s possible to break a shadowpool by breaking up the correspondences. A dispel magic on top of that will completely deactivate and destroy the portal. Breaking the correspondences will keep it from getting worse and keep things from coming through.</p><p></p><p>Hearing that breaking up the match between this plane and the Shadowfell was the first step in getting rid of the shadowpool, Marxine started bashing on the walls -- but in a smart way so as not to bring anything down on our heads. Elama considered shooting a guiding bolt into it, but decided against, because she might need the spell power later. Vinya fired a couple of her radiant sunbolts into it -- they disappeared into the darkness, but there was no effect.</p><p></p><p>Elama found an exit from the sewers that didn’t involve trekking all the way back to where we’d entered from. We emerged from that in Rivergate, pretty near to the guard house. Handy!!</p><p></p><p>We went to talk to Captain Althorn.</p><p></p><p>Vinya and Marxine: There were a lot of ghouls and ghasts.</p><p>Vinya: And Elderron, tell him about the shadowpuddle.</p><p>Elderron: There was a shadowpool. A portal to the Shadowfell. We broke it up some, but it needs permanent dealing with.</p><p>Althorn: Oh. Yeah, the people up in Promontory won’t be happy.</p><p></p><p>We left him muttering about the people in Promontory. Vinya, Marxine, and Elama went back into the sewer to keep an eye on the shadowpool and make sure nothing came through while Elderron and Aldalomiel went to find Jamil to see if he could help.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel: We thought you might want to look at the shadowpool. And maybe you can close it?</p><p>Jamil: One moment!</p><p></p><p>He disappeared back into his house for a bit then came out dressed for the sewers.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel, Elderron, and Jamil arrived at the scene of the shadowpool to find Marxine, Vinya, and Elama moving the rubble around and breaking walls.</p><p></p><p>Marxine: We’re improving things.</p><p>Vinya: The hydrology…</p><p></p><p>Elama offered to help Jamil as he pulled out a scroll of dispel magic. He thanked her but declined the offer, then read from the scroll. When he got to the end of the spell, the pool disappeared entirely.</p><p></p><p>Elama: Do undead usually make those pools?</p><p>Jamil: Wraiths and other free-willed undead do.</p><p>Elama: Where did the wraith come from? How did he get here to start making it?</p><p>Jamil: Who knows?</p><p>Vinya: It’s easy to dismiss it that way. But not helpful.</p><p>Jamil: I’m not dismissing the question. It’s just not readily answerable.</p><p></p><p>We went back to Captain Althorn to report that the shadowpool had been entirely dispelled. We gave him all of the copper that we found and a lot of the silver (all but Elderron’s share of it). Vinya and Aldalomiel also contributed a chunk of their gold shares. That was to be used as restitution and assistance for the families of those who were killed by the ghouls.</p><p></p><p>As we left, Elderron realized that if he worked at it all night (and slept on the boat the next day) he could copy another spell or two from Jamil’s spellbook. With Jamil’s permission, he went that way while the rest of us returned to Garlin’s.</p><p></p><p>The rest of the night passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>12 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 43)</p><p></p><p>The next morning, Vinya stopped at the guard house to talk to Captain Althorn on our way to The Reed.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: We’re getting out of your hair. Maybe you don’t hate adventurers so much after our help.</p><p>Althorn: Whenever adventurers are around, there’s grumbling from on high.</p><p>Vinya: Right. Well, we hope we’ve left the city better off than when we arrived.</p><p></p><p>Then we got on the boat and The Reed sailed away.</p><p></p><p>The day aboard ship passed uneventfully. As did the night.</p><p></p><p></p><p>13 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 44)</p><p></p><p>The next day on the boat we were approached by a mountain dwarf merchant named Ullard Stonebright. He offered to pay us to escort him from Lonoj to Torm Brinnom.</p><p></p><p>Elderron: What’s torn britches?</p><p>Marxine: A dwarf stronghold.</p><p>Vinya: We have a box to take to New Arvai. But we don’t have any particular reason to think it’s pressing.</p><p></p><p>He offered again to pay us, 100 gp each.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: That’s way more than we made for killing a whole passel of ghouls.</p><p></p><p>Marxine was obviously, and vocally, very leery about going to a dwarf stronghold.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: Maybe we can just go to the door and see him inside -- we don’t need to go into the stronghold at all.</p><p></p><p>Vinya, to Elderron: Do you have something that would let you talk to someone a long way off?</p><p>Elama: I can do that. Tomorrow.</p><p></p><p>The rest of the day and the night passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>14 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 45)</p><p></p><p>The next morning, Elama used a sending spell to talk to Jamil.</p><p></p><p>Lamie: Hey! Is there any rush for us to get the box to New Arvai? We may have a job.</p><p>Jamil: As long as you don’t destroy the book, there’s no real rush.</p><p></p><p>We asked Mr. Stonebright if we could have a little time to caucus about taking his job. He said that was fine as it would be several days before we got to Lonoj.</p><p></p><p>Over dinner, Vinya looked at the coins we got from the shadowpool. Some of them looked old. When she examined them more closely, she saw that two of them said they were from Ambernock. She consulted with Elderron and he said that Ambernock was the city that was where Embernook is before the Severance.</p><p></p><p>She put those two coins into a very special place so they wouldn’t get accidentally spent.</p><p></p><p></p><p>15 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 46)</p><p></p><p>The next day, we sailed past an old ruined fort or castle on a hill. The captain of The Reed, Tulia Shirvon, a water genasi, said that it went back to the fiend wars. She said that some nobles, or people who wanted to be, built it.</p><p></p><p>The boat wasn’t going to stop, so we marked it on our map for possible future exploration.</p><p></p><p>The day and the night passed.</p><p></p><p></p><p>16 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 47)</p><p></p><p>Elama cast augury to ask if taking the job as guards for Ullard Stonebright is a good idea. She got the answer “weal”.</p><p></p><p>Elama: Good!</p><p></p><p>We decided that while we respect Marxine’s concerns about going into the dwarf stronghold, Torm Brinnom, we also respect 100gp each and the agury. We’ll just do our best not to have to go inside.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: Mr. Stonebright, we will do your thing.</p><p>Stonebright: Excellent! I figure that with a dwarf in your group, I’ll be in good hands. Even with all the elves.</p><p></p><p>Ullard Stonebright told us that we’d be getting onto a different boat in Lonoj to take that river up into the mountains -- as far as where the river turns to the west.</p><p></p><p>We continued to sail along. Elama cast water walk on herself and Vinya and they walked, or ran mostly, next to the boat for a while.</p><p></p><p></p><p>17 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 48)</p><p></p><p>Early in the morning, as we were waking up and shuffling around to get coffee and stuff, the boat entered a section that was a bit choppier and more characterful.</p><p></p><p>Marxine: We’re gonna die!!</p><p>Captain Shirvon: No, this is fine.</p><p>Elama: I can cast water walking.</p><p></p><p>As we were dealing with the river being somewhat rougher, we heard shrieking like something being tortured coming from the water. As the boat hit the water, as it bounced and jostled along, the water screamed.</p><p></p><p>Vinya went to look over the side of the boat.</p><p></p><p>Elama: What’s that?</p><p>Captain Shirvon: Oh, it happens.</p><p>Vinya, thinking back to sailing this part of the river in the other direction: I remember this. I remember a stretch of screaming.</p><p>Elderron: The Screaming Rapids.</p><p></p><p>We noted the screaming rapids on our map.</p><p></p><p>The rest of the day and the night passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>18 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 49)</p><p></p><p>The day and the night passed.</p><p></p><p></p><p>19 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 50)</p><p></p><p>After breakfast, while Vinya, Aldalomiel, and Elama were working on deck (Elderron and Marxine were down below), Vinya spotted two huge shapes coming through the water toward the bow of the boat. Two huge shapes with lots of heads.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: What the hell’s that?! Elama! Aldalomiel! Look at that!</p><p></p><p>Her shout got the attention of the sailors and the sailors banged a bell to get more attention from the rest of the crew and the captain. A bunch of sailors, as well as Elderron, came out of the lower decks of the ship.</p><p></p><p>Elderron: Well, I guess I’m going to have to fireball one.</p><p></p><p>Which he proceeded to do -- to good effect.</p><p></p><p>The one that Elderron cast fireball on swam right up to the bow of the boat and attacked a sailor. The other one was just a little too far away.</p><p></p><p>Elderron let us all know that they need to take fire damage in order not to regenerate. Otherwise if you kill a head and don’t do any fire damage to the beast, two heads will grow back.</p><p></p><p>Elama held onto the mast and cast call lightning, striking the hydra with a lightning bolt.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel cast hunter’s mark on the one that was fireballed and shot it, missing once and hitting. Vinya used her radiant sunbolts, summoning her ki to shoot that injured one four times -- she hit three times and one of those was a critical hit. Unfortunately the head she was shooting at didn’t die. Marxine charged up the stairs from down below and hit the hurt one, finally killing one of the heads. Then she did an action surge to attack again but wasn’t able to drop another head. (Note: Apparently two heads had already been killed.)</p><p></p><p>The sailors, seeing that they had people willing to run toward the hydras on board, ran away to the other end of the boat. The captain, on the other hand, pulled out a crossbow and shot the hurt one.</p><p></p><p>Elderron backed away from the hydras and cast a magic missile that he turned into fire damage on the hurt one -- cauterizing the wounds from the heads that had been killed.</p><p></p><p>Both of the hydras, with all of their heads, attacked Marxine, who was all alone up there right next to them. Marxine took three hits, but was still standing at the end of it.</p><p></p><p>Elama cast a healing word on Marxine then called a lightning bolt out of the clouds onto both of the hydras.</p><p></p><p>The one that was already wounded died, its body sinking away into the river.</p><p></p><p>Elama: Woo! I didn’t expect it to die like that.</p><p></p><p>The other one lost a head to the lightning bolt as well!</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel, going all David and Goliath on it, used her sling on it twice and took out a head. Vinya shot four sunbolts at it and took out another head. Marxine got one hit and then got her second wind and healed up a little bit. The captain missed with her crossbow. Elderron cast a fireball toward the back of the hydra -- which cauterized the wounds where the heads had been killed but didn’t hit either the boat or Marxine.</p><p></p><p>Distracted by the pain of its wounds, the hydra missed Marxine with both of its attacks.</p><p></p><p>Elama threw a lightning bolt at it, then hit it with a spiritual weapon. Vinya only hit with one of her four sunbolts. Marxine hit twice. Elderron finally dropped it with a fire magic missile.</p><p></p><p>Vinya, to the Captain: What happens when these things show up and you don’t have fighters aboard?</p><p>Captain: It’s never really come up.</p><p>Aldalomiel: You might want to consider it.</p><p></p><p>The rest of the day and the night passed, without incident.</p><p></p><p>And there we ended.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Treasure:</p><p></p><p>569 cp (given to Captain Althorn)</p><p>6502 sp (1300 for each of us -- only Elderron kept his share of the silver)</p><p>2069 gp (413 for each of us)</p><p>75 pp (15 each)</p><p></p><p>5 art pieces, each worth 250 gp: 1 robe with silver embroidery, two silver necklaces with bloodstone pendants, 2 gold birdcages with electrum humanoid skeletons with bat wings inside. (There’s one piece for each of us. Vinya would like one of the necklaces as her share of the arts.)</p><p></p><p>We also found some items, which we identified later:</p><p></p><p>1 Potion of Healing</p><p>1 Potion of Greater Healing</p><p>1 Rod of Alertness (very cool item)</p><p>1 Spell Scroll of Banish Shadow, which might have been more handy earlier</p><p>1 Mystery Key (has a chance to open any lock, but it only works once)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="prabe, post: 8107421, member: 7016699"] Session 14: On the Way to Lonoj Dramatis Personae: Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave) Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest) Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul) Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster) Marxine Deepfoot - Dwarf Fighter (Champion) GM - Everyone Else 11 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 42, night) (immediately after) We had been fighting ghouls and ghasts in the storm sewers of Erlin and had followed the stench of ghast and a blood trail from the sewer where we’d had a pretty big fight to the edge of a large junction area in the sewers where several pipes flowed into an overflow area. There was some rubble and debris that had washed into the sewers on the floor, lots of ghouls (the stench indicated that some of those might have been ghasts), and maybe some spectres barely visible on the edge of the room. We watched the ghouls milling around a bit and realized that we were in a safe place -- they weren’t going to inadvertently stumble on us and if they did we were in a defensible position -- so we decided to give up on the remaining time with Elama’s spirit guardians and Aldalomiel’s pass without trace and take a short rest. During the rest we observed the room and talked strategy. Elderron: I think we can announce our presence with a fireball. We all agreed with that strategy. Elama blessed Marxine, Vinya, and Aldalomiel. Marxine quaffed her potion of giant strength. Then Elderron proceeded as planned -- with a very big booming fireball. That blew up three of the ghouls right out of the gate. The spectres, which had no idea where the big boom had come from, moved away from the source of the fire. Aldalomiel took a shot at one of the ghasts, the smelly ghouls, and missed once then hit solidly. It made angry noises as it turned toward where we were cloaked in darkness. Unlike the spectres, the ghasts moved toward us. One attacked Marxine and one attacked Vinya. They established the pattern for the undead for most of the combat -- they missed. The mysterious, not-spectre incorporeal thing flew over to where it could attack either Marxine or Vinya. It swung wildly, missing both. Elama observed that there were four things bunched up right in front of Vinya and Marxine (two ghasts, one ghoul and the not-a-spectre floaty thing) cast a shatter spell, calling on the divine energy of the tempest to do as much damage as possible. One of the ghasts was immediately killed. The others were badly hurt, but didn’t drop. The rest of the ghouls started moving in our direction. The Swol Ghoul that survived the shatter spell and one of the others attacked the unarmored elves (Elderron and Vinya). They missed horribly. VInya dropped a ghoul (not Swol Ghoul) with her quarterstaff, then summoned her ki and stepped back a few feet so she could shoot a sunbolt at the floaty incorporeal thing (the wraith). Marxine then hit the incorporeal thing with her magic maul and dropped it. Woot! Then she attacked again and dropped the ghast in front of her. Elderron misty stepped to get out of the front line then cast toll the dead on the ghoul that had attacked him. The spectres, which had fled to the other side of the room when the fireball went off, came back, moving about halfway (or slightly less) and dodged. Aldalomiel, seeing this, put her hunter’s mark on one of them and shot it twice, dropping it. Elama cast a guiding bolt on the other spectre, hitting it and leaving it with a glow that would make it easier for others to hit. Marxine and Aldalomiel were attacked -- Marxine by three ghouls -- but with all those attacks swinging around, only Marxine was hit and she was only hit once. After Vinya popped a ghoul a couple of times with her quarterstaff, Marxine dropped Aldalomiel’s ghoul with her first swing and Vinya’s with her second, leaving only two, both unhurt. At least until Elderron magic missiled one. The remaining spectre, still glowing from the guiding bolt, attacked Vinya, but continued with the monster’s theme of missing all around. Aldalomiel put it out of its undead misery with her first arrow. Her second arrow dropped one of the two ghouls. The last ghoul hit Marxine, then we all piled on it with gusto until Marxine knocked it down and continued attacking it until it was really entirely dead. We explored the room. Elama spotted some stuff down one of the sewer passages that led into the room. Lots of stuff. 569 cp 6502 sp 2069 gp 75 pp 5 art pieces, each worth 250 gp: 1 robe with silver embroidery, two silver necklaces with bloodstone pendants, 2 gold birdcages with electrum humanoid skeletons with bat wings inside. Elderron, seeing the birdcages: I’m keeping Oda in his pocket dimension. We also found some items, which we identified later: 1 Potion of Healing 1 Potion of Greater Healing 1 Rod of Alertness (very cool item) 1 Spell Scroll of Banish Shadow, which might have been more handy earlier 1 Mystery Key (has a chance to open any lock, but it only works once) Elama lit up her sword and her shield and went to look at the puddle of super-darkness. The magical light dimmed in the area of the puddle. Elderron recognized it for what it is -- a shadowpool, a portal to the Shadowfell. Unlike portals to more distant planes, it doesn’t take a lot of magic to make a portal to the Shadowfell. All it takes is for the arrangement of things in this plane and the Shadowfell to match up and align, and to stay aligned for a number of weeks. It’s possible to break a shadowpool by breaking up the correspondences. A dispel magic on top of that will completely deactivate and destroy the portal. Breaking the correspondences will keep it from getting worse and keep things from coming through. Hearing that breaking up the match between this plane and the Shadowfell was the first step in getting rid of the shadowpool, Marxine started bashing on the walls -- but in a smart way so as not to bring anything down on our heads. Elama considered shooting a guiding bolt into it, but decided against, because she might need the spell power later. Vinya fired a couple of her radiant sunbolts into it -- they disappeared into the darkness, but there was no effect. Elama found an exit from the sewers that didn’t involve trekking all the way back to where we’d entered from. We emerged from that in Rivergate, pretty near to the guard house. Handy!! We went to talk to Captain Althorn. Vinya and Marxine: There were a lot of ghouls and ghasts. Vinya: And Elderron, tell him about the shadowpuddle. Elderron: There was a shadowpool. A portal to the Shadowfell. We broke it up some, but it needs permanent dealing with. Althorn: Oh. Yeah, the people up in Promontory won’t be happy. We left him muttering about the people in Promontory. Vinya, Marxine, and Elama went back into the sewer to keep an eye on the shadowpool and make sure nothing came through while Elderron and Aldalomiel went to find Jamil to see if he could help. Aldalomiel: We thought you might want to look at the shadowpool. And maybe you can close it? Jamil: One moment! He disappeared back into his house for a bit then came out dressed for the sewers. Aldalomiel, Elderron, and Jamil arrived at the scene of the shadowpool to find Marxine, Vinya, and Elama moving the rubble around and breaking walls. Marxine: We’re improving things. Vinya: The hydrology… Elama offered to help Jamil as he pulled out a scroll of dispel magic. He thanked her but declined the offer, then read from the scroll. When he got to the end of the spell, the pool disappeared entirely. Elama: Do undead usually make those pools? Jamil: Wraiths and other free-willed undead do. Elama: Where did the wraith come from? How did he get here to start making it? Jamil: Who knows? Vinya: It’s easy to dismiss it that way. But not helpful. Jamil: I’m not dismissing the question. It’s just not readily answerable. We went back to Captain Althorn to report that the shadowpool had been entirely dispelled. We gave him all of the copper that we found and a lot of the silver (all but Elderron’s share of it). Vinya and Aldalomiel also contributed a chunk of their gold shares. That was to be used as restitution and assistance for the families of those who were killed by the ghouls. As we left, Elderron realized that if he worked at it all night (and slept on the boat the next day) he could copy another spell or two from Jamil’s spellbook. With Jamil’s permission, he went that way while the rest of us returned to Garlin’s. The rest of the night passed without incident. 12 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 43) The next morning, Vinya stopped at the guard house to talk to Captain Althorn on our way to The Reed. Vinya: We’re getting out of your hair. Maybe you don’t hate adventurers so much after our help. Althorn: Whenever adventurers are around, there’s grumbling from on high. Vinya: Right. Well, we hope we’ve left the city better off than when we arrived. Then we got on the boat and The Reed sailed away. The day aboard ship passed uneventfully. As did the night. 13 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 44) The next day on the boat we were approached by a mountain dwarf merchant named Ullard Stonebright. He offered to pay us to escort him from Lonoj to Torm Brinnom. Elderron: What’s torn britches? Marxine: A dwarf stronghold. Vinya: We have a box to take to New Arvai. But we don’t have any particular reason to think it’s pressing. He offered again to pay us, 100 gp each. Vinya: That’s way more than we made for killing a whole passel of ghouls. Marxine was obviously, and vocally, very leery about going to a dwarf stronghold. Vinya: Maybe we can just go to the door and see him inside -- we don’t need to go into the stronghold at all. Vinya, to Elderron: Do you have something that would let you talk to someone a long way off? Elama: I can do that. Tomorrow. The rest of the day and the night passed without incident. 14 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 45) The next morning, Elama used a sending spell to talk to Jamil. Lamie: Hey! Is there any rush for us to get the box to New Arvai? We may have a job. Jamil: As long as you don’t destroy the book, there’s no real rush. We asked Mr. Stonebright if we could have a little time to caucus about taking his job. He said that was fine as it would be several days before we got to Lonoj. Over dinner, Vinya looked at the coins we got from the shadowpool. Some of them looked old. When she examined them more closely, she saw that two of them said they were from Ambernock. She consulted with Elderron and he said that Ambernock was the city that was where Embernook is before the Severance. She put those two coins into a very special place so they wouldn’t get accidentally spent. 15 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 46) The next day, we sailed past an old ruined fort or castle on a hill. The captain of The Reed, Tulia Shirvon, a water genasi, said that it went back to the fiend wars. She said that some nobles, or people who wanted to be, built it. The boat wasn’t going to stop, so we marked it on our map for possible future exploration. The day and the night passed. 16 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 47) Elama cast augury to ask if taking the job as guards for Ullard Stonebright is a good idea. She got the answer “weal”. Elama: Good! We decided that while we respect Marxine’s concerns about going into the dwarf stronghold, Torm Brinnom, we also respect 100gp each and the agury. We’ll just do our best not to have to go inside. Vinya: Mr. Stonebright, we will do your thing. Stonebright: Excellent! I figure that with a dwarf in your group, I’ll be in good hands. Even with all the elves. Ullard Stonebright told us that we’d be getting onto a different boat in Lonoj to take that river up into the mountains -- as far as where the river turns to the west. We continued to sail along. Elama cast water walk on herself and Vinya and they walked, or ran mostly, next to the boat for a while. 17 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 48) Early in the morning, as we were waking up and shuffling around to get coffee and stuff, the boat entered a section that was a bit choppier and more characterful. Marxine: We’re gonna die!! Captain Shirvon: No, this is fine. Elama: I can cast water walking. As we were dealing with the river being somewhat rougher, we heard shrieking like something being tortured coming from the water. As the boat hit the water, as it bounced and jostled along, the water screamed. Vinya went to look over the side of the boat. Elama: What’s that? Captain Shirvon: Oh, it happens. Vinya, thinking back to sailing this part of the river in the other direction: I remember this. I remember a stretch of screaming. Elderron: The Screaming Rapids. We noted the screaming rapids on our map. The rest of the day and the night passed without incident. 18 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 49) The day and the night passed. 19 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 50) After breakfast, while Vinya, Aldalomiel, and Elama were working on deck (Elderron and Marxine were down below), Vinya spotted two huge shapes coming through the water toward the bow of the boat. Two huge shapes with lots of heads. Vinya: What the hell’s that?! Elama! Aldalomiel! Look at that! Her shout got the attention of the sailors and the sailors banged a bell to get more attention from the rest of the crew and the captain. A bunch of sailors, as well as Elderron, came out of the lower decks of the ship. Elderron: Well, I guess I’m going to have to fireball one. Which he proceeded to do -- to good effect. The one that Elderron cast fireball on swam right up to the bow of the boat and attacked a sailor. The other one was just a little too far away. Elderron let us all know that they need to take fire damage in order not to regenerate. Otherwise if you kill a head and don’t do any fire damage to the beast, two heads will grow back. Elama held onto the mast and cast call lightning, striking the hydra with a lightning bolt. Aldalomiel cast hunter’s mark on the one that was fireballed and shot it, missing once and hitting. Vinya used her radiant sunbolts, summoning her ki to shoot that injured one four times -- she hit three times and one of those was a critical hit. Unfortunately the head she was shooting at didn’t die. Marxine charged up the stairs from down below and hit the hurt one, finally killing one of the heads. Then she did an action surge to attack again but wasn’t able to drop another head. (Note: Apparently two heads had already been killed.) The sailors, seeing that they had people willing to run toward the hydras on board, ran away to the other end of the boat. The captain, on the other hand, pulled out a crossbow and shot the hurt one. Elderron backed away from the hydras and cast a magic missile that he turned into fire damage on the hurt one -- cauterizing the wounds from the heads that had been killed. Both of the hydras, with all of their heads, attacked Marxine, who was all alone up there right next to them. Marxine took three hits, but was still standing at the end of it. Elama cast a healing word on Marxine then called a lightning bolt out of the clouds onto both of the hydras. The one that was already wounded died, its body sinking away into the river. Elama: Woo! I didn’t expect it to die like that. The other one lost a head to the lightning bolt as well! Aldalomiel, going all David and Goliath on it, used her sling on it twice and took out a head. Vinya shot four sunbolts at it and took out another head. Marxine got one hit and then got her second wind and healed up a little bit. The captain missed with her crossbow. Elderron cast a fireball toward the back of the hydra -- which cauterized the wounds where the heads had been killed but didn’t hit either the boat or Marxine. Distracted by the pain of its wounds, the hydra missed Marxine with both of its attacks. Elama threw a lightning bolt at it, then hit it with a spiritual weapon. Vinya only hit with one of her four sunbolts. Marxine hit twice. Elderron finally dropped it with a fire magic missile. Vinya, to the Captain: What happens when these things show up and you don’t have fighters aboard? Captain: It’s never really come up. Aldalomiel: You might want to consider it. The rest of the day and the night passed, without incident. And there we ended. Treasure: 569 cp (given to Captain Althorn) 6502 sp (1300 for each of us -- only Elderron kept his share of the silver) 2069 gp (413 for each of us) 75 pp (15 each) 5 art pieces, each worth 250 gp: 1 robe with silver embroidery, two silver necklaces with bloodstone pendants, 2 gold birdcages with electrum humanoid skeletons with bat wings inside. (There’s one piece for each of us. Vinya would like one of the necklaces as her share of the arts.) We also found some items, which we identified later: 1 Potion of Healing 1 Potion of Greater Healing 1 Rod of Alertness (very cool item) 1 Spell Scroll of Banish Shadow, which might have been more handy earlier 1 Mystery Key (has a chance to open any lock, but it only works once) [/QUOTE]
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Erkonin (Campaign #2) [Session 45: Rajalmin's Agent]
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