Session 2b: When Horses Attack!
In the morning, William was preparing to leave for town when Othi asked if he could go check the horses. William agreed, and Baikal decided to go with Othi. He cast speak with animals, and began with a simple “Hello.” The horses appeared nervous, and didn’t want to approach him. They shuffled farther out into the field, lowering their heads to graze and turning away. Baikal’s trained survival instincts kicked in, and he drew his bow. Othi followed the horses farther into the field, and was shocked when one of them suddenly turned on him, attacking with the slavering jaws of a wolf instead of a horse’s mouth. He barely stayed upright, and fled immediately. Baikal took a shot at the horse, but missed, and then felt the unpleasant sensation of an outside force controlling his body. He fought it off, and yelled for help in counterpoint to Othi’s screams. As Vash, Popo, and Riguallaun came out of the house, Baikal slowly backed up from the horse’s attacks, drew his spiked chain, and hit it. Othi healed himself, and drew his shortbow to attack, but missed. Vash and his wolf moved forward to attack and missed as well. The horse couldn’t hit Baikal, but kept attacking. Popo and Riguallaun both shot at the horse, and only Popo hit. Othi and Baikal both missed this time around, but Vash and his wolf were more successful, staggering the attacking horse. He tried to attack one last time, and fell unconscious. Othi shot the other horse, since they were both scarred on the forehead, and therefore suspicious. It dropped to the ground as well, and Baikal finished off the first horse. Othi stopped him before he could kill the other, and began to inspect its body after stabilizing it. He located a small crystal shard underneath the scab, and removed it. Popo then healed the horse, and Othi questioned it with the remaining seconds of his spell. The horse was no longer aggressive, and said that goblins captured both of the horses and placed something in their heads. From that point he didn’t remember anything.
Baikal, with William’s permission, skinned and quartered the dead horse, and began to prepare breakfast. Othi sent his eagle down to overfly the town in an attempt to spot forehead scabs on people. Three hours later, the eagle returned without finding anything similar to the horses, although it had only briefly overflown the town.
After the eagle returned, everyone started off for town, this time planning on lunch at the inn rather than breakfast. William guided them through the town, and it was obvious that something was wrong. Everyone looked depressed or irritable. Vash asked William if this was unusual, and William confirmed that the town wasn’t like this the last time he came through. He took them to the inn that Tokket ran, called the Dragon’s Tooth. Tokket welcomed them in, and offered them some of his dwarven ale. A large crystal tooth hung above the bar, and both Othi and Popo detected magic on it. Tokket explained that it was a relic of the dragon that he had killed with his group of adventurers. He appeared cheerful and animated, unlike the rest of the town. They asked him what was happening to people, and Tokket immediately had an answer. He said that everyone was having terrible nightmares, but he was resisting them because of his experience with harmful magical effects. The people said that the nightmares caused headaches, and that they couldn’t make it through the day without pain. Baikal remembered the psion that had traveled to Bellhold to find out what was wrong, and asked Tokket if he had seen him. Tokket remembered him well, since the psion had recruited a set of townsfolk who claimed more combat experience than most to go with him into the mountain. He had left one week ago, and hadn’t returned.
A bell began ringing, and Tokket told them that it was the smaller town bell, meant to bring the people together for a meeting. People started filing into the plaza, and the group joined them near the back. The town mayor got up to speak, which didn’t work out as well as he had planned. The prepared speech degenerated into a question-and-answer session, with the mayor trying to answer each person’s objections to current events. Much of what the group had already learned was rehashed, and some questions were asked more than once. The townsfolk seemed angry, and were only partially quieted by the mayor’s protests that “heroes and adventurers” were taking care of the situation. The mayor claimed that the headaches and nightmares were random, and a local oracle had predicted that they would end within the next week.
Baikal found out who the parents of the missing children were, and the group questioned one of them about where the children had disappeared. They convinced the parent into loaning them a pillow used by one of the children, and went to the riverbank to track the child’s scent. The wolf was unwilling to track, but they were able to find the spot where the children had been abducted, and realized that the goblins headed upriver. It was getting late, so they returned to William’s farm to spend the night, worried about nightmares.
The next morning, the group went back to the river and unsuccessfully tried to push the wolf into tracking again. Finally, Othi spoke with the wolf, and it was willing to track the goblins. The wolf tracked them to a cliff on the side of the mountain, and the party tried to scale it. The goblins attacked them from a superior tactical position, and the party reconsidered their choice of battlefield. Othi sent his eagle out to see if there are any alternate routes to the mountaintop, but it couldn’t find any. Eventually, the party took the main mine road up into the mine. They inquired about the old mine, and were shown the path as well as warned about the dangers of the old mine.
At the mine entrance, they encountered a shaft leading downward, with a rickety elevator. The party investigated the shaft by placing a sunrod on the platform and sending it down. It illuminated a passageway below, which was safe enough for Baikal, who climbed downward to the platform below. He descended without incident, and successfully got off the platform without tipping it. With him anchoring the rope below, everyone was able to climb down, and they began to investigate the mine.
A few uneventful rooms down the main corridor, a signpost of screaming heads momentarily disturbed everyone, but Riguallaun and Baikal cut them to pieces. The party checked the room to the right, but there was nothing but rotted bodies and stinking flesh. On the left, they avoided patches of green slime and explored some abandoned rooms. They continued on down the passageway, and came upon a set of side tunnels which contained zombies. When the zombies attacked, Riguallaun was searching ahead of the party, but he escaped to the rear before taking too much damage. Baikal and Vash moved up to attack the zombies, and destroyed them while taking no damage in return.*
When the zombies were again peacefully dead, the party moved forward. A copper door barred their way, and a whispery voice began to rave about something that had killed his people. Baikal and Popo ignored the voice, and hacked through the door with their weapons, ignoring the stench of troglodyte that comes through. When they entered the room, there were no inhabitants, and they started exploring the passageways that exit the room. Soon, they found a brightly lit room with a troglodyte inside, standing near a horrific tangle of bones that seemed to be animate. A huge statue of a dragon with wings outspread dominated the room, looking down at an altar.
Othi moved first, criticalling the troglodyte and nearly killing him. Riguallaun and Vash moved up to attack, but Vash was repelled by the troglodyte’s stench.** Riguallaun missed the troglodyte with his bow, and Baikal missed as well. Popo charged into the room, hitting the troglodyte with his morningstar, but failing to kill it. It struck back, hitting him with a claw and dropping him dangerously low on health. The skeletal creature moved forward to attack, and unfortunately, Popo was the nearest. As a gnome, the bonetangle’s attack and grapple were irresistable, and he was swept into its grasp. As it began to constrict him into death, Baikal and Riguallaun vainly tried to kill the troglodyte. Othi moved up to heal Popo a few times, but was barely able to counteract the constricting damage. The troglodyte, meanwhile, was repeatedly miscasting spells. Finally, Baikal cut down the troglodyte, and Riguallaun tumbled forward and pulled Popo’s morningstar off the floor. Othi had run out of spells, and the bonetangle tore Popo apart with its bone spurs as Baikal’s spiked chain and Riguallaun’s borrowed morningstar broke it into pieces.
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*First incident where a cleric would have made a significant difference, as opposed to a shaman, which can't turn at this character level.
**Troglodyte’s stench ability has changed from 3.0 to 3.5. I didn’t notice this, and Vash was nauseated during this fight rather than sickened.
Edit: Further, since I made this mistake, and Popo died, my DMing policy is to reverse character death if it is a rules mistake that is my fault. Vash had a few healing spells left, and Popo only died by two rounds. Therefore, we edited the past, and Popo was dragged from the crushed corpse of the bonetangle at -9 hp.
