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Message: <blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 3580517" data-attributes="member: 11">Session #8 – “Frog Chase!” (part 2 of 2)“I don’t see anymore for now,” Timotheus said, turning, but still vigilant.  “Everyone gather around me.”“BROWK!” There was no time to comply. More bullywugs were hopping down the left hand hallway.  Tymon seeing his master hiding in the shadows behind the stairs on the right and joined him.“I said fight with Tim!” Telémahkos admonished his servant and he dashed across the room into the shadows beneath the stairway on the left.  Laarus of Ra rushed forward and his flail struck the first bullywug to get to the end of the hall right in the face, knocking it to the floor.  Timotheus, having dropped his flail rushed forward, drawing his sabre and hacked the thing’s head off with one hard chop.  It never knew what happened.  Thick green blood splattered Timotheus’ breastplate, and he smiled.  He turned to face the other three wugs coming out of the hall and instinctively ducked to avoid the hop attack of one leading with its spear.  It landed in front of him.  It croaked in alarm as suddenly Victoria was thrusting her long spear at it from nearly ten feet away.  The spearhead ripped into rubbery flesh and the frogman squatted in pain, luckily avoiding a bolt from Markos’ crossbow.  Tymon hurried past Victoria and slammed the wug on the back of the head with his cudgel.  Telémahkos hopped out of the shadows and moved to the other side of it, flanking with Tymon, but the wug recovered, and parried the rapier thrust with its spear.  However, it did not guess that Laarus would leave Timotheus to handle the last bullywugs himself, stepping over to slam his heavy flail into its head.  It fell to the ground and did not get back up.“Browk!” The last bullywug thrust its spear again and again at Tim, but the brawny young man, knocked the blows away with his sabre, waiting for an opening.   He spun past it slapping away yet another thrust and then turned, putting the weight of his body into a hard blow that shook the wug, and it nearly fell.  Tymon took advantage of the opening, striking it with his cudgel as Telémahkos hopped in and thrust with his rapier again.  The bullywug slid off the blade to soak the rug with its green blood.They made their way down the hall and found the rooms beyond abandoned.  The trophy room was packed up, with mounted animals covered in sheets, and crates nailed shut and covered with various labels.  The other room was a library clear of all but one book, which looking through, Laarus recognized as being written in the mostly forgotten runic language of the <a href="http://aquerra.wikispaces.com/the+Mystics" target="_blank">Mystic Ancients</a>.  Markos, the last to leave the room, slipped the book into his coat. (1)They came back out into the entrance hall and checked the four doors within the alcove opposite the front doors, and found they all led to an enclosed courtyard with a stream coming through a semi-circular grate low on one wall.  There were various flowering bushes carefully planted along the banks, and stone benches on both sides.  In the stream itself were the corpses of three bullywugs and a badger.“What is a badger doing in here?” Timotheus asked.“Might it be someone’s familiar?” Laarus of Ra suggested, unsure. Markos shrugged.  “If it had been summoned it would have disappeared when killed…”It was decided they should move upstairs, as if there were anyone else on this floor they would have heard them and come out by now.“Clearly there was some battle before we even got here, and whoever fought back fought well enough and survived long enough to kill these creatures and leave this area,” Victoria reasoned.  Timotheus Smith nodded.“Master?” Tymon asked Telémahkos as the party made their way to the entrance hall stairs.  “Do you think that when you and Ida are married, we will all live in a house such as this one someday?”“It is certainly possible,” Telémahkos replied, dismissively.Upstairs, the contents of more rooms were packed up.  The beds in the guest rooms were stripped.  All was dark, and even the curtains were taken down.“Could it be a summer home?” Victoria was perplexed by the state of the manse’s contents.“I get the feeling things were being packed, not unpacked…” Telémahkos replied.One small room revealed itself to be a shrine to the god <a href="http://aquerra.wikispaces.com/Ptah" target="_blank">Ptah</a>, and as they left, Telémahkos grabbed a couple of small blocks of incense he saw laying around, remembering Bleys’ need. (2)  There was a former laboratory with a few strange specimens left behind: a fat green worm suspended in clear oil, a stuffed one-eyed bat, a patch of blackened hide and a shrunken simian head.  Markos wanted to search more closely, but the others outvoted him, pressing on.There was a large bare room, which was an armory and training hall.  There were many weapons on a rack, including the exotic spiked chain, known as a <a href="http://aquerra.wikispaces.com/kau sin ke" target="_blank">kau sin ke</a>, and a rare and expensive <a href="http://aquerra.wikispaces.com/Gnomish+Repeating+Crossbow" target="_blank">gnomish repeating crossbow</a>.Markos was commenting on it to Laarus when suddenly the Thrician doors (3) on one side of the room burst open and in hopped two barking bullywugs brandishing spears.  The first leapt up high due to the room’s tall ceiling and came down with all its might on Timotheus’ shoulder.  The metal spearhead screeched against the metal of Tim’s breastplate, and he felt the shaft slam against the side of his face.  The spear then clipped his thigh, drawing blood.  Timotheus wavered.“Gods! Keep this man on his feet so he can defeat the bullywugs that have invaded this once peaceful home!” Victoria prayed to Anhur and reached out a hand to Tim’s back, healing his wounds.“Tim! Kill it!” Telémahkos shrieked, leaping in rapier drawn to distract it.  He was deft at flicking the thin blade back and forth to keep the thing at bay, and manage to slap it on the arm, drawing green blood.“BROWK!”Laarus of Ra hurried over, heavy flail above his head, but as he brought it down, the wug caught the flail’s chain on the tip of its spear and plucked it from his hands, sending into the nearby hearth. (4)“You’re going to pay for that!” Timotheus growled at the wug, but it deftly avoided the swings of the big man’s sword.  The second bullywug leapt high over the melee and brought its spear down on Laarus as the priest stepped away from the fight to grab a longsword off the nearby rack.  Laarus grunted and turning grabbed the sword, leaving himself open to attack.  Thankfully his armor absorbed the follow-up blow and he grabbed the sword off and swung at the thing with one smooth motion, catching it by surprise in the leg and gut.“BROWK!”Tymon hurried in, cudgel in hand, to slam the first bullywug still fending off Telémahkos and Timotheus. It thrust its spear into the portly man and he moaned and fell over, balled up.“We got you now!” Telémahkos goaded, finding his opening.  The rapier slipped into the wug’s neck, and it collapsed.  Timotheus spun around and finished the one menacing Laarus.As he called to Ra to heal his wounds, Laarus Raymer noticed his cousin, grabbing the repeating crossbow.”Cousin.  Remember we are in someone’s home and cannot merely take whatever we may like,” Laarus admonished.  “There will be no stealing.  Put it back.”“I will not be commanded, cousin,” Markos spat back.  “Why must you assume I was stealing?”“Because you are taking something that does not belong to you,” Laarus replied. “What would you call it?”Timotheus stepped over and put a firm hand on each of their shoulders.“This not the time or place to argue,” Tim said, with an even, but stern voice. “Put it back…”Markos gave Timotheus a surly look, but did as he was told.  In the meantime, Telémahkos had slipped a dagger off the rack and into tucked it unseen into the fold of his sash.The young nobles moved down the narrow hall into the back room past the wooden doors, and around to a kitchen.  Again there were signs that this place was not in much use.  The large stove was covered by a large piece of canvas, and dishes and pots were packed into crates.  A smaller stove had one pot atop it, and there was a small wooden table with a basin and some dishes.  A staircase along one wall went back down to the first floor.  Timotheus decided to go down and take a quick look around.The tall man’s boots creaked on the wooden steps as he made his way down, noticing that there was a lamp lit down there.He was three-quarters of the way down when the smell of bitter burning tobacco reached him.  Tim paused before he had gone two more steps, but by that time it was too late.“BROWK! BRICK!”A bullywug was suddenly on the stairs just below him, stabbing at his legs with a spear.  Timotheus stumbled back as a second wug, hopped up to the base of the steps thrust her spear at him.  He barely avoided it, but felt the bite of a hand axe against his armor.  She had spots of brown atop a deep olive color, and wore an elaborately painted bone necklace“BLORP! BLORP!” A third bullywug croaked loudly within the room below, which Tim could now see was a dining room. “There’s a big one down there!” Timotheus warned his companions as he hurried back up the steps.Luckily, Victoria was adjacent to the open steps and thrust her long spear into the back of one of the bullywugs on Tim’s heels.  The wug slipped back down the stairs mewling soft pained croaks.“Tymon! Back anyone up who is near one of those things if they make it up here,” Telémahkos commanded his servant and he moved over to other side of the stairway, to be able to look nearly straight down on any coming up.  Tymon followed him over there.“LORB-LORB TUBB!” She loved to croak her own name.  Suddenly her powerful legs sent her forward to spring at the midway point of the steps and then changed direction to head towards the opposite side of the stairs. She flew past them, ducking a blow from Laarus, but absorbing hits from Timotheus and Victoria.   Telémahkos let a dagger go and it dug into her rubbery hide, but she would not be stopped, her tongue lolling out to one side of her wide mouth as she roared her mad croaks, flicking saliva in all directions.  Tymon cried out as he felt her spear slam into his studded leather armor.“Master!” He cried out in fear.“Tymon! Get out of here!” Telémahkos pushed his servant as he withdrew himself.“Sagitta Aquom!” Markos cast, sending an arrow of watery blue translucent light to slam into her.  Victoria backed this up with another thrust of her spear from across the gap of the stairs.Timotheus slammed down another bullywugs coming up the steps, but a third hopped up, striking Laarus. Timotheus ignored it, preferring to run over to deal with Lorb-Lorb.  She spun around, and slammed the head of her axe against Tim’s helmet, and then he felt the point of her spear in his groin.  Tim wavered back and forth, feeling pain wash up and down his left leg, and blood dripped into his eyes.“Anhur!” Victoria called to her god.  “Keep this man on his feet whatever it costs!”  She cast cure light wounds on Timotheus to keep him going, and he thanked her by chopping Lorb-Lorb’s head in half with his sabre.  He then ran back over to Laarus who was beating back the remaining wug and thrust his sabre through it sideways.  Its body jerked as it fell off the blade and on to the floor, where it convulsed for a moment before finally dying with a soft croak“Yes! I am the best! I am the best!” Timotheus pumped his sword in the air twice, crying out with a wide smile, and then wiping green blood from his face with the back of his hand.“Quick! Someone heal Tim, I think his head is swelling!” Telémahkos quipped.“The zeal of battlelust has overcome him,” Victoria said, smiling.  “I know the feeling… Praise Anhur!”“Praise Anhur…” Laarus echoed.Telémahkos gave Timotheus and Laarus each one of the potions they had found in the laboratory in Kraken’s Cove.  “Markos says they are probably healing potions, but we cannot be sure… But if things start looking bad, you may want to risk it…”They decided to go up to the third floor as it was the smallest part of the house and the last place to be checked, except for the back section of the house’s first floor, where they had heard the dogs earlier.“I think Victoria should go first,” Telémahkos said.  “She is the least injured.””We will go up together,” Timotheus said, eager to finish the business in the Vanderboren Manse.As Victoria of Anhur and Timotheus Smith came around the corner at the top of the stairs, the door to the master bedroom flew open.“Let’s see who that is out there,” a gruff voice was heard to emerge from within. “I hope it is your weasel of a brother, so we can kill him and everybody else and be done with it!”A tall raven-haired woman came stumbling out of the room as if she had been roughly pushed out, and behind her towered the broad and ugly figure of Drevoraz Krebran.   The woman wore a long lavender dress, and she had teary blue eyes, that looked up at them with amazement.  “It’s the signers of the Charter of Schiereiland!” She cried with obvious relief.“Woman! Get away from him!” Victoria barked, readying her spear as she hobbled forward, but Telémahkos, seeing it was Lavinia Vanderboren, did not wait.  He vaulted over the stair railing from below, and then charged at the woman, pushing her back and protecting her with his own body.  He barely turned away from the deadly edge of Drevoraz great two-handed scimitar, which the half-orc raised from his side.“You aren’t Vanthus, but you’ll do,” the half-orc snorted happily.  He wore studded leather, and a red kerchief with white stripes on his head.  A deep red scar on his face made his right eye a raw narrow slit.The curved blade turned in his hand and he brought it back across, catching Telie under the chin.  The gregarious young noble gagged as the skin was torn from his neck and he collapsed. He was bleeding out.“Telémahkos!” Lavinia cried out in alarm.“Telie!” Timotheus echoed.  He pulled out the potion Telémahkos had handed him and quaffed it.  Nothing happened.  “Useless!” He smashed the glass vial against the stairs.Markos took a shot that went wide, and Tymon moved up to fire from the same angle and did the same, but he was aiming at a bullywug that had hopped out of the room behind Drevoraz.“No! Telie!” Lavinia covered Telémahkos’ body with her own, weeping.  “You came here for me!”“Brother Laarus! See to Telémahkos!” Victoria called to her fellow priest as she kicked open a different bedroom door in hopes of finding another way around the narrow hall, but there was none.Drevoraz leapt over the railing, landing halfway down the stairs. He looked up at the vulnerable Markos and Tymon with a grin as he began to climb the stairs.  His leap left room for another bullywug to emerge from the bedroom.“When we are done, I’ll burn this place to the ground!” Drevoraz growled.  “Now! Where is the brother?!”“He isn’t even here, you lackwit!” Timotheus yelled back. He moved down the hall and cut at a bullywug with his sabre.  Laarus followed up with a blow from his heavy flail and the wug collapsed.“BLORP! CRICK! Where pearl? Where?” A squat and bloated bullywug with a more red-brown coloration to go with his drab green hide appeared in the doorway.  It bore a club, and wore a necklace of hair and bone.  Its eyes were a shining black.Markos and Tymon hurried all the way up the stairs to avoid the climbing Drevoraz, and Victoria hobbled over to block his progress.“Anhur! Bestow upon me the power of your anger and your focus so I may vanquish those who would invade this noble home!” she called out to her god, and was filled with Anhur’s holy rage.  Victoria stepped down and thrust the head of her spear right into Drevoraz’s side, ripping his armor open, and sending a torrent of blood to wash down the stairs.“I hate Anhur!” Drevoraz moaned, as he stepped up within the reach of her spear and chopped at Victoria with his great scimitar, but she ducked to avoid it.“Where pearl?” the fat wug croaked again.“It was destroyed!” Markos answered.“There is no pearl here! There never was!  You have been tricked!” Timotheus said, as he and Laarus continued to struggle against the two other bullywugs.“Fall!” the bulbous bullywug commanded with a croak, shaking his painted and carved cudgel and pointing it at Tim.  Timotheus felt a wash of magic come over him, as his legs weakened, but he shook it off.“Nephthys, protect me! I will not be dominated!”Tymon moved back to the top of the stairs and let a crossbow bolt fly, and it lodged itself in Drevoraz’s leg, as Lavina suddenly stood from where she had been protecting Telémahkos with her own body.  She gripped the Steep Whip, and seemed to have some rudimentary ability to wield it.“Back boy! He’s mine,” Victoria warned Tymon off, but Drevoraz chopped viciously at the longspear to keep it at bay.  She had to pull back to get her spear in proper position again.  But the half-orc stepped forward and spat at Tymon.“That other party couldn’t defeat me, and neither can you!” He followed this up with a nasty blow that cut Victoria’s already injured leg.A crossbow bolt from Markos cut Drevoraz’s laughter short. It pierced his neck and the first mate tumbled back down the stairs, dying.“You are not a very nice man!” Tymon yelled with child-like anger.  He rushed down the stairs, dropping his crossbow and pulling out his sword.  He chopped at the prone, bleeding half-orc.Timotheus had managed to defeat one of the bullywugs, and Laarus was whittling at the other, but the fat wug shaman cast a curing spell on it.“Stand aside!” Victoria commanded. Hobbling into the remaining melee.  She had dropped her spear and drawn her morningstar, slamming the side of the bullywug’s head, driving one of the weapon’s spikes deep into the side of its face.  It collapsed, and Tim took the opportunity of the distraction to push Lavinia out of the way of the menacing shaman.  Laarus of Ra, on the other hand, saw the enemy shaman was now alone, and bullrushed him back into the bedroom, out of the doorway, hoping to give everyone room to surround it.“BROWK!” The shaman stumbled back, and then suddenly leapt with agility that belied his shape, smashing through the closed shutters and landing twenty-five feet below, out in front of the manse.As Tymon, Laarus and Lavinia checked on Telémahkos, Timotheus, Markos and Victoria made it to the window to see where the wug went.It stopped and turned to look at them, shaking its webbed fist. “You humans will get what you deserve when the Savage Tide comes!” It croaked.  Victoria of Anhur grabbed a spear from her back and threw it, but her rushing caused her to knock her own helmet askew, and she had to stop to fix it. (5)As the bullywug shaman disappeared into the darkness, Timotheus was able to set an arrow to his longbow and take a shot.  The satisfaction of the frogman’s croaking yelp was all he got, as the shaman continued to hop away.  Markos’ final crossbow bolt disappeared harmlessly into the night.They could now see that scattered around the huge master bedroom were several bound, unconscious figures, one of whom was a dark-haired woman in mauve watch-mage’s robes.  Victoria shuddered and then sat on the edge of the bed. (6) Lavinia ran downstairs and came back soon after with a box containing two potions, one of which she administered to Telémahkos.  She offered the other to the party, but they all refused, and it was administered to the unconscious watch-mage instead, who Lavinia referred to as Maeve the Mauve.  Remembering their own watch-mage, Timotheus asked Laarus to accompany him to retrieve Bleys from the bushes, after they carried Telie to what had been Vanthus’ room and the bed there.Telémahkos groaned and stirred, asking after Lavinia.“Lavinia is fine,” Timotheus replied, reassuringly. He added with a smile: “She really likes you, by the way…” “I am a moron,” Telie groaned.“No, no… You did good… You did the right thing,” Timotheus wrapped him with a blanket.  “You may yet be a hero… Someday… Now rest…”Detailed explanations would have to wait until the next day, as the hour was late, and everyone was exhausted, but Lavinia explained that she had recently hired <a href="http://aquerra.wikispaces.com/The+Jade+Ravens" target="_blank">the Jade Ravens</a> to help protect her against increasingly shady debt-collectors, as he brother Vanthus had been using her parent’s weak credit around Thricia, and borrowing on the company name from unsavory types.  The party was led by the son of one her parent’s former adventuring allies, a half-elf named Tolvin Kentai. He had been killed in the initial attack, along with his animal companion; a badger.Among their number was a misshapen dwarf named <a href="http://aquerra.wikispaces.com/Kashrus+Kursh" target="_blank">Kashrus Kursh</a>, who had escaped the assault and was hidden in a secret room the party never found on the first floor.Lavinia went on to explain, that she was in the process of packing up things to be shipped back to the family’s other manse in Azure, and some of which was to be sold along with this property to help cover her debt.  However, the man who had agreed to buy was present, along with his son, and both were killed when the bullywugs attacked, and their bodies were in the cellar with that of Tolvin. The others had been spared because the bullywugs shaman, Augh Bohr, had wanted to bring them back alive to serve as sacrifices to his god.Lastly, she explained that when she arrived here, she found that her brother, Vanthus, had been using it as some kind of hideout, since it was vacant, and that while she had found some of his things, he had not been around for a couple of weeks.The signers of the Charter of Schiereiland were given guest rooms in pairs to sleep in, while the near-mortally wounded were given their own rooms.End of Session #8----------------------------------------------------------------Notes:(1)    Markos later returned the book to the library when it was discovered the owner was still about and among the living.(2)    Bleys mentioned his need for incense in order to cast <a href="http://aquerra.wikispaces.com/Spell+-+Identify" target="_blank">Identify</a> in Session #7.(3)    I described these as “French Doors”, but did not want to use the term “French”, so they were dubbed “Thrician Doors” naturally.(4)    Laarus suffered a critical fumble: 79 – 83 Hard Parry, Make opposed Strength check with opponent or weapon knocked away. Roll d8 for direction. Roll for 1d4 for distance in 5 foot increments.  I often take liberties in describing them, keeping the mechanical results the same.(5)    Victoria suffered a critical fumble: 05 – 07 Helm Slips. Move-equivalent action to fix or –4 to attack rolls. (No effect if no helm).(6)    When a militant of Anhur’s righteous fury ends, they become fatigued until they have rested a number of minutes equal to the number of rounds they were raging.</blockquote>

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