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Message: <blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 3729547" data-attributes="member: 11">Session #11 – “Strange Brew”(part 1 of 2) (1)Bleys the Aubergine charged up the stairs, his deep purple cloak whipping behind him.  He had retrieved his saber, and Dunlevey was close on his heels.  Telémahkos crept as quietly as he could up the stairs behind them, hoping the sound of the two that proceeded him would mask his approach.  Laarus of Ra and Markos went upstairs as well, passing the cautious blond, and leaving Tymon and Falco to watch over Victoria.At the top of the stairs a narrow corner led to a wider hall that led up to the front of the keep.  Bleys stood looking at the various wooden doors along the hall, and considering the iron-reinforced one at the end of the hall.  Light was coming through the thatched roof that was clearly not original to the structure.“What next, Master Bleys?” Dunlevey asked, still wearing his perpetual smile, despite half-orc blood being smeared on his face and clothes.  The watch-mage simply put a finger to his lips and looked up.  Now Dunlevey heard it, too.  Something was skittering and hopping around on the roof.  As Telémahkos joined them, Bleys pointed to him and then pointed to the bar on the second door on the right, and then walked towards the end of the hall.  He kept his saber ready and pointed towards the thatched ceiling which he easily reached with is blade due to his enlarged size.The thing above made some more noise, and again everyone stopped, Telémahkos listening at the first door on the right, before moving on to the one Bleys has indicated.“What! Wha-wha-Whaddaya want!” came the screeching voice of a raven above.  “Well…” Telémahkos addressed the bird. “Now we’re here to collect the booty you left behind after making the biggest mistake of your life…” He was obviously continuing the ruse. (2)“Witch! Show yourself and we will make your death a quick one!” Markos tried to sound intimidating, but all he won was a smirk from Telémahkos.The raven crowed and then fluttered away, even as Markos cast enlarge person on Dunlevey, so now two hulking forms crowded the narrow keep hallway.  The hired warrior stepped over to where Telémahkos was listening at the barred door, and reaching down ripped the bar from the doorframe with his big hands.  The door squeaked open and Telémahkos rushed past the large man.“Ah! Now I see!”  Huddled in one corner of this room bare of all but a bucket and a straw mat was the bound and gagged form of white-haired old woman with cheeks like pruned apples and spider-web skin on sharp bones.  “So, how much is getting this prisoner back worth to ya?” Telémahkos called up to the roof, even as he kneeled down to whisper in Rudwilla’s ear. “We’re here to rescue you.  We were sent by the Ray-Ree.  Don’t make any sound yet.” He gestured with a finger to his lips to reinforce his point, and then removed her gag, and began to untie her.  She wept silent tears as she rubbed the burns on her freed wrists.“If you’re still here we’re going to take your treasure, your hostage and then burn this keep to the ground,” Telémahkos called out again.  “Feel free to try to dissuade us…”“Any suggestions about this?” Telémahkos continued to whisper to Rudwilla as he worked on the ropes about her ankles. “Can you help us fight her off? Kill her if necessary?”“I… I am not prepared,” Rudwilla replied quietly.Meanwhile, Bleys tried using his increased weight to kick the door at the end of the hall open, but ended up falling on his rear end when it resisted.  He stood and dusting himself off, braced himself against the opposed wall and gave a sudden short kick that crushed the door, so that a four-inch gap was visible along one side.  Dunlevey squeezed in beside him, and on a count of ‘three’ they smashed the door off its frame, and they heard the clang of the metal bar within the room.  Bleys charged in as it fell, looking around quickly and suddenly noticing the open slat in the large boarded window across from the door, he hurried to look through it.  This had been where the party has first had arrows rain down on them when the battle began. (3)Dunlevey went into the room and looked around.  Aside from a cot and a footlocker, the only thing in this room of note was large stone table covered with interesting items, including the makings of an alchemist’s lab.“What now?” Dunlevey asked, stepping over to the footlocker.“We should get her out of here,” Laarus said, squeezing through the doorway as well.  Markos stepped around the  enlarged priest, and began to examine the items on the stone table.  It was clear that the primitive nature of the laboratory set made easy travel with it out of the question. (4)“Admentus sent you?” Rudwilla asked, coming into the room with Telémahkos her common thick with an accent.  She was clearly walking with some effort.“Yes, and it seems the witch that abducted you has gotten away,” Bleys replied.“Could she have turned into that bird?” Telémahkos asked.Rudwilla shook her head. “Familiar… And you are right, met with overpowering force she will have fled, likely invisibly…  We need to see if she left the ingredients for the brew somewhere about…”Dunlevey went to check the long room on the left as they came up the hall, while Laarus went back down to the others.  Bleys the Aubergine meanwhile had knocked the boards out of the window and used his magically increased height to easily climb down. He was worried that the invisible Hezra, or one of her here-to-fore unseen sons, might abscond with their horses.  Making a quick circle of the ruined keep, he noticed a here-to-fore unseen secret door in a rear hall behind the stairs that now stood open.  He called to Falco, who checked for tracks as Bleys gathered the horses."Someone did flee through the moat, but their tracks are quickly obscured," Falco said, as he came over to the watch-mage.Upstairs the others were checking the remaining room which was some form of barracks, with cots pushed together, and sacks of semi-rotten food, and crumbling holes in one corner where the half-orcs defecated.  There were some footlockers there, and Telémahkos warned the others to stay clear of the one in the laboratory while he checked the others.  He and Dunlevey collected some odd treasures from the lockers (5), and then he came back to check the larger locker for traps. Telémahkos rubbed his chin for a long time as he stared at the lock, and then examined it with a small glass he produced from his sash.  Finally, with a sigh, he took out his picks and went to work on the lock. It opened with a pop, and he finally exhaled, and confidently threw it open.   He looked away and towards the others gesturing at the clothing and other trinkets in the locker.  “Search away!”  And then he felt something crawling on his arm, and with the mounting horror that stretches a moment out into an hour, he turned his head to see a skeletal hand leaping at his exposed neck.  Its sharp finger bones tore Telie’s throat and he shrieked in an unmanly way, brushing at it wildly.  It angrily snapped the piece of wrist still connected to it by rotted sinew.Markos was suddenly beside Telémahkos, stabbing at the disembodied hand with a dagger.  Or at least, where Telémahkos had been, for the blond noble scrambled away as quickly as possible, punctuating each step with another girlish shriek.  Dunlevey stepped up and smashed down at the little thing with his enlarged great sword, but it was too small and quick to get a good bead on. “Step back! Give me some room, Markos said, withdrawing and pulling some components from his belt pouch.  Dunlevey took another swing that went wide, and then took a long step back.  The hand however, moved too quickly.  Before Markos could get a spell off, it leapt at him and tore at his face.“Ugh!” Markos cried, slapping it away.  “Get this f*cking thing off me!”“Dunlevey! Get it! And don’t listen to Markos again!” Telémahkos commanded the hireling, making a show of bringing Ruwilla to squat behind the stone table in relative safety.The now-hulking swordsman rushed forward and caught the skeletal hand with the tip of his sword, sending it flying across the room and against the wall.  The hand bounced back, and then leapt right at him, but he was able to knock it away with the flat of his blade, before it clawed him.  This time the slightest chip of bone was seen to fly off of it.  Dunlevey stepped back again, hoping that he had a better chance of hitting it when he had a clear view of it coming, rather than right atop of it, but the space was enough for Markos.  The small mage cast his spell, and an arrow of green bubbling liquid came flicking out of his hand, and landed squarely on the tiny undead thing, sizzling.  The acid wore away the bone with great speed, and soon nothing was left but a stain on the stone floor.“Boy! It sure is a good thing that Dunlevey chose to listen to me,” Markos commented, glaring at Telémahkos as he got up from behind the table. Telie ignored him and wandered off, still bleeding from his many small wounds, hoping Laarus could help him.  Dunlevey followed.Outside, Bleys had gathered all the horses, and soon after the others came down as well carrying whatever valuables they had scavenged from the place.  This included two of the three ingredients needed for the brew.Rudwilla kneeled beside Victoria and put two fingers to the militant’s temple, and chanted some unrecognizable words.  A moment later, Victoria Ostrander was sputtering awake.  Her body pushed to exhaustion, she just sat and took long ragged breaths.  She would still be weak and slow for some time to come. (6)“Assuming we are now done here now, I say once the honorable militant has recovered sufficiently to travel we go back and see to the making of this brew,” Bleys told the others.“Yes, but we should burn this place down,” Telémahkos suggested.“It is a well-built stone keep, despite the damage it has taken, “ Bleys said.  “It would take time to raze it properly, and besides, would it not be better to have places such as these available for repair, than to have to build new keeps when the time comes to reclaim this land of Thricia?”Telémahkos grudgingly saw the wisdom in the watch-mage’s reasoning, and Laarus agreed, mentioning that the keep’s standing also served to preserve Thrician history.--------------------------------------Evening was not far away when the signers of the Charter of Schiereiland finally approached the Ray-Ree camp.  Rudwilla of the Toadstools rode with Victoria.Timotheus Smith, still looking a bit pale, but lacking the glassy eyes of bog flu, was among the Ray-Ree children and elderly that came out to greet them. He was the only one smiling and waving as the taciturn barbarian people merely nodded in acknowledgement of their arrival. “Glad to see you are feeling better,” Markos managed to say without disdain.“Yep! But you all look like you weathered a bit of hell,” Timotheus could not help but smile, glad to see them all among the living.Timotheus and Admentus were quickly informed about the status of their mission and the escape of Hezra, and then continued on to Rudwilla’s cottage in the moors to guard over her while she completed her work.  Since he was feeling better, Timotheus was able to rejoin the party.Back at the cottage, they found Tora crying, as she had been unable to retrieve the baby lemons needed for the brew, for more of the ‘lightning tails’ had been hovering in that area.  It was decided that Timotheus, Falco and Laarus would accompany Tora back to the lemon trees while the others remained behind to guard Rudwilla as she started her work, helping to bring the brewing casks from their hiding spot to the cottage.Luckily, there were no monsters of the sort to be found in the area when Tora led them to it, and they were able to return unmolested.  Rudwilla would work through the night, as the party took turns watching as the others rested.Ralem, the 22nd of Quark - 566 H.E. (637 M.Y.)The night was long and filled with sounds foreign to the Signers, and while on watch they listened nervously to hear any approach over the cacophony of frogs and insects, but no sound ever came.  As dawn picked its way through the mossy canopy of the moorlands, Laarus and Victoria prayed for their spells, while Falco and Kermit watched.  The others were sleeping still.Laarus Raymer granted Ra’s healing graces to Victoria and Telémahkos, while Victoria did similarly with Markos and Falco, as everyone awoke and prepared for the day.Bleys and Markos had hardly sat down to prepare spells, and Telémahkos was leading Tymon outside to keep watch while the others had breakfast, when they heard a bellow from out in front of the cottage.“I’ll bring you out some breakfast,” Telémahkos was reassuring a sad-faced Tymon, when they heard a guttural voice cry out, “Rudwilla! Rooodwiiiil-uh!”The horses, all tied up to the left of the house, nickered nervously as three large humanoid figured walked up onto the island, past the animal pen.  “Roooodwiiil-uhhhh! You best have brew!” the voice came again.  Marching towards the cottage were three hairy goblins broad of shoulder and over six feet in height.   The center one was particularly fat and wore a huge skin wrapped around his torso, outside of his poorly fastened chain shirt.  He had bloodshot eyes, and his sandy-brown hair was twisted into long dirty naps all over his body.  The other two bugbears had some girth to them as well, and they were studded leather ponchos tired with chain belts.  All three had big spiked clubs.…to be continued…----------------------------------------------------------------Notes:(1)    This session was played on Sunday, June 24, 2007.(2)    See Session #10 for the reasons behind the ruse.(3)    Again, see Session #10.(4)    This primitive alchemist’s kit weighed in at 120 lbs.(5)    Amid various random coins were found a stack of old lover letters that were clearly stolen or found, some torches, flint and steel, silver arrow heads, and other various doo-dads and junk.(6)    Victoria was still suffering from strength and dexterity ability damage.</blockquote>

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