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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7315181" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 05: CLEARING THE SLATEPC Roster: Galen Thorne, human paladin 2             Kaspar Hardstrike, elf monk 2             Syngaard, human fighter 2Game Session Date: 3 January 2018 - - -Having been mentally summoned to the Enchanted Flagon by a message spell from Skevros, Syngaard walked into the abandoned tavern and found Galen and Kaspar already there with the king's adviser.  That wasn't all he found, though: the place was badly burned, with black soot and ashes covering the floor and burn-marks along two of the opposite walls."What the Hell happened here?" asked the bald fighter.Skevros grimaced at the question.  "I...may have had some bad news...and didn't handle it very well, I'm afraid," he admitted.  "Fireballs, actually.""That must have been some really crappy news," agreed Syngaard, pulling up a chair and joining the group around the table.  He mentally made a note not to antagonize a person who threw fireball tantrums when things didn't go his way.  "So what's up?"Skevros sighed before answering.  "I received a telepathic sending from Serenity, of Ashfall," he began.  "She knows all about your status as secret agents of King Leornic, about your having been sent to their kingdom to extract Eric the thief and retrieve the property he stole from the castle--""He got what was coming to him!" interrupted Galen indignantly.  "He stole from our king!""That's not the point!" yelled Skevros, slamming a fist onto the table.  "Your whole reason for existence is to do the missions the king wants kept secret!  Having this...succubus woman knowing all about this group, your ties to the kingdom...it undoes all that we're trying to accomplish here.""Are we to disband?" asked Kaspar, getting straight to the point.  Syngaard's eyebrows rose in surprise; he hadn't given that possibility any thought.  And while he had been an unwilling conscript at first, the money that was pouring into his lap as a result of these missions the group got sent on - he wasn't eager to see that particular avenue of riches turned off anytime soon.Fortunately, Skevros was of a similar opinion.  "No," he sighed.  "I could shut down this operation and start again with a new group, but anyone we sent into Ashfall would likely face the same situation.  Having a mind-reading demon working directly for their kingdom....""I know," agreed Galen.  "It's underhanded and despicable.""No, it's brilliant, actually," replied Skevros.  "I'm half tempted to see if we can broker a similar deal somehow.  But that's not why I called you all here.""Then why?" prompted Kaspar.  "And why only the three of us?""I have assigned Orion and Daleth other duties.  They are assisting in the implementation and testing of improved defenses around the castle, to avoid a repetition of Eric the thief's relatively easy infiltration and escape.  You three, however, are to report to Ashfall.  There's been an incident at one of their mines and you're being sent to check it out.""Wait, now we're working for Ashfall?" demanded Syngaard.  "Since when?  And more importantly, how much are they paying?""In order: yes, but with any luck just this once; since Serenity insisted this be our repayment for the deaths of the two Ashfall citizens whose bodies you left near a cave just outside their capitol city; and not even a single copper piece.  You are doing this for Serenity - gratis - and she won't press the issue on the deaths of those two other thieves.""Hey, Orion slit that elf's throat," pointed out Syngaard.  "I knew she didn't belong on this team!  All she does is get us into trouble!"  In his indignation, he had already forgotten to ask Skevros what "gratis" meant."Half-elf," corrected Kaspar."Whatever," replied Syngaard, already irritated about doing a "freebie" job.Galen shared his irritation.  "I must say, I do not like the thought of performing work for a demon," he stated."And I must say: I don't care," snapped Skevros.  "Here are the directions to the mining complex" - and here he passed a sheet of parchment to Galen - "see that you go there directly, do whatever needs to be done, and report back here immediately.  And do not, under any circumstances, do anything to further antagonize Serenity.  I want this to clear the slate between our two kingdoms - I don't want her to be able to demand anything from us ever again!""In this, we agree," Galen replied."And upon your return," said Skevros in a voice filled with contrition, "I will have this mess cleared up."Syngaard saw an opening and decided to take it.  "Hey," he suggested, "maybe while you're at it you can get the taps working again."  It irritated the scarred fighter to work out of a tavern that didn't actually serve drinks.Skevros looked up at him in puzzlement.  "What do you mean?" he asked.  "The taps have been working since we started meeting here.  All one need do is ask.""Really?" replied Syngaard.  "A mug of mead!" he demanded to the room at large.  Immediately, a glass mug rose up from the bar, floated over to a barrel of mead, and the tap was triggered, filling the mug to the brim.  Then the mug floated over to Syngaard's place at the table, lowering itself gently before him.  Syngaard's outlook immediately approved.Then Skevros reached over and took the mug for himself.  "You may imbibe to your heart's content upon the completion of the mission, not before."  He waved the group away in dismissal, taking the first sip of Syngaard's drink.  The fighter's outlook dropped back to its original setting: pissed at having to work for free.  As the three conscripts left the Enchanted Flagon, Syngaard said, "I seen what happened there.  That was one of them invisible servants, wasn't it?""'Unseen'," corrected Kaspar."Whatever," shot back Syngaard. - - -Kaspar and Syngaard arrived at the mines on foot; Galen rode behind them on his new warhorse, which he had named Seneca.  Skevros had given them accurate directions and they had encountered no difficulties on the trip, but the mines were located in the northern part of Ashfall, beyond the capitol city, into the Baator's Breath Mountains.A sign just outside a cave in the side of a mountain showed them they were in the right place; a cry of pain from within told them they had arrived just in time.  Rushing inside the cave, they saw a dwarf in mining gear surrounded by a pair of short, squat bonfires - or at least that was what it looked like to Syngaard.  But these bonfires were moving, lashing out at the dwarf with limbs of flame, and the fighter could swear he saw a pair of greenish eyes staring out from the farthest flame-thing, who in attacking its prey faced Syngaard's general direction."I say!" declared Galen.  "Fire elementals!"  He kicked Seneca's flanks and the warhorse dashed forward, towards the fighting trio.  Kaspar and Syngaard followed immediately behind.  Seneca ran past the dwarf; as he did so, Galen bent to the side and pulled the dwarf up into the saddle behind him.  They raced beyond the immediate reach of the fire elementals before Galen slipped from the saddle, landing on his feet and giving Seneca a slap on its rear for good measure.  "Away to safety!" called the paladin.  "We will handle these monsters of flame!"Syngaard had already attempted to deal with the first "monster of flame" - by throwing his new magic javelin at it.  He missed, but by the spellcraft put into the weapon during its creation, it immediately returned to the fighter's outstretched hand.  Kaspar raced up by his side, while the farthest fire elemental took a swipe at Seneca as he rode past, making contact with a flaming fist.  The warhorse reared in pain, nearly causing the dwarf to fall off, but then regained its footing and spun off to the side, away from the immediate combat.The other fire elemental had moved up to engage Syngaard, but the fighter danced back in time to avoid its blow.  Then he swung out with his morningstar; it wasn't magically enhanced like his javelin but he'd had it for a longer time and was much more proficient with it.  He managed to connect, but the blow was a glancing one at best.By then, Kaspar had reached the fire elemental as well.  As he had approached, he'd run through his possible attacks in his mind.  His foe looked to be made of living flame - could he strike at it with his fist quick enough to avoid being burned?  He decided to give it a try.  The answer, of course, was no - attacking a being of living flame was a sure-fire way to get yourself burned.  But the monk had managed to strike quick enough to prevent his sleeve from catching on fire, and he seemed to have dealt more damage to the elemental's core being than its flames had done to the elf's skin.  All in all, it had been a good learning experience for the monk, and he was content with his lesson.Galen's longsword slashed out at the other fire elemental and the blade carved a line of green fire across the creature's body.  It hissed in pain, its green eyes flashing a look of hatred at the paladin - who could sense, through his training, that the burning creature before him radiated evil.  This came as a surprise to Galen, but he wasn't going to allow any creature of evil to get the best of him!The creature did manage to strike the paladin on the leg, but failed to set its foe ablaze.  At the same time, Syngaard was smashing his morningstar on the other elemental's head; it slashed out at him in retaliation but missed.  Kaspar, having learned his lesson about hand-to-hand combat with flame-monsters, pulled a pair of shuriken from his robes and flung them at the creature.  They cut straight into its flame-body, and the elemental gave a final shriek, like a knot popping in a campfire, before falling to the ground, dead.  The fires of its body sputtered, then went out, leaving absolutely nothing left of the creature behind it but a smudge of ash.It wasn't long before Galen had slain the other fire elemental, then he went in search of his warhorse and the dwarf he'd rescued.  The dwarf, Taklinn, was grateful for the rescue but seemed even more happy to climb down off the horse's back and return to the stone floor of the cave.  "I thank ye," he said.  "Come with me t' me camp, and meet th' boys!"Walking behind the dwarf deeper into the cave - Galen holding Seneca's reins behind him as he followed Taklinn - the conscripts saw a partially-collapsed stone building.  There were three miners inside, but these seemed to be solely miners; Taklinn's holy symbol of Moradin he wore around his neck indicated he was a cleric as well as a miner.  "Here's what's happened," Taklinn began.  "A breech opened in th' mine, a kind o' portal between this world an' th' world of demons.  There's plenty o' breeches openin' an' closin' around these parts - it's how these mountains got their name.  So out of th' portal pop these fire beasties.  We fought 'em off as best we could, even managed t' kill a bunch o' 'em, but more'd just pop on through all th' time.  These mines, they got wards t' prevent that sort o' thing, keep demons at bay an' whatnot, but they weren't a-workin' so very good.""No doubt because your wards are aimed at demons, whereas these are elementals," suggested Galen."Be that as it may," continued Taklinn, "We need ye t' take care o' these elementals fer us, so we kin get back t' our jobs.  While ye're doin' that, I'll see about upgradin' our wards.""While you're at it, you can start looking into our rewards as well," suggested Syngaard.Taklinn spit on the ground by the fighter's feet.  "Ain't no rewards t' be had," replied the dwarf.  "Serenity said you was performin' a sorta free community service.""She did, did she?" asked Galen.  "Tell me, how can you work for a demon like that?""I don't," countered the cleric.  "We work fer th' king, same as Serenity does.  If'n th' king got no problem with a demon doin' his biddin', then I guess I don't neither."  He looked at the trio before him.  "I tell ye what, though - I'll give ye these; they may be o' some use t' ye."  He pulled two glass vials from his belt and passed them over to Galen and Kaspar."These are potions?" asked the elf."Them're vials o' holy water," corrected Taklinn.  "Mebbe they'll help; mebbe they won't.  I dunno."  Kaspar and Galen each stowed the vials into their own belts...where they were both immediately forgotten about."Let's go, then," prompted the cleric, leading the way into a mine shaft.  The conscripts saw a set of metal tracks hammered into place in the stone floor, which were puzzling until they saw the metal cart that rolled on top of the tracks.  "Ingenious," admitted Kaspar.Galen stopped before the tracks and grabbed out a sunrod for himself and another for Kaspar; Syngaard waved the one offered to him away.  "Got my hands full with my weapons," he explained, holding his morningstar in one hand and his javelin in the other.  Galen held his sunrod in the hand supporting his shield, whereas Kaspar tucked his into his belt, keeping both hands free.  Then they followed the dwarf deeper into the mine shaft; as a dwarf, he needed no illumination at all.The tunnel soon forked off to the right, with flickering illumination coming from the side-tunnel.  Thinking it could either be another breech or another fire elemental, Galen stepped forward and saw it was the latter.  Kaspar stepped up beside the paladin and took a defensive stance.  "Evil," Galen announced.  That was all Kaspar needed to hear; he threw a pair of shuriken at the flame-beast, hitting with one.Behind them, Syngaard advanced, but he continued on along the straight branch, noting it veered off to the left a bit further down.  There was flickering light coming from that direction as well, only it seemed to actually be getting brighter.  The fighter saw another fire elemental turn the corner at a speed he wouldn't have thought such a small creature could attain; before he knew it the elemental was striking out at him with one of its arms.  Syngaard ducked back and the swing missed.The other fire elemental had also advanced, lashing out at Galen and setting his armor ablaze.  The paladin either didn't notice he was on fire or ignored the danger to himself in his zeal to continue fighting his enemy.  He swung his longsword in an arc at the little flame-beast, but it ducked beneath the blow.  Behind him, Taklinn stepped up and smothered the flames on Galen with a tarp he had grabbed up from one of the carts."I reckon I'll leave th' fightin' t' you lot, then!" the dwarf called.Syngaard hit his foe again with his morningstar, doing a minimal amount of damage, but at least it was something - the elemental had a difficult time even touching the battle-scarred fighter.  Kaspar threw another pair of shuriken at the other elemental, hitting it with each, and causing it to wince in pain long enough for Galen to get past its guard and slay it with his longsword.  The beast's flames burned green in its final moment as it died at Galen's sword.Syngaard managed to hit another glancing blow at his own foe, then it lashed out again and missed; Kaspar put an end to the long-lasting battle with another pair of rapid-fire shuriken which tore through the fire elemental's body and snuffed its flames for good."Are ye done wit' them, then?" asked Taklinn, approaching warily and casting a healing spell upon Galen's burned and blistered body.  Syngaard followed the straight path around the corner and to a dead end, then backtracked and rejoined the others at the fork.  As a group, they followed this side-path, which curved back and led to a larger cavern ahead.  This larger cavern was a different hue than the stone of the rest of the mines; it was a glistening silvery color, which reflected any light nearby into a dazzling brilliance.  The floor of this new cavern was about 10 feet lower than the mine tunnel leading up to it; the slope was fairly steep, and several burned and blackened ropes dangled down from pitons pounded into the mineshaft's end.  "Th' boys an' I dug right into this cavern," explained Taklinn."What's that?" asked Kaspar, pointing to a dark slab of metal on the floor of the silvery cavern.  It was nearly black, but more importantly was almost a perfect square some 20 feet on a side, indicating this was no natural rock formation, but something that had been carved or otherwise fashioned into its present shape.  It was only about an inch above the surface of the cavern floor beneath it."Go see fer yerselves, if'n ye want," offered the dwarf, helping Galen pound a new piton into the stone floor.  "Th' cavern's mithral, an' th' black slab's even more valuable: adamantine!"  Greed immediately filled Syngaard's eyes, for he recognized both metals as extremely rare, and extremely valuable.  While Galen pulled a length of rope from his pack and attached it to his piton, the fighter dangled his feet over the edge of the ledge and dropped down into the mithral cavern.  He looked around to make sure he was alone in the vast chamber, then made straight for the adamantine, wondering how much something like that weighed and if there was any way to get it back to Durnhill intact.Of course, Syngaard had only looked laterally for fire elementals on the floor of the cavern; he'd failed to look up at the ceiling, some 30 or more feet above him.  He became suddenly aware of the oversight when the enormous spider dropped down to the ground immediately before him.  It bit at the fighter with its wicked mandibles, dripping with poison.  Fortunately, Syngaard had been very lucky this whole day avoiding attacks, and his luck continued on its present course for at least this current attack.  The mandibles snapped at the space the fighter had occupied a scant second before, while he was busy scooting backwards as fast as he could go.Kaspar ran to the edge of the shaft and flung a pair of shuriken at the spider, hitting with one, which buried itself into its ghost-white body.  Then a second spider dropped from the ceiling beside Syngaard.  This one was more successful in its bite, for it caught the fighter in the leg and pumped venom into the wound.  With a roar of pain Syngaard wrenched himself free.Galen approached the edge of the tunnel and peered down at the spiders fighting Syngaard.  "They're both evil!" he called to his friends.  "But oddly enough - the one to the left is MORE evil than the other one!""How is that possible?' asked Kaspar."I'm not sure," admitted Galen, dropping down into the pit and racing toward the spider to the left.  Kaspar sent two more shuriken digging deep into the abdomen of this "more evil" spider, then dropped into the pit as well.The first spider bit at Syngaard but missed; the second spider did the exact same - apparently Syngaard's luck was back after a brief hiccup!  Galen swung his sword at the second spider and dug a deep gash across its body, causing the spider to cry out in pain and start cursing in some infernal tongue.  This seemed to be extremely un-spiderlike behavior, but the paladin focused his attention on combat.Syngaard swung his morningstar down on the first spider but missed.  He then backed up as fast and as far as he could, until his heels were against the slope up to the mine shaft.  He hoped the first spider would come after him, which would allow Galen to give it a good whack with his sword as it passed him by.The fighter's plan didn't work out that way; instead of following Syngaard the spider attacked Galen, who was now its closest target.  It got past the paladin's shield and bit him on the leg; Galen hissed in pain but immediately thereafter put it out of his mind.  Kaspar, meanwhile, had closed the distance to the first spider and struck out at it with the open-handed "hardstrike" that he was so proficient at, and which he'd taken as a last name.  His hand punched through the spider's body, the force of the blow driving his arm into it up to the elbow.  Kaspar pulled his arm back at once and watched as the fiendish spider died.  It might have been born on an infernal plane, but the monk noted its legs twitched in death just as did those of a terrestrial spider.Rushing back into battle, Syngaard threw his javelin at the remaining spider, piercing it deep into its abdomen.  As the javelin returned to the fighter's hand, the spider looked to be on its last legs.  Galen finished it off with his longsword, which seemed to deal extra damage to evil foes: first the undead in the tomb and at the graveyard, then the thieves outside of Ashfall, and now these evil elementals and demons.  The spider swore a final oath as it died, then started shrinking upon its death, its eight legs retracting into its body as the rest of it remolded itself into the demonic form of a winged imp.  The imp lay still on the ground, bleeding from the deep cut inflicted by the Sword of Zehkar."Ah," exclaimed Galen.  "That would explain how it was more evil than the other one.  One was just a spider, but the other was a demon!""Devil, I think," offered Kaspar."Is it?" asked Galen.  "I can never get them and quasits straight.""Whatever," scoffed Syngaard, finally approaching the square slab of adamantine.  Kaspar and Galen approached behind him, and Taklinn dropped down into the cavern as well.  "Look at it!" admired the dwarf.  "It's worth a fortune!""Let's try to lift it," suggested Syngaard, and the three conscripts gave it their best shot, but it was soon apparent that the thing wasn't going to budge."How did it get here?" asked Galen.Kaspar gave the whole cavern a look-over.  "Look at the mithral," he commanded. pointing along the walls.  It was apparent, closer up, that the entire cavern wasn't covered in mithral, merely the bottom half of it.  Along the walls, the mithral was splotched in a splash pattern, with dots of mithral scattered above where the solid mithral ended and the normal rock began.  "It looks like this was molten mithral," suggested the elf.  "I would suggest the adamantine might have been used by the imp and the spider as a sort of raft, to float through one of the planar breeches into our world.""Makes sense," admitted Galen.There were wards along the sides of the pit, which Taklinn  began examining with great interest.  "These'll need t' be updated," he announced to himself.  "To ward off elementals as well, like ye said."  The others weren't paying him any attention, as they were prying out chunks of "splash" mithral from the stone portions of the wall and hiding it in their pockets.  Maybe they'd be getting paid for this mission after all!If Taklinn noticed the low-level pilfering going on behind his back, he didn't mention it.  He might have decided he could easily afford it (after all, the mithral and adamantine in the cavern would make Ashfall quite prosperous!); he might have felt the three conscripts from Durnhill deserved some sort of payment for their services, despite what Serenity had said; or he might have simply not noticed.  Neither of the heroes cared enough to ask why - they considered themselves lucky they were getting to leave with at least something to show for their efforts.On their way back to Durnhill, Syngaard expressed his opinion of the whole matter.  "Well," he said, "we cleaned up that damn halfling's mess.  None of this would have been necessary if she hadn't slit that elf's neck.""Half-elf," corrected Kaspar."Whatever," repeated Syngaard, rolling his eyes in exasperation.  They'd done the mission, he was tired, but more importantly: he was ready for his well-earned tankard of mead back at the Enchanted Flagon! - - -Vicki and Joey stayed home for this session (they had a sick cat), which is why Daleth and Orion had been assigned to castle security upgrade duty.  Naturally, with two fewer players than intended Logan cut back on the amount of fire elementals we encountered in the mines.  But he's learning DM flexibility with the setup of this campaign, and he's been designing his adventures to be usable for groups of three to six PCs.  (If none of the others show up and it's just Harry and me on any given week, we've decided we'd rather postpone the session for a week than go through an adventure with just Kaspar and Syngaard.  That hasn't happened yet, though.)  In fact, although Jacob is usually in college when we play through these Wednesday night sessions, he was still home over Christmas break when we played this adventure.  Having planned for the eventuality (we had invited Jacob to join us), Logan did up Taklinn's stats as a PC for Jacob to use as a one-shot character.  When he didn't show, the dwarf cleric suddenly got less interested in joining the others in combat.Logan used a "Wasteland" Flip-Map for the initial part of the mines, then a bunch of cards from the "Mines" Game Mastery Map Pack.  For the mithral cavern, he drew 1" marks on sheets of a silver, glittery material he picked up at a hobby store.</blockquote>

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