Perrol’s Story

Inside the pouch I find two gems and a stone that is glowing magic.  Stone is an Ioun stone.  It grants magical properties to whoever holds it.

1XP

Segment 12
We hear a screech and feel a buzzing wave come from the creature.  Perrol takes 5 stun.  Jarlyn takes 10 stun.  Perrol moves and attacks and hits.  Jarlyn raises steadfastness.

Post Segment 12 Recovery
Jarlyn and Perrol recover all their endurance.  Perrol recovers all stun, Jarlyn recovers 7 of his 10 stun and is now down 3.

Segment 4
Perrol swings and hits, rolling a 3!!!  The beast dies.

End of Combat

Jarlyn heals both Perrol and Glaive.  He fails one faith roll so he uses 3 charges.  Perrol is now back to full body.

We explore the room further and find remains of a stone creature near where the monster was.  Perrol uses magesight and finds two magic items hidden somewhere in the pile.  Ghoral examines the pile and finds a nice dagger.  Perrol goes through the pile to find the magic items and pulls out two vials of some unknown magic fluid in glass bottles.  Perrol also finds a leather money pouch with 24 silver pieces inside.

We continue to explore the room and find rooms marked I and N.  We use our N key and go in.  At the far side of the room is a secret door, we open it.  The hall has recessed designs in the wall in the shape of gears with holes in the center.  Ghoral looks in one hole and it ends in stone after a few inches.  At the middle of the length of the hall is a T to the left going to a small room with empty shelves and pedestals.  Ghoral steps into the T section and spears shoot out of the holes in the walls.  Ghoral is hit.  The spears begin to retract back into the walls.  Ghoral backs out of the T section.  Glaive jumps and uses glide to get into the room.  There is nothing of value inside.  Glaive jumps and glides back from the T into the hall.  Glaive finds a secret door at the end of the hall.  Ghoral opens the door and we find a room with 4 forges, anvils and quenching barrels.  Perrol detects a small magic item at the bottom of one of the barrels.  [GM does a revisionist history: Room Keys have a magic rune in addition to the normal letter designation.] We decide this must be a key and Glaive fashions a tool from pieces lying around to fish through the barrel and gets the key.  It is an I key.  We go back to the previous room and go into room I.

Room I has very small chairs and a lectern.  We believe it is a classroom.  There is a small tunnel off one wall and a secret door at the far end.  We open the secret door to a room that is filled with a white fog like mist.  I do mage sight and the entire room is bright!  We take turns looking in and doing security systems and magesight.  Leaning in and looking reveals a bookshelf along both walls that meet the door.  Eventually my curiosity overcomes me and I step inside to check it out.  When I step inside I see an amorphous mass in front of me.  I rope up with Ghoral so I don’t get lost in the fog and take a step forward, further into the mist.  The mass in front of me clears up to reveal a lectern.  I step back again and start to feel my way along one bookshelf near the door when something scurries over my foot.  I jump out of the room…

SEGMENT 12.

I share the hex outside the door with Ghoral.  For my turn I step one hex away next to Ghoral and to the side of the door.  Centipedes start to come out of the room.  Ghoral closes the door after 4 got out.  We try to grab them and kill them as they are climbing up Ghoral.  We kill two but the other two get under his mail chest piece.  Perrol and Jarlyn both swing at and miss the centipedes while they are under the mail.  Jarlyn uses his great mace and does some damage to Ghoral.  Ghoral uses his turn to take off his mail shirt.  Glaive kills one of the remaining two and injures the other.  Kross finishes off the last centipede.  END OF COMBAT.

We listen and I hear at least 3 more centipedes scurrying around on the other side of the door.

+0 XP

+1 HP

[I missed the June 25th session, Heath played my character.]
[This session I am playing Jarlyn as well as my own character.]
We go to the doors that have N on one side and E on the other.  Ghoral goes through the E door and flame shoots out from all sides of the doorway.  Ghoral looks around a bit then asks Jarlyn to come in.  Jarlyn goes through the door and flame shoots him too for 6 body (0 gets through), 18 stun (3 gets through).  Jarlyn does detect evil in the room and detects none.  Ghoral finds a secret door and opens it and goes in…nothing happens.  Jarlyn does detect evil inside the secret room and finds none.  Perrol does a detect magic from outside the E door into the secret room and finds that the wooden chest with the big padlock has magic in it.  Jarlyn and Ghoral put their shields in the doorway to shield the flames from Glaive as much as they can and she goes through the door.
Glaive picks the lock on the chest and Ghoral opens it.  Inside are 16 crossbow bolts, 1 rock (golf ball size), two sticks and a leather bag (grocery size).  Glaive opens the second secret door and finds a hallway ending in walls on both sides.  They detect something in the floor at the north end.  Jarlyn finds a catch in the wall to the south and opens a door to the main entrance.  Perrol can now enter and looks directly at the chest and finds that the stone and the bag are magical and the sticks and the crossbow bolts are not.
I notice magic in the lid which makes me look for a secret compartment.  I find the catch and open it.  In the secret compartment I see a wand.  It is what is magic.
Jarlyn has a theory about the curse.  His theory is that things that interact with a person for the magic to happen will have the curse passed to them.  For example the magic wand will probably pass the curse to both the person holding the wand and the person receiving the magic.
Perrol checks out the bag and finds that it is a leather hacky-sack looking thing that is filled with something magic.  I poke it with one of the sticks and it gives like the magic stuff inside is gooey.  I notice that the stick has one end that has a coating on it and realize from the smell that it is either a flare stick or a smoke stick.  We realize that the rock is a thunderstone (like a flash-bang).  Ghoral looks closely at the stick and knows that it is a smoke stick.

Jarlyn takes the 16 crossbow bolts.  Perrol and glave take the smoke sticks.

[CORRECTION: The sack of goo is not magical.]

The sack is tanglefoot.  You throw it at the feet of someone and when it bursts open the goo grows and traps and entangles the victim.  Kross takes the tanglefoot sack.

We further examine the hall and find that the north end is a door and we find the catch.  Glaive pushes the catch and the door releases and opens slightly.  Kross jumps across the trap, kicks the door open and jumps back to land on solid ground again.

Perrol jumps over the trap into the room.  I see four doors.  The west door has an R, the SW door has an E, the SE door has a U and the east door has an N.  We open the N door and Jarlyn goes in.

We find nothing in the N room.  Perrol decides to go in the E room and gets burned for 2 body net.  I find nothing.

Perrol listens behind the big iron doors.  I hear what sounds like many people using hammers an anvils for metal work.  But I realize that the sounds are repeating in patterns exactly so I think it is either an illusion or something mechanical.  We decide to pick the lock.

Glaive picks the lock on the big iron doors.  We then notice we didn’t do security systems.  Glaive and I do security systems and both do poorly and don’t find anything.  Perrol enters the room.  (See Diagram)  On the main floor there are workbenches and boxes and work type stuff.  It has dust and cobwebs everywhere.  The big gear suspended at the back is lit by a light in the center.  It is the only light source for this room.

I do detect magic and see that the light in the gear is glowing as are sections of the walls and ceiling.  The magic parts of the walls and ceilings appear to be where the sounds are coming from.  In addition there is a magical disk that seems to be sitting on the upper level to the right.

Jarlyn detects evil, makes faith roll, makes detection roll right on and detects no evil.

Ghoral and Perrol go up the stairs to check out the magical disk detected by me.  As Ghoral gets to the point in the spiral staircase where he is exposed to the ceiling, a green bloblike creature with tentacles drops from directly above him.

Segment 12!!!  We stop just before the creature hits Ghoral.

1 XP

We have provisions of extra food and weapons locked in the vault in the store.

We go down through the door.  We latch the door and I leave a tell tale to let me know if someone came.  We start down the hall and turn and I notice something odd.  I get Ghoral to look and he sees the sconce is slightly askew.  We check out the sconce with security systems and decide the right way to turn it.  The door opens.  I go inside to check it out and fall in a pit.  There is a slime at the bottom coming up to about my knees.

Segment 12.

I tried to pull myself out of the pit and can’t escape.  Others pull on the rope and succeed in getting me out.  I am prone on the floor of the secret room.  I get up and get out.  We turn the sconce back and the monster is trapped.

Ghoral steps into the room where we hear the giggling and rustling of leaves and birds chirping.  I step into the room then all of us do.  As Ghoral steps close to the voices they stop giggling and we hear in trade-tongue:

Welcome to Jidazrune.  Behold the wonder!
But beware, ye who seek to plunder.
Traps abound and guardians peer,
Beyond every portal, behind every gear.

I get a necklace of shape shifting for my boon.

We leave the palace and go  back to the inn.  We eat, go to bed and take shifts.  On Ghoral’s shift I wake up and find that he has been attacked by a spectral creature that looks like the one that attacked us before.  We defeat him.

We try to recover the scythe and Kross touches it and turns it into dust.

It is morning and we leave to go to the Temple of Hospin to get help in going to the underground city.  Just as I step out of the inn, I notice someone ahead on top of a building about a block ahead with what appears to be a crossbow.  Kross goes around behind to take a shot at him from behind and we wait a couple minutes then continue to walk up.  I see the guy look around a little then bend down (to draw the crossbow?).  Next thing I see is Kross waving at us.  We go around to the alley to meet Kross.  He drops the crossbow and comes down with the guy.  He has two crossbow bolts that have caps on them.  They appear to be poisoned.  We search him and find he is one of the Red Talon.

We drop the assassin off at the local police station and go on to Hospin.  We see the high priestess and she gives us 5 health potions and 2 potions that cure normal and magical curses.  The curse cure potions are worth a lot!  We thank her and leave.

We go to Bob and Chad’s house.  But they aren’t home.

We go to Gnorm’s house to go underground.  We get fitted out with food, water, torches, first aid supplies and two books (Undercommon language and Dark Dwarven language).

They raise the barrier and

We go back to sleep and nothing more happens.  We wake, eat breakfast and head to the temple of Aladan.  All of a sudden I feel a shooting pain in my groin.  I drop to the ground unconscious.

-14 Stun, -8 Stun, -2 Stun, +4 Stun…it was a hit and run and is over.

I pick up the crossbow bolt, which is covered in a sheen that could be poison, I wrap it in a rag and carry it with me.  We continue on to the temple.  When we arrive we meet a man at a desk.  Jarlyn asks him about the red talon.  He goes and gets a lady.  She tells us that the two we met and the other two we heard about are the four guildmasters of the red talon.

We go to the temple of Varidon, the god of magic.

(more stuff happens)

We leave the inn to go to the palace.  I notice that we are being tailed but they are dressed like the ones that Julienne had following us before.  At the gate we get two privates to escort us inside to the palace proper.  We are taken to a service entrance where we meet Julienne.  We have the ceremony then go to a private audience with the Regent Mother to get our boons.  My boon is an atlas and language primer.

+1 XP

I ask Julienne about the changes at the palace.  She says that some of the guards and even nobles have been rounded up for questioning.  We leave.

We head for the mage academy.  Along the way I notice small animals seem to be watching us.  I tell the group.

We arrive at the mage academy, I wave my pass and we head to see Aaron.  We are stopped by the receptionist and she asks us what we are interested in and she can direct us to the right person.  We tell her we are asking about Valmarellian, teleportation and animal control.  She says she will ask if Aaron will see us, and he does.

He says, so you are interested in Valmarellian.  Why?  I explain what Gnorm said.  He says that Val has been studying arts that allow mind control.  Kross asked, “of animals?”  Aaron said, “No, not really.  He relishes controlling sentient beings.”  He has a very powerful wand that has stored energy that can keep firing even if he has no energy left personally.  We are done with Aaron and go back to talk to the aide.  We ask to see Igor, who is a gnome working in the lab, to see about something to control teleportation and defense against mind control.  She says Igor is not available but we can see one of his apprentices.  A page comes and takes us to another building, down in the sub basement.  We go past several doors to a room with 4 small desks.  It is pretty cramped but there are 4 people at the desks.  They look up and we ask what we want and they say they can research it.  We pay them 4 silver each and they say they will be ready tomorrow at noon.  We leave to go to the skyfather’s temple.

On the way I notice a cat looking at us funny.  I do magesight and see no magic in the cat or anywhere around other than small expected magic items here and there.  Jarlyn detects no evil out of the ordinary.

We get to the Temple of the Skyfather and talk to Matthias.  He directs us to the Temple of Hospin to report about the slavers and refers us to the temples of Veridon and Aladan to ask about items to suppress teleportation or guard against mind control.  Jarlyn asks about Kelgar and Matthias tells us the four leaders of the Red Talon are Kelgar Coalbeard, Arvagh, Valmarellian, Yanna Windhand.  We thank Matthias and leave.  We head toward the temple of Hospin.

On the way there as Kross passes by a cat, it hisses and runs away.  As we pass underneath a crow it caws and jumps.  He tells us about it and I approach the crow to do magesight.  As I get close I notice that it is still looking at the group.  I tell the group members to come over to me one at a time.  Jarlyn comes and the crow keeps looking at the others.  Ghoral comes over and the crow continues to look at Kross and Glaive.  Just then a shutter is opened and the crow flies away.

We go to Hospin and talk to Helen.  We tell her about who is behind the slavery and she gets very tense.

We head back to the inn and on the way I notice a dog looking at us.  I am able to narrow it down to Kross.

We get back to the inn, eat dinner and go to bed.  During the night, on Jarlyn’s watch we wake to find a spectral creature with it’s hand in Kross’s gut.

Segment 12!  Jarlyn scares off the undead creature (wraith) with his Turn Undead spell.

+2 XP

I question Gnorm about his involvement.

Jarlyn asks how they come into the city and he says through his building.  We ask if it’s a portal or tunnel and he says tunnel.  He then opens the entrance.  I light a torch and look down the hole.  I see the top of a ladder  and a hole going down about 50 feet!  I hear footsteps approaching from outside.  I hear the footsteps come inside and see a dwarf with a big hammer.  Segment 12!

Jarlyn paralyzes the dwarf with magic powder.  The dwarf laughs and disappears.  The dwarf we fought and that disappeared is Kelgar and is the leader.  I ask about any other leaders and he tells me about an elf with a long name, Valmar…something, who was like a partner to Kelgar.  He was even more scared of the elf than the dwarf.  The elf seemed to look at him like he was a bug that could be squashed.  I remember stories of an Elf called Valmarrellian, born in Elvenholm, left elvish society at least a century ago.  He is more of a cold-blooded mercenary who lusted for power.  He started to study sorcery and the manipulation of people’s minds.  He was asked to leave Elvenholm.

I ask where the hole leads.  I’m told that it leads to an underground abandoned city.  It is dwarven or gnomish.

Jarlyn and I search the building.  In the bedroom we find a chest with something magic in it.

Gnorm says that the stories he hears from his father is that underground is an old abandoned Gnome city.  There was a curse that people literally faded away.  He said that was all he knew.  His father and father’s father never went down there.  He asks us for a deal.  He will help us further if we try to save his apprentice.  I say, of course, we will rescue anyone we can.  He then gives me a map that was in his chest that had been written on a piece of leather.

We leave with the dwarves to go to the guard house and with Gnorm to take him to the regent mother.  About half way to the guard house the dwarves start freaking out so we take them into a nearby tavern to calm down.  We then successfully bring them to the guard station.  After some discussion we drop them off and go back to the inn.  We sleep with no problems.

Next morning.  We take Gnorm to the palace.  We are shown to the majordomo area.  Julienne shows up.  She takes us to her office and we talk about everything we learned.  She suggests of the priests Aldus Mannus and the high priestess of Hospin; and the mage, Aaron.  Julienne tells us that if we have a request of the lady that tomorrow would be a good time.

I would like to ask Julienne about the changes in the palace.  We are ready to leave Julienne’s office.

1 XP

We go to see Bob and Chad and find their gate locked.  We try to unlock the gate and succeed.  We look around and it appears that Bob and Chad have gone.  I look in a window in the house with magesight and see one section of a wall that is glowing.  It is a rectangular shape.  We leave and lock the gate behind us.

We go to the temple.  As we approach we see a large number of mothers and children loitering around the temple.  It occurs to me that it is because of the disappearing families.  We approach the gates to see Aldus Mannus.  We eventually are taken to him by Matthias.  We discuss the disappearances and find that one of the up-and-coming merchants’ family has disappeared.  We suggest that we can search it and we get a parchment from Aldus to put in a good word with the local town guard.  We go see the guards.  We present the note from Aldus and the leader grudgingly has a junior guard escort us there.

I use magesight at the front door and the only magic item I notice is the ring on the guard.  I search the inside and see on a night table that something like a small box that sat on 4 legs was hastily removed and left very small hard to see drag marks along with even harder to see tiny claw marks.  They look like orc or goblin marks, at least to me.  I also find a small bag wedged between the mattress and the headboard.  It has a drawstring but the bag is open and contains a powder, darkish colored, grayish black.  I try to smell it but get nothing.  Magesight shows a slight glow.  Jarlyn notices that the powder seems to have the makeup of a sleeping potion.

I continue to search and see a small stone that seems to be out of place in that the mortar is slightly different than the surrounding.  I push on it and it’s solid.  I pull on it and it comes free, I pull it out completely.  Inside there is a bag and a ledger.  In the bag is 10 gold and 30 silver and two small gems.  The ledger is in trade-tongue and records the typical buying and selling.  Among the most recent entries is a note in the margin saying that he should look into buying locks since a lot of people are asking about them.  I call the guard and give him the bag and ledger.  I tell him I have counted the money so he should make sure none of it goes missing.  He sheepishly asks us to accompany him back to the guard building which we do.

We head back to the merchant’s and on the way I explain what I found.  Kross starts to track and does well.  We follow the tracks for a long way and they tried to cover their tracks but Kross continues to follow.  The tracks seem to come to an end at a locksmiths shop.  The tracks took us into the oldest most established business area.  This is a stone building.  With my area knowledge, I know that this is the shop of Gnorm the Gnome.  A well respected lock smith.  We enter the shop and find ourselves in a front room.  We hear, just a moment, then out from behind a large sturdy door comes a gnome, on stilts!  We ask about locks and he shows us in the back room.  Jarlyn communicates to me that he detected evil upstairs.  I do a presence attack on Gnorm and freeze him.  A dwarf jumps down from above and swings at Jarlyn.  Glaive kills him single-handedly.

Combat ends and Gnorm has peed his pants.

+1XP

For next time: Demand an explanation from Gnorm.

I offer a healing potion to heal the Regent Mother and the guards allow it.  I give her the potion.

I do detect magic and see magic under the desktop (the magic button) and more at the door.  I also detect a magic necklace on the regent mother and a magic area of the book case.  I look more closely and narrow it down to 3 books.  I remove the books on either side and reveal a button on the wall.  We wait until the regent mother starts to come around so she can be removed from the wall.  Ghoral pushes the button and nothing seems to happen.  I try to move the books from side to side and they only move a little but I can pull them straight out which I do.  I find that they are a solid “box” with two arms coming out the back that have rings on them.  I figure that the rings held the books in place and Ghoral released them by pushing the button.  I place it on the desk and find it has a lid that I open.

I see four little boxes corresponding to the glowing magic items that I saw with magesight in the books.  I pull out one box and it is hinged and I open it.  I see a small earpiece and a very small dot that looks like the transmitter we saw on the window sill of our room at the inn.  I open the other boxes and find they hold the same things.  The guard says he has to hold them for the regent mother.

Julienne arrives and I fill her in on what happened, including how we met the smoke creature and how it ties into the evil religion.  Jarlyn asks if she can find out where the glyph sent the Lord Marshall.  She says she will have to get a mage here to find out.  As we are getting ready to leave a mage walks in and says that he heard there was a magical creature attack and she says that it is over and things are well in hand and he is not needed.  She says the only magic was the summoning of the creature and the creature itself.  They will have it examined by a mage and a priest and runners have been sent off to get them.  You are welcome to go talk to them about it.  I will be here for several hours cataloging everything in this room.

Julienne tells us that the regent mother will probably be able to see us in about two days.  We leave, accompanied by a guard who buys us a drink then leaves.

We discuss how to take care of the listening device and decide to bury it.  We go up and Ghoral begins to remove it then Jarlyn and I both think to look out the window.  Jarlyn looks and sees someone doing with his ear over on the porch where we saw the old guy before.  Jarlyn and Glaive and I go down and walk outside while Ghoral and Kross stay in the room and have a conversation to appear normal.  We see the guy who has started to cross the street and look up at the window; he sees us and starts to walk away quickly.  We chase him down and Kross knocks him out with blunt arrows.  We drag him to the alley, Kross jumps up on the roof and looks across and sees a shadow in the upstairs window and he tells me.  Ghoral and I go to the door and I knock.  I hear the lady we saw knitting ask someone to answer the door.  A man answers and asks if he can help us.  I say the man sitting outside walked over there and hurt himself.  If you want to come with me I’ll take you to him.  The man said, just tell the city guard.  I asked if man was with the city guard and he said yes.  I say, he’s not with you?  He says no.  I say what about the person upstairs?  He says it’s his son and looks concerned.  I apologize and say that I just thought if it was another guard that person could help.  We thank him and leave.

Ghoral, Glaive and I stay in the alley and bind and gag the prisoner while Kross and Jarlyn go to the palace to get Julienne.  While we wait I see someone watching us from across the road.  I just stay wary of him.  Eventually everyone returns with a wagon to take away the prisoner.  We find out the guy across the street was one of Julienne’s people.  They take the prisoner away.  We go back to the inn and sleep through the night.

+1 HP