As the 3rd session of began the party returned to town with bandit and treasure in tow. Harburk seemed surprised to have a prisoner, but figured that he could get some useful information from an interrogation. Harburk thanked the party and told them he'd make sure they got a good deal on the spoils. He also put the party up for a tenday (a week in the Forgotten Realms) in the inn, the Swinging Sword. He figured they'd sort out lots of troubles in the area if they stuck around for 10 day.
While entering the Swinging Sword (whose sign is shaped like a scimitar), the party received the evil eye from the one-eyed stable-master. Once inside, the party had a nice meal. Well most of the party. Skomba is very big and has an equally big appetite and was a little underwhelmed with the size of his plate. Whilst eating a priest approached the party and asked if they'd seen any dwarves elves or humans in their travels. He was waiting on some diplomats from a city called Mirabar, and they were a day late to their appointment. The party hadn't seen them, but would keep on the look out for them.
The next morning over breakfast the party heard a rumor the poulterer's granddaughter had seen a ghost. They thought that'd be as good an issue to work on as any, and Varis in particular was keen on helping put the spirit to rest.
They went to the poulterer's and met Minthra, or "Minnie" Mhandyvver who was accommodating and took the time to speak with the the adventurers about the ghost. She only knew it was on old tomb somewhere in the surrounding countryside. They asked to speak with her granddaughter. Pell. She was in her mid teens and had the look of a budding adventurer. She even had a sword at her hip. She explained she was exploring the area and saw a flash of light and heard a loud noise and got spooked and left. Hos Kadeem asked if she could show them where the tomb was, but Pell missed or ignored the invitation for adventure and opted to draw them a map (a clever trick by the DM to keep the NPC from dying needlessly).
After a long walk the party easily found the the tomb. As they arrayed themselves to enter the tomb Skomba noticed some bits of metal sitting on the top of the ajar door. The party asked Kariel to carefully remove them because she has the fastest fingers. She handily disabled the trap and carefully placed the metal bits on the floor. As the party entered the tomb there was only an alter and a door leading to the right.
Skomba went to quietly listen at the door to the next room and as he approached a ghost phased through the door and ordered them leave. Varis asked why he was still a spirit. The ghost said to protect his liege in death due to failing to protect him in life. Still wanting to help Varis asked what he needed to be at rest. The ghost wanted the tomb sealed.
As the party lacked any means to accomplish this at hand Derek decided to ask about the trap. He gathered the metal bits and brought them over to the ghost to see if he'd set it. In response the ghost thrust his hand though the bits and waved it around ineffectually. He wearily stated he can't interact with most matter, and much more menacingly told the party to leave. (I was quite proud of my Jacob Marley routine, actually.)
While the talking had been happening Skomba went back outside to watch the rear. While watching for danger he noticed a campfire's smoke rising from the center of a ring of boulders. The party made their way the short distance over to the ring & Kariel had even managed to sneak quite close to the campfire.
The occupants, a goblin and half-ogre, were in the process of eating dinner. The half-ogre was complaining the he was sick of eating rats. The goblin exasperatedly explained that they just had to wait for some adventurers to trigger their noisy trap, and wait a bit for the ghost to soften them up and go over and finish them off, and take their loot. Then they'd eat like kings!
The would-be waylayers never got a chance to put that plan into action as the party then began their assault of the camp. Outnumbered nearly 2 to 1 the party was able to soundly smash them in about 2 rounds. The pair hadn't managed to get any adventurer yet so they had nothing of value to loot.
After the fight the party decided to roll a boulder in front of the tomb to help put the ghost a little at ease. Skomba ended up starting to push the most irregularly shaped one toward the tomb and was having great trouble. The rest of the party could easily see that it'd be easier to roll a rounder on to the tomb, and suggested a different one. Skomba was pretty perplexed by the sudden ease of pushing this second boulder. His bafflement was amusing. Curiously, when the party retold the story to Minnie, they told the story of the "lighter boulder" to her with a straight face.
A long trek later the party made it back to Red Larch and settled in for a nice supper at the inn. This evening the kitchen had prepared a larger meal for Skomba so he was satiated. While dining the party heard a couple more rumors from the innkeeper and others. One was about gold faced or masked spooky figures sighted in the quarry and the other was about potential bandits at a small cave complex named Tricklerock. They also heard another reminder about the plague out by Lance Rock.
The next morning they decided to investigate the nearby quarry sightings. The foreman was somewhat belligerent when they arrived and was unwilling to miss work for some rumors. He told them to get lost, telling them to go look for treasure out at Tricklerock Cave like good greedy little adventurers. Those weren't his his exact words, but you get the gist.
With no shortage of strange occurrences the party collectively shrugged their shoulders and considered their options. They discussed some of the things their contacts had mentioned like a creepy black arrow stuck into a tree or the plague the butchers children said they were warned about at Lance rock. They also considered going to Tricklerock.
Derek was the only one excited about the prospect of investigating the plague. The arrow though interesting wasn't in and of itself enough to warrant a party day trip to investigate. The party eventually settled on going to Tricklerock and having a look around
Because Darwin was from the area he actually knew a direct route to the caves, and was able to save them a little time. Tricklerock was a locally famous location and situated in the same hills that had the monster that ate the herd of the goatherd turned bandit.
The name of the place was apt as there was a trickle of water flowing out of it and there was a sheen of moisture on every surface while many of the walls had an assortment of (non-dangerous!) slimes growing on them. Inside the party noticed some swiftly approaching stirges: bloodsucking bat-mosquito hybrids.
The game was called for the evening before the fight as it was 8PM. During the next session the party will begin with their fight against the stirges.
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