March 19th, 2017

Descent Into The Cursed Valley

Wandering from the Rim into the Cursed Valley

The very few adventurers of the day, from left to right:

Chris playing Deckard Stormfallow, human ex-fighter now thief trainee, pamphlet scribe, and one who leaves the table at exactly the wrong time.

Sarai playing Desorna, elven fighter who can always take one more hit. Always. Bring it.

Hunter playing Strix, elven magic-user and abuse magnet, especially from Gods she insults

Zack playing LaVeya, a neophyte human druid because the party needed a healer ANY kind of healer, and this was what was already made and ready to go

And, by divine fiat, the DM playing Ydee, Catherine's half-elven thief and eviscerator and, unfortunately, occasionally all but eviscerated.

The party began on the ridge overlooking the Cursed Valley as a large winged figure rose up from the forests below and flew vaguely in the party's direction before turning east. As it did so Ydee grabbed the elves by the necks and slammed them to the ground, falling almost on top of them and saying “Drop!”, which Deckard was already doing. When asked why she had done this, Ydee pointed out that wyverns have TWO legs while this flying thing had FOUR! Its brownish-black coloration marked it as an earth drake, and the party stayed prone and hopefully unobserved until it vanished in the mists over the forest to the east.

As the party continued east along the ridge top they kept an eye out both for the drake and for the tower tops that were said to be visible over the forest tops in the eastern part of the Valley. The side of the ridge at the valley varied from a steep slope down to a drop off. At one point where the inner wall was more of a slope the party was attacked by a group of lizard men from ambush. Four lizard men attacked with spears, targeting the elves who were on that side, while a fifth lizard man stood behind apparently watching. Some damage was dealt to both sides, and the fighter had to make a few saves along the way, all of which were successful. When she made the save she was told that for a moment a darkness swam before her eyes, but she was not blinded by it and it dissipated quickly after making the saving throw. In the end the four lizard men with spears were slain, but the fifth hissed some words and vanished, turning invisible. The bodies of the lizard men were searched and several pouches of tiny gems were found. Then the party continued on.

Later the party was camping for the night and while on the third watch the elven fighter on watch felt her armor buckles heating up. Quickly she stripped off her armor before being attacked by another, larger group of lizard men containing six spearmen and another leader type. This battle was difficult for the group as they were unarmored and unready, but they managed to kill four lizard man spearmen before the remainder fled. The leader type did manage to sink his teeth deeply into the shoulder of the elven fighter before fleeing. The elven fighter proved herself capable once again by at one point having five lizard men surrounding her and still surviving, though she was badly wounded by the end of the fight. The corpses of the dead were looted and the party tried to get more rest.

The third day out from town the party reached a point where they could faintly see three towers rising over the mist in the distance. After some searching a narrow switchback pathway was found leading down into the Valley, and the party descended. Disaster nearly occurred twice on the descent, but the party managed to make it to the bottom at their own speed instead of that speed gravity would have required. From there the party began trying to find their way through the marshy and heavily wooded Valley to the towers. In a description the DM said “It's a lot like Dagobah from Empire Strikes Back.” to which one unnamed player cheerfully responded “Oh! Where Leia met the Ewok!” There is a slight chance some mockery ensued, but that is yet unproven.

Picking their way through the swampy lowlands the party was taken by surprise when a giant monitor lizard erupted out of the bog next to them and attacked the elven fighter, sinking its teeth into her leg. This combat took longer than expected, but finally the lizard died. The party continued on, certain that they were moving closer to their goal, when they stepped out of the misty woods to find themselves facing the sheer cliff of the north wall of the valley again. Determined to do better this next time, the party returned to the woods and started picking their way through the bog again, aiming for the towers.

As they continued onward they were suddenly surprised by four ten foot tall mistmarsh giants stepping into view and throwing balls of mud and roots at them. The damage from a hit was not much, but one hit the elven fighter right in the face, forcing boggy muck into her mouth and her lungs and leaving her to choke violently. The battle continued with the fighter spending her first round trying to cough her lungs free of the muck so she could fight. She was successful and moved to take on one of the giants. This battle was the most difficult one yet, especially considering the damage that the party was still suffering from previous fights. Strix was the first to be rendered unconscious, and to the party's horror the giant that had knocked her out picked up the magic-user and carried her off into the mists! The fighter dropped next and her attacker took her in his arms and made to leave with her too. Ydee, having broken both her bowstrings in this adventure swore and leapt into the fray with The Eviscerator, doing the damage that killed one of the two remaining giants while Deckard pursued the one carrying the fighter after the remaining adventurers dropped the remaining giant, though the druid was also rendered unconscious in the fight after taking a boot to the face from the giant carrying the fighter.

Finding copious loot among the giants' corpses, Deckard drank one healing potion and poured a healing potion down the druid's throat reviving her. After that the thieves and the druid began trying to track the giants, a horrifically difficult task in such conditions. A natural 20 later they were doing well and soon came out of the marshy areas into heavily wooded and still damp hills. The tracks led to the eastern cliff wall where a large cave opening was on the ground level and three smaller cave openings were higher up in the cliff face. Charging into the cave the party found the two giants from earlier and a larger eleven foot tall giantess who had a variety of charms and fetishes around her neck gathered around a large cookfire where two sets of turning forks were set up, though there were no bodies on spits being cooked yet. Yet. Shockingly, battle was joined again, even though the badly wounded party was in dire straits at this point. The normal giants were dropped in combat, but so was Ydee who was knocked to -2 and began bleeding out. The female giant was a horrible cheater and healed herself during the battle, though it was not enough as she was finally slain. The druid managed to stabilize Ydee at -5 hit points and then the party decided to rest so the druid could hopefully get the rest of the group up and even semi-active so they could make their escape from the valley. Deckard stood watch while the druid rested, and when she had recovered her spell points she healed Ydee to barely-functional levels and Desorna to up and ready for action. But she didn't have enough spell points to heal Strix too, so the party prepared to rest again with an exhausted Deckard taking the first half of the watch and Desorna taking the second.

During Desorna's late watch she heard the sound of flapping wings and, panicking for a good reason, she ran back into the cave, extinguished the small fire within, and laid low. There was a loud thud as something landed outside the cave, then a loud voice roared out in common “RIGORAH! WHERE ARE YOU! RIGORAH! YOU WERE EXPECTED AT THE GATHERING TONIGHT AND THEY WONDER WHY YOU DID NOT SHOW! RIGORAH!” Everyone was wide awake now, including Strix who had been unconscious long enough to get the one hit point to make her capable of acting again. Desorna slapped a hand over Strix's mouth to keep her from screaming out. As the drake continued to shout for Rigorah, Strix scrambled over and began trying to gather all the dead giantess' charms and fetishes to use. This noise was heard by the drake who paused and sniffed loudly before roaring “I SMELL DEATH HERE. VERY WELL. I WILL TELL THEM THAT YOU DID NOT ANSWER, AND THEY WILL COME HERE TO LEARN WHY YOU DID NOT.” Then, with a loud flapping of wings, the drake flew away.

The party decided, wisely, that this was the time to get going while they could get gone. Whoever 'they' were, the party was in no condition to be there when 'they' arrived. With Ydee moving along as best as she could, the party departed staying along the cliff wall to help them find the first possible good point to climb up to the Rim.

The journey back to the town of Rimwatch View was relatively uneventful, if horribly slow due to Ydee's inability to travel very far for very long. After the five days' journey the druid had healed everyone fairly close to full if not to full and other than Ydee the group was ready for action. Fortunately there was no action to be had and the return was peaceful. Once back in town ol' Bill the tavern keeper got the group a pair of rooms so the party could rest and Ydee could properly recuperate. Well, mostly at least. The plan was to return to Twinlake Vale at the soonest opportunity, and getting a ride with a merchant after market was over in five days was the best choice. The party spent some time replenishing stocks of consumables, and gathering information. Old Earl heard their story and was impressed enough to tell them the secret truth about himself. He had been a scout for the current Baroness' grandfather, sent south to keep an eye on the Cursed Valley and to provide any advance notice of potential attacks. He gave Deckard a plain copper coin with a sigil engraved into one of its blank faces and said it would identify the party as an ally of the group Earl had founded to help watch and protect the area.

After market the group took the slow journey back to Twinlake Vale and got settled in at the tavern there so Ydee can finish recovering and Strix can train to fifth level. Upset by the Curse of Cleanliness that she is tormented by, Strix tries to appeal to the god of chaos by performing her idea of a ritual to appease him, part of which involves pouring the waterskin full of old gnoll blood over her hand on the altar. When nothing seems to happen, she rails against the god of chaos insulting him and calling him names. Moments later she finds herself on her hands and knees licking up the blood and the dirt off of the dirt floor. She goes and pays for her training after this humiliation and on the first day becomes violently ill for ten days from drinking old and disgusting blood. Lesson learned? Of course not. Recovery and training takes her a full three weeks. Luckily the party had plenty of coin to pay for several indulgences after selling some valuable items they found for a total of 250 platinum pieces.

In the meantime Deckard continued to expand his contacts by sharing more information with the Council of Eleven (the magic-users' guild) and those who were druidic and kingdom agents against the inhabitants of the Cursed Valley like Earl, and those who were in both groups, like Bogdan the old witch who worked with both still. The group now has a point of contact if they wish to make a connection with Avonlea, the archdruid of the region as both Earl and Bogdan have mentioned them to her.

And there we stopped for the night.

Experience per character:
Deckard: 1382

Desorna: 1244

Strix: 1382

LaVeya: 1327

Ydee: 691