November 6th, 2016
First Foray to Black Fortune Castle
The
party returns in a somewhat triumphant way to Twinlake Vale, though
return is not really the word to use since last week's adventure was
in the graveyard of the town. This time the clan of murderhobos/adventurers managed to build something good into their reputation
instead of sinking further into the morass of criminal charges and
negative publicity. And this week would start with training for some
members and recovery from a near death experience for one too.
Halloween was a tough time, but would the Castle in the Sky be any
easier?
From
my left:
Chris
as Valandil, elven spellsword extrordinaire
Nick
as Merrick, high-flying human fighting machine
Sarai
as Desorna, hauntingly familiar elven fighter
Nilo
as Arden, the mellowing halfling cleric
Hunter
as Strix, filthy hobo rat-carrying elven magic-user
Zack
as Ahri, an elven mage of vast spell capacity
and
once again, because it was necessary, Catherine's character Ydee the
mercenary thief was played by the not even slightly evil DM
As
the adventure began the party divvied up the gold from the previous
adventure and the experience points were awarded. In spite of there
seeming to be too many nasty tricks from the week before, the treats
in experience were considered well worth it. Valandil, Desorna, and
Arden all gained enough experience points to level, with Desorna
getting second level and the other two each gaining third level.
Desorna needed to recover from her near death experience first, which
took four days. Then she spent eight more days in training, which
allowed everyone else time to train too.
In the meantime, on the fourth day back in town, a female half-elven bard was waiting at the inn one morning. When Valandil descended she told him that Quervin had sent her for the mirror. After a bit of blunt and brief conversation, the bard, named Darvin, opened up and talked more. In the end she agreed to wait for the rest of the week and then travel to Ruinheath with the party to wait around and find out what they had learned when they began exploring the Castle in the Sky, or Black Fortune Castle as it was otherwise known. She would keep the mirror and use it to inform Quervin of what was happening.
Once Valandil was done training, he and Ahri returned to the Curio Shop in search of more items of interest. Strix tagged along too and collected the book she had asked the shopkeeper to hold on to. A trade was made and some gold was paid for the book, but it was taken and they began to study it, learning some information about an area where evil lurked, likely referring to the valley south of Twinlake and east of Southvale. They also continued to study what they called Zelligar's Journal, getting some bits and pieces of information about the eastern wilderness as it used to be.
Once Desorna the elven fighter was fully recovered and trained, the expanded party made their way to Southvale and after spending a night there, on to Ruinheath. Once in Ruinheath Darvin settled into an inn while the party began searching for information about the circle of standing stones that was part of the teleportation device to the Castle in the Sky. Merrick bought drinks and asked for information in taverns while Ahri sat nearby and tried to use her ESP to get information about the circle that others might not tell. There were several wild stories that were obviously tall tales and one that supplied actual somewhat useful information, but there was one huntsman who was suspicious and who said nothing, though ESP revealed he knew something of value. Merrick's attempts to approach the human failed miserably, but Ahri had some better luck when she approached with a slightly different tack. The huntsman agreed to meet her at highmoon behind the Ruinheath Curio Shop at the edge of town to talk.
Valandil had already been to the Ruinheath Curio Shop and found it had many more items than the Twinlake one, but much less of interest to him. He did find a scribe's kit for sale for 25 g.p. and upon further inspection he realized that three of the six vials of ink in it were of spell-scribing quality. Happy to get 150 g.p. value of ink for 25 g.p., plus a nice if plain box that the scribe's kit was in, he bought it quickly.
At highmoon an invisible Merrick and a wizard-armored Ahri went out to the wooded area behind the Curio Shop. Merrick found himself partially entangled in an entangle spell as the huntsman appeared to talk to Ahri. The huntsman began by asking pointed questions that revealed he had more information than the party thought possible, and the two belatedly tried to play it coy as if they knew nothing. The huntsman called them on their bluff and successfully charmed Merrick. The huntsman told the two that he was a ranger in the service of Querin, and that he had a mirror too so he had been told that they were coming. With that out of the way, he agreed to lead them up to the circle of standing stones the next morning so they could attempt to use the teleporter. The two returned to the inn and got some rest so they could be prepared for the next day's adventure.
The next day the ranger led them quickly around the lake and up to the standing stones before taking his leave of the party. With many hours to spare before the moonrise, the party tried to rest and relax in the circle. As they did so, they noticed that something was flying in their direction, something that got bigger and bigger as it came closer. The three party members who noticed it saw a drake flying their way and began to worry, if not quite panic. As the thing swooped in to attack the party, it was realized that it was a wyvern, not a drake. This was better in some ways and worse in others. As it swooped in close, the party attacked it with range weapons, and then with close combat weapons as it attacked Merrick, grabbing him with its claws and rending him. Then, much to everyone's horror, it took off, still carrying Merrick.
Merrick stabbed the beast deeply with his silver bastard sword, adding to the damage it had already taken. Valandil and Ydee fired arrows at the retreating wyvern and both hit it, sending it into a barely controlled dive. After stabbing the thing in the guts, the wyvern had released Merrick, forcing him to drop his sword and shield to the rough and steep slope below to grab hold and hang on so he wouldn't fall to his certain death in the trees and rocks below.
Clinging tightly to the leg, Merrick pulled out his broken long sword and speared the wyvern again, damaging it badly and turning its badly controlled dive into a plummet. Dropping the broken sword to fall to the waters below, Merrick desperately tried to scramble on top of the wyvern to allow its body to take the main force of the fall. A natural 20 on his survival roll meant that he was not killed by the drop. He rolled a 1d4 and got a four, meaning that he survived with three hit points. As the monster sank into the waters of the lake, Merrick bobbed back to the surface, thanks to the ring of water walking he had acquired in a previous adventure. Carefully strolling across the water he came to the place where his favorite broken sword had splashed down and, removing the ring to sink the eight or so feet to the mucky, murky bottom of the lake, he managed to recover his sword before putting his ring back on and rapidly ascending to the surface again.
He and his companions, who had rushed back down the trail at high speed to see if he had somehow survived, found his miraculously undamaged bastard sword and his badly battered shield. With his belongings back, the party returned up to the standing stones to watch the setting sun.
The party rested to try to recover spell points and recovered some before highmoon had come and they felt it was time to try to use the teleporter to reach the castle in the sky. Once the activation words were spoken, the party suffered a wrenching feeling, causing two of the party to become violently ill, and then they were standing within a circular area made entirely of stone, surrounded by darkness on all sides. Merrick carefully crossed to the edge of the circle and looked down, seeing little but a long fall below. In the light of the full moon high overhead he was able to discover that the party was on a high tower overlooking a steep bluff down on what must be the west and south sides and overlooking a ruined castle on the others. Some more basic exploration allowed them to find a trapdoor in the center of the cobblestone top of the tower, and the trapdoor led down and to the south into the tower.
The stairs went south until they reached the outer wall, then turned to the west to curve around the wall until they opened into an old storage room. The flat north and east walls of the room were 30' long, and a door was in the center of the north wall. Some ancient crates were stored under the stairs along the east wall, and they held what had once likely been foodstuffs that had turned to petrified unpleasantness.
This room being uninteresting, the party left through the north doorway and found themselves in a hallway that went right and left, west and east, and had a four way intersection to the east while the west ended in a slightly curved exterior wall. A door was in the wall directly across from the door they came in through and forgoing the right had rule they went ahead into this room.
In this room were several things of note. In the relative northwest 'corner' of the curving outer wall was what looked like an arrow slit that had a two-toned stained glass window pane installed in it; the right section of which was green and the left being sky blue. A dresser was to the left of the window and a chest of drawers was to the right. Against the center of the east wall was a old bed with a skeleton lying in it, flat on its back with vacant eye sockets staring at the ceiling. But as Merrick moved closer to the bed spots of fire seemed to kindle in the empty eye sockets, and a spectral voice echoed in Merrick's head, asking "Who disturbs my rest?" Merrick waffled for a bit before deciding to say that he was Mordecai, and then Desorna attacked the skeleton, hitting it solidly and crumbling it into dust. The voice in Merrick's head then told him that this was the worst mistake they could have made as it invaded his mind and began trying to destroy him from the inside out.
The battle went poorly for a bit until Arden cast protection from evil on Merrick, which forced the spirit of wrath out. It was faintly visible, like an after-image that looked like Merrick, and so the party attacked it as best as they could before it began to possess Desorna. It tore Desorna up and Arden cast holy aura which damaged it, and finally a protection from evil which forced it out of Desorna who was reduced to zero hit points in the process and collapsed unconscious. Valandil had discovered a hidden compartment in the chest of drawers that had a small journal in it. He began flipping to random pages when he couldn't do anything else and seeing if he could discover what this thing was. Otherwise he kept his spellsword enhanced bow ready in case he had a target to shoot at.
After leaving Desorna, the spirit of wrath moved behind Arden, likely to attempt to control the person who could hurt it the most, but Ydee saw it there and attacked it with her magical dagger, hurting it badly, while Strix rushed Arden and pulled him away from the spirit. With his intended target gone, the spirit invaded Ydee, damaging her badly in the process. Arden leapt to her defense with another protection from evil, forcing the spirit out where Ahri could see it and cast magic missiles at it, sundering it completely and dissipating its evil to the hells with a last lingering scream echoing in Merrick's mind...
In the meantime, on the fourth day back in town, a female half-elven bard was waiting at the inn one morning. When Valandil descended she told him that Quervin had sent her for the mirror. After a bit of blunt and brief conversation, the bard, named Darvin, opened up and talked more. In the end she agreed to wait for the rest of the week and then travel to Ruinheath with the party to wait around and find out what they had learned when they began exploring the Castle in the Sky, or Black Fortune Castle as it was otherwise known. She would keep the mirror and use it to inform Quervin of what was happening.
Once Valandil was done training, he and Ahri returned to the Curio Shop in search of more items of interest. Strix tagged along too and collected the book she had asked the shopkeeper to hold on to. A trade was made and some gold was paid for the book, but it was taken and they began to study it, learning some information about an area where evil lurked, likely referring to the valley south of Twinlake and east of Southvale. They also continued to study what they called Zelligar's Journal, getting some bits and pieces of information about the eastern wilderness as it used to be.
Once Desorna the elven fighter was fully recovered and trained, the expanded party made their way to Southvale and after spending a night there, on to Ruinheath. Once in Ruinheath Darvin settled into an inn while the party began searching for information about the circle of standing stones that was part of the teleportation device to the Castle in the Sky. Merrick bought drinks and asked for information in taverns while Ahri sat nearby and tried to use her ESP to get information about the circle that others might not tell. There were several wild stories that were obviously tall tales and one that supplied actual somewhat useful information, but there was one huntsman who was suspicious and who said nothing, though ESP revealed he knew something of value. Merrick's attempts to approach the human failed miserably, but Ahri had some better luck when she approached with a slightly different tack. The huntsman agreed to meet her at highmoon behind the Ruinheath Curio Shop at the edge of town to talk.
Valandil had already been to the Ruinheath Curio Shop and found it had many more items than the Twinlake one, but much less of interest to him. He did find a scribe's kit for sale for 25 g.p. and upon further inspection he realized that three of the six vials of ink in it were of spell-scribing quality. Happy to get 150 g.p. value of ink for 25 g.p., plus a nice if plain box that the scribe's kit was in, he bought it quickly.
At highmoon an invisible Merrick and a wizard-armored Ahri went out to the wooded area behind the Curio Shop. Merrick found himself partially entangled in an entangle spell as the huntsman appeared to talk to Ahri. The huntsman began by asking pointed questions that revealed he had more information than the party thought possible, and the two belatedly tried to play it coy as if they knew nothing. The huntsman called them on their bluff and successfully charmed Merrick. The huntsman told the two that he was a ranger in the service of Querin, and that he had a mirror too so he had been told that they were coming. With that out of the way, he agreed to lead them up to the circle of standing stones the next morning so they could attempt to use the teleporter. The two returned to the inn and got some rest so they could be prepared for the next day's adventure.
The next day the ranger led them quickly around the lake and up to the standing stones before taking his leave of the party. With many hours to spare before the moonrise, the party tried to rest and relax in the circle. As they did so, they noticed that something was flying in their direction, something that got bigger and bigger as it came closer. The three party members who noticed it saw a drake flying their way and began to worry, if not quite panic. As the thing swooped in to attack the party, it was realized that it was a wyvern, not a drake. This was better in some ways and worse in others. As it swooped in close, the party attacked it with range weapons, and then with close combat weapons as it attacked Merrick, grabbing him with its claws and rending him. Then, much to everyone's horror, it took off, still carrying Merrick.
Merrick stabbed the beast deeply with his silver bastard sword, adding to the damage it had already taken. Valandil and Ydee fired arrows at the retreating wyvern and both hit it, sending it into a barely controlled dive. After stabbing the thing in the guts, the wyvern had released Merrick, forcing him to drop his sword and shield to the rough and steep slope below to grab hold and hang on so he wouldn't fall to his certain death in the trees and rocks below.
Clinging tightly to the leg, Merrick pulled out his broken long sword and speared the wyvern again, damaging it badly and turning its badly controlled dive into a plummet. Dropping the broken sword to fall to the waters below, Merrick desperately tried to scramble on top of the wyvern to allow its body to take the main force of the fall. A natural 20 on his survival roll meant that he was not killed by the drop. He rolled a 1d4 and got a four, meaning that he survived with three hit points. As the monster sank into the waters of the lake, Merrick bobbed back to the surface, thanks to the ring of water walking he had acquired in a previous adventure. Carefully strolling across the water he came to the place where his favorite broken sword had splashed down and, removing the ring to sink the eight or so feet to the mucky, murky bottom of the lake, he managed to recover his sword before putting his ring back on and rapidly ascending to the surface again.
He and his companions, who had rushed back down the trail at high speed to see if he had somehow survived, found his miraculously undamaged bastard sword and his badly battered shield. With his belongings back, the party returned up to the standing stones to watch the setting sun.
The party rested to try to recover spell points and recovered some before highmoon had come and they felt it was time to try to use the teleporter to reach the castle in the sky. Once the activation words were spoken, the party suffered a wrenching feeling, causing two of the party to become violently ill, and then they were standing within a circular area made entirely of stone, surrounded by darkness on all sides. Merrick carefully crossed to the edge of the circle and looked down, seeing little but a long fall below. In the light of the full moon high overhead he was able to discover that the party was on a high tower overlooking a steep bluff down on what must be the west and south sides and overlooking a ruined castle on the others. Some more basic exploration allowed them to find a trapdoor in the center of the cobblestone top of the tower, and the trapdoor led down and to the south into the tower.
The stairs went south until they reached the outer wall, then turned to the west to curve around the wall until they opened into an old storage room. The flat north and east walls of the room were 30' long, and a door was in the center of the north wall. Some ancient crates were stored under the stairs along the east wall, and they held what had once likely been foodstuffs that had turned to petrified unpleasantness.
This room being uninteresting, the party left through the north doorway and found themselves in a hallway that went right and left, west and east, and had a four way intersection to the east while the west ended in a slightly curved exterior wall. A door was in the wall directly across from the door they came in through and forgoing the right had rule they went ahead into this room.
In this room were several things of note. In the relative northwest 'corner' of the curving outer wall was what looked like an arrow slit that had a two-toned stained glass window pane installed in it; the right section of which was green and the left being sky blue. A dresser was to the left of the window and a chest of drawers was to the right. Against the center of the east wall was a old bed with a skeleton lying in it, flat on its back with vacant eye sockets staring at the ceiling. But as Merrick moved closer to the bed spots of fire seemed to kindle in the empty eye sockets, and a spectral voice echoed in Merrick's head, asking "Who disturbs my rest?" Merrick waffled for a bit before deciding to say that he was Mordecai, and then Desorna attacked the skeleton, hitting it solidly and crumbling it into dust. The voice in Merrick's head then told him that this was the worst mistake they could have made as it invaded his mind and began trying to destroy him from the inside out.
The battle went poorly for a bit until Arden cast protection from evil on Merrick, which forced the spirit of wrath out. It was faintly visible, like an after-image that looked like Merrick, and so the party attacked it as best as they could before it began to possess Desorna. It tore Desorna up and Arden cast holy aura which damaged it, and finally a protection from evil which forced it out of Desorna who was reduced to zero hit points in the process and collapsed unconscious. Valandil had discovered a hidden compartment in the chest of drawers that had a small journal in it. He began flipping to random pages when he couldn't do anything else and seeing if he could discover what this thing was. Otherwise he kept his spellsword enhanced bow ready in case he had a target to shoot at.
After leaving Desorna, the spirit of wrath moved behind Arden, likely to attempt to control the person who could hurt it the most, but Ydee saw it there and attacked it with her magical dagger, hurting it badly, while Strix rushed Arden and pulled him away from the spirit. With his intended target gone, the spirit invaded Ydee, damaging her badly in the process. Arden leapt to her defense with another protection from evil, forcing the spirit out where Ahri could see it and cast magic missiles at it, sundering it completely and dissipating its evil to the hells with a last lingering scream echoing in Merrick's mind...
With
the party badly injured and in need of spell points and health, the
party decided to barricade the only door to the room with the dresser
and rest for the night.
And
because Nick will ask, 770 xp for each party member except for Ydee,
who gets 385 (which still puts her over what she needs to attain 3rd
level).
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