January 2015
The Company:
Maurice "the Muscle" de Granville, a Dreaman Fighter of Weanople
- Athelwine, a Geating Hunter (Normal Man) of Acworth
Orhan, an Alfarn Spellsword
Osric de Mandeville, a Dreaman Warden
- Urien, a Weallack Oblate (Normal Man) of Carlton
Oswald, a Geating Fighter
Zephyros, an Ellasene Mage
- Ansger, a Dreaman Fighter
- Dudda, a Geating Thief
From the journal of Oswald the Gray, a Geating Fighting Man:
TREACHEROUS LIVING TREASURE MAP
After our victory over the pirates, the group handed over their prisoners to two rather dubious looking sergeants. Maurice and Taeting (former pirate, now living treasure map) waited outside town, while the others interacted with the locals.
Folkhart the blacksmith is curious about the alloy used to forge the chains I salvaged from the dungeon, but is too superstitious (and insufficiently knowledgeable) to analyze it further. He recommends that someone in a city might be willing to buy it and also expresses his interest in learning more about similar alloys.
Athelthrith (headwoman of another adventurer company): The local reeve is a magician of some renown who is mainly interested in his research and his taxes. He might be interested in buying monster parts.
There is a bigger town called Carlton about one day’s march to the east of Froxhall.
The Sunken City is a collection of ruins. One can use the menhirs near Froxhall to teleport into random parts of the city, but it is dangerous: several parts are submerged and sealed. Few groups enter several times.
Colbert the priest tells us about a Frog Cult in Taygle’s End, a village to the southwest. The canon in Taygle’s End died some time ago, but for unknown reasons, the Metropolitan of Hewflore has not yet sent a replacement. Hewflore is the capital of the local kingdom.
Helmward the local reeve: The group asks for an audience with the local reeve, which is granted. The reeve hardly bothers to prepare and continues his studies till the group stands directly in front of him. He considers helping his village against the pirates barely a start and tells us that people who try to evade the adventurer safety tax by sleeping outside the village will be treated like bandits, but he is very interested in buying monster parts from the group if we behave (and pay taxes). He also hints that adventuring wizards who titillate him might have a chance to study with him.
We hire two mercenaries, Urien and Athelwine, to accompany us on our adventurers. Osric uses this time to plea for a prophecy and gets the vision of a strange menhir hidden in the mists. Soon, we set sail toward the promised treasure, luckily without running into any trouble.
After about half a day we reach an island with the menhir from Osric’s dream on top. Taeting leads us to the treasure and explains we have to dig close to it. Despite considerable digging, we find no treasure and settle for the night. The next morning, Tating tries to escape but is stopped by Zephyros sleep spell. After being bound, he confesses there would be no treasure: He wanted to use the menhir to teleport back to Froxhall, as most of the menhirs lead there. There is an underground ruin beneath the menhir, though, which could be opened by knocking on the menhir.
After binding Taeting, Oswald knocks on the menhir, and, indeed, a secret door opens, allowing access to stairs leading down. Taeting mentions that several pirates tried exploring the dungeon, but none returned. Fearing a trap, the group rolls a heavy boulder down the stairs, but without any specific results (except for a lot of noise).
Oswald, Osric and Maurice descend the stairs, reaching a chamber with cobwebs on the north, a crate to the southeast and a further tunnel to the south, ending in a metal door. When poking the crate, several skeletons burst from the ceiling, attacking the group. They are quickly turned by Osric’s invocation of the Maker and are easily dispatched afterwards.
When trying to open the door to the south, Maurice triggers a trap and almost falls into a pit directly in front of the door. Athelwine only just drags him back in time. A torch thrown into the pit reveals a natural cave with a pool at the bottom. We consider investigating the lower level but decide instead to return to the entrance to allow our magician to better prepare himself. We also learn that the secret door closes on its own after about one hour.
The next day, we first sent one team in to check whether one can open the door from the inside or not. That proves to be rather easy, so the whole group descends. We also find some strange dust on the walls that glows when squeezed; we fill a bottle of it for further study or sale. The metal door to the south proves to be false, but we find a strange rune on the eastern walls during a more thorough search. Maurice finds a strange skull (with a ruby for its left eye) in the crate on some kind of push-button. When pressing the button, a secret door opens in the wall section with the rune.
In a small chamber beyond the secret door, we are ambushed by small, white-skinned humanoids with sharpened teeth and hooked swords currently in the middle of cooking meat stew in a large cauldron. Walking in the lead, I kill the first attacker quickly, but I am then badly injured by the remaining attackers. Luckily, Osric and Maurice turn the tide before I fall.
Now seriously injured, I take a more passive approach. We push through another room, past a stairs leading further down, and finally into a room with filled with gears and mechanisms. While entering the room, the whirring machines hit both Maurice and Osric, and Osric is badly wounded. They quickly leave the room through another door and find themselves back in the room with the large cauldron. Using the cauldron and dropped swords of the gray-skinned humanoids, Maurice finally jams the gears of the machines and halts their movement.
Afterwards, we grabbed the corpses of the slain monsters and returned to Froxhall to heal. The reeve was very happy with the monsters and bought them and the skull for a great deal of money. Oswald gave the monster’s weapons to Folkart the blacksmith on the condition that he will turn them into tools and sell them for a low price to needy families; Folkhart was rather touched by this gesture. Osric donated a lot of money to the local church, pleasantly surprising Colbert. Maurice tried to buy better armor but discovered that only leather was available.
We discussed what to do afterwards, visiting the ruin once again (to gain more treasure and experience) or going to Hewflore (to sell our loot). We also learned that the Scaleless Snake, the local inn, offers a free safe deposit for adventurers on the condition that everything not reclaimed within a year and a day passes to the Inn keeper. With that, we rested in Froxhall.