5 August 2006
Players/Characters
Crumpus (Russell) 5th level male Human Fighter
Elzara (Will) 5th level female Elven Monk
Torvar Hammerguild (Ian) 6th level Male Dwarven Paladin
Tanith (Ewar) 4th/1st level male Human Sorcerer/Warmage
Alexis Serria (Andrew) 4th /2nd level female Human Cleric/Fighter
Eolias (Richard) 5th/1st level male Elven Ranger/Wizard
Game Events
On arrival at the gates of the Free City the party joined a long line of people waiting to enter. After about 2 hours they finally reached the end of the line where they were subject to inspection by the city guards, who were quite suspicious of the amount of armor and weapons being carried.
Eventually, the party were told that they could enter he city, but that certain items had to be confiscated, including the jar containing the green worm, Eolias' bow, Torvar's sword, etc.
Being unwilling to leave these items behind, the group discussed leaving and rejoining the queue with everything of value secreted in Tanith's Handy Haversack, or even trying to scale the walls at night, but sense finally prevailed when Alexis offered a bribe of 20gp, which was speedily accepted, and the party found themselves inside the city.
Asking around, they found that the Sage Eligos lived in one of the more affluent parts of the city known as the Garden District, and so they set off to meet with him.
Pushing through the crowded streets the party came to an intersection that was blocked by a throng of people watching a parade roll past.
Jugglers and circus-folk of every type interspersed with cages containing rare and exotic beasts trundled past in celebration of the upcoming Champion's Games.
One wagon held a strange cage that had been made in two sections - the inner cage being made of strong metal bars, the outer cage being panes of glass. This cage contained a strange three-headed creature with heads of a lion, a goat and a blue dragon. The dragon head was constantly blasting the inner iron cage with bolts of electricity.
Just as the cage was opposite the party the inner cage gave way, freeing the beast to rampage amongst the crowd who, quite understandably, scattered in all directions.
Elzara was the first to react, but upon seeing an abandoned child on the opposite side of the broken cage decided to rescue the child instead of attacking the beast. With an acrobatic leap she managed to clear the cage and performed a superb tumble on landing, snatching the weeping child to safety as the rest of the party closed with the beast and swiftly dispatched it.
It was around this time that Alexis noticed that one of her prized Pearls of Power had been lost - probably pickpocketed during the crush around the parade?
Dusting themselves down, the group continued onto the Garden District, and even though their scorched and battle stained gear was eyed with suspicion by the guards at the gates of the district, they were allowed entry to the area and made their way to Eligos' address.
Eligos' manservant, Pollard, showed them into a parlor where they were given fine wines and fresh fruit while they waited for the Sage to appear.
After explaining their problem, Eligos agreed to try to find out more about the worms, Wind Dukes, Ebon Triad and all the other groups that the party had encountered over the past few weeks. He was particularly interested in the Silver Diadem and the inactive Talisman of the Sphere from the Wind Duke's tomb, and the preserved green worm from Filch's laboratory that had been stolen from Dourstone mine by Balbar Smenk. He requested that the party loan these few items to him to aid his research, to which they readily agreed.
He told the group that it would take about a week to find out more, and suggested that they stay with a friend of his who ran an inn called The Crooked House in the Foreign Quarter where he would contact them once he had more news.
The Crooked House was run by a gregarious Gnome called Tarquin who gave then a good deal on board and lodging once he heard that Eligios had sent them, giving them a single room each, plus free food and drink for 4sp a night each(compared to the normal rate of 6sp excluding drinks).
The next couple of days passed pleasantly as the group wandered the town by day, spending the nights in the cosy bar at The Crooked House.
On the third night, after Alexis and Torvar had retired for the evening, the group were surprised to see the Cleric return a short while later and approach Tarquin at the bar. They were even more surprised (as was Tarquin) when she produced a dagger and stabbed him before fleeing back upstairs.
Eolias leapt to his feet and chased after the Cleric, Elzara jumped over the bar to try to aid Tarquin and Crumpus moved to cover the door to prevent anyone leaving. Tanith tried to spot anyone looking suspicious, but by now the whole room was in uproar as many patrons armed themselves with broken bottles and barstools and moved towards the party, intent on taking revenge for their fallen friend, led by a merchant who had seen the whole thing from the stairs and who exhorted the mob to pin the guilty parties to await the arrival of the watch.
Eolias tried unsuccessfully to break in Alexis' door, and she hurriedly donned her armor and picked up her mace to protect herself from the intruder. Torvar, awakened from sleep by the noise downstairs, picked up his greatsword and went to investigate.
Meanwhile, Elzara had stabilised Tarquin but was attacked by the merchant and several customers, so was forced to retreat to the rafters for safety where she was able to deflect the odd stray bottle or knife away from her for the rest of the fight.
Tanith was forced to retreat to the bottom of the stairs by a group of customers wielding broken bottles and knives, but this group started to move backwards as they saw a very grumpy Dwarf holding a greatsword on his way down. Tanith used this as a distraction to get upstairs and out of the window, where he unfortunately fell trying to reach the roof. Fortunately for him his fall was witnessed by the City Guards who were arriving to quell the disturbance, and they took him into custody.
Eolias managed to speak with Alexis through the locked door and explained what had happened - Alexis then hurried down the stairs whilst Eolias retrieved his bow and arrows before following.
Crumpus was successfully preventing anyone from leaving until the merchant used the Spring Attack feat to jump into combat and severely wound him, leaving him unconscious in the doorway at the feet of the arriving guards.
Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, Torvar laid into the merchant with the flat of his blade (although the merchant had no such compunction about causing non-lethal damage) and managed to knock him senseless just as the Watch Captain and his men arrived.
With Torvar and Alexis (newly arrived to the scene) arrested as the only ones carrying substantial weapons, the Captain then set about trying to find out what happened. After talking with the patrons, Torvar was released but Alexis was held for attempted murder until Eolias managed to convince the guards to search the unconscious merchant, upon whom a duplicate of the dagger used to wound Tarquin was found.
Alexis was then released, and the unconscious merchant arrested instead. Alexis healed Tarquin and the party were asked not to leave the city until the Captain's investigations were completed.
Once revived, the situation was explained to Tarquin who was grateful for the party's actions in saving his life, and offered them free board and lodging for as long as they wished to stay.
After the merchant had been dragged out, Torvar noticed that he had dropped a small pouch, inside which was found a strange crooked key, the head of which bore the design of a ship being pulled under by a giant octopus.
Tarquin was able to identify this as the sign of a deceased merchant who used to own several warehouses along the waterfront in the River Quarter. Most of these had been sold off or rebuilt - the only one left standing is called Sodden Hold.
The next morning the party decided to take a short trip to investigate this warehouse, and, as bearing arms publicly was frowned upon, left most of their weapons and armor behind.
Opening the door with the crooked key the group carefully entered a large storage hall dominated by dozens of crates and barrels of varying sizes with a rickety catwalk at the far end, and four doors out of the room.
Crumpus, Torvar, Tanith and Alexis positioned themselves in front of a door each, and opened them - all opened onto empty, dusty rooms except for Crumpus who activated a trap and fell 40' onto rusty spikes. As the doors were opened, three mimics attacked those who had opened the doors, and pressed the party hard before finally being defeated, a glue-like substance on their bodies causing weapons to stick to them and become useless.
Eolias used his ring of feather fall to reach Crumpus and recover him from the pit, and the party climbed to the catwalk and exited into a chamber containing five cells. Two were empty, one contained a dead male human, another a live female elf and the final one had two male humans who claimed to be captured guardsmen.
Deciding to release the guardsmen first Torvar attempted to bend the bars apart, but as he was doing this the two prisoners retrieved swords from under the straw and attacked, unfastening the bars from inside. Poor Torvar, unprepared for this treachery, fell beneath their swords.
As he had not been healed fully from the encounter with the mimics the doughty Dwarf could not take this level of punishment and died protecting his fellow party members - just as a paladin should do
Sorely beset, the party decided to withdraw, and Alexis raised the body of Torvar as a zombie to cover their frantic retreat.
Magical Items Found
None
XP Summary
- Chimera - XP
- Bar Fight - XP
- 3 x Mimics - XP
Total XP -
Torvar - ,
Eolias - ,
Crumpus - ,
Tanith - ,
Alexis - ,
Elzara - ,
Current Totals
Torvar - Deceased
Eolias - 17,237
Crumpus 11,909
Tanith, 13,600
Alexis - 16,681
Elzara - 12,641
