Ninth Session 16 October 2019

Valldel Amakiir - 2nd Level Male Elven Rogue

Akadum Ironbeard - 2nd Level Male Dwarf Fighter

Dolin Stoneflare - 2nd Level Male Dwarf Light Cleric

Shiso Shinjitsu - 2nd Level Male Human Fighter

Kethry - 2nd Level Female Human Wizard

27 May 981, Friday Continued

Miserable, cold and heavy rain

Akadum is peppered with many questions.  What does he know about the strife in space?  Not much.  He was just a gunner on a Dwarf Space Battleship.  The Dwarven Space Navy sortied from Mercury to the Moon and was ambushed by a bunch of dragons.  What destroyed his ship was a dragon made of pure fire.  The wreckage fell on Drigbolton.  He has no clue what happened to his crew mates.  As far as he knows he is the only survivor.  The Dragon Empire enforces a ban on travel to the surface of this world, Kylindo.

Is Mercury the Dwarven homeworld?  Yes as far as Akadum knows.  It is harsh, close to the sun, with one side always facing the sun, and the other away.  On the hot side the Dwarves mine Fire Stone, which is always very hot, on the cold side Infinte Ice, which is perpetually frozen.  Bringing the two together makes steam which powers Dwarven technology such as the pistol Akadum has.  There are metals under the surface of Mercury an that is mined and forged in solar powered forges.

Dolin says that Akadum must visit his Master Morvran at the Wreck and tell the Dwarves about Mercury.  Akadum says that he is anxious to get deep underground as there are Dwarf legends that say all the worlds are connected deep under their surfaces and it is the only way he can think of to get back to his home.

Kethry also says that her Master, Pye, aka the Mad Mage, will be fascinated to hear this story.  He has a great interest in the heavens.  Dolin and Zelda seem a bit surprised at this revelation.

Dinner ends with Dunston Hurley beginning another long speaech,  and the clearly exasperated Zelda invites them down to the Show Room.  Valldel tells Tony to stay behind and keep tabs on Gunston.  They are led to a stage side table and a risque show featuring scantily clad dancing girls is going on.  Zelda tells them she will take the weekend to pack and they will head to Drigbolton on Monday morning.

Zelda tells them Dunston's extreme views on the Morans are quite short sighted.  His business empire here depends on the Midlands Ring Road and the dredged out river channels that facilitate the export of the food stuff made at the food processing factory in back of the Inn.  All these and the clearing out of bandits and river pirates was done by the Morans.

On the other hand many are distressed by Emperor Devit's invasion of the north.  After the fall of the old Moran Empire there were many city states none of which threatened the surviving core of the Empire.  She does not know why the Empire struck north, and notes she is upset that as a Professor at the University of Mora she would be training many mages who would join the Imperial Army.  Upon reflection she is quite pleased to have the excuse of becoming the Miss of Drigbolton, and not have to support the senseless war to make Mora great again.

She fears for Drigbolton.  Many forces swirl about it.  The Bog Witches, the followers of the Old Ways who maintain strongholds in the wilderness to the north, and the Morans.  Dolin makes a rude gesture at the mention of the Bog Witches and their opposition to the Olympians.  Zelda agrees, noting the power of the Olympians is clearly real.  After all she was trained at the White College which is closely associated with the goddess Athena.

She is candid about the Tablets of Chaos.  She really has no idea what they are, but is certain they are in the Barrowmaze.  These will also attract unwanted attention on Drigbolton.  Plus she is concerned that the Barrowmaze will be much more dangerous.

She mentions the first order of business in Drigbolton will be to deal with the Clooney Caves.  They ask about Xiximanter, the ancient serpant man.  She knows nothing more than what her father has said.  The goblins there seem to be different than the goblins here.  They ask about the goblins here, and she says they seem to be devoted to this ancient temple to some goblin god.  Dunston was able to harness their labor and build the Two Goblins enterprise.  They work without pay, and would do anything rather than leave the Inn.

Zelda seems to have had enough of the serious talk, and orders whiskey.  Dolin and Kethry excuse themselves to go to their rooms to write letter to their masters telling them what they have learned.  Akadum goes up to the Observing Tower.  He sees little at night and in bad weather, but can see the large farm, food processing plant, and river docks to the east of the Inn.  He is sad thinking about his lost brothers in arms. Valdell visits the spa which features luxurious steam baths and massages by beautiful staff.  He is unable to resist the offer of a happy ending from his pretty human masseuse who calls herself Lina.  When he returns to his room, he finds Tony who tells him that Dunston is a boor.  He continued to drone on, and was rude to the other dinner guests after Zelda left.  Eventually two pretty young women showed up and he went off with them.   Tony was not excited to see what would happen next.

28 May 981, Saturday

Nice, warm and sunny

Kethry and Dolin go off and find a staff goblin.  They find that the goblin clearly has a mystical view of this place.  It is as if he thinks of it as the entire world and can conceive of no other place as being part of the universe.  It is clearly some sort of worship, but they are not sure of what.  They also note the halfling calling himself Groulb and expounding the worship of the Great Goblin is only attracting humans and halflings.  The goblins of the Inn are not paying him any attention.

Valldel is down in the Low Restaurant and sees a half elven bard called Hesling.  He tells fairy tales and mainly appeals to children; a bunch are gathered about him.  He tells the tale of the great wizard Orik who defeated the 12 dragons and banished them to the sky and now lives on the Moon in a great tower protecting us from the return of the dragons.

Akadum tours the basement.  There is a great steam engine fed with coal that comes from the Teal Hills, but there is no smoke.  The steam is used in the rooms of the Inn, there is hot tap water in the rooms, the spa, and in the food processing plant where many things are preserved by canning. Akadum goes to see Zelda as he notes the steam engine looks like the power plant for a Space Dwarf space ship.  Zelda, who seems to be busy packing, tells him that she found the steam engine when she was exploring the basement of the Inn.  She was able to bind some fire elementals and they are fed a steady diet of coal.  Dunston then conceived of using the steam for preserving food.  While Dunston is many things, Zelda says, he is a brilliant business man.  The Two Goblins enterprise is fabulously profitable with a very lucrative  contract to supply the Imperial Army with preserved food. Akadum asks what lies further below, and Zelda says there is clearly something awful down there, fortunately it seems dormant, and they have simply sealed off the lower levels.  She gives him a sketch of what little she knows about the dungeon beneath the Two Goblins Inn.  Dolin who also toured the basement, concurs.  He sensed something,but had the impression it was asleep.  Akadum wants to explore, but Zelda says it is likely very dangerous and she wants to get to Drigbolton sooner rather than later.

They gather again for dinner with Dunston.  He again talks about the Tablets of Chaos.  He tells them that he sent expeditions to retrieve them.  Most simply disappeared.  One returned with magical stone tablets.  They proved to be fakes.  He keeps them in his office to remind him of his failures.  He does say he had those who swindled him, hunted down and killed.  They ask to see the tablets, and he is happy to oblige them.  His office is garish and in glass cases are two stone tablets.  Kethry can see the remnants of "magical glitter" on them.  There are etched symbols on them that look like some sort of script, but in no language any one recognizes.  Kethry can see repeated patterns suggesting words.  Akadum begins laughing and points out more patterns and notes how they repeat randomly.  He recalls this from his military training as a way to make something look complex yet deliberate, but actually has no meaning.  Dunston tells them this is exactly what his experts observed.  Neverthelss, Kethry takes a rubbing of the "Tablets of Chaos".

Akadum again goes up to the Observing Tower.  With the nice weather he can see the lights from the large town of Stattleford to the north and gazes at the stars whistfully noting the dissapating cloud near the Moon.

Valldel goes to the casino to gamble.  He encounters Philbert the duck who lives in a pond in the middle of casino.  The duck gets out and waddles up to a card player who is found to have cards up his sleeve.  He is hustled off by security.  The duck returns to the pond and all returns to normal.  Valldel looses all the chips Tony has found for him and turns in.

Kethry checks out the Library.  It is Zelda's own and not very big.  Some goblins are carefully packing it up.

Dolin goes to find a place of worship and is distresed to find a quicky wedding chapel.  Theo Flykiatus is priest of Hera running the place and he is marrying a couple who seem to have had far too much to drink.  Dolin disrupts things by turning over some tables and throwing some chairs around. Theo seems nonplussed and invites Dolin back for Sunday services tomorrow, but Dolin is disgusted and leaves.

29 May 981, Sunday

Normal spring weather, partly cloudy warm

Akadum and Dolin tour the food processing plant and farm behind the Inn.  They see goblins, halflings, and humans working the fields that fill the long spit of land between the old temple and the two rivers that meet a couple of miles further on.  The processing plant is fed by steam from the steam engine and boiling water is used to preserve and can all manner of things.  These are then packaged up and loaded onto barges which head down river eventually to the coast.  All on the tour are gifted with a jar of Two Goblins

Beets.  They see Kris Hablin from Weston Netherly working in the fields.  Dolin gives him some coins and wishes him peace.

Kethry goes out to the front of the Inn and examines the columns.  One that is no longer magical is rusting and leaning off vertical.  The ones that are feintly magical clearly have some sort of preservation spell on them. She carefully climbs to the top of one and can see notches for beams between adjacent columns.  She sees a few small pieces of much weathered wood, and she gathers a piece.

Valldel is in the high restaurant and encounters Matt Colvenhill, a large man noticeably smelling of gralic. He tells Valldel he is a garlic merchant and supplies the Inn.  He is with a young woman named Holda, who seems desperate to be any where else.  While Valldel and Colvenhill talk, she manages to slip away.  Tony appears with 20 GP of chips.

They plan to meet Zelda for dinner to plan their trip back to Drigbolton.

8th Session, 1 Oct 2019

Valldel Amakiir - 2nd Level Male Elven Rogue

Akadum Ironbeard - 2nd Level Male Dwarf Fighter

Dolin Stoneflare - 2nd Level Male Dwarf Light Cleric

Shiso Shinjitsu - 2nd Level Male Human Fighter

Kethry - 2nd Level Female Human Wizard

26 May 981, Thursday, continued

Fine spring weather, few clouds

It is late evening when all dies down.  There is a visit to the hamlet's general store and a few adventuring items are purchased.

Kethry studies the Black Book of Llaregubb and is able to transcribe into her spell book Charm Person.  The other spells she can understand are Read Magic and Shield.  There are three more that she cannot make out.

27 May 981, Friday

Weather Miserable, cold and heavy rain

Despite the terrible weather they make their way to the Two Goblins Inn on the coach.  The coachmen is very excited telling them that he loves to stop there as there is a good restaurant, gambling, and female entertainment.

About noon they approach the Inn from the west they see a wrought iron bridge over a weed choked moat.  The bridge is like a covered bridge and at the top are the metal statues of two goblins looking east and west.  Beyond is covered in black flagstones that are cracked and broken with age.  In a square grid every 50 feet there is a black wrought iron column rising up about 50 feet.  The base of the columns are four clawed feet, the shaft is two bodies twisting around each other, and the capitol is two goblin faces.  Each one is different.  Kethry can see all these glowing fiently with magic.  Those few that are not are rusted, broken, or leaning off vertical.  To the north and south they can see two bridges similar to the one they crossed going over the River Pegridge to the south and the Moonwash River to the north.  These two clearly meet just to the east.

The inn itself is a large five story building including some of the columns in its structure.  It is best described as a cross between a dark, gothic haunted house and a Las Vegas casino.  As the coach pulls up to the Inn there are other coaches arriving from the nearby large town of Stattleford full of folks preparing for a weekend stay at the Inn.  Akadum is a bit surprised to see many of the workers who arrive to tend to the horses and carry away the bags are goblins.  They are wearing clothes sporting a two goblins logo, which they begin to notice everywhere.  On the bottom floor they see what appears to be a large emporium, much like a K-Mart, and a big restaurant much like an Applebys.  Many of the guests are streaming into these.

The party approaches one of the humans who is supervising the goblins, telling him they have a message for Zelda Spinewith.  He is at first skeptical, but upon inspecting their letters, he apologizes and leads them into the Inn and up the stairs.  The second floor is a casino, the third floor is fine restaurant and a room for live shows.  There are offices and a spa on the fourth floor.  At the offices, where the Two Goblins logo is prominent there is a beautiful woman receptionist behind an impressive counter.  She too is skeptical, but when shown the letters she calls a goblin who takes the letters back into the depths of the office.  She

offers them any thing they would like to drink and they note that it all comes in Two Goblins bottles and glasses.

After a short wait the goblin returns, whispers to the receptionist, who then leads them back to meet Zelda.  They find her occupying what appears to be a meeting room with a table with many books some of which are open with an open ledger in which she is clearly filling with notes.  She is small with black hair, dressed showing rather a lot of skin, and speaks in a high squeaky voice.  She has clearly read the letter and looks shocked.  She thanks them for their news and asks them about the circumstances of her father's death.  They tell her he was killed by animated paintings.  Animated paintings she asks?  They then describe the happenings in Drigbolton they witnessed just a few days ago.  She tells them she too is aware something strange has happened, she was distracted during the evening they saw things fall from the sky on Drigbolton, but she can tell that the "Veil has weakened and arcane powers have waxed." She tells them she has just finished her studies at the White College in Leechfeld and was preparing to move to Mora where she was going to take up a position as a Professor of Magic at the University of Mora.  She now has to rethink, as she now has to consider her duties as the new Miss of Dirgbolton.

She writes them a sort of credit voucher and says they are free to do whatever they would like at the Inn free of charge, and invites them to dinner with her and her guardian Dunston Hurley who is the boss of the Two Goblins enterprise.

Akadum and Kethry goes down to the first floor emporium and restaurant.  Akadum has a couple of cups of Two Goblins Ale and begins challenging folks to arm wrestling.  He mostly loses, has a good time, and learns that most of the visitors here are workers from the shoe and machinery factories

of Stattleford taking a weekend break at the Inn.  Kethry notes the staff doting on a very old, obviously wiizard who is propped up in an over stuffed chair with his feet up.  He is Elvamaez and tells Kethry an obviously fantastical tale of the spell he is working on called Subvert Government and Transfer Loyalty.  He claims it requires an organ of a massive sea creature that must be caught and killed during the dark of Moon, and he begins to go into distressing detail on how to cut open the creature and extract the required organ.  The staff asks Kethry to change the topic, and she asks him about recent events in the heavens.  The old man's eyes change from clouded, to clear and bright and he begins to tell the now familiar story of the weakening of the Veil, the growth of arcane power, and the danger of those that dwell below.  But then he talks about another veil.  Apparently not a physical veil but some sort of agreement between those that dwell here and those that dwell in the stars in the sky.  They will now be able to ignore something he calls the "Compact" and will be coming here.  It will be time of trouble and danger, and he feels lucky that he will soon be passing through the "veil below" and will not be around to see the strife.

Kethry asks him to share a spell, and he is only too happy to reach into his volumous robe and pull out a scroll which he hands to Kethry.  The effort seems to have exhausted him, and nods off to sleep.

Akadum and Kethry's attention is drawn to a halfling, who seems to be dressed like a goblin, and is sitting at a table with some buxom females and some large body guards.  He is expounding the worship of the Great Goblin claiming that this place was once the Great Goblin's temple and is a source of great power.  He is hawking a pamphlet for the low, low price of 2GP that will bring enlightenment, cure deseases, improve your love life, etc. if one just embraces the teachings of the Great Goblin as revealed by his humble servant Groulb.  A number of the patrons are staring in rapt attention at Groulb, and Kethry buys one of the pamphlets.  It is filled with a bunch of nonsense, platitudes, and many ads for more pamphlets, Great Goblin religious symbols, and seminars on worship of the Great Goblin led by his chosen one, Groulb.

Valdell goes up to the Two Goblins Show Room.  There he meets a silverware salesman named Paulus Belasarius.  He expounds the quality of his work, drawing Valdell's attention to the silverware they are using which features the two entwined goblins as on the pillars.  He asks Valldel if he is interested in buying silverware or if knows anyone who might be interested.  Valldel grows tired of his constant pitching.

A commotion breaks out.  The famous bard Fitted Fast and her nemesis Dame Demented are getting into a shouting match over a handsome male dancer who looks bemused as the two statusque blondes escalate their encounter to bread throwing and a chase that ends up on stage.  Suddenly the orchestra begins playing and the two begin singing a duet of one of Fitted Fast's recent big hits, "Me".  Dancers appear and a big production number takes over the stage.  Nearby patrons tell Valldel that this performance happens every few hours, and is a big attraction here at the Inn.

Women approach Valdell offering him company for the evening, but he brushes them off as he heads to dinner.

Dinner is a private dinning room with Zelda and her guardian Dunston Hurley.  He is a man of size and dressed in clothes covered in Two Goblins logos, but always looks as if he has just slept in them.  He talks a great deal trying to dominate the conversation.  The banquet is sumptious and there are a horde of servants who see to any desire the diners might have.  There is fine wine, and the meal features fresh fish apparently drawn from the near by rivers.

Zelda tells them that she will take up her birthright as the Miss of Drigbolton and forego her appointment at the UofM.  She and her family beleive in the old ways where the power of blood is paramount, and it would be wrong of her not to take up her responsibility.  She also mentions that many dangers are swirling about Drigbolton and the west of the Midlands.  She fears for the people of Drigbolton and asks the party to escort her back and to stay on to be her strong right arm in protecting her new demense.

Before any one can speak Dunston butts in and begins to speak of the pride he has in his ward and the desire he has to see her and the other followers of the Old Ways throw off the yoke of the Morans.  At this Zelda noticeably cringes.  He goes to say that the key to this is to recover the Tablets of Chaos and he is confident that Zelda can do this.

Zelda manages to speak up and say the literature is not at all clear about the powers of the Tablets of Chaos, but are clear that they are in the Barrowmaze which is in the great Barrowmoor swamp west of Drigbolton.  She notes that this place is well known as extremely dangerous, is likely to be even more dangerous with the weakening of the veil, but she does agree that Tablets should be gathered up.  Things are likely to get much more dangerous in the days ahead.  The signs point to the break down of the Compact that kept the dragons away from here and confined to the Moon and the 12 Dragonstars.  There is strife there and it is only a matter of time before that strife spreads here.  She greatly fears that a dragon will be attracted by the magical power of the Tablets.

At this point Akadum tells everyone he has seen this strife up close.  He is from Mercury and was a crew member on a Dwarven space ship which was destroyed in a battle with the dragons who dwell on the Moon and the Dragonstars.  He managed to survive the crash of his ship, and ended up in Drigbolton.  He mentions Dwarven legends that all the stars

in the sky are connected deep underground, and if one goes deep enough other worlds can be found.

This brings a stunned halt to the conversation.