16th Session, 24 March 2020

Valldel Amakiir - 3rd Level Male Elven Rogue

Akadum Ironbeard - 3rd Level Male Dwarf Fighter

Dolin Stoneflare - 3rd Level Male Dwarf Light Cleric

Kethry - 3rd Level Female Human Wizard

5 June 981, Sunday

Partly cloudy and warm

Dolin's service goes well.  He speaks on the natural order of things, and then pointedly sacrifices a Mudcow to the Olympians.  Zelda finishes up by telling the town that she has arranged to build a new Temple and have permanent Priest located here.  She also gifts the village with a cart full of canned goods from Two Goblins.  The people of the village are far more appreciative of the planned Temple, the temporary Temple, the service by an actual priest of the Olympians, plus the load of food, than they are of the strange Mudcows.

Griya looks resigned to the way things have gone and Zelda and Dolin are triumphant.

The party gathers 5 days worth of rations from the Two Goblins haul and prepare to head off to the Clooney Caves.  Dolin tells them they should make no deal with the undead snake thing known as Xiximanter.  Zelda cautions them.  If Xiximanter is really thousands of years old and can produce things like the horde of potions they found, it is likely very powerful.  Talking with it rather than attacking it may yield better results.  Kethry suggests since it likes magical things maybe they could trade Tony the Weasel to Xiximanter.  Tony and Valdell are not amused.

The party explores into the Clooney Caves getting there in the early afternoon.  On the first level they see nothing changed from when they left.  It is empty.  They go to the tunnel leading down leaving their donkey in one of the side rooms.

They tie off a rope for Akadum to climb down.  Kethry sends her owl familar Dr. Hoot down to explore.  Dr. Hoot sees something funny at the bottom of the tunnel and notes the door to the side passage they broke has been repaired

and is closed.  Akadum continues down and trips a wire and a blade trap triggers and hits him making lots of noise.  As Akadum gathers himself at the bottom a bunch of fungal goblins pile out of the side passage.  Dolin hurries down and the two Dwarves charge the goblins with Valdell quickly climbing down to join the fight.  Two of the goblins are dispatched quickly, but one throws a mushroom which explodes in a cloud of spores engulfing Akadum and Dolin as Kethry joins them below.  Akadum shakes it off, but Dolin is confused. Another goblin is dispatched, the remaining two flee, and are cut down by Kethry and Valdell.  In the side chamber they find a small fungal goblin nest with bed rolls and what passes for fungal goblin food.  There are also some crude tools which they clearly used to build the trap.

They explore down to the octagonal room.  They decide to explore the doors.  There is an entrance leading to the corridor that leads down and the one they came in.  There is one wooden door, four stone doors, and one ornately carved stone door.

Behind the wooden one they find an unfinished room and some old, rotted, rusted tools.  Behind one of the stone doors they find some rotten furniture, a silver and emerald snake idol, and some scrolls.  Most are rotted, but a few are intact and are clearly written in the ancient language of the Reptile Empire.  They gather them, planning to try to decipher them later.  Behind another they find a stone sarcophogus.  Valldell uses his quarter staff to push off the lid.  Out flows a black, amorphous creature.  Valdell tries to hit, but does more damage to himself.  Akadum fires his Steam Pistol at the thing and drives it back into the sarcophogus.  Kethry uses a Mage Hand to close the lid.  Akadum wants to go back in and gather the treasure that clearly lies within, but the others talk him out of it.   Behind another stone door they see a rubble choked corridor leading to a small room.  Within is a skeleton which is unable to get through the rubble.  Akadum begins to clear the rubble again wanting to get to the treasure within.  Tony the weasel slips through the rubble, returning saying he saw nothing of value within.  The others drag Akadum out and they shut the door.

Fifteenth Session, 18 February 2020

Valldel Amakiir - 3rd Level Male Elven Rogue

Akadum Ironbeard - 3rd Level Male Dwarf Fighter

Dolin Stoneflare - 3rd Level Male Dwarf Light Cleric

Kethry - 3rd Level Female Human Wizard

2 June 981, Thursday Continued

Cool and cloudy

Valdell and Jon Fairbrain head to Tealford.  There Fairbrain introduces Valdell to a Pipeweed dealer and they buy a large stash of Pipeweed.  Valdell then goes to a curio shop and sells his amulets from the Reptile Empire.  He also buys a basic book on the Reptilian Language.  He recognizes some of the characters on the amulets in the book.  He and Fairbrain spend the rest of the night carousing in the slums of Tealford where they drink too much and spend money on women of pleasure.

Kethry pokes about the Spinewith Manor.  Godfred is talkative and recounts what happened a week and a half ago.  The Laird was expecting some sort of visitation from the sky.  Something did come from the sky with a great sound and an explosion off to the west.  Then things went crazy with pictures in paintings coming alive, meat in the pantry coalescing into a menacing creature that trapped Godfred in the pantry, and some horrible collection of bones that broke through the front door and killed the Laird.  Her friends showed up the next morning, rescued him, and destroyed the animated horrors.  They also dealt with an animated marble statue.  Godfred gathered all the remains and burned them.  The only remainder are the hunks of marble from the statue that he piled up next to the shed.  Kethry checks the basement lab and sees nothing out of ordinary.  The telescope upstairs has clearly been cared for and used.  She notes Zelda working in the sitting room, which she has turned into a study/office.  She is busy writing and receiving letters.

Kethry also notes that her animated, mummified hand is looking more dead than usual.  Zelda tells her to use some of the Orange Jelly, which she scrapped off of the mummy head.  She is calling it Necrotic Jelly and it seems to provide energy to revive dead things.  Whoever made that is very clever.  Kethry puts a small amount of the orange jelly on the hand and it revives and looks better.

Akadum recalls that the locals saw more debris falling north of the Drigbolton and looks around there.  He finds a couple of large chunks of "Star Metal" and sees a linear pattern to the debris on a line from ENE to the WSW.  With his limited knowledge of the local geography he notes that to the ENE is Tealford where Fell Creatures rose up from the depths and menaced mines and here the dead rose and things animated.  Later when he tells the others Zelda notes that to the WSW over the Moon Peaks is the north end of the Barrowmoor supposedly where the great necropolis called the Barrowmaze.  That cannot be good.  The town of Helix is north of the Barrowmoor, and no reports have come from there of hordes of undead, but this all sounds quite bad.

Akadum also asks Zelda if she can convert his Steam Pistol into some sort of shot gun.  She and Dolin tell him the Dwarves here make hand guns similar to what he has, but keep them to themselves.  They to make larger weapons, cannon, which they sell to the Empire.  She will study and work on the pistol but she has lots to do, a bunch of potions and other stuff to identify.  Plus she has a bunch to do to fend off Griya and the Bog Witches.

While watching the Mudcows and seeing Griya teach the town folk to tend and milk them, Zelda calls Dolin aside.  She tells him that she is preparing to build a new Temple, a much improved stone one, to replace the one that burned down and bring in a new priest for the town.  This will take some

time and she does not want the people of the village to be seduced by the uneducated, heathen, Bog Witches led by Griya.  Thus by Sunday she will have erected a tent with some chairs and asks Dolin to lead a service in honor of the Olympians.  Is there anything he needs to conduct the service?  She can be sure it comes along with the tent.  Dolin asks for a mortar and pestal and some silver bits.  He tells her that the new Temple should be inaugurated with appropriate sacrifice.  One of those un-natural mudcow things should do nicely.  Zelda loves that idea.

3 June 981 Friday

Cool, light rain

Valdell and Fairbrain make their way to Ironguard Motte.  This is west of Drigbolton at the top of the mountain pass that connects Tealford and Helix.  Along the way they encounter a Dwarf trader, Issaih Abbot, coming towards them down the road.  He is selling Dwarf made knives and tools and "magical" salves for healing, male enhancement, and fairy repellant.  Valdell is skeptical but does buy a Dwarf made throwing knife.

The Motte is tall watch tower and surrounding it is an Imperial legionary march camp.  Along the road are some hovels that provide entertainment for the soldiers.  There are bars, dance halls, cheap restaurants, and brothels.  Looking beyond Valdell can see the road descends into a valley with the Barrowmoor to the south and the wild looking Thornwild Forest to the north.  The town of Helix lies at the border between the swamp and the forest about a half days journey beyond the Motte.

Valdell and Fairbrain do well selling their Pipeweed turning a handsome profit.  They learn from the soldiers, who are mostly recruits that they have about a month more of training, before they march north to join the war effort.  They lie low, spending the night in one of the road houses.

4 June 981, Saturday

nice summer weather, partly sunny, warm

Valdell and Fairbrain make their way back to Drigbolton.  On the way they encounter a group of pilgrims.  They are dressed in brown robes and tell they are on the way to visit a shrine to Artemis in Helix.  Something seems a bit off about them, but Valdell cannot figure it out.

Elsapetha Spinewith and her mother Bessas Dewass arrive in Drigbolton to pay homage to Zelda.  A sensation as Bessas is an Elf.  She is also gorgeous and dresses like a stripper.  Her age is hard to tell.  They get the impression she is quite old given the precision of her movements and her reference of memories from before the original rise of the Moran Empire.  Elsapetha is a young half-elf appearing to be about 8-10 years old.

There is a hasty ceremony on the village green where the whole village turns out.  They notice that a few talking animals, deer, a foul mouthed fox, some rabbits, turn up and listen in.  Elsapetha swears loyalty to Zelda as the rightful Miss of Drigbolton and there is much rejoicing.  Zelda invites the party (Valdell, Akadum, Dolin, and Kethry) to join her and her family (Bessas, Elsapetha, Griya, her apprentice Ponsefine, her daughter Edith, and village head man Unwick and his notably ugly wife Gorgelle) for dinner at Spinewith Manor this evening.

Zelda gathers the party and tells them she has identified some more of their potions.  Pale green with brown chunks is Growth (makes imbiber large, slow, but delivers strong attacks) and dull gold, swirling and shifting as Mighty Blow (makes imbiber fist swell and deliver a devastating attack).  For the others she suggests sending samples to the White College in Leechfeld.  This will take some weeks but they are likely to get a clear answer.

She is quite intrigued by the Basilisk eye and blood they gave her.  It is not from a natural Basilisk but one that seems to have be like butter spread too thinly on bread.  This reinforces Kethry's suggestion that the Clooney Caves are some how a fake with someone trying to make it appear as a Reptile Empire outpost but doing with lots of fake stuff (traps, thin clay statues, the "fake" Basilisk, the puny Fungal Goblins).  There is some mystery here.  Zelda is quite interested in figuring out how this "Basilisk" was created.  She encourages the party to not simply kill Xiximanter, but try to bargain with it or get his notebook.

She has also reviewed her father's notes about the Clooney Caves.  He only met the creature called Xiximanter a few times.  It was some sort of skeletal snake.  Perhaps it is possible it survives the thousands of years it has been since the Reptile Empire fell.  It seems to only be willing to trade for magical beings which it says are the necessary ingredients for its creations.

They agree priority should go to exploring/clearing out the Clooney Caves.  Xiximanter sounds quite dangerous and the Fungal Goblins are clearly a menace.  Plus Akadum has sworn vengeance on the Fungal Goblins.  Eventually they will have to head west and see what might be going on in the Barrowmoor and the Barrowmaze.

Akadum asks for a magic weapon.  While Zelda does not have such, she can prepare something that would temporally enchant a weapon.  They would likely need something like that if Xiximanter is really a multi-thousand year old undead creature.  She will have something for them after the Temple Service tomorrow.

Dinner is a bit tense.  They learn that Bessas runs the Sharpe Inn, which is on the edge of the Oldfeld Woods east of Duddingly, one of the main towns of the Midlands.  This forest and the adjacent Wortmoor is where Elves and the Fae dwell in the Midlands.  She hints the Sharpe Inn features female elven entertainment which is quite lucrative as dwarves, halflings, and humans find elven women very alluring.  Laird Spinewith was a frequent visitor and they struck up a serious relationship.  They both believed in the old ways; that rulership should be held by those of the hereditary blood lines, rather than the many rules, taxes, and martial levys of the Moran Empire.  On the other hand she confesses the Morans do many good things such as building roads, hunting down bandits and Fell Creatures, and promoting trade.  They do let the locals run their own areas thus the Oldfeld Woods and Wortmoor remain pristine.

The subject turns to Emperor Devit's invasion of the north.   No one here is very supportive.  Perhaps Devit is simply a conqueror and is driven to continue to conquer.  Perhaps he wants to secure the northern border of the Tasprian Peninsula, which is the core of the Moran Empire.  It is true it is open to the northern plain and was where the barbarian invasion originated that led to Mora's fall.  No one really knows.  It has been good for business with Zelda's family benefiting by supplying food stuffs to the Imperial Army, even the Bog Witches of the Barrowmoor provide fish and shell fish from the swamp, and there is great need for the magical healing and enchanted weapons made by the elves.  The major downside is the young people who have gone north and never returned.

This reminds Bessas of the tales of the Twisted Ones.  These were folk who went north into the Wild Lands and beyond to the Chaos Lands to eliminate the threat of the Fell Creatures.  The armies disappeared and those that eventually returned were changed both physically and mentally into evil mockeries of their former selves.  The far north is very dangerous.

Things falling from the sky are another matter.  Zelda tells them there is something called the Pact which enforced separation between the surface of the cylinder, Kylindo, and the Heavens.  Long ago the dragons and some powerful magic users were banished to the heavens and the Pact enforces their separation from the surface.  Clearly the Pact has been violated, or perhaps there is strife in the Heavens with collatoral damage being uncontrolled contact between the Heavens and Kylindo.  Perhaps there will be more contact between the surface and the Heavens in the future.  The Pact may be breaking down.

The prevailing theory is there are different physical/magical laws here on the surface of Kylindo and in the Heavens.  Some think magic is strongest on the surface of Kylindo.  Magical effects clearly grow more strong as one moves far to the north and likely far to the sourth, but they become for more uncontrollable, dangerous, and unpredictable.  Others think in the Heavens things that are not possible here on the surface become possible.  Different laws allow the creation of tools, instruments, and machines that are simplynot possible here on the surface.  The Dwarves remind all of the Dwarven legends that other worlds can be found deep beneath the surface and somehow all the worlds are connected if one goes deep enough.

Dinner ends with toasts.  Zelda announces that tomorrow morning Dolin will lead a service in honor of the Olympians in the village, and she will be building a new Temple for the village.  Dolin asks Griya for a mudcow for the service and under the eyes of all the others, she reluctantly agrees.  Dolin gives them all a preview of the short sermon he has planned to much acclaim.

Bessas tells them she and her daughter will be leaving tomorrow.  She invites them all to the Sharpe Inn as her guest.  It is especially good to visit for equinox which is just a few weeks away.