Session 41 (11/29/12)

Verne, Martenin 8th, 838 ID 

Mudgol ultimately decides that, with more pressing missions, now is not the time to tackle the tracker Luorn Stride, and thus the party begins to equip itself further for the underwater rescue mission at Skrath Cairn. They purchase spears and ensure that they're all equipped to fight in the hostile terrain. Unfortunately, Ginkwrench the gnome takes ill, some sort of venereal pox (quite possibly caused by the local Vettlar nightlife he partakes of), and cannot make the journey. The rest of the group presses on bravely, climbing out of the city by way of the same rope ladder they used before. They briefly visit Phaegr Mult to procure some of his rafts once again, and find that he's sweating, disoriented and covered in red sores, which he claims come from his 'bodylice'. The PCs are not so convinced, and when they depart, several think they hear the sounds of lashing from within the odd fisherman's cottage...

While several of the PCs scour the Furrowers' Guild, producing a chalk map on slate that roughly outlines the caves beneath the Cairn, Baro decides to grab a chunk of quartz from a bin in the Furrowers' staging area, which draws varied responses from his companions. The wizard, unamused, then decides to climb the Cairn and make use of his spyglass once more. This time, it reveals a series of smoke columns somewhere nearby to the north, hidden behind the thin treeline. Baro assumes there are more berserkers marching to join the tribes already stationed outside Vettlar. Major Langston takes a look for himself, and then the PCs proceed back into the Cairn by route of the opening Luz made with magic on the previous visit. With the exception of Baro and Mudgol, who slip on the rope and take some damage, all make it down safely. They note some wet, slushy, muddy tracks that have been left around the central hub chamber since they first came into the place, and then begin to quaff their protection potions while Luz reads the scrolls of endure elements that will shield them from the icy water's damage. Langston plays a trick on Mudgol, first offering him a vial of liquor, which the half-orc drinks gleefully, soon to realize that he cannot breathe underwater...

After straightening that out, the group proceeds into the drowned subterranean mines, where they travel along the drowned shaft into the central area of Coldflood Quarry (marked on their slate map), which is empty save for drowned totes of ore and various implements. They begin to systematically scope out the surrounding tunnels, when they find a murky, submerged cavern opening where a severed dwarven head 'warms up' to Baro beneath the water. Soon they discover what likely produced such a horror, a fat and oily, disgusting amphibious beast who delightfully pursues his next meal at the party's expense! Fortunately, thanks to a key electrical blast and some coordinated melee, they are able to defeat the huge thing before it entirely consumes Luz (who was stuck in its maw). They search the area and find a silver ring on a dwarf miner's corpse, also several scrawny goblin bodies floating about the muck...

Next they find a dry corridor they can walk through, full of rough quartz crystals and titled Quartz Alley on their slate map, before finding a cavernous area that seems to have, at one point, been blocked off by wooden boards. Within they are greeted with sinister, cautionary whispers, and after a few rounds of duly mouthing off to whatever entity lies within, it appears, an incorporeal vision of horror, and begins to drain Baro of his very life! Realizing that the spirit can just disappear into the rock and reappear elsewhere to torment them, the PCs decide that this might not be the best battle for them to fight, so Baro must suck up his loss as they head back through Quartz Alley and continue to explore. They travel down a few 'finger' tunnels and find very little of use, though Hnarsh Hosspotch springs a falling snow trap after a brief altercation with Mudgol. They find a submerged area where the miners must have been building a lift recently to ferry up and down the oar (rather than taking the usual stairs) for increased productivity.

After this, the party at last discovers its elusive quarry, a dozen kuo-toa harpoonists who defend another are of the caverns marked as the Silver Drips on the slate map. The battle is brief but bloody, the expert javelineers fanatically dispatching the wizards with a few painful throws, while the wizards in return lob balls of fire, death and destruction upon them. Sadly, they've depleted much of the PCs' strength and attacks (not to mention Baro had already been hosed by the spectral presence in the haunted mine), and once 'backup' arrives in the form of fanatical kuo-toan aestetics and their sorcerous master, things begin to go south for our heroes. The monks have strange abilities to turn PCs against one another, and prove able hand to hand combatants, several of whom escape the evard's black tentacles. Due to a concentrated lightning strike and the toughness of these amphibious brawlers, Luz, Hnarsh, Baro and again Mudgol are taken out of the fight, and other PCs find themselves constantly having to revive the half-orc diviner. Seeing his followers take the fight hard to the PCs, the leader decides to run off, presumably to bring in the rest of his minions to finish our heroes...instead, Langston decides to sacrifice himself and hold off the remaining monks while Mudgol grabs anyone he can and teleports them to safety.

Sadly, only 4 of the 6 characters can be moved in this manner. After much debate and stubbornness, Mudgol follows his orders and teleports Luz, Gruulsh, Baro and himself to safety...consigning the unconscious halfling Hnarsh, and the brave Major to their fates...swallowed by a tide of amphibious fiends!

Meanwhile, the gnome Ginkwrench awakens in Vettlar to the sounds of war horns and much panic among the city denizens...where the bloody 'ell is everyone?!

PCs: Baro, Gruulsh, Langston, Luz, Mudgol

Online Session 40 (11/20/12)

Here is the link to the transcript of AIM online session 40.

PC: Doorjamb

NPCs

Rek'Shon'Shar (human male): A muscular, bare-chested human, age probably late 30s or early 40s, with a bunch of scars on his lips and missing teeth. His hair is dark brown and greasy, like his gaze. He wears a wolfskin cloak, furry loincloth deluxe with a bunch of hidden pockets, and carries a long bone knife and a pair of short spears. Also covered in reddish tattoos that have faded through the years. He's got a pet horned owl, with some red-dyed feathers itself. Rek'Shon'Shar claims to be from some northern territory, and is encountered by Doorjamb in the Skunk Ridge, while he is hunting for information on the movements and status of the Empire's defenses...

Session 40 (11/9/12)

Tault, Martenin 6th, 838 ID  

Mudgol and Langston continue to poke around in Floivin Keep while the remainder of the PCs await their return to Vettlar. Jealous of his mens' sudden interest in property, Captain Langston seeks out a plot right at home in Floivin Keep. Discouraged by the costs of purchasing a floor in the city proper, he acquires a ruined and abandoned two-story building on the Norcourt, outside the East gate of the keep. It will require a few thousand gold to repair once a team can be ready (they're still busy with the city itself). Mudgol hangs out and causes trouble as usual, in particular by shining his scrying mirror unintentionally on a local peasant and his donkey. After a brief confrontation and hints of potential violence, the teamster storms off angrily. Up in Vettlar, Baro keeps himself busy with his spyglass, nervous that further berserker tribes might show up to join the three camped outside the gates. A distance check reveals that the Vandrakki are smart enough not to be within range of most of the city's few anti-siege weapons, or destructive magics. But Baro discovers that the Devil Paws come complete with fist weapons and smilodon pets, and the Long Elks wield strange polearms called sugliin similar to the one the PCs picked up off the snow goblin captain in Tretcher. At night, in Floivin Keep, Langston gets his service quarters upgraded, and now sleeps under the same roof as General Morrow, Commander Hoary, and Captain Lesper.

Varony, Martenin 7th, 838 ID

The PCs are reunited at Vettlar and get to planning their next step. Mudgol gets into yet another altercation, this time with a curious old hag who wants his scrying mirror (which he's brought to Vettlar to place in Gruulsh's new house), but the half-orc is saved by a passing Fifth Eidolorn soldier. The immediate plan of the party is to take the fight to the tribes camped outside the city, but Commander Estelbard reinforces the notion that he simply does not have enough men to spare, and that the party would be on their own, and require a distraction to draw off the other two tribes temporarily. The other option is to attempt to free the miners trapped in Skrath Cairn, and this one wins out, with the group attempting to procure some rafts to take them across the cove to the huge mound of stones hollowed out within. To do this, Luz and Hnarsh risk a jaunt outside the gates, using a rope ladder and then traveling out of sight of the tribes to the cottage of fisherman Phaegr Mult, who is still occupying his Pinewater-side cottage. He's an unusual dwarf, and to convince him to loan them his small, raggedy fleet of water craft, they trade him a few hours at Burdun's Brothel in the city, Luz giving him a heap of coins to spend. The half-orc waits behind in the cottage, while Hnarsh accompanies Mult back up the walls. Luz discovers a strange statuette hidden in Mult's home, an alien sea goddess with human torso, claws and face of a lobster and a spread of foul tentacles below her waist...

Once back together in the city, the PCs launch their plan, to take all Mult's rafts and hopefully use any extra space to transport surviving miners back to the safety of Vettlar. They cross the narrow waterway to the isle where the Cairn resides, and then set out about to search the Furrower's guild quarters, all of which are empty. The avalanche that the berserkers used to seal off the Cairn mine is too thick to penetrate even with the magic available, so Luz decides to use stone shape further up the mound and lower the party inside. Hnarsh is sent off to search the perimeter of the cavern complex for other entrances, while Baro remains watch outside. The berserkers don't appear to stir, or care, even though they can clearly spy the party on top of the Cairn. Once the party is inside, they discover that one cavern (leading to the mines proper below the river) is flooded with cold water, while the other chambers, including the central hub, are void of life. A dozen human and dwarven corpses are strewn neatly around the central area, impaled with ornate tridents and appear to have the look of surprise on their faces...Ginkwrench volunteers to dive into the cold water and feel his way along to see if there's another airy chamber in the mine with survivors, but he can only go so far into the mine shaft before his limited vision foils him. The PCs, unnerved, decide to turn back empty handed (though they found a copper spoon and a few coins).

They return the rafts to a very (sexually) satisfied Phaegr Mult, and then inquire about the situation at the Cairn. Mult seems nervous and deceptive with his answers, but eventually reveals that when he was plying the sea with the Roys on the West Coast, he encountered a strange serpent-like buccaneer who told he and the other dwarves many strange tales, one of which involved an evil, aquatic race called the kuo-toa who maintain a presence in the vast Underdark below the continent of Thault. They worship a goddess much like the one of the statue he procured from a human miner friend. Mult later shares his fears that the kuo-toa must have a network of lairs somewhere beneath Vettlar, and that the miners of Skrath Cairn might have dug a little too deep. That the Cairn itself might have originally been placed where it was by frost giants to keep out this potential threat, and that the berserkers might have unwittingly done the city a service by trapping the miners inside (though Mult has stayed outside the gates to watch for survivors). After this reveal, the PCs go back to Vettlar to plan, while Mult stays behind and says he'll join them there later.

Langston decides it might be worth it to find magical assistance which the party can use for a better rescue attempt, but then gets some dissent from Gruulsh, who thinks its a useless endeavor and that the party should press on to either fight the berserkers or travel to find the generals. Langston remains firm, and the group concedes to acquire some supplies for the effort. Mudgol manages to offend the rather racist 'sage' Teven the Worm within short order, but Langston convinces the ugly dwarf to provide water breathing potions. In addition, loot is exchanged for cash and distribute to the PCs. Thanks to Teven and Brother Baylor (of the Twin Tabernacles), the party has enough protection to attempt the dive through the mine. They hit the hay and plan to depart the following day.

Verne, Martenin 8th, 838 ID

While preparing to depart, the PCs decide to make use of Mudgol's scrying spell. The previous day's use had revealed that 'Polk' was a pile of ashes inhabiting the corner of a burnt out structure in Floivin Keep, but today they decide to track down the man 'hunting' the half-orc, Luorn Stride. Despite only having second hand information, Mudgol finds the dangerous tracker out in the Frogmarch somewhere near the old ruins they had recently visited...and the party concocts a plan to teleport to the man, surprise him and hopefully end his particular threat, though the diviner is not convinced he should use the spell up for the day when there are other pressing matters.

PCs: Baro, Ginkwrench, Gruulsh, Langston, Luz, Mudgol 

NPCs 

Phaegr Mult (dwarf male): A fishy scent seems to surround this gruff, square-jawed dwarf, swathed in thick furs and a leather vest. His brown-gray hair is tied back in a top-knot, and he’s got at least three wicked looking knives in scabbards on his belt. Most notable though, is the ‘mock beard’ he has made for himself out of fishing hooks, each piecing the skin of his jaw and jiggling when he speaks in a hoarse growl. Mult's a skilled local fisherman who claims to have had a past sailing out of Castle Roy as a merchant and adventurer.

Player Housing

Wintersbreath

The following is a sample of a PC-purchased bungelow in Vettlar, capital of Wintersbreath.

Addresses of PC-purchased bungelows:

Ginkwrench: 12 Seal Street

Gruulsh: 18 Rafflek's Row

Luz: 2 Cutter's Row (SE corner lot)

Note that each bungelow comes equipped with a pair of cots, copper-sided washbasin, central hearth, additional cooking fireplace, and a pair of complementary chamberpots for new residents. The remainder of the furnishings (including those pictured on the sample) must be purchased by the PCs. There's also an annual provincial tax of 15gp for owning property within the city walls, and voluntary contributions to the city guard are welcome.