AD&D Session 23: The Floor Is on Fire

Since the last session Kai and Ellea have returned from their training a level higher, while Timukel has left to begin his training. After chilling in Porto Oro for a while, the group (Archie, Kai, Gaia and Ellea) go to the mayor Andrea to ask for permission to use Russel for a lift to Estato again. During this they have some conversation about Estato. Andrea tell them that the White Crab Inn is a very lively place always with music and dancing, while Hewitt the crab fisherman always welcomes newcomers to the island and is very happy to tell them all about the village. Andrea again gives them permission to go to Estato with Russel, who again agrees to collect them at the end of the day, or after two nights.

In Estato the group decide to visit a grove of stately elm trees to the south of the village. Here they find a small ramshackle cottage and they go to knock on the door. After hearing some scrambling inside and a man shouting ‘just a moment’ the door flies open and they see an old thin man with a weasel perched on his shoulder hastily tidying the messy cottage. The man asks them what they want and Archie decides to tell him that they would like to join the cult. The man replies ‘Join the cult? How curious. This is contrary to your previous actions on this island. Was that a lie or are you merely stupid?’ The conversation continues with both parties eventually convincing the other that they are in fact against the cult and would like to take it down. After convincing Ramne of the groups credentials in taking down cults, he agrees that they should team up. He will tell them what he knows in exchange for their strength in fighting the cult and raiding the HQ.

The old man’s name in Ramne and his pet weasel is called Whiskers. He has been gathering information but lacks the strength to destroy them himself. He tells them that the temple was one of the first places to be infected and that the dungeon from the previous session is their HQ. He also tells them that there is some unknown evil power at play and he believes that once this evil power is removed, the people of Estato might return to normal. While there are a few people in the village that he trusts are not under the influence of the cult, he does not know for certain who has been infected. The effect of the cult in the village has generally led to the village being less friendly and more sinister than before, and there have also been a few people disappearing from the village - the children of the village carpenter, a travelling merchant and the wife of a local dock worker.

Ramne gathers some belongings and the group leave his cottage. Ramne is quite frail and moves slowly. Most of the group go to the Inn of the Slumbering Serpent and talk to the owners who Ramne trusts. They don’t have any extra information and it seems Ramne just wanted them to go here so he could have their lavish breakfast before leaving on the adventure. Meanwhile Gaia decides to try to sneak in to the Temple of Merikka. She is confused about the conflicting information she received from Ramne and from the children last session about the temple. Gaia successfully enters the temple without being seen and goes through one of the doors from the main central sanctuary. In here she finds a meeting room with some wooden benches, a few chairs and a shelf with some bottles of wine and glasses. Fearing being discovered by the priestess, Gaia leaves the temple.

The group again travel to the dungeon, this time significantly slowed by Ramne, but make it there mostly without incident. Near the dungeon entrance they encounter a giant snapping turtle, but luckily notice it early and manage to avoid it. Archie charges down the staircase to the dungeon, and nimbly keeps his feet before warning the others to be careful because it is slippery. They set up a rope mechanism and descend. Again there are four guards at the entrance and Archie tries the same trick of saying they are there to take over the guard duty. Despite being warned about this ruse, the guards surprisingly fall for it again which leaves Gaia scratching her forehead in confusion.

The group follow the same path as last time in the dungeon, scaring away a few giant rats with fire and arriving at the corridor leading to the place of the previous encounter with the three men. Along this corridor, Gaia is scraping her hand along the wall and where the corridor turns north, one of the bricks of the south wall comes loose revealing a hidden passageway. Inside this hidden passage is an alcove with a small rowing boat and the edge of a body of water within a cave. The water is shallow near the edge but quickly gets deeper. It extends in all directions but with the lack of light they can’t see where the water ends. They get in the boat and set off towards the south. They see similar alcoves and edges to the water to the west and to the south. To the east the water extends further. To the north east there is a mud shelf on which they can make out some silhouettes of crocodiles. They decide to land the boat on the south alcove and continue.

They move south through another small corridor and arrive at a crossroads - west is a short muddy corridor, south is a longer muddy corridor and east is a longer corridor, but without mud. They take the cleaner east corridor and arrive at a door going south. Archie and Gaia slowly force the door open and are greeted on the other side by two humanoid lizard creatures carrying stone battle axes. One is knocking on another door while the other is releasing a horrible odour. Archie and Ellea are able to cover their noses in time to not be effected by the stench, but Kai and Gaia feel its effects sapping their strength. Ellea casts phantasmal force, making the room appear to be on fire. Both creatures believe this illusion, taking fire damage and Archie goes to attack while Kai casts Faerie Fire and Gaia hangs back protecting Ramne and Whiskers. Archie’s magical sword is tingling in his hand (+2 against these monsters) and he takes down the first creature, but receives a hit in return. The other creature continues taking fire damage and also exchanges blows with Archie. Again Archie takes it down but not before receiving another hit. At this time the other door to the room bursts open revealing 4 more humanoid lizards. They also fall for the fire illusion and so hang back in the doorway. Archie takes some shots with his bow, hitting the creature in the doorway while Kai heals him with cure light wounds. Seeing the adventurers walking in the flames, the illusion is broken for the creatures, but Archie and Gaia close in on the doorway before they can enter the room creating a choke point. Another hit with Archies sword as well as a hit from Gaia take the creature in the doorway down and the other three drop their weapons and surrender. The group tie them up and kill any unconscious creatures.

After the fight, they look around a bit. The first room they entered from the north side is a small room with three wooden benches. The other door to the room leads west into a slightly larger but empty room. Further west is a small cave like area with fish bones scattered on the floor and some sleeping pallets. They find some pouches with 20 gp. To the south side of the room is another exit with a staircase that leads down to the east. The group decide to peak their heads down this staircase. At the bottom they find a large mud pit with some stepping stones forking in two different directions. Their curiosity satisfied, they go back up the stairs. While the others discuss what to do with the captured creatures, Kai slits their throats. Then the group all leave the dungeon.

On the way to the exit, they come across an aggressive snake. Kai summons some insects and Ellea uses phantasmal force to make the insects appear giant. These seemingly giant insect bites, as well as sword attacks from Archie and Gaia are enough to annihilate the snake without it managing to land its fangs in any of our adventurers. They exit the dungeon and return to the village without further trouble.

Back at the village, Archie, Gaia and Ellea will stay in the Inn of the Slumbering Serpent to continue working with Ramne and investigating the village, while Kai returns with Russel to Porto Oro with the 20 gp to try to hire some reinforcements. 

AD&D Session 22: Cult hunting in Estato

We begin with some admin from last session. Archie, after selling the three magical ear plugs which are much sort after as a leisure item in Porto Oro, has enough experience and gold to level up. During the hot springs festival he met a former adventurer called Girolamo. He looks back at his adventuring days fondly when he reached a level 3 fighter, but he was dragged away from adventuring by his wealthy father who wished him to return to ‘reality’. Archie successfully trains with him for one week reaching level 2.

Kai and Ellea (and Sir Goldborn in absence) negotiate with Walt, Jessie and Hank for the loot from the cult. They agree to keep the staff, dagger and 250gp, while Walt keeps the scrolls, Jessie keeps the potions and Hank keeps the green gems. Kai and Ellea then sell the staff in a magical shop. After Kai painstakingly tries to remember any details about what magical abilities the staff might have, the shop keeper is willing to offer them 10,000 gp for the magical staff. Kai also decides to keep the dagger. This results in 3,416 gp and 3,450 xp each for Kai, Ellea and Sir Goldborn. This is enough experience for both Kai and Ellea to level up. Kai returns to his usual trainer - an 8th level druid called Mike who lives in the forested hills north of Borgogazze. Ellea concludes a decade long search for her master in the forgotten caves of the Antium mountain, not far from Porto Oro, and starts her training. Both of them continue training as this session begins.

Before going on their training, Kai and Ellea show the islands map obtained in the cult cave to Archie. Since the two of them are busy with their training, the newly levelled up Archie takes it upon himself to investigate these two new islands that seem to be related to cult activity. He is happy at the arrival of Timukel the illusionist and Gaia the ranger (and her pet pigeon) who have both returned from a long hiatus from adventuring and are willing to help Archie. They decide to travel to the island with the ‘blind’ symbol - for this reason Gaia decides to buy a mirror which she hopes will reflect any sight based attacks. The first challenge is to find a way to get to the island. They go to the docks in Porto Oro to check out the boats own sale. After scraping together the few gold pieces they have and looking at the boats within their price range (mostly small leisure vessels), they decide that they are not suitable for a two hour journey out to sea. So they go to Russel and ask if he can take them. Russel is surprised that he wants to go to this island which he says is called Estato and is the location of the Porto Oro summer festival. For most of the year the island is quite sparsely populated with only some small fishing industry, but for August the whole of Porto Oro go there for the festival. He says that he is in service to Porto Oro and so cannot take them without the mayor Andrea’s approval. After telling Andrea about their suspicions about further cult activity, Andrea agrees that Russel can take them to the island, but there is not further reward available for their investigations of the cult. Russel drops them to the island without incident and says he will return to pick them up in a few days.

They arrive on the west side of the island where there is a dock with a town behind it. The dock is quite large but at the moment there are only a few small fishing boats parked in it. The island is in the shape of an 8 with larger forested areas to the north and south with the town straddling the thinner section in the middle of the island. The group (Archie, Timukel and Gaia) disembark the boat and walk towards the town. The first building they see is a small wooden home with crab fishing equipment piled at the front. There is a man sitting in front of the building and the shadows of some more people inside the building behind the curtain. The man (who is called Hewitt) suspiciously asks what they’re doing on the island. The group say they’re visiting and ask if there is an inn. Hewitt points out a building a short way into the town and goes back into his house and locks the door and the group walk away.

The inn is called the White Crab and has a very quiet and sombre atmosphere with everyone sitting on their own and not talking. The innkeeper, Bertram, on the other hand, is quite lively and happy to see the group. He offers them a free drink, welcomes them to Estato and asks what brings the group to the island. They tell Bertram that they are investigating cult activity in the area and ask if he knows of anything suspicious on the island. Bertram seems concerned but says he doesn’t know of anything like that. They ask him about anywhere nice to go on the island. He says that there’s nothing to the north but there is a nice path to the south of the island that they could take. Finally Hewitt offers them rooms in the inn at discounted prices - at this time of year there are few visitors so their company would be welcome. The group thank him and say they will be back for the room in the evening.

Next they visit a temple building in the town. There is a poorly tended courtyard leading to the temple with a gardener and some outbuildings. When spoken to, the gardener just grunts and gestures towards the main temple building. Entering the temple through a door on the south side there is a large room with a tiled floor with a mosaic of a sea themed scene, tapestries of sea creatures on the walls and a jade statue of a beautiful woman on a low Dias at the north end of the room. There are four additional doors from the room - to the west, southwest, east and southeast. The group are greeted by a priestess who introduces herself as Misha and says this is a temple to the sea god Merikka. They are welcome to worship in this room, but the rest of the temple is restricted for non-members. The group asks her about cult activities which she knows nothing about and the group leaves.

Next Gaia decides to find some children in the town to talk to in a totally not creepy way, because children often know useful information. They eventually find two girls playing in the street. Gaia approaches them saying ‘hello children, come over here and talk to me, there is nothing to be scared about, I’m not a pedophile.’ She then gains the kids confidence by performing a trick with her pigeon in which she throws a rock in the air and the pigeon flys and catches it. The kids are amazed and ask her to do it again! Instead Gaia performs a new trick, giving one of the kids an apple to hold above her head and throwing the pigeon from a great distance to pierce the apple and take it from the kids hand. Again, the kids are obviously delighted. Gaia then tells the kids that there are three things that the pigeon likes - rocks, apples and secrets. The pigeon has had a rock and apple, now it just needs a secret. Do the kids have any? The kids reveal that they used to be able to play on the north side of the island, but now their daddy doesn’t allow them to go there. There is a trail through the forest to the north.

The group go straight to the trail which they easily navigate with the Rangers abilities. The trail goes through a dim eerie forrest in which they thankfully don’t see anything in two hours of walking. They then arrive at a swamp with water up to their knees. Again they wade through the swamp with no encounters and arrive at a small island created by a circular dam. They clamber over the dam to reach the island which has a hole with slippery wooden steps descending into the earth. Attaching a rope to avoid slipping, the group go down the stairs where they find a small entry room with four guards in front of a door to the south. The guards lower their spears menacingly as the group arrives. Archie tells them not to worry, it is the end of the guards shift and the three of them are there to take over. The guards surprisingly accept this without question and enter the door before walking to the east. Surprised at this success, the group waits a few moments before following through the door.

Through the door is another small (30ft x 30ft) room with corridors to the east, south and west. The area is excavated from soggy dirt and supported by massive, though slightly rotten, timbers. The whole area feels damp and the ground is wet and slippery. The group decide to head south, avoiding where the guards went. After a 50ft corridor, they arrive at a larger 50ft x 70ft room. It has a high ceiling with six wooden columns supporting it and a pool of mud in the centre which slows the group down but is otherwise unremarkable. On the south side is an exit to another corridor which stretches both east and west. The group goes west for 50ft when the corridor turns north. After 30ft the corridor splits with a passage stretching to the west and a short 20ft corridor to the north leading to a door. The group go to the door which Gaia and Archie quickly barge through at the first attempt, arriving to a small 30ft x 30ft room. There is a lightly armoured man in the room who quickly draws his short sword at their arrival. They instantly engage in melee with Gaia receiving a small blow. A minute later, two further people arrive in the room, one more lightly armoured with a short sword and the third more heavily armoured with a long sword. The two groups exchange blows with our adventurers all landing good hits and Archie receiving a blow which he easily shakes off. Eventually Gaia takes down the heavily armoured enemy who falls unconscious, and the remaining two flee. Archie and Gaia also take these two down as they run away, brutally slapping one to instantly kill them, while the other falls unconscious.

After the fight the group can investigate the room further. It seems quite comfortable with four soft chairs and some small tables. There is a fire burning in a large fireplace with a stack of wood next to it. There is a keg of wine with two glasses on one of the tables. There’s an opening on the north side of the room leading to a corridor. Directly to the east of the corridor is a door to a 20ft x 20ft room - an unremarkable room with two beds. The corridor also goes to the west for 30ft before turning south for 30ft. On the west wall of the corridor is another door to an unremarkable 20ft x 20ft room with one bed. At the end of the corridor to the south is a door to a 20ft x 30ft room. In here there is a bed, desk, chair and wooden chest. In the chest they find a small jade statue of a reptile figure, some clerics robes, a mace and a scroll with two cure light wounds spells. Taking all this loot, as well as the weapons of the three defeated enemies (a shield and short sword feel like they hold some sort of power) and the three bodies (two unconscious and one dead) the group leave the dungeon and return to the surface by the swamp.


Gaia briefly questions the two now conscious men who reveal that whoever their leader is is not dangerous and is a trusted friend and ally. They ‘bury’ the dead body in the swamp and proceed slowly with the two injured men back through the swamp and forest. In the forest they avoid an encounter with a bear with an offering of food. Back in the town, they take the injured men to the temple where they find Misha again. They tell that the men attacked them while they were wandering the island, they defeated them but spared their lives and wish to ask for their healing. Misha responds ‘very well, thank you for delivering them to me. The temple will ensure that they are healed and receive retribution for their actions.’ The three then go back to the inn to spend the night.

The next day, Gaia is missing from her room in which there is a smashed water bottle. The innkeeper says he didn’t hear anything last night, but saw their friend (Gaia) leaving very early in the morning. Archie and Timukel search the town, drawing a map of the area. They return to the crabbers hut and temple for uninteresting encounters. They go to the town barracks which is completely empty. They go to the town shop where the owners invite them for a glass of wine. It is the best wine Archie has tasted, the shopkeepers tell him it was made in the Inn of the Slumbering Serpent. Finally they check out a boarded up building which a fallen sign suggests was the Foaming Mug Inn. It seems abandoned.

During these trips around town they come across Gaia playing with the children. She says she had a strange dream: she was searching after the others because they were in danger. During the dream she might have involuntarily smashed her carafe of water. Feeling agitated she left the inn early and walked around. She found the kids and started playing with them. She asked them about the priestess Misha and the kids said she is very nice and kind and sometimes lets them help in the temple.

Finally, Timukel talks to a rough looking man with a long scar running down the right side of his face. Timukel asks if he wants to be his friend. The man responds by pressing a knife to him under the table and saying ‘you want to see what I do to my ‘friends’?’ Timukel runs away, noticing that 5 gp are missing from his pocket.

They all rest up in the inn for another night. The next day Russel arrives and they take his ride back to Porto Oro. Treasure is sorted out with magical items split amongst the three and all non-magical loot sold for 90 gp. Gaia takes the scroll and sells it for 600 gp. Timukel takes the shield and sells it for 2,500 gp. Archie takes the sword and decides to keep it, gaining 500 xp. The sword seems to lend some magical assistance, guiding the wielders hand to more lethal parts of an enemies body. It also feels like it has some additional power that is yet to be discovered.

AD&D Session 21: Assault on the Cult

The adventurers returned to Porto Oro on the ship with their five captives and harpy corpse. On the journey, Kai, Sir Goldborn and Ellea conducted an initial interrogation of the prisoners. They began by taking one of the captives to the private quarters of the ship and removing his helmet. The captive started screaming and shouting. Goldborn spoke some calming words and Kai offered him some food, but this did nothing to stop the mans shouts. They then presented to body of the dead harpy to the man. This caused the man to break out in a manic laughter, but did nothing to quieten him down. Realising this interrogation is futile, they refitted the captives helmet and chose a new captive to interrogate.

This new captive was quiet after removing his helmet. He tentatively accepted the food that Kai offered him. After presenting the body of the harpy, the captive says ‘thank the gods, you killed that horrid thing’. Intrigued by this reaction, the adventurers press on with their questioning. He reveals that he was recently captured from a near by village and taken to the harpy island against his will. He is scared of the ‘Father’, who seems to be a human in charge of this group of people. It is hard for him to know how the other people in the group feel about the Father and the harpys because the noise cancelling helmets made communication hard. All the other people seemed to go along with the group, but this is no indication that they were doing so willingly. There are enough beds for 24 people in total, however they were never all full with people regularly coming and going (being sacrificed). He doesn’t exactly know the Fathers motives or goals, but it seems that he is in some way worshipping the harpys and helping them. He also reveals that there is a small tunnel from the southern side of the island leading to the main residence area. The adventurers eventually ask the captives name and whether he would be willing to accompany them back to the island. His name is Bill, and says fearfully that he is far too exhausted and traumatised by the experience to return to the island now! After being reassured that he would have some time to recover before returning to the island and that they would protect him from Father, he says that it is possible that he could go with them to guide them to the tunnel entrance. Although he is only a simple villager with no combat experience. Finally, Goldborn is still confused by the disappearance of one of the captives from the previous session, so asks Bill what happened to him. Bill is also confused by this question. He says ‘wasn’t it one of your men that took him away?’ After some more discussion, Goldborn discovers that it was Kleptos who took and likely killed the other captive. The pieces fall into place for Goldborn - this explains why Kleptos suddenly had one of the captives helmets and why he was so keen to send his own men to search for the missing captive. Goldborn is of course furious at the death of a captive under his watch, especially given the new information that the captive might have been held on the island against his will, and vows that no more of the people on the island will die as long as he can help it. The remaining three captives are questioned in a similar manner with various reactions - one screams where the helmet is taken off, while another is visibly distraught when the harpy’s body is presented.

On arriving in Porto Oro, the adventurers go to Andrea to give her an update (and enquire about their reward). She is very grateful for the information about the caretaker and sheriff, and happy that the lighthouse is lit once again. She reveals that there is a lot of political pressure on her from other towns and cities along the coast, since it is Porto Oro’s because the lighthouse is very important for trade in the area and it is Porto Oro’s responsibility to keep the lighthouse functioning. However, she it disappointed to find out that the island is still not safe to send a new caretaker to tend to the lighthouse. Without a caretaker, the beacon will go out after a few days. She begrudgingly agrees to still give the full reward of 120gp per person, however she kindly asks that the adventurers finish their mission regardless and help clear the island. Goldborn asks if there would be any additional reward for this - Andrea says there is no more budget for rewards, but that she would make sure to mention all adventurers that help in her correspondence with other leaders in the area. Goldborn also asks if she can provide any soldiers to help, but with the loss of her sheriff, she is only left with a few guards which are needed to protect the village. Andrea also agrees to keep the captives in the village jail for the time being, except for Bill who is put under Goldborn’s care.

The adventurers spend a week in the village to prepare for their final assault on the island. Goldborn, still unhappy with the treachery, dismisses Kleptos for the week. Archie returns to the bath house and is excited to hear about the hot springs gala that will be happening the following weekend. Having had enough of fighting for the time being, he decides to attend this rather than assault the island. Ellea resumes her job at the bar, earning a few extra gold pieces, but is happy to rejoin the group for the assault. During the week another familiar adventurer arrives - it’s Walt the magic user! He has now levelled up to level 2 and is ready to demonstrate his new spell Ventriloquism. With him are two other aventurers - Jessie a level 1 thief and Hank a level 1 fighter. The group are happy to have them along to help. After having a week to recover, Bill also agrees to accompany them, as long as he doesn’t have to do any fighting (although Goldborn still buys his a military fork, just in case).

So we have Kai with his five crossbowmen, Sir Goldborn, Ellea, Walt, Jessie, Hank and Bill. They take the ship back to the island with Russel. Arriving at the island, the pier is empty and the group disembark at the beach and return to the lighthouse. Inside the lighthouse, all the furniture and papers have been removed, leaving the building essentially empty. The beacon has burnt out and the harpy nest has been very thoroughly searched, although some sticks from it still remain at the top of the lighthouse. Below the lighthouse, the hole in the wall from the bedroom to the cave has been filled in. The group return to the beach and ask Bill to show them the entrance to the tunnel.

The tunnel is found among some large rocks on the south side of the island. It is large enough to stand in and for two people to walk side by side. The tunnel bends to the west, and the group sees some light ahead of them. Going towards the light, they arrive to the east side of a large room. On the south side of the room facing north is a man wearing a bright coloured robe in front of a large square alter. On the alter are three eggs. The man is performing some kind of interpretative dance. There are fifteen people facing him spread throughout the rest of the room, all unarmed but wearing the noise cancelling helmets. On the north side of the room there is the bridge that the group recognise from the previous adventure to the island. On the far side of the room there are five doors. Kai summons some ants and sends them towards the robed man. The robed man notices that swarm of ants approaching him and quickly dispatches them with a fireball shooting out of his hand and continues with his interpretive dance.

Eventually the robed man stops dancing and makes a gesture, after which the men all remove their helmets. He then begins preaching, talking about making a new mother from the eggs, and asking them to help father with this creation. During this, the group have concocted a plan. Most of the group has returned to the entrance of the tunnel while Ellea casts phantasmal force, projecting a group of harpies that fly from the tunnel into the room, fly around the room and exit again through the same tunnel. The people quickly scramble to put their helmets back on. The robed man is not so easily fooled and starts shouting at the people that it is just an illusion - however with their helmets on, this falls on deaf ears. The robed man rushes towards on of the doors on the far side of the room. Of the 15 others, 8 of them run towards the tunnel where the harpies went, while the other 7 cower in terror and remain in the room. Ellea hastily retreats to the entrance of the cave, with the 8 people close behind her - running straight into the trap. The adventurers tackle the 8 men and successfully immobilise them all. Escorting them men to the forrest, they tie them all to trees.

Returning to the tunnel entrance, the group tentatively return down the corridor. Their plan is to lure the people out to the forrest where they can use entangle. Seeing into the main room, the 7 remaining people with helmets now also have weapons and light armour. The robed man is wielding a staff. He is flanked by four skeletons. The group retreat back to the entrance of the tunnel and wait. After a long wait, the 7 people with helmets appear moving slowly down the corridor. Goldborn tries to communicate, telling them to remove their helmets, but to no avail. But when Bill is brought to the front of the group, one of the helmeted men has a flash of recognition and removes his helmet. After some brief negotiating and reassurances, the seven men put down their weapons and exit the cave.

The group return to the cave where the robed man and skeletons remain to finish the job. Goldborn enters and holds a harpys egg (obtained in the previous session) above his head. He threatens to drop it. The robed man waves his staff and says ‘you will put the eggs on the alter and leave the island.’ The staff glows with a white light and Goldborn seems happy to obey the command. He starts to walk towards the alter. The rest of the group are scared to attack the robed man, not knowing his power. Even after the four skeletons disappear with a puff of smoke, they still do not want to attack. With a gust of wind, a faint sound rings through the cave, giving the impression of some words - ‘don’t be afraid… magic users must focus to recharge their spells…’. This gives the group the impetus to all attack together, before the robed man can react. Walt of course shoots his magic missile, Kai’s soldiers all shoot their crossbows and Jessie shoots some darts. Kai and Hank move in to attach in melee. All of these attacks are enough to take the robed man down who now lies unconscious on the ground. The group take away his staff, which allows Goldborn to rethink his actions and stop walking towards the alter. They also find and dagger with a black blade and twisted handle on the robed man.

The group then investigate the five doors. Behind four of them are simple dorm rooms with six beds and chests, the chests have simple items in like poor quality clothes, spare helmets and things to cook and eat with. In the fifth room (the middle door) is another simple bedroom, but with only one bed. Under the bed, Kai finds a hole. Moving the bed, they find that the hold leads to a small room. In the room they find four bottles with a blue liquid inside. There are also ten scrolls, which Walt is clearly very interested in and grabs before the others can take a look at them. In a chest, three green coloured gems and 250 gold pieces are found.

There is a staircase from this room leading down into darkness. Not content with their current haul and still yet to take a hit, they continue down the stairs. At the bottom of the long staircase they arrive at a cave like room with stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Moving into the room, a one foot long stalactite jumps from the ceiling towards Sir Goldborn. A return of this campaigns biggest nemesis. Goldborn ducks and dives performing an amazing dodge and just avoiding the attack. As everyone prepares to attack, a second stalactite, this one three feet tall, jumps down and narrowly misses Kai. Since Walt doesn’t have his magic missile and Jessie is scared, they retreat. Kai, who already has a fire lit in his hand, throws it at the monsters to no effect. The others all attack but don’t do enough damage to take either of the monsters down. The next round sees Hank downed by the larger monster, but in retaliation the others are able to take down this larger one. With the help of some summoned insects from Kai, that stop the smaller monster from attacking, the group are able to take down this smaller monster as well.

Satisfied and tired from the fight, the group return to the surface with the unconscious Hank, collect the loot as well as the robed mans body and exit the cave. They return to the ship, along with the fifteen other people found in the cave.

AD&D Session 20: The Deaf Cult

Preparing to return to Argento to further investigate the lighthouse, Kai, Archie and Ellea receive welcome news of more adventurers arriving to assist. The paladin Sir Goldborn has returned from his period of grieving after the death of his apprentice, Frieda. The villagers can tell that Goldborn is a man of unquestionable morals and welcome him into the village. The same cannot be said of Kleptos the thief, who is stopped by the guards at the gates. After some suspicion, Kleptos manages to convince the guards to let him in after mentioning that he knows Kai, who is now well known in the village. The guards escort Kleptos to the harbour where the find Kai who promises to take responsibility for Kleptos’ actions. Accompanying Kleptos are his mercenaries Shaggy and four crossbowmen.

The whole group now consists of Kai with his five mercenaries, Archie, Ellea, Sir Goldborn and Kleptos with his five mercenaries. This whole group travel to the island with the ship captain Russel. The journey goes without event and they arrive at the same beach and pontoon as last adventure. The Sheriff’s boat has disappeared and in its place is a small rowing boat. The group ask is Russel would like to join them, but he says his adventuring days are behind him and that he will wait with the boat off the coast. The group then starts up the path from the beach, through the forest towards the lighthouse.

At the end of the path the group begins to see the silver lighthouse through the trees and there are six people sitting outside it around a fire. All six are wearing some strange helmet which is particularly thick over the ears. So far the people seem to have not noticed the group. Goldborn tries to get their attention by shouting while Archie enters the forest to try to hide. The people don’t respond to Goldborn’s shouts and continue at their activities. The group notice a lack of talking from the people and they seem to be communicating using signs and gestures. Moving further up the path, one of the people eventually notices the group and waves his arms and points to get the attention of the others. They quickly grab their weapons (three spears, one sword and one stick set on fire) and stand in a defensive formation. However, this is no problem for our druid Kai in his natural habitat, who casts the spell entangle. Vines and roots shoot out of the forest towards the six people, grabbing five of them and holding them to the ground. The sixth is grabbed around the ankle, but manages to shake it off and stumbles towards the entrance to the lighthouse. However, both Archie and Shaggy react quickly, rushing towards the person and grappling him to the floor. All six now captured, the group tie them up and secure them to a near by tree. Meanwhile, Kleptos stealthily checks their pockets finding a few coins and trinkets. Realising that the helmets are stopping the people from hearing them, they remove one of the peoples helmets. On their face they notice some markings, possibly tattoos, similar to the cult symbols found last week. As soon as the helmet is removed, the man starts shouting and screaming. Goldborn tries to calm the person down but to no avail. During the screaming the only words the group can understand are ‘you will not hurt mother!’. Not wanting the draw any more attention, the helmet is put back on the person and he quiets down.

The group carries on, opening the door to the lighthouse. They arrive in a circular room with a central column rising the the ceiling. A staircase begins to the left of the room circling around the outside of the building towards the top of the tower. To the right there is a small separate room blocked by a door. On the floor is a wooden hatch. There is also a table with some papers with cult like symbols and writing. The small room is coated in dust and the group find and open a chest inside. In here are six small items in the shape of thimbles. The group are confused by these items and start experimenting. Kleptos sniffs them and identifies them as being made of beeswax. Archie cuts one of them open and finds that it is solid. Then Archie has the idea of putting them in his ears. Ellea likes this idea and quickly does it. Like an inverse clap, this world suddenly becomes completely silent for her. The sounds of the wind and sea against the cliffs disappear. She can see the others talking but hears nothing. They conclude that there are magical earplugs that block all sound. Goldborn, Archie and Kai take one pair each and put them in before climbing the stairs to the top of the lighthouse.

At the top of the stairs they arrive at a landing with the beacon, enclosed in a glass case, in the middle. A roof covers the landing and there is a large nest on the other side of the beacon. Goldborn, Archie, Kie and Ellea make it up to the roof with Kleptos, Shaggy and a mercenary still climbing the stairs. The glass case is locked with a padlock and the nest has three eggs inside. Goldborn approaches the nest and bends down to pick up one o the eggs. As he does so, another of the creatures with the body/wings of a vulture and head/torso of a woman jumps down from the roof onto the landing. The creature has a bolt sticking out of its shoulder with the wound seemingly a couple of weeks old and scabbed over. It seems quite angry, but as it opens its mouth a beautiful song appears which begins to enchant any that can hear. Of course Goldborn, Archie and Kai have their newly acquired earplugs in and so hear none of this and begin to attack. Goldborn begins by throwing the egg he has in his hand towards the floor of the landing before swinging with his sword. Archie also charges in with his sword, while Kai summons insects. Ellea attempts to case a phantasmal force, but with the creatures song going through her head she fines that she cannot concentrate enough on the spell to make it work. Involuntarily, her legs begin walking her forward towards where the creature stands.

Kleptos, still on the stairs behind Shaggy and the mercenary, sees the others lose focus and can just hear a few notes of the song in the air. Still unaffected by it, some quick thinking leads him to grab shaggy and the mercenary and pull them back down the stairs. After stumbling down a few steps, they are away from the sound of the song and Shaggy and the mercenary look a bit confused and dazed. Kleptos hatches a plan to return downstairs to the captured people and take one of their helmets to block the sound of the song. However, he doesn’t want the person to start screaming again, so he removes one of them from a tree and takes him to the forest. Slitting the persons throat, he takes the helmet and goes running back to the top of the lighthouse.

Meanwhile, on the lighthouse roof, the creature is distracted by its egg being thrown to the floor. It leaps to the side towards the egg, which fortuitously also leads it to avoid Goldborn’s swing of his sword, and grabs the egg before it hits the ground, all while continuing to sing - very impressive. It then follows this up with some less impressive scratches at Goldborn which bounce ineffectively off his armour.  Goldborn and Archie follow up with some more melee strikes which take the creature down before Kai’s insects can even arrive. Ellea snaps out of her trance and is confused how she walked from one side of the landing to the other. With the creature still breathing on the floor they put it out of its misery. At this moment, Kleptos comes running from the top of the stairs, dagger raised in the air and shouting, wearing one of the strange helmets. Seeing the dead creature on the floor, he stops and looks around at the others who are laughing at his late arrival. Archie investigates the nest further and finds some human remains and a badge of the crest of Porto Oro.

The group take the body of the harpy to the bottom of the lighthouse and present it to their captives. There is a range of reactions with some clearly distraught, others more quietly upset and two looking more relieved. However, Goldborn in particular is confused and worried about the disappearance of one of the captives. Kleptos suggests that Shaggy and one of his mercenaries might look for the escaped captive, and quietly instructs them to dispose of the body. Goldborn doesn’t question why Kleptos has one of the captives strange helmets.

The group open the hatch at in the floor of the lighthouse and find a ladder leading down to a small room. The room seems to be a kitchen and has a door on the south wall. They find some gold as well as two red potions (which, after tasting, they conclude are more healing potions). They also find the diary of the caretaker which talks about some strange scratching noises coming from the wall of his bedroom. Going through the door they find this bedroom which has a messy bed, a wardrobe and a big hole in the western side of the room where the wall has collapsed. Kai looks in the back of the wardrobe trying to find Narnia, but instead finds a trick panel which contains a stash of 200gp. After a brief discussion, in which Goldborn argues that this gold clearly belongs to the caretaker and so taking it would be stealing, they decide to take the gold but promise to give it back to the caretaker if they find him.

Looking through the collapsed wall, they see a cliff with a narrow walk way winding downwards towards the south. Following the path they reach a small cave like room. There is a bridge like passage leading further south with two crude wooden statues of a human like form with wings either side of the entrance to the bridge. In the corner of the small room there is a body. As they approach the body they see some things crawling over the body. They realise that they are giant centipedes eating the human remains. There are 11 centipedes in total, but they are quite focussed on their meal and don’t notice the adventurers. Ellea casts phantasmal force, producing an illusion of a fire engulfing the body and the centipedes. The centipedes are all completely fooled by the illusion and react as if it is a real fire, shrivelling up and dying. Approaching the human body, there is not much left to see, but they do find a set of keys. Continuing over the bridge they arrive to another cave like room, but this one larger. The room is well lit and there are quite a few people walking about, doing tasks, each of them wearing one of the strange helmets. There are a number of different doors and exits from the room. Still unnoticed, the group decides they are too fatigued and few in number to confront this room and so retreat.

On the way out the group returns to the top of the lighthouse, using the key to open the class case and relight the beacon. They also collect their five prisoners, as well as the body of the harpy and return to the beach. After hailing Russel, they get back on the boat and head to Porto Oro.

AD&D Session 19: Chekhov's Harpoon Gun

The session begins in the evening in Borgogazze where two new and enthusiastic adventurers - Archie the archer fighter and Ellea the illusionist - have met our favourite druid Kai in a tavern (who still has his five mercenary crossbowmen in tow). After bonding over some drinks they agree to adventure together. There is also a group of sailors in the tavern and looking to make more new friends Archie buys them a round of drinks. The sailors are of course very grateful and invite the adventurers to sit with them. After some small talk, the sailors reveal that they were meant to be sailing over night, but there is news that Argento Lighthouse is not working making it too dangerous to sail at night. After finding out that the lighthouse is close to Porto Oro - a village a bit further east than Trillo - and resting over night, the adventurers set out in the morning to investigate this problem with the lighthouse.

An uneventful hike along the coast gets the adventurers to Porto Oro, where they are greeted by two guards at the gates of the village who ask what business they have in Porto Oro. After some initial attempts at deception, the adventurers reveal that they are there to help with the lighthouse problem, which the guards are happy to hear. They then lead the adventurers through the village to talk to the Mayor Andrea. While walking through the village they notice that it is a very wealthy place with clean streets, fancy buildings and well dressed people who look at the scruffy adventurers with suspicion. The main street through the village is lined with expensive shops and leads down to a small harbour with luxury recreational boats, bars and restaurants. A big building overlooking the harbour is the office and residence of the Mayor.

The Mayor Andrea is very happy that her advertising campaign to find adventurers for the lighthouse problem has been successful and explains the situation. The lighthouse is two hours sail out to see from Porto Oro and it is the responsibility of Porto Oro to maintain it. It is very important for trade routes in the area since it helps lead boats through a sequence of islands at night. A week ago the beam suddenly went out. After there was no word from the lighthouse caretaker, Andrea sent the village Sheriff to investigate. After waiting a few days with the lighthouse still extinguished and the Sheriff yet to return, Andrea sought additional help, hence the advertising campaign for adventurers. She says that she can give an 80gp reward (for the whole group) for relighting the lighthouse and an additional 20gp for information about the Sheriff and caretaker. After agreeing to help, Andrea gives the adventurers a note to give to the village Captain Russel, who can take them to the island.

The adventurers find Russel right at the end of the harbour around a corner where the luxury vessels make way for a few small fishing boats and one more militaristic ship with a small sail and harpoon gun at the front which is protected by a metallic shield. Russel is on board this ship. After showing him the note from Andrea, he agrees that he will take them to the island and they agree that they will leave the next morning. Russel is a weathered old sailor who looks just as out of place in Porto Oro as the adventurers. He tells them not to expect to be welcomed in the village and invites them to spend the night on the boat where they don’t need to put up with judging eyes. The adventurers agree, but not before taking a small walk through the village. The shops all seem to pricey for them, and anyway don’t stock any items suitable for an adventurer. Archie is interested in the hot spring bath house that is famous in the village, but he is not welcomed when he arrives. The receptionist looks at him with a hint of disgust and asks what he wants. Archie asks how much it is to use the baths. The receptionist asks how much he has. Archie says 20gp. The receptionist says it costs 40gp (and anyway, the baths are for members only). Discouraged and disgruntled, Archie and the others return to the ship.

The next morning the group is ready to set sail. Kai predicts that the weather will be good and they begin their journey towards the island. Russel is capable of piloting the ship himself, leaving the adventurers to watch the waves and horizon. After an hour or so of sailing, Russel points out a small dot in the distance that he says is Argento island (where the lighthouse is). Looking towards the island, the adventurers eventually see two smaller dots in the sky that are slowly getting bigger. Eventually they see that they are two creatures flying towards them and the group prepares for an attack. The creatures have the body and wings of a vulture but heads and upper torsos of women. After a brief discussion about whether these creatures might be friendly, the group decides they are probably not and to attack as soon as they are in range. Ellea mans the harpoon gun while Archie and the crossbowmen open fire and Kai produces a flame that he intends to throw at the creatures. A few of the arrows land hits, Kai luckily avoids causing a fire on the ship and Ellea hits one of the creatures square in the chest with the harpoon bolt. The creature falls into the sea. The bolt is attached to a rope, which is attached to the ship. They see the rope moving through the water until it is eventually dragging behind the ship. Russel shouts to Ellea that there are more bolts in a hatch next to the gun (these ones not attached to a rope) and she reloads. Another round of ranged attacks fails to take down the second creature and it arrives at the ship. Seemingly enraged at the gun for hitting its companion, it attacks the harpoon shield, scraping its claws down the metal. The group closes in for melee combat and after a few rounds of attacks with the creature still focussed on the gun, they take it down, falling into the waves. They then winch in the harpoon rope, which is still dragging behind the ship, which reveals the creature still with the bolt through its chest and spluttering blood from its mouth. Archie puts the creature out of its misery leaving the corpse attached to the front of the ship as a morbid figurehead.

The group arrives at the island where they find a small beach to the west of the island with a pontoon. The north coast of the island has tall, sheer cliffs and the south coast is full of large rocks and boulders that the sea crashes against. The rest of the small island is filled with trees on a steep hill leading up to the lighthouse at the top of the hill on the north east side of the island. The lighthouse is painted silver with gold detailing and they see that there is no light coming from the top of it. A path leads from the beach through the trees in the direction of the lighthouse. At the pontoon there is another small boat with the crest of Porto Oro on the side. Russel can tell the group that this is the Sheriff’s boat. The boat also has a harpoon gun which is covered in claw marks. The boat seems empty and has a small cabin with a locked door. The group smash the window of the cabin and gain entry. In the cabin they find a red potion (which Archie later tastes to discover that it is a healing potion), some maps of the area and a diary. The most recent entry of the diary talks of an encounter with a creature (similar to those the group encountered) which was fended off but returned injured to the island, as well as arriving to the island but being too afraid to continue up to the lighthouse. Below the entry were some strange symbols that the group didn’t recognise. Feeling similarly afraid, the group decides to return to Porto Oro and bring all this information back to Andrea. The sail back goes without incident.

The group arrives back in Porto Oro with the dead creature still attached to the front of the ship. This shocks the village people who are not used to such monstrosities, but it also seems that some are impressed or in awe of the adventurers bravery. The adventurers report back to Andrea and she agrees that backup is needed and increases the reward to 100gp (relighting) + 20gp (information about Sheriff and caretaker) per adventurer in order to attract more people. In the following week, Kai takes the strange symbols to Xenia the translator. She says she vaguely recognises them as a very crude language (they used it as practise during her training as a translator) of a cult that was in the area about twenty years ago. She doesn’t know much more about the cult other than this. Meanwhile, Archie tries to gain entry to the bath house again, this time being more welcomed due to his increased celebrity in the village. They give him a free one week membership to the baths, as long as he agrees to take a long shower before using them. The warm waters make him feel revitalised, temporarily giving him an additional 2hp. Ellea instead likes the idea of working in a bar by the harbour. She asks a few places, but it seems all the bars are well staffed and aren’t interested in someone with no experience. After all this rejection, Ellea is surprised that the last bar she goes to at the end of the harbour is interested in her services. However, as she begins work she is surprised to not have to do much, or even any, actual bar work, and instead spends the evenings with locals asking about her stories as an adventurer (being completely ignorant of adventuring, the villagers don’t realise that Ellea is only level 1 and most of her stories are made up). From a small wage and tips, Ellea receives 1gp per day for her work.

AD&D Session 17: Dealing with the Gnomes

This session our heroes decided that they didn't like the Gnomes to the north and that they would very much like their treasure. Since Sir Goldborn's player couldn't make it, they didn't have anyone stopping them from exercising some gray morality. In the party were Kai the Druid, Soldier Number One, and Kleptos the thief plus his bodyguard. In Borgogazze, the party again hanged around the barracks borough to search for some hirelings. They manage to find a sizable company of crossbowmen and hire a few of them to their service.

The party now make their way through mostly hilly terrain and come at the ruined village where the entrance to the Gnomes' lair was. They warily make camp and wait for the next day to come. This time there are no monsters in the night.

Next morning, the party goes into the dungeon. They move quickly toward the room where they remember the shrieking giant mushrooms being, being careful to hold their light back as much as possible.

As many ranged fighters as possible are let into the room and take position in the dark. Then a light is lit, a Faerie Fire goes off from Kai, and the silouettes of four giant mushrooms come into view! The mushrooms start shrieking! Everyone starts firing! While this happens, the thief checks the exits of the room to make sure no-one is coming, eventually hearing steps coming from the north. He alerts the party, who are just finishing off the last giant mushroom with missiles.

Tipped off about the enemies coming from the north, the party position themselves into the corridor and prepare for a fight there. They get charged by 8 angry Gnomes! A melee ensues. The party employ rank-based hit and retreat tactics: when the fighters in the front take damage, they get swapped with fresh characters.

An Insect Swarm spell goes off, which is relatively ineffective. But Gnomes are dropping left and right, with no casualties for our heros. The Gnomes make their first morale check at 75% strength, morale is good. The fight goes on and a second morale check is triggered. At this point, the Gnomes completely surrender.

The druid can speak Gnomish, so he mediates. He gets the Gnomes to hand over all their treasure: 100 p.p. and 750 e.p. Also they are questioned about who else is inhabiting this dungeon and how big the Gnome colony is. The Gnomes answer that there are some marauding Orcs this dungeon level. The Gnomes are just the vanguard of a much larger Gnome community of about 250-300 individuals (DM filling in here... I didn't have a cogent answer at the time of the session) spread throughout the lower levels of the dungeon. The Gnomes are primarily fungi-cultivators.

The party decides to not harass the Gnomes further and goes home with their treasure.

AD&D Session 16: The Tomb of the Serpent God

This session, Soldier Number One, Kai the Druid, Sir Goldborn and Kleptos the Thief enter the hidden Tomb with Trapunctus the NPC Thief showing the way to the group. They are accompanied by Soldier #2, Shaggy (Kleptos' bodyguard), Neckless and Happy Bob (two henchmen from the previous session), and the promising Fighter Frieda.

Near the entrance, there are alcoves where lesser functionaries of the snake men are buried. The party uncovers clay statues inside wooden coffins. One wizard-looking fellow  is wearing a ring on his hand. Someone yanks the ring off and the whole finger goes off, revealing that the statue was hollow but filled with some kind of poison gas. Saves vs. Poison are made, and the party continues, ignoring the other clay statues.

They come across a door barred by a heavy stone resting on a pair of iron pegs. As they lift the stone, I describe that the pegs are slowly going upwards in the direction of the top of the door. Since I get no response, a deadly trap is triggered. A giant stone hammer swings down from the ceiling and many characters must make saving throws. All our PCs survive but many NPCs die right there: Soldier #2, Neckless, Happy Bob, and Frieda. The party mourns them shortly and delves on.

Having understood the mechanism of the trap, they can now pass through the door without further danger. They come to what seems like the main tomb, finding caskets belonging to some serpent king and a giant statue of a serpent god to the south. The caskets turn out to contain skeletons, which the party fights. At some point they use a technique of only opening a casket a little and bashing whatever skeleton is in the inside in this way. This is highly effective.

The party discovers a passage under the statue of the serpent god. They go down it and along a short corridor. They come into an octagonal room with several exits, one for each wall. They explore a bit the variously-styled burial sites. One of them has a pressure plate which the thief detects (failed Search for Traps roll but since the thief was looking I reveal the irregularity without saying what it does). One is empty apart from scrolls with strange writings on the floor, one contains 18 menacing clay statues of snake warriors.

The party now searches a bit the shallow pit of black water in the center of the room and gets attacked by two mummy hands. They deal with them with not much issue, and then fish out whatever was in the pool. Some miscellaneous items of treasure, a black cloak, and another ring.

The party goes on and down some stairs. They activate a trap which makes the stairs transform into a ramp and they slide down. They come into a large room where an angry Stone Snake Guardian with four arms awakens and attacks them. Trapunctus the guide is KO'd (and maybe someone else too) but then the stairs go normal again and the party hurries up back again, tying their downed teammates with some ropes and hauling them up. They barely make it up since the monster is too large to fit in the stairway passage.

The party decides that they have taken enough of a beating and head back to town. Trapunctus is unconscious and needs to convalesce. The party decides to leave one of the rings by him and quietly leave the town, hoping that that would be enough for his share. Otherwise there's some treasure to identify: a ring, the black cloak, and the weird scrolls. For the first two, Kai and Sir Goldborn use the favour that the mage Waltalf in Borgogazze owes them and have them identified. The ring is a cursed ring of Poisoned Fingernail and the cloak, a Cloak of Flying which is potentially worth a lot IF the party finds the command word to activate it.

The rest of the treasures are brought to the Museum Custodian in Borgogazze. The scrolls seem to be the ravings of madmen in an ancient language. The demon "Baltoplat" is named multiple times. They are not magical but have historical value. The rest of the treasure gets sold to the Museum for a respectable sum and the gratitude of the Custodian.

AD&D Session 15: Preparations for a Delve

Today, Soldier Number One, Kai the Druid with his hireling Soldier #2, Sir Goldborn, and a new adventurer, Kleptos the Thief, meet in one of the many Inns of Borgogazze. Kleptos introduces himself as a new adventurer to the group and is deemed trustworthy to join it. Our heroes decide to see Master Senju, Sir's trainer Paladin, to have him help them decide what to do.

Some obligatory tavern shenanigans have to occur first. The players ask me who's there, and I roll on the City Encounters table to determine it. A woman dressed in expensive clothes (let's call her Roxy) is having her morning coffee. Kleptos approaches her and tries to pick her pockets. He is noticed and Roxy cries alarm. Sir Goldborn intervenes and drags the thief away and everyone flees from the Inn.

Our heros enter the military quarter with the Pentagonal Fortress in it to look for mercenaries. They find 8 Hobilars which they hire. Then they hike to Senju's temple/palace whose imposing cold and austere beauty is described by the DM to the best of his limited ability. Senju introduces the group to Frieda, a Valkyrie-like initiate of his order who has completed her basic training and is ready to strike out into adventure. She has a strong personality, demands a whole share, and doubtlessly has a shining adventuring future ahead of her.

The group spends the night at the palace without incidents. In the morning, Senju reports of an evil ancient tomb some miles to the north that needs eradicating. The party now travels north and explores the territory mile by mile like Gary intended. They find a forested area, a marshy area and some scrubland. In the scrubs is the village of Scrubton and the marshy area is actually a flood plains with a river going into it, where the town of Floodton thrives.

On the north of Scrubton is an eerie magical desert: the air seem humid enough for plant life, but the area is devoid of vegetation, featuring only bare rocks. The villagers of Scrubton believe that this is due to the presence the evil tomb, now further identified as the tomb of the serpent god Rhyno.

Almost everyone is too scared to go there. But a thief named Trapunctus approaches Kleptos and reveals that he knows the location of the tomb. He will share it for a hefty share of the treasure (30% of the total). He explains that the tomb likely contains many valuable artifacts that either the Museum of Ancient History in Borgogazze or one the many illicit art collectors of the criminal underworld would like to have.

The party reluctantly goes along with the deal. Trapunctus will help discover traps etc. At this point, we decide that we'll play out the dungeon delve in the next session.

As for general campaign news, rumours are going around that a Druid is restoring one of the abandoned fortresses in the region.

AD&D Session 14: Reclaiming the Abandoned Fortress

Today, Sir Goldborn the Paladin, Kai the Druid, and Green Gary the Druid set out to explore the seemingly abandoned fortress north of Ristoro A, among the wooded hills. They persuaded the magician Walt (NPC) to come along, together with a handful of men-at-arms.

They found the castle deserted, but occupied by a great quantity of giant rats, which they cleared out piece by piece. The castle interior is composed by several small and large buildings, with a central Keep. Many "open doors" checks were made since the doors were ruined and hard to open.

The first group of buildings are dwelling- or house-like small buildings with nothing of note inside. A family of giant rats was found in one of these, but the party opted to close the door and continue.

Next they go to the Keep, with a large ruined ground floor, a cellar, and a central tower. They climb the tower and arrive at a room just before the roof. Giant rats are living here and the die indicates that the rats are surprised. The party finds a number of them having a bath in a large bathtub while others are brushing them vigorously with giant brushes. Someone notices something glinting/glimmering at the feet of the bathtub, so this person (don't remember who) runs forward to grab the shiny thing. The rats are not amused and begin to give chase. Walt the Magic-Missile-User Uses Magic Missile, killing one of the rats and scaring them off. This session I was running Walt as an independent agent, using a d6 from time to time to decide what he should to, and this is why he fired off the spell. Anyway, the shiny thing is safely retrieved and the party quickly take a look at the roof before descending back down to the cellar.

I didn't have this room prepared, so I generated it using Appendix A. A monster is indicated, which is... roll roll... giant rats! They are easily dealt with by the party, who now opts for a more eliminatory approach. There are no exits here, but the room contains barrels of wine which has gone bad and an iron trunk with 750 e.p. and... a magic scroll! Walt eyes the magic scroll eagerly.

The party exits the cellar and explores the rest of the castle: the remaing large buildings were once probably an armory, a church/chapel, and a tavern. They find 22 rats in the tavern and one who is probably their leader wearing a silver chain with a yellow-green gemstone identical to the one the party found in the Keep.

Instead of fighting these critters head on, Sir Goldborn asks the Druids for torches and tries to set fire to the old tavern by throwing oil flasks through the windows and following up with thrown lit torches. I use the rules for thrown missiles, oil flasks, oil puddles, fire, and item saving throws to the best of my ability to determine whether he succeeds. He succeeds. The rats begin swarming out of the place and are promptly caught in the overgrown weeds, which have animated thanks to the druids' Entagle spells. Their leader is also entangled, so one of the druids carefully removes the necklace. Then Sir Goldborn goes and takes out all the rats anyway, while the Druids look on in horror (they're supposed to care about animal welfare – this will incur a grading penalty).

The party finally retreats and goes to Borgogazze to tally up the treasure. They make plans to continue clearing out the castle and cleaning it up in order to eventually establish their base there. I tell them that if they want to do this in downtime, they should send me written orders as this could take some back-and-forth to resolve. Otherwise it is possible to do this in-session, of course.

The gemstones were two Chrysoberyls worth 130 g.p. each. The initial agreement with Walt on division of treasure didn't consider what to do with magic items. Walt argues that he should be able to give up his share of monetary treasure to have just the scroll. This doesn't sound fair to our heroes, as a magic scroll is potentially much more valuable than whatever treasure they found. So we agree to roll a d6, on a 1-3 the scroll will be sold and the money split. On a 4-6 the scroll will go to Walt and he will put in a good word for the party with his wizard trainer, Waltalf the Mage of Borgogazze. The die comes up a 4-6, so Walt really is unwilling to part with the scroll, as befits a Magic-User, and the second solution is adopted.

AD&D Session 13: Orc Removal

This session, Soldier Number One, Kai the Druid, and the hireling Soldier #2 woke up and chose violence. They made a quick plan to finish off the orcs in the cave system under Ashes Island. They met in the inn for breakfast, where they asked me to roll and see who was there. I rolled the adventuring party that was previously met by Sir Goldborn the Paladin. Since Sir healed them basically for free and they had enough time to recover, I rolled a reaction check for whether they would join the party on their mission. They do!

The spearheads of the party are Kurt the Fighter and Walt the Magic-Missile-User. They command 7 hirelings between spearmen and crossbowmen. Everyone takes the boat to the island, paying Frank 5 sp per person for the service. They arrive at the entrance of the cave and go in without looking much around.

The next 3-4 hours are a blur. The party just marches through the dungeon, murdering everything in sight. They pass the now empty entrance chamber and go straight to where they know the Orcs reside. Meeting their enemy, they charge! But the 16 Orcs set their spears against the charge, so this could hurt. Kurt the fighter impales himself on an enemy spear and perishes immediately. Since he was the leader, I check morale for the 7 hirelings. Thanks to high Charisma, Walt was able to hold the troops together and seamlessly takes the leadership.

(I realize just now that as a Magic-User he couldn't command >5 men... oh well, let's say that one of our fighters temporarily served as a Sergeant for Walt).

The fight turns around quickly. The Orcs suffer casualties and must make their first Morale check. Kai helps out with Faerie Fire and Insect Swarm to summon a group of biting ants. The Orcs' Morale breaks and they flee in panic! The party pursues the Orcs deeper into the dungeon, across a garbage-filled room with giant rats. But in the end, the free attacks are brutal and the Orcs are forced to turn around and make a last stand. They are all eliminated with no further losses from our party.

Unfortunately, after the last adventure the Orcs had no treasure left, so our party marches on. They enter an open area, a big cave with a deep chasm dotted by giant stone pillars connected by wooden bridges. Here, they continue their rampage by murdering a party of six Hobgoblins that was resting on top of one of the pillars. They loot treasure of 1000 sp and 250 gp. Not really satisfied but mindful of real-life time, they turn around to go toward the exit, when they encounter a small number of wandering Skeletons. I'll let you guess what happened next.

Eventually, they make it to the exit, and everyone minus Kurt make it back to the village of Trilo. Remarkably, the in-game time spent in the dungeon, 21 turns so 3h30, matched precisely the time it took in real life.

For downtime actions, SNO tried to hire soldiers but enough time passed before we got to our next session that his funds were gone in upkeep costs. Kai tried to persuade Walt and his men to join him on whatever the next adventure was going to be, and he succeeded at that (normal reaction roll for Walt, straight no-modifier reaction roll for each one of the men-at-arms).

AD&D Session 12: Return to Ashes Island

This session, Soldier Number One is back from training and is joined by Johnny the Ranger, Temaukel the Illusionist, and a new adventurer, Buffy the vampire slayer Half-Elven Cleric.

The party decides to sail to Ashes Island in the hopes to find some treasure or answers. SNO and Johnny pitch in together to hire a mercenary, MarTony the longbowman.

They set out for the island on Frank's boat and go immediately inside the dungeon upon arriving there. It is March 1 and upkeep costs are paid.

They hear woodworking sounds inside the dungeon and cautiously approach. Buffy uses her infravision to make out 12-13 small humanoid figures. They see her as well (no surprise) and begin questioning her in several monster languages. Both parties now discover that they speak Goblin, and parlaying begins.

These are Kobolds that are employed by the Orcs that live further into the dungeon. They are tasked with making boats and sailing equipment. The party negotiates passage and promises the Kobolds that they'll kill the Orcs and share some of the loot. The Kobolds seem alright with the plan.

The party explores the dungeon further in the direction indicated by the Kobolds, passing over a bridge that hugs the wall of a deep chasm in the cave. They eventually find the orcs in their quarters. Only half of the Orcs are there, the other half being outside doing... something.

Battle starts. Buffy and Temaukel both attempt spells, an area-of-effect Curse spell for Buffy and a close-up Color Spray spell by Temaukel. We discuss area of effect, spell ranges and segments. Result: Buffy can safely cast the spell by aiming it at the furthest wall of the 30'x30' room; Temaukel will get his spell off if the very near Orcs that are charging the party at this moment don't get to him first. Luckily Johnny protects Temaukel while he's casting (the Orcs randomly target him) so the Color Spray goes off. Two of eight Orcs are downed, and the Orcs fail a morale check and surrender. A very short battle with no one injured!

The Orcs surrender their treasure (not without trying to give them less than they really have first...) and the party retreats, giving the Kobolds some of the coins on their way back.

Now Johnny suspects that the orcs are up to no good, and that they're preparing to invade Trilo by boat. He makes his case to Giorno the Liutenant of Trilo, who is not quite convinced. Giorno requires some proof of the Orcs' intention! So the party decides on a rescue/kidnapping mission to bring back some of the Kobolds to testify.

They go back to the island and actually convince all of the Kobolds to go along with them, by promising large sums of gold and the opportunity for the Kobolds to have their own cave/place to live in Trilo's vicinity. The 13 Kobolds accept and travel back with the party to Trilo (the party has to wait for the sun to set – the dice give no random encounters).

The Kobolds find temporary housing in Giorno's actual dungeon. They testify that the Orcs just intended to explore the Blue Mountain that appeared next to Ashes Island about a month ago. Seeing that they seem not to be preparing to attack, Giorno refuses to send men to deal with the orcs, to the disappointment of some of the adventurers.

The total haul this session was 230 gold pieces. Soldier Number One will search a suitable cave for the Kobolds around Trilo. Johnny will "try to convince some Scuba Divers" to explore the submerged base of the Blue Mountain. Buffy will look for vampires and paint her wooden stakes using her limner profession. Temaukel will look for mercenary soldiers.

AD&D Session 11: The Counterkidnapping

 We open the session by resolving Sir Goldborn's Mud Fight to Freedom. We use the Non-Lethal and Weaponless Combat system, which gives options to pummel, grapple, and overbear. This will be a Grappling contest in the mud pit at the Witches' Sorority, where Sir Goldborn is put up against a mason from Borgogazze. Apart from the two, the other captives are Temaukel, Pocco, and a fisher from Trilo. Sir puts his opponent in an hand lock, and the mason frees himself and bear-hugs Sir. Sir answers by freeing himself and putting the mason in a stranglehold, at which point the mason taps out. Sir Goldborn wins and is released!

At the same time, Green Gary uses his previously-memorized Entangle spell to escape, waiting for a moment where a witch freed him from his magic bond to allow him to do something, at which point Gary Entangles her with the strange roots and herbs that are lying around and flees the scene. He and Sir make their way back to Trilo.

On the way, they encounter a previously-unseeen settlement: a Hobbit/Halfling village in the soft rolling hills. It's called Hobbiton. The Hobbit leader speaks the human language and talks to Sir. But Sir and Gary don't make a good impression as they are muddy from the swamp and also, not Hobbits. So they don't get let in and must go on.

There are no other encounters and Sir and Gary arrive in Trilo, where they rest a few days. Then, it is today (Feb 23). Sir meets with Zelda and Kai the druid in the inn. Zelda was able to recruit three mercenary light footwomen (Sheeana, Steffanie, and Sandy) and equips them with basic equipment. They make a plan to kidnap one of the witches and use that as a bargaining chip to release their friends.

The party makes their way to the swamp bringing Sir's Light Horse, stopping by Hobbitville. The hobbits still don't let them in. The party continues and arrives at the swamp in the evening. They traverse the muddy waters and pull themselves up the wooden platform. Sheeana knocks on the door while the rest of the party hides, attached to the wall of the hut. A witch, Milnara, opens the door immediately likes Sheeana, who makes up an excuse for the witch to step out of the hut for a moment.

As soon as she does so, the entire party descends upon the witch. We use the Non-Lethal and Weaponless Combat system to adjudicate what happens. The party got surprise (1-3 on a d6 due to circumstances), but what should this mean with the Non-Lethal system? I rule that this means that the various attemps to grapple and overbear are unopposed, i.e. there are no negative modifiers due to opponent Strength or Dexterity. This makes the fistfight easy to win. One of Zelda's soldiers overbears the witch and knocks her prone. Sir Goldborn grapples the witch and puts her in a headlock. Zelda quickly ties her down with the 5 ropes that Kai brought. They also gag her for good measure, load her on the horse, and get on the way back.

The way back is difficult since it's soon almost dark. The party takes a rest in the nearby forested hills and prepares to spend the night there, rather than forcing another 10 hr march through the night. In they night, they have a friendly encounter with Maraké's Tribesmen. He is there with them, and helps translate. The tribe and the party agree to fight the Orcs in the West together when the time comes.

The second nightly encounter (d12, 1 = normal encounter, 12 = the witches find the party) is not so friendly. The party fight against 9 hungry giant ticks. They suffer severe damage since the ticks are so hard to hit. Several of them attach themselves to the party members and to the witch who was tied to a tree. It's highly unpleasant and may bring disease. But the party is numerous enough to destroy the ones that are still flying and I rule that since the ticks are immobile while attached, whoever spends a round trying to remove them can just kill them.

There are no other encounters in the night or on the way back, and the party hastens back to Trilo. They bring the witch to Giorno, who holds her in his jail and sends a Message Magpie to the swamp to arrange a prisoners exchange with the witches. The exchange should take place in a few days in the neutral grounds of Hobbitville, and the witches should bring a ransom, Giorno taking 10% of it for his heroic deeds.

But the situation for our party is dire. The ticks have a high chance of transmitting a fatal disease, which two party members actually catch. We also rolled a lot of times for diseases/parasites due to crossing the swamp several times. The latter rolls bring no diseases. Sir Goldborn uses his Cure Disease ability to cure Steffanie. But since it won't be available again until next week, Zelda takes the other sick light footwoman and Sir's horse and speeds to Borgogazze to find a clerical healer. The fee is exhorbitant but Zelda takes a loan from a moneylender and gets the cleric to Cure Disease. Crisis averted! They go back to Trilo.

Some days after that, the prisoners exchange actually takes place in Hobbitville. Giorno and his army keep in check the witches with their spells, and the exchange takes place peacefully. Pocco, Temaukel, Soldier #2, and the other two guys are free! The Boy Abduction Department gives up their magic item as ransom, some strange dust that reveals invisible things. It gets immediately sold for 4000 GP and split up (minus 10%) three ways. Now Zelda, Goldborn, and Kai can level up! They will go train to do so.

The events of this session covered 5 days from Feb 23 to Feb 27. Our three adventurers will travel to Borgogazze and begin training on Feb 29. Everyone will have to do extra service time with their trainers to cover for the whole of the training costs. Zelda will be occupied for 13 days (2 days hp recovery, 1 week training, 4 days service). Sir Goldborn will be occupied for 31 days (14 days service and the rest training). Kai will be occupied for 10 days (3 days service).

Downtime Results

Soldier Number One has finished his training in B'Gazze with his old commander. He used the occasion to taste-test the three potions he had gained. 

AD&D Session 10: The Witches' Sorority

We started the session by dividing up the treasure from last time. The treasure haul from the teleportation magical college adventure was 5 rings, 5 potions, and a metric ton of gold. To split it up, we implemented a share system: everyone got 3363 shares in the treasure. One share could be spent to buy one gold piece from the treasure. A ring was worth 3000, a potion 400 shares.

Since Oscar the Thief was not here at the table, we stipulated that she opted for the most advantageous piece of the cake: 363 G.P. and one ring. Rings are possibly magical, but must be identified if their true value is to be found. Unidentified magical rings will sell as the least valuable ring in the DMG.

With the XP from their treasure, Kai the Druid and Soldier Number One the Fighter went training on Feb. 3. Costs are as follows.

Kai: 14 days, 3000 GP

SNO: 12 days, 2570 GP

If funds are insufficient, characters can "buy" 215 GP worth of training costs for one extra day of service with their master. This can be stacked as needed. Characters doing this are required however to spend all the gold they can, they cannot "save" more than 215 gold for extra days of service. Service will also sometimes result in mishaps, accidents, or opportunities.

We had quite a bit of downtime from last time. There is now a whole mountain in the sea right next to Ashes Island! Here are some more of the most salient results.

Zelda went exploring the surroundings of Trilo. She discovered a mountain pass, a small walled keep in the forested hills, and a ghastly Swamp with a lone hut on a wooden plank, right in the middle of it.

Sir Goldborn offered his healing services to an adventurer party returning from Ashes Island. The party is now resting in Trilo.

Oscar finished her training. She gained knowledge of a heistable building in B'Gazze: the warehouse of Joe the powerful trader.

Maraké found 4 survivors at the ruined site of his tribal village. He decided to stay there and rebuild the village.

Finally, we come to today's cast: S. Goldborn, Zelda, Green Gary the Druid, Temalkel the freshly Lv. 2 Illusionist along with his assistant Soldier #2, and Pocco the Magic-User. During breakfast at the Inn, they interacted with the aforementioned adventuring party as well as with Giorno's armorer Boudicca, but nothing much came of it. Then, they decide to check out the hut at the swamp, convinced that it's going to be a Witch hut. It is February 14.

Travel to the swamp takes most of the day and goes without incidents. They arrive about 2 hours before sunset, and decide to cross the swamp. While Sir Goldborn mounts his freshly acquired Light Horse, everyone else has to wade through the shallow muddy waters. Disease checks will be made! Finally, they climb the wooden platform and knock on the door. A young witch named Melissa opens the door, and after some squabbling invites them in.

This is the Witches' Sorority House. It's bigger on the inside. The adventurers come into a large dining hall where 11 other young witches much like Melissa are sitting in small groups, drinking cocktails. The adventurers are invited to take a shower and join them for drinks and dinner. Temalkel and his soldier are very skeptical, refusing even the shower. Sir Goldborn (who Detected a lot of Evil in this room...) and Green Gary are more cautios, quizzing the witches for information throughout the evening. Zelda and Pocco seem a bit more trusting and socialize with the witches. The characters learn of the six main extracurricular activities organized by the sorority: the witches' ball, a makeup course, animal training activities, pest control, the B.A.D., and mud wrestling competition organizing.

Pocco makes cocktails for everyone in order to avoid drinking weird witch drinks. He then inquires about the animal training activities. He cannot become an animal trainer with the witches, but they offer him a special item if he gives up his Manticore egg from 6 sessions ago. He accepts and gets a special ornated Mace. Also a jar of Giant Spider Silk since he asked for it. He then asks for the ring he got from last session to be identified. The witches challenge him to a game of Craps: if he wins someone will identify his ring. If he loses, he'll have to stay with the witches for one week as their Resident Wizard Boy. He wins! It is a Ring of Free Action. He then flirts with the witch Melisasha for good measure.

Zelda inquires about the makeup course. The witches are happy to offer her a demonstration. The makeup is based on mud. But wait, it's magical mud! It effervescently vanishes from the skin, leaving it rejuvenated. Zelda is interested in gaining magical capabilities, and the witches teach her how to use the mud and give her a jar of magical mud.

The witches seem to be quite the gift-giving sort! But wait, all items are only granted on exit from the hut. Similarly, the larger weapons like Sir's halberd had to be deposited at the weapons rack by the door.

Green Gary just enjoys the company. His dog whose name I forget sniffs around to detect suspicious smells, but there are so many new and strange smells that he doesn't know what to make of any of it.

Sir Goldborn and Temalkel have a slightly more adversarial plan in mind. They go to the kitchen and Sir starts to talk to the cook Melisandra, who is working a large cauldron. He tries to extract information and/or trick Melisandra into visiting the Blue Mountain by Trilo. Then the plan takes place: Temalkel casts Hypnosis! The witch is distracted by Sir so couldn't react to the casting, but for the spell itself, she makes her saving throw. Temalkel formulates his Suggestion: that Melisandra's friends are secretly against her so she should put something in the soup that causes high stomach pain! Unfortunatly, the saving throw means that Melisandra sees through it. She puts Temalkel to sleep with a witchy spell, and tells his soldier to bring him to the guest rooms to rest. Sir instead orders the soldier to bring Temalkel outside. They make it outside, but only talking their way out of the door.

At this point, dinner is served. Nobody is poisoned, it's just a pleasant soup. But then our heroes are offered to stay the night. Zelda has a bad feeling, thinks it would be better to book it. But group consensus seems to be that the party should stay the night. Even Temalkel comes back inside and joins the party to the guest rooms.

In the morning, Zelda and Pocco wake up and goes to the breakfast table. A witch informs them that their companions are now being held by the sisters at the B.A.D., the Boy Abduction Department. Pocco (who actually spent the night with Melisasha) was able to avoid this because he made his saving throw. The others are held by invisible magical chains and are required to do various tasks like cleaning, housekeeping, and participating in Mud Wrestling contests. Romantic entanglements, although encouraged, are strictly voluntary, unlike cleaning and so on.

Zelda is mildly horrified by this and resolves to go back to Trilo and gather a force of female warriors to liberate her friends! She is let go freely by the witches, gathers her jar of mud and receives Pocco's ring from him. She makes it back to Trilo on Sir Goldborn's horse.

Pocco decides to stay with the witches after all, as the Resident Wizard. He doesn't think the witches harmful, and hopes to get some advantage from associating with them. He did give his ring to Zelda in case the witches do something horrible to him.

We now come to everyone elses's plan to break free. Sir Goldborn's plan is Mud Wrestle to Freedom. He also wants to get to know the two other captives of the B.A.D. Temalkel wants to bribe his way to freedom. Unfortunately he can only offer wealth that he doesn't yet have (5000 GP), but he does so anyway. Green Gary has still his Entangle spell memorized, he will try to use it in an opportune moment to break free. Soldies #2 doesn't have a plan because he's an NPC.

And that was all! I'll post the results of the downtime orders here below when I've evaluated them. Thanks to the players for an exciting social adventure!

Downtime Results

Zelda finds 10 light footwomen who would be interested in being recruited. Cost is 1 g.p. per month plus 1 g.p. per expedition day. Also all equipment must be bought by the employer.

Pocco is unfortunately imprisoned by the witches much like his friends earlier (bad reaction roll, bad saving throw).

Sir Goldborn has a chance to free himself, we'll resolve it next session.

Green Gary succeeded in freeing himself, we'll see next session whether he uses this to do anything useful. By default he'll just go back to Trilo.

AD&D Session 9: The Missing Mountain – Part 2

Continuing from Part 1 – like part 1, this session was DM'd by Sir Goldborn's player.

The Missing Mountain – Part 2

The group arrives at the huge structure at the center of the base of the missing mountain. Two huge walls stretch diagonally in front of them, and from a gap in the middle a path seems to lead inside to a big building. However, before anything, they notice someone sitting by walls. This person is the cleric Godrick, who seems to also have been teleported there by mysterious reasons from the region of Longuria. He had been on that spot praying for 5 hours to his god of Light to bring him some help. Now that the search party has arrived, Godrick joins our group of adventurers. With him is also his assistant Charles, a sort of hired bodyguard.

The group decides to go inside the compound. They don’t have much choice after all, since it appears this is the place that will hold the answers to all the weird happenings this day has offered them so far. As they enter the walls, their bodies feel as if they they have just crossed some sort of invisible barrier. Indeed, it seems they have. A ball of blue light, similar to the one they had seen at the gate, is now forming in front of them. It then forms into a creature with a snake like lower body and a female upper body with huge green braided hair, eyes gliming with blue light. It appears to be missing one arm, however, and struggling to stand. Before anyone has anytime to react, it shoots two green laser beams at Oscar and Poco, whose bodies immediately turn to stone. The creature then fades into blue smoke. The survivors must now also find a way to unpetrify their two companions.

They move on. The compound looks like a campus, with buildings that are very well ornamented in colors of blue, white and black. Connecting the buildings there are a few paths surrounded by grass, trees and other beautiful vegetation, flourishing with life. It definitely looks like someone has been taking well care of the garden. Some of the structure seems misplaced, though. Immediatly on the right they see a huge tower. It is not standing straight, however, as most towers like to be. This one is laying down, blocking the path to the right. On the left there is a circle of rock whose size seems to match the size of the base of this tower. On the right, another smaller circle of rock that looks like it matches the size of the smaller tower the group had found on their way from Feirun.

The adventurers decide to move on to explore the central building. It looks like a small square castle, with 4 small towers on each corner, and another bigger tower at the center. They find that the huge door has been left open. Going in, they are now in a big and well decorated hall, with a very tall ceiling. There are 3 doors, leading front, left and right. On the center, spiral stairs leading up. However, these stairs are not connected to the ground. The part of them that connects them to the floor seems to be missing. The group starts to hear a sound, a voice of someone singing. Well, if you could call that singing, as it sounds more like gibberish. They notice that it is coming from the center of the hall, from a young man wearing a robe that is just there sitting on the floor. Carefully, they approach him, and decide to call him.

“Oh, Loretta, you are back, finally!!!” His voice doesn’t sound normal, or his expressions. “Wait, you are not Loretta. Who are you? Have you seen Loretta?” It feels to the group like the young boy must be retarded or something. “La la la la la” he keeps going on. When inquired about who is Loretta, he says, in his retarded/drunken voice “Hum… Loretta. She is beautiful. The most beautiful girl I have ever seen. Not like your mother, eheheheh”. He also says “The stairs, hum…. stairs go the master’s chambers. What do you mean? They are right here, you stupid. Oh, wait they are not. Eheheheh, maybe they ran away when they saw your face. Also, I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine…. Oh and don’t tell master anything, ok? I am good boy. Astel good.” The group concludes that it will be almost useless to try and get information about this person, at least in the state that he is in right now. The only other information they are able to get from him comes in the form of “Me? Astel. Yes, that is my name. Astel. With an ‘A’. A big ‘A’, ok? I am a magic-user of course. Eheheh. Level 2 baby!!! Yeah!” The other unusual thing about him is that he is holding in his arms a scroll. It looks like a spell scroll, but it is clearly empty. Cai uses Detect Magic on it and concludes that it’s completely deprived of magic.

The party decides to ignore the crazy guy for now, and goes on to explore what is inside of the door in the front side of the hall. They easily open it and find themselves on a huge auditorium. Well, more like a huge lecture hall, with a lot of seats and a central stand, with a blackboard. On the walls there are 3 large paintings of men with great long beards, all dressed in blue robes. There is also a number of shelves containing empty vials and books, similar to the ones they had found in the small tower. Godrick grabs 5 of the books. He also writes on the blackboard the slogan of his deity, but is causes nothing to happen. Feeling there is nothing more in the room, the group decides to leave, but approaching the door they notice that it is now blocked by some kind of blue magic barrier. From it starts to form a ball of blue light, which then shapes into 12 stirges. These are small monsters with bat wings, long beaks and 4 small legs. A fight follows, in which the monsters are defeated without much issues. Giorno Giovanna deals quite a lot of damage during the fight, but also takes some, so at the end he very unpolitely demands that he be healed by Godrick. The cleric complies, casting Heal Wounds on Giorno.

They are now able to go back to the main all, checking that the other 2 doors lead to similar lecture halls. This time they also notice that floating in the center of the hall is a smooth cristal ball, on which they can see their reflections. The crazy Astel remains unhelpful as ever in giving them any useful information about the cristal ball, about the campus or any of the other mysteries. “I want to go see the sunset with Loretta. And hey, I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine…..” seems to be the only thing in his mind right now.

The adventurers move outside to this time explore a building that they had seen on the left of the lecture building. After getting close to it, they realize that it appears to be covered from the inside in a familiar blue barrier. Peeking at the window the see that it looks like a huge dinning hall. Sitting on one of the chairs is a man in a blue robe. They knock on the door to get his attention, which they get. The man approaches on the other side of the door. Fortunately, unlike Astel, this one seems to be normal and more helpful. The man, whose name appears to be Sting, informs them that he is trapped inside by the barrier, which he suspects is caused by the building’s defense mechanism system. He is also very very confused at why it is daytime. The party informs him of all the weird things that happened to them during the day, leaving him even more confused. “I can’t believe it.” He says. “I guess our academy has been transported to this place by something or someone. Oh no, the master is going the be so angry! Hey, it seems like you need my help, and I need yours. Help me get out of here and then we can keep talking!” To try to avoid another fight, they tell Jenny, Carla and Josh to climb the building and to try to pull Sting from the chimney with a rope. Carla and Josh slip miserably, but Jenny manages to climb and to then bring Sting outside without any problems.

Sting can’t believe that it’s 3pm, as he is saying that 5 hours ago it was night time for him. He informs our adventurers that they are in the campus of the biggest and most famous magic academy of the Mystic Lands. It appears to have been teleported there from the other side of the world. This event is also what probably caused the Everblue to go away. He says that most of the professors and students that day were away when this happened, as they had gone to the Anual Great Magic Conference of the Mystic Lands, but that all the younger students were left in campus. He is surprised when he hears that Astel is so crazy and uncomunicative. “Ah, you have met Astel.” says Sting. “Yes, sure, he is our receptionist. He has been at the academy for 10 years and, well, he struggles a lot with learning spells, but come on, he is still level 2. Are you sure you met him? Because I have never seen him acting the way you described. Also, no I have never heard of any woman called Loretta. In fact, we only have men at the academy and we don’t go out that often, so you can imagine we don’t get to meet many women. Anyway, here is what I suggest. First we should look for the rest of the students that were left at the academy. It’s quite weird actually that you still haven’t found any of them. Then we should deactivate this dangerous defense mechanism, which seems to be on due to the unexpected teleportation. To deactivate it we must go the the chambers of our great master. Also, there we will be able to talk with a projection of his, who will surely be able to help all of us. I am scared that he will be furious, but we have no choice. The chamber is located at the top of the main lecture hall. Let’s go, and don’t try anything funny because, remember well, you need me and you need our master.”

They check on Astel, Sting confirming that he has never seen him in this unusual, crazy and retarded state. He also explains that the floating crystal ball is like a security camera. Given that the stairs to the master’s chambers are gone, they must go outside and go through a bridge that connects it to a neighboring classroom building. When further exploring the campus, they notice that some buildings are cut in half. It appears that the weird teleportation event only caused a small portion of the academy to be teleported. They don’t see anyone around, so the group just moves on to the classroom building, climbing the stairs to the top floor.

They are now standing in front of the door leading to the bridge they must cross to reach the master’s chamber. The door is covered is a blue fog-like barrier*. The party has no choice but to cross it and face the inevitable boss battle to come. Indeed, as they cross it, boss music starts to play. A ball of blue light is in front of them and is starting to take the shape of some weird creature. Fortunately, they shoot it with arrows and kill it before it takes form. Right after, two other monsters start to form. One right behind them, a Giant Snake like creature, but with only half of its body, and another one at the far end of the bridge, a stone Gargoyle**. The Gargoyle will take some time to reach them, so they focus on the Snake and, although not easily, manage to bring it down. Gordon, Josh and the euphoric Feirun soldier are left unconscious in the process. Then they go for the Gargoyle, shooting it from afar and eventually finishing it off with melee blows. The path is now clear and everyone is alive.

Sting brings the group to the chambers of the academy’s master. It is wide and full of top magic equipment. On the wall they can see a display of spell scrolls, where one of them seems to be missing. A magic projection of an old man with a great gray beard, dressed in fancy blue robes, appears at the center of the chamber. “Ah, Sting it is you!” says the projection of the master. “Can you explain to me what you are doing in my chambers? And who are those people? You just had to interrupt me right at the middle of the Great Conference Social Dinner, didn’t you….” The situation is then explained to him. Fortunately, he doesn’t seem too angry. “Ah, I am sure there is a way to fix this” he says. ”I, Astifald the Great, have seen much worse back in my adventure days. How do do you think I managed to reach level 25, eh?”. Then he explains. “So, part of the academy was teleported. But the spell missing from the wall seems the me that it was actually a Repulsion spell. In fact we don’t keep any Teleportation scrolls in the academy. Anyway, I guess it is clear to me who caused this to happen. Who? Oh, come on guys? It’s easy. Astel. Yes Astel. Crazy? You say he is crazy? I am actually starting to think he must be a genius instead!! But well, now I would really like to go back to my delicious lobster. As a reward for your efforts I offer you the chest I have under my desk. Just don’t you dare take anything else from the academy, ok?”. *

Sting uses some academy potions to heal the people who were unconscious and also prepares two unpetrification concoctions. They head back to Astel (yes, they just left him sitting there alone in the middle of the conference hall). On the way, they notice something happening to Giorno. He starts to twitch uncontrollably and then starts floating in the air with his eyes glowing red. He starts speaking in a female voice that everyone recognizes, except Godrick, Charles and Sting. “So, is it your hobby to go around assaulting and robbing beautiful women? I am surprised. It has been a few years since someone took something from me. I guess you guys are indeed less boring than I thought. Ahah. Don’t worry, I too like to steal things from time to time. However, I am afraid I absolutely can’t let you go without getting back what is mine. I will be waiting at the bar in Feirun. Bring me my horns by the end of the day and I will forgive your insolence. DO NOT make me show you what happens if you don’t. See you my dears.” Giorno goes back to his usual state, not realizing at all what just happened.

Our adventurers grab Astel and they all head back to Feirun, including the Sting and the now unpetrified Oscar and Poco. They must return the horns to the woman, find out what is wrong with Astel and teleport over 100 people back to Longuria. Arrived at the village, they go to the main bar, where they see the blonde mysterious woman in her purple dress sitting at the counter. She is still holding her bag with something shinning from inside. “Ahh, you have arrived.” She says. “Wonderful that you decided to bring back what is mine. Just wait a bit.” Astel, who is still acting weirdly, is happy to see her. “Loretta, Loretta, there you are. I knew you couldn’t have gone far. We have to go see the sunset.” he says. ‘Loretta’ tells him to wait outside and Astel complies. She then goes back to a man she was talking to at the counter. It seems they had made some kind of bet over who can drink their beer faster. They start drinking and the guy clearly finishes it way faster. He puts his empty glass down, boosting of his easy victory, but as he looks back at it the glass is now full, while ‘Loretta’’s is empty. “Seems like I won.” she says in a tricky smile. “Do you remember what you said you would do if you lost? Oh yes, you said you would kiss a goat”. “NO NO NO” screams the man, but before he can find any excuses he suddenly realizes that Jolly is now sitting on his lap and is already starting to lick his mouth. The man runs out of the bar, runs away from Feirun and no one ever saw him again.

Godrick, who is now holding ‘Loretta’’s bag, gives it back to her. Fortunately she doesn’t seem angry that they used one of her potions, claiming that it was actually smart and that she would have done the same. “Now if you will excuse me, I have a sunset to watch.” she says, heading outside to where Astel is, grabbing him by the arm and heading off with him to the west edge of the Great Plateau. It seems that at that moment Astel was actually the most interesting person in the village for the mysterious woman. The members of the group, either because they where confused, tired or scared of the woman, forget to also go to the edge of the plateau, therefore wasting a unique chance to witness the most beautiful sunset in the world.

When ‘Loretta’ and Astel come back, Astel now appears to be in a more normal and non-intoxicated state. He remembers all that happened during the day, but he doesn’t know how he performed the teleportation. He recalls that, at the moment it happened, he simply wanted to take ‘Loretta’ to see a beautiful sunset. Also, in the state he was in he actually thought the scroll of Repulsion was a scroll of Teleportation. Our adventurers are confused, but they must find a way to go back to Longuria. What they know for now is that clearly Astel had been drinking the pink liquid from the woman’s bag, so they try to investigate that. Obviously, they start with the less obvious approaches first. Godrick drinks a bit of the liquid, hoping that it will magically give him the ability to teleport. Nothing happens. All he realizes is that it tastes of alcohol and strawberries. The mysterious woman tells them that it is simply strawberry liquor, one of her specialties in fact.

At this point a middle aged woman, a local from the village, approaches the group. She becomes very emotional when she sees Astel. “Astel, oh Astel. It is you, I know it is you. My son, you are back!!!” They hug each other for a long long beautiful moment. After that she thanks the group for bringing him back and explains what she knows. Astel is indeed her son. He had mysteriously vanished from the village 10 years ago. He had disappeared on a day he was helping her harvesting strawberries.  

The group gathers everyone that had been teleported from Longuria at the village’s central plaza, determined to finally bring them back. They feed some strawberries to Astel, but it doesn’t seem to have any effect. Godrick bravely tries to ask the mysterious woman for her horns, but immediately regrets it. She is furious at him and, had Godrick insisted even a tiny bit more, he would have suffered terrible, but maybe funny, consequences. She does provide him, however, with the remainder of her strawberry liquor.

They believe making Astel drink it will be the final missing piece, so before doing it they receive their reward from the Mayor and they split the treasure they got from Astifald the Great. They ask Astel to drink the liquor and to focus hard on sending everyone back to where they came from. Indeed, as he drinks it, glyphs of blue light start forming around our adventurers. The mysterious woman, ‘Loretta’ acording to Astel, waves and winks at them saying “It was really an interesting day. I will be keeping an eye on you!” Then, suddenly, the group realizes they are not at Feirun anymore. As the blue light starts to fade, they see they are back at the inn where the day had started. The people sitting at the tables enjoying their night beers are astonished at these people appearing out of nowhere. The adventurers head outside of the inn to confirm they are really in Trilo. They are, indeed, in Trilo, and in the middle of the sea, standing tall next to Ashen Island, is also, indeed, a huge mountain with its top covered in blue snow.

*This is a Dark Souls reference by the DM. Made unconsciously, but still, a Dark Souls reference.

**Yes, another Dark Souls reference.

***Here the DM forgot to mention that there was actually another scroll missing from the wall: a shinning scroll of Time Stop.

Timekeeper's Note

Next session will be on Feb. 14 and two weeks will have passed. At this point, everyone will be finished with their training!