Game Session Ten

The game open on the morning of Wealsun 11, 3080 with the party staying at the Nobles' House in Discam as honored guests for their adventures in recovering the Crucible of Myhriss and clearing the ruined keep of orcs. The party took this time to gather their experience and count their booty, dividing up the magic items they had between them. The local bard had been singing their praises, how they had run the orcs off and destroyed the evil. Somehow the shadow they destroyed had turned into a vampire in his tales, he mentioned to Flairian that he changed it to a vampire to calm any fears people had and that it rhymed better. After that they hitched up the wagon and headed back to Ruti. As they left Discam the town, including most of the children lined the streets and waved and cheered as they passed.

Arriving in Ruti at dusk they party went first to Madame Hucrele's house to get the name of her factor in Greenswabs that they are supposed to deliver the dragon Calcryx and the wagon to. She told them they were to deliver it to the Brokengulf Family Villa in Greenswabs. Cebo asked about the condition of the roads between Ruti and Greenswabs and Madame Hucrele assured him that there was no problem with roads at all, all was clear. Finishing their business with Madame Hucrele the party retired to the Ol' Boar Inn for the night. The towns folk remember the group fondly, especially after all the beer that Rhino had bought last time. The party spent a restful night in the Inn with Flairian singing tales about their adventures in Discam.

In the morning they hitched up and started going out of town, headed for the big city-state. At the edge of the village Corkie, the cleric of Pelor was waiting for them. She wanted to give them Pelor's blessing and wondered if Madame Hucrele had mentioned the fact the only bridge over the river between here and the Dwarf Road had been taken over by trolls for the past several months who demanded toll of all who passed. The party replied that, no she had said the roads were clear. Corkie just shook her head and said that she just wanted to make sure the party was warned and that she had been afraid that Madam Hucrele might neglect to mention the trolls.

Suitably warned the party started off, after a half-days ride they came to the bridge, it was a large wooden bridge that spanned the river. The river was about 60 ft. wide here and fairly swift, there looked to be no place to ford it with wagons or horses. At the end of the bridge, on either side at the waters edge stood two huge trolls. Each green and nine-feet tall. One called out in broken common "pay toll or don't cross" Now the party was sitting on a bunch of coins from their adventures and was willing to pay most any toll so they asked what the toll was. One of the trolls said, "give us the box and you can cross".

Well the box, which was actually the covered cage containing the dragon, was one thing the party wasn't going to give up, The party dismounted and Cebo and Rhino charged one of the trolls while the rest of the party fired missile weapons and magic into the other. Cebo in his first attack, after he got whacked moving in on the troll, managed to score a critical with his axe and dealt the troll massive damage. Amazingly the troll was still standing after both Cebo's attack and Rhino's. As the party shot missiles and magic into the second troll Cebo and Rhino were having problems, while the troll was close to dead he still managed to score on Cebo. Cebo took attacks from both of the troll's massive claws, which proceeded to rend the flesh from his body, followed by a viscous bite. In that one attack, Cebo the strongest fighter, lay unconscious and dying. Rhino in his next attack managed to bring the troll down, however the second troll, while stung from the missiles and magic, charged over to Rhino and attacked. After the first attack from the troll, Rhino also lay unconscious and dying. The rest of the party, realizing that the trolls had to be close to death, charged in, luckily they managed to down the last troll and pour burning oil on the downed trolls bodies, but it was really, really close at the end.

Force feeding both Cebo and Rhino healing potions, they managed to get them both conscious and positive hit points. Rhino did what healing he could and while they both were not even close to fully healed, they felt much better. The rest of the party meanwhile was checking out the bridge. Under the bridge they found the trolls lair and several sacks of coins, lots of coins. They also found a backpack with broken straps. Putting the sacks of coins in the wagon, Ulfgar opened the backpack. Inside was several waterlogged spell books, now useless and unreadable except for a name, "Svengarrden the Mage", carved into the front of the books. Inside was also two potion flasks and a magic wand. Counting themselves lucky the party continued onward.

Finally reaching the Dwarf Road the party started down it towards the town of Cudgel. After a while on the road the party heard a rumbling noise at looked in shock as a giant fin broke the surface of the ground, followed by the huge body of a landshark. The 20 ft. long creature leaped through the air and landed in front of the wagon, pouncing on one of the draft horses and killing it in one attack of it's mighty claws. The party quickly dismounted off their frightened mounts and Cebo, Moss and Rhino charged up to the massive beast as it attacked and killed the other draft horse. Cebo swung his greataxe at it and barely scored on it armored skin. On the landshark's attack it dealt large amounts of damage to Cebo, who quickly shouted his intention to retreat as fast as possible. The rest of the party was coming to the realization that if their heaviest fighter was going to run, they weren't going to stay around either. Everyone scattered as fast as they could. Moss went a short ways off and went to ground to watch what the landshark was going to do.

After finishing up his meal of draft horses, the huge landshark bumped the wagon a few times with his shoulder and finally dived back into the ground and burrowed away. Giving the beast some time to go away the party slowly regrouped. Moss went off and gathered up the horses and Cebo drank another healing potion. As Moss returned with the horses, the party decided to make camp. Figuring that the beast would not return to where it had already hunted they made camp just off the road where they were.

After a night of no encounters, the party rigged up some of their horses to the wagon and headed to Cudgel. Arriving at Cudgel they could see that the small town was surrounded by a wooded palisade wall, the most noticeable feature of the town was the 4-story high monastery of St. Cuthbert made of black marble that towered over the rest of the buildings in the town. Approaching the gate, they were told they could not park the wagon within. If they were passing through it was ok, but if they were planing on staying the wagons had to remain outside in the caravan parking area. Not too happy about it they parked the wagon and went into the town. Sorely in need of rest and supplies the party got rooms at Snit's Inn and set watch on their wagon outside of town. While they were resting and Cebo and Moss were recovering, the rest of the party were busy. Ulfgar scribed some scrolls while Corian brewed up a few potions. Ulfgar also identified the wand they found from the trolls, it was a wand of cure moderate wounds. Cursing at how useful it would have been to know that after the attack, he gave the wand to Rhino. Flairian was telling tales of the groups exploits, and the group cashed in all the gems, jewelry and loose cash they had managed to accumulate. After buying supplies and horses they still had quite a sum left.

Ulfgar and Rhino went to talk to the head monk of the monastery, Atarades of Cudgel and asked about the roads between here and Greenswabs. Offering to help clear the roads of evil he was informed that the people who held the castles between here and Greenswabs were more than capable of keeping the roads clear, as they had been doing for the last twenty years after they had retired from adventuring. While he was glad that the "youngsters" were willing to help, he was sure that between himself, the Battlemage Mortgren, Sir Marius the Just Paladin of Heironeous, and the Archdruid Itchstar of the Widsith Wood they were handling things just fine. Rhino's attempt to purchase potions and a discount also failed to impress the Atarades, who told them that the "adventurer's price" was usually not considered a discount. Rebuffed in their attempts to impress him they both went back to the Inn.

The only other thing of note that happened in Cudgel was that Moopo asked Cebo what was going to happen to him once the dragon was sold. Cebo said that he had noticed Moopo watching him and that he would be glad to take Moopo on as a henchman and train in him in the art of fighting. Moopo agreed and seemed very happy in his new status as henchman. definitely a step up from dragon keeper.

So after their rest in Cudgel the party continued onward. They went past Losdar Castle, the home of the Battlemage Mortgren Losdar without stopping, and spent the night at Half-Point thorp at the Knightsbridge Inn. Meeting some knights on patrol on their way there.

The knights (actually a single knight in plate, atop a barded war-horse, along with several squires with pennants) asked if they had any problems on the road. Rhino told how they had trouble with trolls and the landshark, along with how Madame Hucrele had told them the road was clear and it wasn't and all their troubles. The knight seemed to be a bit distracted but promised that if he should meet the faithless women who "led such poor merchants as them astray" that he would "smite her mightily for her lies". At that the knight and his squires galloped off, pennants flying from their lances.

After leaving the vicinity of Half-Point they traveled on to Castle Valor, spending the night at the Manticore's Head Inn. That evening several of the party went to give a donation to the shrine of Fharlanghn, rather than take their silver the cleric asked them if they had any tales to tell of their adventures. So they spent the evening telling the cleric of their travels.

The next morning they left for the great city of Greenswabs. As they approached the city they could see the looming Cliffface and the darkness that is the Mistwall that seals off the Valley of the Ancients. The two mile high Cliffface and Mistwall could easily be seen even 60 miles away.

Arriving at the gate they were easily let in and the hiring of a small boy quickly led them to the house of the Brokengulf Family (03-28). They entered the courtyard and were quickly rid of the dragon and wagon. The head of the House, Brigadier Brokengulf, said how he already had buyers for most of the dragon parts already and had been waiting for them to show up. He then handed the party a sack full of 300 platinum pieces in payment. Brokengulf also bought the black marble statues of the Dark Elves they hauled out of the Sunless Citadel and even the ceremonial dagger they took from the temple of Orcus in the ruined keep by Discam. He mention that he knew a buyer that would be interested in it and no one wanted to ask who exactly would be interested in a ceremonial dagger for the demon-lord Orcus, or why. Brigadier Brokengulf also directed them to a bookseller as he had no interest in the tomes the party was carrying around.

The bookseller was Serpentil Books and Folios (05-06), Brigadier Brokengulf told you that the proprietor was a sage with vast knowledge when it came to books written in the human tongue, and that he was an expert on the history of the World Empire. Since the shop was just a couple blocks down the road they party went directly to it. The owner Jannaxil Serpentil gladly bought the books the party had gathered in their adventurers. They also found a buyer for the evil magic Whistle they had been carrying around. After all the selling they retired to the closest inn, called the Cliffwatch Inn (05-44) at the edge of town and there rented rooms and stabled their horses.

In taking stock of their treasure and booty they counted up over 10,000 gp now in their possession.

Character Name	Starting Experience	Session Experience	Total Experience	Notes
Cebo	11,385	772	12,157
Moss	4,855	672	5,082
Corian	2,810	622	3,432
Flairian	6,965	62	7,027
Rhino	2,810	664	3,474
Ulfgar	8,035	708	8,743
Eldon	6,890	62	6,952
Moopo	0	0	0	henchman

The Party at the Start	The Party at the End
Cebo - Human (Ftr5)	Cebo - Human (Ftr5)
Moss - Half-Elf (Rng3)	Moss - Half-Elf (Rng3)
Corian - Human (Sor3)	Corian - Human (Sor3)
Flairian - Half-Elf (Brd4)	Flairian - Half-Elf (Brd4)
Rhino - Human (Clr1/Ftr2)	Rhino - Human (Clr1/Ftr2)
Ulfgar - Human (Mnk1/Wiz3)	Ulfgar - Human (Mnk1/Wiz3)
Eldon - Halfling (Rog4)	Eldon - Halfling (Rog4)
Moopo - Kobold	Moopo - Kobold (Ftr1)