Game Session Fourteen

Game session Fourteen: Saturday April 6, 2002

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The game session started around noon of Reaping 3, 3080 YE. The party was in the crypt of the Tsathogga's temple. All the party members except for Eldon and Rhino were infected with some sort of disease that was causing oozing scabby sores covering their bodies. Most of the party are down hit points and spells are low. They have just finished destroying and looting the inner crypt of the frog god.

The group decided that they needed to somehow find a cure for their disease and they figured they would leave the caves and travel on to the hafling village of Obaltion which was a about a days walk north. There they thought they might find healing, or at the least clean water to wash up with.

Arriving at the village of Obaltion, they went first to the temple of Yondalla ,which was easy to spot being next to the a rather large monastery. Outside the temple they saw an older halfling smoking a pipe. On introduction they found out that this was the head priest whose name was Leafburner. The party attracted a bit of attention, what with them being all covered in dried blood, oozing pus, open sores and smelling like an open crypt. They started to tell Leafburner about the temple and the frog god and he stopped them when they mentioned the name Tsathogga. He insisted on having the village headwoman come over to listen also. He also agreed to cast cure disease on the party members afflicted with the disease.

The headwoman turned out to actually be an adolescent halfling girl named Silenier. She questioned the party about the temple to Tsathogga and told them about the demon frog-god. They told her where the temple was and that they had found, and buried, the body of a dead halfling girl by the place. They should both Leafburner and Silenier the "soapstone" statue of a frog they had found (*not* showing the emerald one). They told the party that this was made from the mud of the River Styx and was consider a holy relic to those who would follow Tsathogga. They quickly agreed to give the "soapstone" idol, along with the two glass globes, to Leafburner to have them destroyed.

It took several days for Leafburner to heal the entire party of their diseases. During this time they re-supplied at the general store, washed and cleaned their armor and clothes, and had long talks about the legend of Durgeddin the Black and his lost fortress. What they heard was mostly the same legends that they heard from the dwarven sage in Discam. They did find out that there have been increasing attacks by powerful bands of orcs, that have been raiding from the north. The party didn't show either Leafburner of Silenier their map. After spending some restful days they headed off to the north.

After two days travel they reached the River Dor. Here they swam across, with Cebo almost sinking several times. The next day they started into the foot hills of the Cloudrift Tor. By checking their dwarvish map they soon found the old dwarven trail that lead to the Stone Tooth and they assumed Glitterhame. Soon they came to where the trail wound up into the mountains.

Following the trail they slowly climbed up into the mountain. As they turned a corner they could see two orcs obviously standing guard, though they looked pretty lax. Quickly backing out of sight the party decided to ambush the orcs with missile weapons.

After taking down the orcs with a minimum of noise the party went to the ledge the orcs were standing on and could see that the trail ended and turned into a steep fissure into the mountain. They could see broad shallow steps carved out of stone leading up into the fissure. The party stood around talking and deciding what to do before sending Eldon ahead to scout.

As Eldon started up the fissure he heard calls in orcish and suddenly arrows started being shot at him from arrow slits high in the walls of the fissure. He quickly went forward until he reached a broad entrance with marble steps, cracked with age and veined with green moss, which lead up to a strong double-door of carved stone, 8 feet wide and almost tall. Two more arrow slits looked down on this entrance and more arrows rained down on Eldon. By this time the rest of the party was running at top speed, dodging arrows, on their way to join Eldon. Since the massive stone door was ajar Eldon decided to sneak inside rather than stand out on the exposed porch. It was just moments later that the rest of the party had also slipped inside the doors.

They found that the great door opened into a large hall. They were standing on a narrow ledge overlooking a deep, dark crevasse that cut the room in two. A dangerous looking rope bridge, frayed and thin, spanned the gap. They could hear water gurgling and rushing somewhere far below. There were two copper braziers burning brightly on either side of the door, lighting this half of the room. They could barely make out the opposite platform on the other side of the chasm.

Eldon, Moss and Flairian could see that in the shadows of the natural rock of the chamber's far side, two orcs were standing guard before another stone door. As the party stood there on the ledge the orcs snarled and raised bows and started firing on the party. Quickly springing into action, Moss drank a potion of jump and made the leap to the far side while Cebo started slowly to cross the bridge. The rest of the party tried to hit the orcs with missiles.

Moss, firing at point blank range started a arrow duel with one orc while the other went to the bridge and tried to hack through the ropes with an axe while Cebo was crossing. The orc managed to get just one feeble swing in before he was peppered with arrows and magic missiles from across the chasm. Moss also managed to bring down the other orc.

So now the party readied themselves to cross the rope bridge, one at a time. Next came Ulfgar who nimbly came across. As Moopo was preparing to cross next the group on the other was surprised when orcs started pouring out of secret doors on either side of the ledge. The first orcs out the door tried to bull-rush Rhino and Moopo over the edge but both characters stood fast. As the they sorted out what was happening they realized that these must be the orc archers that had ambushed them outside. As the party started fighting another orc took a chance and bull-rushed into little Eldon. Eldon was knocked over the edge but barely managed to hook his crossbow onto the rope bridge and hang on. They quickly killed the attacking orcs, but Eldon managed to slip when climbing back up and fell screaming over 200 feet into the water below. After a short but heartfelt farewell the rest of the group briefly checked out the secret doors and figured they did indeed lead to the archer slits, then they crossed the bridge (after rigging up ropes as backups).

Once across the party quickly scouted the caverns on the far side. They found a small cave with two hafling merchants that had been taken prisoner by the orcs (Geradil & Courana). Though the halflings were grateful for being rescued they had no real information, despite being held for almost a month. They declined to join the party and only wanted to leave as quickly as possible.

Scouting further the party came upon a large kitchen area and a "commons" that was filled with stacks of crates, barrels, sacks and bundles. Looking through the stuff they quickly found that it was mostly common stuff apparently gathered from merchant raids, nothing of easy to carry value. They did discover that the boxes had completely blocked a passage leading west that ended in an iron gate. The gate looked in upon a large and impressive chamber. Looking further in the orc commons they found a large worked stone hallway to the north and a secret door at the end of a narrow passageway to the south.

Going to the secret door they opened the door and rushed into the room. The room was 15' by 30' chamber of worked stone, cluttered with crude furnishings and hazy with the smoke from a small cook fire. There were dozens of yellowed skulls hanging from the ceiling on frayed ropes. There were also three orcs in the room, including one wearing a ragged black rope. Two of the orcs made their way to the players while the third, wearing the black robes, started to cast spells. The party pushed their way into the room, quickly killing the two orcs along with the orcish spellcaster, whose spells had no effect on the party. Searching the room yielded only two small sacks of silver coins. There was a large stone door leading to the north, that was locked with the key still in the door. Guessing that the door led to the impressive chamber they glimpsed through the iron gate they decided to go that way.

The door did indeed lead to the chamber. This impressive chamber was 30' by almost 100' with a ceiling that soared 30' above them. The walls were carved with images of dwarves working at their forges. There was another stone door to the north of the chamber. In the center of the floor was a natural rift that descended downward. They could see several old skeletons lying on the floor near the north door. As the party entered the room they could see that in the rift there were dozens of stone steps that led down to darkness. From far below they could hear the distant sound of running water, and a strange buzzing sound. As they walked down the chamber they heard the buzzing grow suddenly louder and six large flying things - birds, insects, bats it was hard to tell - emerge from the stairwell and veer right towards them. As the flying creatures attacked they could see that they were stirges. After taking minimal damage from the blood sucking creatures the party managed to kill them all.

Deciding to check out the door at the northern end before looking down the stairs that party stationed themselves around the doorway in preparation to opening it. As their rouge Eldon had perished earlier they didn't bother to check for traps which proved to be a Bad Thing as when the unlocked door was opened burning alchemists fire sprayed from cleverly hidden spouts along the walls dousing the entire party in flames. Through a lot of bad luck the party was severely hurt and both Corian and Moopo died in shrieks of flaming agony. After the party put out the fires burning on their bodies and dragged the corpses of Corian and Moopo from the area they looked inside the room beyond the trapped door. Inside the small room were copper drums and lots of piping leading to the walls on either side of the doorway. Ulfgar decided he wanted to try to see if he could recover some of the alchemist fire from the drums. So, while the rest of the party retreated to the far end, he tried his hand at mixing the stuff together. Unfortunately all he did was managed to start the stuff on fire destroying it all, but on the bright side he didn't take any more damage.

After healing themselves up as best they could, and salvaging as much of Corian and Moopo's goods, they backed out to check the rest of the hallways on this level.

Going to the hallway to the north they went first to the door at the west end. Listening at the door they could hear nothing so they threw open the door and rushed in. Inside were four orcs cleaning weapons amid stacks of barrels, crates, and sacks of what looked to be foodstuffs that lined the walls. As the orcs jumped up and charged the party the adventurers quickly countered and cut the orcs down. Searching the room lead to the discovery of a couple hundred gold pieces and three gemstones that the orcs had hidden inside their vermin infested bedding.

As they had taken no new damage they went down the hallway to the east end. There they found a doorway that was at the top of a short flight of stairs, another doorway leading east, and around a short bend a statue of a fierce looking dwarf in heavy mail armor. The door way at the top of the stairs was a large ironbound door with a bloodstained human skull fixed to the center with an iron spike.

Deciding to leave that door to last they went to the end of the hallway. Looking at the dwarf statue they could see that the stone warrior was holding a stone sword in one hand and a smith's hammer in the other. It was on a large stone pedestal, the whole thing at least seven feet high. As Ulfgar approached to check out the statue further he felt a small "click" from the floor beneath his feet! The statue's mouth opened up like a nutcracker's and a greenish gas billowed forth spreading out 20 feet from the statue. Luckily none of the party were effected by the gas in any noticeable way.

Opening the door at the eastern end of the hallway, after checking for traps as best they could, they saw that it opened into a large chamber filled with rough-hewn bunks, tables and chairs. Filthy pelts were strewn on the floor. Their quick glance showed that a dozen or so orcs could easily bunk here. Standing in the room was four orcs and one old grizzled orc who quickly called out "attack!" in orcish when the door was opened. As the party entered the room the four orcs came toward them with the older orc hanging back and pulling a throwing axe out of his belt. As the party was engaged with the orcs the older orc stayed back throwing axes at the party. It didn't take long for the group to bring down the orcs, including the grizzled old orc. Searching the room they found a handful of gold, a couple hundred silver pieces and a potion of cure light wounds. The old orc also had a masterwork hand axe that hand Durgeddin's smith mark on it. Searching the room they also found a secret door that lead to the archer slots along the entrance to the mountain door.

Going to the ironbound door the party made ready to enter. Cebo, Rhino and Flairian prepared themselves to rush in with Moss and Ulfgar supporting them from the rear. As Cebo pushed open the heavy iron door at the top of the stairs they saw a small chamber covered with poorly cured hides and illuminated with smoking torches in bronze sconces. There was an indescribable smell to the room. In the back was a monstrously tall ogre, 10' tall with warty, brown skin and greasy dark hair. He had a massive greataxe on one hand and had two large wolves held by chains in his other. Seeing the door open he called out "you seek to challenge the Great Ulfe?" and he released the two wolves crying out "Vak! Thrag! At them!".

Cebo rushed past the wolves toward the Great Ulfe as Rhino and Flairian met the wolves. It quickly became a nightmare as the wolves quickly brought down Rhino. As Flairian battled the wolves Moss and Ulfgar fired arrows into them. Cebo meanwhile had his hands full with the ogre. He only managed to get in a couple attacks before the Great Ulfe caught Cebo with a critical hit from his huge greataxe, felling Cebo with the one blow. While the Great Ulfe was busy bringing down Cebo, Flairian had managed to get a potion into Rhino. Since neither of them thought they could take on the ogre by themselves they both played dead where they lay. As soon as Cebo fell, Ulfgar and Moss decided to run for it, retreating as fast as possible down the hallway to the west. As the Great Ulfe chased after them Rhino quickly went to Cebo and using his wand healed him up as much as he could.

No by this time the Great Ulfe had chased Ulfgar and Moss down the corridor to the orc barracks room. As they tried to defend themselves from the ogre Flairian went out the door and went east down the corridor while Cebo hid alongside the stairway leading into the ogre's room. Flairian started shouting out insults to the ogre hoping to lure him after him. It worked well, the bard's taunts caused the Great Ulfe to leave Moss and Ulfgar and he headed back towards Flairian. As he passed the doorway Cebo, being hidden, struck the Great Ulfe with his greataxe causing him to fall dead. The party gave a great shout of thanks as the ogre lay dead.

Searching the ogre's room they found hundreds of gold pieces, over a thousand silver pieces, a potion of spider climb, and a +1 rapier with the smith mark of Durgeddin on it.

By this time the party was sorely hurt, with everyone down hit points, some like Cebo and Rhino down a lot of hit points. Most of their cure potions were used up and Rhino's wand of cure moderate wounds was used up completely. They decided to hole up in the orc barracks and spend some time healing back up. This took a total of 5 days rest before everyone was healed fully.

The game ended here on Reaping 15, 3080 YE. With the party in the orc barracks fully healed up.

Link to next Session:

Unanswered Questions:

• So far you have found a couple of the fabled master work weapons made by Durgeddin the Black, and you have found a passageway leading down. Are there more weapons to be found?
• So far the upper halls have claimed the lives of three of your party. How much more dangerous are the lower halls?
• Without a rogue how well can you find traps now? Kicking doors works but at what cost.

Session Fourteen Experience

Page Last Updated Wednesday, June 05, 2002