Party enters the ruins of Gauntlight Keep; Crocus the Wizard establishes friendly relations with the Midflits and their leader Boss Skrawng, paying the mighty lord of the Midflits due submission. Encounter a fey called Tangletop in the Apprentice building, and a painting of Belcorra Haruvex, mistress of the Keep. Find a sinister temple and manage to gain access to the eerie Gauntlight cupola itself.
That evening after nightfall, the party are talking with Wrin Sivinxi when the Gauntlight shines on Otari graveyard. Dozens of skeletons and corpses tear free from the ground; most throw themselves off the cliff onto the roof of the Temple below, but eight tough ones head for town. The party deal with them, as the guards cheer a hideous monster - a Scalathrax - is teleported in by the Gauntlight. The weary party defeat this too.
20/9 The worried Mayor offers 50gp each to those who will end the Gauntlight menace. Meanwhile Tamily Tanderveil wants to offload her old fishery, two hours east of town.
Keshani's Account (+20 XP)
Session 3: To the Gauntlight!
It takes us a few weeks to fully recover from our travails beneath the tavern, and things seem to have returned largely to normal – except for the occasional flares of blue-green light from the top of the Gauntlight.
In Otari, Wrin Sivinxi, the proprietor of the curio shop “Wrin’s Wonders”, approaches us to ask us to investigate the lighthouse as she has a presentiment of doom. Blocked from going in person by her crippling claustrophobia, she has apparently decided that asking us to go is the next best option…
Having become rather bored by the mundanity of daily life in Otari, we agree, though I think we all admit that the lighthouse’s odd return to activity after so long is a bit strange.
Wrin reminds us of a nursery rhyme from Otari that warns of Belcorra who comes for naughty children to eats them, and the dangers of the light from the Gauntlight. We know the name of Belcorra Haruvex as a powerful witch or sorceress who was defeated some 200 years ago by the Roseguard. One of the Roseguard – a rogue named Otari who died in the fight – gave his name to the village.
We start the 20 minute hike up to the lighthouse, passing a stone circle sacred to Gozreh on the way. The chat briefly to the group of devotees there. Some 30 years ago Jaul Mezmin, who was one of their number, was shown to be a werewolf who had killed several villagers in Otari. The werewolf was forced over a cliff and believed slain, but no body was ever found. Worlywin, a gnome druid of Gozreh, seems unconvinced of the werewolf’s demise and has spent more than twenty years wandering the woods searching for signs of him.
Reaching the moor, we approach the ruins of the keep which is located on the edge of the Fogfen mire. Only the Gauntlight tower is intact – everything else is crumbling stonework.
We head towards the old barbican where we encounter a trio of mitflits, vicious little fey, who we kill before they can alert the others in the ruins. The moat proves to be the lair of a slurk, but it’s daytime torpor allows us to pass without disturbing it. At the edge of the moat is a corpse – we briefly consider looting it by decide against it as it’s too close to the slurk.
Inside the ruins we encounter more mitflits. Crocus, who speaks Sakvroth, the common language of many creatures who dwell beneath the ground, talks with them and convinces them we are friends. They take us to see their leader, Boss Skrawng, who says he plans to attack Otari as the return of the light from the Gauntlight was a sign that he should do so. He tells us we should kill the Swamp Dragon that lives beneath the Boat House, and once we’ve done that, we should descend into the caves below to fight and kill the ‘bug-eyed people’,.
Outside Boss Skrawng’s chamber we note a large statue being propped up by a finely made Morningstar. With a somewhat bemused audience of a few mitflits, we explore the ruins of the keep. Crocus has managed to quickly sneak away to dispose of the three mitflit corpses from the gatehouse in the moat.
The first room we find contains a half-eaten giant frog from which burst two giant maggots. Despite their propensity to vomit filth and semi-digested frog, they are killed. The adjacent tower houses two giant flies which we leave undisturbed.
In a ruined dining room we are assailed by the ghosts of a group of Stonescle kobolds, likely killed by a collapsing roof when Otari was retaken from the kobolds some 120 years ago. Unable to fight such ghosts, we dig their skeletons clear of the rubble and lay them to rest.
We find the base of the Gauntlight tower. In the centre of the floor is a pool of what appears to be freshly spilled blood as it shows no sign of coagulation. Climbing the iron stairway to the top of the tower our was is blocked by a sturdy trapdoor that we cannot open.
Exploring outside we find a good-sized hole next to the boathouse that could be used by a small dragon. There’s a distinct acid tang in the vicinity of the hole. A campfire in the boathouse is only a couple of days old, and a rowboat moored at the jetty outside is similarly new.
Opposite the boathouse is an island known as Apprentice Island. We cross the bridge to it and encounter an odd fey creature called ‘Tangletop’ who tries to convince us he is a powerful ghost called ‘Spooky Wisp’. He offers us a bargain: he covets a ‘shiny’ that is guarded by a beak-faced doll – called ‘Mr Beak’. If we can get that for him, he will give us information about the keep.
We agree and head forwards. On the way we find a large silver key (marked B2). A hall of portraits contains four notable images: A landscape of Korvosa in flames with the inscription “so shall the fools suffer”; An image of Gauntlight Keep in its prime, its light blazing with ghostly faces visible in its beam, “let the light shine forever”; a totally shredded portrait entitled “the Artist at Work”; and a smirking woman, “The Lady of the Light” below which is scribbled, “I serve you still. You will be avenged!”.
In the next room we find Mr Beak. He enquires after ‘Master Azrinae’, but when Keshani asks for a description of him, Mr Beak goes berserk and attacks her. She’s badly injured by him by the time the others manage to destroy the doll. Keshani recovers the Soul Gem from his back. The ‘shiny’ is a jewelled spyglass which we deliver to Tangletop.
Fulfilling his part of the bargain, he tells us that this building belonged to Volluk Azrinae as he read the notes that had been left, written in the language of Cavern Elves. Azrinae was apprentice to Belcorra, and his books relate largely to the study of necromancy. He tells us the beam of the lighthouse is full of ghosts and can raise undead. He also tells us that the Swamp Dragon only comes out at night and lives down the hole next to the boathouse.
We return to the main building and continue exploring. In one room we find a desk in which are hidden three alchemical elixirs and a bunch of keys including two marked A25 (with a lighthouse symbol) and C27 (with a book symbol). In the side wall of the room is a partly open secret door, held open by the hand of a corpse. On the corpse we find a magic rapier, a silver rings and two potion bottles.
The room beyond is large, cold and damp. To the left are four huge stained glass windows topped with an orange star: the sign of Nhimbaloth, a god of the outer dark. Apparently the room still contains some of his power and dark, ghostly energy starts to gather. Deciding discretion to be very much the better part of valour, we duck back through the scret door and close it behind us.
Having what we believe is the key to the lighthouse trapdoor we once again climb the iron staircase. The key fits perfectly and we climb into the light room. Rather than glass the room is surrounded by a magical forcefield, and the light itself seems resistant to any attack. Kyra tells us the light emanates overwhelming necromantic and conjuration magic. Unable to affect it, we descend and return to Otari.
That evening the light pulses and a beam shoots out from it toward’s Otari’s graveyard. We hasten to the site, calling for support from any who can fight. A small group of guards armed with crossbows and spears hurry to muster.
A large group of undead have pulled themselves free from graves. Most stumble towards the cliff edge where they tumble down and land on the roof of Sarenrae’s temple, but a group of eight zombies and skeletons turn to confront us.
Recalling our tactics from the crypt below the tavern where we had previous encountered skeletons and a zombie, we try to match our weapons to those who will be best affected by them: bludgeoning weapons for the skeletons, and slashing weapons against the zombies.
As we cut down the last of them, the guards arrive and start to celebrate our victory. Then the light pulses again, and as the beam fades we see a scalathrax, a large creature somewhere between a spider and a grease-covered scorpion, appear. This proves to be a greater threat than the undead, but even against this foe we are victorious!
The light from the Gauntlight tower fades, and we return to the tavern for a well deserved drink.
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| Boss Skrawng |
