Session 6 17-18/5/4726 AR

 Oloria Gallentine of Gallentine Deliveries sends a message to invite you to visit her for an employment opportunity. At her large shop on Roseguard Road, the efficient and energetic Oloria welcomes you. Her eyes wide with anxiety, she speaks rapidly and breathlessly.

“Thank you so much for responding! I’m very concerned about one of my couriers—she’s long overdue. Her name is Narala and she’s a centaur. She’s extraordinarily fast, and she was supposed to come from Korvosa down the Granary Road two days ago. I hope she was just delayed, but it’s not like Narala to dawdle. I fear she might have been robbed, or worse, and in need of help. She has an aggressive streak and would be all too eager to fight. I need your help to find her, and her packages, and get everything back on track.”

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17/5:  Travel up Granary Road. Kill 2 hellhounds & 4 wolves attacking Shroon farm - Valeros is nearly killed. Find Narala petrified & partly eaten. Kill basilik, follow trail to ruined house in woods, kill 3 kobolds and recover satchel. Head back west, camping overnight at the Old Fishery.

18/5: Return to Otari, report to Oloria. Hand over packages, rescuing herbalist from stinkweed shamblers. Go north and explore an old Shoanti barrow, rescuing a half-orc mushroom collector from undead Shadow.

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Session 5 3/5/4726 Keshani Account

 

1. Deeper and Deeper… We return to the Gauntlight ruins and meet up with the Mitflits where we accidentally discover that mitflits reproduce through mitosis… The Mitflits guide us to a secret door beyond which are stairs down. Keshani descends first to scout around. Everything seems still, but she can hear the sound of hammering and engineering in the area. We start to explore and find a series of long, processional corridors, and though we hear sounds indicating inhabitants, for the time being we manage to avoid them. One door in particular exudes peculiarly powerful occult energies and a faint green glow. Crocus is able to translate the runes on the door as “WC”. While morbidly curious as to what could have happened in a toilet to cause this, for the time being we decide against trying to open the door. From behind another nearby door Keshani can just about hear sounds of natural disasters, but they sound weird and unnatural. Again we avoid that door. The corridor ends with a room in which is a substantial armoured pile of bones which, unsurprisingly, rises to attack but is soon defeated. It’s wearing ancient, but still serviceable bronze half-plate armour which we take with us. Around a corner we find stairs heading downwards to a small quayside that smells damp and mouldy. Grognar spots the patch of brown mould at the base of the stairs as easily sweeps it aside with his greataxe.
2. However, our presence does not go unnoticed… From the murky water of the underground cave beyond emerges a draconic head – Freznelkesh the Swamp Dragon who the mitflits warned us of. Freznelkesh spits acid at the group. Grognar ducks and Valeros raises his shield to divert the spray, but unfortunately diverts it straight at Crocus! With the acid eating his skin, Crocus flees backwards to try to douse himself with the contents of his waterskin, assisted by Kyra. In the meantime Grognar, Valeros and Keshani manage to defeat Freznelkesh. With the acid still not nullified, we dunk Crocus in the underground lake, but it takes Grognar vigorously scrubbing Crocus with soap to finally get ride of the acid that was stuck to him. We cut off the drake’s head as proof we killed it, and Keshani goes swimming in search of the drake’s lair in case it had any treasure worth taking. She finds some gold (36gp), a Wayfinder, a Retribution Axe and a Wand of Force Barrage. On the far side of the lake we discover the Morlocks… a group of degenerate bug-eyed creatures led by Graulgust. Crocus sweet-talks him and he tells us that he is King of the Ghost Queen Morlocks who ousted the Mitflits from this level. When we reveal we’ve killed Freznelkesh he appears very pleased, takes possession of its head, and appoints us ‘Lackeys of the Ghost Queen’. He takes us on a tour of his domain, warning us of a trapped corridor and introducing us to his grothluts: flesh-warped pets who had apparently escaped from a cage below and were now bound to his service. He also advises us to beware of the Major-Domo, an undead creature in the crypt close by
3. He then offers us a choice: remain as his lackeys, or descend to a lower level to confront his enemies: the Cult of the Canker – a group of heretic ghouls. He goes on to tell us that about a year ago something new appeared deep in the vaults below, and it was powerful enough that many other denizens were pushed from their original lairs. The Morlocks had once dwelled lower in the vaults, but were forced up here, and in turn pushed the weaker Mitflits to the surface ruins. One of the Morlocks shows us to the stairs leading down to the ghouls’ lair, but we demur, saying we have to ascend first to ‘seek the blessing of the Ghost Queen’. The Morlock finds this excuse totally reasonable and leaves us, so we re-cross Freznelkesh’s lake and start to retrace our steps, taking the drake’s talons as proof of its demise to show the Mitflits as Graulgust now has its head. At the top of the stairs Grognar spots a secret door in the wall which conceals another flight of stairs downwards, presumably also towards the ghouls’ domain depending on how extensive it is.
4. We investigate a few nearby rooms and find Belcorra’s punishment chamber and also an odd, circular room bearing the skull and moss motif of Nhimbaloth. We decide after some further searching that this is some kind of elevator platform. In a large circular room nearby – which we decide is the foundation or basement of the Gauntlight Tower based on its size and shape – we find the giant, desiccated corpse of a purple worm. Knowing that such creatures swallow enemies whole, we decide to check if there’s anything valuable in its stomach and find the remains of a dwarf still holding a magical Warhammer. Back on the surface amongst the ruins Crocus tries to convince Boss Skrawng that we have defeated the Swamp Dragon, however this time his silver tongue fails him. Furious at Crocus’ apparent betrayal, he orders his Mitflits to attack. Despite the support of multiple giant maggots and even a sun spider, we defeat the Mitflits. Grognar takes the magical Morningstar that had been propping up a skeleton, and we return to Otari to rest.
5. Total treasure from last session: 60gp (12gp each); Wand of Force Barrage (Crocus); Retribution Axe (Grognar); Wayfinder (worth up to 28gp - sell?); Warhammer +1 (Valeros); Morningstar +1 (Grognar); Bronze half-plate (Grognar).

Session 5 3/5/4726 AR RL 4

Two weeks since the dead rose, and the roof of the Dawnflower Library is finally repaired by hardworking acolytes. The Mayor calls upon brave adventurers to investigate the Gauntlight and prevent further attacks on Otari...

3/5: Patrol swamp for monsters threatening Otari lumber crews, kill a crocodile and two giant frogs.

4/5: Keshani (Judith): We ventured down to the 2nd level and wandered around a bit.  We fought a giant skeleton, excavated the warhammer from the guts of a dessicated purple worm and met Graulgust, the Morlock King.

The Swamp Dragon turned out to be a River Drake (which we also killed)

Graulgust ordered us to attack the Cult of the Canker - a group of ghouls down on the 3rd level.  We delayed by claiming we needed to return to the surface to prepare, which was interpreted by our going to commune with the "Ghost Queen" - presumably Belcorra.

Returning to the Mitflit den, Crocus totally fluffed his negotiation with Boss Skrawng, so we ended up fighting and killing the mitflits, giant maggots and their pet spider.

Grognar did pretty well out of the day with a Retribution Greataxe as well as the Morningstar +1 that was holding up the skeleton in the mitflit den.

Keshani will be buying the potency rune from his old Greataxe to add to her Gakgung bow.

The River Drake

Graulgust the Morlock King

Word has reached Otari that Rune Emperor Karzoug is demanding a great increase in preserved food supplies from Korvosa, and Queen Sorshen's Gray Maidens have been visiting the townships to make the appropriate purchases, at reasonable rates. Tamily Tanderveil offers to buy the previously unwanted Fishery, now cleared of monsters, back from you for 20gp (4gp each) as well as paying the back taxes (not everyone paid the 1gp each for M4, and M5 tax of 1gp each is due by end of month).

17/5/4726 You're asked to investigate the mystery of delayed packages & a missing delivery-centaur...

Graulgust's Fleshwarp 'Gross Sluts' (Grothluts)