Session 16
This summary was written by Vulfelind’s player and (lightly) edited by the Judge.
My name is Vulfelind de Saubruic, and I am a practical woman. I am keeping this journal because when I am famous, there will be those who will desire to know: how can I be like her?
Answer: Be practical. Kick a LOT of butt. And buy this journal (only 100 gold! a steal!).
(OOC: C. asked us if one of us would write a session summary. He didn’t EXACTLY stare at me when he asked, but P. keeps the field cyclopedia, Q. keeps the accounting details and E. keeps the NPC details and I usually just sit like a bump on a log, so I said I’d do it. I’m not the best writer, I kind of write like I talk, but hopefully it gets the story across. Reading back through it, I re-arranged it a bit to be in chronological order, and C. said he’d edit it for accuracy, so there you go. Hope you enjoy.)
Vulfelind’s Journal: Day 15 of Month 12
WOMAN IN BLACK arrived this evening, and we offered to help set up camp.
She found this suspicious (smart!), but Gal has been insisting on nothing but the best rations for our army for months, so as soon as the bacon, pickles, waybread, cheeses, and wines got broken out, everything was smiles.
Damn right, Grim Fist brings the party.
Chlod plays nice-nice for a while and finally asks WOMAN IN BLACK what she’s doing here. REALLY LONG BORING STORY.
Shad likes to keep copious notes, this whole long, detailed story made him super-happy, and if you need the details, I’m sure you can get a copy of his journal from a nearby library as well.
Here are my more practical notes: The chaos altar we destroyed had a spell that hid a mirror. Mirror is ANCIENT EVIL, Iamanu sensed it, sent WOMAN IN BLACK to look for it.
(Note: ANCIENT EVIL is dark-haired male model in the mirror, actually a Chaos Dragon.)
Hahaha, oops.
Anyway, WOMAN IN BLACK’s been straight with us, didn’t sneak us, blah blah blah, so Shad spills the beans.
Small Problem: There are other people in the mirror, and it’s not possible to free them without breaking the mirror. Breaking the mirror will release ANCIENT EVIL.
(Gal says, “We’ll see about that,” under her breath, because she’s a god among mages, and mages get real competitive when you tell them it can’t be done.)
Second Problem: We’re still not entirely certain we can trust WOMAN IN BLACK with mirror.
But. We trust WOMAN IN BLACK, sort of, she trusts us, sort of. So everyone camps, but extra watches in case sneaking occurs.
Griz and I occur some sneaking and eavesdropping :-).
Bottom line: We can probably trust her. She has a discussion with her lieutenants. She’s worried about us, but relieved that the mirror isn’t in the hands of someone worse. Yeah, thanks, lady - I was gonna talk the others into giving you the mirror, now I’m gonna make Chlod sweet-talk some cash out of you first.
Vulfelind’s Journal: Morning of Day 16 of Months 12
Pre-dawn watch. Got antsy (NOTE: this was not the most practical thing, but sometimes you have to listen to your inner impulse gnome to get things done), snuck back into WOMAN IN BLACK’s camp, just to poke around, and got caught.
I really need to find one of those invisibility rings.
Anyway, that’s not important: I talked my way out of it, pointed out that I had already been through half the camp and hadn’t stolen anything and wasn’t going to, and we had good reason to be suspicious. WOMAN IN BLACK just sighed and agreed that we did, but that she couldn’t let the mirror go, blah blah blah.
Anyway, like I said: not important.
What was important: WOMAN IN BLACK has xxx SNAKES for her xxx HAIR.
I didn’t let on that I’d seen, but I high-tailed it back to camp and discussed it with Gal. She nodded like she’d known all along (hint: she didn’t). Then we broke it to Shad and Chlod.
They lost it.
Okay: yes, she’s a medusa. She hasn’t stoned anyone - she probably wears that getup so she doesn’t accidentally do someone in. She seems nice enough. And we did the whole detect evil intentions thing and it didn’t even squeak. And c’mon, we have a Lawful goblin working for us. Can we have a LITTLE less prejudice, maybe?
Look, I’ll be the first to say that some types of creature or humanoid, you gotta assume they’ll gank you on sight. You gotta be cautious. But if they’re willing to talk, talk. You might find a Grizzba or Baldaswind or an ogre with a heart of gold who just wants to be a pastry chef.
Anyway, lots of drama. No practical purpose. And what do we do in the end? Exactly what I was suggesting at the beginning: We talk to WOMAN IN BLACK about it. Well, Chlod does. I’m the practical one; he’s the pretty one.
He lets her know the gig is up. She just looks sad, and nods and looks away, “Yes, I am one of the cursed.”
Dawwwwwww.
After that, everything is smiles. Well, except that I had to work hard to get Chlod to get cash out of her for the mirror - her sad little cursed girl in the wilderness thing, he forgot she’s a highly capable warrior sent out on quest by Iamanu with a small army at her back.
I mean, her kingdom’s paying HER for the quest WE just basically finished for her. And if it wasn’t for us, they wouldn’t have even known the quest needed doing.
Say what you want about my motivations, but first pass the cash.
Actually, we get two things:
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Cash (50K, yum).
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An offer of vassalage if we finish clearing the mountain, since Iamanu technically owns this region, but isn’t doing anything with it.
Technically, that translates to “won’t kick us out.” But it’s STILL better than the half-baked ideas we were floating to keep Orléans or Atanung from taking the mountain from us once we do all the hard work of clearing it out.
So I count it as a win.
Vulfelind’s Journal: Afternoon of Day 16 of Months 12
After WOMAN IN BLACK left with the mirror, with renewed vigor: we attacked the ancient dwarven citadel of ancient dwarven doom.
We found two interesting things:
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We found a second Altar of Chaos. It has mummies, too (imagine dance of joy here).
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We found a mass grave - a cave-in with dwarf corpses all through.
Shad’s map and notes imply, short version, that there are THREE altars forming a ring around the mass grave. Near the center? Pit of hell. Corbus only wishes he could build a dungeon like this.
Geometrycally speaking, though, the map also gave us a new plan. An awesome plan. A kind of evil plan.
What I would call… a practical plan.
We cut a deal with the magma mermaids who thought Chlod was so tasty:
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We won’t use our efreet to redirect a river into their home.
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They provide us with the ability to work in the magma for the next little while, so we can dig a twelve-foot tunnel down to right on top of the third altar.
Hahahaha, oops. Was that YOUR altar?
Vulfelind’s Journal: Weeks 3-4 of Month 12
The hole ended up being 15 feet, and 10-foot-square. Shad’s map was pretty good, but not perfect.
Most of us had to stand guard, which wasn’t efficient, but, you know, MAGMA MERMAIDS WHO LIKE TO EAT PEOPLE.
The mummies probably heard the noise through the rock all week and wondered what it was before thousands of gallson of steaming magma suddenly started pouring down on their heads. And then we come swimming through it, cutting them into bits.
It was, and I say this most humbly, our most glorious battle to date.
Of course, we missed some things:
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The lava didn’t stop just because the fight was done.
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We didn’t actually work out how much of the complex was going to get magma-filled.
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The undead horde at the SECOND altar heard the noise and came running, AFTER the lava had slowed to trickle speed, at which point we were at a significant disadvantage. There were a lot of Heal throws after that.
Still: Winner writes history, so I am writing this down: Huge success.
Then we’re all about the grab grab grab, break the altars, grab grab grab, retreat.
Then we mourned the loss of the keep - most of the interior will be under lava or rock by the end of the day.
We do have one last chat with the magma people: basically, we promised to not drop a river on them, and we’ll keep that promise. But we’re GOING to rule this mountain in the near future, which will only be a problem if the magma people MAKE it a problem.
They agree that they really don’t want to make it a problem for us.
Everything is smiles, just in time for the New Year!
Vulfelind’s Journal: Month 1 of Year 2
We make one quick sweep of the few portions of the keep that remain above lava. Gal breaks out the REALLY nice food and we have a small party.
And then we talk to the giantesses, and specifically to Clothilde - the one who trains the bears and seems to make the major decisions for them. We want them to stay. They’re worried they won’t have a way to fit in (and they don’t want to be warriors).
Gal points out what we missed: they are fantastic architects and stone workers. So non-combat work will SO not be a problem. She went on a bit of a rant about it, actually.
We also got some intel on the rest of the mountain:
Probable lairs: Clothilde and friends, family of cave bears (NOT friendly to the giants), band of white apes (NOT friendly to anyone at all), a whole mess of giant rattlesnakes, and the pegasus nest way up the cliffside Gal’s been obsessing over.
That settled: we set out for Orléans to re-equip and level.
Session End - Vulfelind’s section ends here
Party notes for the curious: Almost everyone leveled, especially after the “parley XP.”
- Chlodomer d'Antioch - fighter 7
- Galagunde d'Orléans - illusionist 5
- Eldremer the Bold - familiar
- Agalinda d'Orléans - illusionist 3
- Boromer the Brown - familiar
- Amarante le Certaine - mage 5
- Leoncito - familiar
- Haramer d'Orléans - fighter 5
- four squads, each with four fighter-2 soldiers and a fighter-4 leader.
- Galagunde d'Orléans - illusionist 5
- Adela d'Orléans - fighter 5
- Genofeva de Paris - fighter 5
- Thorismund du Châtel - fighter 6
- Ingunde du Châtel - fighter 6
- Louis d'Orléans - fighter 4
- Petite - familiar
- Gurund d'Orléans - mage 5
- Geofferic d'Orléans - fighter 4
- Deuteria du Châtel - mage 5
- Merovia d'Orléans - mage 5
- Grizzba the Goblin - thief 6
- Grace d'Antioch - thief 5
- Veneranda le Vulin - cleric 6
- Shadow - war dog 4
- Silver - war dog 4
- Sable - war dog 4
- Fierce on the Wind - giant hawk 4
- Baldaswind de Calais - weretiger 6
- Garal - tiger 6
- Salha - tiger 6
- Almalinda d'Orléans - fighter 5
- Merideth le Chocolat - cleric 5
- Grimaric d'Orléans - cleric 5
- Aggulita the Goblin - cleric 5
- Gore - dire wolf 4