Session 9 Adventure Notes

Our last session was an interesting twist.  We played during daylight only, had a new young player, and had a lot of party discussion regarding alignment how to handle story elements.  We also went back to the beginning to recalculate experience points, as some how, our players lost track of their most prized position, Experience Points.  Here is our experience totals thus far:

Session 8: 787 XP
Session 7: 524 XP
Session 6: 562 XP
Session 5: 278 XP
Session 4: 432 XP
Session 3: 321 XP
Session 2: 585 XP + 50 XP for Shava and Yelsha
Session 1: 375 XP
Total so far: 3864 XP

Basically, most of the party felt stronger at the end of last session, and didn't realize it. 

Now to the story.

Our party was taking a long rest after getting their butt kicks in the Desert Cave.  During the long rest Varis noticed that Shava was sleeping well.  When confronted Shava just brushed it off as a dream.  As they were packing up camp a tall figure approached their camp from the west.  From the looks of him, he looks like a Minotaur Paladin.  Yep, a Minotaur Lawful Good Paladin named Minron (not Nimrod as was pointed out to me on more than one occasion) joins the party.

Minron hears of their troubles with the Pentagon of Vecna and inspects.  He determines that it must be evil and recommends its destruction.  He also finds it difficult to put it down but does accomplish the task.  They carefully put it back and in Shava's pack after deciding that Shava is the best choice based on will and alignment (a nod to Glyth with the higher will and "lower" alignment).

After a lengthy discussion they decide to head West, early in Day 11. back to the crossroads from whence they came and from there to head North toward Hilliana.  Some of the debate was between the princess rescue, and dealing with the Pentagon, but they concluded that their only clue regarding the Pentagon was in Hilliana as was the princess so they proceeded there.

As they approach Hilliana, they make out an encampment blocking the bridge across the river to Hilliana castle.  They choose between approaching the encampment with various methods of accomplishing that, and following a path they discovered that ran parallel to the road through the woods to the west.  To take the path, they had to ditch their cart and felt that the going would be tough with their horses as well, thought the brought them anyways.  They ditched their cart in the woods and covered it with limbs, and then took any stuff they couldn't carry and buried in deeper in the woods, supposedly taking good notes on how to retrieve it later. 

Along the first half of the trail, several of the party just didn't have the skills to navigate their horse through the tight trail and the party lost of two of their six horses.  During the last half of the trail, they lost two more (one of them their warhorse).  They emerged on a bank of land between a rushing river and think wood to the West of the encampment.  As they march further west, upstream of the river, they begin to smell a foul smell in the air and eventually see an opening on the other side of the river.  A closer inspection (though still across the river), they suspect that it is man made and the source of the stench, possibly a sewer from Hilliana and a stealthy entrance into the town. 

After inspecting the river more closely, they decide their best bet is ford it and to head further upstream should the rushing current carry them.  As they head further upstream, the luck up and find a narrower part of the stream and its a bit calmer.  They also found a dying tree near the river bank.  The party decides that not everyone is so athletic so they send Rhaegar across first with a rope tied him.  He fords the river by starting with a running jump crossing almost half the distance at once.  He then loses a few feet downstream but crosses unscathed.

Rhaegar and Minron hold both ends of the rope and Minron ties another rope to each party member who attempts to cross.  Glyth gets part way then teleports the rest of the way providing assistance to Rhaegar on the far side of the river.  The rope makes it easier for most of the players to cross river but the current keeps sweeping their feet out.  They frequently use the rope to drag a character back to the near shore.   Some have difficulty getting across, and ultimately Minron takes a few attempts to throw an end of the rope across the river to Rhaegar.  Now when a character lets go of the rope across the attached rope to their body can drag them to the far shore.  This gets the rest of the party across though Jadis and Varis take some drowning damage from being submerged while drug to the far shore.  Everyone catches their breath before heading into the suspected sewer entrance.

Dark?  Check.  Smelly?  Check.  Damp?  Check.  Sewer?  Definitely.  Any monsters, just a baby crocodile 45 years after being dumped into the sewer out of a chamber pot.  Our party deftly converges on the poor lonely Vicejaw Crocodile bloodying him quickly before four more Crocodiles emerge from the murky sewer water to bite our party.  Several crocodiles bite and clamp down on the party in a grab, and then did massive damage as the grab continued.  That is, until Rhaegar burned her daily which allowed party members to slide other party members on a hit.  The DM's parade being rained on, a Cavern Choker emerges around a bend in the sewer line and lashes out with tentacles at Shava who is in the front.  The Choker begins to drag Shava away from the party before Shava finally gets in an escape and retreats closer to the party.  Another Choker emerges from the opposite direction slinging tentacles at Varis and after a few tries grabbing him.  The slide powers prove to difficulty and very little additional damage is done, even with a sixth crocodile shows up.  One Choker did get in a very clever hit by using Varis as a human shield when Minron closed for an attack.  Varis tries to forgive, but Glyth still seems to carry a fire in her eye when looking at Minron.

Having cleared the sewer, Rhaegar since that he felt stronger and as he suggested to the party that they step back outside away from this smell so he could do some exercises to make him stronger, Shava, Yelsha, Glyth, Varis, and Jadis, say "Hey, wait a minute, I think I need to do some studying, too."  Low and behold, six of our party members advance to the fourth level while enjoying a long rest after a long day of travelling.  This rest carries them into the dark hours of Day 11, and then they reenter the sewer.

After making their way through the sewer, they discover two discernible exits.  One, a ladder up to a trap door, and the other, a open exit into the town itself, probably an entrance for the unfortunate souls how have to perform maintenance down here, that also allows for water runoff.  Glyth stealthily checks the trapdoor and finds that it leads to the storeroom of a tavern but store room door is open and there seemed to be a good bit of foot traffic by the door.   They nominate Glyth to then poke her head out of the open exit and slightly startle an old man, dressed in rags, with "crazy eyes" who slightly startles them back with "Hello dare!".  A very difficult conversation ensures with a few of the characters revealing themselves at a time, usually greeted with another surprised "Hello dare!".  This crazy old man, though speaking in riddles with phrases such as "I is invisible and he sees things" and offering the "pears of his presence".  He also mentions that "pears are fruits" before holding out his hand.

Minron gives the old man a gold piece and the old man offers additional cryptic information.  It takes numerous gold pieces, and a (failed) attempt at silver pieces from Glyth, to get some additional information.  Our party learns that the King has gone mad, he found something, and that he is sending folks to find more things.  He even suggests that maybe the party could go find something for the King.  As is typical with this party, things started to get a little rough when the well was running dry, so he yanked a last coin out of Minron's hand and bolted off into the dark cackling all the while.

Our heroes finally get a chance to see their surroundings and they see the sign for the Dog's Wag not 30 feet away from them.  They also describe this area of town as "Seedy".  Rhaegar decides he is too good for this side of town, passes the Dog's Wag and asks a towns person about a nicer place (speaking of payment).   Our citizen takes them to the Gilded Flute tavern further East in town.  As she does so, Rhaegar suddenly gets a little cheap and the middle-class citizen makes an idle threat of making sure folks knew the party was in town and leaves.  Rhaegar then rethought the situation and chased after the citizen offering her a gold piece for the escort and an extra for her silence.  The citizen smiled, took the gold and was off.

Our heroes then found themselves in an empty (it's pretty late at night) but nicely maintained hotel with a female human as the bar keep.  She cautiously offers them rooms (the party really stinks) and says she only has deluxe rooms for 2 gp each, and that a bath was available AND REQUIRED to stay here at 1gp each.  There were two baths available so the party took turns washing up.  With seven rooms, Glyth and Varis bunked up and they converted the seventh room into a meeting room so they could discuss issues (especially the Pentagon) in private.  The sun rises signaling Day 12 during these conversations and, being still rested, they decide as a group to find a place where they can do religious research, possibly check out the Dog's Wag before the Cloaked figure is due to show up, and see what's around town.

The barkeep obliges them with a hand drawn map of Hilliana.  It appears that Hilliana is broken up into districts, with the poor section along the west wall, the great Manors of the wealthy along the south wall, the middle class homes near the west wall.  The Dog's Wag is South East marker and separator between the poor section and the Manors (As well as some space).  The Gilded Flute is the West end marker of the Middle Class section.  Just North of the Middle Class section are the shops.  West of the shops is a small religious center and library with an open park and then cemetery further west.  In the center is Castle Hilliana complete with moat and walls.   There are also large walls around the town with a North and South gate for entrance and exit to the city.

They proceed to the religious center where they diplomatically and discretely talk to the Eladrin female who offers to help them there.  Based on the sketchy information the party provides, she mentions a work of fiction regarding a Ring of Power and a Mountain, but offers to do further research, on how one might destroy an artifact regarding Vecna.  She would not let anyone touch their books due to their value and age, but did seem genuinely intrigues to do the research.   She hopes to have some research completed by tomorrow.

Next our party headed to the merchant district for a little shopping.  They immediately spot a store offering magic items and get to window shopping before realizing they don't have as much money as they had thought.  There were some negotiations and trades transpiring, but everything "cool" someone wanted and thought they could get into their price range, would cost the party almost all their gold, including a one-of-a-king bag of holding.  Glyth had her eye on a few rods <snicker> but ultimately left empty handed and disappointed <snicker, snicker>.

GAMES OF CHANCE.


And that is where we leave our adventures late in the morning of Day 12. 

What will the Eladrin woman find out for our party regarding artifacts of Vecna?
What is waiting for them in Dog's Wag?
What is the name of this campaign and will they ever find out why?
How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Experience Points:
   Encounter 17 - River Crossing - 1000 XP
   Encounter 22 - Sewer Passage to Hilliana - 1400 XP
Session Experience: 2400 XP / 7 PCs = 342XP
Adventure Experience: 3864 XP + 342 XP = 4206 XP + 50 XP for Shava and Yelsha
Level 5 at 5500 XP