Date:
Tahsday, 26th of Dikaios, 2993 AE
Weather:
Cold, freezing rain
Player Characters:
Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)
Ioannes Grammatikos Byzantios, Archontean cleric of Demma (Demented Avenger)
Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)
Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)Coinbase, Mercenary illusionist (ArchonShiva)
Significant NPCs:
Lyssandra and Pelteon, co-owners of the Arcane Practitioners' Club
Wicktrimmer, Imperial Goblin head of the Rarities Factor
Basil, Right for Riches employee
Freydis, Steward to Lady Alexia
Trillis and Noredden Galesson, elven leaders of Arcane Vengeance
Bottleneck, goblin master sergeant
Many goblins
Roger the Rapier, leader of the Five Fingers of Destiny adventuring company
Clavinia, mage
Clavinia's men-at-arms
Temrin, goblin Royal Artist
Several lizardmen
Several orge guards
Lukor, leading a mysterious group of wizards and their bodyguards
Many beastmen
Count Skleros, beastman commander
Many stirges
4 zombies
2 construct spearmen
The Plan:
- Visit Temrin in the Goblin Market; get his magic map to the gold Rudishva ID
- Try to commission another map from Temrin
- Covertly explore behind the secret door on the upper wall of the Goblin Market
- Visit the Obelisk of Thoth near Upper Goblintown and ask Thoth for one of his secret names
- Cast Analyze Magic on the floating head in Upper Goblintown
- Test out the teleportation squares with the teleportation ring near the floating head
- Explore the glowing room northwest of Upper Goblintown
- Explore the unexplored rooms northeast of Upper Goblintown
What Happened:
A note appeared in on the bulletin board in the lounge of the Arcane Practitioners' Club, instructing that members renting apartments may not keep explosive or flammable items powerful enough to damage the structure of the building in their rooms.
A letter arrived from Wicktrimmer, indicating that he was in Narsileon, found some of the items on the group's shopping list, and should be back to Gosterwick in a few weeks. He expressed condolences on Uvash's temporary death and concern at the burglary (and explosion and fire) in their apartment.
Vael (providing management and Shape Earth spells) and Basil (providing the muscle) expanded the library in the Annex of the Beacon and dumped all the excess stone in the vacant lot next to the Arcane Practitioner's Club. Vael wrote a letter to Freydis, Lady Alexia's steward, indicating that the stone was a gift to the town for use in the future town walls. The stone disappeared, but the letter was not answered.
Vallium bought a pair of earrings, intending to give one earring to Craastonistorex as tribute and keep the other.
The group picked up Coinbase at the Grudge Brigade headquarters and hiked to Arden Vul through freezing rain. The climb up the Long Stair looked unsafe in the ice, so three members stepped through a teleport Rug and Vael and Coinbase Levitated up. After bringing everyone back through the Rug, they hiked to the dam to leave tribute for the dragon. Coinbase suggested that a single earring looked suspicious, so everyone threw in some coins, and Vael also included a note apologizing for the meager tribute and saying it was because their apartment had been robbed and they were temporarily short of treasure.
They continued northeast toward the Pyramid of Thoth, but ran into a group of elves, also out in the freezing rain, who were casting spells and mapping. One of the elves recognized Vael and introduced himself as Trillis Galesson, co-leader of Arcane Vengeance. He inquired on whether Vael knew the location of any large amounts of arcanum. Vael did not. The elves left to resume their triangulation.
They went down into the Pyramid of Thoth, where the entry door was wide open, and most of the goblins inside were drunk. All had a new patch on their uniforms, featuring a sack overflowing with golden coins. Some asking around revealed that the Five Fingers of Destiny had found an ancient goblin treasury somewhere in Upper Goblintown (but the exact location was a secret) and had rightfully declared that part of the treasure belonged to King Weskenim. They also announced that that it was too much treasure for them to carry, so they got Bottleneck's permission to hire off-duty goblins to carry treasure down to the King and up to the top of the Pyramid, and Bottleneck had modified the duty roster so that all the goblins in his command got to carry at least one bag of coins down to the King. King Weskenim had decorated every goblin who had participated in the operation, and they were still celebrating.
After some whining about other people finding treasure, Right for Riches went south to the secret stairs behind the baboon door, then through the Cave of Gog and the Wet Caves to Goblintown. They reached the goblin market and found several other visitors: a red-haired woman (with bodyguards) trying to sell relics to Claudine, a squad of beastmen standing around, and a group of lizardmen trying to buy potions from Jobim using broken Archontean. Vael introduced himself to the woman, who said she was Clavinia, a mage. He asked to see the items that Claudine didn't buy and purchased them for himself. The beastman sergeant whispered something about one of their men being held captive and asked if anyone could intervene with the king to set him loose.
Vallium went over to Temrin, who was wearing a new patch with a picture of himself holding a paintbrush. An inquiry about the patch got Temrin to reveal that he had been promoted to Royal Artist. He got Master Leifcrim to open the vault, and came back with the map he had made to the golden oval plaque. He also returned the rust-colored oval plaque he had used as a focus to help make the map. Vallium tried to commission another map, but Temrin said that as Royal Artist he had been commissioned by the King to make a map to the Scepter of the Goblins and had been told to accept no other jobs until he was done.
 |
| Temrin's map, with Vallium's annotations |
Not knowing exactly what the Scepter of the Goblins looked like, but wanting to find it before the Five Fingers of Destiny or some other group did, Vael tried a Seeker spell. Surprisingly, it appeared to work, and gave him a vision of a long bone in an urn surrounded by smaller wooden sticks. Vael followed up the Seeker with a Trace, which told him the Scepter was up and south. Using his Absolute Direction, he estimated that this was somewhere in the northeastern part of the Great Cavern.
With business concluded, the group set out to explore behind the secret door high on the wall. Coinbase flew around the room (attracting the attention of many young goblins) and tried to sneakily cast a Silence spell and a Complex Illusion of the undisturbed wall over the secret door, to help avoid attracting attention if they had to open it. The whole group then went south into the empty corridor, out of sight of all the goblins, so they could use the Rug unobserved. The ogre guards initially stopped them, but then believed Vael's story that they had to talk to the wizards back there and let them through. Everyone except Vael went through the Rug to the Beacon, then Vael used Larel's Cloak to turn invisible, and Levitated back past the ogre guards and up the wall to the secret door. He tried Blinking blind through the door. His first attempt failed, but he retried and ended up in a dark empty place. He cast Infravision, which let him see that the room was about ten by ten by ten feet and empty, with stone walls. He then pulled out his Continual Light stone so he could see better, spread out the Rug, and waited for the others to join him. They searched the room until Vallium found a secret door on the north wall, then let Vael search it for traps, then pushed it open.
On the other side was a larger storeroom, looking like it had not been disturbed in centuries. It was full of stuff: a suit of amazing armor composed of steel plates molded to the shape of a human body (kind of like the armor that Sir Sorrow the Sun-Scarred Knight wore, but not quite as fancy), several prayer rugs (two of them magical), a few larger carpets, some wooden planks, some construction equipment, and some chests and barrels. The chests contained a few old legionary shortswords, a crossbow, and a small magical metal rod covered in runes. The barrels were mostly empty, but Uvash spotted some red gems glued to the inside of one of the lids. They put the Rug on the floor and carried everything in the room except the empty barrels back to the Beacon. When they were done, Vael (who was still invisible) picked up the Rug, Blinked back through the secret door, Levitated back to the southern passage, and put the Rug down so the others could join them there.
They then went back to talk to the wizards to reinforce their cover story. One of the bodyguards opened the door, and one of the wizards came to talk. He asked some questions about the large treasure he had heard the King had found. He again refused to identify his group, saying his leader had not permitted him to share that information. He did say that his name was Lukor. Vael suggested that he talk to his leaders and get permission to share more in the future.
The group went back up to Upper Goblintown. At that point they reconsidered their previous plan and decided they needed to find the Scepter of the Goblins while Vael had an active Trace on it, and before the Five Fingers of Destiny or some other lesser adventuring party did. Since it was in the Great Cavern, they could either go up to the surface then south to the Long Stair then down to the secret entrance then back north, or just go south through beastman territory. The latter was closer and didn't require going out in the freezing rain, so they went to the border room with the barricade down the middle and yelled to get a beastman guard's attention. They said they wanted to negotiate passage, so the guard got his sergeant. Vael proposed giving the beastmen some planks of lumber in exchange for passage to the Great Cavern. The sergeant went to get Count Skleros, and they eventually agreed on ten boards. Vallium took the Rug around the corner and carried ten boards back out through it, which he piled up for the beastmen troops to collect. Skleros and a sergeant, flanked by a couple of troopers, escorted the group through their rooms to the Great Cavern.
Vallium asked the Count about the mailed fist symbol they had seen on a beastman corpse, and Skleros said that was the insignia of the third cohort of the Imperial Tagmata, the Emperor's own guard unit, which had been wiped out in Arden Vul during Adrienic's failed expedition over 200 years ago. He said that some of the Children of Deino had an affinity for that unit and had adopted its insignia. Vael asked if Skleros knew about Ambrosia. He did not. Vael revealed that there were some beastmen loyal to Ambrosia rather than Deino somewhere in the Great Cavern, possibly charmed. Skeleros was alarmed by this. Vael asked if Deino herself might want to meet with them. Skleros revealed that she might, but he did not recommend it.
When they were reached the Great Cavern, most of the group stepped through the Rug again, and Vael and Coinbase flew east toward a side cave where Vael thought the Scepter was. When they reached the entrance, Vael didn't want to go in without more backup, so he Apportated the Rug to the floor and magically unfolded it. The others stepped through and they started exploring a cave system. Uvash got a bit too far in front of the group and got ambushed by about a dozen stirges. They surrounded him and started trying to feed on his blood, but fortunately his armor was thick enough to stop most of their attacks. Vallium quickly ran to his aid, then Vael used a Shape Air spell to focus a strong wind on Uvash, which was not enough to blow Uvash over but was strong enough to repel any strix that came too close. After a few striges were blown into the cavern wall at high speed, the rest fled through a crack in the south wall. Vael used Shape Earth to seal the crack.
Exploring more cautiously, the group went north, up a slippery slope, and then found a room with six urns. Vael's Trace spell told him that one urn contained the Scepter, surrounded by a lot of wooden sticks. It was a three-foot-long legbone, possibly from an ogre or troll. It was hollowed out, with holes drilled along one side, like a gigantic flute. It was magical. They took the scepter, then searched all the urns. One was full of black sand. One was full of small white rocks that they thought were non-valuable calcite. One was full of some kind of disgusting rotten plant material. One had a few inches of oil on top of a lot of water. And the last had a few inches of water on top of a big block of what looked like gold. The urn was heavy enough to be full of gold; Vallium could barely move it. Coinbase cast Lighten Burden on him to make it easier, and he carried it through the Rug back to the Beacon.
There were some wooden scraps on the east wall that looked like the remains of a ladder, and a couple of holes in the floor where it may have been based. Vael flew up and searched for a secret door up on the wall, and found one. Vallium pulled an intact ladder out of Larel's Sack and set it up against the wall, then climbed up and bashed the secret door open. On the other side were some zombies and construct spearmen. Vallium initially fought them from the top of the ladder. He then stepped into the room to make space for Uvash and Coinbase to join him. The zombies went down pretty quickly. The constructs were much tougher, but one went down after three good hits, and then they surrounded the other. One hard blow stunned it and caused it to drop its spear, and once it was on the ground the three of them smashed it from all sides until it stopped moving.
On the far wall of the room was a sarcophagus. Coinsbase and Vallium pulled the lid off. Inside were some decayed remains, buried with a lot of ancient silver pennies, and a few other valuable objects like a magical torc, a golden ceremonial helmet, an ebony magic wand, and a few potions. They scooped up everything in the sarcophagus except the remains, and headed back out to the Great Cavern. They again had most of the group go through the Rug while Vael and Coinbase Levitated south over the lake, and then landed to reform the party. Vallium led them through the eastern side passages then south to the secret exit. At that point most of the party went into the Rug again, and Vael and Coinbase Levitated all the way to Gosterwick through the freezing rain. It was a cold flight, but they made it back to town intact.
GM's Comments:
The Right for Riches Company learned that other adventuring parties can find treasure too. They did not like this.
They got their map to the Gold Rudishva ID from Temrin, and spent some time figuring it out. The map seemed to lead them deeper than they have gone so far under Arden Vul. We'll see if they follow it soon, or prioritize goals that seem easier to reach.
They found a giant bone flute that Seeker said was the Scepter of the Goblins. They plan to bring it to King Weskenim.
They also found a second set of the Rugs of Instant Access. The first set has been very useful. Do they keep the second set for themselves, or sell it to Wicktrimmer?
XP:
- Exploration: 6 new locations, 1 XP
- Loot: They will sell enough of the loot they found to get 2 XP
- Achievements: None
- Total: 3 XP
Next Week:
They plan to being the Scepter / Flute to King Weskenim. After that, they're considering two options. One would be resuming the plan from this delve that they aborted to find the Scepter: use the Obelisk of Thoth to get a secret name of Thoth, identify the floating head, and explore some unexplored areas near Upper Goblintown. The other is to go after Ambrosia in the Great Cavern and bring the charmed beastmen back to Count Skleros, to try to gain an alliance with the beastmen and free passage through their territory. We'll see which one they pick.
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