# The Rat Bastard Campaign Chronicle (Updated 3/28/05)



## RatPunk (Jul 26, 2002)

Ok, here is my first attempt at a Story Hour. Please, be kind  

This campaign has been running since December 2000. We have recently taken a break (for the DM’s sake) and started a new campaign, but we will be returning to this one eventually (we’re only half way through the story, after all). I thought I would post these accounts here for everyone’s enjoyment. I look forward to reading everybody’s comments.

Some campaign facts: The campaign is set in the World of Greyhawk. The first adventure is a modified version of one of the free “game a week” adventures from WotC’s site, the name of which I’ve temporarily forgotten. The rest of the adventures (so far) are all modified versions of Necromancer Games’ Wizard’s Amulet, Crucible of Freya and Rappan Athuk (part 1) modules, along with the obligatory home-made stuff.

One thing of note before I introduce the characters: the tone of the narrative will change after chapter four. I originally started off as the DM, but after three and a half sessions, one of the players (Hugh’s) wanted to try his hand at running the game. From that point on, all the chapters will be from my character’s point of view. I think they’re much better that way…  

The initial cast of characters:

Ostler – A dwarven cleric from the Flinty Hills region of Greyhawk. He’s a follower of Kord who refuses to heal you unless you praise Kord first.

Shuglin – A dwarven sorcerer and friend of Ostler. Like Ostler, he prefers to use a battle axe in combat even though neither of them are proficient in it.

Rumblethorn Darkbriar – An elven druid from Celene. He travels with a wolf companion named Brush who would turn out to be the group’s best fighter for a long time.

Jackie Woo – A halfling monk. Occasionally his natural halfing tendencies want to come to the surface and he needs to be reminded that he isn’t a thief.

Jebeddo Daergal – A gnome rogue. Jeb refuses to admit that he’s a rogue, preferring the term “missile warrior” instead due to his devastating accuracy with bows.

Hugh Barringer – A human paladin. Hugh tries desperately to follow the path set for him by his goddess, Mayaheine, but it becomes increasingly more difficult the more he travels with Jeb.

And now, Chapter One…


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## RatPunk (Jul 26, 2002)

*Chapter One - Narwell*

The day had begun like any other. Waking at dawn, Eldrin had prepared the tavern for the day’s regular entourage of customers. The city of Narwell, being one of the few free settlements left in the lands of the Wild Coast, always attracted more than it’s share of mercenaries, adventurers, and ne’er do wells. The tavern’s location on the edge of town meant that more of those shady characters frequented here than most of the other places in town. Of course, Eldrin thought, that was both a blessing and a curse. The increased traffic meant more gold in his coffers, but it also meant that the potential for trouble was greater as well. In fact, a band of orc warriors had recently begun stopping at the tavern every few weeks to cause just that trouble. With the city guard already spread thin due to the city’s proximity to the Pomarj and the influx of refugees that had settled in the area after the Wars, the tavern’s rowdy orc problem was a low priority with the constable. Besides, it wasn’t like they had killed anyone, yet. But now, Eldrin was getting a sneaking suspicion that something was about to get out of hand. 

It started, innocently enough, about an hour before the normal evening crowd would start coming in. There was only a handful of people in the place, when an elf walked through the door. With a wolf. 

“Hey! We don’t allow animals in ‘ere!” Eldrin said. “The dog’ll ‘ave to wait outside!”

The elf walked over to the bar and sat down. “Not to worry, good sir,” he said, “My name is Rumblethorn Darkbriar, and I’m a druid in the service of Ehlonna. This wolf is a friend and I promise you he will not cause any trouble what so ever.”

Eldrin was skeptical, but the elf seemed convincing enough. “Alright, he can stay. Just make sure he stays out of the way.” With that, Eldrin went back to cleaning mugs.

It was several minutes later, when the two dwarves entered the bar, that Eldrin started getting a nervous feeling in his stomach. Not only did they just look like trouble, but the taller of the two actually had the holy symbol of Kord branded into his forehead. The dwarves looked around for a minute, getting the lay of the place, Eldrin guessed, then they spotted the elf. 

“This,” Eldrin thought to himself, “will not be good...”

The dwarves walked over to the bar and sat down next to the elf. Eldrin did his best not to listen in on the conversation, but he couldn’t help overhearing bits and pieces. The tall dwarf with the brand was named Ostler, while his shorter companion was Shuglin. They both seemed intent on harassing Rumblethorn, though he tried his best to ignore them. The dwarves were oblivious, however, and continued to pursue what they obviously believed was a good conversation.

Suddenly, the doors burst open and Eldrin’s worst nightmares were realized. Four members of the wandering orc band had arrived for their monthly “tribute” of alcohol and mayhem. All eyes in the place were on the orcs, except for Eldrin, who stole a glance toward the dwarves. Sure enough, they were already sliding down off of their barstools. With a quick glance at each other, they started walking towards the orcs. 

“Oh, bloody hell,” thought Eldrin.

Ostler walked up to the orc leader, who stopped dead in his tracks. This was obviously not what he expected when he came in today. 

“What the hell you doing in my bar?” barked the orc in guttural but understandable Common.

“Your bar?” asked Ostler. “I wasn’t aware that this was your bar”. 

“When we come in to drink, it my bar!” declared the orc matter of factly. “Now get out of way, shorty.” 

With that, he tried to push Ostler aside, but Ostler was ready for him and lunged at the orc. With his head. The orc was so surprised by this that he couldn’t even begin to move out of the way. It was obvious by the way the orc staggered backwards that Ostler’s head was quite thick. Seeing their leader get hit was all the encouragement the other three orcs needed, and the brawl was on.

“Terrific,” Eldrin thought, “there goes my profit for this year...”

While the orc leader stumbled towards the doors, the two orcs who had been behind him stepped up and squared off against the dwarves in an attempt to pummel them into submission. Fortunately for the dwarves, the orcs either weren’t experienced when it came to fisticuffs or they weren’t used to fighting such short opponents. Either way, Ostler managed to beat his opponent into unconsciousness first. Seeing that the dwarves were going to be more of a problem than originally anticipated, the orc standing by the door drew his sword. The orc fighting Shuglin took a step back and did the same. The escalation of the conflict was met with glee by the two dwarves, who took the momentary break in the action to draw their own battleaxes.

“No weapons! NO WEAPONS!” Eldrin shouted, but in the noise and mayhem, nobody paid any attention.

In a panic, Eldrin glanced around the bar, looking desperately for any sign of hope that the fracas might die down without too much bloodshed. Most of the patrons were cowering in the corners trying to make themselves as invisible as possible, but the elf was still sitting at the bar, calmly finishing his drink as he took in the scene. 

“No doubt he thinks this is fitting revenge for the dwarves harassment.” Eldrin thought.

The loud clang of weapons brought Eldrin’s attention back to the fight. The two orcs, with weapons drawn, had closed on the dwarves. The dwarves, of course, were fighting back. 

“Odd that they don’t look more comfortable with those axes.” Eldrin thought. “Still, they’re holding their own.”

Just then, seemingly out of nowhere, the elf’s wolf friend leapt on one of the orcs from behind, gnawing on his leg and knocking him to the ground, where the orc lay bleeding and unmoving. Now freed from his opponent, Shuglin turned and pointed at the last orc, who was still trading blows with Ostler. With a few words, an unearthly ray of white light sprang from Shuglin’s fingertips, passed over the orc’s head, and hit the wall by the door, where it promptly turned into a small patch of ice.

“No spells! NO SPELLS!” Eldrin shouted, now in an almost complete panic. He didn’t want some out of control spell slinger chucking spells around in his bar! One misplaced flaming spell and his entire life’s work would be gone in an instant. Eldrin’s fear quickly passed, however, as Shuglin, with a disgusted look on his face, hefted his axe once more and stepped up to give Ostler a hand.

Between the two of them, they made short work of the remaining orc, who finally dropped to the floor. Letting out a huge sigh of relief, Eldrin wiped his sweating brow and began to offer his gratitude to the dwarves for getting rid of the orcs with a minimum of damage. Just then, a loud orcish yell came from the doorway. Eldrin turned to see the orc leader, who had managed to stumble to the door. And he was yelling for reinforcements.

----------

Across the street from the tavern stood Kenden’s General Store, a small purveyor of most things necessary to maintain at least a meager existence in the lands and fields surrounding Narwell. Being on the edge of town made it a convenient place for those who had homes and farms in the outlying countryside to stop and pick up supplies without having to deal with the hustle and bustle of entering the city proper. It also made it a favorite spot for people like Baldo Nash, two-bit low life and generally shady character.

Baldo had just arrived outside Kenden’s to set up shop and start casing out likely “prospects” to hustle, when the commotion erupted inside Eldrin’s tavern. He had, of course, seen the ten orcs arrive outside the tavern, where they had promptly split up to pursue their own activities. He kept a cautious eye on the tavern door as the sounds of fighting changed from mere brawling to the distinctive clanging of weapons. When the noise had died down, he had assumed that the orcs had taken care of whoever was troubling them. Then he heard the yell of “bree yark” go up from the orc leaning in the doorway. 

“This, “ thought Baldo, “should be interesting.”

Almost immediately after the cry went up, the other orcs returned to the street looking to see where the trouble was. The orcs had indeed split up, with two coming from behind Kenden’s store, two coming down the street to the east and the final two coming up the street from the west. All of them, however, were converging on the bar. Baldo also noticed from his vantage point that the commotion and the sight of the orcs running down the street had attracted the attention of a few other people. 

Coming up from the east were a gnome with a short bow and a halfling dressed in strange clothing, while from the west approached a tall, blond guy with the shiniest chain shirt Baldo had ever seen. Even from his perch across the street, Baldo could tell that he reeked of a holier-than-thou attitude. “Definitely a paladin,” thought Baldo. It was obvious that all three had noticed the orcs and decided they were up to no good, as they all drew their respective weapons. 

“Oh yes, this will definitely be interesting.”

The orcs continued to approach the tavern, oblivious to the three combatants closing on them from behind. Just as the two from the west reached the door, all hell broke loose. The gnome fired an arrow, completely missing either of the orcs on the eastside of the tavern, but getting their attention. At almost exactly the same moment, the paladin gave a shout to get the attention of the two he was behind. As they turned to see who had yelled at them, a big wolf jumped out of the tavern door. It landed on the orc who had yelled from the doorway, and proceeded to maul him viciously.

With a crowd starting to gather around Kenden’s to watch the spectacle, Baldo seized the initiative. 

“Five silver on the human and the dog!” he shouted. 

“Five on the orcs!” shouted someone in the crowd.

“I’ll take seven on the halfling to lose a limb!” yelled a female voice.

Baldo smiled as the crowd quickly became engulfed in the shouting and taking down of wagers on who would be victorious and who would lose body parts. “This might not turn out to be such a bad day after all,” he thought as he tallied the bets, all the while keeping one eye on the fight.

As Baldo expected, the paladin was more than holding his own, having already dropped one of his opponents with a vicious cut that almost left the orc in two pieces. The wolf was biting at the other, but one of the two orcs who had been crossing the street was headed their way. The other was headed towards the halfling and gnome, who both looked like they were in trouble. Time after time, the gnome would back away to fire his bow, always missing, then the orc would step up and swing at him. Likewise the halfling tried desperately to connect with his sling. Fortunately for them, the orcs hadn’t managed to connect yet, either. “Surely, the arrival of the third orc would turn the tide of that battle,” Baldo thought.

Just then, the halfling managed to drop his orc with a well-placed sling bullet to the forehead. The timing couldn’t have been better. A moment later, the third orc arrived to take up his comrade’s fight and it was one on one once more. Things quickly began to look desperate again for the gnome and halfling, as they were forced to rely on their size and quickness to avoid being hit.

At that moment, the wolf came out of nowhere and landed on the orc fighting the halfling. Baldo suddenly realized that he had become caught up in the halfling’s fight and forgotten about the paladin. With a quick glance in that direction, Baldo confirmed what he suspected. The paladin and wolf had made short work of their opponents and the wolf had moved on to other game. The paladin was close behind him.

While the wolf mauled the orc it had just brought down, the paladin stepped up and, with a mighty swing, cut a large gash across the final orc’s chest. The orc fell to the ground in a heap with its friends. As the paladin glanced around for more opponents, Baldo paid off the winners and pocketed his “commission” of 60 silver pieces. 

“Not a bad day’s work, if I do say so,” he thought. “I can go home early today.” 

Still, he was curious as to what the 3 combatants would do next. The gnome, it turned out, was going through the belongings of the dead orcs. “Hmm,” thought Baldo, “A kindred spirit, it seems…”

With the bodies thoroughly scavenged, the three headed for the door to the tavern, where two dwarves and an elf had just emerged. Baldo decided to move across the street to see if he could learn anything more about this group.

“Greetings and well fought!” yelled the shorter of the two dwarves as the three reached them. 

“Come, friends,” he said, “Help us pile the corpses out of the way over here so the local authorities can come collect them.” With that, the dwarves went back inside, only to emerge a moment later with a couple of orc bodies of their own. The wolf, meanwhile, had walked over and sat on the ground at the elf’s feet. It remained there until the others had finished piling the bodies against the tavern wall. They then went inside, with Baldo quietly behind them.

----------

Now that the commotion was over, Eldrin sincerely hoped that things would quickly get back to normal in the bar. When Shuglin, Ostler and Rumblethorn walked back in, accompanied by their new companions, Eldrin noticed Baldo quietly walking in behind them. 

“That no good little thief!” he thought, “I’ll not have him causing trouble again in my bar!”

As the group seated themselves at one of the larger tables, Eldrin approached Baldo, who was trying to find a place nearby.

“Get out, ya little bastard. I’ll not have you causing trouble like you did last time,” he whispered quietly to the thief.

“It’s a free city, old man. I got as much right to drink here as anyone else.”

“We both know I can gut you three ways from Godsday before you’d even be able to scream. Now, get out!”

Angrily, Baldo stood and stormed out. “I’ll have to do something about him one of these days.” Eldrin thought, then he turned his attention back to the heroes of the hour, where introductions were just wrapping up. The human was Hugh Barringer, faithful paladin of Mayaheine. Several members of the little group rolled their eyes at this, but Hugh seemed oblivious to it. The halfling introduced himself as Jackie Woo, member of a monastic brotherhood of St. Cuthbert. Finally, the gnome introduced himself as Jebeddo Daergal, missile warrior.

“Missile warrior, huh?” thought Eldrin. “Looks like another stinking thief to me.”

“Excuse me, sirs,” Eldrin said to the group. “In gratitude for saving the tavern and taking care of our little orc problem, I would like to offer you a round of drinks on the house and free lodging for the evening, if you require it.”

“Excellent!” several of them shouted at once. 

The bar patrons, whose numbers had quickly grown since the fight, also celebrated this announcement with a hearty cheer. Eldrin could already tell that the crowd would make sure the group wouldn’t have to buy a drink all night. “It’s just as well,” Eldrin thought, smiling to himself. “I’m sure to make more money this way.”

When he returned with their first round of drinks, the questions began.

“What were those orcs doing here, anyway?”

“Why hasn’t the constable or the city guard done something about it?”

“Where’s my honey mead?”

As best he could, Eldrin tried to explain the situation with the orcs, the city guard, and Narwell as a whole, but he could tell that none of them were satisfied with his answers. Jebbedo even muttered something about a conspiracy between the constable and the orcs!

“What a paranoid little bunch they are,” Eldrin thought. “They’ll probably go far in this world.”

He tried to assure them that there was no such conspiracy, just the circumstances of being located on the edge of a growing city in a bad part of the world. It didn’t help. They were already making up more elaborate conspiracy theories as he stood there. Eldrin could only shake his head and excuse himself to go take care of his other customers.

A few minutes later, as Eldrin prepared another round of drinks for the paranoid heroes, the door burst open again. It was the Constable and he looked pissed. It only took him a minute to spot the small group sitting at their table. He began to head their way.

“Oh, bloody hell,” thought Eldrin…


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jul 26, 2002)

Very nice.

Could have done with a little more Jackie Woo action, myself.


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## RatPunk (Jul 26, 2002)

*Thanks!*

Thanks Wulf!

Any compliments coming from the Master Storyteller are high praise indeed!  

The Jackie Woo action is kind of light for the first couple of chapters, since his player missed a couple of the early sessions, but don't worry, there is plenty of it coming up. Just wait until we get to Chapter 7! It's priceless...


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## RatPunk (Jul 27, 2002)

Self serving BUMP!


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jul 27, 2002)

What the heck is wrong with you? You can't bump after the first post.

Sheesh.


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## RatPunk (Jul 29, 2002)

I know, but I wasn't expecting it to drop down the page quite so quickly.

What can I say. I panicked...


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## RatPunk (Aug 6, 2002)

*Chapter 2: Travensburg*

Standing in the doorway, Vesten quickly surveyed the tavern crowd. It wasn’t difficult to spot the people he was looking for. As he suspected, they were adventuring types and it wasn’t as if they were trying to hide. It also looked like they had already had several drinks, most likely courtesy of the grateful patrons. He’d seen it all before.

As he made his way towards their table, he nodded to Eldrin behind the bar. Eldrin merely shook his head sadly in response.

"You the ones responsible for the pile of dead orcs outside?" he asked.

"Who want’s to know?" Ostler replied.

"That would be me. I’m the Town Constable."

"And where were you when those orcs were tearing up this place?" Jebbedo asked as he placed his mug on the table.

"I had business elsewhere. It’s a big city," Vesten said, slightly taken aback at the suddenness of the interrogation. 

"That’s awfully convenient, isn’t it?" asked Ostler.

"Are you implying something?" Vesten asked, his surprise fading into irritation. He had hoped, as he always did, that these adventurers would be a bit less paranoid about town officials than most. Once again, he had been overly optimistic.

"Not at all," said Jeb, as he eyed the constable suspiciously, "just trying to get some answers is all."

At this, Hugh sat back, folded his arms over his chest and rolled his eyes in exasperation. He was already starting to have second thoughts about travelling with this group. He hoped Mayaheine would have mercy on him for doing so.

"Uh-huh. Look, do you people have business in town or are you just passing through?" Vesten asked, resigned to the fact that he probably wouldn’t get anywhere with them.

"We haven’t decided yet," said Ostler.

"And I suppose you have no idea how long you’ll be here?"

"None at all," Jeb said as he finished off his mug, "but the barkeep has been kind enough to offer us room and board for the night. For taking care of his little problem, you know." He smiled at Vesten smugly.

"Of course he did. Look, if you guys find yourselves staying in town for an extended period of time… And I sincerely hope that you don’t… then just try to stay out of trouble, alright?"

Ostler and Jeb both started to speak, but Hugh jumped up and offered his hand to the constable before they could make a sound.

"Thank you, sir, " he said, "we’ll try to take what you’ve said to heart and stay out of trouble."

"See that you do," Vesten said. "I don’t want to have to come back here." And with that, he turned and walked out.

As soon as he was out the door, Ostler and Jeb looked at each other.

"He definitely had something going with those orcs," they both said. 

Hugh could only shake his head.

As they watched the constable leave, something in the corner of the room caught Shuglin’s attention. A man was sitting alone at a table obviously not wanting to be bothered as he drank his ale. Shuglin nudged Ostler and nodded in that direction. Ostler smiled and they both stood.

"Come on," said Shuglin, "That guy looks lonely."

The rest of the group stood and looked as the two dwarves walked to the man’s table. He was human, bald and dressed in simple brown robes. And he looked a tad disgusted as the dwarves approached and struck up a conversation. Jackie turned to Jeb.

"I’ve got something I need to take care of. I’ll catch up with you later," he said.

He gathered his stuff and headed out the door. The rest of the group wandered over to the table, where the dwarves had just helped themselves to seats, much to the man’s very visible displeasure. The dwarves motioned for the others to join them.

"This is Chao Chin Lung," said Shuglin. "He’s a monk!"

"And he’s by himself, so he invited us to join him," Ostler chimed in.

So they sat and made their introductions. Eventually, Chao warmed to the group and actually joined in on some of the conversation. After several minutes, Eldrin approached the table.

"Excuse me sirs, but there are several gentlemen at the bar who would like to inquire as to your status in regards to hiring out for various tasks."

"Huh?" said Ostler, who was close to incoherent from all the drink.

The prospect of finding paying work so soon excited the group, especially since they obviously worked so well together. Even Chao was interested in hearing the proposals. They decided to have Eldrin send the prospective employers over one at a time to make their pitches. They would decide once all the jobs were on the table. Eldrin returned to the bar and sent two men over.

They looked, acted and appeared in every way to be two fairly well off merchants. Introducing themselves as Sigrid and Knut, they wanted to hire the group to supplement the guards that they had already hired to escort a caravan to Dyvers. Problem was, the merchants were in a hurry, so the caravan would take a more direct path through the heart of the Gnarley Forest. A far more dangerous path then going around the vast woodland. For their time and trouble, the group would be paid 50 gold pieces each. It was an interesting prospect, but there were still two more to listen to, so the merchants were dismissed with a promise that their offer would be given serious consideration.

As the two merchants returned to the bar, Eldrin sent the next prospective employer over. He was quite obviously a peasant and definitely didn’t look like he could pay much. His name was Joe and he had spent several days traveling from his village, Travensburg, in search of help. The village had suffered a rough winter and had been forced to buy food from several neighboring villages. A couple of weeks ago, the wagons started disappearing. Not all of them, but enough to jeopardize the town’s survival. If the group could find it in their hearts to investigate the matter and stop whoever was stealing their food, the mayor of the village would pay them a small amount of gold, but they could keep whatever they could take from the persons responsible for the thefts. This offer sounded very intriguing, but there was still one more to listen to. They thanked Joe and sent him back to the bar. 

Finally, there approached an older, well-dressed gentleman. It was easy to see by the way that he carried himself that he was a man of some learning. Possibly even a wizard. He introduced himself as Margrave the sage. He had a map that led to a small, ruined keep on the edge of the Pomarj. Below the keep was a small dungeon complex. In the complex was a book, which he needed to continue his current research. He would pay the party 100 gold each and they could keep whatever they plundered from the dungeon.

"I will await your decision at the bar," he said and excused himself. 

"We should definitely help the peasant," Hugh declared as soon as Margrave had gone. "It is a noble cause."

"I agree," said Shuglin. "They sound like they are in desperate need of help."

Jeb shook his head. "I don’t know, that sage was offering some righteous coin. Besides, if it turned out to be too dangerous, we could always just take the book and sell it ourselves."

Hugh looked at him disapprovingly.

"Hey, it was just a suggestion," Jeb said.

Ostler sat his mug carefully on the table. "We could go help the peasant, then come back and take that Margrave guy’s job when we’re done," he said.

They mulled that over for a minute.

"He will most likely hire someone else if we don’t take him up on it right away," said Rumblethorn. " I think we should just help the peasant and then see what happens."

They all nodded.

"Then we are in agreement," Hugh said. "Who is going to tell them?"

Jeb jumped out of his chair. 

"I’ll take care of it," he said. He rubbed his hands together gleefully as he headed towards the bar.

Margrave was talking with the two merchants while Joe sat quietly by himself and drank a mug of cheap ale. Jeb came up to the group and stood beside the sage.

"Gentlemen," he said, "My compatriots and I have decided to take Joe here up on his offer."

As he talked, Jeb’s hand slowly crept towards the strings of the purse hanging from Margrave’s belt.

"We thank you for the offers and appreciate that you considered us up to the tasks. If we ever end up back in Narwell, we’ll be sure to look you up for future opportunities. Thank you and good evening."

With that, he gave a quick tug and Margraves purse dropped quietly into his hand. Jeb tucked it into his sleeve as the merchants and the sage bid farewell and left. He walked over to Joe, who looked beside himself with joy.

"Go and do whatever it is you need to do before we leave," Jeb told the peasant. "Then meet us back here in the morning. We’ll leave then"

Joe thanked him profusely, shaking his hand vigorously and waving thanks to the group at the table, then he left. Jeb returned to the others, where they continued drinking well into the wee hours of the morning. When they were finally the only ones left in the bar, Eldrin showed them all, including Chao, who had agreed to join them, to the spare room in the back. It was a tad small, but adequate enough for their purpose. They wished Eldrin a good night and, one by one, they dropped off to sleep.

----------

In the morning, they packed their gear and wandered out into the bar. It was early, but the place was already bustling with activity. Joe was waiting on them, but as yet there had been no sign of Jackie. They decided to wait for him a little longer and enjoy a good breakfast before leaving. Eventually, it became apparent that the little halfling monk wasn’t going to be arriving anytime soon, so they bade farewell to Eldrin, thanked him again for the hospitality, and set out on the road to Travensburg. 

The trip, as Joe informed them, would take several days and was usually uneventful, although occasionally an orc raiding party would make its way far enough from the Pomarj to threaten the road. Indeed, as Joe had predicted, they encountered no problems. Once on the journey, they met a patrol of soldiers from Narwell, but after answering a couple of questions, the patrol let them continue on their way.

A couple of days out of Narwell, the group forded the Jewel River and, by late afternoon, entered the small village of Otherton. Joe told them that Otherton was one of the villages providing spare food for Travensburg, although so far he didn’t think that any of those shipments had been lost. This naturally made some of them suspicious.

"I think we need to talk to the mayor," said Ostler, running his hand lightly over his battleaxe.

"Sounds to me like he has some questions to answer," said Jeb.

"It’s starting to get dark. I suggest we find an inn, get a couple of rooms and then talk to him in the morning," said Hugh, trying to buy time to calm the two down.

This sounded like an acceptable plan, so they headed for the inn. None of the villagers gave them more than a cursory glance as they walked down the street. Adventurers weren’t uncommon in the area, especially this close to the Gnarley Forest and Kron Hills.

The inn wasn’t hard to find. It was the only multi-story building in town other than the mayor’s residence. By the time they arrived, most of the dinner crowd had cleared out, leaving just the right mix of space and atmosphere. They ordered their drinks and meals and sat at a table in the back of the room to take in the goings on of the place. 

They were disappointed. After several hours, nothing exciting had happened. No fights, no orcs bursting through the door, no-one even came over to talk to them other than the barmaid. Compared to Narwell, this place was dead. Finally tired of watching people come and go, they approached the innkeeper about lodging. He had plenty of rooms, in a variety of sizes and configurations, he told them. He would be more than happy to accommodate them. 

As they discussed the rates and arrangements, Rumblethorn expressed his desire to sleep outside. He needed to get back in touch with nature. Mumbling something about poverty, Chao decided to join him. Seeing merit in the idea, as well as opportunity, Jeb opted for the outdoors as well. With the arrangements made, they wished each other a good evening and went their separate ways.

Shortly after midnight, Jeb awoke from a light sleep. He checked to make sure that Rumblethorn and Chao were fast asleep, then quietly he stood and crept out of their little encampment. He pulled his cloak tight around him and headed back into the village.

It took him about an hour to learn the layout of the village as he crept from building to building. He peered in every window and made mental notes of what was where. He was disappointed to find that nobody in the little town had anything that he considered valuable enough to steal. By the time he reached the mayor’s house, he was so disheartened that he only gave it a cursory glance before retiring back to his bedroll. "I can’t wait until we get to a big city," he thought to himself.

In the morning, the group assembled back at the inn for a hearty breakfast. While they ate, they discussed their plans. Ostler and Jeb were still in favor of going to talk to the mayor. In fact, they were adamant about it.

"I just find it curious that none of the food shipments from here have been attacked," Jeb said. "To me, that’s worth a few questions for the Mayor."

"Definitely," said Ostler. "And if almighty Kord doesn’t approve of his answers, we’ll rough him up a bit."

"There will be NONE of that!" Hugh spoke up firmly. "But I agree that we should talk to him."

"Maybe we can get him to provide us with another wagon full of food. Then we can escort it to Travensburg personally," Shuglin suggested.

This sounded like a reasonable plan to everyone, so they quickly finished breakfast and set about the task of meeting the mayor.

Meeting the mayor was easy enough, but learning anything useful was another matter entirely. They were greeted at the door by a butler, who instructed them to wait in the front room while he checked to see if the mayor was free. He returned a few minutes later and escorted them to the mayor’s office.

The mayor was sitting behind a large, ornate desk covered with papers and maps of the area. He looked quite annoyed at being disturbed from his work.

"What can I do for you gentlemen?" he asked as he sat back in his chair.

"We wanted to ask you some questions about Travensburg," said Hugh. "We understand they’ve purchased some food from you."

"Travensburg?" the mayor said, momentarily confused. "Oh yes. They had a poor harvest. Lord Traven contracted with me to purchase some surplus food. We sent the last wagon off last week."

With that, he sat up again, as if to get back to work and dismiss the group. They were not so easily dissuaded. Unfortunately, it was Ostler who spoke up next.

"How come they had a bad harvest and you didn’t?" he said.

The mayor looked at him quizzically. "I have absolutely no idea." 

"And why haven’t any of your wagons been attacked?" added Jeb.

"Any of our wagons? We’ve only sent two," said the mayor, leaning back once again. "One last month and one last week. Are you trying to imply something?"

Hugh stepped forward, nudging Jeb and Ostler to the back of the group.

"Of course not, sir," he said. "We’re merely trying to help the poor people of Travensburg through this small crisis and we were wondering if you had any information you could share. My friends can get a bit carried away sometimes."

"Obviously," said the mayor.

"Well, since it’s apparent that you don’t know anything about what’s happening, we were wondering if we might be able to buy another wagon full of food to take with us to Travensburg?" Hugh said.

"Excuse me?"

"We were thinking we could escort another shipment in order to ensure that it arrives safely," said Shuglin.

"Even supposing that we had enough surplus food to spare for such a request, do you know how long it would take to assemble that? I’m sorry, Otherton just cannot spare anymore food for Travensburg. We have done what we could. Now good day!" With that, the mayor returned to his papers.

The group stood there for a couple of minutes being completely ignored by the mayor. When Ostler began fidgeting with his axe, Hugh ushered them all out of the house. They continued to stand in front of the house for several more minutes while they considered their options. In the end, they decided there was nothing left to do but proceed to Travensburg.

----------

They arrived around mid-day the next day. Joe immediately took them to meet Alexi Traven, lord of the village. When they met him, Alexi was already gravely troubled. Another food shipment had been scheduled for that morning and hadn’t shown up. To make matters worse, the two boys he had sent to meet the wagon were also long overdue. He feared the worse, but couldn’t spare anyone to go looking for them. The group readily volunteered. They were all a little antsy and relished the idea of seeing some action. 

They were a couple miles out of town when they crested a hill and saw the object of their search in the valley below. The food wagon and horse stood just off the road with the bodies of both the wagon drivers and the boys that Alexi had sent out lying on the ground nearby. There were also a couple of dead orcs. A man and an orc stood by the horse, discussing something. Two more orcs stood on either side of the wagon, apparently keeping watch.

The group immediately dropped to the ground and started to discuss their options. Jeb was the first with a plan.

"Okay, you guys wait here. I’ll sneak along the crest of the hill until I’m in a flanking position across from the wagon. Then, I’ll start firing with my short bow. Once they’re distracted, you guys charge down and kick their asses," he explained.

The rest of the group nodded in agreement.

Jeb readied his bow and turned to creep off. He hadn’t gotten ten feet when he heard something behind him. He glanced back just in time to see Hugh and Ostler charge over the hill. Shuglin, Chao and Rumblethorn glanced at Jeb, shrugged their shoulders, and followed the other two over the hill.

"Damn!" Jeb muttered under his breath and he ran to get into his firing position.

Jeb still managed to reach his spot before the others reached the wagon. He surveyed the situation quickly as he took aim. Hugh and the wolf were out front, with the others not far behind. The orcs and the human had noticed their approach. With a quick gesture, the human conjured a glowing disc of energy, which he placed before him as a Shield while he readied a crossbow. Exasperated at the ruining of his plan, Jeb decided to try and stir things up a bit for the wizard. He took aim and fired an arrow into the horse. Oddly, the animal didn’t react at all. 

The orcs and mage, taking no notice of the archer, stood ready to receive the group’s onslaught. Hugh and the wolf squared off with the two orcs in front of the mage as the dwarves and Rumblethorn hurriedly tried to catch up. Chao, on the other hand, was heading for the wagon. Jeb started moving slowly forward as he notched another arrow and took aim at the orc on his side of the wagon. He let fly and the arrow pierced the unsuspecting orc’s neck, dropping him to the ground.

By this time, the others had entered combat and Chao had reached the wagon, which he promptly crawled under. The mage gestured over his crossbow, which caused the bolt to glow faintly. He fired at Hugh, but the bolt merely grazed his leg. Hugh laid into his orcish opponent with renewed vigor. The other orc, meanwhile, landed a solid and almost fatal blow on Shuglin, who staggered backward under the force of the greataxe. Ostler and Brush didn’t allow the orc to take advantage of it, however, as they intensified their attack.

Then, just as things began to look bleak, Hugh landed a mighty hit and cleaved his opponent in two. As he had done at Narwell, he tried to use the force of his swing to carry his sword into the other orc, but to no avail. It hardly mattered, though, as Shuglin stepped back up. The two dwarves and the wolf were too much for the orc to handle and he fell to the ground under their combined assault.

That left the mage. Hugh hefted his broadsword and took a step towards him. The mage dropped his crossbow and ran. Unencumbered by weapon or armor, he was quickly outdistancing everyone. In an attempt to slow him down, Jeb fired at him, hitting him in the shoulder. Still he ran on. Then Chao crawled out from under the wagon and sprinted across the road. With a flying tackle, he managed to catch the mage by the leg and drag him to the ground.

The rest of the party quickly ran up and surrounded the mage, but he refused to surrender. He stood and drew a dagger from his sleeve. Tired and in pain from the greataxe wound, Shuglin muttered a few words and pointed. A Ray of Frost shot forth from his fingertip and hit the mage square in the forehead. He dropped dead at their feet.

They looked at the carnage around them and took stock of the situation. It was then that they noticed the tracks of their recently defeated foes coming from the west. They had just started to discuss their options when they heard a yell from the direction they had just come. They turned to look. There at the top of the hill was a small figure running towards them. It was Jackie.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Aug 6, 2002)

Two comments.

First, break these posts up a bit! They are actually so long it's intimidating trying to follow it, and you can post more often that way. 

Second, what kind of a name is Hugh? Hugh? Some RB somewhere should be ashamed of himself. You'd never see me with a character named Hugh. 

Well, not unless his last name was Jorgan.


Wulf


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## RatPunk (Aug 7, 2002)

Good point. Since I'd typed it up months ago, I forgot that it was quite so long. Also, since each chapter is one game session, I don't think about breaking them up when I write them. I will endeavour to do so when I post them here. Thanks.

And as for Hugh, well... he IS one of those wussy paladin types. You don't really expect him to have a cool name like Wulf or anything, do you?


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## RatPunk (Aug 20, 2002)

*Chapter 3: The Dwarven Ruins, Part 1*

The group waited patiently for Jackie to join them. Once he had, they continued the discussion of what they should do next. Ostler, Shuglin and Chao were in favor of heading back to Travensburg. The rest wanted to follow the tracks to see if there were more bandits and solve the problem once and for all.

In the end, they decided to split up. Chao and the dwarves would take the wagon back to Travensburg. Hugh, Jackie, Jeb, Rumblethorn and Brush would see where the tracks led. With any luck, they’d be able to surprise the rest of the bandits, if indeed there were more, before the bandits even realized that the group who had attacked the wagon was missing.

And so they set out. Just beyond the road, the tracks entered the woods. Even through the foliage, they were easy to follow. The bandits obviously weren’t concerned about being discovered. Eventually, the group noticed a small hill up ahead. In its side, freshly cleared of vegetation, was the mouth of a cave.

Suddenly, Jeb spotted movement in the darkness just inside. The group took cover and quietly formulated a plan. Jeb and Jackie would fan out and sneak up on the cave from either side of the path. Hugh and Rumblethorn would hold their positions and keep an eye on things from the front while Rumblethorn sent Brush down the path to check things out. Being a wolf, she would draw the least amount of suspicion if she were spotted.

Jackie and Jeb started off, taking their time to make sure they were quiet and remained within the cover of the woods. Brush began her slow approach to the cave mouth as well. She took her time, wandering back and forth across the trail checking out everything. She may have been an animal, but she was one heck of an actress. 

She had closed to within several yards of the entrance, when a shout came from inside. Jeb and Jackie both froze for a second, but satisfied that they hadn’t been spotted, they quickly continued to inch their way forward. Brush kept moving as well. A second yell from the cave was followed by a rock aimed in the wolf’s general direction. Still, no one could be seen inside. Brush took the rock as a sign that she had gotten close enough for the time being and sat down.

Jeb had almost reached his side of the hill, but Jackie was still a few feet away. Suddenly, he felt a breeze blow up, which caused the branches above to move. They parted and a ray of mid-day sunlight pierced the forest canopy to shine down on the exact spot where Jackie stood. This did not go unnoticed by whoever was in the cave and a louder, more excited shout went up.

Hugh realized that the stealthy approach had been blown, so he leapt onto the path and charged. Brush, Jackie and Rumblethorn did likewise. Jeb stood his ground, still concealed and undetected, and watched for anything to emerge from the cave, his short bow at the ready. Whoever was inside decided to wait on the attackers, however, so Jeb was left to bring up the rear as the others entered the cave.

The cave entrance opened onto a tunnel just wide enough for them to enter single file. With the wolf in the lead, they cautiously made their way forward. When they reached a point where the tunnel unexpectedly widened, something took a swing at the wolf from the side. Brush managed to keep her opponent pinned long enough for Hugh to step forward and kill it. A quick inspection revealed the attacker to be an orc.

The familiar twang of a crossbow, as well as the whistling of the bolt as it went by, alerted them to the presence of a second opponent. Hugh’s inspection of the dead orc had also revealed that the tunnel hadn’t just widened, it had in fact branched off. The group used this to their advantage and split up. The side tunnel reconnected to the main one several feet farther down. This junction was where the second orc was firing from, but he wasn’t watching his back and Hugh was able to get behind him. The orc was quickly dispatched. They quickly hid the bodies in the side tunnel and continued down the main tunnel until it ended at a large, wooden door.

They could hear quite a commotion on the other side, with lots of shouting and banging going on. Hugh opened the door and jumped into the room, quickly followed by the others. They had surprised another group of orcs in what was obviously a storeroom of some sort. The orcs were quick to grab their weapons, but by the time they had two of them were already dead as the group flooded quickly into the room. It took only a minute for the remaining orcs to be dealt with and the room secured.

A quick search of the barrels and crates found mostly mining supplies and food, the latter of which was almost certainly from Travensburg’s missing shipments. One thing was for certain, though. No matter what their current undertaking was, these orcs were definitely planning on being here for a while. The group took a minute to grab anything that might be of immediate use, and then cautiously opened the other door in the room.

It opened onto an empty hallway. They lit a lantern and cautiously made their way forward. Within minutes, they came to an intersection. A cave-in blocked the passage on the right, the left continued on into darkness and straight ahead they could faintly make out a door. They pressed forward.

The door was locked, but it took no time at all for Jeb to pick it. Hugh looked at him with mild suspicion, but he paid no heed to the paladin’s reproachful stare. Instead, he opened the door. The hallway continued on for several more yards before opening onto a room of some kind. They could make out no other details by the light of the lantern from this distance.

Hugh took the lead again as they proceeded cautiously towards the room. Hugh was beginning to make out two large, rectangular stone shapes on the floor ahead. The closer he got, the more he could make out. The room was round. The stone shapes looked like sarcophagi. And he began to smell a faint stench. It smelled like something dead.

Hugh entered the room. The stones were indeed two dwarven sarcophagi. The remains of two greataxes were lying on the lids. He turned back to the others just in time to see the ghoul attack. It launched itself out of the shadows straight at Jeb, who had no time to react. Jeb and the ghoul went tumbling to the floor, the vile, rotting creature viciously clawing and biting at Jeb’s face. Jackie and Hugh jumped forward and managed to force the ghoul away from the hapless gnome. They struck at the creature repeatedly until it moved no more.

Jeb was much the worse for wear. He still lived, but not by much. They helped him to his feet, Rumblethorn cast a quick healing speal on him, and they set out to check the rest of the room. The only thing that remained of the greataxes was the axe heads. But they were as clean and sharp as if they had been forged the day before. They were of superb craftsmanship. 

"Put some of those hafts we found in the store room to them and these would make fine weapons for Shuglin and Ostler," Jeb said.

"We can’t take these," Hugh protested. "These are tombs. We can’t desecrate them."

"It’s not desecration," Jeb said. "They’re dwarven axes. We’ll be giving them to dwarves. What could be wrong with that?"

"It’s a tomb. They were placed here to honor these two dwarves. It would be sacrilege to remove them."

And so the debate continued for several long minutes. When Jackie and Rumblethorn spoke up in favor of Jeb’s suggestion, Hugh resigned himself to the fact that he would lose this battle. With a loud "humph", he stormed back up the hallway. Under his breath, he asked Mayaheine for forgiveness. Jeb gathered up the axes.

Back at the intersection, they turned down the unexplored passage. The hallway turned to the left after several feet, then continued on until it opened onto a small, square room. In the center of the room was a strange winch and chain system attached to a platform that hung suspended over an opening in the floor. Peering over the edge of the pit, they could see that it extended downward for at least a couple of floors. The strange lift was the only way down.

The lift was barely large enough for all of them, but they squeezed on and began operating the chain and winch. The ride was slow and they were sure the noise from the chain would alert the entire complex to their presence, but eventually they reached the next level. The room was identical to the one they had just left and it was empty.

They found that this level was laid out much like the one above. The hallway leading from the lift room ended in another intersection, with the passages ahead and to the right both blocked by debris. They turned their attention to the open passage on the left. As they did, they failed to notice the movement in the shadows above the debris in the passage they had been facing.

Suddenly, something shot out of the shadows and grabbed Jeb by the throat, dragging him back towards the debris...


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## RatPunk (Sep 5, 2002)

*Chapter 3 - The Dwarven Ruins, Part 2*

Suddenly, something shot out of the shadows and grabbed Jeb by the throat, dragging him back towards the debris. The others turned at Jeb’s strangled cry just in time to see the choker drag him up towards what remained of the rafters. Once again, they ran to try and save the little gnome. Jackie drew his sling as Hugh tried to reach the beast with his sword.

It took several minutes, but they finally succeeded in getting the creature to loosen its grip. Jeb fell to the floor where Rumblethorn and Brush pulled him to safety. He was unconscious, but alive. A moment later the choker was dead.

The group took stock of the situation as Rumblethorn cast another healing spell on Jeb. It was enough to awaken him, but he was still quite weak. He needed to rest. They decided to quickly check out the remaining passage and then find some place to hole up for the night. They found the perfect place at the end of the passage.

The hallway opened onto another small, square room. Piled in the room was trash. Lots and lots of trash. Apparently the orcs were using this room to dispose of all their garbage. With some rearranging, the group would be able to hide in the room with little chance of being detected. That is, if they could tolerate the smell.

With everyone but Jeb taking a turn at the watch, they passed the night uneventfully. The bandits didn’t so much as even rattle the lift chain. As they prepared to set out again, Rumblethorn cast one more healing spell on Jeb for good measure. Then it was back to the lift room and down to the next floor.

As the lift descended, the group began to hear voices. A group of orcs was talking somewhere below them, but they didn’t sound alarmed. Perhaps they remained unaware of the group’s presence in the dungeon. They would know soon enough.

The lift cleared the shaft in the ceiling. There were only three orcs and they were standing in a hallway off to the side, not in the room. Hugh didn’t wait for the lift to reach the ground. He leapt off and charged the orcs, taking them completely by surprise. The others quickly followed and soon there were three orc corpses lying on the floor.

They now faced another decision. There were two hallways exiting the room, one on their left and the one in front of them where the orcs had been. There was no shaft in the floor for the lift to continue down, so for all intents and purposes, this was the bottom of the complex. They could hear faint sounds coming from the left, so they went that way.

Down a short hall and around a corner and they were faced with another door. The shouting that came from the other side was orcish, but didn’t sound angry like what they had heard from the storeroom the day before. In fact, it sounded almost jovial. Then Jeb heard the tell-tale rattle and clatter of dice being thrown. The occupants were gambling.

Hugh kicked the door in. The orcs and hobgoblins inside leapt to their feet, scattering the coins on the floor as they scrambled for their weapons. The party pressed their advantage and forced their way into the room. The orcs fell quickly, but the two hobgoblins put up a tough fight. Eventually, they too were overcome. As the last one hit the ground, Jeb was already gathering up all the coins. 

The locked door in the back of the room was no trouble for Jeb, who opened it with ease. The small room inside was empty except for a cot, a makeshift desk and a locked chest. Jeb quickly found that the chest was not only locked, but trapped as well. He took his time, disarmed the trap and the chest was open in no time.

The contents were worth the effort. A bag of coins, a spellbook, some scrolls, an enchanted short sword, and a backpack that held much more than looked possible. They loaded everything up and went back the way they’d come.

Once in the lift room, they turned down the hall where they’d left the dead orcs. It continued on for a short distance, then turned to the right, where it ended in a large, intricately carved wooden door. Once again, they could hear noise coming from the other side. This time it was the ringing sound of metal hitting stone. Hugh opened the door.

The room looked as if it had been a temple at one time or another. It was a long room, with a high ceiling supported by two rows of columns running down either side of the room. The far end of the room had apparently collapsed some time ago. There were two orcs digging at the rubble with picks. Standing beside the middle column on the left was a human male. He was studying the wall in front of him intently.

The door creaked as Hugh opened it. The man turned and Hugh could see the holy symbol hanging around his neck. Wee Jas. Before the priest could make a move, Hugh was on him. The two orcs also turned at the noise. They lunged for their greataxes, which were leaning against the pillars. They never made it. Jeb and Jackie took them both down with quick shots from their crossbows. The priest was dead before the orcs hit the ground.

They surveyed the room. On the wall near the entrance, carved in dwarven runes, were the words "The dwarven spirit is filled with secrets". There was a strange design on the floor as well. 

In one corner stood several small crates. Contained within were tapestries and religious items of Wee Jas. Hugh surmised that the dead priest had been planning on using them to consecrate the temple to the Goddess of Death.

Hugh destroyed what religious items he could, but the tapestries were packed back into their crates. They decided to take everything of value back up to the storeroom. It took several trips, but eventually the entire complex was stripped of virtually everything that could be sold. But how to get it back to Travensburg?

In the end, they decided to send Rumblethorn and Brush back to town. When he arrived, he found Ostler and Shuglin at the local tavern. Chao was nowhere to be seen. The two dwarves explained that, as soon as they had arrived back in Travensburg, Chao had decide that he didn’t want to travel with the group anymore. He had left town shortly thereafter. 

In turn, Rumblethorn told them what had happened in the dungeon. They were quite disappointed that they had missed out on all the fun. After another quick drink, they went to see Alexei. He was ecstatic to learn that the bandit threat appeared to be over. He gladly provided them with a wagon and horse and the trio soon departed for the cave.

The wagon made for slow going through the forest, but eventually they arrived. It took several hours to load everything from the storeroom onto the wagon. By the time they were finished, it was getting dark, so they decided to stay the night. If their had been any doubts in their minds that any bandits were left, the uneventful night spent at the cave convinced them that they had, indeed, cleared it out.

In the morning, they headed for Travensburg. Alexi and the townspeople greeted them like heroes, showering them with thanks and praise. Naturally, they ate it up. When talk turned to selling their newly gotten merchandise, Alexi quickly pointed out that no shop in the village would be able to buy everything they had acquired. They would have to travel to Dyvers for that.

They decided to rest and recover for a couple of days, then head to Dyvers. Alexi again provided them with a wagon and horse and even a couple of his scouts to show them the most direct path through the forest. Before they left, he also gave them a letter of recommendation to be given to the High Priest of Pelor in Dyvers. He would make sure that the group found everything they needed.

And so, with their treasure loaded and final farewells made, the group set off on the road to Dyvers.


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## RatPunk (Sep 10, 2002)

*Interlude: Dyvers*

The trip to Dyvers was long and uneventful. Ten days after leaving the tiny village of Travensburg, the group could see the sprawling expanse of the free-city ahead of them, the shimmering blue vastness of the Nyr Dyv shone in the morning sun behind it. It still took them several hours to reach the city gates.

They arrived at mid-day, along with just about everyone else from the surrounding countryside, it seemed. Once in the city proper, they made short work of finding the Temple of Pelor. It would have been hard to miss. The white stone building was massive. It was easily the largest building any of them had ever seen in their lives.

They went in and were quickly greeted by acolytes, who politely refused to let them see the High Priest until Hugh presented the letter from Alexei Travensburg. One of the acolytes quickly snatched the letter away and hurried off down one of the many long hallways in the temple. The acolyte returned several minutes later to escort them to the High Priest’s office.

They waited for another couple of minutes in the antechamber until another acolyte stepped through the door and asked them to come inside. The man behind the desk was an average looking middle aged man, with hair that was thinning on the top. He stood, excused the acolyte and offered his hand to Hugh in introduction.

"I’m Jean Baptiste, High Priest of Pelor here in Dyvers", he said warmly.

The group looked at each other for a moment, then Hugh shook his hand and made the introductions. Jean asked them to be seated and offered them refreshments. As they waited for the acolytes to return with snacks and drinks, they got down to business. The group filled Jean in on what had happened at Travensburg and the dwarven ruin. Hugh offered him the tapestries and remaining religious items of Wee Jas "for disposal". The High Priest readily accepted them. 

Once the tale was done, Jean offered to make arrangements for the group to stay in town. He introduced Hugh to Beatrice Teraquin, a paladin of Mayaheine who could help him further his training in the paladin arts. He instructed Jackie to seek out Brother Lars at the Temple of St. Cuthbert. Rumblethorn he directed to the druid’s grove outside the city and told him to seek out Leafinger Twigblower, High Druid of the region.

For Jeb and the dwarves, however, he was at a loss. He suggested that they try Kholar the Merchant. Kholar was a highly successful and respected businessman and was generally considered to be the highest ranking dwarf in town. He would definitely be interested in the information they had about the dwarven ruin. And he would most likely be able to buy any of the excess treasure that the group was looking to sell.

As it turned out, he could do better than that. Kholar not only bought everything the party wanted to sell, but he also "knew some people" who could help Jeb learn a thing or two about the more stealthy aspects of being a "missile warrior".

With the arrangements for lodging and further training taken care of, the group settled in to the temporary routine of daily life in the big city. It was almost three weeks later when they decided to meet at their favorite tavern to discuss the prospect of further adventuring.

It was the week of Growfest, which meant certain religious obligations for Hugh, so he told the group he would be late. The rest of them decided to go to the tavern early to get a good table and wait on Hugh to finish up.

No sooner had they walked in the door when all hell broke loose...


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## RatPunk (Oct 11, 2002)

*Chapter 4 - Ratik, Part 1*

At the beginning of this session we switched DMs as Hugh's player took over the game. I came in as Knuptar the Ranger and began keeping the official game journal. Another player joined the group at this time in the form of Pyro, a big hulking fighter. 

And now, without further ado:


---From the Journal of Knuptar---

So there I was, relaxing in some nameless tavern in Dyvers, when this fighter-type walked in and sat down next to me. The place was completely empty and he picked the stool next to mine. Terrific. So much for an afternoon of quiet reflection. 

After a couple of drinks, we started to chat. The guy’s name was Pyro. Where he was from or why he was there, I don’t know, but he seemed like an ok sort of guy. We traded war stories and the like and bought each other a couple of rounds. 

This had gone on for about an hour or so, when I declared that I was too drunk to even fire my bow straight. Pyro said I seemed sober enough to him. I told him he was full of crap! “I wouldn’t even be able to hit that dartboard across the room,” I said. To which he replied “Wanna bet?”

Now, far be it for me to pass up an opportunity to make some easy money, so I said, “Yeah, I’ll bet you that I am too drunk to hit that dartboard”. He said, “You’re on.” So I notched an arrow to my bow and took aim. I’ll be damned if he wasn’t right! I hit the stinking dartboard dead center, right in the bull’s eye!

About this time, a group of hardy looking adventurers made up almost entirely of short people (2 dwarves, an elf (with a wolf), a gnome and a halfling) walked in. They didn’t even make it to a table before the room started filling with mist and I began to get a bit dizzy. As the room started to disappear around us, I grabbed my mug of ale off the bar and finished it off. I had a feeling that I would need a good, stiff drink when whatever was happening finished happening…

Turned out, I was right! When things got clear again, we were standing on a road in the middle of what appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be nowhere. By we, I mean me, Pyro and the short adventuring group. Anyway, in front of us stood a guy with a scroll in his hand. He looked quite confused at first, but then yelled, “Kill him!” and pointed behind us. Naturally, we all turned around. Standing behind us several yards away was another guy, who looked equally confused and just a tad scared. 

Even though the suggestion to kill this guy sounded intriguing, I personally didn’t feel like it at the moment. Unfortunately, some of my newfound comrades did. The gnome whipped out a crossbow and let fly with a bolt that nailed the guy right in the chest. Then the two dwarves started running towards him, waving their axes over their heads as they went. They looked none too comfortable wielding their axes in this manner. 

Pyro and I, however, decided that the first guy was a big dick, so I let loose with an arrow in his direction. I may not have been drunk enough to miss a dart board, but I was definitely drunk enough to miss this guy. The arrow whistling over his head shook him up a bit, though. He dropped the scroll and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

I ran over to where he’d been standing and picked up the scroll. Other than some gibberish written across the top, it was completely blank. I checked around, but didn’t find any tracks, so I turned to see what was going on with the other guy. I’ll be damned if he wasn’t lying on the ground unconscious and bleeding, with everyone else standing around looking at him. Everyone except for the gnome. He was going through the guy’s stuff.

Since the situation appeared to be under control, I went into the woods a little way to see if I could spot any sign of the disappearing guy. I did find a few tracks, but they led to a rather large tree. I climbed up a bit, and took a look around, but there was nothing to be seen, and the possibility of being ambushed entered my mind, so I climbed down and went back to the others.

When I returned, they were all standing around looking confused. They weren’t sure why they had attacked the guy lying on the ground. It had just sounded like a good idea at the time. As it turned out, one of the dwarves (Ostler by name) was a cleric, so he healed the guy enough to bring him around. He sat up, but he was understandably more than a bit nervous about being surrounded by the very people who had just tried to kill him. Under considerable questioning, with more than a little skepticism and hostility, he told us his story. 

His name, he said, was Corian. The guy who wanted him dead was Vortigern. The whole ruckus was over an amulet that belonged to some wizard named Eralion. It turned out that several years ago, this Eralion discovered a method of becoming a lich by making a deal of some sort with Orcus. Recently, Corian had found a letter from Eralion that explained the whole deal and included the amulet, which was the key to Eralion’s secret crypt. Corian had learned that Eralion hadn’t been powerful enough to actually become a lich, so he was headed to Eralion’s place to check it out. Vortigern had somehow learned of this and was trying to kill Corian so he could take the amulet and get Eralion’s stuff for himself.

Or something like that.

This was all well and good, but was he telling the truth? With no way to tell for sure, we agreed to accompany him to the nearby village of Fairhill, which had been his destination anyway. The gnome, Jebeddo, refused to return any of Corian’s stuff to him until he had proven himself reliable. This sounded reasonable to everyone but Corian, but nobody cared what he thought at that point, so we packed up and headed for Fairhill. Corian did tell us that we were now in Ratik. Only a couple of thousand miles from where we had started.

Well, it turned out that “nearby” village meant three days travel on foot. The end of the first day found us on the road, deep in the middle of the forest. It was decided that we should find a suitable campsite somewhere off the road, which we quickly did, and I rustled up some rabbits and the like for supper. The forest seemed to be plentiful with wildlife.

Around the campfire, we sat and talked. Pyro and I filled the group in on who we were and they made introductions as well. They had gone to the tavern in Dyvers to wait on a friend, a paladin named Hugh. Now they had no idea how (or if) they were going to hook up with him again. Perhaps they could find some answers once we reached Fairhill.

With supper out of the way it was time to set the watch schedule and get some sleep. Since I opted to take the last watch, I settled down in a nice warm spot near the fire and dropped quickly off to a light sleep.

Sometime after midnight, I was awakened by a noise in the distance. I sat up and grabbed my swords, but waited to hear it again. I didn’t have to wait long. It sounded like a baby crying in the distance. Jeb, who had been on watch, had obviously heard it too. He noticed that I was awake and indicated that he was going to head off in the direction of the sound. I grabbed my bow and followed after him.

We crept quietly through the foliage for a short distance until we saw the source of the noise. Ahead was a creature that looked something like a deer, but it had a badger-like head. I had heard tales of such creatures when I lived in the Vesve. It was a leucrotta. And it had spotted us.

It charged. Jeb and I brought our bows to bear and started shooting. We wounded it, but not enough to dissuade it from its attack. I dropped my bow and drew my swords. The beast was much more agile than I had suspected and it had little trouble dodging many of our blows. But not all. We were slowly wearing it down.

Then we noticed the second leucrotta. And it was bigger.

Now we were in trouble. I had already thrown down my bow and Jeb’s shots wouldn’t be enough to slow the bigger creature down. It took a couple of steps toward us and made a noise. The smaller creature turned away from us and ran back to its parent. Jeb and I took a step back and lowered our weapons. The larger leucrotta looked at us menacingly for another second or two, then they both disappeared into the woods. Jeb and I sighed in relief and returned to camp.


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## RatPunk (Nov 6, 2002)

*Chapter 4 - Ratik, Part 2*

--- From the Journal of Knuptar ---

The rest of the night passed uneventfully. In the morning, we ate a quick breakfast then resumed the journey to Fairhill. Sometime in the afternoon we made it out of the forest. We hadn’t gone more than a hundred yards when we heard a loud buzzing noise. We looked around for the source of the noise. There were three bird-like creatures with extremely long beaks in the sky above us. Stirges. And they were coming right for us.

Those of us who had ranged weapons made use of them. Unfortunately, Jeb was the only one who managed to hit. His target practically exploded from the crossbow shaft that pierced its tiny body. We managed to keep one of them at bay by swinging our weapons at it. The other one, however, latched onto Shuglin’s back and sunk its long snout into his body. He immediately went white and became unsteady on his feet, but he didn’t fall. I’m sure it was through sheer willpower alone.

As the rest of us fought to keep the airborne stirge at bay, Ostler ran to help his friend. Interestingly, his idea of help involved swinging his greataxe at the stirge on Shuglin’s back to try and dislodge it. Fortunately, Ostler wasn’t proficient with said weapon and all of his blows managed to miss not only the stirge, but Shuglin as well. 

Finally, someone managed to connect with the still flying stirge and it crashed to the ground. At about the same time, the remaining stirge decided that it had drank its fill from Shuglin and detached itself. As it leapt from his back, I stepped up and sliced it in two with a swing of my short sword. The stirge menace was no more.

Everyone gathered to see how Shuglin was. He was weak and more than a little wobbly, but he would survive. Unfortunately, we were out of healing spells. He would have to slog along as best he could until tomorrow. He smiled and gave a weak thumbs-up. He was a dwarf. Of course he would make it. Once again we set off towards Fairhill.

After a few hours of walking, Shuglin began to feel better. His color had returned and he walked without assistance. He still needed healing but he wasn’t on the verge of collapsing in the middle of the road. We hoped the rest of the trip would be uneventful. It wouldn’t be.

As we rounded a bend in the road, we spotted a farmhouse and barn ahead. We could tell right away that something was wrong. It was mid-afternoon and there wasn’t any activity. We approached cautiously. As we drew closer, we saw the bodies lying in the front yard. There were animal and human corpses alike.

Upon closer examination, the human bodies appeared to be those of the farmer and his family. What’s more, they had only been dead for a couple of days. We decided to spread out and search the farm. Rumblethorn, Jackie and I headed for the barn while Jeb, Pyro and Corian went to the house. The dwarves checked the outside perimeter.

Inside the barn, we found that not all of the animals had been slaughtered. There were a handful of pigs and chickens still alive, along with a large draft horse. We finished searching the barn, which turned out to be empty, then located some feed and fed the starving animals. The draft horse was most appreciative and Rumblethorn and I spent some time cleaning it up and taking care of it.

The house was empty as well and the dwarves had likewise failed to turn up anything of consequence. With darkness approaching, and the area at least temporarily secure, we decided to spend the night at the farm. Jeb and the dwarves thought it would be a good idea to bury the farmer’s family, so they went out to the front yard and began digging graves. Pyro and I opted to take advantage of the farm’s kitchen and started cooking supper. 

That was when Vortigern caught up with us again.


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## RatPunk (Dec 12, 2002)

*Chapter 5 - The Farmhouse of Death, part 1*

--- From the Journal of Knuptar---

So there we were, messing around in this recently de-occupied farmhouse. Pyro and I were frying up some grub in the kitchen as Corian the Useless watched. Jeb, Ostler and Shuglin were digging graves in the front yard for the farmer and his family. Rumblethorn was in the barn trying to bond with the draft horse and Jackie was in the hayloft checking things out.

Suddenly, there was a yell from the front yard. Pyro and I glanced out the window. Jeb and the dwarves were surrounded by four skeletons, which had apparently just sprung from the ground. Jeb had nothing but his crossbow ready, but Ostler had already drawn his axe. Shuglin had his axe out as well, but he was still weak from the stirge attack earlier in the day. 

Pyro and I sprang into action. We pushed Corian out of the way and grabbed our weapons. Pyro raced for the door. I took up a firing position at the window. Unfortunately, the only targets I had were the skeletons, and a bow isn’t too terribly effective against them. 

Then Jackie yelled from the barn. Standing at the edge of the woods across the yard was Vortigern and two half-orcs. They had pretty good cover behind the bushes, but Jackie and I opened up on them anyway. Jackie’s higher vantage point in the hayloft gave him a more effective firing position and he started filling the half-orcs with crossbow bolts.

At the gravesite, Jeb and the dwarves were holding there own. Even in his weakened condition, Shuglin was dancing around like a teenage girl at a barn dance. So far, the skeletons hadn’t laid a finger bone on him. Unfortunately, the three of them hadn’t touched the skeletons, either.

As Pyro joined them, Ostler drew out his holy symbol and began praying to Kord. I could only assume he was trying to turn the skeletons. He raised his hand toward them and concentrated really hard. Nothing happened. The skeletons continued to flail away at them.

Jackie and I continued to pepper Vort and his half-orc buddies with arrows and bolts. Their cover rendered my shots ineffective and I didn’t hit a damn thing. Jackie, however, was lighting the half-orcs up pretty good. When one of them eventually dropped, the other one decided he’d had enough and bolted into the woods. Vortigern was alone, except for his big-ass raven familiar.

Ostler tried again to turn the skeletons. Again he failed. Pyro, Jeb and Shuglin continued to swing away, but the skeletons were difficult to hit. Then I caught a glimpse of sunlight shining off of something in Jeb’s pack, which was lying on the ground near his feet. It was the Amulet that we had relieved Corian of earlier. Vort noticed it, too. He pointed at it and his raven took off.

Jeb saw the raven coming and grabbed the amulet just as the bird reached it. The bird, which was much larger than a normal raven, latched onto the amulet and the two of them began struggling over it. The bird must have been incredibly strong, because Jeb was obviously having trouble holding on. Suddenly, the raven changed. It was no longer a bird, but a bat winged creature. It was an imp. That wasn’t a good sign.


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## RatPunk (Feb 7, 2003)

*Chapter 5 - The Farmhouse Of Death, Part 2*

--- From The Journal Of Knuptar---

Oblivious to the struggle for the amulet, Pyro and Shuglin continued swinging away at the skeletons. I don’t know how Shuglin had managed to avoid being hit so far. He was a true testament of the dwarven spirit. Ostler took a deep breath and raised his holy symbol once more. At the top of his lungs, he yelled for Kord to grant him the strength to turn the undead abominations.

This time, Kord was listening. The skeletons turned and moved away from Ostler as quickly as they could. Pyro and Shuglin let them go and turned their attention to the imp, which was still struggling over the amulet with Jeb. The little bugger was tough. Most of their blows just bounced off of it. I decided it was time for a new viewpoint, so I moved to the doorway.

With only Vort and his imp remaining, Jackie decided that the hayloft was no longer where he wanted to be. Calling on all of his monk training, he leapt from the loft doorway, did a somersault in mid-air and landed lightly on the ground. Show off. He readied his crossbow again, keeping his eye on Vort. Rumblethorn and Brush came out of the barn as well. Everyone began to converge on Jeb and the imp.

Now Corian decided to get involved. He stepped out of the doorway and fired off an Acid Arrow at Vort. It didn’t seem to phase Vort much, but he returned the favor. One quick Magic Missile to the chest and Corian was laying on the ground unconscious. I guess he hadn’t completely recovered from us trying to kill him a couple of days earlier.

I decided it was time to take the fight to Vort. I ran out of the house and tried to tackle him. Of course, from that distance, he easily saw me coming and stepped aside. On the plus side, Ostler and the wolf arrived at about the same time. Vort responded by disappearing, leaving us flailing helplessly at the now empty air. 

The imp, meanwhile, finally managed to wrest the amulet from Jeb and took off, heading toward the woods. Fortunately for us, the imp wasn’t too bright. It didn’t gain much altitude and its flight path took it past those of us who had been fighting Vort. We all moved to grab a hold of it. Pyro managed to grab a leg and pulled the imp down so he could hold onto it with all his might. I grabbed on as well. Hopefully, the two of us could hold on while everyone else beat the snot out of it. 

Rumblethorn cast Entangle into the woods. Since the spell had a fairly wide radius, not to mention a huge area of effect, he figured it might still entangle Vort, who wasn't likely to be far away. At the least, it might block any straight approach he had to where we were trying to beat on his imp. 

Even holding it down, our attacks against the imp were rather ineffectual, thanks to its tough hide and other worldly nature. We spent several minutes struggling with, and beating on, the imp. Then Vort made his presence known again. He cast Daze at Pyro. This stunned the big lug for a few seconds. It was a good thing I still had a grip on the creature. 

Jeb spotted Vort at the edge of the woods, maybe 50 feet away. He realized at this point (or perhaps he already knew) that he was carrying a magic short sword which might be able to pierce the imp’s demon hide. Jeb dropped the sword on the ground next to Pyro and moved to bring Vort into crossbow range. Pyro picked up the sword. Shuglin turned his attention to Vort and fired off a Sleep spell. Vort shook it off. 

Then the imp broke free. It had struggled, slapped and clawed enough that I just couldn’t hold on any longer and it slipped out of my grasp. This time, it turned invisible and, we assumed, began to fly away. In desperation, we all started swinging at thin air. The gods were smiling on us. Someone managed to hit it. With a thud, it reappeared as it hit the ground unconscious.

Suddenly, everything went completely black. Vort had cast Darkness, centered on the imp's body. That left Jeb, Rumblethorn and Shuglin, who were outside the area of effect, to face Vort. Those of us who had been around the imp dropped to the ground and began feeling around for the amulet. 

Rumblethorn ran over and cast Cure Light Wounds on Corian in the hope that he might have some spells to use against Vort. Meanwhile, Jeb took another shot at Vort but missed. Shuglin moved around the edge of the darkness until he could see Vort and let loose with his final Sleep spell. This time, Vort didn’t shake it off and down he went. Leaving no time for debate or discussion, Jeb ran over and slit Vort's throat. Once the Darkness cleared, we recovered the amulet. We also made sure that the imp was quite dead as well.

Then the looting and pillaging began...

We gathered up everything of value from the dead bodies and put it in a pile. Corian cast Detect Magic and we picked out the magic items, which amounted to a ring, a vial of some liquid, the amulet, and the rusty short sword from over the fireplace in the farmhouse. We packed everything away and went back to prepping the house for our night’s stay.

In the morning, we resumed our journey to Fairhill.


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## RatPunk (Mar 12, 2003)

*Chapter 6 - Fairhill*

---From The Journal Of Knuptar---

As we packed to resume our trip to Fairhill, we realized that we were accumulating more stuff than we could comfortably carry. Someone suggested that we use the draft horse and wagon in the barn. Nobody was using them now and the horse was likely to die if we just left it. It sounded like a great idea. We named the horse Pilsner and hitched it to the wagon.

Since Corian had proven himself somewhat useful in the fight against Vortigern, Jeb relented and gave back his crossbow and a handful of bolts. Jeb kept the amulet for safekeeping, though. We didn’t trust Corian that much. With everything loaded on the wagon, we hit the road and left the farmhouse behind.

The rest of the trip to Fairhill was uneventful and we pulled into town just after mid-day. Of course, our first task was to locate a tavern. We stopped one of the locals on our way into town and asked him where one might be. Fairhill must have been a swinging town, because there were three such places: The Three Kegs, the Cask & Flagon and the Drunken Cockatrice.

We thought it best to make the rounds. The first tavern we found was the Three Kegs. We found a table near the door and sat down. When the serving girl came to our table, Pyro’s jaw hit the floor. He was in love. To his credit, she was very attractive, but she was also a halfling. We tried to tell him it wouldn’t work out, but he would not be deterred. He began flirting. Sadly, his people skills aren’t all that good. She was gracious and polite, but she wasn’t interested. Just as we had predicted.

We pumped the clientele for information about the area. Mostly we got crop reports and weather predictions, but there were also a few vague rumors that sounded promising. We tore Pyro away from his new love and moved to the next tavern. That turned out to be the Cask & Flagon. It was a bit more upscale than the Three Kegs, if the word ‘upscale’ could really be used in a podunk little village like Fairhill. 

Our discreet inquiries about potential adventuring opportunities, however, met with the same results. Only when we dropped the name ‘Eralion’ did we get more specific wild rumors and speculations. Apparently, his keep was located somewhere in the old forest near town. The townsfolk all agreed that it was occupied by some “shadowy figure”. Most believed it to be a vampire. 

Swell.

We moved on to the Drunken Cockatrice. It was definitely the nicest of the three taverns and this time we managed to dig up some solid information. A drunk named Fendrin was rambling on to anybody that would listen (which was mainly us) about a manticore that had killed his wife and son. A couple of quick questions to the barkeep corroborated the missing family, although nobody but Fendrin had seen the manticore. Still, it was a prospect.

We inquired about lodging at the Cockatrice and rented a couple of rooms for the week. With both rumors and lodging secured, Pyro, Jeb, Corian and I felt it was time to explore the town. The rest of the group wanted to stay at the tavern and rest. Wimps.

Fairhill was fairly average for a village its size. There were several rows of shops and houses arrayed in a semi circle around a common marketplace area. Opposite the main town area was a small stone tower on a small hill. It was obviously the seat of power. Down a short path to the north of the tower was another, smaller hill which contained several small shrines to various gods. The largest of these was the shrine to Freya, a fertility goddess of the nearby barbarian countries that I had never heard of. She seemed to be quite popular in Ratik and had a large following in Fairhill. And the High Priestess in town was HOT.

Her name was Shandril. She was an elf, which was odd since elves almost always worship elven deities. It just added to her mystique. We had decided to venture over to the temple area to pay our respects to whatever gods happened to have shrines there. We arrived just in time to witness the end of one of Shandril’s sermons. 

Sitting on the altar behind her was a large silver bowl covered in strange runes. She picked it up and held it in front of her. Suddenly, she plunged the bowl, and her entire arm, into the flaming brazier that stood beside the altar. She then began to chant in a language that none of us recognized. This went on for a couple of minutes, then she withdrew her arm and the bowl, both unharmed.

We were suitably impressed.

As we walked back towards town, Jeb had an idea. Why not set up shop and try to sell some of our excess baggage in the marketplace? We were skeptical about what we could sell to villagers, but Jeb was insistent. What could it hurt? At the worst he wouldn’t sell anything and we’d still be stuck with the stuff. It was worth a shot. But we also needed to get the rusty short sword from the farmhouse cleaned and repaired, as well as look into getting some armor made. So first it was off to visit the blacksmith.

The blacksmith’s name was Voril and at first he was reluctant to do the job. In fact, he seemed pretty reluctant to do anything. It wasn’t that he didn’t like us, though. It seemed to be more of a depression thing. Of course we asked what was up and he told us. His daughter, Arialle, had recently disappeared. Arialle, it turned out, was quite the local celebrity. She was an excellent singer and could often be found singing at any one of the town’s taverns. And yet she had yearned for a life of adventure. 

Don’t they all? 

She had apparently run off a week or so earlier and he hadn’t heard from her since. He was, of course, terribly worried. We huddled and talked it over. We told Voril that we would look for his daughter. Rescuing damsels in distress is what we were all about. He was greatly appreciative. So much so, in fact, that he offered to make one of us the best set of full plate mail we had ever seen if we brought her back. In the meantime, he would work on the short sword and the other jobs that we had asked for. We compensated him with a large gem from our stash and went on our way.

Jeb wanted to spend the rest of the day playing merchant in the marketplace, so while he went to get our stuff from the wagon, Pyro and I decided to hit the taverns again and see what we could dig up on Arialle. We learned that she was a popular attraction in and around Fairhill. Everywhere we went, people told us about her fantastic singing voice. She was always a big draw. The barkeeps, however, also told us about her propensity for hanging around with adventurers. Just our luck that she would blow town just before we arrived.

Whenever a group would come into town, she would latch on to them and learn anything she could. A little over a week ago, she had hooked up with a group that agreed to let her accompany them. They left town shortly thereafter, heading north. That was the last anyone had seen of any of them.

It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

Between the drinking and the investigating, we had managed to kill a couple of hours. We went back to the marketplace to see how Jeb was doing. Predictably, he hadn’t sold a damn thing. He decided to pack it in and we went back to the Drunken Cockatrice. The rest of the group was still there, so we filled them in on what we’d learned during the day. Those of us who had talked to Voril decided to leave in the morning to search the area for any signs of Arialle and her friends. The other lazy butt-heads still wanted to rest.

Since everyone seemed to agree that Arialle’s group had gone north, that’s where we decided to start. We went into the wilderness due north of Fairhill and hiked all day. The terrain alternated between low wooded hills and flat grasslands. As we walked, I tried to pick up signs of their passing, but tracks were few and far between and consisted mainly of animal prints. When it began to get dark, we found a small glade and set up camp.

The whole watch system really kind of breaks down a bit when you only have 4 people in camp, but we did the best we could. Pyro took first watch, I took second and Jeb took third. Corian did whatever the hell he wanted. He could have wandered off for all we cared.

So I sat there on my watch in the middle of the night, watching the campfire die out and keeping my ears open. Suddenly, I heard the sound of snapping twigs in the distance. As it got closer, it started to sound more like sticks and limbs than twigs. Whatever was coming our way sounded big. I woke the others and they got up just in time. Four goblins burst into our little clearing, yelling and screaming and waving their little weapons all over the place. Behind them was an ogre.

Jeb and I immediately dropped back and started shooting at the goblins. Pyro drew his sword and charged the ogre. Corian just stood there and did what little he could, being the useless lump of a sorcerer that he was. After a couple of spectacular misses on my part, I was forced to drop my bow and draw my swords. Jeb and I made short work of the goblins after that. 

We turned our attention to Pyro and the ogre.

Jeb and I could only look on in amazement at the scene before us. There stood Pyro and the ogre, toe to toe, swinging away at each other. Not hitting, just swinging. We stood dumbfounded for several minutes before we thought about helping Pyro out. We rushed forward and surrounded the ogre. In no time it was on the ground breathing it’s last.

We rifled the bodies for anything of value, then resumed our camping. In the morning, we continued traveling north. Eventually, the ground started to get rockier. We were heading into another area of wooded hills. As we walked, we began to notice a smell so horrific that our noses felt like they would spontaneously combust. Then came the crunching noise, followed immediately by the tree falling onto the path in front of us.

When the dust cleared, we saw the owlbear standing in front of us. Its chest was covered with fresh blood and it held the remains of a recently deceased deer in its paws. It looked at us for a second, quickly decided that we looked much more appetizing, and charged. 

Pyro drew his sword and met the owlbear halfway. Jeb and I spread out on either side and started taking pot shots. And Corian… well, he was Corian. We didn’t pay too much attention to him.

Things went well for the first minute or two. Jeb and I got a couple of good shots in and Pyro managed to land a blow or two. Unfortunately, it only seemed to make the thing mad. Suddenly, it lunged forward, wrapped its arms around Pyro in a big owlbear hug and started squeezing. All Pyro could do was let out a muffled “hunh” as the beast slowly tried to crush the life out of him. It seemed to be working.

I threw down my bow and drew my swords. Jeb moved in closer, still shooting. He was so close, in fact, that he was almost standing right next to the damn thing. The owlbear was focused on Pyro, however, and seemed oblivious to the damage we had begun to inflict on it. Then it threw its head back, gave a loud, gurgling roar and fell to the ground, dead. Even in death it maintained it’s grip on Pyro and it fell on top of him.

It took a few minutes, but we finally managed to drag Pyro out from under the beast. He was alive and relatively undamaged, but very, very sore, not to mention smelly. Well, more so than usual, anyway. We took a moment to catch our breath, then explored the area. It didn’t take us long to locate the owlbear’s lair.

It was an abandoned house, only a few hundred feet away. Near the house was a small cluster of old graves. We managed to tolerate the stench long enough to give what was left of the house a quick once over. There didn’t appear to be anything of value, but more importantly there was no indication that any of the owlbear’s recent victims had been human. We opted to leave the graves undisturbed.

We were only two days out of Fairhill and we had already been hard pressed fighting two large, tough opponents. If the ogre and the owlbear were any indication of the things roaming the wilderness around the village, then it was a good thing we had arrived in town. These people obviously needed our protection.

Even though we had yet to find any sign of Arialle or her friends, we decided to return to Fairhill to regroup and maybe talk some of the others into joining us.


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## RatPunk (May 13, 2003)

*Chapter 7 - Jackie and the Ogre, Part 1*

We returned to Fairhill and managed to track down Jackie, Rumblethorn and Shuglin. Ostler was nowhere to be found. We regaled them with the tale of our failed attempt to locate the blacksmith’s daughter and then decided to head to one of the local eateries for a good hot meal. Except for Pyro, who just wanted to lie down and recover from his encounter with the owlbear.
 _
It’s always good to have a nice, hot meal after a few days in the wild and the fare at the Drunken Cockatrice was no exception. Afterwards, we were just settling in for some nice quiet conversation, when we heard a commotion outside. One of the Fairhillites ran in and announced that the shrines were on fire. Our curiosity got the better of us and we went outside to have a look.

Sure enough, an orange glow filled the evening sky in the direction of the temples. As we approached, we noticed Shandril and Arlen (the mayor) talking urgently. Several members of the village guard also stood nearby. I went over to get some information and offer my services. The rest of the group followed close behind. 

Shandril explained that a band of orcs had come out of the woods near the shrines, set fire to them and stolen the Crucible. She was pretty sure they were headed towards the ruined keep located several miles northeast of town. She and Arlen were in the process of assembling a group of guards to go after them.
We quickly volunteered to go. Orcs, ruined keeps and recovered treasure. That was what we were all about. Besides, the keep in question was the same one that reportedly had belonged to Corian’s buddy, Eralion the wanna-be lich, so it was already high on our list of places to check out.

“Count me in, too,” said a voice from behind us.

We turned to see who had spoken. It was a tall, thin man dressed in dark clothes. He wore a holy symbol around his neck.

“Who the hell are you?” I asked.

“My name’s Peshal. I was in the tavern just now. I’d like to help”, he said.
_
“But you’re a priest of Wee Jas!”

“Hey, we’re not all bad…”

We mulled it over and decided what the hell. Ostler wasn’t around and we needed somebody to do the healing.

Arlen wasn’t big on the idea of “outsiders” going to recover his town’s holy relic, but Shandril talked him into it. She obviously recognized our potential. He still felt the need to assign three of the town guard to lead us to the keep. No doubt they would also have orders to “take care” of us should we turn out to be untrustworthy.

Laurial, Jarinor and Hathol were their names. Like Shandril, Laurial, the sergeant in charge, was another elven follower of Freya. She also seemed particularly displeased at the idea of us going on the mission. No doubt she felt threatened by the obvious aura of confidence and success that we projected.

Since the orcs had been on horseback, Shandril provided us with mounts of our own. She even said we could keep them if we succeeded in returning the Crucible. Then she drew her longsword and held it out to me. 

“This is Valkyria,” she said. “You won’t be able to make use of all that it can do, but it will help you in what is to come. Return it to me when you’re finished.”

Yes! It appeared that all the time I’d spent chatting her up was finally paying off!

I accepted graciously, of course, and strapped Valkyria on in place of my own longsword. Then we quickly gathered up what equipment we needed and went off in hot pursuit of the dastardly orcs. Laurial and her friends led the way.

Jarinor and Hathol seemed like decent enough people. They were just doing their jobs. Laurial, however, definitely had an attitude problem. She refused to offer any helpful suggestions or useful information and openly scoffed at practically everything we did.

A couple hours out of town, the road crossed a wide stream via an old stone bridge. It wasn’t a particularly big stone bridge, but the opposite side was wooded and overgrown with bushes. It was the perfect place for an ambush. We stopped and debated the possibilities for a long time. I mean a really long time. But better cautious than dead, I think. 

While we debated, Laurial sat on her horse, rolling her eyes and refusing to offer her own suggestions or advice. Eventually Shuglin, in typical dwarven fashion, grew tired of all the talk and walked across the bridge. He examined the area for a minute and then yelled back that there was no ambush. Laurial shook her head and rode on. She’d change her tune once she saw how impressive we were in combat.

As we rode, I kept my eye on the path. It was obvious that the orcs had gone this way. They had made no effort to hide their tracks and obviously didn’t consider the Fairhillians to be much of a threat. Eventually, we reached a place where both the path and the tracks split. Branching off to the left was a smaller, less traveled path. The tracks indicated that several of the orcs had dismounted and gone down this side path on foot. The horses had continued down the main path.

We halted and I jumped off my horse to get a closer look at all the tracks. It seemed apparent to me that all of the horses but one had been rider free and had probably been led down the main path as a diversion. Immediately, the debate began.

Some of us wanted to follow the orcs who were now on foot. We would be able to gain ground on them quickly and they most likely had the Crucible. Laurial, on the other hand, insisted that the main path was the fastest way to the keep and we might be able to get there first and ambush the orcs when they arrived. In the end we chose to follow the main path.

It was the wrong choice. The main path ended up being so overgrown that we ultimately had to dismount and lead the horses on foot for the remainder of the journey, which ended up being several hours. Strike one for Laurial. Once we reached the keep, there was no doubt in our minds that the orcs had arrived well ahead of us. The sounds of their partying could be heard, albeit faintly, from where we stood.

We halted at the edge of the woods and secured the horses out of view, then we took in the keep and its surroundings. It was located in a clearing and we couldn’t see any place where the woods got close enough for us to make a stealthy approach. The keep itself was in need of repair. We could see where the walls had cracks and the towers were beginning to crumble, but for the most part, the place appeared to be intact. At least from our vantage point.

The orc celebration sounded like it was going on in the back of the place, so we decided that the wall in front of us, which included the main gate, would be our best bet. At this point, Laurial informed us that she would not be going. Neither would Jarinor and Hathol. They would guard the horses and come to our rescue if we needed them. Yeah, that sounded about right…

Jeb and Jackie moved forward to scout the place out. They quietly made their way to the front gate and gave it a quick once over. Whether it was locked or simply rusted shut, I don’t know. Either way, it wasn’t moving. They crept along the wall toward the corner towers, one in each direction.

Before either of them had made it halfway, Shuglin got up from where we were watching and walked to the main gate. He made no effort to be quiet about it, he just went. When he reached the gate, he looked it over quickly then went over to Jeb and told him there was a door in the tower on the right. Next he walked over to Jackie and told him the same thing. Finally, he came back across the open area between the keep and the woods and returned to our hiding place.

All we could do was look at him in stunned silence. Jeb and Jackie returned and told us that they had seen no sign of guards on the wall, which Shuglin’s stroll had pretty much confirmed. We made our way around to the tower with the door. 

Of course the door was locked, but Jeb made short work of it and soon we were inside. The room was round and the floor above us had partially collapsed. The most interesting aspect, however, was the greenish brown gunk that occupied the center of the floor. It definitely wasn’t a rug and it didn’t look like any form of plant growth. It just didn’t look right. Plus there was a very obvious path cleared along the wall all the way around it.

Still, Rumblethorn felt the need to test it. He jabbed the end of his quarterstaff into it. When he pulled it out, the gunk that was stuck to the end began eating through the staff. It was green slime. Rumblethorn didn’t know what to do. He began waving it around, showing everyone what was happening. With about half of the staff now gone, Shuglin grabbed it, sliced it in two with his axe, and kicked what was left of the eaten part back into the slime. He then handed Rumblethorn his new eighth-staff and announced that he was going back to the horses to keep an eye on Laurial and her cohorts.

Dwarves. Go figure.

We made our way around the slime without further incident and approached the door on the far side of the room. It was also locked, but again Jeb made short work of it. We opened it and stepped cautiously through.

We were in the main courtyard. The noises of partying were louder than ever and obviously came from behind the wall across the courtyard from us. From inside, it was easy to see that the back part of the keep was in much worse shape than the front. Through holes in the wall, we could see the dancing glow of several large campfires. At least we knew where most of the enemy was.

We set about locating any guards that might be lurking in our vicinity. Jeb began inching his way down the wall on our right, while Jackie did the same down the one to the left. They did this so slowly that it took several minutes. The rest of the group was content to huddle quietly in the corner until they finished. I, on the other hand, was getting antsy. I decided to follow Jackie down the wall.

I caught up with him just as he reached a stairway leading to the top of the outer wall. We both ascended and took stock of the situation. Looking over the wall, we could see the spot where Laurial and the horses were. They were well out of sight. To our left was the top floor of the green slime tower, on our right, the upper level of the gatehouse. We decided to head that way.

Bow at the ready, I covered Jackie as he opened the door. The room was empty. It was large enough that it provided cover for the entire gate area, complete with murder holes in the floor and two ladders leading down into the guard rooms on either side. Jackie started browsing around. I opted to keep going.

I went out the door on the other side of the gatehouse, onto the next section of wall. I was slowly making my way towards the far tower. I learned later that my companions considered this to be somewhat rash, but I thought it sounded like a good idea at the time. It was fairly obvious that the front part of the keep was empty; why not nip down to the tower just to make sure? If I ran into any trouble, the group would be right there. Or so I thought.

When I reached the tower, I took a moment to look around. I couldn’t see any of the others in the courtyard. They must have still been huddled up over in the corner. Since the gatehouse was blocking my view, I couldn’t tell for certain, although I could make out Jeb still slinking along the far wall.

I opened the door. Layout wise, it looked to be about the same as the tower with the slime in it, the major difference being that the second floor, which I was currently looking at, seemed to be intact. The key word there is “seemed”. I took a step forward and plunged straight through the floor.

Apparently, the section of floor I had fallen through was also the only part holding the remaining floor up since the entire thing collapsed around me. On the plus side, I was saved from any permanent injury I might have received from hitting the floor. On the negative side, I was saved by a giant spider web that stretched across the room. A web occupied by two large spiders. And I was now stuck.


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## RatPunk (Sep 3, 2003)

*Chapter 7 - Jackie and the Ogre, Part 2*

Most of what happened next was told to me later, since I was otherwise occupied at the time.

It seems that my falling through the floor created such a racket that it alerted the orcs to our presence. Within a matter of seconds, the orcs came flooding out of the back of the keep into the courtyard. They came in two groups, one from a gap in the wall closest to the group (squad 1) and the other from a gap in the wall closest to the tower I was now in (squad 2). 

Since they were reacting with no idea of what had made the noise or where it had come from, the orcs were initially unaware of the group. Squad 1 spotted them quickly, but Squad 2 was on the far side of the courtyard. Jeb took advantage of that by using his innate gnomeness and throwing Dancing Lights at a building near Squad 2. They took the bait and stopped to check it out. Squad 1, however, raced into combat with the group.

Squad 1 outnumbered the party by 2 to 1, but that didn’t deter my comrades from going all out. Rumblethorn and Corian began chucking spells and taking up defensive positions while Jackie and the wolf waded into the thick of battle. Peshal stayed toward the back in case anyone needed healing. The orcs had missed Jeb completely. He had been hiding in the shadows next to a building and they had gone past him without so much as a glance in his direction.

Realizing that he would quickly get crushed in the onslaught, Jeb decided to take a quick jaunt to where the orcs had come from to see if he could locate the Crucible. Fortunately, he hesitated for just a second. Had he left his hiding place immediately, he would have come face to knee with an unexpected friend of the orcs. It was an ogre. And it had decided to come out and play.

While all this was going on, I was struggling to break free of the spider webs. They were strong and pure physical strength hadn’t done me any good. To make matters worse, the spiders were beginning to move towards me. It was becoming imperative that I free one of my weapons. Valkyria was out of the question, since it was too long to draw in my restricted condition. It had to be the short sword. 

I struggled for what seemed like an eternity and was finally able to work the sword free of its scabbard. Not a moment too soon. The first spider came at me quickly. I swung the sword around and pierced it through the side. It slid off the blade and landed on the floor below with a wet thud. The other spider slowed a bit, allowing me time to take a whack at the webbing. It cut the strand, but didn’t go through. This was going to take awhile.

Back in the courtyard, things were beginning to look more desperate. The group had done a pretty good job of taking out most of the orcs, with only the leader of Squad 1 (a particularly tough and nasty orc) and a couple of his buddies left. Squad 2, however, had finished checking out Jeb’s Dancing Lights and now raced across the courtyard to get in on the action. They had also split up, with some of them ascending the wall to come at the party from behind. And, of course, there was the ogre.

The ogre had waded in and started swinging with his club. Peshal and the wolf were tied up with the orc leader. Rumblethorn and Corian were busy trying not to get hit by either the remaining orcs or the ogre. Jeb was several feet away trying to pepper the orcs with bolts from his crossbow. Jackie decided the ogre was up to him. 

He tumbled over and gave the ogre a couple of fists in the leg. That only seemed to piss the beast off, so Jackie tumbled away before he got smashed. He could see only one way out. He had to get face to face. He ran up the stairs to the top of the wall. The ogre followed him, just as Jackie had hoped. With a running jump, Jackie leapt onto the ogre’s shoulder.

Jackie refused to discuss what happened next, but everyone else gave me explicit details. Since their stories were exactly the same, I’ve accepted them as the truth.

When he landed, Jackie gave the ogre a quick fist to the nose, followed by another shot to the head. Then everyone, including the orcs, seemed to pause for a second to take in the sight before them. There stood Jackie on top of the ogre. He had one hand on top of its head as he slapped it repeatedly in the face with the other, all the while thrusting his hips forward and back, yelling, “Who’s your daddy?! Who’s your daddy?!” at the top of his lungs.

I could hear the resulting silence from where I was. I only wish I could have seen it.

The ogre recovered it’s composure and tried to swat at Jackie, but the little monk came to his senses and tumbled off of the creature’s head (a nice double somersault to the ground, from what I’m told). He then spun around, grabbed the back of the ogre’s knee with both hands and pulled in opposite directions. There was a sickening ripping and cracking noise as Jackie pulled the ogre’s kneecap out from behind. The mighty ogre crumpled to the ground, dead and humiliated by a halfling.

Everyone was stunned by the spectacle that had just unfolded. The orcs, however, continued their attack, although undoubtedly with a newfound respect for Jackie. It was about this time that the second squad of orcs arrived on the scene. 

Peshal had run to the top of the wall to try and hold the gatehouse door against the orcs who had split off in an attempt to outflank the group. Jackie turned his attention to the leader of the squad that had just arrived, Jeb continued to fire bolts into the orcs and Brush ran to and fro getting bites in wherever she could. Rumblethorn and Corian, however, weren’t doing so well. They had done their best to avoid being hit, but they looked much the worse for wear. The arrival of the second squad did not bode well for them. In a brief fit of panic, Rumblethorn unleashed a spell.

In the meantime, my efforts had started to pay off. In franticly flailing the short sword around, I had not only managed to off the other spider, but I had partially freed myself as well. With the spiders no longer distracting me, it only took a moment more for me to cut the last of the strands and drop to the floor. Now to see what all the commotion was outside…

I threw open the door and stepped outside, both swords at the ready. The far end of the courtyard was covered in a thick fog from Rumblethorn’s Obscuring Mist spell and all I could make out were vague shapes near the edge. One of those shapes was very obviously Jackie. Another was the rather large orc he was paired up against. I started to head that way.

Suddenly, I saw Jackie fall to the ground. I knew the orc hadn’t hit him, since it still held its axe over its head. Then I noticed that a couple of the other orcs near the edge of the mist had dropped suddenly as well. Rumblethorn had followed up his Mist with a Sleep spell. At a dead run, I reached Jackie in seconds. I slapped him lightly but firmly with the flat of Valkyria as I went by and blocked the orc’s axe swing with my short sword. The tap was enough to wake Jackie from his magical slumber and he leapt back to his feet.

We squared off against the orc leader. He was big and tough and wielded a nasty double axe. He even launched into some kind of barbarian like rage, which made him almost unstoppable. Almost. Working together, Jackie and I managed to keep him off balance and, eventually, we brought him down. There was no time to rest. We split up and began moving from orc to orc, hacking, slashing, punching and kicking as we went.

Then came the gurgling yell from Rumblethorn over by the wall. I worked my way towards him. The mist was starting to clear a bit and I could make out Rumblethorn’s body lying on the ground, with Corian standing wearily near by. Brush had reached the area before me and taken care of the orc that had dropped Rumblethorn. 

As I turned back to the remaining orcs, Peshal come running out of the fog. He knelt beside Rumblethorn, put his hands on him and a second latter Rumblethorn staggered to his feet. He was right. I guess some priests of Wee Jas weren’t all bad. But if Peshal was down here, who was guarding the gatehouse door? I sprinted for the stairs.

I needn’t have worried. Jackie was already there. There were a couple of dead orcs on the other side of the door, and two more trying to get through. Again, Jackie and I hacked and punched away. Within moments, the door was secured once more. Another gurgling cry came from the courtyard, this time closer to the stairs. We raced back.

It was Corian. By the time I reached the stairs, Brush had once again taken care of the offending orc and Rumblethorn was bandaging Corian’s wounds. I ran down the stairs and into the courtyard as Rumblethorn picked Corian up (as best he could) and headed towards the slime room.

The mist had now dispersed enough for us to see reasonably well. Only a handful of orcs remained. Jeb had finally dropped his crossbow and waded in. Peshal was holding his own against his opponent, but wasn’t doing much damage in return. Jackie, Brush and I were doing reasonably well. Then came that now recognizable sound from behind us. Rumblethorn had fallen once again. It just wasn’t that boy’s day.

Again, Brush took care of the orc and Peshal made with the healing. While he was there, he took care of Corian as well. Both of them struggled to their feet as Peshal and Brush stood guard. They needn’t have worried. The sounds of battle were dying off and the next thing I knew the fight was over. We looked around the courtyard at the extraordinary number of dead orcs, not to mention the ogre. They had outnumbered us almost four to one. Somehow, we had won.

Jeb immediately began searching the bodies, while Jackie ran over to the ogre to claim anything of value as a trophy. The rest of us more or less collapsed where we were, exhausted from the fight. After a few minutes rest, Peshal and Rumblethorn laid what healing they still had on whoever needed it. We continued to be amazed at what we had just accomplished.

Our reverie was interrupted by a creaking noise coming from the direction of the slime room. We struggled to our feet as best we could and prepared for whatever onslaught was about to come. A large figure stepped through the doorway. 

It was Pyro.

“Hey guys! Did I miss anything?”


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## RatPunk (Jan 20, 2004)

*Chapter 8 - Temple and Tower, Part 1*

There we stood, surrounded by a pile of dead orcs and an ogre corpse with a dented forehead and a missing kneecap. As usual, after the looting and pillaging of the bodies, the debate began as to what we should do next. I was all for heading back to town to recuperate, just in case the rumored vampire and/or lich actually were in residence here. Pyro was in agreement, even though he had just arrived on the scene.

Some of the others wanted to secure the remaining building and the tower the ogre had come out of first. Jeb had done a quick scout of the area during the battle, but the argument was that a more thorough search before heading back couldn’t hurt. They obviously hadn’t noticed the multiple bleeding wounds we all had.

It was at that moment that the decision was taken out of our hands by two events. First, a giant spear landed in the courtyard next to Peshal. That alerted us to the orc on the roof above the building. He was manning a scorpion. Jeb and I each took a shot at him as he tried to reload, but he had plenty of cover. Everyone else scattered to find their own cover in and around the building.

Then Rumblethorn, who had wandered over to the door of the building before the scorpion had fired, decided it would be a good idea to open it. That’s when we discovered the bad guys inside. Most of us had already gone that way to get away from the scorpion. We decided taking out the guys inside first was our best option. With Rumblethorn momentarily frozen in panic, Pyro was the first one through the door.

The inside was a mess. It had at one time been a temple to St. Cuthbert, but someone had defiled the entire building pretty thoroughly. My guess was that the culprit was the big half-orc priest in black armor we were now staring it. He stood at the far end of the room, behind the altar. In front of him sat the Crucible with a large, black candle burning in it. Between him and us stood four of the biggest, nastiest looking orcs I had ever seen. They almost made Jackie’s ogre friend look like a kobold.

Pyro wasted no time. He was barely inside the doorway when he started swinging at the nearest orc. The priest grabbed a wicked skull headed, spiked mace off of the altar and strode forward. Pyro accepted the unspoken challenge and stepped away from the orc he’d been fighting to meet the priest head on. The rest of us charged in before the orcs could turn all their attention on Pyro’s back. We outnumbered them, but their large, deadly greataxes more than made up the difference. It was all we could do not to lose a limb (or a head) in the melee. 

From the moment we’d walked in, something just hadn’t felt right. My swings seemed sluggish and just a bit off, while the orcs seemed to be getting increasingly more accurate. I could tell by the looks on my friends’ faces that they felt it too. It was as if the evil permeating the room was a physical force that affected our every move.

When Jackie entered the temple, he took one look at the room and very nearly went berserk. He was an ardent follower of St. Cuthbert, after all. He launched himself at the nearest orc. It never had a chance and went down quickly. Our odds were improving. 

Pyro’s odds were not. The priest had already hit him several times and Pyro was starting to show it. As the priest swung his mace for what would surely be the killing blow, Pyro ducked under it and sprinted for the altar. His large, muscular build belied his quickness and the priest’s back swing from behind missed as well. Jackie and I stepped up to the priest before he had a chance to follow.

As Jackie approached, he yelled a vow to St. Cuthbert about vengeance and sticking the priest’s mace somewhere or another. No sooner had the words left his lips than the sluggish, evil feeling lessened. I gave the priest my full attention and attempted to use Valkyria to its fullest potential. Sadly, it didn’t make him burst into flames on contact or anything. I would just have to hack him up the old fashioned way. Provided he didn’t brain me with his mace first, of course.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group was not faring well. Although nobody had died yet, the orcs were taking a toll. It wasn’t surprising since we hadn’t had an opportunity to heal after the battle outside. Even Laurial and her two guard friends would have been a welcome sight, but alas they were still waiting outside with the horses. You would have thought that the sound of our battle in the courtyard would have brought them running. We would definitely have to have a chat with Arlen about the quality of his employees when we returned to Fairhill.

By this time, Pyro had reached the altar. He was met there by yet another orc, who had stepped out of a room in the back of the temple. It turned out to be the same orc who had been manning the scorpion on the roof, although we didn’t know it at the time. He wasn’t as big or well armed as the orcs everyone else was fighting, but in Pyro’s weakened condition he was close enough. In much the same way as he had fought the ogre when we were looking for the blacksmith’s daughter, Pyro stood there and exchanged swings with the orc, neither of them landing a solid hit. 

Then Pyro had an idea. 

He leaned over and blew the black candle out. The sluggish feeling suddenly went away. Almost immediately another one of the orc henchmen went down. The rest of the group started crowding around the remaining orcs. Someone ran back to help Pyro. The priest did not look pleased. He looked even less pleased when the rest of the orcs fell a moment later. He didn’t have long to worry about it, though. As he tried to fend off another blow from Jackie, Valkyria slipped through his chainmail. He went down like an evil rag doll.

And his body vanished.

Peshal and Rumblethorn ran over to exam the spot where he fell. After several minutes of conferring and examining they concluded that it had probably been a Word of Recall. That implied that he probably wouldn’t remain dead for long, but hopefully we wouldn’t have to worry about him any time soon. We set about checking things out.

Pyro grabbed the Crucible and shoved it down his pants "for safe keeping". Heaven knows nobody would ever be looking there for anything, much less the Crucible of Freya. Nothing much of value was found, but we did throw the candle in a bag to take back to Fairhill. We’d let Shandril take care of it as she saw fit. While we were rummaging around, Jackie did his best to clean off both the altar and the statue of St. Cuthbert.


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## RatPunk (Dec 1, 2004)

*Chapter 8 - Temple and Tower, Part 2*

Wow, I guess it's been a lot longer than I thought since my last update. If there's anyone out there who was actually following this story, I apologize. I'll try not to let it happen again...    

- - - - - - - - - -

Once we were done, we decided to press our already overtaxed luck and move on to the tower the ogre had emerged from. It was a mess as well, but this was a different kind of mess. This was orc and ogre nest mess. And boy did it smell.

The first floor had apparently been occupied by several of the orcs and the floor was littered with numerous rugs that may, at one time, have been worth some gold. Now they were little more than soiled, disgusting blankets, which was obviously what the orcs had used them as. Jeb, however, insisted that with a little cleaning, they might still bring in some cash. We left him to paw over them.

The upstairs had been the home of Jackie’s ogre friend. How it managed to get up and down the narrow staircase on a daily basis, I’ll never know. A quick look around revealed the ogre’s only apparent possession: a leather thong with twelve human skulls on it. I didn’t even want to think about the ogre trying it on. That mental image brought a pause and a shudder to everyone. We went back downstairs.

During his inspection, Jeb had sorted the rugs into piles. When he had removed the last few from the center of the floor, he discovered a large board lying across the floor. Ever the suspicious type, Jeb had moved the board aside just as we came down the stairs. Beneath it was a trap door. We pondered the possibilities for a moment. Our thoughts turned to the rumors we’d heard in Fairhill of a lich and/or vampire living in the keep.

The vote was quick and unanimous. Now it was time to head back to Fairhill. 
We returned to the courtyard and gathered what treasure we had accumulated, including the smelly rugs from the orc room. Suddenly Jeb spoke up.

"You know, we should take that scorpion on top of the temple, too. I’ll bet we could get some good money for that. Maybe Arlen would want it for the town."

Peshal was dead set against the idea. He wanted to go back to Fairhill and he wanted to go now, the scorpion would only slow us down. As adamant as he was about leaving it behind, Jeb was more so about taking it with us. The two of them started debating the idea. Loudly. The rest of us could see the merit in both sides, but at the time we were mostly leaning towards just heading back to town.

Then Pyro mentioned the war wagon.

It was such a simple statement: "Maybe we could mount it on the wagon.", but it had all kinds of possibilities, many of which instantly started running through my mind. Armored sides, the scorpion on the back, maybe some kind of dwarf launcher… The possibilities were endless! I could tell that the others were intrigued by the idea as well. Except for Peshal, who just wanted to leave, and Jackie, whom we suddenly noticed was missing.

Nervously expecting some new and hidden threat, we began looking around the courtyard. There was no sign of him. We nearly jumped out of our skins when his voice yelled down from above us.

"Hey, can somebody give me a hand with this?"

He was on top of the temple and had disassembled the entire scorpion while we’d been debating the issue. All that remained was to bring the pieces down to the courtyard. Pyro went to give him a hand. Using some interesting load distribution, we managed to pack everything on the horses, including Laurial’s (which displeased her to no end, I can assure you), and we rode back to town.

We went immediately to Shandril’s and presented the Crucible to her. She was extremely grateful, although not in the way I was hoping for. Instead, she healed everyone, which was almost as good. We also gave her the black candle, which she agreed to dispose of. Then we told her about the temple to St. Cuthbert and she recommended we talk to Brother Ogmund, the local Cuthbert priest. That sounded like a reasonable idea, so off we went.

We located Ogmund nearby, clearing out the smoldering ruins of what had recently been the village’s shrine to St. Cuthbert. We told him the tale of the temple and that we were planning to make a return trip in the morning. When we suggested that he might want to come along, he readily agreed. The chance to reestablish St. Cuthbert’s following in the area was too good for him to pass up. With a promise to pick him up in the morning, we headed to the Cockatrice to get some much needed rest.

I think most of us found that the morning came much too quickly. Still, we managed to drag ourselves out of bed, eat a quick breakfast and meet at Ogmund’s at a pretty reasonable time. He was packed and ready to go when we arrived, so we were quickly on our way.

I’ll say this for him, Brother Ogmund was a much better traveling companion than Laurial had been. He was jovial, friendly and very helpful. He and Jackie hit it off quite well, but then they both followed the same deity. We told him our adventuring stories, with Jackie quickly glossing over the details of his fight with the ogre, and Ogmund regaled us with tales of his own. It definitely made the time pass quickly and before we knew it we had arrived back at the keep.

We entered through the slime room and stepped into the courtyard. The stench from the corpses we’d piled up was just beginning to take hold, but it wasn’t overpowering. I think Ogmund was a little impressed to see that we hadn’t been exaggerating about the battle. We pointed him in the direction of the temple and he went off to set about the business of cleaning and reconsecrating. We gave the rest of the keep a quick once over, just to make sure it was still secure, then returned to the trap door.

The door opened with a loud creak. The waft of air that hit our nostrils reeked of orc and ogre. Just our luck, we’d found their toilet. Those of us who could see well in the dark crowded around the opening to get a better look. When that didn’t reveal much, we threw down a torch. It was a circular room, empty of anything except piles of trash along the wall. Much to our relief, it appeared to be crap free. In the middle of the floor was yet another trapdoor. It had a silvery gleam around the edges and was conspicuously uncovered by trash. But there was no way down.

Then Jackie pulled a hundred and fifty feet of rope out of his haversack. Yeah, that should just about do it. We found something in the room to secure the rope to and threw it down the hole. Within minutes, we were standing in the room examining the door.


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## Mahtave (Dec 2, 2004)

Thought I would delurk for a minute - RatPunk this is a really good SH.  I like the perspective coming from the "cocky" ranger.  I look forward to the continuing saga   

Is Peshal an NPC?  Or is he a new player?  Nothing like having two clerics from different ideologies in a group.  If that doesn't hint at in-party tension I don't know what could be worse...


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## RatPunk (Dec 2, 2004)

I'm glad you like it. I will _try_ to make sure it doesn't go quite so long without an update from now on...  

Writing it from Knuptar's POV only made sense to me, since that's how I'm seeing the game unfold, although actually writing it out allows me to put a little more of a Knuptar twist on things. I have to give a big shout out to Wulf for turning me on to this particular narrative style with his excellent Story Hour. And, of course, Wulf epitomizes the "cocky PC" archtype as far as I'm concerned.  

As for Peshal, he was a new player to the group at this point. We all had a lot of fun giving him a hard time about worshipping Wee Jas, I can tell you. Actually, we have a lot of fun just harrassing him in general...


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## RatPunk (Dec 15, 2004)

*Chapter 8 - Temple and Tower, Part 3*

The door was covered in runes and had silver nails driven into it to hold it down. As an added precaution, someone had also wedged silver pieces into the gaps all the way around the edge. Somebody didn’t want something to get out of there. The use of silver, a common ward against the undead, quickly brought all of our minds back to the vampire rumors. Then we noticed that the most predominant rune on the door looked familiar. Jeb brought out the amulet that he had taken from Corian when we’d first met him.

It matched.

We meekly assured each other that we were ready for whatever lurked below and Jeb passed the amulet over the door. There was a slight click and the door sprang open. With what seemed like a deafening clatter, all the silver pieces fell to the floor below. So much for the element of surprise.

Once again the rush of air from below brought nasty surprises to our noses. This time, however, it was the unmistakable smell of death. Against our better judgement, we peered over the edge to take a look.

It appeared to have been some sort of lab. It was circular like the room we were in, but there was a door on one side. The floor was strewn with candles, tubes and glassware, six statues lined the walls, and there was another trapdoor. As before, there was no way down. Fortunately, we had Jackie’s never ending coil of rope. It looked like we were going to put a lot of it to use. 

Once we had descended, we went about the business of sifting through the stuff on the floor. Ever the curious sort, Jeb had gone to check out the door. He had just opened it when the "statues" attacked. You would think that they would have been the first things we’d check out, but for whatever reason, we hadn’t, so we missed the fact that they were actually zombies in chainmail. 

With the zombies down off their pedestals and mixing it up with us, there wasn’t a lot of room left for maneuvering and weapon swinging, but we did our best. There was a momentary scare as what appeared to be rot grubs started dropping out of the zombies’ eye sockets, but we quickly determined that they were merely ordinary worms. 

Then Peshal remembered that he was a priest. Holding his holy symbol before him, he demanded that the zombies flee. They tried, but with nowhere to go, they settled for cowering against the walls. We quickly turned them into the ex-undead.

We took a second to catch our breath and finished looking through the stuff on the floor. Jeb discovered a couple of books in the side room and threw them into his pack. We’d have them checked out more thoroughly when we got back to town. Then it was back to the trapdoor.

We opened it and had a look. As before, there was no way down. Eralion had obviously never heard of stairs or ladders. This time, the room below was very obviously a tomb. Not just any tomb, but Eralion’s tomb. Directly below us was a large stone sarcophagus sitting atop a raised, black dais. Both of them were covered in intricately carved ruins and hieroglyphs. There were papers and glass shards on the floor next to the dais. Lying across the lid was a skeleton clothed in what had once been fine robes. It clutched a staff in one hand.

Six coffins lined the wall.

We looked at each other nervously. All of us knew we were doomed if there was even one vampire below, much less six. Still, we were here for a purpose, so we took a collective deep breath and threw the rest of Jackie’s rope down.

We hit the floor one at a time and spread out quickly. Nobody wanted to touch the coffins, so we gave them as wide a berth as possible in the small room. Rumblethorn was interested in the staff, but before he could grab it, Jeb and Jackie both motioned for silence. Jeb cocked his head to the side as if listening to something. Slowly he nodded and spoke:

"Yes, it’s Fariblan. Is that you, Eralion?"

Uh-oh, I didn’t like the sound of this. Jeb nodded again and slowly a patch of darkness formed in front of him. It took on a more or less human form. Eralion hadn’t made it to lichhood, he’d become a shadow. He motioned slowly to Jeb, who continued to listen. We were all beginning to make out the faint voice of the dead wizard.

"Fariblan", it whispered.

"I’m here. How can we help?" replied Jeb.

"Redemption."

"Um, ok. How?"

"Chapel."

Jeb looked at us. We were too dumbfounded to offer much more than a shrug as advice.

"Uh… sure. We can take you to the chapel." He said, none too convincingly.

Fortunately, the undead apparently can’t hear nervousness. No sooner had the words left Jeb’s lips than Eralion was floating towards the trapdoor. We scrambled up the rope after him. Apparently, he didn’t want to be redeemed by himself, because he waited for us all to climb the rope to the top. Once we’d pulled ourselves out, he started drifting across the courtyard towards the chapel.

We were moving faster than Eralion was, since we thought it a good idea to prepare Ogmund for what we’d found. Jackie hit the door first.

"Um… Brother Ogmund? We have a small problem we could use your help with…"

He didn’t have time to say anything else. Eralion drifted into the chapel. Ogmund’s eyes grew wide and he dropped the bucket of cleaning water he’d been holding. "Blasphemer!" Ogmund yelled and started unleashing spells at the shadow. We dove quickly out of the way.

Eralion turned to Jeb and, in a much louder voice now, screeched something about him being a traitor and a liar. That was enough for me. I drew Valkyria and leapt to the attack. Jeb muttered something under his breath about Ogmund’s hasty attack and Jackie quickly positioned himself between the gnome and the priest, just in case.

Ogmund picked up his cudgel and stepped forward. The rest of us did what we could to help, but the battle was mostly Ogmund’s and it was over quickly. Eralion was dispatched once and for all. Ogmund gave us a quick, almost accusatory glance, then picked up his bucket and returned to his cleaning.

We stood there for a moment. Should we try to explain to Ogmund or just go and finish searching the tomb? We went back to the tomb to grab whatever we could find. Aside from the staff, we recovered a ceremonial dagger and a pair of bracers from Eralion’s corpse. We tried for what seemed like hours before we finally managed to pry the lid off of the sarcophagus. Inside was an assortment of coins, gems and jewelry. We threw everything into a bag and went back up to the courtyard.

A quick check with Ogmund confirmed that he wanted to stay and continue his cleaning, so we bade farewell and set off for town. We found Shandril and Arlen conferring together near the temples and we told them about Brother Ogmund and Eralion. They were both very appreciative of our efforts. Arlen reached into his pocket and handed us a key. He was giving us use of the noble guesthouse for as long as we remained in town. Sweet!

Before we left to round up the dwarves and move into our new digs, I unstrapped Valkyria and offered it back to Shandril. She touched it with one hand, closed her eyes for a second and said "You are not yet done with it". I knew what she really meant. She wanted to keep me around for a while! No problem, I could play that game.

Once we had packed up our things at the Drunken Cockatrice, Corian spoke up. Corian! He’d been so helpful lately that I’d almost forgotten he was with us! He asked Jeb if he could have the amulet back now that we were done with it. Jeb took it out, looked it over for a minute, then said "What the hell" and tossed it to him. 

And just like that Corian said goodbye, grabbed his stuff and walked out the door. He didn’t even ask for a share of the treasure. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy after all...


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## RatPunk (Jan 20, 2005)

*Wizards, Ettins & Bards, Oh My!, Part 1*

We had been lounging around our new house for about a week when it was suggested that we try again to locate the blacksmith’s daughter. I don’t remember who brought it up, or when, but after our successful forays at the keep we were looking for something else to do. If it happened to earn us more points with the Fairhillers, then so much the better. Plus, there was a full set of shiny new plate mail in it for one of us. So back to the blacksmith’s we went to refresh our memories on the details.

Missing about 3 weeks, great singer, wanted to adventure, went north. Got it. We packed up and headed into the wilderness once more. This time we went a slightly different north so as not to cover the same ground that had led to the owlbear on our previous attempt. Instead, we followed the river that came down from the hills to the north.

Only a couple of hours out of town, we heard a noise ahead on the path we had been following. Rounding a bend, we saw a young woman lying on the ground struggling against four orcs. She didn’t match the description of the blacksmith’s daughter, but she needed our help all the same. We charged forward.

By this time we had become seasoned orc fighters, or so we believed, and we made short work of them. The fact that we outnumbered them didn’t hurt any, either. We helped the woman to her feet. She dusted herself off and introduced herself as Pearl, a wizard. We invited her to tell us her story over lunch.

She had been adventuring with a group of friends in the area. They had stopped by Fairhill about three weeks ago and made the acquaintance of Arialle, the blacksmith’s daughter. When Arialle expressed a desire to adventure, they had agreed to let her accompany them. Shortly thereafter, the group had encountered some sort of problem, and one of their number had been transformed into an ettin, who then went on a rampage and killed almost the entire party. 

Arialle had managed to calm the beast by singing to it, but it had then snatched her up and run off. Pearl managed to follow it to an abandoned tower that they had discovered some days earlier. The ettin had decided to make it his lair. Fairly confident that the creature wasn’t going anywhere, Pearl had returned to the city of Marner to buy a scroll in an attempt to transform the ettin back into her friend. The orcs had accosted her on the way back to the tower.

Since our goals now meshed nicely, Pearl agreed to join us. If her spell didn’t work, she would be forced to kill her friend, a task that would be much easier with the rest of us around. Not only that, but ettins were kind of like two headed ogres, so Jackie would be pleased...

After lunch, we packed up and continued on our way. It took several more hours, but soon we could hear music in the distance. We pressed on and arrived at the tower just before sunset. Everyone in town had been correct. Arialle had a beautiful voice. 

As we approached, she sang song after song, accompanied only by the sounds of a lilting harp. When we arrived outside the tower, however, that changed. Suddenly she was accompanied by the most horrendous din of bellowing and harp banging that any of us had ever heard. The ettin obviously fancied himself a musician and had joined in. It was a wonder our ears weren’t bleeding.

We were now standing in front of the tower, getting ready to formulate a plan, when Jeb decided to take matters into his own hands. At the top of his little lungs, he yelled "My god that sucks!" That brought the music to a screeching halt. He followed it up a second later with "My grandmother plays a better harp than that and she’s dead!"

That did it.

With a loud roar, the ettin stormed out of the tower. It quickly sized up its opposition and, with what seemed to me to be a chuckle, it charged towards us. Jackie and Peshal ran forward and met it half way while Jeb and I both took a couple of shots at it. Pearl had pulled out her scroll and was busy making preparations to try and turn the creature back into her friend.

Our main goal was to keep the creature occupied, without killing it, until Pearl could work her magic. What we succeeded in doing was pissing the thing off and it began smacking us around like rag dolls. I quickly gave up on trying to shoot it, so I drew my swords and waded in. This resulted in me being the first one to go down. One solid shot from the ettin’s club and I was out.


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## RatPunk (Mar 28, 2005)

*Wizards, Ettins & Bards, Oh My!, Part 2*

I regained consciousness to find Rumblethorn standing over me. The battle had moved away a bit and he had taken the opportunity to throw some healing spells my way. Peshal was similarly administering to Jackie, who was lying on the ground not far away. Jeb and Brush were frantically trying to keep the ettin at bay until we could return to the fray. Behind me, Pearl was cursing loudly. Her attempt at returning her friend to normal had failed. We would have to kill him.

Jackie and I leapt to our feet just in time to watch the ettin knock Peshal out cold. We tried to draw the creature away as Rumblethorn ran over to heal the cleric. It worked just long enough, but Peshal immediately had to return the favor as a glancing blow from the ettin’s club knocked Rumblethorn out. This was not going to be easy.

With Jackie and I back in action for the time being, Jeb once again dropped back and started shooting. As he always insisted, he really was quite the missile warrior. Within seconds, the ettin started to look like an overgrown porcupine. Unfortunately, it wasn’t slowing it down. In a matter of moments, I was once again on the ground staring at Peshal as he sent more healing my way.

As I regained my feet, I surveyed the situation. Jackie was down again, with Rumblethorn seeing to him. Jeb had once again been forced to go hand to knee with the ettin, who was finding the wiry little gnome tough to hit. Brush wasn’t looking too good, but she was staying in there, and Pearl was casting what spells she could. The ettin, though wounded, didn’t appear to be any worse for the wear. Things were looking grim.

Suddenly, a beautiful, lilting voice came from inside the tower. The power of Arialle’s song reinvigorated us and refocused our minds on the task at hand. Inspired, we leapt to the attack once more. This time, the ettin could do little to fend off our concerted onslaught. A few moments later it was dead.

Pearl grieved for her former friend briefly, then joined us as we entered the tower. Ettins, even transformed ones, rarely live in lush environments, so it came as no surprise to find that the place was practically a ruin. The tower amounted to nothing more than two big, round rooms stacked on top of each other with a stairway connecting them. The first floor was empty, except for a pile of rubble and an exquisitely crafted harp.

Jackie practically pounced on the harp and gave it a thorough inspection. If I hadn’t known any better, I would not have guessed him to be a monk. Jeb, on the other hand, was far more interested in the pile of rubble. I guess his highly trained senses had told him where the rest of the ettin’s treasure would be. Sure enough, he uncovered a decent mound of gold, silver and gems. Jackie, in the meantime, had latched onto the harp and stuffed it in his haversack.

The rest of us proceeded cautiously up the stairs. The second floor was empty as well, except for a small stool and Arialle, who was chained to the wall. Needless to say, she was glad to see us. We yelled for Jeb. He ran up the stairs and we pointed to Arialle’s chains. He made quick work of unlocking them, then ran back downstairs to finish gathering up our booty.

Once freed, Arialle’s next concern was for her harp. Apparently it had been crafted by some famous musician or other and was very valuable. Grudgingly, Jackie pulled it out of his haversack and handed it to her. It was a good thing Jeb hadn’t gotten a hold of it or she would have never gotten it back.

Our task accomplished, we headed back to Fairhill with Arialle and Pearl in tow. Once back in town, our first stop was, of course, the blacksmith’s. The reunion of father and daughter was joyous and the blacksmith was extremely grateful. He agreed to let Jackie use the forge to craft some small monkish trinkets for himself and, once we’d tracked down Pyro, he took the measurements for the promised suit of plate mail.

With the news that the armor wouldn’t be done for a couple of weeks, we retired to our house to bask in the glory of yet another job well done. Since she’d lost her previous adventuring group, we offered to let Pearl hang out with us for awhile. We weren’t just being magnanimous, though. Since Corian the Mostly Useless had left, we were without an arcane spell-slinger of our own. She agreed that it would be a good idea, so we threw Shuglin’s stuff in Ostler’s room and Pearl moved in.


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