A bit of Schooling then off to meet new and old friends
Day: 10-23, Mo/Yr: 4/12, 2993[AEP] irl: Mar 8th, 2025 Session 8
Scribe: ShadowFax (Meric)
GM: Evil Tables
| Players | Broken Head | Acquaintances, Friends new & departed |
| Agoston [Scholar 3] dcterraMeric [Thief 3] ShadowfaxBelaros [Fighter 2] DeViateGrim [Dwarf 2] Big_PunGemistos [Scholar 1] Luminance NPC:Brunwolf* [Torchbearer] | Alexos [Cleric 2] SaracorMikeleos [Druid 2] SaracorFeathers [Thief 3] jdsullSalvatore [Cleric] jdsull Herakleon [Scolar 1]Syagria [Fighter 2] NPC’s:Lankios [Retired paladin]Khronos and Estelle [Keepers] | Count Sceleros [Beastmen] rescued leader, returned to Dino]Klisco [Illusionist] rescued brought to Gosterwick Dalton’s DarlingsJason [fighters]Helga [thief] Isidor (halfling) [thief] – the stinky stealerYvette (cleric)Heliagabulus (Magic User) ☠ Dead:Hektor [Fighter] Saracor |
Tuition Room. Board & (Spell) Books
Our party begins the week exploring the streets of Gosterwick (population ca. 2000), a 3 day journey from Arden Vul. The town has much to offer for tired adventurers. We spend time in town buying supplies and gathering rumors while our Scholars busy themselves with learning and scribing spells. A Shield, some Twine, mining pick, and chalk are purchased at the local market (Note the biggest market day is Thursday).
We spend money in town on an alchemist’s to learn the potions we are carrying:
- potion of climbing
- potion of fire resistance
Pumping Klisco (the Illusionist we rescued) for any information, we learn that his group was on a mission to retrieve some relic for some high ranking noble. He was entrusted to find 4 lost pieces (from lady Alexia) :
- bone ring of Jagri-Naz – Was traced to level five in possession of Psalor-Ki
- tablet of the beacon
- iron circlet of Ghanor
- ebon spear
While in town we also keep our ears open and hear two rumors
- Historical – They got rid of the cult of Seth in the empire it no longer exists or is practiced by anyone
- Adventure – Dangerous Voth priests loved teleportation (portal doors will be marked with an ibis)
Meric seeks out a Guild for learning advanced lockpicking techniques, the fine art of sleight of hand, and—most importantly—how to pick pockets without getting punched in the face. Then he saw the posted price…
“Twelve hundred gold?!” Meric nearly choked. “For that kind of money, I could just bribe the city guard to pretend I was invisible for years!”
Defeated, Meric slunk back to the yellow cloak Inn where his companions, Grim the dwarf and a few others, were. “Bad news, lads. My dream of professional thievery has been crushed by capitalism.”
Grim scratched his beard, unimpressed. “How much ye short?”
“About six hundred gold.”
The dwarf let out a low whistle. “Aye, that’s a hefty sum. But ye got friends, Meric.” He looked around at the group. “If we all pitch in, we can cover the rest.”
Rested, trained, learned and supplied we head out to Arden Vul (3 days travel) to the cleric(?) face…
Small talk and a discreet head check of some Dangling Daltons
Dalton’s Darlings are busy trying to climb over to the head of the statue with the outreaking palm. At this moment, they don’t seem hostile so we approach them and engage in conversation.
We strike up the conversation as they are busy climbing and offer our help even though we are looked on with suspicion. The dwarf helps the Daltons to examine the head of the statue.
Their names turn out to be. Jason, a fighter / Helga, a thief / Heliagabulus, a male human fighter / Isidor a halfling thief and Yvette a scary looking cleric. They are friends from the empire going back a ways.
There are obvious seams found in the statue. It’s looking like some kind of machine with connections visible to the shoulder and arm. The right arm is extended into an open palm (as in a religious pose, gesture of openness as explained by Yvette, she also goes on to explain that the statue appears to be weeping in some way. Looks like the hand could extend up hundreds of feet.
Agoston, excusing himself to the “bush of many uses”, comes back with a prepped esp spell – first focusing it on the cleric/Yvette he learns she is looking at Isidor and is bothered about his BO.
The Dalton group says they used to go through the pyramid but the Halflings have been charging too much (30% of the haul! With a 10GP minimum). They claim they made it down to the troll bridge and the troll tunnels before. There are “troll lifts” that take you down to level 6! Yvette’s thoughts interrupt with “That’s it, Isidor probably lost a wrestling match with one of those trolls… and the troll walked away cleaner.”
More esp… Jason the fighter is infatuated by Helga, other than that he spends a lot of time thinking about himself. The Magic user meanwhile is bored and thinking of casting sleep just for excitement. The cleric appears to have not too many thoughts as she’s stupid. The thieves are checking out our merch (eyes for the +2 dagger but not considering it worth the effort at the moment. Finally Brunwolf is checked for his loyalty and passes the esp test.
Back to Dino’s Digs
We send the Daltons on their way with stories about another possible entrance across the way. Up to the Beastman’s entrance, now unnoticed we can slip behind the secret door. More footprints than last time and signs of something that is crawling!
We venture into an, until now, unexplored corner cave west of the Beastmans* entrance. There is a coffin sized small container with a large padlock and an insignia on top of a Mailed fist with some quite old text (arkanian?). The chest is composed of stone with a wooden lid. The big padlock with which the lid is secured emits a smell, a chemical smell. Poison? Although Meric is anxious to apply his latest learned skill in the real world, more cautious heads prevail and we pry open the lid from the hinge side opposite the lock, with the lock safely facing the wall…
In the box we discovered 10 Javelins, 10 torches, 3 glass flasks of oil, mushrooms in a pouch together with a few days’ provisions. Just as we are examining this small trove, a troupe of beastman pull up behind us. We mention we are friends of Count Scolaros, dropping that name faster than a wizard drops Concentration in a tavern brawl. The beastmen inform us that Dino was quite pleased with his rescue, delving into details of a reunion which border on a bit too much information.
The beastmen patrol are on their way to the fungal(?) forest to search for mushrooms. We ask them about the symbol on the chest we just broke into, not mentioning the fact that we did. They say it looks like a beastman symbol but older. In Dino’s chamber there is a similar symbol they tell us. The esp, still working, reveals their sense of their strong bonds to Dino as the protector of all beastmen. We also receive a short lecture on mushroom gathering: there are red mushrooms, but green are best, and purple are bad. We show red mushrooms to the beastman and they point out that they are not green.
We ask the beastman about Dalton’s Darlings… they reply, “We noticed one very bad smelling Halfling. Also there was an encounter in the North where a lot of the party was put to sleep and many were killed…”
*Beastman have dog & bear heads.
Following the patrol to the Fungal forest we encounter a vast cavern with a 100ft ceiling filled with 10-15ft mushrooms as far as our sight reaches. We spend some time searching the area and cutting out chunks of the giant mushrooms. As we cut out the pieces the parts cut out appear to gain luminance lighting the dark around them.
Agoston find as golden seal cylindrical 8”long 5”dia which looks like it was potentially used in printing. Gemistos finds a holy symbol of goth.
We cut out a piece of mushroom and the part cut off glows
We end the session in the mushroom forest. Asking one final question to the patrol about the Troll lift and only to get the already well known response from them “Dino knows All”.