One Small Step... 11/12 and 11/19 session recaps

Ander continued to hound the one-eyed man in the town of Tregynon. Thoric finally took a different approach and left a message at the man's shop inviting him for a chat. Sure enough, the guy showed up at the bar and started up a conversation after Thoric bought him a few whiskies.

It turned out that this guy (named Enwyd)was about the only one in town who was willing to supply Orvalion for reasonable prices a few years back. Orvalion would come into town, buy supplies, and then disappear back into the mountains again. Enwyd also knew that Orvalion somehow befriended the local kobolds.

One day a few months ago, a man came into town asking about Orvalion, and Enwyd didn't have a problem telling him what little he knew. Then man then stabbed Enwyd in the eye and left him for dead. Enwyd has been a little shaky since then, and was spooked when Ander started spewing anti-dragonborn rhetoric. He was even more spooked when Ander started following him around.

Having obtained an eyewitness report of Orvalion's presence in the town, and having in their posession a scroll of Linked Portal and a portait of a dragonborn lady, the party finally decided to return to Shandrapur with their evidence. They hired on with Lars Allynwy again, and they didn't face any tax collectors or highwaymen on the way back.

Boreas and Thoric visited Caelebhan with their report and the portrait. They had resolved not to mention anything about the portal scroll, and managed to keep that a secret while talking with him. He paid each of them the 200gp he had promised, and refused to divulge his reasons for wanting to talk with Orvalion when Thoric once again questioned him about it. He did, however, tell them who the portrait depicted. It was a likeness of Kendrini Nabendu, servant to the Nabendu family of dragonlords. Later, Xakoraki was able to remember that she was reputed to be a spy and assassin for Nabendu. Caelebhan, however, said that he did not think that she had survived the rebellion.

After gathering some provisions and visiting the local temple of Linitheriva, the party headed out of town to the portal circle. There they cast the ritual on the scroll, and peered into a small stone room. They stepped through, and as soon as Boreas stepped out of the circle to check the hallway for traps, the ceiling descended upon them. The party managed to make it into the hallway before the ceiling met the floor, sealing off the magic circle with a massive block of stone.

The door at the end of the hallway was trapped with a glyph of lightning that Ander was able to carefully deactivate. Beyond the door lay a somewhat barren magical lab. Many books appeared to be missing from the shelves, but there were alchemical reagents intact and some spare ink and parchment stored here and there. Based on the dust, it seemed as if someone had been there within the past year or so.

They ventured into another hallway and found a barred and magically sealed door, a regular door, and stairs leading upward. The regular door revealed a bedroom, which also appeared to have been used within a year or two. Nothing of value was in it.

Up the stairs they heard what sounded like open space and wind. Once at the top, they discovered that they were on top of a mesa with a sheer thousand foot drop on all sides. There was a large pool of water on top, and off to one side was a perfectly square pit about the same size as the room with the teleportation circle. They also found two extremely weathered skeletons up there, lying in pieces near each other.

Back to the sealed door they went, and they heard shuffling on the other side of it. They unbarred it, and Xakoraki opened it to find herself face-to-face with a lot of zombies. She breathed acid breath upon them, which felled all but three. Thoric stepped forward and turned the undead with the holy light of Linitheriva, and Ander and Xakoraki stepped up to smash the remaining zombies into the ground. The party emerged from combat untouched.

They took a breath and headed down a long stairway that turned twice to the right. At the bottom they were greeted by the sight of a long hallway that was completely filled with dessicated undead! We left them there until the next session.

A Lack of Moral Guidance - 11/5 session recap

Note from the DM : Ritual scrolls in 4th edition are usable by anyone, as long as you have the material components. Level doesn't matter. Ritual Casting feat (or class feature) doesn't matter. Anyone can use a scroll.

The Party decided to check out the path that led beyond the temple, and they headed eastward. The path continued to follow the northern rim of the east-west ravine, and after a while, the party started to hear a woman singing. Ander snuck ahead to check it out, and he was able to discern that there were two voices singing. As he rounded the corner, he came face to face with a harpy.

Ander was transfixed by the song, and was unprepared for the other harpy swooping down and slashing at him. The rest of the party rushed into assist, but they too were caught up in the song. All except for Xakoraki, who didn't give a damn about what some dirty bird-woman was singing about. Ander flung a burst of of shuriken at his attackers, blinding one of them. It shrieked so horribly that most of the party was dazed.

Boreas recovered fairly quickly and started hurling spells at one of the harpies. Over several rounds, he managed to damage her fairly severely, but she was able to fly away. Meanwhile, the other harpy took wing and flew over the ravine, singing another song. The allure was too much for the male party members, who were inexorably drawn to the edge of the chasm. Boreas and Ander caught themselves before falling over the edge, but Thoric lost his footing and fell, catching himself on the edge. Boreas continued to pour magical damage into his foes, and Ander tossed a few shuriken at his aerial target.

Thoric slipped further down the slope, and the party realized that he was in danger of falling entirely into the gorge. Xakoraki lowered a rope to him while the harpy retreated out of weapon and spell range. It flew away, cackling.

The party backtracked, and found themselves at the split in the path again. They decided to take the path they hadn't taken before, and two hours later they appeared to be approaching the harpies once again. Except this time they saw at least 4 in the sky, circling about half a mile away. Rather than engage an entire nest of harpies, they prudently decided to return to town.

Ander once again attempted to stir up animosity towards Xakoraki, but as he was doing this, he caught sight of the man with an eye patch looking at him as he was leaving the tavern. Ander dashed through the kitchen for the back door, only to find it barred and locked. The tavern keeper helped him open it, and Ander dashed out to stealthily follow the one-eyed man.

The man was somewhat furtive, and ended his journey at a door in an alleyway behind some shops. He went inside, and Ander heard the door lock. Listening at the door, Ander heard some movement for several minutes, and then after a longer while, deep breathing sounds, as of someone asleep.

The next morning, Ander asked the tavern keeper about the man with an eye patch, and the bartender said he'd seen him around town. He thought his name was Enwyd, and he thought he might own a shop somewhere in town. There was no other information on the man, however. The tavern keeper was also unaware of Orvalion.

They spoke with the owner of the magic shop as well, and he didn't know much except that Melchyn is the Magister of the town. The shopkeeper buys magical scrolls and such and sells them to Melchyn. The party was looking for a teleportation circle to use, and he said that Melchyn had the only one that he knew of.

So the party went to speak with Melchin at his mage tower. There was no door that they could see, so Ander hammered on the wall until a magic mouth showed up asking what the heck he was doing. He asked about Orvalion, but Melchyn didn't know much about him. He asked about a teleportation circle, and was told that he should use the road like everyone else. When pestered, Melchyn said that stupid laymen had now idea about how complex or expensive teleportation circles were, and that he should leave him alone.