The Clerics Three – Session 3 (5e)

To date, the Clerics Three had arrived in the village of Oakheart, discovered the joy of the music of Orctallica, helped rid the local brewery of a series of vermin, and were then recruited to assist a rather naïve and talkative archaeologist in her travels, eventually reaching the old elven temple that was the site of the dig. Having encountered some carnage at a nearby travel inn and tracks leading to the dig site, they were concerned and ready for trouble and found some inside the temple. That is where we pick up after the break.

Muse was missing this session and so RJ played Otilia. There are potential spoilers for “Horror at Havel’s Cross” from Winghorn Press (available for free at DM’s Guild) as well as The Glow from Hollow Hill from Black Abbey Press. This write-up is from yours truly but my my GM comments are still in [brackets and italics] as usual.

As the “ghoul” that was once one of Winsome’s companions fell, the temple went silent…for a moment. Winsome let out a horrified scream just as something raked down across Delg’s back. Fortunately, his dwarven hardiness resisted the poison on the thing’s claws. Turning around, all saw a gnome, teeth gnashing and trying to feast upon the dwarf. Winsome screamed out, “No, Quinn! No!” Clearly another of her former companions. The rest of the Clerics Three came to Delg’s aid and the gnome ghoul fell to their onslaught.

Winsome hurried into the yet to be explored side room with the others following. The decor within was the opposite of the other side chamber. Where it looked to devoted to life, this room had a death motif. It also looked like it had served as the campsite for the expedition. There were also papers scattered about, splattered with blood. Most were illegible due to the blood, but one was partially intact and readable. It referenced the bowls from the temple proper and how they might be the key for unlocking the secrets of this temple.

Before the fight with the ghouls, the group had found three bowls near the altar. Essence of Life, Essence of Birth, and Essence of Death were the inscriptions, one each, around the edges of the bowls. A small box was on top of the alter. Inside was a knife with blood stains, some chicken bones, a few eggs, and a mortar and pestle. It wasn’t long before the clerics figured out this “riddle” and placed broken eggs in the birth bowl, blood in the life bowl, and some ground chicken bones in the death bowl. Each bowl was in one of the three depressions atop the altar. A portion of the nearby wall lifted, revealing a stairway leading down into darkness.

Delg took the lead. The stairs were fairly rough hewn. At the bottom lay a dead dwarf, his head smashed in. The chamber was also rough hewn. Fragile looking pillars were scattered about, supporting the ceiling. An altar was at the far end with a body on top of it and two other bodies lying on the floor nearby. The place stank of blood, sweat, and excrement. Sobbing was coming from behind the altar. As Delg approached, an elf rose up. He was dirty and haggard. It was, given Winsome’s reaction, Calador! She immediately ran up to him and hugged him. The clerics, however, were more suspicious. Calador held his hand behind his back, possibly hiding something.

The elf claimed that he escaped down here when the others had begun to change. He shot the door as the others tried to reach him. The dead bodies, he said, were already down here when he arrived. Calador couldn’t say how long he had been trapped here. It had felt like days. The dwarf had fallen down the stairs and struck his head. None of this really added up for the clerics. The bodies were too fresh and the head wound on the dwarf looked more like a blow from a blunt object than a fall down stairs.

Calador agreed to accompany the group back upstairs. Delg kept a close watch on him and thought he may have slipped something up his sleeve as he left with one arm around Winsome for support. As the group approached the exit, Delg in the rear, Otilia slipped out before the rest of the group. Once outside, she downed the potion of invisibility they had recovered under Roscoe’s brewery. As Calador stepped outside, she attacked him. A small scraping step must have alerted the elf to danger as he was able to roll with the blow. [The damage was minimal.] Otilia appeared. Calador retaliated, exclaiming to Winsome that he had to defend himself.

During the battle, Calador showed that he had some significant magical talent. He also started to yell, “It’s mine! You can’t have it!” This was in reference to a femur bone that he was wielding as a weapon. More than once during the battle, Calador struck it to the ground, sending out a shockwave of necrotic energy that damaged all in its wake. When the Clerics Three finally defeated him, he rose again almost immediately. Winsome joined the battle by wrapping herself around Calador’s legs, holding tight and tearfully yelling how he could do what he did to all of their friends. With this distraction, another killing blow was struck. The femur was quickly kicked away this time and he did not rise again.

Not wanting to leave the–presumably–evil temple below, the group attached ropes to the flimsy support pillars and pulled from the top of the stairs. The pillars collapsed and the ceiling caved in. Otilia gathered up the femur with some of Calador’s cloak and the group headed back to Havel’s Cross. On their way back, they remembered that they had left the inn without putting out the bar fire that Delg’s burning hands had started.

Arriving at Havel’s Cross, they found that their worst fears, fortunately, had not come true. There was some significant fire damage inside, but the stout stone structure was otherwise intact and the fire had not spread outside. The inside, however, was a bit too damaged and smelled a bit too much for the group to stay within, so they camped outside against the wall. The night was largely uneventful except for Otilia. She had horrible dreams of death, biting, and tearing of flesh. The femur was in her possession. Figuring it was responsible for the dreams and unlikely to do any good in the world, the Clerics Three decided to try and destroy it. Delg hit it with a guiding bolt and, to their surprise, it shattered into many shards. These, in turn, were buried in a number of different places to prevent anyone from gathering all of them and repairing the thing.

With that accomplished, they quartet set off for Oakheart.

The trip back was quite uneventful and the timing of their arrival was just perfect. As they entered the Wizard’s Tower Brewery, Roscoe was spotted tending the small bar again. He was speaking with a man and, as he saw the Clerics Three enter, loudly proclaimed that he knew just the people who could help out.

Jorgen had come for a village a few days away from Oakheart, seeking someone who could assist with finding a missing boy by the name of Ulfar. The village itself was so small that it didn’t have a name other than, the village. Ulfar had gone missing a few days ago and the villagers hadn’t been able to find him. Beyond that, Jorgen really couldn’t supply much more information and simply suggesting that they speak with Peder at the tavern. So the Clerics Three agreed that they’d travel back with Jorgen and see if they could assist.

Winsome gave Delg a pouch of gold and gave Otilia a sending stone. She also mentioned that a cousin of hers, Charisma, was going to be passing through the village and to pass along her greetings. With that, the Clerics Three accompanied Jorgen back to the village. The three day trip was quite uneventful and, much to Delg’s relief, rather quiet. Jorgen was not very talkative.

The village was quite small, a dozen buildings or so at most, situated next to a large lake and flanked by hills. Jorgen led the group right to the Fisherman’s Flagon and the group met Peder. Peder was more than happy to share information with the group. Most of the folks here fish and farm. Ulfar had gone missing several days ago. After he did, the old Hollow Hill started to glow blue rather than orange. He went on to explain that Hollow Hill (the hill next to the village) had started to give off an orange glow a few years ago. It is riddled with caves and the glow came from within. No one in the village was willing to explore deep into the caves and so they just learned to live with the glow.

Similarly, no one had been willing to go into the caves to search for the boy despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that the glow had changed colors when Ulfar went missing. Similarly, no one had elected to go and search for the pretty young woman who passed through not long ago a few days earlier. Here name was a little different and the group suggested Charisma and that, in fact, was it. She said she wanted to research the hill or some sort of nonsense like that. The Sokeren brother had half-heartedly gone searching for her but got scared away by a boar. A very large boar, the brothers protested from a table nearby. Anders, the timber cutter, had also gone to search for Ulfar at the hill and he never came back.

Peder and the village couldn’t pay much of anything but could feed and house the group and share some of his pickled fish wine. The Clerics Three agreed and headed off to speak with other villagers.

The group spoke with Celine Hoyd, Ulfar’s mother, and she was, understandably, upset. She was planning on going up to the damn hill and look for her son herself. The group persuaded her to give them at least a couple of days to see if they could find Ulfar. Next, they spoke with Leif Jager, Ulfar’s best friend. The boy was a little recalcitrant but his mother, Nith and the village’s hunter, persuaded him with threats of a good whoopin’. Leif and Ulfar would go and climb Hollow Hill a few times a week even though they were banned from doing so. Ulfar was a good climber and kept bragging that he could climb all the way to the top of the hill. [The hill is quite rocky and rugged and grows steeper the higher up one gets.] That was the last time Leif had seen the missing boy. They usually climbed on the east side of the hill.

With that additional info, the group headed off for the hill. Before they got out of the village, they noticed a small girl watching them. Perhaps seven or eight years old and a little shy, they coaxed her into speaking with them even if from a short distance. The girl [who never shared her name] had followed the pretty woman who went up the hill. She had gone into the second tomb. [There are a few well-known tombs on the lower slopes of the hill. Many of the villagers, Peder had previously claimed, were probably made in those tombs.] The girl had followed the lady a little ways in but then she saw a blue glow from deeper in the tomb and so she ran away. She knew that this had happened before Ulfar had gone missing but not how many days prior.

The Clerics Three scouted out Hollow Hill, looking for climbing routes. A number of caves were spotted as well as possibly cave locations. Three worked entrances were on the lower slope facing town, the tombs. The slopes became increasingly steeper and treacherous the higher up. After having made nearly a full circuit around, the group found a copse of woods the looked damaged almost attacked, with bark stripped away. As they were examining the trees, a massive boar–some seven or eight feet tall at the shoulder–snorted and came charging from some other trees. Its charge struck Otilia full on but she stood her ground, ground quickly becoming bloody from the slashes left by the creature’s tusks!

The boar was quickly defeated despite its size and ferocity. Pallas headed back to the village to let Nith, the huntress, know about the boar and that she could have it. She was quite happy and quickly rushed out to “claim” the kill.

After resting for a bit and seeing to Otilia’s wounds, the Clerics Three decided to enter one of the tombs on the lower slopes, the closest one [and not the second tomb.] The entrance sloped down and deeper into the hill. Once inside, Delg, in the lead, could make out a soft orange glow from deeper within. The entrance tunnel opened into a small chamber with an old stone altar at one end. An opening curved away deeper into the hill. The glow emanated from beyond this opening. Delg crept forward and started to enter the next chamber. As he did, he felt a sharp pain in his gut. Looking down, he saw a blade sticking out of his gut.

[And that is where we stopped for the night.