The Clerics Three – Session 4 (5e)

In our last session, the Clerics Three wrapped up their work with Winsome and returned to Oakheart. As they arrived at their de facto “base of operations,” the Wizard’s Tower Brewery, Roscoe was entertaining another traveler at the small corner bar. In what is become something of a theme for this campaign, the halfling brewer exclaimed upon seeing the trio entering, “I think I know just the people to help you out!” A young boy from a “nearby” village had gone missing and the village was looking for help. The Clerics Three jumped at the chance to help. Arriving in the village (so small it doesn’t even have a name), they learned that the boy, Ulfar, had gone missing many days ago and many suspected the Hollow Hill…a nearby hill, rumored to be full of caves and some tombs, that had been glowing but changed from an orange glow to blue the night that Ulfar went missing. The Clerics Three spent some time talking to the residents and eventually began their explorations of the Hollow Hill, entering one of the known tombs and spotting light coming from deeper within. Delg took the lead and pressed forward into the tomb to be greeted by a steel blade sliding into his torso. That is where we pick up after the break.

There are potential spoilers for “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.

Looking down, Delg followed the blade sticking out of his stomach to the hand holding it and up to a dirty human dressed in shabby clothing. The glow came from a small campfire and a total of three humans were in this small chamber. A strange battle ensued in which the obvious leader of this trio kept loudly discussing their tactics and they were obviously not very good at this. Two of the individuals were quickly defeated and third surrendered. His name was Nefton and the other two, Kolbjorn and Pedr, had been his sons. He explained they were unwilling bandits, having no other real options. They had been rather incompetent bandits as well. Pallas used his healing magics to save Kolbjorn and Pedr from death and the three would be bandits were tied up before continuing their unfortunate tale.

Nefton and his sons were actually from the village. Unfortunately, Nefton had had a little too much Peder’s pickled fish wine and slept with another man’s wife. For that he was run out of the village and his sons came with him. Somewhat sheepishly, one of his sons corrected Nefton…it actually was a pig and not another man’s wife. Nefton took the news in stride, admitting that he must have drunk a lot of Peder’s wine and that he was entirely too embarrassed to ever return to Waldine, his wife, and the village. They had been living in the tomb and stealing food and blankets from travelers, always a few days away, for about three months now, not actually harming anyone.

Showing sympathy for their plight, the Clerics Three released the so-called bandits from their bonds. One of the sons commented that Otilia had some good child-bearing hips and asked, through Nefton, if she might be interested in marriage. The advance was politely declined and the now group of six set off to explore more of the hill.

[I have no idea where Nefton and his sons came from in terms of personality and backstory. It just sort of happened but was rather amusing. Plus, their farcical tale and incompetence was more interesting than just a trio of bandits to kill.]

The hill’s next tomb had little of interest but the third caught their interest. It held an altar and a wall checkered with small alcoves holding human skulls…old skulls. Delg turned one of the skulls around but nothing apparent happened [except for me asking RJ to make a Wisdom saving throw that he rolled rather poorly on.] The altar was flanked by a brazier on each side and it had an inscription: “Let the light guide you through the Underworld with iron sword in hand. Find rest with mead and maiden deep within the shadowland.” Even more interesting, a bluish glow emanated from a passage leading deeper into the hill. Two sets of tracks were also in this chamber. One looked to be the tracks of a woman and led to the glowing passageway. The other were those of a child, stopped, and turned and left. [Fitting with the story that the young girl had told the group earlier of having followed the pretty woman into a tomb, seeing a blue glow, and getting scared and running away.]

The passage led to a set of stairs leading a short distance down and into a fairly large chamber. Debris was scattered about and the corner across had collapsed, revealing a tunnel leading deeper into the hill. The blue glow came from this opening. Delg could tell that the chamber was unstable. Water seeped down the walls and then streamed through the collapsed corner. Otilia carefully crossed to where the tunnel had been revealed by the collapsed wall. A natural looking tunnel led off in two directions, the glow coming from the passage to the left.

Delg started across next. As he made it about halfway, bones in the room’s debris began to rise up and charging to attack him. As they did so, the chamber shook and portions of the ceiling began to crash down. The falling rock and debris did more damage to the combatants than they did to each other. The skeletons fared the worst and were soon back to being debris. Delg made it the rest of the way across and then Pallas did likewise. Nefton remained near the foot of the stairs, holding the rope that anchored the passage across (his boys had refused to come any closer to the glow).

One direction led back to the second tomb while the other lead to a massive cavern. A “lake” was to one side and the cavern curved off into the distance. A shaft of light could be spotted at the far end, entering through a hole high up on the cavern’s walls. Numerous openings could be seen just that the edge of the Clerics Three light, across the lake. Stalagmites and stalactites were scattered about the cavern. The blue glow came from a tunnel farther down the cavern and, fortunately, past the end of the lake. A slight scraping sound was heard from above as the group made it about halfway into the cavern and the group was plunged into darkness.

As the group moved out of the darkness, a squid-like creature dropped from above and narrowly missed Delg. A second also dropped from above, wrapping its tentacles around Otilia and engulfing her in its tough membrane between its tentacles. Otilia couldn’t move much and couldn’t breath. She drew upon her Godsmark and befriended the creature. It released her and then went after Pallas instead. In the end, both creatures were defeated. The heroes, however, were pretty beat up and so retreated to the “safety” of tunnel that led into the grotto cavern to catch their breath and tend to their wounds.

[Godsmark…we are using a little special thing the characters have that is inspired by Dragonmarks from Eberron. Otilia has the Mark of Handling and so is good with animals and even “unintelligent” monsters.]

Pallas carefully made his way across the unstable chamber to check on Nefton. Nefton had kept his post despite having been left in the dark, weaponless. Pallas provided a couple of torches and gave Nefton his sword back before rejoining the other members of the Clerics Three.

After a brief rest, the group headed back into the grotto cavern. More exploration revealed another tunnel, about ten feet above the cavern floor, from which the blue light appears to be emanating. Otilia climbed up first. Just as she started to reach the lip of the tunnel, Delg and Pallas saw a tentacle (or tentacles) reach out and start to wrap about Otilia’s head.

[And that is where we stopped for the night. Nefton and his sons continued the fun to play NPCs and got quite a few laughs.