We had a bit of a snafu with our campaign journal after the last session…as in no one did it. It was well over a week later when RJ took it on to make sure we’d have one. Got to give him kudos for this…particularly since he was playing Todd’s character, Aaron, since Todd was missing AND RJ hadn’t been around for the prior two sessions of this adventure. So, everyone (except me, of course) should cut him some slack for this entry.
Spoiler Alert: There are spoilers for the adventure Fangs from the Past published by 0one Games. As is our typical pattern, the module is not getting run quite as written but there are still big spoilers for it below the break. My GM comments, as always, are in [italics and brackets] as usual.
[When we last left the party, they had recently arrived at a cave on the outskirts of an old ruined village. Partially filled with water from the nearby swamp, the cave contained a lone skeleton against the back wall. As Aaron carefully and cautiously approached it, Theoden slung a bullet at it and knocked it over…]
I tried to get to the skeleton before it fell deeper in the murky water. As I reached into the water to find the amulet that was around its neck, I saw the others turning towards the cave entrance. Four skeletons warriors had risen from the swamp and were coming towards us. Theoden moved towards me and started to examine the cave wall, I guess he was looking for another exit. I moved up with the rest of the party to combat the vile creatures. We quickly disposed of them and had a stern talk with Theoden about not fighting with us. He simply responded with, “I knew you could take them.”
[Jim won’t be playing with us and I was playing Theoden as in-character as I could knowing that Theoden’s demise was coming up soon.]
Theoden kept examining the cave wall, putting his hands on the wall and feeling around. There was a click and the outline of a door appeared. Between the two of use, we were able to pull it open. A tunnel behind it led deeper into the cave. As we moved forward, the water got deeper and reached up to my waist. When the tunnel split into three, Theoden broke off from the rest of us to explore one of them while Aurora, Remel, and I went down another.
[Cue ominous music…]
Theoden spotted a metal gate up ahead and moved towards it. As he did, four zombies rose up out of the water. Two quickly dragged him under as we moved as quickly as we could to his aid. Aurora called upon Saranrae’s holy blessings to aid us in the battle. Before we could dispose of all of the zombies, two more foul undead emerged from the murky water. Ghouls!
Both Aurora and Remel fell to the claws and teeth of the creatures before I could defeat the last of them. I’m not sure how long they were down but both had slipped under the water before I was free to aid them. I was able to grab both Aurora and Remel but I couldn’t grab Theoden and drag all three out of the watery cave. With little time, I made the hard choice of leaving Theoden in his watery grave in order to save the other two.
I made a small camp near the cave and tended the wounds of my companions as best I could. All through the night I kept a small fire going and kept watch. In the morning, both of them stirred…much to my relief. Aurora used her divine magics to heal all of us and I finally got to get some rest.
Late in the day, after my rest, we headed back into the cavern to recover Theoden’s body and finish exploration of the cave. We found Theoden’s body floating near the gate we had found earlier. We were shocked when he started moving towards us with a hungry look in his milky eyes. Our prior ally turned undead was dispatched quickly.
We returned to the cave and forced open the gate to continue on. Near the end of the cave, we found a raised, dry chamber above the water level. The chamber had a bed, desk, chair, a couple of bookshelves, a ladder leading up, and some sort of magical circle engraved on the stone floor. Remel thought that the circle might be some sort of summoning circle.
We investigated the room but found very little. There were only two things of interest. It looked like an object had been removed from the desk in the last couple of weeks as it had an area free of dust, an area that suggested a small, sickle-shaped object. The ladder also looked like it had been used relatively recently.
[Gee, I wonder if that could be foreshadowing/potential plot hook/whatever you want to call it. Hmm…probably not.]
I climbed up the ladder, about twenty feet, and found a trap door. It led out to the top of the limestone formation at the edge of the swamp. I couldn’t spot any tracks so I went back down. We headed out the way we had come in, retrieving Theoden’s twice-dead body for a proper burial outside of the cave. We setup camp for the night.
Since it didn’t look like Zacharias the Necromancer had been around his old cave in awhile…although someone had…we decided to head to the old quarry and deeper into the mountains the following morning. When we arrived at the quarry, we found a large ravine leading up into the mountains. We, of course, pushed onwards and upwards.
A steep area proved a bit of an obstacle for us. Remel had difficulty reaching the top of this area but when he did, he saw a dust storm heading right for us from farther up the canyon. Aurora and I dove for shelter and Remel jumped down to the lower ground. We all thought we heard a roar and laughter as the storm passed above us. A torn tunic blew by and I grabbed it. It had dried blood upon it.
We pushed on. As it was starting to get dark and we started setting up camp, a mountain lion attacked us as the Sturgimate flew above us laughing. The cougar’s eyes glowed and we had to kill it before it killed us. Since it wasn’t a good idea to camp here, we moved on a bit more and found a new camp site but we had no problems during the night.
In the morning, we traveled farther up the ravine. After a short time, we came across a palisade that blocked the way where the walls of the ravine came closer together. We didn’t see any movement at the top of the palisade and we didn’t see hear anything after we called out. I tried to come up on the palisade from the right side of the ravine. As I started to get closer, a crossbow bolt shot out from a hidden hole in the ravine wall. I dropped to the ground and crawled back to my companions.
I called out, “We can pay for our passage through your gate.” After that, we heard some movement and chatter from the palisade. A raspy voice called out, “Thirty gold.” The negotiations began and we settled on 22 gold. The voice told us to leave the gold at the gate. We did and the gate opened a bit. A small scaly hand reached out and picked up the gold. The gate stayed open a crack so we moved through it. On the other side was a cave entrance and a door in the ravine wall. The door opened and we could see several glowing eyes staring out at us.
A kobold came out from the tunnel darkness. It asked why we were here. Aurora answered that we were hunting the Sturgimate and that it might live further in the mountains. It didn’t seem to know about the Sturgimate and asked what it was. Aurora explained that it was a lion-like creature and it then understood, calling it the “devil lion.” The kobold said it lived in the great demon’s lair deep in the mountains and seemed excited about the prospect of our killing the “devil lion.”
[There was some additional conversation but no one seems to remember it and so I’m going to keep it to myself for now. It’ll be quite fun and add some nice drama when I do remind them of some stuff.]
We continued on and came to the end of the ravine. A body was halfway buried in stones; it looked like a landslide but the side of the walls were very steep and didn’t look natural. The body was that of a kobold. As we examined it, there was a screech high in the sky and the Sturgimate attacked. It whipped its tail at us and spikes rained down. We scramble for cover. Remel tried to return the attack with his magic but the Sturgimite was too far away. Aurora and I started to move the rocks at the top of the landslide and we uncovered a doorway. As the Sturgimate circled around to make another pass, we all eventually scrambled inside…
[And that’s basically where we ended for the night…not the best of cliffhangers but a good stopping point.]
