Conallglen Session 10

A dragon! Yep, after finishing their explorations of Ednowain’s tower, our heroes were preparing to leave and to see if the imp would live to his end of the bargain. Instead, the ended up ambushed by a dragon as they tried to leave the tower (as well as some goblins). They defeated the beast and it seemed quite ill.

This write up is from Rachel.

There are potential spoilers below the break for the adventures, “The Crucible of Freya,” from Necromancer Games (although a heavily modified version) and, “The Mysterious Tower,” from Goodman Games (also a heavily modified version). I also drew from Weapons of Legacy from WotC for some ideas and images I used. There are also elements of Goodman Games, “Legacy of the Savage Kings.”

After checking out the dragon’s and goblins’ bodies, we gathered up the gold from the sarcophagus to take back. Romulus also stowed one of the goblin’s swords (slate gray, leaving a dusty residue behind, something we have not seen before) in his pack to take with us. We started heading back to Broadwater and camped for the night by Hannil’s cabin. The night passed uneventfully and we saw no sign of Hannil before heading the rest of the way to Broadwater. Drogar’s cough seemed to continue to get worse and he seemed more run down than he had been.

Once in town, we headed to the temple and Tamuril’s residence but saw no sign of her. We asked a nearby city guard if he knew where Tamuril was, and he told us that she had left a few days ago for Taileth, a village three days upriver (west) of Broadwater. A number of folks in the village have been sick with a bad cough, so Tamuril went to see if she could help heal them. A couple of city guards accompanied her as there have been reports of travelers being attacked by goblins. We decided that we would head to Taileth as well, after running a couple of errands in town.

Drogar and Romulus headed to the docks to see about renting us a boat. They found one patched up boat with an older man fishing in it. They hired him to take us to Taileth, though they were a bit skeptical about the shape of the boat.

Meanwhile, Remus and Clarissa stocked up on torches, arrows, and rations for the group, and Shory and Bryn went to the Cask and Flagon in search of Tannil. The innkeeper told us that Tannil left town soon after we did, and did not say where he was going. Shory and Bryn stopped by the Drunken Cockatrice, just in case someone there knew where Tannil may have gone, but the innkeeper there told us the last time he had seen Tannil was when he was there with our party. We asked if Birch had performed there the night before and was around, and the innkeeper said he had and was staying there, but had not yet come down for the day. Shory tried asking the innkeeper which room Birch stayed in, but the innkeeper started getting a little suspicious at our interest, so we just purchased some lunch and some good breads and cheeses to take back to the group.

We headed out on the boat and learned our guide (he did steer the boat, after all) is Grandpa Sean, and that his boat is the Old Witch, named after his deceased wife. It sounds like he does not go out in the boat too far from Broadwater, but Romulus’ offer of 5 gold pieces to leave for Taileth today and 5 gold pieces to get us there was too good to pass up. Soon after we got going, we realized that traveling by boat was going to take about the same amount of time as walking would, since the wind was not with us, but we figured traveling by boat might be better for Drogar, since his coughing was getting even worse.

The first night we stopped in a town called Dearnton and went to the Fish’s Folly inn for dinner, where Grandpa Sean was known by the innkeeper and at least some of the local fishermen. After having some fishbone bread and fish stew, our group headed back to the shore to camp for the night (the locals had looked at Drogar a bit askance after hearing his hacking cough), while Grandpa Sean stayed at the inn.

About an hour before dark the next day, we saw a watchtower on the shore with smoke coming from the windows. Grandpa Sean steered us toward the shore and we saw that the dock was smashed up, and it looked like the wood from it had been taken inside and used for a bonfire on the first floor of the tower. Much of the floor above was destroyed, but the stone staircase around the inside of the tower was still intact, so we headed up to the third floor to see if there was anyone there. There was a dead goblin lying on the floor, but nothing else. As we headed back to the boat we saw that there were goblin footprints headed to and from the water to the tower, but we did not see them heading along the shore in either direction. We traveled a bit farther and stopped for an uneventful night before continuing on to Taileth the next day.

When we got to Taileth, Grandpa Sean took us to the Fish’s Flophouse inn. We learned that Tamuril had left the day before, heading to Carrickton in search of additional help as she had not been able to heal the people who were ill here. Several of the folks with the bad cough had already died. We talked to one of the villagers who was sick; he reported that he and the other people who were sick had not traveled anywhere recently, or eaten or drunk anything new or different recently. We headed back to the Fish’s Flophouse for a meal with Grandpa Sean. While eating, Bryn suddenly noticed that the forks and plates have the same dusty residue as the swords that the goblins in the cavern (with Ednowain’s tower in it) had carried. Bryn dropped her fork abruptly and told the others to stop eating immediately. Bryn asked the innkeeper how long he has had the forks and plates and where he got them. He said he got them from a merchant who came through Taileth a month ago. The merchant gave him the forks and plates in trade for food and drinks. The innkeeper did not know his name, but said the merchant had beady eyes, and a thin, very rat-like appearance. The innkeeper confirmed that those who had gotten sick had eaten at the inn since he had the new forks and plates, and was concerned that people would think his cooking had made folks sick, but we assured him that we believed it was the metals in the forks and plates.

After hearing the innkeeper’s description of the merchant as having a rat-like appearance, Bryn remembered that the goblin boots she recognized at Ednowain’s tower had actually been worn by the goblin that turned into a rat at the old temple with the wyvern fountain. We discussed what we should do next and decided that it would be best to try to find the temple again, in hopes that the fountain there could heal Drogar and the others’ coughing and sickness.

We headed to the Taileth docks and asked a couple of guys there if they knew of anyone selling a boat. One of the guys showed us some boats and offered to sell us one—we paid him 23 gold pieces for the boat, oars, and a mast. He ran off as soon as we gave him the money, and unfortunately it looks like he may have sold us someone else’s boat, as a blond child ran along the shore yelling and waving to us as we left. Though we had offered Grandpa Sean this boat (the Old Witch had gained a couple more holes on the way to Taileth), he insisted upon keeping the Old Witch, so we caught up with him in Dearnton. When we came into the inn, Grandpa had already warned folks to avoid dusty silverware and dishes. We camped by the shore that night and made it back to Broadwater the next day without incident. We are hoping to talk to someone who may know of the temple and be able to give us directions on how to get there, as we do not remember exactly how we got from there to Broadwater.

That’s where we ended for the night.