Conallglen Session 13

In our last session, the party continued their investigation of the source and potential cure for the disease that was infecting not only the people of Conallglen but the heroes as well. They had visited an old wise woman in the woods and then proceeded to the ruined temple with the fountain of healing. Although the temple had been empty when they last visited, it looked to be occupied now. Bryn had sneaked up to the one of the temple’s walls and was peering over. A mangy dog lounging on the other side of the wall noticed her.

This write up is from Rachel.

When we last left off, Bryn was peering over a wall at the temple with the healing fountain and had just knocked loose a large piece of stone. The mangy big dog that saw Bryn at the top of the wall barked and the other dog jumped up. Bryn dropped down and she and Shory started running along the wall toward the near corner of the temple wall. The two dogs came over the wall and followed Bryn and Shory, trying to attack. Both of the dogs attacked Bryn, knocking her out, but Romulus came to the rescue and healed her. Two more of the dogs came out of the temple, and the rest of our party came from the trees and took out the four mangy dogs.

Two orcs came to the top of the wall with ballistas. One of the orcs fell off the wall onto Romulus after trying to drop an axe on him. Romulus grappled with the orc, but the orc struggled free. Three more dogs and two goblins came out. We attacked them but they got some attacks on us as well. Shory and Bryn moved to the trees so they could make ranged attacks on those on the wall. Another goblin jumped down from the wall and hocked a big lougie at Clarissa, knocking her and one of the dogs out. One of the dogs knocked Drogar out, but Romulus was able to heal him and Clarissa so they could rejoin the fight. We took out two more goblins and three orcs. One of the orc’s ballistas fell outside of the wall, so we destroyed it, while the other ballista fell inside. The goblin who hocked the lougie that knocked out Clarissa had slipped back inside, so we did not have a chance to attack him.

After taking out all the orcs, goblins, and dogs that had come out of the temple, we regrouped in the trees. Hannil came up and told us that he doesn’t think we should go in the temple. We told him that we need to so that we can get healed from the blight and try to stop the blight from spreading. Hannil did not seem convinced, but he stayed in the woods while we climbed over the wall into the temple. We moved past a few empty rooms before hearing Hannil yell “help” and cry out. We headed back out to where we last saw him in the woods and saw tracks leading in two different directions from the spot. Both sets of tracks led to streams and did not continue, so we decided to head back into the temple.

We went back to the temple and moved to the secret door. Bryn had just started to open it and see wet orc- and goblin-sized footprints inside the secret door, when we heard Hannil yell “help” and “ow.” We were getting a little suspicious of his calling out, knowing that he did not want us to be in the temple, so the rest of us waited in the temple while Romulus and Shory headed out to look for Hannil.

Shory found a third set of tracks leaving from the spot where we last saw Hannil—they too ended at a stream and did not appear to continue on the other side. Romulus said he would head back along the woods to where we had climbed in the temple, so that Shory could hide in the woods to see if Hannil came back or she could spot him. As Romulus was heading along the woods, he heard his name whispered loudly from the woods and saw Hannil. Romulus approached him and asked Hannil if he was okay. Hannil said he just yelled to get us to come out because there are really bad things in the temple.

Shory and the rest of us in the temple suddenly heard a bloodcurdling scream out in the woods. It was so disturbing that Shory and Bryn had flashbacks to having their souls sucked out of them at the mausoleum. Shory started heading from her hiding spot in the woods to where she heard the scream, while the rest of us left the temple (shutting the secret door) and headed outside. We met up with Shory and she found tracks—it looks like a set of footprints walking and dragging someone. We followed the tracks and found Hannil and Romulus lying unconscious in the woods, with no visible injuries. Due to Shory’s and Bryn’s flashbacks about having their souls sucked out, we were concerned that Hannil and/or Romulus may have fallen prey to Maeve’s spirit. We did not see any visible dragonfly markings on either of them. We tried putting the wyvern pendants on them, in case that could drive Maeve’s spirit out, but nothing happened. Neither of them had an amulet around their necks, like Shory, Drogar, and Bryn had when they were at the mausoleum. Remus checked Romulus’ chest and did find a burn on his chest in the shape of a handprint. After some discussion, Bryn tried cutting Hannil’s and Romulus’ arms with the planes-related dagger. They bled a little but nothing else happened. They still had pulses though they were pretty slow and weak. Remus checked out their shoes and determined that it was most likely that Hannil dragged Romulus, though both of them appeared to be unconscious now. We bound them and took them back to the temple with us.

We went through the secret door into the room where the large bees had been, setting down Hannil and Romulus in the corner. Bryn moved to the doorway of the next room, seeing two of the large pillars down on their sides, being used as barriers and bases for two ballistas being operated by orcs. One ballista was fired at Bryn but the arrow hit the wall. Bryn moved back into the former bee room and we tried to figure out a strategy for getting through the next room. Someone threw a torch into the room with the pillars so we could see better. Remus healed all of us and cast a spell to make Clarissa bigger. Based on the others’ suggestions, Clarissa got the large door made of logs and brought it into the room. Bryn tumbled across the doorway to the room with the orcs (and some giggling) to try to draw the fire of at least one of the ballistas. She succeeded in drawing fire and was knocked unconscious (luckily Remus was able to heal her again).

Clarissa slowly moved into the ballista room with the log door in front of her. One orc called out “attack” in orcish, and four goblins with dusty metal swords surrounded Clarissa. One of them hit, and Clarissa backed up into the former bee room and dropped the door to the side so she could attack. We all stood clear of the area where the ballistas could aim, and seven goblins pushed into the room with us. We fought them and took them out, though a couple of us were injured in the process. Hoping that we might just have the orcs to deal with now (and the goblin mage, since we have not seem him again yet), Clarissa picked up the door and started to move into the ballista room again.

That’s where we ended the session.