The Side Quest Session 6

Wow…I never really expected we’d have six sessions of this campaign under our belts by this time. This was supposed to have been the alternate campaign but it has become (and will remain) our primary campaign through at least the end of the year. I also never would have dreamed that we’d have four PC deaths by the sixth session. Yep, we had another one in this session.

When we last left our heroes, their numbers had been cut in half by the predations of a vampire! The survivors–Callie, Grim, and Lavinia–had fled to the temple below the Silvery Eel Inn, hoping that the wolves chasing them on behalf of the vampire could not open the flagstone trapdoor. After briefly mourning their fallen companions–Ander, Aramil, and Gurdis–they collapsed, physically and emotionally exhausted, and succumbed to the peaceful embrace of sleep.

Muse had to miss this session and so Callie and Grim were missing. Rachel was back and so that meant that Morgraen and Riordan would also be back. RJ created Rurik, a mountain dwarf wizard, to replace Ander and Theo brought in the “viking” cousins Aelwulf, a human fighter, and Bulwein, a human cleric, to replace his fallen characters. This meant that Lavinia was the only PC that had been played in the prior session and I pick up with what happened below the break. My GM comments, as always, are in [brackets and italics].

As she slept in a small space cleared of dead rats, Lavinia had a strange and ultimately quite disturbing dream. She is floating in an inky blackness and soon sees a light in the distance. With a thought, she begins to float towards the light and it reciprocates, coming closer to her. As she floats closer, Lavinia can see that the light is a ghostly and glowing form that looks just like Elena. Lavinia tries to float a way but Elena’s spirit form overtakes her. As Elena gets within arm’s reach, she points in an accusing fashion and her mouth forms words but Lavinia cannot hear them.

She had no difficulty, however, hearing the booming and harsh woman’s voice that sounds in response to Elena’s unheard words. The voice booms, “I accept your sacrifice!” Tentacles emerge from the darkness, lashing about from below a three-faced head…the same faces from the statue in the temple. They reach out and tear Elena’s spirit form to bits! The same tentacles then reached and surrounded and softly caressed Lavinia. Although she tried to float away, she found that she could not escape. The head then moved forward and kissed Lavinia on the forehead. With that, Lavinia awoke screaming!

[I’m sure that this had nothing to do with Elena’s suicide and “self-sacrifice” to the three-faced goddess in exchange for a curse upon the party.]

In the darkness of the temple, she heard weapons drawn and so she did the same. Unrecognized voices shouted out warnings and threats as a magical light popped on to illuminate the situation. Six individuals, Lavinia included, were waking in the temple. The halfling recognized two of them–Morgraen and Riordan–but she had never seen the other two. The sextet quickly realized that they were not a threat to each other and introductions were made. Aelwulf, Bulwein, and Rurik had all been attending to their own business and had retired for the night in the wilderness and an inn respectively. None of the three had any idea of where they were or how they had arrived here.

[Hand-waving the coming and goings of the players and their characters is more fun if it leaves something of a mystery. Obviously, something brought them here but why? A question that was not of much importance during this session.]

Lavinia quickly filled in the newcomers on the events of the prior night and shared how they could travel back to their world…through the moon door. The party headed up the stairs and slowly lifted the flagstone a bit to peer to see if the wolves remained. They did not appear to be in the cellar. Throwing upon the flagstone and charging out into the cellar, they found it to be much the same as Lavinia had seen it the prior night with one exception. It had been packed with straw.

Fearing that Elena’s speculation that the townsfolk would burn the inn down to prevent the spread of disease was about to come true, they hustled up the cellar’s stairs to the inn’s kitchen. Bursting through the door, Aelwulf entered first. It too was packed with hay and a young boy, some ten or eleven years old, was standing in the opposite doorway holding a bale of hay. Seeing the horned helm of Aelwulf, boy shouted “Demon!” and ran yelling for his papa.

Hustling after the boy, the party found the common room to also be packed with hay. The sunlight streaming from the inn’s open door showed that it was daytime outside and so the party went out. They were greeted by a mob of townsfolk. One of them took the lead and began to ask the party a number of questions. The questions focused on what had happened to Yakov (the innkeeper) and Elena, where the strangers had come from, and lastly, who had woken the vampire! The last line of questioning was accompanied with the presentation of Anders decapitated head!

The party explained what had happened with the innkeep, the rats, and Elena’s suicide. They were a bit less forthcoming about where they had come from but not due to duplicity. The apparent leader of the town had difficult understanding the concept of “far away” or that they party could be from another place…just as the innkeeper had had difficulty with the concept. The party’s arrival via magic seemed of interest as was the fact that both Bulwein and Riordan were priests. It turned out that both magic and the worship of gods had been outlawed in the land many generations ago. Rurik kept secret his status as a wizard.

The town’s leader asked the party to accompany him (which they did) and he led them to the townhall. Here the party was offered food and wine (which they mostly accepted). They were asked to leave their weapons on a table near the door…it was customary to not bring weapons into the townhall. They agreed. The leader explained that he would like for them to remain here as he just couldn’t have strangers wandering around town while he attended to more pressing business. The party agreed.

With that, the leader and the other townsfolk with him departed. Checking the door, Lavinia found it locked from the outside. All the other normal exits from the room, two other doors and a number of windows, were also either locked or barred from the outside. This concerned the party but they peacefully remained in the hall as asked.

About an hour or so later, there was a loud knock on the door and the town’s leader asked if the party’s weapons were still on the table. They answered in the affirmative and the leader yelled out, “Now!” All three doors burst open and a fishman, a saw-HOO-gin as the leader called them, entered through each with obvious unfriendly intent. Battle was joined and some townsfolk armed with crossbows also joined in. The fishmen were tougher than they looked but ultimately defeated and the townsfolk who had come into the hall were magically subdued via Rurik’s sleep spell.

Outside, the leader called from someone to run and get saw-HOO-gin reinforcements. He also explained that if the party turned over the two priests, the rest could go free. [Deja vu anyone?] The law stated that all priests were to be turned over to the vampire. If not, the vampire would take ten townspeople for each not turned over as punishment. Not surprisingly, the party did not agree. This left them in a bit of a quandry. What were they to do?

Rurik and Bulwein took matters into their hands. Rurik set the townsfolk armed with crossbows just outside of the hall into a deep slumber. Bulwein, on the other hand, went to the hall’s door and spotting the town leader, called down the fury of Thor! The fall of their leader did not have the hoped for effect on the town mob. Instead of being cowed or intimidated, they looked angered and started lighting torches! [Of course, having a couple dozen sahuagin reinforcements marching down the street–reinforcements that the party knew were coming but not the numbers–probably helped to bolster them.]

Overwhelmed by the situation, they party quickly discussed their various options from barricading themselves in the hall until dark, taking the fight to their enemies (including trying to take out the vampire during the day), and simply running…somewhere. The first option was dismissed as they feared [correctly] that once night fell, the vampire would simply come for them. The second was rejected as they really had no information on what kind of defenses the vampire might have outside of being protected by the sawHOOgin and that they might not be able to surpass them [also correct]. This left running so out the back door of the hall they went.

A couple of townsfolk spotted the fleeing party and the alarm went up. Making all due haste to the north, the party hoped to get out of town before apprehended by the mob. Although they did spot small groups of townsfolk, they party made it to the edge of town before being caught by the ever growing maybe chasing after them. A road led north out of town into a rolling hills. Thick woods were to the west and the show was to the east.

The party ran about a quarter of a mile on the road until they reached the crest of a hill. A short distance away, atop a rocky point, was a lighthouse that appeared to be abandoned. Fearing what might live (or otherwise reside) within, the party rejected making it for it. Instead, the ran down the hill until they were out of sight of the large mob a short distance behind them and then dashed into the woods.

Quickly pushing their way deeper in, they paused after about fifty feet or so to see if anyone had followed. They had not. The air was thick and oppressive. The canopy above was just as thick and oppressive as the air, blocking out most of the light from the feeble sun above. None of the normal animal noises could be heard and the party worried that they may have escaped one danger to just find another.

Proceeding cautiously, the party made their way south for a bit deeper in the woods. Morgraen then scouted back towards the road. It looked clear and so the party gathered about ten or fifteen feet in the woods and took some time to catch their breath. As they took their brief rest, a large group of nearly two dozen sahuagin passed by on the road, heading back towards the town. Small bands of townspeople passed by as well.

Once it looked clear, the party decided to continue traveling through the forest but keeping the edge in sight so they would not chance getting lost. Even just a dozen or so feet in the woods seemed enough to hide and muffle their passing from anyone on the road. As they traveled, Morgraen caught sight of something disturbing. Hanging from a tree branch to the party’s right…deeper in the woods…was a small stick figure made of bone. A few minutes later, she spotted another one just ahead of them but this was on their left such that they’d probably be a line between the two of them if they continued in their current direction. Concerned about attracting the attention of anything else, they circled around this one and stayed just a tad bit closer to the road as the traveled on.

[The only other thing they encountered while traveling in the woods was a perfectly innocent creek. However, at this point, just the mention of a creek crossing their upcoming path was enough to set off their alarms. Nerves were a bit jangled and the tension was a bit high.]

Eventually, the party made it to a spot where they felt that they were near where the had first come through the moon door. There were probably a couple of hours of daylight left and so they hunkered down and waited. The shore where they first stepped was a good three hundred feet away from the edge of the woods. As it began to grow dark, the first sliver of the moon began to peek up over the horizon. The keyhole, however, was near the bottom of the moon and not the top. They would have to wait at least a little while for the moon to rise high enough to expose the keyhole. The crossed their fingers that they would not be discovered before then.

As night fully fell, the town was lit up with torches…unlike the prior night. A familiar howl (at least to Lavinia) wailed from the town and was answered by dozens of howls throughout the woods. The vampire was calling to the wolves just as he had the night before! It was very difficult to determine the relative direction or distance given the nature of the woods but it was clear that the wolves were spread out and likely that some were not so distant.

Figuring that they had nothing to lose [but their lives], the party made a break for it! They sprinted from the woods as best they could in the dark, hoping the moon would be high enough and they would reach it before being spotted. They had not, sadly, made it very far before a triumphant howl was heard from not far behind them. It was answered by howls throughout the woods and from one from the town. Morgraen was tasked with going ahead as fast as possible and get the door open while the rest of the party would catch up as they could.

First one wolf charged forth from the darkness…then another. Aelwulf, Bulwein, and Riordan turned to fight the wolves while Lavinia and Rurik hurried to catch Morgraen. Something of a fighting retreat began as wolves kept arriving. Even worse, after Morgraen had reached the shore, one of the fishmen emerged from the surf about twenty feet away, obviously intent on attacking the dwarf!

Chaos and confusion reigned. The original plan of getting the door open as soon as possible was discarded as various party members came to the aid of others. Sadly, the cousins, Aelfwulf and Bulwein, both went down under the attacks of the wolves! With even more wolves on the way, there was little they could do to aid their fallen comrades and so the others fought on towards the shore. [I couldn’t believe that I rolled two critical hits in back to back attacks by the wolves. 4d4+2 damage from each attack was too much for the 1st level characters. I think that started a string of 20s and the party rolled three or four in the remainder of the combat.]

Aelfwulf, however, was not as badly injured as it looked. After a moment or two, he regained consciousness and scooping up his cousin, made for the shore as well. Finally, the keyhole could be seen and Morgraen was able to unlock the door. As she did, Aelfwulf noticed a bat fly past his head and that his cousin was no longer breathing. With a heavy heart, he dropped his cousin to make all due haste for the door as the vampire appeared just a short distance away. Before Riordan could reach the door, a wolf badly injured him and left him unconscious. In the end, though, Morgraen grabbed Riordan and got him through the door. Before the vampire could reach anyone in the party, they all made it through the door…Aelwulf being the last through. He quickly closed the door behind him…even though he was sure that the vampire couldn’t enter without an invitation.

[And that was where we ended the session.

Needless to say, I consider that an open invitation to somehow get the players back to Tepes again at some point in the future! 😈