In our prior session, the heroes had attacked the farm occupied by ogres, hillbilly, degenerate ogres. They defeated a number of the deviants and their leader, Momma Graul. They still had not yet found the missing Kosma children and still had quite a bit of the farmhouse and all of the barn to explore. With little hope of finding Etel and Henrik Kosma unharmed or even alive, the group started their search anew this session. That’s where we pick up after the break.
This write-up is from Muse. As usual, my GM comments are in [brackets and italics]. There are potential spoilers for The Vault of Larin Karr as well as portions of The Hook Mountain Massacre below the break.
With Raspin having taken down the double headed ogre, the party decides to search the house and look for the missing children. They know that the ogre had said that the baby had been in Momma’s bed so they look for a safe way in, given that Momma’s crash took out a substantial portion of the house. Raspin, Stelisto and Faelan slip in through the window closest to the bed that they saw from outside, assuming that to be Momma’s bed, after Raspin took a moment to drive his sword through Momma’s head. [She had healed at least one wound and so the group was worried that she might rise again.]
Stelisto approaches the bed and begins to dig through the filthy coverings. Unfortunately our worst fears are realized as we only find parts of the toddler.
Stelisto gathers what parts he can find and places them in a sack so that we may return the child to Borsod for burial. Meanwhile Serena continues her efforts to heal Cailana’s wounds.
[The child had had most of its fingers and toes “nibbled” off, presumably by Momma. One can only hope that this had not happened while the child was still alive.]
Selisto and Faelan head off to search the rest of the house. Stelisto heads to a door in the middle that is partially open. As he opens it further, a bucket full of excrement and other vileness falls upon him.
Faelan starts retching as Stelisto stumbles out of the house and into the rain, trying desperately to wash away the filth coating him. He manages to get most of it off. They reenter the house to continue their search, opening the other door off the area they were in and finding a closet full of human skins.
They decide to venture further and head down the hallway with Faelan tapping along the floor checking for traps. He discovers a hollow sounding spot, but upon further investigation, finds it is a shallow hole with some rat skulls and bones and little else.
Continuing on, they discover a set of stairs leading up, and another door.
It is around this time when Serena and Cailana enter the house, Serena having succeeded in healing the elf’s wounds. They locate the men and join the search of the house. Stelisto checks the stairs for any traps or unsafe conditions before using a spell [wallwalker] to safely traverse the stairwell [climbing along the wall]. He finds a single door and when he opens it, is greeted by wind and rain. Taking a look he discovers this room to be the attic. It is full of detritus and the wind and rain are due to the walls [and roof] being partially collapsed [from Momma’s crash]. Continuing to use his spell to his advantage, he enters the attic further to investigate and discovers that it appears that the attic was used as a workshop to create traps.
Returning to the rest of the party, they make a cursory search of the remaining rooms that they can reach on this side of the house, finding nothing of importance or value. [And finding lots that is disturbing and disgusting.]
They decide to head the other side of the house to where they had heard laughter from earlier, having to skirt around the outside of the house due to all the structural damage.
Climbing in they discover a flight of stairs going down. Stelisto rigs up a safety line and heads down the stairs. He listens at each door but hears nothing. He opens the door to the south first and finds a dark room stacked with crates and farm equipment. Faelan decides to join him and discovers that there appears to be a pathway through the junk. Following the path he discovers a set of double doors leading to the east. Stelisto investigates the doors and they appear to be trapped. He spots what appears to be a wire stretched between the gap in the doors.
[Todd rolled a critical failure on Stelisto’s Notice check while examining the door. Spotting a trap that isn’t really there seemed to be a good way to handle the critical failure. The thin wire was, in fact, just some hair that had gotten caught in the door just right to look like some sort of wire that would trigger a trap. The group spent some time trying to bypass this and–Todd at least–was quite nervous about opening the door.]
The party decides to investigate the other rooms first and find what appears to be more workshops, one full of piles of skin and gore, and another with a low ceiling containing blood and mold, a filthy lumpy mattress, and several unfinished chairs made of skin and bone.
Heading back to the double doors we set about trying to figure out how to disable the trap. We ask Wink to make us a small hole so we can send Faelan through as a small lizard. Faelen enters and notices another set of doors further down the hall. He searches but cannot see any means of the trap nor how to disable it.
Wink closes up the hole and tries to detect any magic on the door, but finds nothing. The party is stumped and so Stelisto uses his dagger to carefully test the wire. He barely touches it and discovers that there is some definite give to the wire and with a quick flick of the wrist decides to cut the wire and open the door. Nothing happens and the party can only shake their heads as it appears the trap was nothing more than a piece of hair, placed there on purpose or by accident they do not know.
[Accident…totally an accident…and just another example of how Trait checks can dictate what the world is rather than just a success or failure.]
Heading down the hallway to the next set of doors, Stelisto once again checks for traps. He finds none and so he pulls the door on the right open.
He is immediately assaulted with the smells of damp steaming rotten vegetation. Entering the room he discovers a ten to fifteen foot wide pit in the center of the room. Fungus grows along the walls and a door can just be seen across the room.
Approaching the pit and peering over the edge, Stelisto sees a tentacled creature reaching up for him. It attacks, injuring him and as he tries to escape the creature strikes again, wrapping a tentacle around him and pulling him towards the pit.
The party rushes in to try and free him with Faelan rushing the creature and cutting off the tentacle that has grabbed their fellow party member. Serena and Raspin quickly grab Stelisto before he can fall into the pit. Cailana rushes in to see if she can get a shot at the creature but it has sunk back down into the muck at the bottom of the pit and has disappeared from sight.
[Oh serendipity! RJ had given me a bribe, er, gift of a box of Pathfinder miniatures. It just so happens that the big figure was an Otyugh, er, sorry, a sewer beast. It just so happens that this pit contained just such a creature. Perfect timing RJ! Thanks!]
Serena heals Stelisto’s wounds and he uses some of his magic to become extremely stealthy and head towards the door. It appears to be padlocked but he easily picks the lock and opens the door. Inside, the party finds a single large chest that does not appear to be trapped according to Stelisto’s examination. He checked at Faelan’s request, given our past experience with trapped trunks).
Opening the trunk, they discover a sack resting atop a pile of items. When inventoried, these include: a cloak with a clasp that appears to mimic dragon scales and set with rubies, a gold ring set with a blueish agate, a necklace of a fine silver chain set with a small emerald, a pair of leather gloves adorned with pearls around the edge of the cuff, and a very fine bow set with silver inlay. The sack was full of coins.
Serena decides to try on the gloves, while Cailana is immediately is drawn to the bow, holding it and marveling at the craftmanship.
Serena decides she needs to hold on to the necklace and the ring as Raspin shoulders the weight of the bag of coins. Stelisto volunteers to carry the cloak. Serena disagrees, saying she should carry it, but Stelisto takes off up the stairs with the male members of the party chasing after him.
Serena removes the gloves and Cailana asks her if she is ok. Serena reveals the gloves made her feel very greedy and not at all like herself. They ascend the stairs to find the others. Cailana keeps the bow, having no desire to relinquish it.
Meanwhile Stelisto has removed the bejeweled clasp and hidden it on himself. The party reconvenes and Cailana suggests that it is time we head to the barn and find the missing sister.
Raspin opens the doors and we find an open space with stairs leading to catwalks along both sides. These end in doors that are boarded and locked from this side. Underneath the catwalks are cages, some of them holding large rats. Halfway through the building is a wall with boarded up double doors, sectioning off the front of the barn from the rear.
Serena goes in to inspect the cages, finding a young girl huddled up in one near the back wall. As she is trying to coax her out, Stelisto begs Cailana to go and kill all the rats before he will enter. She steps inside and up to the first cage, stabbing the rat within with her sword. The remaining rats scurry to the back of their cages out of her sword’s reach so she uses the new bow to quickly take out the rats, marveling at the the way it doesn’t require the use of arrows, shooting bolts of what looks like electricity. When the rats are all dead, she alerts Stelisto that it is safe.
Serena has gathered up the child and wrapped her in the cloak, taking her outside to safety while the others press forward to find and eliminate Zeke.
[The girl, presumably Etel Kosma, was completely non-responsive and had obviously been abused in rather depraved ways. She just stared blankly ahead of herself.
Zeke is the name that the final ogre mentioned as the Stelisto “parlayed” with him.]
Faelan listens at the door and hears a faint scratching. Stelisto steps up to the door to have a listen and hears a faint call for help, urging them to hurry before he comes back.
Raspin immediately begins pulling at the boards barring the door and pulls open the door.
Inside they find a tunnel of webs which appears to curve to the right. Wink summons Rocky and sends him forward to start breaking through the webs while Raspin follows the tunnel made by the webs.
Cailana and Faelan wait and watch the door in case anything comes out while Stelisto takes up position in a dark corner of the barn.
As Raspin and Wink travel deeper into the web-filled back of the barn, a creature appears in the open doorway. It immediately runs for the barn door. Cailana shoots, managing to strike its leg. The creature attacks the party before managing to escape through the open door and up onto the roof of the barn.
The party tries to shoot it but it disappears from sight so Faelan changes into a bird and begins searching for it. He does not see it on the roof, but he happens to spot some movement in the trees and begins to follow it. He discovers that the creature is moving in an ENE direction. He keeps at a distance and observes the creature stop and hunker down and look around for anyone following him before taking off again. This continues for quite a ways [a couple of miles I think] until Faelan sees the creature go into what looks to be an abandoned mine tunnel. Faelan heads back.
[It was pretty obvious right away that the creature was looking to escape rather than kill.
Here is the picture I showed the group…scary.]
Meanwhile the party searches the barn for the survivor that they heard call for help, but there is none. It appears Zeke tricked them. They send Rocky to tunnel beneath both the barn and house to collapse them, leveling both to the ground.
[Zeke, assuming that’s who the creature is, was either quite intelligent or a very cunning creature. Despite lamenting that they had released an obviously dangerous predator, they were rather impressed with its cunning.
If Zeke, then this is also a creature that Margit, whoever she or it might be, created. Margit…who hired the ogres to oversee the “herd” of humans at the palisade and whom even Momma Graul feared. You haven’t forgotten about Margit already, have you?]
With Faelan’s arrival, the party heads back to Borsod, first stopping by the palisade where Stelisto wants to look in on the people within, not wanting to leave them without food.
The party tries to explain to him what lay within, but he wanted to see for himself, so he climbs over the wall and checks a hut, but finds it empty.
Suddenly he hears children laughing and the party immediately starts yelling at him to get out!
[There is certainly a sense of accomplishment as a GM when the players have such a visceral and immediate reaction to the simple laughter of children. đŸ˜€]
Stelisto begins to back away towards the wall he climbed over when he spots a shadowy figure come around one of the huts, then another, and another. By the time he has climbed to the top of the rope, there are at least 15-18 of the shadowy figures standing there. The party makes a hasty retreat and travels quickly, and thankfully uneventfully, back to Borsod.
We take the girl [and toddler’s remains] to Jolana and explain to her what happened. We then head off to the inn to meet with the Baroness, who is holding court with some villagers.
The Baroness asks the villagers to return the next day and we then explain everything that has happened. We reveal the treasures we found. Serena cautions her about the gloves [making the wearer very greedy] and that she should keep those wrapped up.
We give her the rest of the treasures, but she asks if we have a need of any of it. We explain that it is probably best for us to not travel with that kind of money on us and she nods and understands.
She does agree that Cailana should keep the bow. She also gives Cailana the silver necklace, Raspin the agate ring [presumably for Barta…giggle], and the gold and ruby clasp to Stelisto.
[Farkas is, undoubtedly, gnashing his teeth back in Presov and the Baroness did make a comment indicating that the gloves probably wouldn’t work on Farkas.
And that is pretty much where we stopped for the night.
Baroness Varga giggles every time that Raspin expresses his desire to woo Barta.
The group discussed heading to the mine entrance and tracking down Zeke, but they decided that they couldn’t do so with the Etel in their care. Of course, it will be a good five or six days, at a minimum, before they can get back to the palisade, ogre farm, and mine entrance. Hmm…I wonder what sort of things might happen during that time.
Beer Log: Beers shared this session using, as always, our hit, miss, crit, and fumble rating scale.
- The Bruery Terreux Goses Are Red: I’m pretty sure that we’ve shared a bottle of this before at the game. I’m pretty sure I liked it just as much then as this time. Might be my favorite gose so I gotta say a crit!
- Boulevard Love Child #6: A definite example of sitting on a beer too long. This one went bad…vinegar bad. Fresh it is a hit. Years later, I won’t rate.
- Mason Aleworks Agent Zero: A 0 IBU IPA…okay. I’m skeptical and my skepticism was well founded. It wasn’t a bad beer and had hints of the IPA aromatics, but the flavor was pretty boring. Just not a lot of flavor. It wasn’t bad so I’m just going to call it a miss.
