Once Shalora had checked on Sparkles in the stables, the companions (with Mischief) also made their way northeast through the village and up the hill. A small crowd had begun to assemble at the foot of the ruins, which shared a crudely deforested hilltop with a large manor. Only fragments of the first and second floor still remained. Black stone and broken wooden debris lay scattered down the hill's southeastern slope, and a rocky ramp of sorts lead up to what was left of the tower's now exposed second floor. Some of the locals pointed at two clawed, reptilian corpses strewn in the wreckage. "Look! Kobolds!"
The two deputies that had "kept" Akiro in the inn stables the day before were puttering about, evidently unsure what to do. The woman wandered about scratching her head, while the her male comrade stood with his hands on his hips, chewing on a stalk of grass.
People in the crowd muttered that perhaps someone should check to see if the wizard Hunclay knew anything about what happened, given that his manor shared the hill with the tower. Some found it odd that he had not made an appearance given the proximity of the disaster, and wondered whether he might not have had something to do with it. Jiri surveyed the damaged tower, and concluded that the bulk of the tower seemed to have crumbled into a sinkhole, and that the rubble was still unstable. Meanwhile, Iacobus tried to determine what exactly the two deputies were doing. "Uhhh… crowd control?" they suggested, hesitantly. The Taldan warrior encouraged them, sternly, to do a better job of it.
In the meantime, an elegantly dressed, white-haired older woman and a thin, dark-haired man roughly Iacobus's age arrived on the scene and began to question the locals. The companions made their way to the wizard's manor, where they found a third, horribly charred kobold corpse lying upon the wizard's doorstep. "I would recommend against opening the door," called out the male deputy a short distance behind the companions, explaining that the wizard was powerful and may have set other traps like those that killed the charred kobold.
A moment later, the elegant pair reached the manor, and the white-haired woman instructed Deputy Hodd to keep the crowd away from the ruins. She then addressed the party, and introduced herself as Lady Origena Devy, Baroness of Belhaim; the young man was her son, Arnholde Devy. Lady Devy was pleased to learn that the companions had assisted Sheriff Benhovy in the apprehension of the smuggler and traitor Gribb the day before, and asked whether other employment currently awaited them. When their reply was negative, she sought to hire them.
Lady Origena Devy, Baroness of Belhaim, and her son, Arnholde Devy
"Today's your lucky day. Mulle and Hodd here can't handle this without the Sheriff to hold their hands, and I want to know what happened here without delay. You seem to be a capable bunch, and exploring crumbling ruins is not what I pay the deputies to do. If you go in there and look through the rubble--find out what happened and why there are kobolds in my town--I'll pay you generously. I'm willing to offer the lot of you 500 gold coins. While you're looking around in the ruins, keep and eye out for any signs of our local eccentric, Hunclay. It seems somewhat suspicious to me that he's not coming out of his manor. Let me know what you find."
The eyes of the companions widened--if they successfully completed this assignment, they would go from rags to riches in one day!
Jiri remarked that the stonework of the tower was poor, and that if dwarves had built it, it never would have fallen. The Lady replied coldly that the builders of the era did not have the good fortune of having dwarven stonemasons living in their midst, and that the dwarf was welcome to settle here if he wanted to offer his services to the community.
Jiri and Iacobus also sensed a strain in the baroness' voice, even before the exchange regarding the stone masonry. When questioned, she sighed, then explained tersely that her fool husband lost his life poking around the damned tower and she had come to think of it as his memorial. She was not surprised that the old ruin finally fell -- Hunclay had long pestered her for permission to knock down the tower, which she declined. He always claimed that it blocked his view of the night sky. His absence from the crowd therefore was especially suspicious. Lady Devy described Hunclay for her hired swords: an elderly man with white hair and beard, likely to be wearing a robe with arcane symbols.
The companions asked how long it had been since the Lady's husband had disappeared, and whether anyone had ever gone searching for him. She answered that he had left to explore the tower several years ago and never returned, and, oddly, in the minds of the companions, no one had been sent to search for him. Iacobus asked how she could be certain that he was dead, if no one had found his remains? Perhaps he had simply run away? The Lady was deeply insulted by the insinuations, and simply stated that her husband was fascinated by the old tower, informed her against her objections that he was going to explore it on the day he disappeared, and that she had no reason to question her husband's honour. She would also welcome any information the companions might find regarding her husband's fate. Now would they do the job, or not? She insisted that the ruins be thoroughly explored before anything else be done, as she believed the kobolds to be the most imminent threat to the community and she wanted to be sure that no more lurked in the ruins.
The shifting rubble and the lack of strong climbing skills among party members made the entry via the exposed second story a hazardous proposition, but the companions made the climb with few injuries. From there, they made their way down, finding two more partly crushed kobold corpses on the collapsed main floor landing, and on to the only level that was unblocked by rubble -- the underground level. With the help of light spells to illuminate the gloom, they investigated the crumbling barracks, where they found an iron maiden filled with bones and a rusty metal key. The group fended off an attack by a pair of giant centipedes that crawled out from cracks in the walls of the west wing and wounded Jiri and Iacobus, but Shalora's quick reaction mitigated the worst of the their injuries and poisoning. Iacobus subsequently found a tightly latched iron case amid the rubble of the west wing, within which was a pair of mithral daggers with a strange series of notches carved into the flat of each blade -- the Taldan warrior deduced that the weapons might also serve as keys.
From the barracks, the party went on to explore a cellblock, where solid iron doors hung ajar and included both peepholes at eye level, covered with a piece of sliding metal, and a smaller slot for food and water at floor level. All the cells in the first block were completely empty. Jiri noticed a curious semicircular stone ridge, about six inches across, running along the ceiling of the hallway and disappearing into a wall section in the cell block. The dwarf suspected that it might hide some sort of mechanism.
As the companions surveyed the west wing of the cellblock, they spotted decaying wall sections that once would have served as better hidden secret doors into another, more extensive cellblock. The rusty key Iacobus found in the iron maiden in the barracks could unlock the doors to the cells in this second block, in which the bones of forgotten prisoners remained shackled. The companions checked a half dozen cells, some small, some larger, until they came upon a startling discovery. A pale face suddenly appeared at the window to one cell door, its filthy hands gripping the bars. The desperate face called out.
"Oh, gods, kind faces! Aroden bless you, noble souls! I ain't seen the jailers in ages, and I think they forgot about us! We ain't eaten in days and the water's all but gone -- my cousins're both sick. I swear we'd give back the boar if we could, but we ate it, starvin' as we was. We didn't even know it was the baron's lands, didn't know we was poachin'! I beg you, we're all gonna die in here! Kindness, noble souls, we've suffered awful! GOOD BARON SARVO WILLS IT!"
As the companions attempted to ask questions of the desperate prison, he listened wide-eyed but only ever answered "Water! Food! Good Baron Sarvo wills it!" Shalora reflected that Aroden had died more than a century ago, and her sharp eyes then noticed that the prisoner's face was translucent. Likewise, Iacobus recalled that Baron Sarvo was a Belhaim lord of the Canteclure family who rebelled against the crown around two centuries prior. Shalora then closed her eyes and channeled the divine energy of Shelyn. The prisoner faded instantly, his cry of "So… hungry!!!" echoing in the cell. When the party stepped in to inspect the cell, they found only a few bones on the ground. Shalora also spotted another secret door at the back of the cell, which led down a very narrow corridor that ended at a strange metallic contraption of gears and chains. Hovering above it was a small, roiling cloud energy that periodically sent sparks of electricity into the air or along the chains that disappeared into the wall near the ceiling. Jiri suspected that the machine operated whatever it was that ran through the semicircular stone ridge he had observed previously in the main cell block, and Iacobus suspected that the strange electricity-emitting cloud might be some sort of elemental. The two guessed that the mechanism probably raised or lowered something else in the complex, but none dared touch the machine's lever out of fear of what the elemental might do.
After completing their exploration of both the main and secret cell blocks, the companions had only one corridor left to explore, which led to a torture chamber. The dank room stored an ancient rack, a fanciful brazen bull, an iron maiden, a cauldron, iron chairs with sharp edges and cruel protuberances, and a wooden table upon which sat various implements of torture. A bronze plaque affixed to the western wall depicted a crowing rooster above crossed spears. Underneath the plaque, a short phrase was inscribed, which the party would soon learn read "Confession Cleanses the Soul - Pain Clarifies the Mind."
The door to the chamber was stuck, but after several tries, the companions finally forced their way in with Iacobus leading the way. The Taldan heard a voice telling him that he looked weary, and that he should rest in one of the chamber's chairs. Iacobus complied and sat on one of the spiked iron chairs, wounding himself in the process. As he did so, a raven appeared and addressed the party in a shrill voice.
"Greetings, fine citizens of our glorious empire! So good to have visitors, though I hear I have no refreshments to offer. I assume you are here for the treasure. Well, I'd be happy to assist, provided that you give me what I require! It has been so long since I was able to ply my trade. I require only that each of you shed your life's blood in this room -- simply take seat in one of my lovely chairs."
This was the first that the companions had heard of any treasure, which instantly piqued their curiosity. Although suspicious, Shalora, Jiri and Akiro proceeded to draw some of their own blood by cutting their palms instead of sitting in the sadistic chairs. The bird then cackled with delight, informing them of the location of the secret door that would lead to the Canteclure treasury… but then said forlornly that the door was locked with an ingenious device, and that the key was amid the clutter on the table. Iacobus searched the clutter on the table, finding only rusted, bloody knives and other implements of torture, but no key. Jiri sensed that they were being played for fools by the raven, which likely was a servant of evil. He aimed his crossbow at it from across the room, asking it why he should spare its miserable life, then loosed a bolt that clacked against the wall right beside the raven. The bird instantly vanished, and seconds later a tiny red devil appeared and flew straight at Jiri, attempting to sting him with its barbed tail. Iacobus tried to slash at it with a mithral dagger but missed. Jiri took a step back, then fired a silver bolt into the creature's leg.
"Zorg," the fiend
The fiend shrieked in pain and begged for its life, claiming that it had additional and highly valuable secrets to share if they promised not to kill it. Shalora asked the creature its name, and Iacobus insisted that it tell them its true name, but it answered that its name was Zorg. It claimed to know the tower's history, and informed the party there is a chamber deeper in the dungeon where "Good Baron Sarvo wills it" was the pass phrase. Zorg claimed that he did not know exactly in what chamber the pass phrase could be used, as he allegedly had never ventured beyond the torture chamber. The fiend turned invisible again, and rather than waste their time hunting an invisible foe who likely was bound to the torture chamber, the companions made their way through the secret door that Zorg had previously pointed out, and which, as it turned out, was not locked at all.
The party were beginning to wonder why, after all this exploration, they still had not seen more signs of kobolds. Given the long corridors they continually wandered and the strange layout and contraptions they found throughout the complex, they came to the conclusion that the builders must have been both mad and extremely wealthy.
After balancing around a toxic sludge trough on a narrow ledge with minimal slips and injuries (where the party also found the end of the semicircular stone ridge, which they were now certain was part of a mechanism that would have raised a walkway to facilitate safe passage around the sludge trough), the party advanced down a very long hallway that ended at an iron door with a small barred window. Through the window, across a plain ten-foot room, was a windowless iron door in the wall beyond. The first door was locked, but easily opened by Iacobus with the use of one of the mithral key daggers he had found in the barracks. Once inside the 10' chamber, a wide mouth appeared on the far door. "Please close the door before proceeding with the pass phrase," it boomed.
The companions did as they were bid, and Iacobus then said, "Good Baron Sarvo wills it." The magic mouth then vanished from the eastern door, which opened onto a bare octagonal chamber. A ten-foot wide corridor curved north from the chamber's east end. As the party entered the chamber, a four-armed metal construct on three jointed legs at the east end clacked and whirred, and addressed them in a tinny voice: "Please present the crest for passage." A large, metallic key floated in the air next to the construct.
The companions were intimidated by this apparently invulnerable guardian of living steel, and uncertain what crest it was referring to. As they pondered the answer, the guardian clanged into a defensive position that blocked the east passage, but did not move to attack. Akiro eventually realized that the crest was probably on the bronze rooster plaque upon which the raven perched in the torture chamber, and raced back to fetch it. It was heavy and unwieldy, about 2.5 feet in diameter and weighing approximately 50 pounds, but Akiro managed to retrieve it without incident.
As Akiro cautiously approached the guardian, it raised one of its mechanical arms menacingly and a tube-like device on its shoulder seemed to swivel and aim at the Tian warrior. Yet once Akiro presented the plaque to the construct, it bent to inspect the inscription, then whirred and moved aside to allow the companions through the east passage.
In the next chamber, they found an area along the south wall in which was enclosed a cage of thick iron bars that extended from floor to ceiling. Within the enclosure sat seven black iron chests. To the north, the stone wall had collapsed, revealing a rough-hewn tunnel. Jiri heard something snarling and shuffling in the dark of the tunnel and warned the others. A slavering, long-clawed undead horror charged out of the opening, apparently "wounded" by a long sharp stalactite that stuck out of its back. Jiri fired with his crossbow and missed, but Akiro made short work of the ghoul with his glaive.
Inspecting the chamber, the companions quickly concluded that they were in the Canteclure treasury. They noticed two slots in the floor, one just each of the treasury cage and the other west. Iacobus placed in one of the mithral key daggers in the east slot, Jiri the second dagger in the west slot… and as they turned their daggers simultaneously, the treasury cage lowered into the ground, granting access to the chests within. All seven chests were locked and the heroes did not seem to have any keys that would open them, but that did little to prevent Iacobus from opening them with his lock picking tools. Scattered throughout the black chests, the party found thousands of primarily copper (more than they might be able to carry) and also silver coins, lesser amounts of gold and platinum, and a teak case containing 30 gems. The companions had never seen so much wealth in their lives. Yet before packing up the loot, they decided to lock up the treasury cage once again, keeping the treasure secure while they explored the rough-hewn tunnel to the north.
Jiri was certain that the tunnel had been freshly excavated, likely within the last day. At the end of the short tunnel, the companions triggered but avoided any harm from a trapped barricade. Beyond the barricade, they came upon a large cavern that appeared to have been recently scratched from hard-packed earth, and its ceiling was only five feet high. Several tons of debris filled the western portion of the cave. The party found the the body of an old, balding man with white hair and beard, clad in now tattered red robes with golden arcane symbols embroidered upon it, half buried under the rubble near the north end of the cave.
The wizard Hunclay, most likely. The only items of note on the old man were a key ring with a single key on it, and another brass key. Near the old man's body were two more kobold bodies, each grasping a spade. Jiri believed that this chamber had been the epicentre of the tower's collapse… but why was the wizard down here with the kobolds when it happened?
The roughly hewn tunnel continued to the north, then forked. After following the west fork a short distance, the party found themselves ambushed by a trio of green-scaled kobolds at the entrance to a narrow cave in which were piled small piles of furs alongside the walls, like nests. The entrance was narrow, and Akiro, in the lead, found himself taking the brunt of sling stones and arrows. Two of the kobolds then charged him with spears, dodging his glaive and stabbing him at close quarters while a third kobold fired arrow after arrow. Akiro dropped his glaive and drew a dagger, killing one but falling unconscious from his numerous wounds. Shalora called on the power of Shelyn to enhance Iacobus's fighting prowess. The warrior tried to save the fallen Akiro and eventually felled the second kobold spearman. Shalora channeled her goddess' power again, healing the worst of her companions' wounds and even helping Akiro regain consciousness.
The third kobold, clad in studded leather, was an agile sharpshooter with an obvious hatred for "long shanks." She hissed and seldom missed, peppering Iacobus after dropping Akiro. Eventually, she switched from bow to spear as her foes closed in. The battle turned against the last and remarkably strong kobold as Shalora healed her companions at a distance. After taking a few wounds from Iacobus's falcata, and finding herself cornered between the Taldan warrior, Akiro back from the dead with glaive in hand, and Jiri aiming his crossbow at her, Sesserak, as she called herself, dropped her spear, curled in a ball and surrendered, begging her foes to harm her no further.
Sesserak
Jiri broke Sesserak's spear, but kept her bow, judging it to be of masterwork quality for shorter folk and perhaps worth selling. The party also seized the five gems and ten platinum coins she carried in a belt pouch. As the companions questioned Sesserak, she explained that her tribe had been working with the wizard, who had ordered that they collapse the tower. She did not know why he wanted the tower destroyed--the arrangement was made between her chieftain and the wizard. The wizard's death was an accident, she claimed; he was in the wrong place at the wrong time when some of the kobold miners made a miscalculation that resulted in a premature collapse that also claimed some kobolds. The passage that the wizard had followed to meet them had also collapsed. The kobolds now fear that they have angered the long shanks in the village, as well as the repercussions that may come from that. Sesserak admitted that the other fork in the tunnel lead to a low passage "many many hundreds feet long" that eventually opens on the abandoned quarry in which her people, the Blood Vow tribe, have established their lair.
Tired, wounded, many of their resources expended, the heroes determined that it would be foolish to follow the tunnel to the kobold lair. Instead, they opted to take Sesserak prisoner, recover most of the loot from the Canteclure treasury, and make their way back to the surface and to the Devy estate so that Sesserak could be interrogated in front of the baroness and so that the companions could claim their hard earned reward.
Their first mission and first true collaboration was a great success...
As of this session, each PC has earned 2050 XP, enough to take them to level 2 on the medium advancement track.
ReplyDeleteLoot acquired thus far:
. 2 mithral key daggers from the Witch Tower barracks (Iacobus)
. rusty key to found in iron maiden in Witch Tower barracks, opens cells in the tower cell block (Iacobus)
. Canteclure treasury (to be divided four ways): 4000 sp, 115 gp, 14 pp, teak case with 30 gems; there was some debate as to whether the 18,500 cp (weighing 370 lbs. and worth the equivalent of 185 gp) would be hauled out -- doing so would require recurring use of the plaque with the Canteclure family crest to guest past the metal guardian.
. Further to above… does anyone intend to bring back the plaque with the Canteclure family crest to the surface (2.5 feet in diameter, about 50 lbs.)?
. Sesserak: 10 pp, 5 gems (to be divided 4 ways); masterwork short bow (small) taken by Jiri, 12 arrows, and studded leather armour (small, armour not removed from Sesserak)
. Retrieved from Hunclay's corpse: one key ring with one key; a second, brass key (not sure who claimed these… Iacobus?)