Rise of the Runelords - Atessia

[Oneiros]

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... garrammit

tenletter system kicked in, canceled roll. knew i should've re-inputted

[Oneiros]

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maybe this will work

(1d20+15)[30]

[Comissar]

Telra watches as Ameiko leaves. He stands silently for a moment before turning to his companions.

"I'll leave you to make the report, I have other business to attend to."

He follows the grief stricken elf, jogging slightly to catch her up.

[Tarth]

Telra watches as Ameiko leaves. He stands silently for a moment before turning to his companions.

"I'll leave you to make the report, I have other business to attend to."

He follows the grief stricken elf, jogging slightly to catch her up.

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Go Comi! You go get her!

[Mirior]

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Current plans are to start a bit after 1pm EST tomorrow. Mol, I'll be on Skype before then if you want to roleplay your report to Sheriff Hemlock.

[Mirior]

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If possible, we're going to pick back up on Monday, same time as last week. I'll post a summary of today's session after Monday (whether we meet or not, but if we meet it'll be easier to blend the two sessions into one summary).

[Mirior]

After a night's rest, the group gathered to tackle the first of the threats facing Sandpoint - the tunnels beneath the town, and the forces said to wait within. The tunnel beneath the glassworks led them first to the ocean, opening on a nestled cove, but a passageway that used to bricked over led to chambers of worked stone.

Slithir, scouting ahead, quickly encountered the first of the "freaks" Tsuto had mentioned, savage humanoid figures with split jaws and grasping claws. It was alone, and fell quickly, despite its skill with the masterwork ranseur it wielded. Behind the beast, the group found a red marble statue of a furious woman, carved in robes and holding a similar ranseur.

The first passage the group took led to a slab of black stone supporting a basin of water, permeated with magic. Dukark, unable to determine the water's effects any other way, gulped down a sip, then promptly convulsed vomiting it back up. Tavi, investigating the liquid, was able to determine that Dukark was quite lucky his body had rejected it; the liquid had some sort of transmutative properties. Tavi pocketed a flask for later study; the basin refilled itself.

The next room, the largest in the chambers, was home to a minor demon, the quasit Tsuto had mentioned. Telra was able to sneak up on the quasit, but it vanished as soon as it saw him, reappearing above a strange artifact, a pool of bubbling liquid that gave off an orange glow. The quasit cut itself with a dagger, dropping blood into the pool to summon another of the freaks, then started casting spells at the group. Over a tough fight, the group slew the summoned freak and a summoned wolf, but were unable to deal lasting damage to the demon, who proved nigh-impervious to Tavi's bombs and resistant to most other damage, healing its wounds. Eventually, the demon returned to invisibility, fleeing into the outer chambers.

The party spent time recovering and debating their next move, whether to return to Sandpoint to rest and resupply or to press on in the hopes of finding and finishing the wounded demon; in the end, pressing on won out, although the party planned to return to deal with the orange glowing pool.

Moving through the rest of the chambers, the party easily dealt with an attempted ambush by another pair of the freaks, followed up by a goblin mutated by the water from before. The quasit's voice made an appearance beside the goblin, but after the party slew the goblin mutant mid-charge the demon never appeared.

Further exploration uncovered a torture chamber, several prison cells with skeletons still inside, a set of 11 covered pits containing zombies helpless to reach the party above, and finally a spherical room covered in flickering runes. Anyone who entered the room began floating into the air, and their entrance triggered the runes to a flurry of activity. Using rope to pull Dukark and Tavi back in, the party gathered the items in the room, leaving before the runes could possibly cause any ill effect.

The final passage in the chambers led up flights of stairs. The group encountered and quickly slew a vargouille, a strain of wildlife from the fiendish planes, then found an upwards-leading spiral staircase, blocked by rubble. Some of the rubble, however, had been moved; someone was working on clearing the staircase, and the path to whatever lay above.

The entirety of the chambers explored, save for whatever lay above the rubble-filled staircase and below a similarly-blocked staircase found near the spherical floaty room, the party returned to the orange pool. Experimenting with how to destroy the pool and end the threat it and the still-unaccounted for quasit posed, Dukark dropped a droplet of his blood into the pool, spawning another freak which promptly attacked the party, and was quickly slain. The pool's glow dimmed noticeably as the creature emerged, and in fact was now barely visible; Tavi believed that, were the pool to be drained of all its energy, it would be damaged, perhaps destroyed.

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+1 longsword to Tarth
scroll of flaming sphere to Slithir
scroll of burning hands to Slithir
wand of shocking grasp to Tavi
masterwork ranseur to Tarth
masterwork handaxe to Telra
silver dagger to Telra

720 XP to everyone

- Rewards

Those who left early, read the last paragraph, it's what happened after you left. The group is currently in the room with the pool.

[calisk]

"well, it seems we've neared the end of this exploration, let's return up the tunnel, and get some rest inside the manor, then we can clear the final passage and see what's beyond."

[Oneiros]

Seeing the reduced glow, Tavi is left wondering whether or not the power of the pool was at all affected by the spawning of the creature.

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(1d20+9)[27] knowledge arcana for pool energy levels, see if I can tell if they were higher or lower than before

[Molosse]

Dukark finishes cleaning the point of his blade from the Creatures black blood, he glances back to watch the Rat-Folk standing by the portal.

Speaking without looking he answers Slithir

"Two passageways my friend, one down to the beast the elf spoke of and one up. Something to think on, if their objective was the beast below the catacomb then why did they feel the need to clear the higher portions first?"

He walks over to the Rat-Folk

"Notice anything?"

[Mirior]

Tavi's results -

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Tavi can tell that the pool has less arcane energy than it did before; indeed, there isn't much left.

[Tarth]

Tarth gives the pool a little kick.

[Oneiros]

It appears to me that this pool's energy is almost diminished. I would assume, therefore, that there is a limit to how many creatures it can produce. If we continue producing creatures, I believe the pool will be damaged. I can't say what effects that would have, or how many creatures are left before the pool is finished.

I would hazard a guess that there are few creatures left available to it at present. I couldn't say when or how it would be replenished, so really were we to try to deplete the pool, now is the best time.

Also a thing to keep in mind may be that, thus far, only blood that is more than passably strange has gone into this portal and summoned a creature.

Having said this, Tavi silences himself again and moves slightly further back from the pool.

[Mirior]

Tarth kicks the pool's rim; the liquid inside shows no change, continuing to faintly glow orange with a bubble popping up every now and then. Tarth's foot hurts, but that passes.

[Mirior]

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Does meeting Sunday at 1pm EST work for everyone? Tarth, let me know if you can do an earlier time.

[Molosse]

Dukarks nods once in answer to Tavi, pausing for a moment longer as he stared into the slowly curling liquid.
He rises and turns to the group.

"I suggest we stay here tonight, it will allow me the opportunity to examine the tome we found more closely and it will save us the most time to continue our search of the upper sections of this... chapel."

With that Dukark seats himself at the edge of the stairway and, facing the door, begins to read the tome he recovered from the enchanted room.

[calisk]

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1 might be a bit early for me, i'll do what I can though

my comps gone on life support, trying to fix it now, but it's being a pain in the ass, honestly the worst i've ever seen a computer

[Molosse]

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So are we on for today?

[Mirior]

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We're starting as soon as everyone is on (sans Comissar, who isn't able to make it today)

[Mirior]

The group decided to rest and recover in the chapel; Slithir barricaded the doors with rope, a watch schedule was established, but nothing disturbed the group's slumber.

Upon waking, the first order of business (after Slithir checked to make sure there wasn't an ambush outside) was to deal with the monster-summoning pool. Tavi theorized that continued summonings would drain and damage the pool; but before anyone could test the theory, the quasit reappeared, throwing spells at the party to stop them from activating the pool. Mid-fight, Dukark did exactly that, creating another creature which nearly killed Telra, but depleting the pool of the last of its energy, killing its glow; it no longer reacted when blood (or Telra's unconscious body) fell into it.

The quasit raged, but was no more able to stop the party than in their previous encounter. Likewise, the party was unable to harm the quasit; until Slithir grabbed hold of the demon when it tried to flee, eventually with the aid of Tarth and Tavi binding it in rope.

Dukark, threatening to immolate the demon in holy water, convinced it to talk, for what worth its ravings had. It repeatedly referred to some She who had restored the pool until the party re-broke it, who had reigned over all long ago and whose armies would rise again, mixed in with praises to the Rough Beast Rovagug, infuriating Slithir. After extracting info, Dukark impaled the demon, and Tarth beheaded it; it was well and truly dead.

The group took a quick detour to kill the zombies they had found earlier, doing so without taking too much time, then cleared a path through the rubble on the upwards-spiraling staircase. It opened, after breaking down a weak wall, on the basement of the Old Light, which was quite the shock to the lighthouse's resident, Brodert Quink. The group spoke with Brodert, who after the initial shock was fascinated by the discovery of further chambers below the lighthouse, as any scholar who had moved to Sandpoint specifically to study the Old Light and similar ruins along the coast would be. Fearing for his safety, the group told him not to head down until they could spare the time to escort him.

At the end of the session, the group split. Slithir, Tarth, and Telra left the Old Light to find Sheriff Hemlock and report their discoveries, while Dukark and Tavi remained with Brodert to study from his spellbook and share knowledge. The plan (as I understand it) is to reconvene at the White Stag Inn in a few hours to meet with Aldern Foxglove, the noble who the group saved during the initial goblin attack.


Rewards -

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+1 Tiny cold iron returning dagger to Tavi
Obsidian holy symbol of Rovagug to Dukark

950 xp to everyone

[Mirior]

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I'm not able to get on tonight, and I may be busy next Sunday as well; if so, I should be able to have a session next Monday.

[calisk]

Slithir and tarth head towards the sheriffes building, wasting little time with pleasantries to the townsfolks. "we must inform the sheriff at once. who knows what will happen, if we dawdle"

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do we make it their without any trouble?

[Mirior]

Sandpoint's streets are mostly empty; the sun has set, and the townsfolk are keeping indoors. There's a light on at the guardhouse - Sheriff Hemlock is waiting for you.

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I think the best way to run the split groups is over Skype, if peopel can be on at the same time. I'm busy today, but starting tomorrow I should have more time to catch people online. Also, I will be available to play this Sunday, it's Monday I'll be busy for.

[calisk]

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when will the scrubs learn to not split the party =)

[calisk]

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you weren't on, my bard made a sad face =(

[calisk]

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no recap? did we find anything on the bodies after the combat?I rolled hp on the site and got crap again =/

[Mirior]

The next day, the party reconvened, sharing notes of what they'd learned from the sheriff and from Brodert Quink. After a few hours, they were joined by Shalelu Androsani, a ranger who patrolled the area and had noticed signs of goblin activity. She told the group that the Thistletop tribe, led by Chief Ripnugget, was calling the shots, aided by a bugbear who was intimidating the other tribes into falling in line. After resupplying, getting holy water from Father Zantus, the party set out on an eight-mile journey to Thistletop.

The journey was soggy, but uneventful, Tarth leading the group through fields and forests; after three hours of travel, the group reached Thistletop, a wooden fort built atop a near-shore island, connected to the mainland's cliffs by a swaying rope bridge. The mainland side was blocked by briars and vines, overgrown but - as Dukark discovered - shaped into goblin-sized tunnels, a maze of passageways between the hidden entrance and the bridge.

The party entered the tunnels, finding clearings where they could stand upright (although Tavi had no problems squeezing through). They ambushed a large group of goblins, Tavi's bombs killing them en masse, with only one survivor escaping. They could hear goblin dogs yipping deeper in the maze, but they weren't coming closer, and fell silent shortly after the last goblin fled.

The group moved on, finding the top end of a shaft in the ground, a hole leading to waters below. Past there, they found the dogs, and the dogs' owner - a goblin druid, hands wreathed in flame, who controlled the vines, opening passageways for the dogs and himself, entangling half the group in grasping thorns. The dogs were easy to slay, but the firepelt cougar that accompanied them proved much more difficult; Telra and Slithir were both laying flat by the time Tarth brought it down. The druid struggled with Dukark, sword of mist facing sword of flame, before falling back, vines covering his retreat.

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Everyone earned 751 XP, putting them to lvl 3; no treasure found this session.

[calisk]

slithir decides to skin the cougar with the intention to sell it's rare pelt back in town.

after finishing that up he grabs the ropes that the goblin had the dogs leashed up with, and stores it in his bag unless others want some. ( how much rope was there? )

he wipes his kukri clean and sheathes it.

"shall we camp out in the nearby forest? it seems these goblins are more prepared for us then we expected and it's hard to say how our next battle will turn out if we press on in our condition"

[Tarth]

Tarth quickly heads to the edge of the tunnels in hopes of seeing if anyone from the fort saw their fight. Keeping the group with in sight he sets up a watch on the bridge swinging in the wind and rain.

[Mirior]

Once the grasping vines fall quiet, Tarth quickly explores the rest of the tunnels. He finds the path to the bridge quickly, as well as a rolled-up bedroll down another fork, tucked away in a dark nook. The bridge sways, hairy rope supporting wooden planks; the construction doesn't look reassuring, but it's apparently held so far. On the island, you can see the thick wooden stockade, but no goblins as of yet.

Slithir finds ten ropes in the dogs' clearing, each ten feet long and badly frayed, half of them tied at one end to wooden stakes. Skinning the cougar takes time, we'll see if such time is available.