Adventurers' Guild 2: operation Mongoose

[DavidByron]

There is some discussion in the library about the various magic items found and what they seem to be, and about the other items Amethyst found at the inn. In the middle of this there's a brief disturbance at the main door which is handled by Eldon. A couple of visitors to the guild house, one shouting at one point. Eldon waves off an offer of help to deal with the visitors. From what you can hear it was someone trying to get in to see the guildmaster, but Jerris is still absent.

Later that night the remaining adventurers are summoned to the library again, this time to receive word of a change of mission.

Father Eldon:
The third team, headed by Ulysses, ... ah... team "Tortoise"... (Eldon looks quizzically at Matthew who shrugs)... has already been sent to try and track down Felix Ostler, the former marshal of course. They set off yesterday morning in fact. Team Platypus has been in contact tonight with Matthew and it seems that they've already come across sizeable scouting groups of goblins out of Khorinis along the river. Maybe forty or fifty goblins on rafts. A big group but without any heavies like ogres and apparently they had no missile fire either, so not well equipped. The Doge thinks it best if a group of adventurers goes to Khorinis by land to see if there's anything moving along the road and join up with team Platypus. You'll be taking horses so you shouldn't get there far behind them as they're rowing against the current.

It's a scouting mission so avoid what you can't defeat and stay alive. Find out what you can when you get to Khorinis.

Matthew:
I'm using this mirror to communicate with team Platypus. Kate, their wizard, has its partner. Another mirror went off with the Tortoises but I don't have one spare for you. You'll just have to figure out how to find the other team when you get near to Khorinis.

[MK Kilmarnock]

If there were any questions or comments on the mission, Zan would hold back from saying anything until everybody was done. As far as his questions went, he didn't have any on the mission 'per se', but rather what he would use.

"Um..... M-Matthew, do you know if my... my scythe is ready? The g-guisarme was nice, of course, but it w-would be nice to get my old weapon back...." Yeah, nice. that's the word.

He also remembered that he promised to talk to Ana in private, and he hoped he'd have enough time to before he left.

[SithLackey]

Victor shrugs and grins. "If they have a wizard, maybe they can find us... In any event, it'll be nice to get back on the plains again." He takes a quizzical look at Zan. "A scythe could be hard to use on horseback, but to each his own, I guess."

[MK Kilmarnock]

Zan looked a bit oddly to Victor, taking a deep breath before speaking as the only indication of mild irritation.

"I c-can manage, so yes... to e-each their own. If we were required to fight, I w-would either support the party with my spells or simply get off the h-horse. I hope that explains m-my logic. Don't... don't worry, I'll manage."

[DavidByron]

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Trying to figure out who we have still with team Mongoose so I'll try to leave it a little vague. At any rate rather than rush Zan's chat with Ana which is an unrelated issue I thought I'd move it to the old common thread here.

Matthew:
I'll go and pick up the scythe first thing in the morning.

Eldon:
Well if there is nothing else....?

The meeting breaks up.
[hr]
Next morning Sandra and Victor are at the stables picking out the horses for those that don't have their own yet. The rest of the team is assembled, and also Father Eldon. Matthew finally arrives with Zan's staff / scythe. It's wrapped in a little piece of sacking like a long thin bag. Matthew hands the package to Zan, "It's all there."

Eldon:
Well you can examine it on the way Zan. You better all get going; it's a long way to Khorinis and the others have a head start.

[MK Kilmarnock]

Tapping his flask once to ensure that he had filled it for the trip, Zan gently took back the scythe from Matthew, nodding. "I understand... it w-would be better to wait until we g-get moving anyhow." He then smiled and crouched to embrace Father Eldon, paying constant mind to his parcel. "Th-Thank you! We w-will succeed, I can assure y-you that!" He walked backwards through the door, nodding a farewell.

[DavidByron]

Matthew:
Eldon's a little worried team Platypus can't handle fifty goblins at once yet. Thirty maybe, but fifty's a bit large for a goblin army scout group. Figured it best to double up our squads if they were doing the same. But the Platypi did well. They sunk the enemy rafts, so that's a win, right?

Two rafts, maybe it was two squads just happened to be traveling together.

When you get up to near Khorinis watch out for signs the others trying to find you. Their wizard, Kate uses fire a lot and the color pink. I'll get a message to them to meet you on the far side of the hill that's just before Khorinis as you head up the road from the South.

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which reminds me to get round to issuing XP. I've been wondering what sort of style to use....

With business finished in Bridgeport the adventurers set off on horseback. Out of the old town center past the old library, now the residence of the new Doge, Bruce Wrightson. Past the Empty Tankard, the upscale inn and restaurant with five bars where Dravick used to work. Out of the old center and on to the Bridge where almost all the adventurers were initially met by Eldon on a spring day only a few months ago. Waiting with a handful of complete strangers wanting to become "Adventurers". So green that the best place to tell them to meet was Bridgeport's most famous and visible land mark.

Today of course the Tree is more visible still, and almost more famous it seems. More talked about that's for sure.

The Bridge is guarded by a token force of halfling warriors armed with spears and slings. They seem to recognise the adventurers. Not as individuals perhaps but as belonging to the guild. The halflings give a friendly salute as soon as its clear the adventurers aren't going to try and cross the Bridge. On and past the unusually quiet river docks. The dwarves' factory / warehouse and the warehouses being used by the Khorinis refugees. A few kids run along beside the horses for a while but they seem more interested in the riders than their money today. "Going out to kill goblins?", "They're off to take back Khorinis!" Muddy Boots, the iconographic working dwarves pub, on the right, and the log jam on the left; but few logs today of course. The river is quiet. Finally out of Bridgeport's main gate and on to the river road that continues on all the way to Lauden and lake Heart, though that is many days travel, many hundreds of miles. Khorinis is about a third of the way.
<hr>
Mid day and many miles from the city.

The adventurers come to a dilapidated brick building next to the road. It has a thatch roof and a shingle over the door: Broken Sandle Roadhouse. The only other buildings are an outhouse and a lean-to sheltering a few crumbling squares of peat. A sign on the door says "Closd for wintr"

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it's late summer btw

[MK Kilmarnock]

Along their trip, Zan got even more quiet as usual. While most of the time he was dwelling on the weapon on his back, he also recognized the direction that they were going. "If w-we go this way.... we'll be heading... um... in the direction of my home" he mentioned passively.

Once they had reached the house, Zan looked at it with some repulsion.
"Th-this person m-must hate the letter 'e' or something! W-well, there's no point in dwelling over it..."

[DavidByron]

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or even "dwlling ovr it"

The Broken Sandle Roadhouse has appeared in the campaign before with old team Adder coming across it briefly. So this is a bit of memorabilia for me and Doc; everyone else from the old Adder is no more.

Investigate or not; all roads lead to Khorinis eventually.

[Akyana]

Sandra spent some time seeing which horses were easier to spook then others. Making sure that those that spooked the most were not used. She didn't want to deal with a thrown rider. She, of course, used her own horse. She didn't talk much as they road out. Riding near the back of the group, if asked she would claim it was to make sure that she could go after a inexperienced rider if they lost control. Though the look on her face said something else was on her mind.

[SithLackey]

Victor spends the morning happily grooming Alexander and cleaning the horse's saddle. It's been a while since he's had a chance to spend time around horses, so he counts it as a generally red-letter day. As he goes about his business, he sings, or rather, chants, a few Vanorian psalms.

Later, as the group rides along, Victor will position himself at the front of the group, sitting upright and clearly pleased with his present situation. When they reach the Broken Sandle Victor brings the mighty beast he rides to a halt. "Looks like they'll be closed for more than just winter. I wonder..." No, we really need to get going. But why would they just leave? Were they attacked? Eventually, his curiosity gets the better of him, and he rides closer to the door of the house. From there he dismounts and gently pushes the door open.

[DavidByron]

The door creaks a lot but it is locked or possibly just stuck / damaged. Victor could probably bust it open easily enough though. Looking through a partially boarded up window the floorboards inside look rotten and decayed. The interior is in bad shape. Nature has taken over and begun to reclaim the building. Grasses shoot up through floorboards and the place is covered with (normal looking) cobwebs. Glancing round the side of the roadhouse Victor sees an old hand pump in the back and the remains of a broken cart.

[MK Kilmarnock]

Zan closed his eyes, muttering something to the effect of "Why are we examining a building if you know it's closed for winter?". He didn't argue the point too much, especially since Victor looked really curious.

If able, Zan did his best to get his steed to actually go... you know, where he WANTED it to go. For the most part, he was in the back but ahead of Sandra, so his horse naturally wanted to follow the others. Getting it to divert somewhere else was a rather tough job.

Dismounting, he looked for a place to tie the horse off to before just giving up and setting up the reins, following Victor.

"Find anything.. interesting w-while we divert... eh... from our c-course?"

[SithLackey]

As he readies himself to break the door open, Victor looks at Zan. "Odd that the winter closing sign is up in summer, yes?" With a grunt he runs his shoulder into the door, hopefully jarring it open. "I know it has nothing to do with meeting the others, I just couldn't help but wonder why." He steps into the decrepit building gingerly, taking a slow look around.

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I wasn't sure if "easily enough" meant "without a roll" or "with a low DC", so I assumed the former. If you want one, though... STR - (1d20+2)[14]

[DavidByron]

Nothing more of interest can be seen from inside the building. It is/was a simple layout. One large public room at the front, a kitchen and two smaller rooms at the back. The kitchen has a door onto the back yard. The floorboards creak a lot but hold Victor's weight.

[MK Kilmarnock]

Zan held up a single finger as Victor breached and entered the building.

"Y-You... um, don't mind if... if I stay out here, d-do you? As backup... c-call me if you need help."

[SithLackey]

Victor takes one last glance around and, seeing nothing, returns to the exterior looking disappointed. "Ah, they probably just moved on once the goblins started running around." He heads to his horse and, unless anyone else wants to stay, starts back off on their original course.

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Aaand... That's it for the weekend. C U L8R.

(hehehe)

[MK Kilmarnock]

Zan sighed raggedly when Victor walked away from the building. The sigh evolved into a groan, and then a growl. In the finale of his fit, he stomped his foot and took a step inside.

"G-G-Great! You've got me c-curious, b-b... bringing us over here and... ..." He continued walking inside, looking around and exploring.

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Search
(1d20+3)[15]

[DavidByron]

Zan goes through the house and out the back door through the kitchen area. He notices some footprints in some mud by the old pump round the back of the roadhouse. They are barefoot and about 18 inches in length.

[MK Kilmarnock]

Zan gulped and stared downward between the footprint and his own foot.
"Oh... oh y-yeah, that is.... a b-bit bigger than my own." He wasn't an expert tracker or anything, but he could tell there was something not right about these footprints. Walking carefully as to not destroy his findings, he made his way to the rest of the group.

"V-Victor, Sandra... um... u-uh, maybe you guys sh-should come see this?"

[DavidByron]

Yep. Big ol' footprint. Humanoid. It's easy to see it because the ground right there is muddy by the old water pump. The rest of the ground hereabouts is pretty dry.

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The river road doesn't always stay close to the river; the river's about a half mile West of you, the roadhouse is on the East side of the road.

Victor:
Shh! It may be about still Zan.

But it isn't. At least after a couple of minutes of careful listening and sneaking about by people who are terribly sneaky and quiet there is no sign.

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Who do we have playing still? Please make a post saying something.

[SithLackey]

Victor turns back around as Zan enters the building, his eyebrows raised. Seems I'm not the only curious one, then, Victor thinks, and follows Zan back into the building.

After hiding for a couple of minutes, Victor stands back up, looking a bit embarrassed. "Or, you know... Maybe it was just passing through... Whatever it was, though, it was BIG. Hmmm, actually, that print seems kind of familiar. Victor heads back out to where the giant footprint lies in the dirt, wracking his brain for where he knows it from. While he thinks he begins, almost unconsciously, to scan the area for more of the tracks.

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Well, I would guess that identifying the footprint is going to take some kind of Knowledge - (1d20+1)[18] check. Victor has the same bonuses in all of them. Also, while there he'll see if he can find any other signs of whatever made the track. Again, Victor has the same bonuses for search and survival, so whatever you want... Skillz - (1d20+2)[13]

[Akyana]

(Sorry about not posting... but *Waiting on horse back* doesn't seem worth posting)

Sandra watches as the people start entering the old house and sighs some. She starts to search around the outside of the building to make sure no one was waiting outside the back door and stuff.

[MK Kilmarnock]

There was no immediate response from the cleric. Instead, he simply stood over the tracks and Victor, remaining quiet like he was told. Even if there wasn't anything around to hear him, there was nothing he could say on the matter. Because of this, he used the opportunity to unhook the bound scythe from his back and check over it a little.

[DavidByron]

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"Waiting on horse back" is absolutely worth posting for two reasons. Firstly because it helps me know that you are active and that I don't have to wait another 24 hours in case you wanted to say something but couldn't get on-line. That means we can proceed a little quicker.

But secondly and more important because it's role playing which is the whole game. "Waiting on horse back" tells us more about Sandra (uh - not "Sarah right?) in this case that she is keen to get on and a little annoyed at this pointless interruption, but not enough to make a scene.

Hopefully we'll get more PC-to-PC interactions when the groups are merged. For whatever reasons it's been quite limited so far except between Sandra and Zan.

Victor doesn't have much idea about the footprint beyond common sense stuff. It's a large sized humanoid creature by the look of it. It looks like a human-like foot rather than a scaly deformed foot with claws so it's more like an ogre or a hill giant or a really really big human than, say a troll. Trolls and hill giants would be pretty rare this close to a big city like Bridgeport surely? The other side of the river is the Bog (a large marsh land) which is troll country. Hill giants... well they are sometimes seen in the Vanorian plains but they usually stick to their mountains. Victor is not sure if that is the same on the East bank of the Timber. An ogre or human sounds most likely but there are all sorts of things it could be.

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Common sense for a Vanorian that is.

Zan's scythe's head has been fused to the top of the Staff. In addition there's a hinge in on the scythe head allowing it to be snapped down plush with the wood making it look more like a sort of large mace. It's a little stiff. There's a ratchet to stop it in the "open" position. It's a bit like a huge pen knife but the blade doesn't enter the wood. There's a symbol of Boccob (eye and pentagon) near the hinge.

Sandra is mindful that they have to hurry to catch the Otters who are traveling by boat.

[MK Kilmarnock]

Zan smiled and turned the scythe a few ways a couple times each. "I h-had figured he'd just sl-slap the head onto the staff, but th-this really does it! And he had the s-..symbol engraved too." Zan looked at the scythe with at least a little more kindness than before, since that symbol was put over either partially or completely where the worn out and near-invisible one of Nerull had been.

"A-Are you trying to atone f-for your sins? Whatever you and the st-staff may have caused... I b-b-... bet you like talking to each other and trading stories!"

This all might have looked rather strange... since, you know, Zan was trying to have a conversation with a weapon.

[DavidByron]

Victor inquires at the next village if there has been any trouble recently. "No sir" is the reply. The adventurers keep moving, pushing their horses to try and catch up with the head start that the Sampo has on them. Nevertheless horses need their rest even more so than people. Victor recounts a trick sometimes used by the Vanorian squads if they have a cleric with them. By healing the horses using magic, their exhaustion can be alleviated and another ten or fifteen miles can be made each day.

Using this technique the squad of adventurers reaches close to Khorinis in just four days. As they draw closer to Khorinis the hamlets they pass close to seem deserted but they press on past. Nothing is seen along the road except for a pair of big cats on the third day, passed by at a distance and without incident.

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The leopards gain experience for defeating a group of 3rd level PCs by evading them successfully.

On the morning of the fifth day the group leaves the road and travels towards the agreed upon rendevous area across country. Sandra is able to recognise the correct valley just before Khorinis, having come this same way in reverse not too many weeks past, just prior to the outbreak of war. The last hill lies before them, covered in a good forest. Not the best place for fighting on horseback. It is noon. The group breaks on the outskirts of the wood to discuss the best tactics for finding the other Adventurers.

They don't have to consider the problem long before it solves itself; behind them back the way they have come they see two figures. One is hard to identify but the other is recognisable as Althea, the tall blond barbarian that had set off with the crew of the Sampo. The two are heading as if following the tracks of the horses. Within minutes they arrive. Althea wears her adventurers' guild pin. The other figure is a young man. Althea hails her fellow adventurers and introduces the young man.

Althea:
This is Benjamin; he's with the Khorinis resistance. We met them a couple of days ago. He's the son of their leader.

[MK Kilmarnock]

Seeing as a cleric was required for the revitalization of their steeds, Zan found himself to be the honorary 'veteranarian' of the party, and thus was working throughout the whole trip by this point. Upon reaching the outer edges of Khorinis, Zan had consumed the entirety of his flask and any refills he may have put into it, leaning onto his horse's neck for extended periods of time.

"F-.... Final...ly. Glad w-we're there..." The break was much-welcomed by him, and he was snoozing by the time Althea met up with the rest of the party.

[DavidByron]

Althea:
They've got a way into the city to meet up with the others but I don't the horses can go that way. It involves some climbing.

Benjamin:
Miss, I can look after the horses

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Hopefully get back to some riding around later on although it might take a while.

[DavidByron]

Althea leads the Mongoose team to the city of Khorinis that night. She signals with a lantern at a certain spot outside the city walls and a rope is let down which the adventurers ascend. The whole group is led to the house where the others are already waiting. Marko, Dragutin, Durx, Dravick and Kate are there already.

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You can all start to post in the Cap'n Marko thread now.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...53#post5782253

For a quick recap of the Khorinis story so far (summary: met the resistance and they have taken you into the city and put you up in a big house), start reading from post number 142.

So we are now merged.