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Another new world, of sorts. Marcus, Tharkon, Sequoia, Leaf and Wulf are
returning from a meeting at Doolin castle. Lord Elbling, Marcus' father,
had sent him to discuss with the other attendees at the meeting the
proposals of a new Lord, with a castle of his own, further to the
south. Gendolrin keep is home to the party, along with Marcus' family, and
Laureral, a mage, and teacher to Marcus and Tharkon. Laureral is of no
mean power, and has Gendolrin supplied with fire and heat from one of the
volcanoes to the north, through the use of magic. Sequoia and Leaf are
rangers and generally hang out in the forest surrounding Gendolrin, both
having a particular dislike for ogres, who are plentiful enough in the
area.
The journey home has been boring enough, and as the party draw
close to home they come across a strange dishevelled fellow lying face
down in the mud. Leaf is concerned about the lack of tracks leading into
the muddy clearing, and states that it is as if the fellow just appeared
there.
Gruff picks himself up off the ground, and is well pleased to find himself
in the open air, covered in familiar mud and filth. Gruff tells his
strange story as the group head back to Gendolrin, and the others discuss
the meeting with Celsus in Doolin. Gruff is upset upon hearing the name of
Celsus and inquires as to who/what/when/where he is and what he is
doing. Marcus explains that Celsus had called a meeting to discuss more
contact between the keeps, but Gruff is adamant that Celsus is evil. He
shows the party Haiko's notebook, but although the language seems
familiar, it is not readily readable.
In due course the party arrive back in their keep, and Gruff talks to
Laureral. She is an old half-elf (the only elf or half-elf around
really) and basically dismisses Gruff as a nut. Tharkon is able to confirm
some of Gruff's story in casting 'comprehend languages' upon the notebook,
and it does indeed set out the events Gruff had described (and it's not as
though he could have written it). Gruff is glad to back in boar country
and gets himself re-equipped with a shield and spear. In turn, he hands
over the leather and parchment spell scrolls still in his possession to
Tharkon.
The party decide it might be a good idea to check out this Celsus
person for themselves, and decide to head south, past the familiar Doolin
(about two weeks away) further onwards to where Celsus is said to have a
castle of his own. A couple of days after setting out the edge of the
familiar forest around Gendolrin is reached, and more rocky terrain
begins. About a week later the party spot a strange looking bear having a
drink in the river, but when approached by the rangers it jumps in and
floats off past the party.
On the next day another bear is encountered, but this is a black
bear, and this time amongst a clump of trees. Wulf is closest, but
forestalls his attack at the request of the rangers and Gruff, who both
think that they can pacify it. Wulf is struck by a bear claw for a little
damage, and then Gruff makes his attempts to charm the bear using 'charm
person or mammal', one of his new found powers granted by the boar
spirit. For some reason it doesn't work, and Sequoia and Leaf step
forwards towards the bear, trying to pacify it with their natural affinity
towards animals. The bear seems to lose interest in attacking, and wanders
off to look at some berries. Gruff goes to tend to Wulf's wound naturally,
but he doesn't succeed.
Two more days pass before the party reach Doolin. Doolin is about twice as
big as Gendolrin, and consists of a large castle in the mountainside. The
familiar part of the journey is over, and the group see about where and
how far this castle of Celsus' is to the south. The idea that a guide
might be useful comes up, and a young man named Bid offers to help (in
exchange for a silver necklace that was offered). Bid aspires towards
being a ranger, but would still be more familiar with the mountainous
terrain to the south than Sequoia or Leaf. The party are to set off the
next day, and are concerned about supplies, but Gruff assures everyone
that they'll be fine with a couple of berries.
Indeed, on the night of the first full day out, Gruff is able to nourish
the entire party with only one berry each, thanks to the boar spirit, he
says.
That night, a giant beetle attacks the party. Tharkon is bitten up
in his sleep, and carried off by the creature. The beetle's lair is
eventually tracked down by the rest of the party, but there is no sign of
Tharkon's corpse, or the beetle.
In the meantime, Tharkon has found himself coming to, somewhere in the
forested mountains. He has a vague impression of having been attacked, but
feels fine. Checking himself for injury, his clothes seem fine, but
somehow not like his own. Checking his stomach, there is a large scar that
definitely wasn't there before, but looks long healed. Thankfully, the
main river appears to be nearby, and Tharkon begins to head upriver
(hopefully) towards Doolin. After one unpleasant night spent sleeping
under a bush, he arrives back in Doolin. There is no sign of the rest of
the party, and Bid's father is anxious to know what happened to him.
Later that day, the rest of the party arrive back in the castle intact,
having given up on going south. They are relieved and surprised to see
Tharkon, and ask him what transpired. He explains, and Gruff asks to see
his wound. The cleric at Doolin also has a look, but he too reckons is
looks like an old scar, probably healed by magic. During the night,
Tharkon casts 'detect magic' upon himself, but he detects nothing. Gruff's
boar spirit can grant him the ability to 'detect evil', but he too notices
nothing.
After having rested for a day, the party set back out for home. It
is only a couple of days before some stupid ogres decide to attack the
party. The party are on a fairly board ledge winding around the side of a
mountain, when two ogres somehow manage to go long enough undetected to be
suddenly in front of the party. There is only enough room for the lead
ogre to attack, but it fails to hit Sequoia (in the lead). Tharkon tries
to blind the lead ogre by casting 'light' into its eyes, but the ogre
saves against the spell, and it is harmlessly cast into the air. Sequoia
attacks in return, hitting with both, for a total of 8. Wulf steps up,
ready to attack in the next round, and Leaf and Marcus take out longbow
and crossbow.
The party attack first in the next round, and Sequoia deals out
another 11 points of damage from two attacks. Wulf finishes it with an
unnecessary critical, scoring 20 points of damage. Marcus and Leaf manage
to hold up their bow attacks on the now dead ogre. The second ogre runs
off, and the bowmen and Tharkon run after it. After one round the ogre is
a reasonable way in the distance, and trying to climb up the steep slope
to get away. The party stop to fire, and Sequoia hits it once for 4.
The ogre is still climbing in the next round, and Marcus hits for
8, Sequoia for 1, then snapping her bowsting, and Leaf just misses. In the
next round Leaf and Marcus miss with all of their shots, and the ogre is
still clambering up the slope in the distance. There is more luck in the
next volley of shots, and both Leaf and Marcus score 6 damage. Marcus
finishes it with his next shot, doing 8 damage, and sending the ogre to
ogre heaven. The others catch up just as the ogre is being dispatched, and
everyone presses on.
It is only a while later when Bid enquires of Sequoia if the things the
party have just rounded the corner upon are more ogres. Sequoia replies in
the negative. They're hill giants. The two giants are about twenty feet
ahead on the ledge, and are reaching for boulders to throw at the
party. Again Tharkon tries to cast 'light' into the eyes of the enemy, and
again he fails. Sequoia has repaired her bowstring by this point, and
after taking 7 damage from a thrown rock, manages to hit the front hill
giant for 4. Leaf is the only other to have a straight line of fire, but
only manages to break the string on her bow. The party close up a little
and Sequoia is again hit by a boulder for fair damage. She again manages
to hit the giant in return, but it is barely a graze.
The lead giant misses with his thrown boulder, and the one behind
has taken to lobbing rocks up in the air to land them on the party. His
first attempt is spot on as far as the party are concerned, and it crashes
down on top of his companions head. Wulf and Leaf move up toe to toe with
the lead hill giant, and Sequoia and Marcus try to get into position to
get off at least one shot at the giant.
A 'flaming sphere' appears just behind the front giant thanks to Tharkon,
and Wulf and Leaf attack. Wulf and Leaf's sword attacks miss, but Leaf
manages to scrape it with a dagger. Marcus manages to get off a shot with
his crossbow, but misses, and then finds himself knocked to the ground
below a successfully lobbed boulder from the second hill giant. The front
giant doesn't manage to hit anyone, but nor does Sequoia with her
shortbow.
The lead giant is beginning to feel the burn from the 'flaming sphere',
and seems to gesture to his companion to remove it, who, with giant like
intelligence, opts to pick it up. Wulf gets in a good attack on the giant
in front of him, scoring 15, and Leaf finishes it with her next blow. In
the back, Gruff successfully tends to Marcus without the use of a curative
spell, and gets him back on his feet feeling a good bit better.
The ledge in between the lead fighters is now blocked with a giant
sized corpse. Wulf tries to clamber over it, but only succeeds in falling
a good 30ft down off the ledge till he stops on the rocky slope, arms and
legs lying at awkward angles. Sequoia opts not to clamber over the
corpse. The giant has had enough of holding the 'flaming sphere', and
takes a little more damage, then hurls it straight at Leaf, knocking her
unconscious or more. Tharkon cancels the spell just a second too late.
The next rock thrown by the giant strikes Gruff, but he still manages to
restore Leaf to consciousness without the use of a 'cure light
wounds'. Sequoia misses with both of her bowshots, the string snapping on
the latter, and Marcus doesn't get a clear line to fire. Marcus remembers
the 'sleep' scroll in his pack (one of the scrolls provided by Gruff) and
spends the round getting it out.
The hill giant, however, having run out of boulders, takes off. Marcus
doesn't get a chance to read out the scroll, which is fortunate, he
remembers later, because it wouldn't have worked on a creature as tough as
a giant. With as much expedience as possible, Gruff is lowered down the
slope to Wulf. Wulf was only unconscious, and Gruff restores that much,
but not his broken arm and leg. Wulf is hauled back up to the ledge, but
clearly cannot move on his own. A lot of Wulf's stuff is broken and it is
about fifteen minutes since the giant left. Marcus is able to cast
'Tenser's floating disc', which he can use to carry Wulf on the trail
behind him for an hour. After Gruff heals the rangers, the party press
on. An hour later, the floating disc ends, and the party soon stop at the
next reasonable place to spend the night.
The party stop early enough in the evening, so it is a good twelve
hours before morning. Gruff has recovered his healing spells, and tries to
splint up Wulf's leg. He does an excellent job of the splint, and seals it
with a 'cure light wounds', leaving Wulf's leg just as good as new. Gruff
performs no worse in tending to Wulf's arm, and the party are soon ready
to travel. That day passes uneventfully, and the next morning Gruff has to
stop to search out some herbs for his funny way of healing, but otherwise
the party make good travel until nightfall.
That night, the party are woken by Leaf. She was on watch, and
shouts that something has happened to Sequoia. Sequoia is on her feet, and
scraping at some yucky black slime stuff covering her head. It is all the
party can do to attack the black stuff with daggers, hoping not to injure
Sequoia. Gruff tries to turn away the slime with his faith in the boar
spirit, but that doesn't work. In the next four rounds, Sequoia is hit
twice by Leaf and once by Marcus in their efforts to remove the slime from
her head. She seems to be getting injured by the creature too.
Gruff creates a 'flame blade' in the hope that fire will be more
effective against the creature, but wielding a flaming scimitar close to a
friends face is no better than stabbing her face and neck with
daggers. Wulf does manage to hit the slime creature without injuring
Sequoia (it seems), but does not kill it. After about eight rounds with
the creature on her face, Sequoia falls to the ground, and stops fighting
against it. Leaf kneels to continue trying to scrape the creature off, but
it detaches itself, and slurps off into the undergrowth. Gruff moves to
tend to Sequoia. He is able to restore her without the use of magic, and
once she is conscious, he heals her up with a couple of 'cure light
wounds'. Sequoia is uninjured, apart from the scrapes given to her by the
rest of the party, and doesn't really remember being attacked, except for
blackness.
Deciding to move out of the immediate area, Tharkon casts 'light' upon a
dagger, and the party use the half hour duration of the spell to move
through the night to another camp place where they rest for the rest of
the night without incident. The next day passes normally, with Gruff
searching for herbs, and curing those that still need it. Sequoia is
concerned that the last night's attack may have left her less handsome
than she was, and some scars are indeed forming on her face and neck. One
on her neck even looks a little like that weird coat of arms that Celsus
has.
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