December Session Notes (Summary)

December 18th, 2004
Readying 15th, 575 CY
Irongate
Both churches, Heironeous and Tritherion, advise the Swords to split up in order to have a better chance at travelling incognito. Stealth is of the utmost importance. Therefore, Kobort and Fiona and Tar'uush will travel north and then cut west to Obelton, near Scant. Kespin, Westwind, Wrye and Celume will travel along the Coast Road and then cut over to Obelton to meet Kobort at the White Lion Inn. From there we will proceed together to Scant to find a ship.
Kespin gives a performance in Irongate and at the end, announces that his next performance will be in Pitchfield, on the way to the Glorioles to slay dragons.

On the way out of the city:
Wrye spots someone sneaking into a window in the temple quarter, but ignores it and moves on, not wanting to be distracted. The plan is that he leaves by the western gate at daybreak and we all meet up a few miles out on the coast road. At the gate he is questioned by suspicious dwarves, but manages to appear an innocent tourist, so they let him through.

Westwind heads out by the docks where the caravans form to get to the coast road via Scumtown. On the docks, he hears cries of alarm and turns to see 2 fully-laden ships being attacked from the water. Four humanoid, scaly skinned creatures with fins on heads, arms and back and with mouths ufll of sharp teeth (and soon, full of sailors) attack each ship. They're using weapons, and one wears a metal torc. Two sailors have already been pulled into the water, and blood is spreading.
Westwind debates for a half of a heartbeat, then moves closer and readies his bow. Caravan guards on the docks are also reading crossbows, preparing to "Protect the goods!"
Westwind uses a +2 arrow on the one with the torc as the guards strike the others with their bolts. Unfortunately, one also struck a sailor, who falls over into the bloody water.
The leader pulls Westwind's arrow out, speaks to the rest. They grab three sailors, pull them overboard and disappear into the water. The rest of the sailors beat the water with their oars, but nothing surfaces other than a couple of partially-eaten sailors.
Westwind meanders off.

Kespin's hat disguises Celume as a human merchant (with an elvish flair, of course, and a bad accent) and Kespin disguises himself as her large northman guard. On the way to the gate, Kespin spots some thugs approaching a street bard who'd been singing a moment before. They are obviously intimidating him, but Kespin walks on, sighs and mutters under his breath, "He wasn't that bad."

3 miles west of Irongate, we all meet up on the coast road, and drop our disguises.
The area is hilly, coastal wilderness. That day, we spot a group of dwarves or gnomes travelling along a side road a distance away, but do not meet them.

Night - Readying 17th
We pass up a sheltered spot that seems to have some holes and crevices in the hillsides in favor of a mostly bare hill.

2nd watch: group of 4-5 medium sized bipeds moving down the side of a hill north of our camp. Wrye and Kespin wake Westwind and Celume - "Trouble."
Wrye hears a murmured conversation in orcish, and then they try to sneak back up the hill away from us. Wrye will have none of that; he shoots off a fire arrow that lands in the middle of them, illuminating 5 figures. Wrye's second arrow skewers one. They scramble for the top of the hill; we follow. We hear them cry, "Help, help! Elves!" in orcish, and Wrye hears an answering cry. He yells back to us in Elvish, "Reinforcements."

Westwind calls, "Get to the high ground!" He pulls out a sunrod and strikes it, then charges up the hill after the orcs.
Celume draws her swords and catches up with Kespin, who turns invisible. Using Celume's glowing sword for light, they continue up the hill after Westwind.

Westwind crests the wooded hill to face down two groups of orcish archers, twenty all tolled and another four with battleaxes. Fearless, he charges into them, weaponless; of course they shoot him. Only four struck him, but one was an uncommonly good shot, and then the battleaxes started hewing away at him. It was all he could do to dodge out of the way, and we all lost sight of him. We worried, until we heard him yell, "Don't worry, guys, there's only a few of them! No rush, brew yourselves a cup of tea." He draws his sword and strikes back, to good effect.

Kespin, still invisible, heads for the archer ranks and stands in front of them while Celume moves to flank and sheathes her sword. Ten bowstrings twang in the darkness off to Celume's left, and an arrow grazed her.
The main group of archers, sensing Kespin's presence, step back and fire at him, but before they nock arrow to string the golden half-dragon appears and slices through four orc throats with Foeseeker. The second rank quailed, and their arrows missed the mark.

Another arrow found Wrye where he hid in the woods.

Westwind the ginsu-meister chops up orcs around him, insulting and intimidating them. "Your mother is an elf!"

Kespin skewers a couple more, and the remainder begin to back away. Wrye targets the two lieutenants, pinning their skulls to the ground through newly-gushing eye sockets.

Celume moves to engage those trying to avoid Kespin, since Westwind seems to be doing fine.

The orcish commander calls, "Kill the halfling! Kill the big one!" The orcs then rearrange, mostly around Westwind, being more willing to attack someone half their size than twice their size.
Another group charges Kespin, but the whole first rank disintegrates in front of him. Westwind attacks in a whirlwind, felling all those around him except for the surprised commander.

"Please correct my orcish," Westwind says, "but I think you're alone again." The halfling grins bloodily.

Kespin explodes the innards of the flanking leader with Foeseeker, and Celume somersaults around one only to pop up and stick him in the ribs with her thinblade.

The commander spooks, and yells, "Leave them for the next bunch! Run!" He doesn't get very far, though, as Westwind cuts him down before he can flee. Kespin and Celume stop two more, and Wrye continues his tradition of accurate archery.

We loot, and wait, but no other orcs appear. We find the leader's dwarven waraxe to be magical. Kespin heals Westwind, since the halfling had a bit of a scratch.

Readying 18th -- occasional rain. Uneventful.

Readying 19th -- storm gathering. Uneventful, heavy rain & winds. We spend a wet, uneventful night.

Readying 20th -- storm worsening, lightning and thunder. We travel four hours, then give up and start looking for shelter.

Wrye spots a cave with animal hide blankets covering the mouth of it. Wrye creeps forward, smells meat stew. Large (really, large!) booted footprints are just inside the blankets; Wrye cautiously peels back the blankets only to be faced with another layer of them. We begin to sneak in; Kespin is again invisible.
"Who's there?" asks a voice inside.
"Travellers," answers Wrye.
"In my cave?"
"Well, we would've knocked, but you don't have a door."
He tries to get us to pay 50 gp each to stay in his cave.
Westwind peeks in, sees a 7-foot tall human dressed in rough hides, carrying a sword across his back, a crossbow, and other armaments. He spots Westwind. "Perhaps for entering uninvited, I should charge 100."
"Perhaps you should," Westwind answers.
"Then I shall."
Wrye starts bargaining him down, and Celume shows herself; the cave dweller thereupon casts a spell, a cone of cold, at Wrye, Westwind and Celume -- and all three jump out of the way, unharmed. Behind a row of blankets, though, Kespin is chilled.

Westwind charges into the cave and grapples him, and Wrye shoots in and somehow avoids Westwind. However, there's no blood; Wrye shoots him again, straight in the forehead, and there's still no blood, though he slumps down. Celume stabs him in the side; still no blood. Someone then notices that his wounds are healing.

Westwind grabs his bag of devouring and wrestles it onto the man's head. The bag struggles briefly, and then the whole 7-foot tall body is sucked in, and is gone.

We search the place and find a chest with a mark of Tritherion with five gold bars of 500 gp value each. The box is trapped, so Wrye takes it out into the storm to open it. He sets the trap off, a gas trap, but luckily suffers no ill effects. We also find gloves and a scroll, both magical. The previous tenant evicted, we camp there overnight, but do not eat the orc-meat stew.

Readying 21st -- we catch up with a caravan of dwarves, some of them grievously wounded. Wrye and Kespin heal them. They are very grateful, though do not offer to pay, as no payment was agreed before the healing was given. That's okay with Kespin and Wrye, though. They end up telling the dwarves who we are, but make a deal to travel with them for a day and provide more healing in exchange for their silence. We travel, spend the night, and heal them in the morning.

We trade the dwarven waraxe, +2 as Kespin identifies it, to the dwarves for a +1 light crossbow, a +1 steel shield, a +1 dwarven war axe and +1 chainmail, which we later sell.
Wrye exchanges pleasantries and he and Westwind buy ale from them.

Readying 22nd -- Coast road, rocky reefs on shore. Mist, a ghostly translucent ship is on the rocks, being torn apart by the storm surge. Wrye and Celume are interested in investigating, but Westwind and Kespin pull us onward, reminding us that we don't want to have to keep Kobort waiting!

In Kurstand by evening, a trading stop and fishing village, home to a minor noble house. Rain, fog. We stay at an inn by the fishing port, the "Iron Wheel". Bloyer, the innkeeper, is a human with a large nose and a wart growing on his chin.
We bargain for a room, dinner, breakfast and a packed lunch. Wrye tries to bargain down, and then Kespin interrupts to pay more on the condition that we are not disturbed.

Kespin identifies the gloves as Gloves of Arrow Snaring. We agree that Kespin should keep them.

Readying 23rd -- still raining.
Afternoon, Wrye challenges Kespin to a race -- Wrye on Pookah against Kespin on foot.
Kespin immediately casts Expeditious Retreat and sprints ahead.
"You're cheating!" Wrye spurs on Pookah. "I ought to hamstring you right there!"
"You didn't say I couldn't cheat!"
As Kespin races to the designated finish, he spots people concealed along the side of the road. He keeps going, so as to win the race and then race back to report. However, as he reaches the finish line, a fireball explodes around him. He casts invisibility and disappears from view. The rest of us rush toward him.

A figure stands in the middle of the road, telling us to "Stand and Deliver!"
Wrye halts Pookah and shoots him. "Surrender now!" he advises as his arrow strikes a critical spot. Two more arrows before the man could respond, and he crumples to the ground. Another of Wrye's arrows strikes a concealed man, whose body tumbles from the bushes.

Kespin runs into the group of ambushers, and appears only as he breathes fire on them. All but one of them collapse, charred; the last one runs. Wrye shoots him in the back, and that takes care of them.

Each had a club, a longbow, quiver, and several arrows, leather armor, wooden shields, and very little coin. All except for the renegade mage who was dropped by Wrye's arrows; now he is encased in a force sphere over the crest of the hill. Kespin, having seen one of those before around Mike and Orrin at the dragon's lair, sits down to wait. Eventually it pops out, and a weasel emerges from the dead mage's sleeve and growls, warning Kespin off.
Kespin, not easily deterred, moves toward the mage's body, figuring to squash the weasel, but the weasel scurries up onto the dead man's chest and bites down hard on the largest bead on the necklace of fireballs.

The ensuing explosion completely chars the wizard's body and the weasel, and leaves Kespin smoking mad.

Readying 24th -- Longbridge, seat of House Cadwale, Duke Ansend Cadwale. On both banks of the river; the east bank is higher and therefore wealthier.
Find marketplace, looking for an assayer so that Westwind can sell the lump of molten gold, silver and platinum that he retrieved from the wizard's ashes. He sells it for 72gp, splitting it between us.
Kespin buys three pearls, being that Longbridge is in fact the pearl capital of the region. Celume buys a nice souvenir pearl and silver bracelet.

Westwind goes to the temple of Zilches and actually wins, then loses. On the way across the bridge, he tosses a gold piece off the bridge for luck, then returns to the group and offers to buy the gold trade bars back from everyone (the ones from the box marked with symbol of Tritherion).

Wrye finds Zenaron's Weapon Shop. We gather and bring the dwarven weapons there; he recognizes them as belonging to the dwarves, but believes us when we tell him we traded with them. Since he needs a day to appraise the goods, we leave them there and find rooms for the night at an inn on the east bank.

Readying 25th -- Sell the stuff for 4,750 gp total. Split it between us.

Readying 26th -- Set inland along smaller roads, which should save us a day if Wrye doesn't get lost. We pick up the pace a bit and march the full day to make better time. We pass through Hybergard, a more settled halfling area, and Wrye gets nostalgic. We stay overnight in Halmern village, in the common room of a small inn. We keep watches.

Readying 27th -- still periodically raining.

Readying 28th -- midmorning, we come into view of Obelton and Obelstone Keep. The weather starts roiling up again, another storm coming in. We head for the White Lion Inn, where we expect to find Kobort, Tar'uush and Fiona waiting impatiently for us.

909 XP each.