The Chronicles of Mordek Vol. 015

Gameplay Date 07-29-07

Players present:  Mordek, Taneus

Leaving for Nerom

Taneus & I decide that we're gonna head for the city of Nerom to see if we can find any more information on Zan.  Before we can actually leave town though, we're gonna need to get some supplies as the trip is a couple of days by horse.  Corny tells us that he plans to stay in Teryll for a while and help Meg get set up in her new place.  Meggit seems eager to join up with the new city guards, so it looks like he'll be staying in Teryll as well, but Luvana asks if she can come along.  It seems that Fazu told her to seek out the Temple of Obad-Hai in Nerom to follow her true calling.  So our first stop is over at Gilliam's to see about getting some horses and perhaps a cart.  He's more than happy to supply us with two horses and a cart since we help saved his business & home so recently.  So after we got them hitched up, we stop by the remnants of Meg's place to see if there is anything that Luvana can salvage.  Then it's a quick stop at Stape's Weaponsmith shop, as I'd like to see if he has anything a bit more to my liking than just my battle axe.  Finally we arrived at Wrend's place...  first thing I did was return the manacles we had borrowed the night before, then we stocked up on food for ourselves, a couple of bags of grain for the horses, a barrel of water, plenty of rope & canvas, a hammer & some nails, and bedrolls.  We had Luvana grab anything that she thought she'd need along the way and added her total in with ours, then we paid a fair extra amount to set up some credit with Wrend to allow Corny & Meggit to get some things they might need too.

We spent the rest of that day and the night there in Teryll to continue recuperating from everything we had gone through, and when morning came, we packed up everything into the cart, said our goodbyes and then made one final stop at the Garrison to buy a supply of arrows and crossbow bolts from Vorus.  Luvana climbed into the back of the cart to catch a nap.  She was probably up all night, excited about the prospect of heading out on her own.  Taneus & I lead the horses eastward until we hit the crossroads again, where we pulled off the side of the road to let the horses take a break.  Luvana had woken up from her nap, so we decided to give her a quick lesson on how to defend herself with her new quarterstaff.  Setting the bags of grain at the back end of the cart, which put them about torso high to a human, we showed her how to jab & swing using just one end of her stick at first, but then showing her how to use both ends to pummel an attacker.  While I was teaching her some finer points, Taneus spotted a speck on the horizon in the direction of Salaan.  Before long, he could make it out as some bird-of-prey.  It kept heading right in our direction, and finally came to land on the edge of the cart...  it's carrying a message from Fazu.  He lets us know that he was returning to the Burning Grove, and apologized for not telling us when he left.  After the bird flies off again, we turn our little group north on the road to Nerom.  As we are making our way, we can hear the distant rumblings of an approaching thunderstorm.  Taneus spotted some scrub trees not too far off, so we head that way to set up a bit of shelter.  We found two trees side by side and positioned our cart near them.  We unhitched the horses from the cart and tied them up to one of the trees.  Then we threw one tarp over our cart and secured it with rope, then we tied two corners of a second tarp to two corners of the cart.  Using some more rope, we were able to tie the two free corners of that tarp to each of the scrub trees and formed a bit of an awning in the space between the trees and our cart.  We gathered up a small amount of wood and set about making a little campfire under our little overhang.

To be continued...

The Chronicles of Mordek Vol. 014

Gameplay Date 07-01-07

Players present:  Mordek, Taneus

The Battle of Teryll - part 5 - The aftermath

As we're still examining Merrick's lifeless body, Vorus is approaching from the direction of the docks, armed and armored and demanding to know what is going on.  I guess he managed to get himself out of his little predicament.  As Vorus looks at us waiting for an explanation, Wrend & Divina approach from near to Wrend's shop, saying that they saw the whole thing.  So we fill Vorus in on all that we've gone through since we got back into Teryll, starting with the fires and the crazies, to Luvana's near sacrifice, our capture of the Erythnul priest, Cedric & Tundle's antics, and finally our encounter with Merrick.  After listening intently, Vorus says he wants the entire town to meet out front of the garrison at first light.  He then turns and heads off to let everyone know about the meeting.  I start cutting more strips from my ever-shrinking blanket to make some more bandages...  you know, I really need to just buy some extra blankets and cut up a bunch of strips ahead of time so they're already ready when I need them.  As I bind up my wounds, Taneus takes a look at the kid...  he's really hurt.  We need to get him back to Meg's to see if she can do anything to help him.

Taneus starts helping Cornelius hobble back to Meg's, while I move over to our cart full of prisoners, in order to pull it along with us.  But I stopped in my tracks as a see a pool of blood has appeared next to Tundle.  Checking him out, it looks like he woke up at some point and bit off the end of his own tongue and let himself bleed out...  he's dead!  Dammit!!  I was hoping we'd be able to get some useful information out of him.  Checking our other prisoner, he's still out cold, but alive.  I follow the others to Meg's and park the cart just outside.  Heading in, I arrive just in time to see Corny pass out from Meg's treatments as she's trying to stitch up his gash.  Once she's taken care of the kid, she comes over and takes a look at my injuries as well.  I ask her if I'm gonna get sick from Merrick's bite, like I did from the last rat bites I'd come here with.  Taneus says that this isn't the same thing since Merrick was a Were-Rat.  When she hears that, Meg pulls out some Wolfsbane for me to take, but she says we won't really know if it works until the next full moon in three days time.  If it doesn't work, I'll find myself changing into a Were-Rat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . wait, what?!?  I'm gonna turn into one of those things!!  With the whiskers and the tail and everything???  As Taneus starts to chuckle, I swear under my breath that if Merrick wasn't already dead, that I was gonna kill him!!  In the meantime though, I am feeling pretty weak from the bite wound, so I decide to turn in for the night, asking Taneus & the others if they can keep an eye on the prisoner tonight and wake me up in the morning in time for Vorus's meeting.

When I'm finally roused from sleep in the morning, I find that everyone's been busy.  Meg & Luvana had been putting together as many medicinal potions, salves, herbs, etc. as they could into the cart with our now awake, yet still shackled prisoner.  Luvana's also wearing some leather armor now...  guess last nights events kinda spooked her a bit.  Nobody's seen Fazu in a while though...  probably off checking on the Evertree.  As soon as everyone is ready, we grab the cart and head for the garrison.  There's already a crowd gathered around it, but we made our way through so we could drop off our prisoner in a cell, making sure to get Wrend's manacles back so we can return them to him.  Back outside we can see that Meg & Luvana have started tending to people's wounds right there at the cart.  Vorus waited a few more minutes to let a few stragglers arrive before he addressed the crowd.  Beyond the expected reassurances to the crowd that last night's events were over, Vorus made a motion calling for the city to choose a new leader.  Corny almost immediately piped up, suggesting that Meg should be in charge.  Though she was a bit taken aback and seemed not to want the responsibility, the loud approval of the crowd spoke otherwise.  As she reluctantly stepped forward to the front of the crowd near Vorus, she did voice a few changes that she had long wished to see implemented in Teryll.  She wanted to do away with all the taxes that Merrick had imposed on the townspeople, and she wanted to see a real city guard patrolling Teryll to help keep it safe.  Her ideas were met with a lot of enthusiasm.  When it quieted back down, Vorus motioned for Taneus & I to come forward.  He then told the crowd of the events from last night that not everyone knew, and our parts in all of it.  He then asked the entire crowd to welcome us as friends of Teryll...  well now...  I wasn't quite expecting that.  The crowd erupted with applause and huzzahs that took a little time to quiet down...  they're not expecting us to make or speech or something, are they?  Taneus gave a curt bow to the crowd in acknowledgement and I followed his lead, then we stepped back to allow Vorus to address the crowd again.

As he continued to speak, Taneus & I quietly slipped away from the gathered townspeople to go looking for Fazu and see what he was up to.  We checked around the Evertree and he wasn't there, so we checked down Cornelius's well underneath the Evertree, still no sign of him.  Thinking that perhaps he had gone to Merrick's residence in the hope of finding clues as to why his goons were so interested in the "Key" to Zan, we headed in that direction.  With Merrick & Tundle both dead, and Cedric not seen since he ran away last night, no one was around to restrain Merrick's war dogs, and they came charging right at us as we approached.  Taneus put his hand forward and sent forth a blast of fire that roasted them in their tracks, but they were still twitching, so I put a crossbow bolt in each of them to end their suffering.  We went around to a back window on the off chance that Cedric was hiding somewhere inside.  We managed to get a window open and quietly snuck in, but as we searched through the place, we found no sign of either Cedric, or Fazu.  We went outside again to find that Meg, Corny & Luvana are all approaching our way.  Meg's looking appraisingly at Merrick's residence saying "I think this place will do."  Sounds like Meg's gonna be setting up shop here in the near future.

To be continued...

The Chronicles of Mordek Vol. 013

Gameplay Date 06-17-07

Players present:  Mordek, Taneus

The Battle of Teryll - part 4

As we're heading our group over to Paginus's library, we pondered the fact that except for the 3 acolytes under the Evertree, our prisoner seems to be the highest ranking crazy running around Teryll, so maybe we managed to capture their leader.  Maybe we can get some answers out of him later.  As we drew near to the library, Corny runs ahead to shout for Paginus and make sure he's alright.  We find that he's fine, and currently sorting through his books to separate the ones damaged by fire.  As we're about to head inside, we spotted "The Gargoyle" heading away from the city and out to sea.  Paginus tells us that once everything went to hell, the sailors retreated to their ship and left the townspeople to fend for themselves.  I decide to remain outside to keep an eye on our prisoners, but close enough I can hear what they are saying inside.  Taneus asks Paginus if he knows of any books or scrolls or anything that might have made mention of Zan.  Unsure of where the books might be at the moment, Paginus tells us what he can remember himself.  The First Age was the Age of Making and was the creation of Caldor and there were only two land masses...  Straag & Xeptor.  The Second Age was the Age of Sundering.  Thousands of years ago, Zan lived on the continent of Xeptor.  From there, he wielded terrible and magnificent ancient magics.  But he wasn't the only one and he became bitter toward those he felt were unworthy and set out to eliminate all those not of his capability.  In doing so, when he unleashed his magics, he shattered the world into all the various islands.  The Third Age is The New Age that continues to this day, as people have settled back into the regions created by Zan.  Paginus tells us that's about all he remembers, but given time to go through the books again, he might be able to find more information.  Before leaving, Taneus asks Paginus if he has any maps of Caldor, both current and from before the Age of Sundering.  Digging through some stacks of parchments, Paginus manages to find a current navigational chart used by sailors to plot their course across the oceans.  It has the various land masses and a few major cities marked out, but mostly it deals with hazards at sea.

Taneus paid Paginus for the map and thanked him for his help, then the group came back outside the library.  We figure it's about time we got our prisoners locked up in a cell, and the last we knew, Vorus was still besieged by crazies and had locked himself into the garrison.  Before we could get moving though, Merrick is approaching.  He's absolutely livid and yells at Cornelius, "You little bastard!  You ruined everything!"  And all of a sudden, he changes into a bipedal rat thing.  He draws the rapier still belted at his waist and slashes the kid really deep!  By Moradin's beard...  what the hell is he?!?  I had my crossbow in hand in case any crazies came our way while I was watching over the prisoners, so I took aim at Merrick and let loose a bolt, but missed him, as he's a lot quicker than I would have expected.  While the others are drawing their weapons, I'm reaching into the quiver to pull out another crossbow bolt, when Merrick is suddenly right on top of me.  Forgetting all about using the crossbow, I gripped the bolt that was in my hand as if it were a dagger and stabbed it into Merrick's side, just catching a glint of silver as I plunged it in and left it there while I dropped the crossbow and attempted to draw another weapon.  The rat thing let out a huge squeal, but it didn't stop him.  The next thing I know, he's sinking his teeth into me.  Dammit...  I am not gonna be this thing's dinner!  I managed to pull out my war axe hoping to chop the damn thing's head off, but even as I connected with a solid strike, it didn't seem to faze him anywhere near as much as that crossbow bolt did.  This is not looking good!  At least not until Taneus managed to get behind Merrick as he was fighting with me.  He kept slashing at Merrick with a dagger, until between the two of us, he finally fell over dead.  As Taneus was inspecting the corpse, I manage to catch a glint of silver beneath the blood on Taneus's dagger.  I ask him what the hell it is, and he replies that it is a Were-Rat, and that it's a good thing we had a few silvered weapons in our possessions, otherwise we would've had a much harder time of killing it.

To be continued...

The Chronicles of Mordek Vol. 012

Gameplay Date 05-20-07

Players present:  Mordek, Taneus

The Battle of Teryll - part 3

The sun had gone down by the time we pulled ourselves up into Goblin's Knob cemetery, but there was still some light between the clouds and smoke.  And it appears that Gilliam and company have made some progress in getting the fires under control.  We decided to head for Wrend's shop to see if it survived and if we can get a few items.  Dragging our prisoner along, we made our way to the southwest corner of town to find that Wrend's place was largely intact, as were a lot of structures on this side of the town.  Guess being so close to a large water supply helped keep the fires under control.  Wrend was inside surveying the small amount of damage his shop had suffered when we arrived.  I asked him if he had a set of manacles we could put our prisoner in until we could get him into a cell.  As Wrend looked around for a pair, Taneus started filling up on arrows and grab a few quivers of crossbow bolts for the rest of us.  Wrend came back, manacles in hand, and I started putting them on our still unconscious prisoner.  Taneus suggested that we get some armor for Meggit, at which Wrend looked skeptically at the rather plump kid, not sure if he had anything that would fit him.  With our prisoner more secure, I spotted an empty push cart nearby and snagged it to wheel his unconscious form over to the garrison.  Wrend came back out with a set of leather armor, saying that with a little looser strapping from front to back, it might work for him.

Taneus said he was going to take Fazu with him, back over to Meg's place, to dig up the map we had found under the Evertree, from the place where he had hidden it in Meg's garden.  I loaded up our prisoner into the cart, then tried to help Wrend fit the armor to Meggit.  I even handed Meggit the morning-star of the man he had fought as a better alternative to that wooden sword of his.  Wow!  His eyes just lit up.  While we're waiting on Meggit, Taneus's raven swoops down and lands on the cart edge, then starts hopping like crazy.  My guess is that Taneus needs our help with something.  Telling Meggit & Luvana to stay here at Wrend's with the cart and keep an eye on our guest, and to knock him out again if he should start to wake up, Corny & I turn and start heading for Meg's place.  Before we get there though, we can see the problem.  Merrick's two goons, Cedric & Tundle, are standing over Taneus with weapons drawn, making him dig something up from the garden.  Fortunately, they had their backs to us, and we started creeping up right behind them.  At the last moment though, something caught Cedric's attention and he was able to dodge aside as the kid tried to jump him.  Tundle wasn't as fortunate as I knocked his legs out from under him and leapt on top of him.  With his partner now occupied and finding himself suddenly outnumbered, Cedric beat a hasty retreat.  Taneus and the kid then helped me render Tundle unconscious.  We relieved Tundle of his short sword, a silver dagger, his leather armor and a coin purse with 30 pieces of gold inside.  Then as I'm pulling out the rope, that had so recently bound our other prisoner, in order to tie up our new one, I tell the kid to go back to Wrend's place and help Meggit & Luvana bring our other prisoner here as quick as they can, so we can toss Tundle into the cart with him.  Taneus & Fazu gathered up the horses that we had kinda left roaming free when we first got back to Meg's, and then led them over to Gilliam's paddock so they wouldn't be wandering loose around the town anymore.

As we all gather back at Meg's place, Fazu is examining the map, or as he called it...  the "Key" to Zan, and the name seems to have him a little worried.  He explains that Zan was an ancient & powerful mage that ripped the world of Caldor apart, back in what is now referred to as "The Age of Sunder."  Long ago, there used to only be 2 major land masses, until Zan came along and changed Straag and Xeptor forever and created the 3 Shield Islands in the process.  The continents eventually settled back into the world as we know it today.  He goes on to tell us that the writing next to each of the holes on the map are a riddle, each referring to something of Zan's split up and buried away, most likely across the face of the whole world.  Cornelius suggests that maybe Paginus has some books on Zan, somewhere in that library of his, if it hasn't burned down.  Fazu adds that the High Temple in Nerom might also have more information regarding Zan.  He refers to Nerom as being the religious center on Wolfguard, where people of all faiths are welcome.  There are temples to St. Cuthbert, Pelor, Corellon Larethian, Obad-Hai, Wee Jas, Erythnul, Hextor and Olidammara to name a few...  WHAT?!?  No Temple of Moradin?!?  That's an outrage!!  We'll just have to see about that, now won't we!  He goes on to tell us that whichever temple has the biggest following in the town, that that group controls the High Temple of Nerom.  Looking at our first prisoner, Fazu says that if the Temple of Erythnul is attacking Teryll, then it is very likely that they have control of the High Temple, and if so, then Nerom is probably in chaos.

To be continued...

The Chronicles of Mordek Vol. 011

Gameplay Date 04-22-07

Players present:  Mordek, Taneus

The Battle of Teryll - part 2

The kid wasted no time as he hopped up on top of the altar and started swinging his sword at the acolytes to keep them away from Luvana.  I followed right behind and bull rushed the one that had been holding Luvana's arms, right into the wall at the back of the room.  He slumped to the ground unconscious.  Taneus followed us in and started pulling Luvana clear as Corny stabbed at the woman who had been holding her feet.  The other man started swinging back with the dagger in his hands.  Corny managed to get in a killing blow on the woman and jumped back off the altar as Taneus & Luvana cleared the room.  Fazu yelled for me to get out too as he was going to reclose the door on them.  Fazu grabbed the orb off of the pedestal in the outer room and I started retreating backwards myself.  But the door didn't close fast enough and the acolyte with the dagger managed to exit the room before it was sealed off again...  his unconscious friend wasn't so lucky though...  good luck getting out on your own, ya bastard!  Now with more room to fight and the numbers decidedly in our favor, the last acolyte didn't last long.  Heading back out though, we had to suffer another blast of cold from that damn Glyph thing.  Once on the other side, Taneus hands out a few more of his "drahf" leaves to me & the kid to deal with our newest injuries, and to Luvana to help with her minor wounds.  Fazu takes the orb with him so no one should be able to reopen that altar room.

Heading back towards the well entrance, we're stopped by the darnedest thing...  the sound of gleeful laughter is coming from the rat hole, accompanied by a few frustrated screams, which spark even more laughter.  We handed a torch to Luvana and gave her a dagger so she could defend herself, then started crawling back into the rat tunnels to find out the source of all the commotion.  The sounds are coming from the long western branch and lead us all the way back to the room where the coffins had fallen from the ceiling.  Inside was Meggit, looking like he was having the time of his life, fending off two skeletons, a zombie and a priestly looking man in half-plate armor...  and he was using a wooden sword to do it.  He was bouncing all over the room staying just ahead of the undead creatures and every once in a while, getting in a good whack on the priest and making him scream out in ever-growing anger.  As we all crawled into the room one by one in order to help Meggit, the priest managed to keep the undead creatures between him and us.  As the fight ranged around the room, the priest managed to get back to the tunnel entrance and started crawling away.  Quickly drawing and loading my crossbow, I was able to shoot one bolt into the priest's fleeing arse before he rounded a corner and disappeared from sight.  We dispatched the undead creatures as quick as we could then set out to follow the priest.

His tracks turned left at the very next intersection, which was a tunnel that none of us had explored yet in all of our trips down here.  It goes on in a northeasterly direction for about 60', then seems to turn eastward again.  Heading up the new tunnel, I can hear Fazu talking to Luvana behind me.  He's telling her that she may not realize it, but she's been chosen as a cleric of Obad-Hai...  focus people...  we're still chasing a bad man here!  As we turn the corner, the tunnel actually opens up into a proper passageway and there, about 30' away, is our priest, struggling to open a very heavy and very locked door.  He turns and comes at us with a last desperate attack, but with help from my friends, we manage to knock him down & out.  As I pull out my rope and start hog-tying our new prisoner, Corny has already searched him and came up with 2 potions, 2 scrolls, a very well crafted morning star, half-plate armor emblazoned with the symbol of Erythnul, and a coin purse with 100 gold, 26 silver & 4 copper pieces in it.  After securing our prisoner, we took a look at the door that kept him from escaping.  There doesn't seem to be a lock, but the door won't budge.  There's just two words carved into it's surface...  "LEVI - OMON."  As I was pondering how to bypass the door physically, Taneus was using his head and said the words "EVIL - MOON" and there was a soft click as the door unlocked.

Maybe we should have left it locked...  for when Corny opened the door, a huge stench wafted out at us...   damn!  That reeks!  Trying hard not to breathe it in, we found ourselves in a 15' x 15' room that was covered with filth.  Hard to say when anyone last cleaned down here as we didn't linger.  There was another large, locked metal door straight ahead of us.  The kid ran over and tried to jimmy the lock with his dagger.  I pulled out my toolset and handed it to him, saying "try these."  Unfortunately, he didn't have any better luck.  Taneus came over and took a long look at the lock, then he asked for one of the metal picks from my tools.  A few words and a wave of his fingers and the pick turned itself into a key, and with a click, the second door was unlocked.  Pushing it open created a loud screeching sound as metal grated on metal...  hope whoever lives here is deaf.  We came out into a room, 35' wide x 30' long, with very dim light coming from wall sconces spaced about 15' apart.  There are lots of crates, chests and barrels in here, and a staircase in the center of the room leading upward.  Taking a quick peak in the chests revealed quite a bit of coin, but until I knew whose basement we were in, I didn't feel right taking any of it.  Instead I went over to the stairs and quietly climbed upward to get a peak at the upstairs.

Taneus was right behind me as we found ourselves looking upon a well appointed room.  There was a fireplace to our left with a kitchen/pantry to it's left, 2 doors on the wall behind us that looked like they lead to sleeping quarters, a couple of sturdy tables surrounded by chairs filled the center of the room, and ahead of us were a pair of double doors with windows on both sides.  There was a lot of commotion coming from just outside those closed doors, so sneaking quietly over to the windows, we took a peek outside.  There were Merrick, Cedric and Tundle fighting off several of the crazies that were causing all the trouble around the city...  we're inside the Magistrate's house.  Well that decided it...  with the hedge wall surrounding the building and only the one exit that Merrick and company were steadfastly defending, we didn't think it wise to leave by that route.  So we decided to head back down into the tunnels and exit via the hole in the ceiling in the room where we had found Meggit.  As we came back down the stairs to collect everyone, including our prisoner, Corny was trying to drag one of the heavy chests of money out with him.  We told him to leave it, which he didn't seem to like very much, but he put it back where he found it.  Arriving back in the room with the skeletons & zombie, we started helping people up and out of the hole in the ceiling.  Meggit was being awful quiet though...  and he's got a weird look on his face.  We ask him if he's alright and he mumbles a response...  and a gold coin spits out of his mouth in the process.  Damn kid...  stuffed his mouth full of treasure while we were upstairs...  can't take your eyes offa them for a second!!

To be continued...

The Chronicles of Mordek Vol. 010

Gameplay Date 04-15-07

Players present:  Mordek, Taneus

When morning finally arrived, Beor was there to see us off.  As we exchanged our farewells, Fazu was getting really impatient to be on our way.  So we mounted up again and set off heading straight for Teryll across the plains.  The wind was against us the whole way as it was blowing out of the northwest.  Five hours and a padded, yet still sore arse later, we figured we were about 10 miles away from Teryll.  Looking ahead, we could see a large column of smoke rising up where Teryll should be on the horizon.  Pushing our horses to go faster, the smoke cloud kept getting bigger, and now we could see multiple columns of smoke.  As we near the city, the merchants & townspeople are evacuating any way they can.  The outer hedge wall doesn't seem to be on fire though.  We come up on a man leading his oxen away from the fires.  He's got a head wound, but he manages to tell us that some madmen just showed up and started burning everything.  He says they were led by three others, that the city guard had fled, and that no one was around to stop them anymore.  Looking at the city, even through the smoke and fire, we can see that the Evertree remains unscathed.  The man also tells us that the garrison had been completely surrounded by these madmen and Vorus had to lock himself inside, presumably to keep them from getting into the armory.

The south gate was closer, so we turned our horses that way and rode into the city.  Fazu broke off from us and steered his horse straight for the Evertree.  Corny though was much more concerned about Meg & Luvana and started heading toward her place.  Taneus & I followed right behind him.  Coming up on Meg's residence, we could see that the roof and the east wall were ablaze, and a prone form was lying in the garden.  Corny jumped down from his horse and ran to the person, while I dismounted, grabbed the blanket I had been sitting on and tore off a wide, long strip.  Running over to Meg's rain barrel, I dunked the scrap of cloth into it, getting it good and soaked, then tied it over my mouth & nose to help breath while in the dense smoke.  As Taneus was going over to help Corny, I kicked in the door looking for anyone trapped inside.  It's empty, but the place has been ransacked and there are definite signs of a struggle.  The back door is also wide open.  Heading back outside and over to Meg as she's being helped by Corny & Taneus, Meg keeps shouting "They took her!  They took her!" . . . . . . Luvana's gone!!  Cornelius suddenly got very concerned, but before we could do anything, a man brandishing a club comes running toward us, yelling like crazy.  I met his charge head on and quickly put him on his back on the ground.  Taneus put an arrow into him before he could get back up, and that was the last we had to worry about him.  Then, grabbing as many buckets as we could find and using the water in her rain barrel, we quickly set about trying to quench the fire destroying Meg's house.

Right next door to Meg's though, Gilliam's house is also on fire and he's trying to keep it from spreading to the stable where the few horses in his paddock are getting panicky.  After we finished dousing the blaze at Meg's, I had Corny bring one of the horses closer.  Using some rope, I tied up Meg's rain barrel so I had two long trails of rope coming off of it.  Draping those trails over the blanketed back of the horse, I got on the other side of the horse and pulled the ropes to lift the barrel off the ground, using myself as the counterweight.  Then I told Corny to lead the horse over to Gilliam's.  Between Gilliam's rain barrel and the remains of Meg's, we managed to get his blaze under control as well.  Looking around and seeing the rest of the fires all over town, I spotted an empty cart nearby.  I told Gilliam to hitch up one of the horses to it, while I started dragging the nearly empty rain barrels over close to it.  Once the horse was hitched, we loaded the two barrels into the cart and grab as many buckets as we could.  We then started leading the horse & cart to the well on this side of town, pausing just long enough to load up a third barrel from another residence.  As we neared the well, Fazu showed up out of the smoke.  He tells us that there are people with clubs running all over the town.  We tell him that our friend Luvana has been taken, possibly as the sacrifice we had heard about.  He mulls that over for a bit, then says that a "pure" blood sacrifice at the base of the Evertree may undo the spell that protects it.  Just then, another group of crazies start coming our way.  4 men & 2 women, all with clubs waving menacingly and 2 carrying torches to boot.  We managed to take them down without too much trouble, but they were slowing us down.  We can see the well from here, and the other few townspeople still trying to combat the fires, running back & forth from the well to the fires.  Tossing the clubs into the cart too in case they might be needed, we tell Gilliam to round up those other people by the well and have them help him fill the rain barrels and get more water to each burning building.

By now, the kid is chomping at the bit to go and rescue Luvana, so we left Gilliam in charge of dealing with the fires and headed toward the Evertree.  It was surrounded by more of those crazies, but there was no sign of Luvana.  Taneus suggested that maybe they were underground by the Evertree's roots.  So we made our may around the center of town until we came to Corny's well.  There was already a torch at the bottom providing some light down there, so we dropped down in as quickly and quietly as we could.  Whoever is down here left a sentry next to the centipede hole...  they should have left someone better, as we made quick work of him.  Before we went any further though, Taneus passed around some leaves, saying that if we ate them, they'd help with any wounds we had suffered.  Heading into the next room where the vine wall and orb puzzle are, we found that the vines were already drawn upward into the ceiling.  But as we passed the spot where the vines should have been, the kid & I got hit by an intense blast of cold.  Fazu & Taneus then spot what they called a Glyph of Warding...  would'a been nice if they'd spotted it a tad bit sooner.  Unfortunately, without a way to counter it, Taneus & Fazu suffer the cold blast themselves as they pass by it.  I pop one of the leaves Taneus had given me into my mouth to help counteract the bitter chill that just hit me.  Ahead we can hear 3 voices chanting, 2 male & 1 female.  As we round the last corner into the room where we had found that piece of parchment full of holes and covered in strange writing, we find an odd pedestal in the middle of the room with another orb sitting atop it.  And along the right wall, a new door stands wide open, a door we didn't come across the last time down here (bravo to the stone mason, he does good work).  Beyond that door is a small little room, barely 15' wide and 10' deep, with an altar right in the middle.  On that altar lies Luvana, her arms held down above her head by one of the men, her legs held down by the woman, while the other man, next to the first, stands poised over Luvana with a dagger about to be plunged down into her.  All I could think was "oh crap" and quickly stuffed the rest of the leaves Taneus had given me into my mouth.

To be continued...

The Chronicles of Mordek Vol. 009

Gameplay Date 04-01-07

Players present:  Mordek, Taneus

We headed west until we arrived at the last stream we had encountered and decided to make camp.  A badly wounded worg shows up...  probably Jade's handiwork as there weren't any worgs at the goblin camp.  Everyone of us is quickly pointing either a bow or crossbow at it.  The worg doesn't take long to reconsider his chances and beats a hasty retreat.  As we're all gathered around, Fazu & Taneus take a look through all of the scrolls to see what we have.  They say that 4 of them are for curing minor wounds, 4 more are for something called Blur and is useful for concealment, while the last scroll is used for protection from the elements.  We pulled out the handwritten note to see what it said as well.  It was short, cryptic & choppy...  "Roots of Evertree uncovered...  sacrifice chosen...  march to Teryll immediately."  Well...  that definitely doesn't sound good...  but there's not much we can do about it tonight.  Taneus says he'll stay up on watch until about 3:00 in the morning.  As I'm nodding off, one thought keeps going through my head...  I just know they're gonna make me ride a horse tomorrow so we can make better time.

By midnight, it starts thundering and by 2:00, there's a light rain coming down on us.  When morning finally arrives, I'm grumpy enough from last night's weather, and sure enough, Beor is already up and getting the horses ready to be ridden...  and bareback no less!!  Doesn't he know that us dwarves prefer a different mount entirely to those easily frightened, though admittedly faster excuses for a mule?  Though not seen here on Wolfguard Island, that noble brute of an animal, the war rhino, has fired my imagination ever since my grandfather told me stories about them back when I was but a child.  I just looked at the horses, knowing that it was either suck it up and get on one of them, or get left behind.  So after wrestling with those choices in my head for a while, I grabbed some rope from my pack and tried to rig up some semblance of a saddle and stirrups onto the shortest horse we had.  If I gotta ride this beast, I sure as hellfire ain't gonna keep falling off of it.

Once everyone was situated, we headed north following the stream until we came to a good spot at which to cross it.  We took a quick break to let the horses have a drink before setting off again, this time west, along the plain, near to the forest's edge.  As we're riding along, we manage to spot another Uegan about a mile off.  As we head toward him, Beor gets knocked from his horse by a giant praying mantis.  Taneus & the kid jump down off of their mounts to help Beor, but I stayed on mine to give me a higher view of the surrounding grasses, looking for more of those darn bugs, or worse, a gryphon swooping down out of the sky at us.  We are still close to the mountain range they nest in and definitely within their hunting territory.  After my friends killed the bug, the Uegan we had spotted arrives after having chased down Beor's wayward mount.  Together, they lead us back to the Uegan village.  Sound's like Beor is going to stay behind this time.  He thanks us and wishes us well and offers us 4 sets of bridles and blankets for our mounts.  Well, even though I greatly appreciate the extra padding...  my arse is still killing me.  We also ask if we can purchase a few more days worth of rations and if we can rest here for the night before continuing on.  Opening up one of the sacks of loot acquired at the goblin camp, we divided up the gold & silver we had gained and give Beor his rightful share of it.  Fazu had declined to accept any of the coinage, so we split his amongst Beor, Taneus, Corny and myself as well.   Feels good to have some coin back in my pocket.  Taneus, finally with some coin to his name, hands me roughly 50 gold pieces to pay me back for the loan I gave to him back in Teryll.  We stayed the night there at the Uegan village.  Everyone turned in as there were plenty of people on watch for us, but I stayed up a little longer.  Once I was sure that Taneus was asleep, I quietly slipped half of what he had just repaid me back into his pack.  I figured he'd watched out for, patched up and saved my arse enough to have earned it...  cripes!  I must be getting soft.  Dammit!

To be continued...

The Chronicles of Mordek Vol. 008

Gameplay Date 03-18-07

Players present:  Mordek, Taneus

We decide to make camp again for the night.  Fazu walked around, spreading his healing abilities among those that could use it, while Taneus opted to take the first watch.  Before any of us can settle down though, some insect-like worm burrows it's way up out of the ground.  Damn thing looks about as big as a horse!!  As we scramble to grab our weapons, it's antennae seem to be reacting to our movements.  Fortunately Fazu was there!  He managed to freeze it in place while the rest of us surrounded and hacked it apart before it could do more than just scare us.  Fazu identifies the thing as an Ankheg...  a creature with an acidic bite & spit and a tremor-sense, or the ability to feel vibrations through the ground.  Upon hearing about it's acidic traits, I rummaged around in my pack and pulled out 3 empty glass flasks.  I moved over to it's mandibles and started collecting as much acid as I could.  I got about one and a half filled before the flow stopped.  So I figured it's stomach acids might be just as potent and started carving into the mangled body for it's stomach.  I managed to fill the remainder of the flasks that way.  Using some of my cord, I tied the glass stoppers securely so they wouldn't pop open and spill out while in my pack.  I also gave Taneus one of the flasks in case he might have need of it.  It was midnight by the time I was done, so I turned in for the night.

When morning rolled around, Fazu came over to me.  Not sure how, but he must have sensed the contagion I was afflicted with, and he said he wanted to heal my disease ridden body.  Normally I'd have punched him in the nose for an insult like that, but I knew what he was referring to, so I let it slide.  After everyone had woken and eaten, we set off again heading east-northeast toward the rumored Goblin Village.  Along the way we came across another stream and took a quick break to refill our waterskins.  We ate some rations as well, while Beor estimated that we were about 2 hours away from the village.  As we continued on our path, we finally came across tracks that even a child could find...  goblins, horses and worgs.  The countryside had been gradually sloping uphill as we were nearing the base of the mountains and the wind was blowing from north to south as we continued our easterly journey.  Before too long, we could hear the sounds of horses ahead and spotted smoke rising up right out of the ground.  We veered southeast so we could approach the smoke from due south, trying to keep ourselves downwind of any possible worgs in the area.

As we slowly approached, we soon realized why we didn't spot the source of the smoke.  The goblins are camped out in a small little valley where the floor is roughly 15' lower than the surrounding countryside.  Right smack in the middle of the depression is a simple corral containing 8 horses.  We spot 7 goblins as they appear to be breaking camp.  There are also 2 humans down there!  They're dressed in robes and armor with red, brown & white colorings, wielding morning-stars and crossbows and sporting medallions around their necks.  Quietly making plans with my compatriots, we decided that the kid and I would first sneak down the slope and hide behind the tents closest to us.  Taneus cast Mage Armor upon the two of us first though...  invisible armor...  well for his sake, it had better work cuz I sure don't see what he's talking about.  Then once we were in position, Taneus, Beor and Fazu would rain arrows and bolts down on them from near the edge of where the depression starts.  Hopefully we'd kill a few of them with the ensuing volleys, and then if they took the bait and charged past us to get at the threat at the top of the slope, then the kid & I could jump a couple of them from behind while the others finally made their way down into the encampment.  Everything was going great...  we even managed to draw one of the humans into our ambush, but when I jumped out behind him and threw an acid flask at him, shattering it upon his armor...  I was suddenly overcome by panic & fear and fled due north away from everyone as fast as my feet could go.  By the time I came to my senses and shook off my panic attack, I was well beyond the northern most part of the encampment.  I hurried to get back to my companions, but when I finally arrived to help, the fun part was over as my friends stood victorious over the two humans and their goblin allies.

Corny was already digging through their pouches and packs to see what else they had.  Pulling all the bodies close to each other, he had started making a little pile of what might be useful to us.  In the end, there was 500 gold pieces, 80 silver pieces, 2 light crossbows and 17 bolts (three of which look to have silver tips), a silvered dagger, 9 scrolls, a hand written note in common, a holy symbol of Erythnul, 2 morning-stars (one of them has an agate encrusted just above the handle and seems very well made), 4 empty sacks, 7 short swords and scabbards, and finally some wool robes.  We toss one of the short swords to the kid to use as a backup weapon, along with one of the crossbows and several bolts.  I grab the other crossbow and some bolts so that we all have a ranged weapon handy.  Then we packed everything else up in the empty sacks, except for the holy symbol, we just left that lying in the dirt.  We put a simple lead rope around the necks of all the 8 horses and loaded up a couple of the horses with our new found loot.  Before leaving though, we also grabbed the 100' of rope that was keeping the horses corralled.

To be continued...

Game 2/7/10

Players present: Mordek, Taneus, Thalinor, Travin
I have aptly named this session "Now What?"
After taking care of some practice involving a sack, some claws, and an "unwary victim" The group makes plans to leave the safety of the temple and travel into to town. Shopping for items and information many stops are planned. With the impending tournament right around the corner, the streets are choked with revelers, street merchants and sight seers. The companions find themselves travelling at a snails pace, thoughts of vengeance fresh on there minds. Without preview, the dwarf and several nearby people collapse. Fear takes hold of the commoners and they give the spectacle a wide berth. In doing so, they have revealed the trap. The drow and his henchmen immediately fire at the bewildered adventurers with crossbows and poison tipped bolts. The assailants turn and dissolve into the crowd. Thalinor jolts Mordek awake, anger fills the dwarf and he scans the crowd for one of the henchmen. Travin pursues the drow. Thalinor, fearing for the safety of the priest, follows. Taneus takes stock of the situation and quickly finds himself a spectator in the situation but the elf clearly remembers his last encounter with the drow. Mordek catches sight of a scoundrel and alters himself into a trog, enlarges himself and gives chase. This horrific visage sends the populace into a full scale panic stricken riot. Screams and a 9 foot troglodyte summon the city guard. Travin, meanwhile, finds himself staring into a sea of people and cast "locate object". Focusing the spell on the drow's cloak, the priest concentrates. To his horror, Travin locates the cloak, it's directly behind him. Travin spins, draws his weapon and increases the distance between him and the assassin. D'gru, death attack spoiled, casts. A mist rises obscuring everyone's vision. Thalinor rushes into the fog. The city guard advances on the mist as well. Taneus, threatens to dissipate the mist with a "fireball". Mordek tumbles past the half elf crossbowman to halt his escape. At this point, with assassins in the mist, huge tumbling troglodytes, prophetic fireballs, and advancing pike men the proverbial fit has hit the shan. The game ends. Will Mordek survive the troglodyte sandwich, will Travin and Thalinor escape the mist, will Taneus put an end to the fracas with a simple albeit destructive wave of his hand. Tune in next week....

The Chronicles of Mordek Vol. 007

Gameplay Date 03-10-07

Players present:  Mordek, Taneus

While the fruit was tasty and my leg did feel better, I was still hurting, so I pulled out a couple of empty sacks and started cutting them up into strips to help bind my wounds and Beor's.  I gathered up the rope and string I had used for our traps as Taneus starts skinning the 8 wolves for their furs.  I decide to take about 6 of their larger fangs as my own trophy, then turn in for the night as Taneus says he can keep watch for the rest of the night.  At some point, I get woken back up as Taneus lets us know that the BIG wolf is back, watching us from the bushes.  But it's not alone.  There is a dark haired, armored man with a long curved blade at his waist with it.  He pulls the arrow out of the wolf, then holds his hand over the wound as a blue light starts to shimmer and the wound disappears.  He then draws his sword and the two of them start to approach us.  He casts some sort of spell as we find the plants around us start springing up to grab and ensnare us.  The kid manages to slip out of their hold for a bit, but there are too many and he's soon held in place like the rest of us.  He tells us that his name is Fazu, that the BIG wolf's name is Lok, and that he wants some answers.

We tell him who we are and that we've come in search of him (and apologize for attacking his BIG friend).  We tell him all about the goblins & wargs that we were tracking and how they stole horses in Teryll that we have been sent to find and return.  Fazu wanders over to Beor and heals his wounds while telling us that he may know someone who can help us, but that it will be dangerous.  He asks us what we thought of the Evertree.  Turns out that it was Fazu's predecessor that created it.  Fazu tells us that he is out here studying the Deep Magic that was used to do it.  We spend the rest of the night here at our campsite and in the morning Fazu starts leading us in a southerly direction.  He tells us that we are seeking out Jade, a female new to Luxor.  We come across a big stream, not quite a river, about 15' across and 2'-5' deep.  Fazu turns and leads us downstream.  He comes to a halt so that we can rest for a bit.  He says that Jade is only about an hour away now.  As we are catching our breaths, Fazu tells us a bit about Jade, or "The Green Gem."  That she is the daughter of Ahk-kawac-athar, "The Green Demon," who is a very old and very well known dragon of some notoriety on the continent of Xeptor.  According to Fazu, Jade only arrived on Wolfguard about 2 weeks ago.

Fazu then tells us that it is also about 1/2 a day's travel to the east to reach the nearest goblin village.  We decide to pay Jade a visit first and see what help she might be.  So with Fazu leading the way, we walked until we came across a 10' tall waterfall.  Fazu points at it and says "In there."  We make our way through the cascading water into darkness...  well, for the others anyway.  I can see that we're standing in a pool of water about 15' x 15' wide.  It leads to a rocky cave passage about 10' wide.  Actually, it looks like it was burrowed as opposed to a natural passage.  As the others light up some torches so they can see, a reptilian voice greets us as it echoes down the passage to us.  We follow the passage through a few turns until it opens up into a 40' x 50' room with a 10' high ceiling, the front half of which is all a pool of water.  Looking upward, I get the distinct feeling that there isn't much dirt still over our heads before it opens onto the sky.  As we get our first good look at Jade, we can see that she's a very young, medium sized, dark green dragon (almost black).  She's lying on a small bed of gold and is surrounded by quite a few statues and monuments along the back wall.  I recognize them as some of Unger's work...  guess he's got a fan of his work.  Fazu steps forward and tells Jade why we are there.  She gets a little angry and belches out a cloud of acid at us.  She says she will deal with her warg allies, and that the goblins we may want are to the northeast.  Her tone isn't very inviting, so we take that as our cue to leave and walk quite a ways away from Jade's lair before stopping to rest again.

To be continued...

The Chronicles of Mordek Vol. 006

Gameplay Date 03-04-07

Players present:  Mordek, Taneus

By the look of it, tomorrow night is going to be a full moon, but tonight passes by uneventfully.  In the morning we set off again.  We kept walking southeast until a rider shows up on horseback.  Beor tells us his name is Min, a member of his clan.  Min in turn tells Beor that their council of elders is voting on a new Teegan, which means leader of the clan.  Sounds like Beor's in the running as he tell us he's been trying to bring the Uegan & Wolfguard societies together.  We found the Uegan village right on the edge of the forest, made up of tents and lean-tos with a free ranging herd of horses scattered about.  The people around us are dressed in animal skins and natural wool clothes.  Beor has us stock up on some supplies while we are here as he's going to take us into the woods in search of Fazu, "The Keeper of Luxor Forest."  From what we can observe, the hairstyle sported by each of the Uegan also denotes their role in the clan.  Warriors tend to have a ponytail and battle lock.  Priests (or slaves) have their head shaven.  While most everyone with a full head of hair seems to be a tradesman of some sort or another.  As we walk around, I seem to be getting a few wary looks, as does Corny.  Taneus though seems to be accepted a bit better...  must be some tree-hugging nature thing that they have in common with the elves.

We bought several days worth of rations for our group, along with plenty of torches and some flasks of oil...  though they came in a pouch made of animal hide, similar to a waterskin.  Once we're all set to go, Beor leads the way into the forest.  He tells us that Fazu was last seen in The Burning Grove, a place deep in the forest where the trees are in a state of perpetual autumn.  We figure we've got about 4-1/2 hours of daylight left as the forest starts to get dense.  Dense enough to prevent anyone from riding horses any farther through it.  But it is teeming with a wide assortment of animals all around us.  Beor says we need to set up camp soon as it looks like we're in for some rain tonight.  For some reason, the kid's being really quiet as he sets out to gather some firewood.  While Tanues and Beor set up the camp, I decide to setup a couple of traps to help safeguard us while we're asleep.  We had picked a spot next to a sturdy tree with some thick branches about 10' off the ground.  We found a fallen piece of tree branch with some decent heft to it.  We hoisted it up into the tree to use as a counterweight and then used some of our rope to create a snare on the ground, covering it with some leaves to hide the rope.  Then I wanted to set up a little trip wire alarm around us, so I get out my rolls of twine and used the branches of the surrounding bushes & trees to alert us if anyone should happen to approach us in the night.  Good thing too, because during my watch, something snagged one of my traps...  something that growled.  As I wake up the others, we finally see it.  There is a BIG wolf moving through the brush and trees around our campsite.  It lets off a loud howl...  probably calling his buddies to tell them that he's found dinner.  Taneus shoots it with an arrow and it promptly runs off, but we can here more wolf sounds coming from the south.

Corny quickly scrambled up into the tree we had been sleeping around.  Between our campfire and the little bit of nearly full moonlight piercing the tree canopy, we spotted 8 Dire Wolves running full tilt at us.  Taneus & Beor each managed to stop one dead in their tracks with their arrows.  But then they were upon us.  I had positioned myself with the snare trap directly between the wolves and myself, and Corny's timing couldn't have been better as he pushed the log out of the tree and caught one wolf by 3 of it's legs as it found itself being suddenly pulled up into the air with a yelp.  But that wasn't going to help us with the rest of them.  One went after Taneus while the others paired up and went after Beor & myself.  I managed to bash one of their skulls with my hammer while the other one started chewing on my leg.  It tried to pull me off my feet, but I managed to stay upright.  Unfortunately Beor didn't.  He got knocked to the ground and repeatedly bitten by the two attacking him.  As I got bitten again by my furry foe, the kid jumped down out of the tree with dagger in hand and managed to kill one of the wolves as it was still trying to tear Beor apart.  Taneus & I managed to kill off our respective wolves and then we turned to help Corny & Beor deal with the last wolf standing.  Between the 3 of us still on our feet, it didn't take us long to kill it.  While Taneus moved to help Beor, who had suffered several nasty bites, Corny & I moved over next to the dangling wolf so we could dispatch it without further injury.  Taneus rummaged around inside his pack and pulled out some medicinal herbs and fruit and stuff.  He sliced up and tossed me some of the fruit and said it'd help with my injuries too.

To be continued...