Alturiak 17
Alturiak 17, 1370:
High = -5, Low = -20
Light precipitation (1" snow) starting @ 12:10am
Calm.
Overcast.
The party decided to send Stalker in to Miss Mireria's house
disguised as the creature returning with the puppy. Darius cast
Fly on him and Deringa was roused from bed to cast
Invisibility. Stalker was then given Honey and sent into
the house with Ag sneaking behind trying to move silently and in
shadows. The irony of sending Stalker to imitate this creature
was lost on everyone at the time.
When they arrived at Madse Dersty (Miss Mireria's Hose), Stalker
found a window in the cuppola and the front door open, which he
took as a sign that he was expected. He went in with Ag trailing
him and finding the first floor apparently vacant, headed into the
basement. Down there he found a landing that split the stairs off
to a laundry room and a larger, lower room with a large
butcher's/operating table, some stuffed, chewed tressym on long
poles, two rows of 3'x3' doors in the front wall, apparently
leading to space below the front porch, and two glass or crystal
bird sculptures on a high shelf, one with glowing red eyes. There
were also three creatures in the room, all aparently made of
collected body parts stitched together - one large human shape and
two large dog shapes.
Stalker proceded into the room, looking like a floating puppy, and
the creatures seemed unconcerned. The humanoid headed over to the
rows of small doors, which were above a 3' depression in the
floor, apparently to leave some yard above whatever was behind
them, and headed to the next-to-last door in the bottom row, where
he stood waiting to open the door for Stalker. When Stalker
arrived there, the creature opened the door and saw that it opened
into a 3'w x 10'd x 3'h space containing two other live puppies,
neither one matching the description of George's puppy. Stalker
shoved Honey in a sack, then grabbed one of the puppies behind the
door and also shoved that one in the sack, but the creature closed
the door before he could get to the third. It was obvious that
the creature did not consider this part of the plan and was
now upset. Stalker and Ag retreated out of the house.
Outside, they reconnected with the party and took a close look at
the rescued puppy, which they decided matched the description of
another recently missing pooch. Stalker investigated
the open window in the cupola and found what appeared to be a
tressym trap and a trap door openning on the floor below.
The party started to leave when they saw a light come on in a
bedroom of Madse Dursty. Stalker returned to the cupola and
peeked through the trap door. Below he saw the humanoid creature
standing in the hall with Miss Mireria, who was looking in his
direction and casting a spell. He tried the front door again and
saw a big furry monster in the entrance hall, so left quickly and
the party left the area.
The party reported that a missing puppy had been seen coming out
of Mrs. Mireria's house and mentioned the Tressym trap or hinted
at it, as well as the nondetection field. The cops took the puppy
to its owner to confirm that part of the story, then went to Madse
Dursty but found no lights on and decided to come back the next
day at noon, rather than wake an old woman at 3am with weak
accusations.
12xp to Ag, Darius, Dexter, Stalker, Steve and Tristan for
finding a lost puppy
The party was waiting outside Madse Dursty when the guards
arrived. They were a group of 5 watchmen, one apparent watchmage
and a priest of Helm, led by a dwarf captain who they later
learned was named Mufir of Citadel Adbar. Mufir knocked on the
door and spoke with Miss Mireria, indicating the party and then
apparently insisted on searching the premises over Miss Mireria's
strong objections. The watch patrol all entered the building and
a minute later the part heard a several police whistles blowing
from within. They charged the front door and found the front hall
full of webs, which were in turn full of the watch. They reported
that Miss Mireria had headed into the basement.
Stalker and Ag headed for the back door while Dexter and Henkles
started forcing their way through the webs to the stairs. Stalker
and Ag ran around into the house, not pausing at the locked back
door, and threw open the door to the basement. Coming up the
stairs they saw two angry mastiffs with bat-like (dragon-like)
wings. Ag fled to the kitchen in terror while Stalker engaged
them.
Battle ensued. Much combat & spellcasting happened with Stalker
doing a large part of it. The frankencritters Stalker had
discovered in the basement joined the fight from that side. Steve
and Tristan joined Stalker. Later, Mufir, Ag, Dexter, Darius and
Henkles also joined in. Mufir confirmed the party's suspicion
that only magic weapons would harm the frankencritters. Miss
Mireria never put in an appearance. Eventually all 5 monsters
were slain.
6300xp to Ag, Darius, Dexter, Henkles, Stalker, Steve and
Tristan for sundry assembled monsters
The web was cleared and the basement investigated. Behind the
laundry room was a traditional wizards lab with a window openning
into the large lowered area Stalker had investigated before. That
area held an incinerator and a small storage closet full of meat
and bones such as one would feed to dogs. Bloodied pikes were
found among the poles with stuffed Tressym. The party checked the
door where Stalker had rescued one puppy earlier and found the
second puppy still there. They then checked the compartments to
either side and found that one was empty and the other held what
appeared to be George's puppy with bat's wings.
2000xp to Ag, Darius, Denyae, Deringa, Dexter, Henkles,
Maanamere, Stalker, Staric, Steve, Tristan and Ursula for
finding the right puppy
The party opened the rest of the dog pen doors. In all they found
1 sick full grown dog, 3 healthy full grown dogs, 3 mostly grown
dogs, one of which they had to kill, and three half grown dogs.
All of them had bat-like wings and all of them had undergone
training to attack tressym on sight. Mrap-M'rap did not approve.
They left all of the dogs except the puppies and the sick dog in
their pens. Those three were taken outside.
120xp to Ag, Darius, Denyae, Maanamere and Stalker for one
mostly grown batwinged mastiff
Most of the party went upstairs to continue the search for
Mrs. Mireria. Darius stayed to "search the lab for any clues"
with help from Stalker. He didn't find anything that he felt was
worth mentioning, but his Belt Pouch of Holding did seem to bulge
a little after that. The two crystal parrots, one of which had
glowing eyes, went missing from the basement around this time as
well.
Dexter took the sick dog outside and using a combination of
Speak With Animals, cure spells and food, coaxed some
information from it:
* The dogs were usually kept seperate, so he couldn't say
anything substantive about how many there were or whether an
extra one had suddenly joined the group in the last half
hour.
* He knew with certainty that flying cats were a bad thing and
that he should go after them as soon as he felt better.
* He knew Mrs. Mireria by scent ("the bad lady") and did not
believe she had come more than half-way down the basement
stairs in the past few hours.
The search of the upstairs revealed nothing unusual or noteworthy.
The party learned that it's a lot harder to search a mage's house
if you don't have detection spells.
The party attempted to return George's puppy to him, but he
freaked and said he wanted nothing to do with that thing that was
not any puppy of his. The party traded Honey to him and
kept the winged puppy. It was carefully explained to Mrap-M'rap
that puppies could be taught useful things like how to fetch a
bottle and he finally agreed to put up with it (after a brief
lesson to the puppy's nose about who was boss). Mrap-M'rap began
a project of trying to teach the puppy that "Great Helm" ==
"Hydrant".
On reflection, someone (my apologies, I can't remember who)
came up with the idea of giving one of the dogs to Oscho Skurgorg
nuk'Bahgtru (the High Priest) as a gift and the party returned to
the house and convinced Mufir to let them dispose of one
half-grown dog (after assuring him that it would be taken
far away).
1300xp to the current party (Ag, Darius, Denyae, Deringa,
Dexter, Henkles, Maanamere, Oguch, Stalker, Staric, Steve,
Tristan and Ursula) for an inovative solution
