Eleasias 12
Eleasias 12, 1369:
Having finished necessary training, the party is once again ready
to kick butt and take names.
The party heads out of Silverymoon towards Quaervarr but stops
along the way so that some members can experiment with the deck
from the Tower. Darius, Hahrvee, Maanamere
and Henkles all drew cards. They learned that the deck was
not a Deck of Many Things as Darius had suspected, but instead
a Deck of Wondrous Transformations.
Darius drew the High Priestess, which granted him access to
clerical healing (major) and elemental air spells (minor), as well
as a spell like ability he hasn't revealed, but inflicted him with
3-sided hit dice, a blunt weapon restriction, a phobia of snakes,
and difficulty talking to women.
Maanamere drew The Magician, which cost him his Ranger's
two-handed fighting skill, reduced his hit dice to d8's and
inflicted him with fear of heights. It also gave him the ability
to cast wizard spells from the conjuration/summoning school
aquired at the rate of specialist bonus spells (1 1st-level spell
at 1st level, plus 1 2nd-level spell at 3rd level, plus one
3rd-level spell at 5th level, etc., 35% chance to learn spells)
Hahrvee drew the King of Swords, which cost him some of his class
abilities but gained him some fighter skills.
Henkles drew the Seven of Cups, which cost him the ability to
attract followers at high levels and made him unwilling to use
potions or liquid medications, but increased his skill with the
short sword (+1 to hit) and gave him +4 on various saves (magic
related).
The party continued along the road and arrived in Quavaerr about
10 am. The party was greeted in the town, a quick discussion among
the locals insued, a wagon with some large 20+' tall cages was
brought out. The wagon has been specially built to handle these
tall cages. The group is offerred the use of the wagon to capture
the spinners. The group is provided with token The town is
obviously at merchant's disposal, or at least everyone they
meet. Igor Peterson, and his escorts assume control of the wagon
and the group continues out to the manor.
The manor is about a half an hour wagon ride away (~ 1.5 miles)
outside the town.
When AFAL arrive at the manor, as AFAL approach, an elderly human
walks out, bidding them all to leave, claiming this area for the
Hive Queen. The merchant indentifies the man as his father and
tries to talk to his father. The man tells him to go, cries out
in pain and then in a mishmash of spells, flames, magic missiles,
and snowballs the merchant serevely injures him. The man's brain
explodes as result, killing him. Stewart bound his wounds and
blew three cures (the curse of Ian's dice) to bring him to above
zero.
Bonus to Darius for recognizing that despite the fact
that it was not a proper spell, it worked and they
should be concerned [100XP]
The party then retreats a bit, sending the teamsters and the
merchant back to the town for proper care. Hahrvee then scouts,
or tries to scout out the manor discoverying that the manor is
well thought out with regard to defense. The party also discovers
a silk slide like thing over the wall in the rear corner nearest
to the silk barn.
The party questions the remaining local (Aelwunor), obtains keys
(the foreman's so they open all doors except the private ones in
the manor house itself), thrown silk visorshields, and proceeded
in. Alewunor, once AFAL all entered in, left. They all were
encouraged not to try to be sneaky in getting into the manor, as
the magic is geared for it not to.
The party then headed toward the manor with all due caution, they
get just inside the gate and are attacked by a pack of trannies.
Just before the attack, some of the party happened to notice some
of them, and Manamere pulled out his spy glass to take a look at
the tower ignoring the fact that the party was in combat. The
party succesfully bagged all the trannies. The trannies were
dragged back into the wagon and put into the cages. A tranny is a
load for Stewart. Not so much because of his strength, but
handling something that is severely pissed off that is half his
height is a lot.
The party returned to the village with the trannies where they
were warmly recieved. They had lunch courtsey of the Whistling
Stage Inn, there was no charge. The party at Darius's request
visited the mill, asking for some flour. The party debated about
what sizes of flour they wanted, as someone suggested a size, the
millers handed them what they asked for. Darius tried to pay,
asking for as much flour as 3 gp would buy. They declined the
money. The result was that the party got 2 50 lbs bags, 5 10 lbs
bags and 10 2 lbs bags.
Bonus to Darius for coming up with a standard, but effective
way of combatting invisible monsters. [200XP]
As the party was debating who to heal and how, a paladin of the
temple of Selune who has travelling through and paying his
respects to the local shrine to Selune, healed what he could. No
charge, but then again, paladin's have little use for cash. The
party healed itself up and returned to the manor.
Again the party approached, again the warnings and welcome
greeting boomed out, with the twist of tossing flour, and again
they were attacked by a pack of trannies. This time there was a
twist. Jumping over the wall (an internal wall to the side) were
two blacks. Dexter made a save versus poison on his black, and as
advertized the black died. Missouri Jones pulled that black off
of him with his whip. The other black had attacked Manamere and
it was killed also. The party was pretty beaten up at this point,
so they returned to the village. The party cuts off the heads of
the dead ones for accounting purposes,this has become a standard
and is not mentioned again.
Bonus to Missouri Jones for using the whip as an entangling
device [100XP]
They again were greeted cordially. They were talking about how to
heal themselves when Aelwunor brought over a couple of priests,
Stewart rose as they approached. The garb that they were in
looked amazingly like the garb that Stewart tends to wear in the
City. It indeed proved to be priests of Selune, the order of
Moonknights. One of them is a ranking member of the Church, they
had been called in to see to Igor Peterson and Peter Igorson. The
ranking priest is elvish looking, probably half elven as many of
the people here are, he also bears a striking resemblance to
Aelwunor and many of the other elves here. He charges a small
fraction of the cost for healing. 50 GP for Cure Serious Wounds
and 25 GP for Cure Light. They had 2 CSW and 5 CLW available
between them, when the party said that Mrap-Mrap needed healing
the priest completely healed Mrap-Mrap without asking anyone else.
The bill was reduced, Mrap-Mrap's healing was free. The total for
the healing cost was 2 bolts of silk from the party's payment, the
result was that the party was almost prefectly healed with a
couple of heals from the party's clerics. The party asked to speak
with the village elders, they were immediately directed to
Aelwunor. Aelwunor is *old* for an elf, he has lived ~90% of an
elf's expected life expectancy. In some of the random
conversations that Mike did not mention, the party can infer that
a good percentage of the people here are Aelwunor's desendants.
People refer to him as 'Greatest Gran' if not by name. AFAL are
fed again, and again no charge.
The party returns the manor deciding that it would be better
politically to wait for dusk at the manor not at the village.
During the party's wait, they scout around the manor seeing what
else is there, figuring out where the best wind is. The wind is
light and variable, but the best location is to the right of the
road as AFAL approach.
A scouting party (Stewart, Henkles, and Manamere) investigates the
silk slide and finds a dead gray that had been covered in silk,
hiding it from obvious view. Stewart complained loudly and
bitterly about having to walk on broken glass in bare feet
(literally) until Henkles decided to carry him in. Henkles cuts
down the silk slide attaching it to a net so it can be carried out
without ruining it. The gray is accounted for. Henkles and
Manamere carry the net out between them. As they are part of the
way out, a loud bell starts ringing from the tower, variable
toned, everyone within about a half mile will hear it. The
scouting party suddenly notes the appearance of a group of 6 human
sized figures near the center of the wall at about the ward mist
boundrary. The scouting party deduces that the figures are the
ward monsters and the bell is the ward alarm. The scouting party
continues to exit while having Stewart watch the figures. The
figures start to head toward the group, about halfway there, they
vanish, and the alarm silences itself. After they vanish, the
scouting party with much grumlbing from Stewart about the glass,
travel over to the point where the monsters were first seen. The
gravel has been disturbed but Manamere is not able to make out
anything from it. When the scouting party returns the group, they
find Aelwunor and 4 teamsters there waiting for them. The rest of
the party saw them ride up in a hurry when the alarm started going
off. Aelwunor tell the party that there is a master off for the
wards that is stored in the boss's office in a safe. He was only
informed of this by Igor after he woke up from the healing sleep.
Bonus to Henkles and Manamere for correctly deducing that it
was the queen testing the defenses checking to see if the
party had the master off [100XP split between them]
At dusk, the wind is very light and very variable, so the wind
chimes will only work intermittantly. Dusk at this time of year
is long as it is not getting dark until ~10pm. Silverymoon is way
north. The party enters, scattering flour in front of them, they
get to the point where they had been jumped before. They see a
tranny retreating, but no attack. The party advances turning the
corner to the around the corral. Stewart(?) starts ranting about
them being all over in the corral. Stewart throws a 10 lbs bag of
flour in the air and hits it with a rock causing a cloud (Sproing
ring makes this possible). The party spends awhile figuring out
if there is anything.
Bonus to Rickland for adding some spice to the game on a Ain't
Paranoia wonderful card. I believe it was Stewart he was
speaking for, but it was a player thing. [200XP]
The party continues its dash to the servant's house. As the party
passes the fountain, it changes from a misting effect into 9
distinct streams that are easily accessible to the party following
them. Manamere became distinctly paranoid over the fountain's
behavior. During the journey, the chimes went off a couple of
times, Dexter, Darius and Devlin failed their saves and had to be
dragged along.
The party then entered the "servant's quarters." The outer door
once closed is sound proof and no noises enter. This house is
richly appointed, silk wall paper etc. There are no signs of any
spinners in here. It appears as if the place is clean. The
kitchen is large and protected by a steel door and stone walls.
The only wood in the kitchen area is the butcher block
countertops. The second floor is a private room and a
entertainment zone with pool table etc. The first floor has two
barracks rooms with dividers between the beds. The areas are
large.
After some debate the party crossed into the manor house itself
entering through the rear door into the dining area. The dining
area is a large room again richly appointed with silk table
cloths, silk covered chairs, silk wallpaper with hand painted
murals on it, the floor is covered with huge hand woven Persian
rugs, they are not silk... In the room, the party found an
injured cat crawling toward it, it started speaking in poor Elvish
asking for water and help being chased by a tranny. The tranny
ran away as the party approached. The cat had been attacked my
some of the transparent spinners but let go. Dexter healed the cat
whose name is Myranor. Steve gave it some water. The party talked
with the cat, it indicated that there were a number of grays and
trannies in the house, but it had not seen any blacks. The house
was secure except for his entrance which is why there were no
blacks. He indicated that he had seen no more than 4 grays at
once. The party questioned him on the number of ward tokens that
he knew about, asked about the master off switch, and where it
would be held. He looked at the keys, indentified them as
Aelwunors without being told and said that they had keys to most
locations except the office. The party started to check the
house. As they left the dining room entering the ball room they
were jumped by some grays off the walls and some trannies on the
floor. More grays came shortly there after, then more trannies.
Darius cast Reckless Dweomer hoping for a sleep spell and was
successful. He *stunned* two of the spinners, one gray and one
tranny. Sleep does not appear to work, but it does stun them.
Eventually the party was triumphant, but severely injured.
Bonus to Darius for being desparate enough to use Reckless
Dweomer and having it work. [100XP]
Bonus to Missouri Jones, Darius, and Maanamere (I think,
we need to check with the players who were there)
for not quite getting killed (single digits in hit
points) and continuing to take an active role in the
battle [100XP each]
After scoping out the rest of the house for ward tokens, they left
with several of the grays tied up inside a cedar chest used to
hold sweaters.
Bonus to Maanamere for being a pain in the ass asking
about the token instantly. [100XP]
The party returned to the the village with only minor mishaps in
getting out, recovering the chimes and transfering the spinners to
the wagon. There was a lot of discussion about sneak attacks
etc. Back in the village the party discussed healing themselves
and what to do next. They figured out that there were two ward
tokens unaccounted for. The party discussed the potential of the
spinners sneaking out, they warned the village of the possiblity.
The priests of Selune had not left yet, since they were here they
were servicing the shrine in the town. Again the Moonknight lord
offerred the party the healing of the Moon. He charged a couple
of bolts of silk for the service. The party was down ~200
hitpoints total. After sleeping in the shrine, the party was
healed. Missouri Jones talked about giving personal money to the
Temple of Selune. Both Stewart and Dexter approved, and agreed
that it would be a wise idea to do so.
Bonus to Missouri Jones for recognizing the great courtsey
that the temple of Selune has shown the party. [100XP]