Session 32 - Out Of The Frying Pan...

Mon 14th Dec 20:00 - 23:00

In-game timeline: Uktar 10 - Uktar 13 DR1489

Our "Heroes" are finishing off their stay in Neverwinter, where they have levelled up to L6, named their new freight company "Three's Company" and generally spent a lot of time resting, after many of them spent the last couple of weeks either unconscious, exhausted, seasick, or a mixture of all three.

Dwarrow commandeers the ruby earrings and ring and asks Drogan to use his jewellery skills to fashion a nice engagement ring for his intended, Silvermoon, and then asks Alwaith to use his raven to send them to her. Finally, our "Heroes" are working as a team! Wanting to contribute to this helpful atmosphere, Devon puts out some feelers to his many and varied contacts in town and manages to find some inexpensive Bracers of Defence - something Drogan has been after for a while now, and sells them to Drogan for the miniscule sum of 40gp! Bargain!

After purchasing numerous potions of healing, and thus diminishing their already meagre supplies of gold, the group get ready to head back to Oakhurst, hoping to be able to help out the town with the strange 'kobold problem' mentioned by Corkie in her note to Dwarrow, before using the stone circle to follow up the nefarious group that Belak seemed to be involved in - the Order of the Black Sun.

In advance of that, though, the group were keen to remind themselves of this Order, and of the significance of the stone circles, and the upcoming eclipse, and the messages they found relating to The Corruption, and Malar etc. A clandestine meeting with a member of the Council of the Veil provided this reminder, much of which could also have been obtained by re-reading their adventure blog, and the lovingly crafted handouts that had received along the way. It did manage to solidify some of their past findings, however, and clarify in their minds what the ultimate aim of the Council of the Veil (the supposed Good Guys) was - stopping some form of ritual or similar, which would serve to allow the God Malar to return to the mortal realm to wreak havoc. They think it is likely to happen during the time of the eclipse, and the Second Corruption, though no one knows how it will happen, nor where. 

The group head back to Oakhurst, where they are received with mixed emotions. They had indeed done good deeds in the town in the past, but, as seems to be their way, many of the party had managed to annoy a few key members of the village. Drogan spent the evening chatting to his (only) friend in the town, Rurik the blacksmith, whilst the others chatted to the Mayor and to Corkie to find out what was going on. Alwaith, the only member of the group fluent in Draconic, talked to the injured kobold in Corkie's care, Nabla. Drogan, on the other hand, talked to a rabbit and a cow. He also tried to talk to an owl, but the owl would only communicate to something with at least his own intelligence, and so ignored him. Drogan didn't get much information.

Between them, they found out the following bits of information, which may or may not be significant, and may or may not be related…

 - The Kobolds have returned to the Fallen Fortress and reclaimed their old home, re-excavating the tunnels of their old village within the Fortress and moving back in.

 - Meepo it seems returned too and appears to have taken over the Fortress. He brought with him three creatures that the kobolds refer to as "clawbeaks". These creatures have forced the kobolds to be captives in their own village area, and seem to be unable to get out.

 - Meepo also seems to be friendly with, possibly even to control, a dragon. There is some confusion as to whether this dragon is white, or green, or some other colour, and what sort of size it may be. Only that despite the kobolds revering the dragon, and referring to it as "Great One", it may have actually feasted on one or more of the kobolds.

 - A few kobolds have tried to escape but only Nabla has managed it so far. Yussi tried to escape a few days ago, but was attacked by the "clawbeaks" and Meepo took her away. Nabla does not know what became of her.

 - A couple of children in the village of Oakhurst, the Greyshotts, disappeared a week or two ago. They were taken by wolves. Their mother was sure she saw a goblin, or similar, riding one of the wolves.

 - There has been increased bandit activity in the surrounding areas recently.

 - Some townsfolk have been complaining of having bad dreams recently, some involving strange monsters, and a weird and dangerous hunt.

 - A gnome, Alston, was convinced he witnessed his wife, Breena, taken away by large bears, with bird-like heads, only a few days ago. It was her birthday only the other day, you know.

Having got bored of talking to farmers, the group decide to head out towards the Fortress. The mention of Meepo made Drogan forget everything else - he is suddenly quite focussed.

On their way they make a slight detour to visit the stone circle in the forest. They had got relatively close to this place before, but only Devon actually got next to the circle itself, and he was preoccupied at the time trying to avoid being killed by Calcryx. And so this was really the first time they experienced the raw power and historical ambiance of the ancient monument. Dwarrow and Devon, with their historical interest, were impressed and somewhat in awe of the circles. Alwaith and Drogan less so.

Not wanting to suddenly be whisked away to another part of the Realm before Drogan had had a chance to pay Meepo back for the bees-nest trap and losing their deposit on the rented horses, the group hurried on to the Fortress.

They camped overnight near to the Fortress, and kept an eye on the goings on at the main entrance from their campsite in the hills above. Nothing stirred. In the morning, having spent all night ensuring that nothing was using the main entrance, they decided to trek around to the other side of the chasm and find the other entrance/exit to the Fortress that they were aware of - the 'elevator', a large opening that led directly down into an open tower room in the Fortress, which previously had a 'platform' that could raise and lower to provide quick access between the tower room and the top of the chasm. This they found with little trouble.

They racked their brains to remember how the elevator worked - looking down they could see the room containing the platform about 120' below - and eventually remembered the command word. Alwaith muttered "Fire" in Draconic under his breath, but nothing happened. So he decided to shout it down to the room below, in case it was a volume issue. Still nothing happened.

Not keen on abandoning this route after trekking all this way to get here, they decide to use a combination of ropes to form a chair of sorts to lower Alwaith into the elevator 'shaft' - Alwaith being the person least useful at holding the rope due to his poor strength, and most useful at possibly being able to get the elevator moving, with his fluency in Draconic. They carefully lowered Alwaith down the 120', alone, into the room below.

And so we leave our "Heroes", with Drogan and Dwarrowsteel at the top of the chasm slowly lowering Alwaith down into the tower room in the Fallen Fortress, with Devon peering down to check progress. Alwaith reaches the halfway mark with no problems, and continues to be lowered the last 60', hoping that nothing was going to accost him in his VERY PRECARIOUS position. I mean, it's not as if they are likely to come across any large creatures around here with the ability to fly or anything. Oh… hang on…