Night's Dark Terror Session Report: SACRIFICE! SACRIFICE!

 Session Five

 

These Dwarves were kind of miserable and unlikable.

 

 

 

 

The party heads to the north to hang out with some  dwarves. The dwarves are not happy to see Scrud Pud because they are racist. They like gnomes thought apparently. I guess gnomes are like the model minority of the dwarf world or maybe they have one gnome who is like a token so that they can deflect when they are called out on their bullshit.

Anyway this gnome is named Vissarion and his brother is name Caesarean. Vissarion want us to go find his missing brother, who was captured by orcs (maybe) with some dwarven miners. We say ok. Spoiler: We never found any of those guys.

We go into some abandoned ancient mines to look for the missing guys. Our dwarf walks into a trap that seemed to be pretty well labeled on the player map.

We kill a lot of orcs and capture two of them.

 

 

 

We find out they worship a giant spider. Wait. I think maybe the gnome wanted us to kill the spider. All the dwarfs and the gnome called it the ‘black beast’ or something and we were like “hey guys you can’t say stuff like that anymore” and then they got embarrassed and started calling it the ‘blue eyed beast.’

So anyway it turns out that the orcs (who may have been stand-ins for racist caricatures of indigenous people) worshipped the spider as a god and made human (or demihuman) sacrifices to it.
 

I almost forgot. The thief almost died again

We trick/intimidate the orcs into showing us where their god is by telling them we are going to sacrifice the dwarf NPCs with us. At first the NPCs did not seem to like this plan but the cleric winked a them.

Long story short we found the spider god and did colonialism to it. Then went to hang out with the dwarves.

ok ok one last detail. We set the giant spider god on fire and then one of the orcs tried to put the fire out and fell into the fire and died. The other orc was paralyzed and had to watch the whole thing. We left him alive.

I didn't make the spider look scary enough; he was actually kind of tough.

The end

The Days are Long, So are the Months... (Here’s March)

 After not recording very much information, due to a serious amount of time spent writing something of an autobiographical fiction for herself, Theodora has returned to the page to record the Nese Gard Adventurers time in the dungeons. The following document will cover the past three sessions including a rather EPIC birthday session done entirely in costume - by the players. 

We begin with Ember’s death. 

AGAIN.

No one is amused.

No one is excited to return to the dungeon to face the Black Pudding again and loot Ember’s body. It is unknown the reach and expanse of the Pudding. Would it still be in the same spot or would it be constantly on the move?

The team ventured to the tavern before stopping by to visit Xylarthan (who had returned and told the group that Nupo was indeed a spy. He suspected some spell had been used on the entire continent to cause mass memory erasure. Removing the gods, many parts of religion and the calendar from the populous’ memory).

There they met an elf who looked LITERALLY SHOCKINGLY LIKE Ember. Her name was Phoenix. She was apparently Ember’s sister. Lucky, that.

She wanted information on what happened to her sister. The group was surprised by her very existence as Ember hadn’t been very open or into sharing about herself, her past, her family. Phoenix however implied that the two elvish women had been close. Theodora was suspect. She wondered if there was far more to that story than was shared. 

Phoenix (also known as “not-Ember”) was interested in items her sister had been carrying, or finding the remains of her sister to send them off in the elvish way. 

The party had only bad news for her.

Theodora was more suspicious.

Whatever, sometimes you just have to let shit play out. She doesn’t even know how fucking suspicious she is.

Theodora still wore the Elaphore Ring but the keen sword and a number of other artifacts could still possibly be on Ember’s body. The group opted to make there way back there and find out. 

They travelled to the room of the mating Kobolds. The kind, still wearing the hat Theodora had given him was there in a special mating room. He was wearing a mostly destroyed but familiar set of armor. 

The lizards asked the party to join the in egg laying. Phoenix did her best to act/play laying an egg, while stealing an egg from another Kobold and passing it off as her own. For this she was invited to visit the king. The group counted the numbers, noted the treasure, and moved on, still returning to Ember’s corpse. 

As they edged their way along it became clear that Ember was nothing more than a gross back smear on the floor. And the Black Pudding was still near by. They abandoned their dreams of looting her body and instead hatched a plan to murder the mating Kobolds and rob them of their treasure. Especially hoping to find some of Ember’s items among the hoard.

All went to plan. Sort of. The group stormed the room, Theodora won over the Kobolds by offering an egg, but instead of laying one she cast web on the group. From there they were stabbed/executed. And put to sleep.

The group waited. Merriweather was ready to back stab, the others to attack. 

As the group of Kobolds with the king emerged, melee was entered. Merriweather dealt a crushing blow to the king but was injured. Theodora cast sleep. The king was killed by Ves who also was dangerous injured. 

She died before the group could escape. Merriweather got out with her life, though injured. Sven, Phoenix, and Theodora were largely unscathed. 

The party killed all of the Kobolds, including the king. They went forth and crushed/destroyed all of the eggs. They looted their treasure and stole back all of Ember’s items.

The party walked away with 1500 gold, 2025 silver, 2 gems (non magical), and the Keen sword.

This was not split with the hired men this time because the team had forgotten to hire them.

During their off time the group worried over Ves, whose corpse was cooling at Xylarthan’s tower, waiting for resurrection.

(In an amazing turn of events the entire party showed up for this session in full character to celebrate the DM’s birthday. Sneak Peak...)

(Deposed) Empress Theodora

Svenasus the Pegasus 

DM/Birthday Boy

Group Zoom Shot

Phoenix (the NEW Ember :P)

Ves, hidden under a shroud, emerged from her cocoon a beautiful butterfly, AKA as a gnome! WOO! Two gnomes in the party.

And from there they ventured forth. Nupo had still not returned, Moogle was still as the shop acting like a cry baby, and the hired man signed up for another campaign (Idiots).

Theodora flirted with Dingle out of loneliness (See Theodora’s backstory fiction for more).

The team made quick work of heading for the third level and the chapel, hoping to venture down the northern corridor. 

They did not make it. As usual. 

Instead they opted to turn east at a corridor just beyond the slug room and corridor which lead to the stairs to the third level realizing the area was fresh and unplucked, so to speak. 

The followed a corridor where they found a square room filled with the long rotted, mummified corpses of lizard people. To the south they found a room with a statue at the center. That statue turned our to be Heget, the frog headed goddess of fertility, worshipped buy the dagonites. An inscription lead Theodora to climb the statue and cut her finger, there she ate a bite of ration, waiting to see if she would be healed. She was not.

Her next idea, almost joking, was to suckle from the statues teat. People though quickly jumped on this idea and no one would test it, but Theodora, “because she was already up there”. Guess what? The statue produced life saving milk from its rock hard nipples.

The group quickly (as quickly as possible, it was slow) expressed milk into their mouths and spit it out into their empty wine skins to keep the milk for future use.

Next they checked the east door. This lead to another corridor. The door at the other end had noises behind it that made the group uncomfortable. They skipped it.

The door to the north also exposed a corridor. At the end of that corridor was another door. On the other side was a room filled with statue arms growing out of the ground and a desiccated corpse (we have seen so many my iPad just guesses the word desiccated now...).

Ves, brave as ever, now a gnome, just started moving around. Like she had learned NO lessons. And she made it about six hands before one turned and grabbed her, crushing her leg. 

The party managed to free her, grab the corpse, and remove the gems many of the hands were holding when Ves cast Protection from Evil on herself. 

There was a door on the other side but only Ves could venture that far so she did not explore too much. They returned to the main hall, which lead to the third level but went straight across, west. There they found a door with a skull carved into the rock above it and went right on it. As they always do. 

There was running water through the room and while looking around Phoenix and Theodora, with Night Vision, noticed the heat reading of some very fast moving creatures. Fearing the Weresharks, and knowing they couldn’t be too far from their liar, the party turned tail and ran, Theodora magically closing the door.

They made it back to the surface with 9 Onyx gems, worth 150 gold each and 50 garnets. 

They made a hefty sum and the hired men were happy to finally be paid. And not dead.

They hired men were so happy they signed up yet again the following week. 

So Ves the gnome, Theodroa the gnome, Svenasus the Pegasus, and Phoenix the Elf (sibling, supposedly) went into the dungeon. 

They once again had to leave their (lazy) orphans behind because they make the hired men uncomfortable. It was one or the other and for the particular mission it seemed better to have the hired men honestly. 

The group is slow to start and Theodora knows she needs to leave a bit early for a prior engagement. 

The group checks in with Moogle who is becoming a real PIP. And then makes their way into the dungeon, heading straight for the second level, at least. 

Theodora has leveled up and while partying with Xylarthan the past week to celebrate (and flirt) has managed to learn Fireball and Fly. Fireball is awesome but makes her nervous but Fly is super cool!

The party maneuvers past some goblins on the first level and manages to make it back to the second where they find many of the corpses they know to be there - GONE. As well as much of the fungus. 

The find the Goblin and Trog bodies gone. The Owl Bear. The fungus. But then come across a Carrion Crawler! They battle it and win. Yentil is paralyzed.

They give him week old milk from the statue which he can not swallow. And is probably old and sour. It does not help.

They are forced to go back to the pool room, which happens to have a second slug monster in it (fucking fuck) but the group does not engage and runs for it, escaping into the hallway. They opt to further explore the passage ways of last time. 

As the party moves down the passage way south of the slug room Ves moves ahead to glance around a corner, carefully, as Theodora is on high alert. A second Carrion Crawler grabs her by the leg and drags her off. The group is briefly stunned but tries to formulate a plan!

They hurl Yentil’s paralyzed corpse as a diversion, trap, for the crawler, hoping it will come back. 

It does not.

So they follow, rendering the old lizard corpse room. 

Even those with Night Vision can not see much with the corpses but Theodora hears movement and casts Sleep in the general direction. 

They manage to kill the Crawler and save Ves, whose foot has been managed by the creatures mouth, and escape. 

They do not find the Crawlers nest/lair. 

Yentil is miraculously still there when the party returns. Sven carries the two paralyzed players out of the dungeon and they all return to the surface ALIVE, which is something.

And so, now, to wait and see if Ves needs a peg leg (fingers crossed!)

XOXO - Theodora

Death and Dying and Everything Inbetween: Two Sessions, One Report (2/21 and 2/28)

I wrote this and shared it but forgot to post.

So, our adventurers are at it again. And they have two weeks of death and destruction to report upon. Sadly. 

Last week our intrepid team set out to secure some hired men, which they did, chat with Xylarthan, which they did, and buy some shit at Nupo’s, which they did. 

Theodora discovered during extensive research that Ember could possibly be restored without the use of the reincarnation spell. It would technically be possible to have the Were-Shark curse upon her reversed by the 12th level magic user. Reincarnation could possibly have been needed afterward but at least she would no longer be a Were-Shark. Big positives. 

However, the Were-Shark blood that flowed through her veins had already done the job of bringing her back to life. So once the curse was removed, Ember was back to her old self again. 

Outside of the fact that she was convinced to share her magic weapons and items and handed the twin magic daggers to Ves. (Very out of character :P )

Upon visiting Nupo’s before entering the dungeon the team was met with Moogle, a young teenaged orphan boy. He was minding Nupo’s shop while the older gnome was on a trip of unknown origin. It was out of character for him to be gone and it was also stated that he had been agitated and anxious before leaving. The team worried about him, though Moogle had no further information to share with the team. They vowed to look into it further, when they returned from the dungeon. 

Instead they purchased a number of items and promised to pay on the usual payment schedule of once a month to the unknowing boy. (He was suspicious) The team tipped him to make up for it and the other comments of SOME members of the party that may have made the boy nervous. 

Once in the dungeons though the team was singularly minded. They wanted to get to the third level, the chapel and the tunnel opposite, headed north, in hopes of finding the Dagonite people. Or an idol. Or both (the best option).

The party moved so quickly they were required to rest in the slug room, which was actually a pretty new experience for them. 

As they made their way along the corridor beyond they saw no evidence of Lorna Doone, nor Ember’s lost Valkyrie spear, and they studiously avoided getting any closer to the Pool room and a possible Were-Shark encounter. 

So down to the third level they went, via the long and winding stair case. Previously our adventurers have gone south and into the chapel so, hoping to find the Dagonites and/or an idol they move down the northward corridor. 

It’s not long before they turn west and when the passage turns back to the north once more they are confronted by a monster that is seemingly made up from poop/feces. It has the look of the bodily function and smells strongly of sulphur. The creatures voice is high pitched by melodic and eerie. 

It asks the party to approach, to hug it. They refuse for a multitude of reasons. Instead they engage in battle with it. Zook, the hired man is killed. Theodora presents a silver cross and shoves it toward the creature. This seems to somewhat hold it at bay while the party retreats backward toward the stairs and then into the chapel. The creature seems to be afraid of the room and stays back, retreating down the hall.

The party moves into the martini glass shaped entrance of the chapel and sets immediately to mapping the space to help with their understanding. The last time they had been there maps had come out different and confused.

They see the wide corridor leading off to the pit to the west and continue east. Along the south wall they see a series of columns. To the south remains the room with the corpse, from whom they had stolen the map in a previous session. Continuing east, in the north wall they pass a locked door with a bronze eye. Continuing further the come to a second twin door. The group follows the corridor and heads south where they pass three shallow alcoves each holding a sad looking cherub. Two narrower passages lead further south but the party turns to the west. There they find another door on the south wall and a wider, 30’ foot corridor. The hall ends in a football shaped room where they had previously seen the broken body of a knight who had fallen from an unknown place at an unknown height.

Running low on time the adventurers returned to the martini glass opening to the cathedral and onto the stairwell that would return them to the second level of the dungeon.

Unfortunately it would not be so easy. They were once again met by the flaming, sulfurous poop monster (gollum?). Theodora used the silver cross on it again only to discover that the being was on pretending to be bothered by the religious artifact (at least in her non-cleric hands).

The group would escape thanks to protection from evil and running. They made it back to the surface, passed by Moogal, promised him some money in passing, and bid a fond farewell to Zook (RIP).

The following week passed in a blur. Theodora had been writing a lot, being secretive. Ember was shifty, anxious, not like herself. Ves got busy. Sven kept talking about moving in with some dude. And Lorna Doone was still fucking dead and probably a Were-Shark in the dungeon. The team hoped at least she was happy.

And it was in that frame of mind that Theodora, as an olive branch, reached out to Ember. She had been dead. Felt the icy hand of it running along her spine. Death changes a person. Even if you have felt dead inside, until you are actually dead, you can not understand the emptiness, the hollow ache of it under your breast. So the gnome offered a lunch date, maybe a bit of adventuring. She knew that killing something would help improve the elf’s spirits. But first drinks!

The orphans were left behind under the care of Sven. Everyone was unsure of this decision but it was decided Ves may be yet worse.

Ember and Theodora rolled into the tavern, went straight to the bar and ordered drinks (a tankard of ale and tea respectively), asked for the daily special, and turned to check out the room as any smart adventurer does. 

(The special was Seitan. Theodora shrugged. Ember ordered a bucket. It would turn out that she had no idea that Seitan was not a kind of chicken.)

There was a dwarf sat alone at a table with a pile of food in front of her looking lost, confused, and as all of the other tables were full Ember and Theodora appeared at her side asking to join her. 

The dwarf, Merriweather Boom Boom, was indeed confused, not sure how she had arrived to town, where she was from or who she even really was. The food in front of her had arrived without prompting and Ember who had been sampling the platter immediately stopped. NEVER eat food when you don’t know how it arrived, or who it came from. Life lessons, learned.

The two adventurers found Merriweather interesting as her story seemed close to what both women had experienced upon their deaths and/or changes. And honestly, they were always happy to welcome a new member to the party. Especially pretty dwarves who seemed to have a penchant for thieving.

Excusing herself to the restroom, Theodora told Merriweather to avoid further gifts of food or drink, and that they two women had a brief errands to run but would be back so please stay until they returned. This was agreed upon.

Ember and Theodora travelled below into the basement of the tavern and made their way to Xylarthan’s tower.

It was discussed that they were all very concerned about Nupo. Xylarthan agree to open a dimensional door and go to the larger nearby town and ask for information regarding the gnome. 

The idea that he may have once been a spy was brought up and that he could have knowledge the rest of the group was lacking. Worry loomed. 

Theodora worried over Xylarthan leaving. He promised to keep her updated/stay in touch. What more can an apprentice with some kind of feelings expect?

The 12th level magic user had no more information on the gems the group sold to him but he was still wearing them, floating around his head.

Theodora and Ember return to the tavern to look for Merriweather Boom Boom and found her again at the table but now surrounded by a troop of dwarves men. The adventurers joined her and found themselves very welcome. 

Using eye contact and a few subtle phrases the group of women worked up a way to distract the dwarf men (More drinks and Theodora showing a view of down her tunic) as they Merriweather picked their pockets. She managed to get some gold, silver and electrum pieces off of two out the the three. 

After that the women fled, with a solid excuse that after eating all of the Seitan, Ember was going to be ill, and that they needed to visit the alleyway. The dwarves went to buy another round and await their returns. Instead the group went to Nupo’s to shop and return to the dungeons.

Moogle was still there, running the shop. He felt slighted by Ember and Theodora for not paying him during their last visit. This was annoying.

Merriweather made some solid purchases for a trip into the dungeon, including a silver quarrel, in case the were-shark returned. 

The party was looking for holy water (in case they again came across the poop gollum). Moogle only agreed to look if the party paid at least some of what they owed. This was agreed upon reluctantly. 

Holy water was obtained, half of the bill was paid, a dinner offer was proffered and rejected (Moogle has no manners), and some unreadable letters regarding Nupo were obtained. The letters were to go immediately to Xylarthan.

The team ventured into the dungeon through Nupo’s basement, Merriweather blushing and flirting with young Moogle, the group dragging her away with a solid shake of their heads. They progressed quickly through the dungeon, only stopping briefly to offer a hat to the tiny lizard dog-like creatures who demanded it of them, as they returned to the dungeon entrance of the tower.

Xylarthan had not yet left and was happy for the letters; he would read them in transit and report back to the group when he returned. Theodora offered to swing by to water his plants.

Back in the dungeon the group set off through the rough hewn tunnel to the room with the spiral staircase; however, upon their arrival, they heard the telltale sounds of gargoyles creaking throughout the space and promptly shut the door, turning and heading back the way that they had come from. 

The party backtracked and went all the way past Xylarthan’s tower entrance and back to the lizard room. Upon arrival it was clear that the one who had “won” the hat had been made king and was helping quite a bit with egg/young “production”. The team, mildly disgusted and trying not to look, made their way across the space. Theodora offered the “king” a red ribbon that she was carrying on her person, he was thrilled. 

The adventurers opted to try a new door. They entered the western most door of the three doors on the south wall. It was a map room. Perhaps they had seen that room before, Theodora was hazy on that fact. But the map made so much sense finally, understanding the names and places, the god represented, as they previously had not. 

Theodora set to copying the map down as Ember examined the room and looked for secret doors or traps.

Information obtained from the map:

Ereshkigal, town in mentioned.

There is a large continent, somewhat heart shaped.

Ocean surround it, filled with classical sea monsters, etc.

The map is ringed by constellations like the zodiac.

Istus, a known goddess was linked to Inanna.

Chronoplus (seen as an eye) is directly above the map and is linked to Boccob (seen as an eye also). The look of some kind of lobster/insect creature.

Heget is seen in the west as a frog.

Nefertem is to the south.

Yhoundeh is also to the south, seen as an elk.

Shezmu is also to the south, seen as a lion.

Nang Kwak is to the east, seen as a reaper.

Nergul is the dark moon.

Nodens is to the west, seen as the dreamer.

No secret doors are found and so the group returns to find the small lizards still mating and enjoying themselves. Theodora smiles and offers the king a mirror so that he may seen himself in all of his glory. The gift is happily accepted and the party try the middle door on the southern wall.

They walk along the corridor there and come to a door in the south wall, this door leads to a room filled with trash and rat corpses. Moving along to the west there is a door and beyond another corridor. To the north is a room with six cloaked figures chanting, the team avoided them. The door on the furthest west wall opened to a room with shelving around it but with no light it was hard to tell exactly what was in there. Theodora had a flash back and was nervous that they could be approaching a sinister sounding wraith known as the Ship Builder.

A door along the south wall confirmed this fact but instead of entering the group retreated quickly, avoiding the wraith and the room where the “Gwar Cum” monster had been killed. Theodora felt a storage room had been tied in around there and an exit through the other side of the Gwar room. The area had been a confusing maze of empty rooms she recalled so the party returned to the corridor, wending along toward the north and west.

A door was located on the east wall with a spiral staircase leading up to a mansion where Herbert the Half-hearted and Theodora had once taken cloaks. The team had never actually cleared the exit/entrance though, unfortunately. (Check back on that?)

Finally the corridor terminated in a north/south corridor that was familiar. The group was fairly certain it was the place they had met Sexy Long Beard.

Seeing no reason to stop at the moment Ember pushed on ahead of the group and headed north toward the area where there had been a door. The elf found a door to the east, opened it, and found creatures (men?) battling?

Finally as Ember moved along something black and viscose dropped and fell from above, which quickly burned Ember, ripping through her like acid, armor and flesh. 

Ember begged the party to loot her body as she died but they were terrified. Theodora took the Ring of Elafor to see through walls and then the party escaped swearing to come back and fulfill Ember’s dying wish or looting her body.

Dun Dun Dun...

- Theodora

NIght's Dark Terror Session Report: Wandering Around in a Field

 At the beginning of the session I tried a cute trick to find out the thief’s name. I said, “hey I noticed everyone else has the name of their character on their little roll20 token except the thief.” “yeah the thief’s name is too long,” said someone who was not playing the thief. The guy playing the thief said nothing. So, as I write this I still don’t know the name of the thief he is only ever referred to as the thief.

Anyway, session 4 started on a mission to go to some place marked with a question mark on the map we found at Scrud Pud’s house. This was kind of a bad idea; it turned out but first we met a weird horse dude and killed the ferry owner from the first session (my god said it was ok. he was a douche).

He was a centaur and he could turn into a horse. I had so many questions but my character didn’t know him well enough to ask any of them. My character is a respecter of boundaries. 

 

much better.

This is the picture the dm provided,much too sexy. Frankly it's distracting.

Anyway, this horse dude tells us that he doesn’t like the guy we are working for and we are like, “neither do we, so, do you want us to kill him?” He starts backpedaling. Turns out he is more of a reformer than a revolutionary. He just wants us to tell the guy to be nicer to horses or something. Also, his name is just the Russian word for horse.

He takes us to the place we are going and lets us know we will all die if we go in there. We poke around for a bit and decide that we agree with him. This is really the OSR lesson for our 5th edition players. There is no overarching story and you get to pick your battles and picking your battles is part of the skill of this style of playing. ok. editorializing over. 

The blurriness of my camera makes them even spookier

Horse man is surprised we are still alive and offers to take us to some elves to get some magic so we won’t die to all the spooky business we just encountered (it was too spooky to even mention in this recap).

Of course the elves have some stupid problem we have to deal with so we go to some island and commit some war crimes to take care of the problem. There was another spooky place on the island but we were not in the mood.

Yeah. no thank you.

 

Then we had a party with the elves. We were all such good time boys (and girls) that the elves said we should go hang out with the dwarves next.

The end

Night's Dark Terror Session Report: Horses Aren't Important Anymore

most importantly Scrud Pud is still around

 Session 3:

I have figured out the name of everyone’s character except for the thief. I am now too embarrassed to ask.

The dwarf is named Bytor
The magic user is named Io
The fighting man is named Oso
My Cleric is named Yutnib.

Hold on I am going to check the email chain for the name of the thief… Nope, the guy playing the thief doesn’t send emails either.

Anyway, our characters don’t even get to go to sleep before we have to go after these horses. Also we are looking for a map not a scroll? So, anyway the NPCs decide we have to go after their horses and we are like ok fine. Scrud Pud rides with Yutnib.

We ride until we find some dead goblins and horses. They are being eaten by giant gross beetles. The beetles attack us on sight. We do our best to ignore them and ride away. I am not trying to fight a bunch of stupid beetles for no reason. I have found in my experience that the monsters that will be the most embarrassing to die to are the most dangerous.

Then there is a female goblin running through the woods. she gets eaten by beetles. It seemed kind of unnecessary and needlessly gory, but you know The Dymrak Woods, or wherever we are, are a tough place.

Anyway we keep riding and there is  some sketchy elf horse trader who has apparently been living less than a day’s ride from the fort where the horse breeders have been living but the horse breeders never knew she existed, but the goblins apparently did and the goblins sold the horses  to these sketchy horse breeder.

We get into a discussion of whether the elf horsetrader and her bandit suboordinates are bonafide purchasers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bona_fide_purchaser the elf is losing the argument and resorts to both physical and magical violence. Luckily, she puts her own men to sleep with the sleep. She apparently didn’t read the description closely enough before casting i into the melee. Also the thief stabbed her in the back. while she was stabbing the party in the back.

Anyway we take the horses and her stuff. Her stuff includes a spell book. I whine unti the spellbook contains charm person so we can charm Scrud Pud and make him our friend forever. I told the dm that if he didn’t put charm person in the spell book I would derail the whole campaign and make the whole party go on a quest to get the charm person spell.

When we get back to the fort it turns out that no one even cares about the horses anymore because the guy that told us to get involved in this whole horse debacle has been kidnapped by goblins. The conversation  went something like this:

NPC guy: Waaah!!! Save my brother!

Us: Yeah… so about these horses we just murdered a bunch of people over…

NPC guy : Waaahhh my brother. Go do that instead.

Us: ok, I guess.

So we go to see if this guy is at Scrud Pud’s house. He isn’t. no one is.  There are some stirge though. We kill them and then we fight some type of vicious rodent. Scrud Pud although charmed and friendly seemed to have precious little intel on his own home where he had presumably lived his entire life. Poor guy must be traumatized.

This is a my best rendering of a stirge

The thief almost dies disarming a trap. The trap was an exploding magic ruby. The thief then wondered why a goblin lair would have such a sophisticated magic trap in a goblin lair. The dungeon master gives him an icy blank stare and then begins describing the contents of the treasure chest. There is a map that seems to depict plans for goblin raids or something.

We head back to fort to rest and heal.

The thief's arm caught on fire