The third session of our Sicily Campaign took place entirely in P'andelvia. The Rockseeker brothers started their operation to reclaim the Lost Mines from this village, but no one has heard from them in weeks. Our PCs, Arturo Maretia and Vinto, arrived in the middle of the night, delivering the wounded knight Sildaro to safety. While the wagon with the Rockseekers' supplies had arrived earlier that day, they sit idle now. In the morning the two warriors intend to ask around town to discover the whereabouts of this so-called "Cragmaw Castle," the place the goblins said their bosses took Gundren Rockseeker and his map.
The Maretia 'Brothers' awake the next morning and get a quick lay of the land from the windows of their chambers. The inn is converted from an old design of insula (Roman apartment building) that housed miners in service to whoever owned that villa on the edge of town - back before it became an overgrown ruin. The innkeeper is busy preparing for a large rush at lunch-time, and indicates to the crowd of villagers coming out from a house across the way. There's a positively ancient-looking priest leading the congregants in some hymns and giving a sermon after the Mass has let out. A motherly-looking figure breaks away and quietly crosses the road to the inn, greeting the two brothers warmly.
She introduces herself as Haelia, the operator of the local miner's exchange, and expresses her condolences on their difficult travels and the loss of their patron, Gundren. Without ever losing her tone or expression she subtly menaces them with a table-knife in a manner more fitting a gangster. It's quite apparent that she is their local contact with the crime syndicate that dispatched the "boys" on this mission in the first place. Without ever breaking her Stepford Smiler facade, she mentions that if she has to report their failure on top of the problems she's having with this Glass Staff character setting up a protection racket on her turf - well, things are going to get unpleasant.
Speaking of unpleasant, rather than disbanding into the informal feast the innkeeper hoped for, the end of church services has become a scene. People are escorting their children away and man are clearing the streets as a band of young toughs in leather armor wearing red cloths on their belts are now menacing the old priest. Despite efforts to break up the altercation with common sense (Sildaro), appeals for decency (the priest), and subtle intimidation (Arturo) all Hell breaks lose and Vinto has take a shot on someone. That draws the attention of the two oafs to charge across the town square at him. Before the injured man can follow gives him a fatal sword-fighting lesson. The reluctant, younger gang member flees into the improvise church in horror. A few more arrows are shot and the two thugs a couple of hits on Arturo but they are left dead in the dust.
They come back to the church area to see the priest unsuccessfully trying to save his former assailants life and resigning himself to performing Final Unction for the man. There's a brief sidebar about priests not being the same thing as adventurer-type clerics - the crux of which I'll cover in a World Setting article soon. The two rangers spare Eduardo, the teenager hiding in the improvised church. He's panicked and insists they all flee town before Glass Staff finds out what's happened. Arturo reuses some of his father's old lecture material and gets the kid coherent again. Ed insists that they are in terrible danger. The guy to cross the boss-wizard was fed to a hideous monster in the pit, and his wife and kids are getting sold as slaves! Plus the boss has "these giant goblins" working for him now.
Arturo and Vinto get all the useful information they can out of the Redbrand defector and leave Sildaro in charge of him. Ignoring the verklempt town master, they mosey over to the Sleeping Giant Taphouse to pick another fight. They pull out an old merchant's trick, bribing the bartender quietly to give them watered wine while they appear to be ordering the harder stuff the Redbrands are pounding away. A rigged drinking contest ensues, after which the inebriated thugs decide it would be best to get back to their billets. Their two new drinking buddies (who one of the Redbrands is still trying to recruit) follow them outside and promptly assassinate them. The three thugs suffer Disadvantage from the poisoned condition and just flail around until they are gutted like fish. Most the NPCs aren't thrilled with the idea of them completely depopulating the gang in such a fatal manner (a few of the locals have errant kin like Ed) and both Sildaro and Haelia wants some young, fighting men under thumb for their own reasons. The local undertaker, on the other hand, is thrilled.
We wrap up the game with the two adventurers scouting the villa, investigating the main entrance first and then the one in the woods that Ed had mentioned. Near the concealed tunnel Vinto comes across a mastiff hound that looks the worse for wear. It shows signs of recent abuse and starvation, but stubbornly refuses to leave the entrance area. He feeds the beast at it seems trusting enough of him, but it seems very sour on Arturo. Near as they can tell, the dog doesn't like something about how the swordsman smells ....
No comments:
Post a Comment