In the previous session Arturo and Vinto depopulated the village of Phandelvia of Redbrand Ruffians and scouted out two entrances to the ruined villa nearby, the gang's hangout. The new session begins with Vinto persuading his new canine companion to sniff about in the concealed tunnel leading into the hillside. With the coast clear, the two foresters head inside and infiltrate the Redbrand base in the villa cellars. They attract the attention of a horrible arcane abomination hiding in a ravine in the center of the room. While the creature's necrotic magic can't seem to get hold of them, its psychic intrusions make for a maddening encounter. Having tasted enough of their steal, it begins exploiting the darkness of the ravine and at one point even throws a rickety bridge at the adventurers before they tire of the game of cat-and-mouse and press onward and downward.
(Vinto's player rolled a "1" during the psychic contest. We agreed that he owes me a truly deep, dark secret from the character's past as homework before the next session.)
Listening to a door at the bottom of the stairs, Arturo hears the all-too-familar gutter-tongue of goblinoids engaged in some sort of torment. After quietly peering in, Arturo and Vinto invade the room to ambush the bugbear occupants, closing the heavy door behind them to help muffle the sounds of battle. The initial barrage of arrow and blade let's Arturo overwhelm two of the hulking goblinoids in a bloody melee, but the third sorely presses the archer in the confined space of the barracks. Arturo has just brought down the second beast when he turns to see the battered black mastiff standing protectively over Vinto's sprawled form. The last bugbear and the wounded swordsman's eyes meet - and the human conceives and executes a desperate gambit.
(I really appreciate my player stopping for a moment and considering the dire situation. Unable to sustain another blow, facing down a perfectly healthy bugbear, his partner making death saves, and backed into a literal corner behind enemy lines. In play were two dead bugbears, a primed escalation die, a desperate gambit, and two successful, painful attacks - the Charisma check was just a formality at that point - well played.)
With a high-pitched imitation of the tortured little goblin victim laying unconscious on the barracks floor he charges forward screaming in the goblin tongue about "his" torment and vengeance. His strikes are telling blows that viciously wound the bugbear. In the face of a seemingly possessed and murderous fiend, the bugbear makes for the exit behind him to get reinforcements. However, the mastiff hound guarding the fallen archer mauls its leg as it tries to pass, dragging him to the floor. The beasts screams are cut short by spartha blades, and Arturo quickly sets to work helping Vinto recover, barring the chamber doors, and eventually striking up a conversation with the goblin they "rescued." The goblin proves obsequious and helpful having an extensive knowledge of the area and its secrets and no love for the "pink-skins" that would join in on his abuse. A few kind words and a shared meal reveal the relative location of most of the other dungeon inhabitants and a secret passage leading directly to the wizard Glass Staff's inner sanctum and earn the little monster his release into the forest.
The Maretia 'Brothers' use the bugbear leader's master key to lock the nearby ruffians in their own common room before making their way to he secret stairwell and launch a surprise attack on the gang boss. They catch him completely unawares at his writing desk, not ten feet from where the secret door opens up. Using the element of surprise, Arturo rushes forward and knocks the eponymous staff from its resting place, far out of reach of the flabbergasted mage. Unprepared and ill-defended, Glass Staff is is overwhelmed immediately and wounded before he can even cast a spell. He quickly surrenders and pleads his case to his captors.
As it turns out, Glass Staff is really Iarno, the contact Sildaro was supposed to meet in town. He felt forced to abandon his original agreement to raise a town guard to secure the area because a strange Numidian elf (as Iarno describes him) calling himself Spider had already gained control of much of the area. So long as he's allowed to complete his real mission - to gain access to whatever remains of the legendary Forge of Spells beneath the mines on behalf of the Archemagos - Iarno really doesn't care who opens the mine (or has to die, for that matter). Seeing the path of least resistance (or "the non-suicidal path," as Iarno would call it), Iarno took up the role of Glass Staff.
(I changed Iarno's background, and those of most other NPCs from
their Forgotten Realms organization in the original adventure to Byzantine Age Icons. Sildaro is associated with the Emperor / Imperial Court as a noble. Iarno is an agent of the Hermetic Order. The Grey Weaver has his hooks into the syndicate the PCs were working with. The priest in the previous episode is an obvious connection to the Pontifex, while one of the local retired veterans in town is a hook to the Praefectus rather than the Realm's Order of the Gauntlet.)
The Maretia 'Brothers' take the prisoner to Sildaro and the four of them manage to get the remaining Redbrands to surrender themselves. In exchange they are promised not to face trial for treason - the only crime where a citizen can face execution as punishment. While the potential to die a galley or mine slave in such a judgment is very real, Sildaro and the Town Master seem keen on the idea of putting them to public use. A family is rescued from being sold into slavery, though the father has been killed. His loyal hound was the one that lead the adventurers to his remains and now stays at Vinto's side. They finally kill the lurking abomination to retrieve the poor man's corpse, and find a treasure cache in the ravine that includes a masterwork blade.
The mother mentions an abandoned heirloom in a now-ruined village that the adventures would be welcomed to as a reward. As it turns out, a local halfling family says a wise druid just headed off towards that same village not two days ago - and if anyone knows the location of this "Cragmaw Keep" where Gundren Rockseeker was taken, it'll be the well-traveled mystic. A few other townsfolk seek the fearsome heroes out with petitions, but most will have to wait until the Gundren is brought back safely.
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