Session 5 - Greg

Session 05 (2024-08-30) - Greg

Last time

After capturing Giotto, the Sling Company camps in a serene glade. They enjoy a hearty meal and drinks, with Gavin sharing a song about their exploits. However, the night turns sour as everyone suffers from food poisoning. Kira wakes to find Bikke severely ill, and Giotto dead from the same sickness. The party decides to return to Port Maraisa, where Magistrato Falcone arranges for Bikke to be taken to the Lazaretto. Mother Verduna and Sister Nightsong care for Bikke, who is stable but weak. With Bikke in good hands, the party decides to continue their journey to Bad Doric.

The Mirefen Swamp

As the party approaches Bad Doric, we notices that the ground is growing more solid and less swampy until the swamp fades behind us. We find ourselves on a road, or a well-made path, and following that south we come across the banks of a fast flowing river, probably a tributeary of the Ith. Lepett tells us that we’re entering the foothills of the Omlarandin Mountains.

Kira tells Lepett to return to The Lazaretto. He agrees after confirming that we’ll be able to find our way back. Kira affirms that we’ll figure it out.

The Omlarandin Mountains

There’s a rought bridge over the river. We see the collapsed stone of a tower on the other side of the bridge, indicating that we’re entering Bad Doric. The party crossed the bridge and approached the tower. The road continues past the tower and into a valley.

Barrick and the rest of the party investigated the ruins of the tower. Nothing of interest to find, the towers ruins have been abandoned for decades. We’re concerned about the nature of the valley and potential for ambush, Kira wildshaped into a fox to scout around more.

Kira found a building on the other end of the valley in a building housing two goblins. They sound like they’re arguing over food. They have crossbows in the building, but aren’t shooting because they’re distracted. Kira continued up the hillside and discovered the ruins of a small town, presumably Bad Doric itself, occupied by both goblins and orcs.

Kira knows orcish and has telepathy, so she telepathically thought into an orc’s mind, “Stop stealing my food” and then ran away. The orc turned to look at the female orc next to him and stepped back with frightened deference. Perhaps this orc woman is the leader and the threat!

Kira returns to the party and returned to her Eladrin shape to share what she discovered with the rest of the party.

Bad Doric

Upon Kira’s return, the party discussed strategy. We agreed that we want to incapacitate and interrogate the orc female based on Kira’s observation. We settled on Gavin approaching the goblins to parlay, representing himself as Boblin’s zealous advocate.

(Extended discussion about realism, dnd, and medieval fighting.)

Gavin threatens the goblins.

  • The goblins demand to see Gavin’s “rot”. Gavin bluffs past the demand.
  • The goblins demand to see the kids. Gavin demands to see money before showing the kids.
  • Gavin asked us to show some threat, so Hugh and Barrick do. Kira looks bored.
  • Goblins demand children before going further.
  • Kira starts walking up the path, “I don’t know why we’re talking to these fools.”
  • Kira shouts into the goblin’s head, “So what?” The goblin threatens to raise an alarm, and Barrick charges.

The fight for Bad Doric begins.

The party killed half a dozen goblins, two orc fighters, and incapacitated [[Mulekick]], the orcish woman that the other orcs were subservient to. As the combat wrapped up, we heard human screams and saw black smoke coming up from a fire further up the hill. Rounding the corner, we saw what appeared to be a granary on fire and the human screams were coming from it. Charging across the town square, we found people in cages, more goblins and orcs, and were ambushed.

The Bad Doric ambush begins.

The party was again victorious after destroying the orcs near the granary and the warlock that seemed to be leading them. The party took a short rest to recover some hitpoints after being near death. They were only able to rescue one of the civilians from the fire, her name is Amelia.

While resting, the party searched the corpses and the buildings. They discovered:

  • Two chests of gold in the warlock’s quarters (about as much as Del Veign gave them at the outset)
  • Two barrels of milk near the cages, clotted, and one with a spoon on it. Presumably for feeding the prisoners.
  • A non-magical cloak of pockets with clumpy yellow reagents and brown, desecrated (unholy) water. [[Kira]] attempted to identify the contents of the cloak. IT contains 4 potions, two with yellowy-white stuff and two with brown water.
    • The water is mineral spring water that has been poisoned with an unknown agent.
    • One of the white vials is more curdled milk.
    • The second white vial is clotted semen.
  • No notes on the chest near the cages. Ick.

Interrogating Mulekick the Orc

The party rudely woke the prisoner orc, Mulekick, for interrogation. Kira and Barrick speak orcish and understood Mulekick’s curses, saying that the Laguna-kin would get us.

Kira experimented with the potions by opening the clotted milk potion and pouring it into Mulekick’s mouth. The orc lapped it up. The milk is apparently helping her confidence.

  • Mulekick: “My sisters will kill you.”
  • Kira: “I look forward to them trying.”
  • Barrick, spitting on the ground: “What were you pathetic goblin runts doing here?”
    • (Gavin, sidebar: Use their fear and what they don’t want to interrogate successfully)
  • Barrick: “What will your pathetic sisters think of your weakness?”
  • Mulekick: “Bring me to them and find out.”

Kira casts Detect Thoughts, it succeeds:

  • Mulekick is a zealot, an aspirant who is absolutely, feverishly devoted to joining the “Laguna-kin”.
  • The Laguna-kin are related to the Occhi-de-vermi, the “Eyes of Vermin”. The Laguna-kin also have a temple south of the town.

Kira telepathically asks, “Will the Laguna-kin accept you now that you’ve failed?”. The orc’s answer is just its faith that subsuming itself to the laguna-kin via humilaiton, the inverse of nirvana.

Kira relays the information in Orcish to Barrick and Barrick relays the information to Gavin and Hugh.

Kira also realizes with insight that the orc is receptive to mental manipulation as just the norm.

Kira tells Barrick to kill her. Barrick agrees and drags her to the granary to burn her alive. Mulekick dies.

Amelia

Amelia was traveling with another group, the Stoica, when she was abducted some days ago. The experience was traumatic.

Amelia wasn’t sure where she was going, she was trying to head to Baldur’s Gate or Neverwinter from Cormyr. We move on to meet again with Lepett.

(I missed some notes here. We can pick up more with questions over text and from Brian’s ntoes)

The Laguna-kin temple

The temple has a small cemetary near the entrance. Some of the graves have been opened. Hugh’s divine sense detects the entire temple affected by an Unhallowed effect.

The focal point of the temple is a dry fountain, not an altar as is often the case in temples. There are footprints and other general signs of activity in the template. The stairs are where the action is.

There is also a root cellar out back behind the template with roots and other reagents that Kira will likely find useful (to follow up offline, trying to move it along to wrap the night at a reasonable hour).

Gavin is intrigued by the temple and its symbology, he is aware that there’re sites of a human order following elven gods that try to consecrate natural healing places. Springs are a common source of such healing and this temple’s spring probably had its origin in such a founding.

In the basement down the stairs, the party finds itself in a room with four massive fountains that are successfully flowing. The room is warm and humid and our first reaction is that it’s a pleasant place, spa-like. The basement is also desecrated.

Down the hall we see a hallways declining down to the south underground. We also find a chamber under the temple where it has begin to collapse. The room was probably once a library or a reading room for the papers belonging to the temple. The books and papers have been used for kindling, even recently, and a meal fit for an orc is on a table.

Barrick searched the room and found a page with small writing (Transcript to be recorded by either Brian or Randolph).

The deeper we go down the hall to the south, the more evidence we find of flooding covering these lower areas. There are recent footprints, this area has been used. At the end of the hallway, we discover Laguna-kin Korra and a fight.

The party attacks.

After the party is victorious over Laguna-kin Korra, the party has an opportunity to catch our breaths. We are in a crypt with 5 different tombs, each with a plinth containing a journal of a mother superior.

After the fight we found:

  • A Staff of Warning
  • A Cloak of Pockets (mundane)
  • Hide armor +1