Session 08 - Greg

Last time

Last time we started fighting the orcs in the cave network. After a rough fight, we left the network and went down the hillside a short way to take a short rest and come back into the network to finish the job.

The Orc Fortress

The party decided to re-enter the orc fortress through the same entrance. There has been no effort to clean up or address the wreckage we left behind during our short rest. Investigating the wreckage, we did discover a number of orcish trinkets that were worthless to us are missing. There has been a second wave of looting in the piles of corpses. Barrick discovered sooty, goblin footprints in the area, suggesting goblins looted the corpses and the fortress is certainly aware of our presence.

In the back of the cave we entered, we discovered the village square of the cave, the filthy living quarters where they’ve been living with tents and such.

Barrick and Hugh entered a prison in the back corner where we believe Radovan Rytir escaped from. A couple goblins are in a cage and a goblin guard is knocked out at the table. Hugh threw the guard in a cage and locked the door. There’s a well in the southern corner and loose, broken pipes in the room.

Barrick decided to interrogate the beaten, imprisoned half-orc teenager.

Barrick: What are you in hear for?
[[Mukumak]]: I was disobedient in training. Kurgoth, our trainer, is a fucker and if I find a knife, I’ll put it through him.
Barrick: We might have already done that.
Mukumak: Good.
Barrick: What’s been going on here before you were locked in the cage?
Mukumak: They bought a group of us and told us we were gonna join the tribe as freed members if we fought well. They bought ten, four of us would get to join the tribe.
Barrick: Did you know the others?
Mukumak: Not well, we bunked and trained together, but only four would survive training, so we weren’t close.
Gavin: Have you seen other parts of the cave system? What’s deeper in the caved?
Mukumak: Not much, a tunnel to the small bridge with the spire on the other side. The spire’s the peak where the Laguna-kin and the rest live.
Barrick: What do you know about the Laguna-kin?
Mukumak: The Laguna kin are fucked up. They say they follow [[Luthic]], but they’ve got some weird thing going on top of that. There’s something else here that they’re obsessed with finding. They’re using slaves to dig here.
Barrick: Who’s in charge?
Mukumak: Mother Laguna.
Gavin: How many kin live in the spire?
Mukumak: Maybe a dozen?
Barrick: Was there a dwarf in here earlier? What happened?
Mukumak: Yeah. One of the guards got too close and got grabbed. The dwarf got his key, hit the other one on the head, and got out. The dwarf seemed like an asshole. He was a dwarf.

Kira applied some medicine to Mukumak and helped the kid feel better.

Barrick asked Mukumak to sketch a map of the cave. Mukumak did so in the dirt on the ground, drawing the caved we know, a tunnel on the other side of the village to the small bridge, and then the spire on the other side of the bridge. The small bridge is guarded. The spire contains a grove, a big bridge, and the fighting pits.

Bikke suggested murdering the guards defending the bridge, crossing the bridge, and destroying it. Then have Mukuamak stand on the near side of the bridge and shout across the pit to lure guards away from the spire.

The back of the cave is a goblin warren with some living goblins who clearly surrendered. Barrick told them to throw down their weapons. The goblins are clearly responsible for the second wave of looting that occurred. The lead goblin, after throwing away the sword, offered us a deal.

The deal: Goblins, no fight. Goblins show us treasure. Good goblin resting spot for just goblins. Goblins need little money, and goblins go.

Gavin points out that each scalp is 5 gp.

Stupid orcs try to smash door, but goblins know where the old temple’s back door is. No guards.

Barrick offers 5 copper per goblin and goblins their lives.

Goblin counteroffers 5 copper and the keg on a cart and the goblins get the liquor.

Goblins leave with cart and 25 copper, we find a back entrance of the temple shown by the goblins.

We agree to the deal and move the keg onto the cart for the goblins. Bikke cages the goblins that aren’t helping us and the goblin shows us the secret passage into the temple, the interior of a large, collapsed sandstone building filled with stolen food and wine. The secret goblin clubhouse in a room in an old, collapsed temple.

The Collapsed Temple Basement

The temple is well crafted, a vaguely Calimshite carved sandstone bricks. The architecture does not seem related to the temple at Bad Doric. We do notice that it has an almost constant breeze with a somewhat pleasant scent once we’re past the goblin filth. There is significant damage throughout the temple. Barrick sees chips in the stone, suggesting the temple was the site of a harsh fight at some point in the past.

Gavin discovered a chest with some minor baubles and some small amount of coinage. Gavin claims what might be worthwhile from the Goblin treasure horde, contents to be determined after the session.

Near the southern end of the uphill ramp, there appears to have been a barricade erected defending the southern portion of the temple from the north, where we explored from. The torches are dark. There is a large, double door behind the barricade.

The Fountain Chamber

In the next room, we discover a massive fountain similar to the fountain we discovered in Bad Doric, but in the Calimshite style. Arranged around the fountain is a series a crypts with an object sitting on top and connected to the fountain. The fountain is filled with a somehow corrupted water.

Kira casts Detect Magic and discovers that the fountain itself is enchanted and the caskets and items around it are captured by the same enchantment. The magic is Divine and elemental. As we move around the room, we learn that the fountain is the source of the breeze.

Bikke searched for access to an additional room in the passageway down to the fountain, but was unable to find access to another door there.

Near the southern door of the fountain chamber we heard what sounded like the orcs working on breaking through a large door further away on the other side of the door.

We also note that the feeling of apathy from the Mirefen and Bad Doric is coming through this fountain as well.

Kira recognizes that there are thin places where the planes touch and someone can step from Prime to the Feywild. This room is “thin” and connected to Shadowfell. Kira drank some cupped hands of the water and Bikke catches her as she collapses into a paralyzed seizure. A few seconds later Kira’s vision clears, and in that time Kira saw through the eyes of another person she did not know. She felt a pounding on the doors, an awareness of the temple under assault, doom, and apathy in the face of this person’s certain death. She saw other members of the order placing their holy symbols down, cutting their wrists, bleeding into the fountain, and lying down in their crypts. Finally, Kira sees her own eyes lay down an item and cut her own wrists, not to die, but to wait.

Kira’s eyes opened again after the vision and she told the rest of us what she saw. She thinks the spirits are still around and not gone, but that there may be a way to talk with them.

Bikke tries the water as well and has a similar experience to Kira’s. In his vision, he is laying down his sword knowing that his brother has the sword’s mate and is defending the door. He is a surviving elder of the Order of Hospitalers who understands what it is to give up himself and move into a necromantic spirit.

Barrick picks up the shield on the eastern crypt. The shield is too heavy to use as a shield. As he lifts the shielf, Barrick feels waves of hostile cold coming up off the crypt. The feeling that he gets is that the circle is incomplete and the items are not meant to be looted. He has the sense that the missing items should be restored.

We opened the door at the south of the chamber to find the missing sword and book, them items we believe to be misisng. Hugh brought the corpse that we found next to the sword to the crypt and laid it to rest there.

Gavin drinks from the fountain and sees through the eyes of a young man, the youngest of the hospitalers in the crypt. He looked across the room at his identical twin, laying his shield down as well. He knows his role is to defend the order, but he does not believe this is how the defense should have happened.

Barrick takes a drink from the fountain as well. Barrick’s vision is a panicked member sitting on the floor and pushing himself back into a corner wracked with a sense of failure for having fled. His role is to be the historian of the order, but when the order needed his bravery, he had none. He is in a small room with light coming from under the door, somewhere above ground.

Kira decides to try removing the second book. It feels quite heavy, but she’s able to lift it. As it breaks contact with the crypt, she experiences a wave of cold necromantic hostility as she lifts the book. Kira feels the entity buried in the crypt is coming up with the book, and not to play.

As Kira removed the book, a malevolent spectre emanating hostility sits up from the crypt. This is one of the ways the temple protects itself.

Kira tells the spectre that Orcs are trying to break through and asks what we should do to protect it. The spectre does not respond as though it comprehends Kira’s statement.

Combat begins.

Kira replaced the book

Combat ends.

The Mountain Path

The goblins we released picked up the other goblin guards during their escape, so the path up is now unguarded.

As we climb the path, we find a wrecked religious building filled with orcs.

Combat begins.

We defeat the orcs before they get the alarm off.

Gavin used the chime of opening to open a locked door where the dessicated corpse lies next to the book that is missing from the crypt.

The party brought the book, corpse, and sword back to the crypt and replaced the artifacts.

When the sword and book are replaced on the crypts, a wave of clean water flows from the sarcophogi into the fountain and the blood retracts from the fountain back into the bodies. The feeling of apathy shifts and becomes massively intense, then fades. We sense a rumble deep in the mountain.

We felt the cold energy come from the crypts, and then see from each of the eight crypts rises one of the elder figures, ethereal and incorporeal. Their interest in us is brief, but fleeting. They then sink through the floor. Bikke stayed outside watching the orcs with the ogres that were trying to penetrate the temple.

We attacked the ogre and orcs after Bikke noted to us the Nadia the half-orc seemed to be discouraging progress.

Combat begins.

We defeat the orcs and the ogre. We’ve now counted 7 orc scalps, 3 goblin scalps, and 1 ogre scalp.

We started talking with Nadia and noticed she has an educated Waterdeep accent.

Nadia: They’ve been trying off-and-on to get into that door for years. I don’t know what they thought they were going to find. I’m here to try to save an enslaved friend. When we saw the raiding party and knew we were outnumbered, I acted like my friend’s captor to save our lives and they believed it. My friend wasn’t into it, but at least neither of us died. My friend is a halfling named “Pocket”

Bikke: We’re here for scalps, so we can help you out. How long have you been here?

Nadia: Less than a week, but I’ve been around.

Bikke: Do we have a chance of taking out what’s left on the other side of the bridge?

We see the ethereal energy continuing to destroy orcs on the other side of the bridge.