We again found ourselves minus our Cleric who I am told will be rejoining us in June.
In attendance were;
Thaddeus Whisperheart: Gnome Trickster
Tiberius: Human Paladin of Sarenrae
Susan: Human Universalist Wizard
Kumak Morudall: Half-Orc Bloodrager
After interrogating the creature that Thaddeus identified as a Quasit. The group conducted a relativly unsuccessful interrogation then dispatched it. Returning to the statue Kumak and Thaddeus had discovered, Susan inspected the writings and determined it was a statue of the Runelord of Wrath Alaznist. While studying the statue the group heard foot steps and found one of the Townsguard, Pte Tiernay joining them. He explained that some of the townsfolk had witnessed the party enter the glassworks and when he had investigated and found goblin corpses he had fled to get help. Running into Gavren Devres, the Paladin operator of the local brewery he felt brave enough to return and see if the newest deputies were well.
Getting bored with all the talking and fawning over old scribbles on the statue Kumak picks the north door and opens it. Tiberius calls for him to hold for a moment, and in a moment that gave the Half-orc pause, Tiberius offered to take the lead. Entering onto a rickety wooden walkway Tiberius and Susan remained above on the planks while Kumak and Thaddeus descended to check the bottom floor. Just as Kumak had begun to search the empty cells he found Tiberius was attacked from below by some more of the Sin Spawn. The first cant seem to break the knights armor, but its friend lands a telling blow against Susan who flees towards Kumak and Thaddeus. Kumak moves up to the first Sin Spawn, and using the Ranseur pins the creature to the wall and watches the life drain from its eyes. The other Spawn vaults up onto the walkway above and thrashes at Tiberius to no avail. Thaddeus rushes upstairs and attempts to shove the creature off the walkway but the gnome cant seem to budge the monstrosity. Tiberius stabs it in the gut but it refuses to go down until Kumak moves underneath the floor boards and his Ranseur pierces up through the walkway to impale the Sin Spawn right in his grundle.
Susan being rather injured elects to stay further back for the moment. Finding nothing of interest in the cells the group advances through a door at the end of the walkway. Past a hallway they come to a room with 2 doors. Opening the right one they are met with a small cluttered room with 3 doors against one wall. As Thaddeus and Susan begin searching Tiberius opens one of the doors and finds a skeleton with an abnormally large head. Kumak knocks on the other 2 doors in the room but hearing no answer moves outside. Tiberius opens the rooms other doors and finds a skeleton in each, one with a vestigial 3rd arm and the other whose rib cage continues down far beyond where it should have terminated. Moving to leave the room Tiberius kicks over a piece of wood under which Thaddeus spies a scroll case. Swiftly the gnome claims it and determines it is a scroll of Flaming Sphere.
Thaddeus's curiosity gets the better of him as he had not been able to open many of the doors himself, he opens the door to the next room, and gets a javelin through his stomach for his trouble. Kumak flies into a rage and advances into the room, seeing some piles of timber over the floor and at the far end of the room is a heavily mutated goblin. The half-orc avoids stepping on the wood piles and just manages to get into range for his new Ranseur to do its work. In one mighty swing Kumak takes the head off the goblin and seeing no more dangers catches his breath. Susan, entering the room determines that this goblin is afflicted with all 3 of the mutations seen on the skeletons in the previous room. Based off prior descriptions she feels confidant that this was once the goblin hero Korvus, who was famed for fighting with a magical long sword that was much too big for him. Hearing "Magical Long sword" Tiberius charges up to claim the blood red blade which Susan confirms is magic. Kumak stores a Masterwork handaxe, and silver dagger in his backpack for later. Hearing noises from beneath the wood piles the group remove the coverings of one and spy a couple shambling figures at the bottom of what appears to be a 20 foot pit. Confirming that there are more in each of the covered pits Tiberius begins tying some rope to rappel himself down and take the fight to them, while Kumak takes his bow and arrows purchased by Foxglove and makes short work of the zombies.
Advancing to the south Tiberius finds some stairs that continue down but they way has been blocked by a cave in that seems beyond their current capabilities to circumnavigate, further down the hall the group comes upon a spherical shaped room, the door they stand in opening into the center. Catching a glimpse of some objects seemingly floating within the room Kumak picks up a stray bit of stone and tosses it in. Seeing the stone lose much of its momentum but continue to float he steps in after it and finds that he too floats, it is an all together uncomfortable feeling which the party soon joins in on. Taking a mysterious red book which no one can read, a scroll of burning hands and a bottle of wine the group returns to the statue of the Runelord and advances down the last unexplored hallway. Rising up several flights of stairs they come out into a room with a small font and are surprised by a small creature that darts out of the shadows to attack. What can only be described as a severed head with wings on either side lets out an ear-piercing scream that locks all the heroes in place save Tiberius, protected by the light of Sarenrae. Tiberius and the creature exchange blows for several seconds and the battle is taxing but the Paladin finds himself soon standing over the deceased remains of his foe. However the creature had given Tiberius a suspicious kiss before the fight ended and Tiberius finds himself feeling unwell. The group manage to shake off the effect that held them and confirming that the hallway leads to a caved in set of stairs that would have led up they elect to return to the surface. During the trip back Tiberius finds his hair begins to fall out in large clumps and the paladin resolves he must see father Zantus as soon as possible.
Reaching the stairs that lead back into the glassworks the group hears the sound of commotion, a standoff, one man vs many, a brief fight then as they are acending the stairs the body of Gavren Devres tumbles down the stairs, unmoving. Flying into a rage Kumak reaches the landing to see a few of Jubrayl's men he knows along with 3 others he has not met. There is one large individual with his back to the stairs in the process of explaining himself to the others when Kumak's Earthbreaker smashes him across the back. The man is pushed forward into the foyer proper but remains on his feet as Kumak's form fills the doorway. One of the men holds out his hands and tries to sue for peace, that there can be an understanding and no one needs to die. As Tiberius and Thaddeus join Kumak upstairs Tiberius calls down to Villister who confirms that Gavren is dead. Kumak responds with
"Any of you lot still holding a weapon in 2 seconds gets turnt to jelly"
The one talker among them who identifies himself as Drewil agrees and drops his weapon as do all the others save the big guy that Kumak had struck from behind who holds onto his spear staring the half-orc dead in the eyes. As Kumak takes a step towards him the leader of the group calls out
"Hardue, drop it"
Hardue sniffs and throws down his weapon. Kumak and Thaddeus gather the gear and march the prisoners to the jail while Tiberius and Susan take Gavrens body to see father Zantus. Arriving at the chapel they set Gavrens body aside to be cleaned and prepared while father Zantus delves into the affliction that has now caused all of Tiberius's hair to fall out and his ears have begun to come to elongated points. The old man finally determines that some sort of disease is affecting him but he does not have the power to remove it himself. Searching through a reserve stash Zantus casts a remove disease which takes hold and immediately Tiberius's ears revert to their normal shape. He however remains completely hairless. Susan, Tiberius and father Zantus discuss the events that transpired and the 2 eventually take their leave of him to return to the Rusty Dragon.
Thaddeus and Kumak march the prisoners into separate cells and pull Drewil into the interrogation room first. Drewil is reluctant at first to cooperate, claiming that they had heard that the group had broken into the glassworks and when they saw Gavren and Pte Tiernay follow they entered and after a misunderstanding Hardue kncoked into Gavren and he must have died from the fall. Thaddeus leaps up onto the table and demands answers, throwing his new returning dagger into the chair between Drewils legs then letting it blink back to his hand. Drewil is nervous but holds out on his story so Thaddeus looks to Kumak and back to Drewil, sighs and says
"Well I tried, now I guess we do it his way"
Kumak grabs the table that Thaddeus is still standing on and hurls it at the nearby wall, causing it to explode into so much firewood. Thaddeus falls prone but with only his pride hurt he cleans himself off and takes a seat on the remaining chair.
"I saw 'is body. Was too many wounds on 'im for one idiot to have done that 'fore you coulda stopped 'im. You all did it, mebbe not at the end, mebbe yous was looking for 'im to give up. But all of yous stuck 'im didn't you?"
Gavren looks terrified of the hulking brute leaning into him, looks to Thaddeus for help, finding none the words begin to spill out
"Alright yes, I didn't want to kill him, we were just supposed to follow you and see what you were doing?"
"On who's orders?"
"......Jubrayl. But that's all, this whole situation was just a misunderstanding gone out of control"
"You know, that when we bring your friends in 'ere, your story and theirs better match up, else yous gonna see what kind of mess I can make when it aint a table I'm throwing into a wall."
Interviewing 2 of the others the story matches up. No one else claims to know about Jubrayl giving the orders, just that they take their orders from Drewil. Hardue is brought into the interrogation room and sits silently as Thaddeus runs off what they already know and if he would like a chance to offer something up to help save him life. Kumak seeing seeing Hardue just silently glare at him walks outside the room and rests his weapons against the wall in the hallway and returns to the interrogation room.
"You see if you don't want to cooperate then I have to let my friend here ask and he's not as nice as I am."
Hardue continues to glare.
"Well I did try, I think I am going to go look over all the evidence we have and try and figure out if they will kill you by hanging, headsman, or just pull you apart with horses then yes?" Thaddeus walks out leaving Kumak with Hardue.
The 2 large men glare at each other for several seconds before Kumak flexes his hands and asks
"You want a shot at the belt huh? Well lets have it"
Hardue tenses but makes no move. After a minute Kumak shrugs
"Yeah thought so." Opening the door he calls for the guards on duty, "He's done here, put 'im back in 'is cell."
Kumak and Thaddeus agree that the next step as the official law in this town should be to confront Jubrayl at the Fat Man's Feedbag and bring him in for questioning. They briefly wonder if they should wait until they have healed or bring some backup but decide that they are badasses and can do this on their own.
Walking straight into the bar the 2 are met with an abrupt silence as about 25 or so patrons immediately stop what they are doing and stare at them, fingering weapons. Kumak walks up to the bartender, who has pulled his heavy cudgel out and set it on the bar. The half-orc slides a gold over
"Good fight, no hard feelings" The bartender flicks the coin back and Kumak catches it shrugging.
Thaddeus clears his throat,
"I do hate to disturb you gentlemen but we are here on official business, we are here for a Mr. Jubrayl you see. We need to take him down to the jail for questioning."
"And what if I decide I don't want to go with you" comes a voice from the back as Jubrayl steps into the taverns main room."
Kumak moves between Thaddeus and Jubrayl "Come quietly or there will be.... trouble"
Thaddeus raises his hands "Now, now Kumak no need for that. Mr. Jubrayl you see we have information that leads us to believe that you may be able to shed some light on a murder."
"So, ask me here then. I don't have to go with you" to which Kumak holds up his badge
Thaddeus continues "I'm afraid that's not how this works. Now you could come quietly with us, answer our questions and everyone would be happy, or we could tell Sheriff Hemlock and the 20 men outside that they need to come in here and pacify the lot of you. I was hoping we could avoid that." As he talks Thaddeus discreetly casts a spell that imitates the Sheriffs voice outside calling for Jubrayl to step out or he will be coming in. Jubrayl purses his lips for a moment,
"Alirght, give me a moment then. You caught me in the middle of something" disappearing into the back room he returns a moment later. "Well lets get this over with I suppose"
Stepping outside and seeing no sheriff, Jubrayl begins to make a fuss but with a strong arm from Kumak he continues to the jail. Jubrayl's interrogation is easier that Hardues but just as fruitful. He claims to know nothing of Drewil and paints him as a local malcontent seeking him harm. As they have no evidence against him he demands they release him. To which Kumak and Thaddeus agree that it will have to wait until the sheriff returns and see him to a cell. Thaddeus inspects the belongings they had confiscated when they brought him in, finding a coded notebook he swipes it and unable to immediately decipher it elects to make a copy to work on later. Kumak elects to sleep at the jail tonight as Thaddeus returns to the Rusty Dragon.
In the morning looking over the papers collected from beneath the glassworks Tiberius and Susan realize that there seems to be a full scale goblin raid planned and the staging area seems to be at the Thistletop tribe. Sheriff Hemlock enters and sending word for Kumak to join them they fill them in on the events since his departure. The sheriff regrets that he will have to release Jubrayl as it seems they have nothing on him but Kumak and Thaddeus convince him to wait a day or 2. The group discuss options and decide to reconnoiter the goblin stronghold at Thistletop. The journey is a short 2 hours by foot and the group comes to a heavily dense forest filled with brambles. Hours of searching sees them getting no closer to Thistletop, finally Susan leads them along a small game trail to a relatively spacious opening surrounded by heavy spiky brush, but nothing else. As the day is getting darker talk turns to either camping out here and trying again come first light or returning to town. As the group debates Kumak does one final search of the area before they start breaking up the watch and spies a rope cleverly disguised to look like a natural vine. Giving it a pull a small trap door opens into the thick bramble wall before them. Glancing in no goblins are seen but signs of plenty of activity. Tiberius takes the lead but finds he must crawl forward, Thaddeus follows and finds the paths through the brambles are sized appropriately for him, Kumak elects to take the rear to keep Villister and Susan safe from any ambushes.
Thoughts: I was overjoyed to see the Paladin actually step up and start acting like a Paladin. He was never shy about taking point but it didn't feel like a point of pride. It felt like he was doing it to protect his allies which is how I feel a Paladin would act. There was a minor issue with Thaddeus rolling the perception check to find a scroll but the way it was narrated Tiberius announced he picked it up. The gnome player tried to interject that he was the one who noticed it but the game just rolled on. I don't know how the player felt about that, hopefully it wasn't much of an issue. As I suspected the paladins player started asking about making a fighter instead. I had already spoken about this to the GM so we were all fine doing some mental retconning to make Tiberius a fighter instead of a paladin but the player was interested in a full reroll if he makes the switch. Unfortunately he wants to be 2 handed power attacking beast. Which means he and I would be directly competing for items. If he chooses to switch over his rolled stats were unreal.
18/17/15/10/10/6
He was quite upset at the 6 despite my pointing out his 18,17,15. I tried to impress on him that his character is more than just the stats and the peaks and valleys are what can bring a character out. We will see what comes of it. Personally if he thinks he doesn't want to be restricted to a Paladin I would prefer we retcon his existing character to something like a Cavalier from the Order of the Cockatrice.
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