Swell's Intro Swell wakes up in a basement. Anna is next to him sitting
contently. She is sitting cross legged to next to him humming some old elven
tune he’s heard before. In front of them is an angular looking fellow with some
deep claw marks in his face. Behind him are a dozen wererats, or maybe just
outright thugs (he has no clue who or what they are really), who all have their
bows trained on them. He introduces himself as Jamesyth Ramsdale all the while
swathing his face with some cloth trying to stop the bleeding. Anna just stares
straight ahead with a grin on her face.
He says he knows who Swell is, some informants of his saw
him on Keth’s boat with Anna. He spends about 30 minutes interrogating Swell (DC
check?) until Anna finally says “Hurry up, Jamesyth.” What are you doing here? Why were you getting smuggled in? How do you know Anna? Have you been to the Cotte’s Manor before? Asks the talisman?
The wounds on his face are now starting to clot and the blood
has stopped. Swell notices that 4 of the men with bows also have deep wounds
across their chests and stomachs and are starting to look like they are getting
dizzy from blood-loss. The other 8 look untouched, but also extremely nervous.
Still, they all keep standing with their bows trained on Swell and Anna.
He explains that some goblins and kenku are running around
the city with strange glowing amulets. He wants one. He’s willing to make them
a deal, he’ll pay Swell 200 gold for each of those amulets brought to them. He’s
tried to capture the kenku and goblins with them but they are slippery and keep
evading his people. Jamesyth returns all of Swell’s gold and equipment to him
and says the only sensible way out right now is through the sewers. As Swell
and Anna are being led out, Swell sees a half-drow in the corner who is
obviously a sailor. He identifies her as a storm sorcerer but can’t remember
her name.
While they are being led out of the basement, they can hear
lots of fighting from above. Jamesyth gets close to Swell’s ear and says loudly
“You should be glad that tree-jumping druid was here to save your ass. Bring me
one of those amulets you shit-heel!” He stuffs Keth’s ring, which he had been
palming, into Swell’s tunic. Swell starts with 11 HP (they gave him a decent healing
potion as they woke him up). As they descend the ladder, a metal grate closes
and is locked behind them. They enter a small room with two wererats in full
man-rat form standing next to them with scimitars and two huge rats. As they
exist the corridor there are swarms of rats all around them. Anna seems agnostic
to the situation, she does have a look on her face that denotes concern instead
of fear. She doesn’t seem to fear much. Party Leaves the Church Before leaving the church the rain increases. Breschka is going to stay behind
and make sure no one else needs to be evacuated. She seems very resolute on
this. “I cannot leave behind the helpless. Don’t worry, my brother Oron will be
waiting for you near the castle if this is the road you wish to follow.” She
says an oath under her breath and heads out the back door. Mira offers to keep the talismans safe. Cassius and Rurrick both accept. She puts them in a hidden stone compartment in the sanctuary. One
of the orphans runs up and says “Thanks Bird-Man Ailekk. I really love your
brother Bird-Man Kaaska. I ain’t never met no bird man before him. Now I’ve met
TWO!” He jumps and giggles. “Me and some of the other kids made this for
Kaaska, but since you are looking for him, we’s thought you shud have it.” The
kid hands Ailekk a small doll made of straw, dressed in a make-shift cloak with
a large hat, and a pencil-knub for a beak. For eyes are two, extremely shiny
copper coins. When Ailekk takes the doll, he notices something is weird about
it, he feels calm just touching it. Even more he feels that with it, his
friends might be safer. These people might be safer. Meanwhile Urd and Rurrick can hear Orc/Elf war horns outside. Into the Sewers The party goes into the sewers with the orphans and refugees behind them. Rurrick shifts into a giant spider and goes ahead, sneaking, with some spidersilk hanging back with Urd who is supposed to follow if he gets 2 (or was it 1?) rug on the silk. Inside the sewers are will-o-wisps saying "Tread with care." Ailekk goes ahead with Rurrick the spider who at one point surprises Ailekk with a creepy spider leg on the neck and Rurrick gets stabbed with a javelin for his troubles. Meanwhile Ailekk and Rurrick had passed some bodies with rats and rats the size of dogs devouring them. When the rest of the party passed the bodies just as Anna and Swell emerged from a tunnel. Anna and Ailekk greeted each other while she let him know she had found his brother. Swell and Urd recognized each other from the boat. After some banter, Anna went back to check on the orphans while Cassius and Urd began fucking with the large rat eating a corpse. It screeched at them, another came up, meanwhile Swell let them know it wasn't a good idea to provoke the rat. All this time the wisps were kind of mozying about. Rurrick and Ailekk saw a black-hooded goblin and wisp going north through the tunnels. The party heard something to the south but ignored it. They saw a body killed by an arrow with poison. Swell looted the corpse. Moving further the wisp had increased its radius and the ground was littered with corpses. The party went to check everything out. The wisp moved into the middle of them and glowed brightly. Arrows came from bars to the south. The party engaged in combat with goblins with short bows and goblin scouts with crossbows. They fought through the bars effectively, and caught up to the cloaked goblin and killed him. Beat up and battered a bit from combat, they could hear a wolf's howling echoing in the tunnels. Cassius moved back west from where they could have gone south. There were three goblins, a gibbering unclothed goblin with a weird color and shadows moving about it with glowing eyes and a viscous looking scimitar. Ailekk moved up and killed a goblin. Rurrick got a talisman off the dead cloaked goblin's corpse and gave it to Roach who has been strangely silent. The goblins and wolf descended upon Cassius and an inky black dot appeared around him, impervious to dark sight or other methods of sight. Long story short, it was a brutal battle. Cassius was dropped by the "dark goblin". Ailekk went to his aid and got hit badly. Urd was fumbling around in the darkness, got hit by two massive damage drops for 37 damage, but took it like a barbarian champ! His half-orcness kept him barely alive [1 HP]. Rurrick was in the darkness using spider blindsight to fight the wolf. The normal goblin ran up to the inky dot, standing over Cassius' barely alive body. He didn't want to enter the darkness so instead fired a shortbow at Swell. Urd picked up the gibbering goblin and pushed him back out of the darkness where Ailekk finished him off with a javelin strike. The gibbering goblin exploded in shadowy tendrils of magic which dropped Ailekk. The shadowy dot dissappeared and Swell dropped the last goblin while Rurrick dropped the dire wolf with poison who is now unconscious. Roach, now out of mystic energy, did stabilize Cassius. Swell drug Ailekk out of the water to keep him from drowning. Rurrick pulled the dire wolf likewise out of the water. Urd grabbed the creature's scimitar, which didn't explode. Party status: Alive, but beat up as hell. Roach is blind [and out of spells]. Cassius and Ailekk are unconscious. Urd is pretty hurt. Rurrick, strangely, never ran out of HP. Swell is decent [I think.]