The heroes met the local townsfolk divining hat they could:
Eastbrook (PAST):
- John (Senior) - Human Male - Apothecary (aging)
- Bob (Robert) - Human Male - Farmer
- Alfred - Human Male - Barrel Monkey for local inn "The Prancing Boar"
- Wilnen Underfore "Seaworthy" - Dwarven Male - Bar Man (Bard'mn's father)
- Wilgold "Will" Dawntracker - Human Male - Local Builder/Foreman
- Chandler - Human Male - Major of Eastbrook (Father of Axey to tiefling barmaid, father of "The Necromancer")
- Davkas - Human Male - Farmer
- Marros "Wolfswift" - Human Male - Fisherman (Local fishmonger)
- Fruward - Elven Male - Druid Enchanter and father of Zulir
- Maglynn - Human Female - Blacksmith
- Mortanius - Human Male - "The Necromancer"
- ??? - Tiefling Female - Barmaid and mother of Axey
When they did, he offered them a bag of gold coins for bringing him back alive, and a second bag of gold for bringing him back dead. He explained that some strange visitors to the town had lured his boy away - teaching him dark magics... to which he was adept and quickly grew to power amongst the people he had met.
The boy, Mortanius, now a young man - had left the town, maintaining a new foothold over the dark men he had met beyond the town. From time to time Mortanius and his men were rumoured to have kidnapped visitors to the village.
The heroes offered their assistance in helping Chandler, not letting on that their goals and motivations came from somewhere else as well.
They reached a door, locked by an unusually large lock. Nearby was an unusually large key, guarded by 3 runes.
Baz offered to traverse the runes and pick up the key, but couldn't pick up the key as it was too heavy. The runes lashed out surging him with arcane energy.
Eventually with assistance Baz managed to lift the key free and unlock the door.
A chill touched those who wield magic, as if the room was devoid of a particular school of magic.
Baz offered to step through the door into the glowing, fogy beyond. The floor beneath him began to crumble and Baz fell straight into a pitfall - to his doom.
The shook-up adventurers briefly mourned the loss of Baz and pushed on, using the statues beyond to block the pitfalls, by collapsing the, over the holes.
The adventurers moved slowly around the long corridors past the huge flaming vents, pilfering piles of gold and gems - and busting open a magic chest which contained a runic dagger and some robes of a magical nature.
Stepping down the ramp the heroes saw a large purple yawning portal and tieflings scattered through the darkness. Beyond the tieflings was a succubus, imp and demonic minion.
Through a grueling and long winded battle with these incredibly strong foe, the party had several members succumb to the succubus' will.
Eventully they pushed through, ending the succubus and cults evil plot.
They approached the strange gem which seemed to be linked to the portal - finding out that it was a kind of magically enchanted stone which was sentient. It offered them the ability to traverse space, time and planes for the offer of one innocent and willing sacrifice.
After much debate, Danetrix stepped up to the plate - offering his life in exchange for the heroes to be sent to a time before the Necromancer who plagued Eastbrook and drove them into the Wilds had grown to his full power, a time when he had only just begun his evil deeds.
A flash came from the portl - engulfing the heroes.
They awoke, all alive, including Danetrix in the temples room, next to the crystal. Danetrix's sacrifice was not in vein, as he was not only innocent and willing, but using it for a noble purpose.
They pressed on back out of the temple - moving towards where their camp would have been in the wilds. They found a strange hovel and a gruff man within. He introduced himself as Ren, an ex-military soldier and pit fighter, on the run from the military. He escaped their service before him time was up, and thus is not a fugitive.
He offered his services in aiding them dispatch the Necromancer of whom they spoke. All he wanted was the protection moving in a pack offered.
As they left his hovel, grabbing what was useful they were confronted by unnaturally large beasts in the wilds - worgs of a large size.
They cut the worgs down and puhed on to Eastbrook.
As they reached where the Eastbrook they knew should have stood -all that was infront of them was farmland.
They pushed further on to where Old Eastbrook had once stood in their time - finding what they sought:
Civilisation.
In front of the heroes, was a large stone rolling door - to which no force they applied could open.
The party began to put out the braziers surrounding the temples face and with that, the door rolled open.
Looking into the inside of the temple complex the party could see an altar with past-spilled blood, and many stairs and ramps leading downwards.
The party made it's way down to the bottom-most platform. In the distance they could hear the howls of some beast - Rev informed the party that he knew what they were and the party didn't have much time.
The party looked around at the door in their way and saw a rune painted in blood, with a grate under their feet with what looked like the remnants of some kind of liquid - possibly blood.
Mephitical cut her hand and traced the rune to no avail.
Baz cut his hand and dripped it into the grate, to which some bloody water came out of the hole near the rolling stone door, but also to no avail. He then took it upon himself to go to the altar and spill blood from his leg into it. Danetrix bandaged him up and as the blood ran down from the top to the door - it slowly rolled open and the party ran in with haste, sealing it shut by pushing the rolling stone across and jamming it with rocks.
As they entered the bowels of the temple, they met sheer falls, with small platform off into the distance, each of them with two pillars which looked movable.
They pushed the pillars over to form a bridge for each section, using rope and Heidar's mage hand to steady themselves. Rev used the form of a bird to aid them in getting from platform to platform to tie off the rope.
As they got deeper, they were faced by huge waterfalls on either side of themselves - and sloped narrow platforms to traverse.
As they finally reached the end of the deadly, slippery gauntlet of platforms - they reached a broken down door.
Stepping into the dark entrance there was no light - so Heidar cast a spell of light and floated it outwards.
As he did so the groaning of the undead could be heard from either side.
The heroes battled the small guard troops of the dead, and inspected the innards of the temple.
In front of them was a mirror on a donkey-wheel, a pedestal which looked like it should house a gem or other item, and a statue skirted by pools of acid, and a chamber behind with a locked door.
The party went east into the temple finding a dark room with statues magically linked to a locked door.
After much frustration and activating the fire traps in the rooms, singing themselves the party finally managed to move the statues into their correct positions, finally unlocking the door.
Baz took the Gem from one of the statues and seated it in the pedestal in the main room, then went east down the other corridor, finding a similar rotatable mirror, and a room with a focusing prism, behind the prism a large hole in the wall.
He ran back to report this to the party and they pressed on through the eastern door, into another room full of mirrors.
On the South-East wall there was another large hole, where light was streaming through into another focusing crystal. The party moved the mirrors around and each time they were in the wrong position to reflect the light down to the west side of the room into another large hole in the wall - the ceiling of the room began to lower towards them.
Finally, the party managed to align the mirrors before being crushed, and hastily ran back out into the main chamber to find the statue glowing from the light passing through the gem.
The acids pits and door into the chamber behind the statue had miraculously disappeared.
As the party moved past the statue, darts flew out of the wall, but the age of the temple would suggest that the traps hadn't had regular maintenance - as the darts missed even the least nimble of the party..
Hesitantly the heroes walked through the portcullis where the door had once been.
To be continued...
Rewards Breakdown:
See the party loot log for the experience gained by the party.
The characters now have enough experience to reach level 6.
This would have been higher had challenges not been changed to appease frustrated players.
John rallied up the party from the Inn, and together they organised who they could from the town - gathering up a caravan, supplies, some of the local militia and civilians along with some horses and attempted an escape from the town.
He know far too well what was approaching from the mountains - the Necromancer.
As they began to ride out, the drums began again - louder this time.
Beyond the ridges of the mountain the silhouettes of an undead army, dark men, the necromancer - and the thought dead, goblin Gumbo began to creep towards the town.
The heroes told John to escape with the townspeople as they held what they could of the town.
The Necromancer smote Bard'mn's Inn with a bolt of Necrotic energy, the barrels of alcohol exploded and the whole building went aflame.
Gumbo let out a roar of contempt for the party and the Necromancer commanded the army forward.
Danetrix prayed to Pelor for protection and guidance, and a divine ray of light shone between the heroes and the army of the Necromancer - a small tree grey from the ray of light bearing crystalline fruit.
Heidar aided by creating false walls of light next to the tree blocking the armies path with Prestidigitation.
The Necromancer blew another bolt towards the tree, it dissipated with intense force on the tree, so Danetrix ran over to gather the crystalline fruit as quickly as he could.
The undead Orc lieutenant trod down from the army and up to the wall, placing his hand against the shimmering light, he walked straight through it with a roar - with that the Necromancer called down a rain of necrotic bolts near the party, throwing them to the ground unconcious.
Zulir gathered some horses form the farm - flinging the party over their backs and rode off into the wilds with haste.
In the clearing, the druid Rev appeared to guide Zulir into the wilds, helping him fel trees along the way to make sure that the army did not follow.
The party awoke in a small makeshift camp in the wilds, the caravan erected.
A large campfire burned in the middle of the flat land, and John, Zulir and the druid Rev stood conversing while the townspeople frantically paced and settled the animals.
The party joined them at the fire, and John, Zulir and Rev explained what had happened over the course of the day they had been unconcious.
Baz decided to scale one of the trees to survey the land - sighting a statue with glowing light, some large trees, a world tree bough and a tropical rain forest in the distance.
Rev revealed that there was a large elven city far to the North-East who had helped him and his people in times past. The party requested he send an animal messenger to ask for safe passage for the party. Rev then set off into the woods to commune with animals who he knew so that he could get them to help guard the townspeoples camp.
The party organised the militia into patrols and set off towards the statue to divine anything they could about their new surroundings.
The party found the statue of a Dryad lord who had built a Herding Stone. Upon inspecting the Herding stone and activating it's runes - the party were granted a map which led to a temple the Herding Stone identified as an area that the Necromancer may be interested in, as it houses an artifact that can be used to travel through Planes. This was particularly interesting as Rev had explained that what he knew of the Necromancers folklore was that he sought such an item.
Returning to the camp, the party suggested that the townspeople fetch water from a nearby river to bolster their supplies, and told them they were going to investigate the temple.
Rev returned with two wolfkin beasts from the forest and offered their assistance in defending the people.
Rev also offered to lead the party to the temple, as he had been there before. He exclaimed that he had seen hooded people dragging animals and elves into the temple - he had tried to get beyond it's gates but never succeeded.
With that they set out into the rainforest, over a large bridge so high that they couldn't properly make out the canopies of the trees below.
All of a sudden, the storm clears as if by some kind of magic.
The thunder stops it crackling, the rain stops stomping on the rooftops.
The figure of on elf darts out it's door across the town to the armoursmith, arguing loudly.
From the Inn window you can only make out that there is something odd about this meeting.
The silhouette of who you can only assume is Zulir walks through the armourers door, then back out with him, a bundle of something in his hands.
The two are doing something over near the anvil, the furnace burning bright - then Zulir is gone again, sprinting off with his bundle.
All of a sudden you hear the Inn door fly open, running around the corner, you see John's figure standing in the doorway.
Alarm in his voice, "Are you all awake!?"
John looks out of one of his shop windows - disturbed by what he can hear between the roars of thunder.
A dark night falls over Eastbrook...
The rain is heavy - a sound like giants feet on city pavement.
The lighting of the night is unusual - it's pallid, there seems to be little hue in the light.
It is dark... but it isn't like any normal night you have seen before.
The moon does not sit in it's cradle in the sky. It is absent.
Besides the giants feet on rooftops there is no noise. It is still.
Even the freshest adventurer knows that a night like this is a terrible omen...
After dispatching the goblins, Baz mysteriously ran off back towards the town. Presumably to visit his relatives.
The adventurers returned to town and handed over the bottles of well water to John the apothecary. In return the apothecary handed over 3 of the surplus bottles, which were distributed to Heidar, Mephitical and Axey.
They learned from John that Bard'mn had kicked a suspicious character out of the Inn.
[Gained 250 XP each]
They then departed and took their treasures to the Armourer and Weaponsmith, trying to have them identified. While Mephitical went to the Inn.
The workmans of the Armourer and Weaponsmith also reported that there was a strange man kicked out of the Inn, and that the elven family across the town could possibly identify the magical items they had aquired, as neither of them could identify magic.
The Armourer was haggled down in price by Heidar for a hide armour coat, in return for some hides when Heidar was able to provide them.
After learning this information the party returned to the Inn, where Mephitical was drunk.
Bard'mn told the heroes what he could about the strange person he kicked out:
The strange character was slightly less than a human in height and had a pirckley kind of look to his dark face that was hidden away in his cloak. The stranger was reportedly disturbing the locals in the bar asking them questions in what Bard'mn could only assume was some kind of elven.
Bard'mn also revealed a certain dislike for the elves across the town, as they were strange and always had some kind of happenings in their elven house - strange rays of light, explosion sounds etc.
He told the adventurers the elves names: Zulir the elder male, his wife Ela'rin and son Bilir
Together the heroes went to visit the elves across the town - Danetrix was the only one the male elf, Zulir took a liking to. He introduced the party and inquired as to whether the elf could identify the items they had pertained. While the elf was fiddling with them, Danetrix asked further questions, which revealed that Baz was infact a relative of theirs and that the was out in a back room "sleeping". It was all a bit strange.
Zulir told the party to leave the items with him so that he may identify them overnight, and that it would be free of charge, but he would appreciate some help with securing his trade route for ores and gems when the party was able.
Danetrix also inquired as to why his house was so battered, with holes in his roof. He explained that his line of work was likely to blow things up often, so he is always blasting holes in his house.
With that they left the elven house and returned to the Inn to sleep.
The party awoke to salted boa bacon and dwarven beer from Bergmenumenn that Bard'mn had prepared and then set off towards the forest first thinking that this would be the best place to obtain hide after Bard'mn had suggested that the wilds were dangerous and not worth the trouble for hide. Before leaving they went by the elves house to get their items.
The items were:
+1 Magic Staff
+1 Magic Longsword
+1 Magic Mace
+1 Magic Orb
+1 Magic Chainmail
+1 Magic Horn
Heidar took the the staff, Mephitical took the Orb, Axey took the Longsword, Danetrix took the Chainmail, Axey stored the Mace and his old sword for Baz and the Horn was put in one of the elves old potato sacks and left in the adventurers quarters in the Inn.
They than set off towards the forest.
When the adventurers reached the building that gumbo had been hung in Old Eastbrook, they noticed there was no goblin corpse and on the ground near where gumbo had been was a blue crackling aura of fading necrotic energy, with a fading symbols of a rams skull, reminiscent of Orcus:
The party stayed for a half hour to watch the aura dissipate, and as it did, the energy turned into what looked like a hand coming from the ground which made a grabbing motion and faded away into the ground.
Heidar decided that perhaps they should dig where the aura was to make sure nothing was there - so he went into one of the nearby buildings to look for materials to dig with. He found timber and stone... but also a map:
They were able to identify that it was depicting structures and natural layouts, but it was unclear if they were mountains, or ditches... and whether it was above or below ground. The party could identify the script on the map to be orcish, but not read it or understand it's use.
Once they had dug the hole deep enough, they stumbled across a strange glimmering blue ore, and hauled 6 of the roughly one pound stones each out of the ground back to the elf in town for a hopeful identification.
Zulir was able to identify them as a common magical reagent for enchanting and offered to turn them into Residuum. He started to break down one of the rocks to confirm that he could and asked everyone to look away. A large green surge of light blew around him and the house.
The heroes left the elven house back towards the forest. When they hit the crossroads west of the ruins of Old Eastbrook, they noted that the signpost had "Westbrook" pointing west down the road and "Northbrook" pointing north up the other road. Just shy of the crossroads was the edge of the forest.
They noticed that there were large cobwebs all over the trees - and a half skeleton resting against some rocks near a tree. They took what they could from the skeleton. Axey took some bones noting they "May be handy" and Heidar followed suite taking it's skull. Mephitical took one of the skeletons hands then noticed some barrels behind a tree and decided to open them.
Two large rat swarms surrounded the party. Through lots of lighting, hacking and slashing the party dealt with all the rats. Heidar took some of the rats and tied them around his belt after Mephitical gutted them.
Danetrix and Axey then opened the other barrels and four rat swarms poured out over the party.
Through the same means the party singed and slashed the rats apart - tying more of them off around Heidar's belt.
The loud squeels of the rats echoed through the forest.
The party slowly moved forward and as Danetrix stepped on a patch of leaves between some trees - suddenly a beartrap snapped up out of the forest floor around his leg. Heidar managed to break the jaws free with his Mage Hand while the others struggled to help Danetrix get free.
As they looked further north they saw a cave opening and slowly moved forward - all of a sudden four rat swarms, and four Kobolds spilled out - one Kobold looked slightly larger and better armoured than the rest.
The party slowly drew them out into the middle of the forest creating a small wall of corpses. As the last of the smaller Kobolds fell, the larger one which kept skirting around trees yelled out something in a tongue no-one could understand.
All of a sudden a bellow was heard from the cave and a massive orc on a massive dire boar came romping out of the cave [Orc: Level 8 Elite Brute Leader, Boar: Level 8 Brute].
Luckily during the fight, Axey had put up a Frost of Letherna - so the party could kite the large orc around the forest. Through much taunting from Axey and massive blasts of magic from Mephitical, Heidar and Danetrix the orc was massively damaged and the boar was killed.
Letting forth a bellowing roar, the orc cheiftain regained much of his former strength and health than began on a rampage dealing some massive damage to both Danetrix and Axey.
As the party finally bloodied him up for the second time, more orcs spilled from the cave.
Concentrated blasts burned the orcs down fast before they could start to cleave chunks from the party members.
Through some double tanking from Danetrix and Axey the orc was burned down to near death, and in the final bout of battle Axey challenged the orc, only to fall to his axe, a hit which instantly killed the paladin.
Before the orc could charge anyone else, final blows from the party made the giant greenskin topple over.
The party gutted the boar and skinned what they could from it, gathering it up with the spoils they could from the bodies.
Axey's body was carried back with the rest of the items with haste to John the apothecary, in hopes that he could perform a ritual to preserve Axeys body. John could perform the ritual of gentle repose, allowing the party 5 months to find a way to bring Axey back, before his body and soul were eternally unbound.
They left their new items with the elf, Zulir asking him to identify them - to which he replied that he can over the course of a day or two, and that he needed more time to break the stones into Residuum.
The party also took the hides to the armourer, who was overjoyed with the huge quantity of leather he could make. He offered the party 5 gold pieces per person, or armour in exchange for their tremendous boon to his business.
Heidar took the gold, whilst the others said they would be back for some armour crafting later.
Mournfully, the heroes entered Bard'mn's bar and let him know the news, to which they all drank to Axey's memory, getting drunk and turning in to rest.
The spoils of the encounter:
Experience:
- 3150 XP each [Enough to level to 4 with 400 left over] (Total XP 4150ea)
Currency:
- 69gp
Armoury:
- Magic Crossbow
- Spear
- Magic Greataxe
- Book
- Magic Helmet
- Magic Chainmail
- Sword
- Axe
- 3 x Daggers
The adventurers set off from the town out through the small forest and into the valley.
Around the entrance to the valley were dead trees, with half-bodies hanging from them. The party, curious as to why they were moving inspected them further.
The party; believing they were a trap, cut them down and disposed of them in the brook.
But they weren't fast enough. The necromantic bodies had already alerted something; a group of zombies and a goblin necromancer.
After defeating the zombies and beating the goblin to a pulp; the adventurers offer the goblin it's life in return for information. The goblin, Gumbo - scared by the trickery of Heider and his ghost sound of Orcus, the god whom the goblin worhsipped - and by the intimidation and trickery of Danetrix and Baz, agrees and offers to serve the party on their quest in exchange for his life.
When the party reached the well they realised that there used to be a town there. What is left of it now, is but broken buildings and stashes of goblin loot. The party filled up their bottles with the water from the well after using Gumbo to check the water. He insists, in poor common that there are many goblins, and that they know the adventurers are here.
Baz spied a chest offshore in the beach off the edge of the mountains, which the party barely manages to drag ashore as a horde of goblins poured down from the peaks.
A group of archers, a powerful bard and a goblin fighter begin to unleash havoc on the party. Slowly but surely the group disptached with the goblins.
Whilst all of the fighting was happening, Baz tied Gumbo off to the tallest building he could find, but had to abandon the post when the goblins opened fire.
Heider and Maphitical, pre-occupied with dispatching with Gumbo manage to force him off the building, slowly hanging the goblin.
When all is said and done - the adventurers scour the bodies for loot, regroup and begin their small treck back to the town after smashing the chest open.
The spoils of the encounter:
Experience:
- 750 XP each
Currency:
- 44gp
- "Gumbo's Staff"
- Level 1 Magic Longsword
- Level 1 Magic Mace
- Level 1 Magic Orb
- Level 1 Magic Chainmail
- Level 1 Magic Horn
- 5 x Bottles of Old Eastbrook Well Water
Having arrived at Eastbrook ferry shortly after, the adventurers met once more around the table of the Eastbrook Inn; owned by Bard'mn a stocky, hairy Dwarf with an unrefined appearance. He is a friend of the local apothecary, and strangely a friend of Axey's.
Together the adventurers talked about a need for income on their travels.
Bard'mn spoke up, suggesting that the local apothecary may be able to use ther help - as they have had troubles as of late with goblins down at the well. Bard'mn offers them a month's board, free of charge if they can help out with the problem.
Night passes.
On their way to the apothecary, Heider lets the group in on some past history of Eastbrook that he had come to learn in his studies of the world's history. The history in the town is veiled in sketchy rumours of a necromancer who plagued the town 20 odd years ago, who was known to stir up the local mountain goblins and raise the dead to ravage the town - for this reason the town's militia was created.
The worried apothecary, more than willing to enlist the adventurer's aid - hands over 5 bottles and asks the adventurers to acquire the water from the well in the valley beyond the forest. Baz, suspicious of the apothecary tries to double back behind him to investigate the back rooms - only to be obviously questioned as to what he was doing.
Handing over a very rough hand drawn map to the valley, the apothecary explains to the group that he is no cartographer, but it should serve them better than nothing.
Additional Equipment Gained:
- 5 x Glass Bottles
A ferry sets off towards the small farming town of Eastbrook.
Around the ships upper quarter's dinner table introductions were made.
Baz, an elf ranger from Westbrook - set out to visit relatives in Eastbrook. Little is known about this ranger from the Fey.
Danetrix, a dwarven cleric from Northbrook a stones throw from the dwarven city Bergmenumenn famous for its Ale.
He is on a personal mission to heal the sick around his local towns.
Heider, a human wizard traveling to Eastbrook from Rimwind, beyond the Sweet Sea - his intentions are unknown to all.
Mephitical, a mysterious Eladrin Psion travelling to Eastbrook as one of many stops along her way to discovering her roots after awakening in the forest one day with no idea of her past.
The final amongst the travelers, Axey, a robbed fiefling paladin from the Highfields - a shifty looking character on a mission to acquire wealth and spoils exploring the worlds little known locations.