SESSION 24: DAY 10-13
– CRAGMAW CAVES
"Malandir! Please do a quick scout of the area, they
may not have come alone," Talmark remarks as he spins quickly and quietly and
says, "Kord! Stay your hand a moment, we need to find out who their
friends are, who knows where they have were going, and what their plan was. We
need all of the information we can muster, as it is too early in our task to
have strong foes aligned against us. Tell the other men that they were trying
to sneak attack us and the fight was justified."
Kord briefly joins Talmark. Standing by his side he
dispassionately, he watches as the life blood pools around the unconscious body
of Adalgar. The mans wounds stabilise and he stops bleeding (at -2 hit points).
Talmark notes a look of disappointment emerging on Kord’s face. Like the
opportunity to study the leaving of the life force of the cleric had been taken
away from him. Kord turns and goes to find Clovis and Fremont and to tell them
of the attack, as instructed by Talmark.
Talmark turns back to the Torag. "Well, Brunhild. Your
lack of tact and gruffness seems to have gotten you into a spot of trouble,
thinking you could just bull your way in and attack any whom you wished. It
appears your compatriot may not survive your folly. But I am not a man without
mercy, and this may all be just a mistake on your part. So tell me: did you get
what you came for?"
Malandir darts around the inside of the cave back to
Talmark. “Nice armour”, he thinks as he moves past the clerics to scout the
area outside the cave. “Quiet and easy does it, no need to rush” he says to
himself as he silently slips out into the darkness of the night. He lays up in
the bushes outside of the cave. Squatting silently in the bushes his eyes
re-adjust to the star lite night and he uses his infravision to scan the
perimeter of their base. Nothing stirs. It appears that the men are along. “So
bold” he thinks. He waits, just to make sure.
Lucien steps forward and compliments Per on his quick and
decisive actions, "I'm thinking you are deserving of a bonus, Per. Found a
gap in both their armor right quick, didn't you? Well done."
“I was thinking master Lucien, that you and the party have
treated me well. That your faith is so strong. Could I learn under your
tutelage? Become a warrior of Asmodeus. Like Talmark,” Per asks. Lucien
searches Per’s face to see if he is genuine. Using all his skills in Sense
Motive he can tell that Per is genuine. He’s turning evil, Lawful Evil in fact.
Kord finds Clovis and Fremont and tells them that their base
had been invaded but that the intruders had been dealt with. Talmark and Per
have the matter in hand and there is no need to rush to don their armour
however they should rest for soon they’ll need to take the watch over from
Talmark, Per and Barret.
Talmark menacingly taps Brunhild with the flat of Felldrac’s
blade. “Well, what to it. What were you doing here?”
The holy man explains that they had come from Canorate via
Cettigne. Patriarch Nikolaus, the senior cleric of Torag, had, in his sermons,
told them of the lawless Cragmaw pass and he and his companion, Adalgar, had
pilgrimaged here to bring law, good and protection to the land. They had come
here on their own to prove themselves in the forge of battle.
As Barret joins them at the door Lucien studies his face. He
is dispassionate (Barret is true Lawful Neutral with tendencies neither to good
nor evil). Talmark orders Barret and Per to take Adalgar inside and to keep
watch over him.
Brunhild notices that Talmark is distracted but for just one
moment. And just one moment is all he needs. He Channels Positive Energy (which
doesn’t provoke an attack of opportunity) and instantly heals himself and
Adalgar by 3pts of damage. Adalgar’s eyes open as he returns to consciousness.
Initiative is rolled, Party Roll = 13 + 0 = 13, Clerics Roll
= 5 + 2 = 7.
Dropping the body of Adalgar, Per, Barret and Lucien stab
wildly at the clearly heavily wounded but still dangerous Adalgar. The prone
cleric can do little to protect himself from such an onslaught and he his
wounded twice. Once by Per for 9pts of damage and once by Lucien for 6pts of
damage which takes him from +1 to -14pts hit points. He instantly dies in the
scuffle.
Talmark brings down the blade of Felldrac upon the prone and
shieldless Brunhild. He hits the acolyte of Torag in the stomach. The big blade
effortlessly cuts through Brunhild’s armour and he suffers 18pts of damage,
taking him from +3 to -15 hit points and he too dies quickly. Clearly Talmark
has no half standard when he hits someone.
They take the bodies of the two priests inside and search
and strip them of their valuables. They find 6 and 18 gp respectively upon them
together with their scale mail armour (2), heavy shields (2), warhammers (2),
two scrolls of cure light wounds (2) and a Scroll of Bless Water (1). They are
worth 200xp each.
With the bodies taken care and Cragmaw Caves is once again
secure and the party settles into their routine.
Talmark pulls Kord aside. He has a thought. “Maybe we should
keep one of their bodies for the “collection” and crush the other slightly and
advance its decay so we could take him back to the Burg and say we found his
corpse and ogre tracks, then followed and killed the ogre.” Talmark points to
the earless ogres head which he had taken from the beast. He continues talking
to Kord, “Maybe present both shields and say that there may have been another
man with him, but the gory scene left us no doubt he'd been devoured or worse.”
Kord smiles. He likes the idea. “Let’s discuss this with
Malandir and Lucien and see how they want to play our next move.”
Days 11 and 12 are eventless and Kord and Lucien craft 8
cure light wound scrolls between them (ie 2 a day each over the 2 days).
On the morning of the 13th they wake and are
ready.
Should they return to the Burg
or to the Caves of Chaos?
DM’s observations. The
lawless of the lands has now, with the defeat of the two clerics, ironically
increased 8 and hence the chance of a random encounter in the hidden Cragmaw
Cave has increased to a one in ten chance once a day.
The two clerics where
a random encounter. There could have been between 1 and 8 of them. Their
alignment and god was also random. I shudder to think what would have happened
if there had been 8 of them.
DEW
