Session 5 – Flying Fish Monster

Still inside the wall, we scavenge at the inn nearby our last battle. Nearby there is a large bakery with squatters, as well. In the next building we find a goodly amount of gold.

In the next building, Fianna hears a noise. She steps in and falls through the ground. We all follow her down. We appear to be in a tunnel, and we see several bug creatures approaching us. We take them out, and after searching it appears that they don’t have anything of value.

We search around and the tunnels go all over. One goes towards the chasm, we decide not to go that direction! We go the other way and there is another cave-in so we climb the fallen rocks. It is another section of the city that we haven’t yet explored. There is a large stone building nearby but it is locked.

Fianna tries to chop down the door with her axe. She does it but there is a trap here — acid pours down on her head and wounds her. We rush inside and see goblins here. We defeat some of them but one disappears into a trap door. We find some small items including a “savage mask” that is a shield against will-based attacks. It is from a shaman named Zane, and is called “Tools of Zane’s Vengeance.” There are some books and a rug here, we take them with us.

Before we leave, we hear from upstairs some moaning. We go up to find an Eladrin trapped in an electrified net. We decide that he is friendly and let him go — he leaves through a hole in the wall and goes around to the entrance of the city as if he were coming from outside as not to attract undue attention. He signs up to be a member of the watch and joins up with us again.

That night while sleeping, we hear boats coming into port nearby. We decide to go and check it out. They may be ships of Neverember’s troops. We check them out but they just seem to be resupplying. The next day they are still at the ships as we go to work at the wall.

We check our stash before heading in further; we see that the door is open and there are eight orc corpses laying here. The treasure is untouched.

Belgha sees tracks of a “flying tentacled fish monster.” We see a large manor house with a crypt behind it. We go check out the crypt. On the first floor there are several coffins. There are skeletons and two burning skeletons! We defeat them, but hear cackling from the basement as well. We think this might be the “semetorium.”

In the room there is a fountain, beyond there is a room with more corpses but one is missing. There is a locked door and it is held closed with spikes. Fianna knocks it down. The next room has the bodies of the lord and lady of the house and a hole where someone had broken in. We collapse the tunnel and leave.

We go into the manor house and there are lots of pictures and decorations. Underneath in the master bed is a trap door that goes into a crawlspace. Through the passage there are hallways that lead to a room with armaments, also a large chest. Inside there are a belt, also a magical scroll, and a map of the “unseen lands.” We find a small piece of parchment that is on the stairs. It has a drawing of a ring with dragons on it.

We come upon the flying fish monster, floating into the crevasse.

At the next house, a merchant’s quarters, we find some gold. We head back and stow the loot in our “safe.” We leave and go to the Moonstone Mask to get paid for our week of work. We get 300 gold apiece.

Session 4 – The Sorcerer

Slowly you drift off with in the warm and wooden walls of House Sheerspear. Gilwen had made such a grand feast for your return from beyond the wall, you couldn’t have paid for better. Peter was straight faced, yet you could see in the corners of his mouth he was happy to see you all back again in good health. For the first time since you have stepped foot in this crumbling mess they call a city, you feel relaxed. You are becoming a bit more familiar with the streets and people. Most of the scum and mercenaries that were hired on with you have all fled. Even what looked to be the bravest and strongest of them had no time for such silly “military” works and sailed off. Over the last three days you have noticed that the presence of Lord Neverember seems to be very strong and interestingly enough growing. He does in fact seem to be winning over the larger portion of the populous with his charm and coin. He has started to work on more trade routes, that would boost the merchant footprint of the once grand city. You even hear a few of the people’s whispers say “Even if he is truely of false blood, he is still putting the city first and I’ll follow anyone that does as such.” and “Heir or not, he is picking up the pieces here in Neverwinter where others have failed. We are honored to have him here in Neverwinter.”

The moment your reality pulls you into the realm of dreams is the first time you feel fear again. More fear then when the ground shook with the movement of a large stone creature under neither your feet. You feel this fear so greatly because of what your brain sees…

You see a flair of blue light so bright you feel as if your eyes shall never re-adjust. Then out of the pure burning with in your eyes and mind you hear a deep horrifying vibration shuttering through your bones. It feels as if someone has taken all the horns of the northmen and blew them all at once under the very ground you stand on. The sound finally falls to it’s fading pitches when you then hear the sound of rock and boulder fighting within the ground. Something is coming… and it seems to be very large. As you look down to the ground you notice a burning sensation as blue lines seer your flesh and move up your skin like snakes climbing a tree…

You awake all at once, back with in the close courtiers of the small room. Each of you looking at each other in the bleak dark night’s enveloping shadow. You all know what one another have seen…

We try and determine the source of the shared dream but cannot. We decide that we should go back to sleep.

As we are heading to work today, Isabelle runs into us and tells us that two giant lizards tried to break into her shop but they were unsuccessful and fled back to a cemetery. She is scared and tell us that we should look out for the lizards as we are going to our watch. We attempt to track the lizards, but the tracks go up a brick wall. We see no way to get through except to go over the wall, so Lennon uses his magic to float over. He does not see anything but drops a rope down to allow the rest of us go over.

We go in and see a large tomb with some old tracks. There is a body missing from one crypt. We determine that they are womens’ boot tracks, but they disappear after a while. Lennon thinks that they may have used a scroll or potion to teleport out. We decide to check the broken crypts to see what else is here, but can’t find anything.

We head to the wall for our fourth day of working on the wall. We go in and check on our stash; the guardian is still patrolling, so we start searching the nearby houses. Soon we find a large tavern. There are barrels of drinks here, and six rooms upstairs. We find some trinkets but nothing major. The last room is locked and Belgha picks the lock. Suddenly fire engulfs us, it appears that an alchemist set a trap here, however it doesn’t affect us much. We put the fire out and see two female skeletons in the room, along with some hide armor. Also there is a clear sense powder for alchemy. We take some linens and other worthless items to take back to the watch.

As we are leaving we hear a noise coming from across the courtyard, like thinks being pushed around, and from a window we see humanoid shapes with some armor. Fianna goes outside as bait to see if she can draw them in. It works and they advance on the building and try to get in the door. We open the door and attack them and they fall like bowling pins. However, it looks like the real enemy is approaching.

Zanne and Fianna are slammed with some sort of a thunder attack and are stunned. We see a figure approaching with two lizards by his side. He slams us with a lightning attack and his lizards move to strike us. Belgha casts a spell that limits his visibility to only a few paces and Fianna charges through slamming into him with extreme force and slicing him with her axe. He falls and his lizards scatter. We take his treasure (stoneskin armor, some gold, jewels, casting wand, quarterstaff and a necklace) and bring his head back to Isabelle, who seems to have warmed to the rest of the group now after we’ve done this for her.

In the man’s robes we find a note with some strange symbols. The rest is in common, and it reads “Seize the wand witch. -TG” and we see a bloody thumb print on it.

Session 3 – The Guardian

We wake up and get some food, then report for our shift. It looks like no one else has come here, the rest have left probably due to seeing the other groups coming back as gibbering idiots.

With only five of us, we find it stressful to watch the entire perimeter of the wall.  We decide to go in to the scarred region and find a chest with a bunch of gold. We also find a magical pouch with an hour’s worth of breathable air, and later a huge number of fist-sized gems.

As we come into the inn we are attacked by a group of orcs. We defeat them but they were difficult foes. They were carrying daggers and wearing leather armor, and one carried a halberd. We search the place and can’t find anything of use.

Another building next to the inn has a room with a large skeleton wearing thick armor and holding a giant battle axe. Belgha uses his lizard familiar to check it out, it seems empty. He crawls inside and sees that there are red runes all over the inside. We find that is is a guardian armor that would activate to defend the room, and the runes are currently inactive. Lennon could re-activate them if we needed. Fianna takes the great axe that the armor is holding and replaces it with her old one.

In the basement we come across a spirit. He says “Bear one, come with me.” and walks through the nearby wall. Miri follows him and goes right through the wall. The rest us only feel solid wall. Miri sees what looks to be a wizard and alchemist’s laboratory with potions, books and contraptions.  There are hundreds of gold pieces worth of alchemy components here as well.

We decide that this is a great place to store the goodies we’ve found.  Zanne drags the items from outside. The piece of the crown we put in the basement and close up the wall, along with our goodies.

We go back to the gate and bring some measly items with us. Paul goes back to collect his wand and make his final payment, using one of the diamonds that we got from inside the wall. There are several wands that he can choose from. He decides on the Wand of Allure. Since the diamond is worth a bit more he negotiates for some potions and a sun globe as well.

Session 2 – Picking The Corpses

We go through the gates, and we smell decaying corpses. We see a lot of bones and it is bright and warm — just after noon.

We see the edges of the chasm so we move closer to the wall, then turn East towards the outside walls of the city.

[ We designate the Shaman, Miri, is the party leader ]

In the first house we find some weapons, armor and gold. In the next house there is a lot of gold and a trunk of 3 dresses. Next we find tapestries and a family tree of the famly Isla. Behind a lose tapestry we find 2 doors. They appear to be covered with runes. Belgha says some words in Elven and blue runes appear. The trap may entangle us. Lennon sets off the trap but is not harmed. We go in. We find some books, one in particular interests Zanne because it has pictures of his tattoos in it. We find some other books. We discuss why Neverember would have sent us here — perhaps he wanted the family tree of this family. We decide to hide it so he could not use it.

We move to the next area. In the merchant area we see rotten food. Near there is an armory, but it is great axe heads and sword hilts. Next we find saddles.

In the next house we find more gold — suddenly the ground rumbles and the house shifts sideways. We run out and turn around to see a rock monster smashing the house from underneath. The two half-elves are caught in the wreckages and are almost certainly killed. Fianna charges him and the others follow. After a while he is defeated and crumbles into rubble. In the rubble Belgha finds a strange blue orb/potion with an ornate leaf in it.

We decide to move on and find a dead person with jewelry and wearing a badge of “berserker”. Fianna takes this. Also “moon” chain armor.

Outside we see a girl, nude, wearing only a cloak. She runs away and we chase — she lifts her mask, which looks like a skull, and drinks a black potion and disappears. We think she shifted into the shadow realm. She came from the nearby gate — perhaps passed through it.

We return to the wall and the guards do not know what to do with us, since generally people who come back are insane or they don’t come back at all.

Sabine appears impressed with us — they ask us to take the loot further west. WE swing by Isabellas (merchant shop) — the wards & reagents store. Belgha shows her the blue liquid and she says that it is part of the crown of Neverwinter. She is legitimately frightened.

Belgha gives Isabella a down payment on a wand, which she accepts, and puts the coins into a chest brimming with gold.

We go out for drinks and dinner and such at the Moonstone Mask. We visit Peter & Gilwyn Shilspear, and they let us eat and stay there.

Session 1 – Another Brick in the Wall

We are Zanne, a human monk; Belgha, a half-elf bard; Lennon, a halfling sorcerer; Fianna, a human female barbarian; and Miri, a half-elf shaman. We are all from the area around Neverwinter, and it is 30 years after the spell plague.

Before we arrive in Neverwinter, we all have a strange dream of walking a long distance, searching and seeing faces around us. It makes us think that we are destined for something great.

We travel to the city in search of adventure, and have heard tales of the money they are offering to those willing to lend their services to the city. They are offering 300 gold per week to work for the city. All of us sign up and pack into a room, there are free drinks here that most of us imbibe. Lord Neverember comes in and tells us that he wishes to rebuild his city and we will be part of this.

Generals comes in and tells us that we are all on the first watch of the outer wall facing the scarred part of the city. Others are less than happy to get worse jobs than we got or no job at all. The generals explain the rules to us in great detail, things like rules of behavior and protocol. They do not provide us a place to sleep, but there is a small island to the east that has a nice inn. Others have just been sleeping on the street or in repaired buildings. The other bridges in the area are almost all broken and unusable. Finally we make our way to the wall and are shown where we will be guarding. We hear people saying that those who went into the scarred part of the city returned mentally damaged, and they eventually disappeared.

We spend the time until our shift begins, the next morning, to check out the area. Miri goes to the barracks and talks to the people training; Fianna just waits for her shift to begin; Belgha finds an elderly couple that have a room to let; and Zanne goes to the street with the merchants and finds that most of the items here are probably stolen.

That evening a group of guards returns from the Chasm into the Protector’s Enclave (where all of us are) and are quickly escorted away by a group of guards. This makes all of us somewhat uneasy.

The next morning we show up in our designated spot but the general who gave us the instructions is nowhere to be found. Soon the previous shift of guards come down from the wall, and they tell us to go up. As we go up we see for the first time the amount of destruction beyond the wall. We see strange bodies that may or may not be humans. By lunchtime there has not been much activity and we are getting bored.

After lunch the female general loops around us and doesn’t seem to much like what she sees, except for Fianna. She spits off of the wall and picks out a few half-elves and also the five of us, choosing us to head into the Chasm.

Session 8 – Orc Ambush

We quickly leave the town, stealthily, and it appears that we have gotten away clean. After a bit, however, Telrun spies a raven flying above us and it seems to have been following us for a while. He takes a shot and it disintegrates into a puff of feathers. Apparently someone had created the raven from an enchantment and was spying on us.

We ascend a hill and see smoke ahead of us. We see a merchant’s caravan that have all been killed, along with dead orcs lying around as we approach. Suddenly the “dead” orcs start arising and coming towards us. A large one charges through a nearby house’s front door — he has a mask over his face with several inlaid gems in it. Another comes out of a different nearby house, this one has a wolf’s pelt on him. We take out the others but the shaman strikes us with lightning and attacks with a spirit wolf. We eventually defeat him, and start looting the orc corpses.

The leader has a bag of holding, the “everlasting provisions” basket that always has food. Also there is a magic flint that can create an invisible, smokeless fire, and a satchel that creates an instant campsite including a campfire and two large tents. There is a “restful bedroll” that gives you temporary hit points if you spend an extended rest in it. Finally there is a skull helmet called the Helm of Seven Deaths. There are seven dull gems on it, that has several uses. On the merchants we find more gold, armor, swords and a jeweled dagger. We check the houses and they seem to be abandoned. We toss the bodies into a pile and burn them.

In the bag we find a note that says “Half now, half upon completion. -D”  We guess that these orcs were hired by Dreus, the evil wizard.

We head back to Treona’s place and tell her that we’ve recovered the stone, and she is pretty surprised to learn that we’ve made a deal with a dragon. We also let her know that Dreus most likely was the one who hired the orcs to attack us. We give her the stone and she performs the rite to destroy it.  It glows and then turns a dull color. Telrun takes the remains of the stone even though they no longer have any power.

We return to Fallcrest and see the Warden. He is pleased that we were able to help Treona. While we were gone he sent a cleaning crew to fix up the tower for us, however the people have not returned after a day. We go to check things out.

Session 7 – The Bronze Dragon

We go to the Pelor temple so Erik may cleanse it of evil. Erik and Finnan do the ritual for about 15 minutes and the others stand guard. A bolt of light beams onto the building and the ceremony is finished. This certainly attracted attention, so we run to the next possible place that the stone may reside, the Library.

Telrun and Finnan check the area and find no traps here. We head inside the library and we hear a cackling coming from a nearby room. Finnan picks the lock and we rush inside. There is a “magic” goblin wearing ill-fitting robes and laughing. There are five other guys here and books (natch), as well as alchemical potions. He is tearing pages out of a book to cast spells. One of them is a puddle of mud that becomes sentient and attacks us. We take out the baddies in the room, but then a bunch of wolves charge in.

We use the third scroll (the final one) and check for the stone, but come up empty again. Telrun ses an area of the stone wall that has been scratched away, by bronze dragon claws it looks like. There is a spot where the stone would have been, but it is gone. We loot the area of some gold and also magical chain mail — Erik takes this. Erik also finds a religious ritual scroll called the Hand of Fate.

We sneak over to the bath house. It has been mostly destroyed, but we find a half-concealed cave entrance. We go inside and the bronze dragon is there, his name is Tyristys. We ask her if she has the stone and she says yes, but we may not have it. We explain our situation and she asks what we have that we may trade. We say that we can get her a better home than the one she resides in — the tower on the river at Fallcrest. She agrees, but before she can leave we must move her treasure for her without losing anything. We agree and take the stone, but she has one last request — we can’t use it on her!

Session 6 – Kiris Dan

We enter the city of Kiris Dan through a secret passage that comes up through a manor house, the Kiris estate. As we come out of the tunnel we find ourselves in a cellar. There is a goblin standing guard here; we quickly take him out and hear noises in the next room. There is a hobgoblin riding a drake and a few more goblins and hobgoblins.

After taking care of the baddies, we do the ritual to check for the stone and come up with nothing. The next target is across the street. We walk past the stables and see dead horses nearby, and the stables have whargs and drakes inside. We move past stealthily.

We come to a spot with three temples nearby, and one is for the god Pelor. We head to the center temple, for the goddess of the moon, to start the ritual. We come across a man splashing in the temples’s pool, and he says that he is the heir to this village. We check the area using the scroll, and find that the stone is not here either.

Suddenly we are attacked by goblins, and the man turns on us. He has turned into a were-rat! Finnan is bitten by him and may now be diseased. We dispatch the goblins and the were-rat, and Finnan retrieves a silver dagger.

Session 5 – Treona

The Lord of Fallcrest, impressed with our work so far, asks us if we would like a disused building at the north end of town to use as our base of operations. We agree and thank him, though it sounds like the place needs a lot of work.

The Lord of Fallcrest gives us a wagon and two horses so we may track down a woman named Treona who can help us get the Dwarven scroll translated. She lives beyond the Ogre Fist Hills.

We crack on to Treona’s tower. During the trip it is raining heavily. We see a lantern in front of her house. Telrun suddenly notices that we are being followed and that they are moving to attack us. They appear to be wolves, and Telrun manages to calm them before they can attack. He gives them meat and they decide not to eat us.

We go to the tower and meet Treona. She reads the note and goes pale — a person named “Dreus” wrote the note, saying that Vekna is coming to destroy Fallcrest. Dreus is a woman that Treona knew. Her mentor, Katenthes, was also the mentor of Dreus. They lived in this tower. Dreus coveted Katenthes’ power and slew him using dark magic, then fled.

Treona asks us how we came across the note and we explain. Suddenly there is a loud noise as Finnan tries to break in to the tower and a trap goes off. He jumps into the river to avoid being discovered. We say that we don’t know who may have tripped the trap. Erik excuses himself to heal Finnan, and we explain that he was outside with the wolves.

Treona tells us that an artifact called the “Slaying Stone”, of which there is one left in the world. They were from the city called Kiris Dan. Now the city has been overrun by goblins, and there are 3 possible places it may be. The old library, an old temple or the Kiris estate. We are given a magical scroll that can be read to activate as a homing beacon to help us find it. We must bring the stone back to Treona for her to destroy or use it ourselves when we find it. We must get it before Dreus does — she may want to use it on the Lord of Fallcrest.

Finnan offers that he knows a lot about goblins; he was captured by them. Goblins are cowardly and weak, and will follow any bully like Hobgoblins or Bugbears. They typically follow Bane as a god.

Session 4 – Abandoned Manor

We come to another room where a group of kobolds are playing a game with a swinging ball of slime, attempting to stick it to a pile of skulls. We kill them quickly, but in the next room we find 2 drakes. Erik gets stuck to the floor with goo for most of the battle. There are jewels on one of the nearby ledges; Telrun takes them.

We enter another chamber with a large boulder perched upon a ledge. Finnan discovers the trap that would drop it on us and disarms it. There are more enemies here including a shaman. After defeating them we find that he has a silver key and a folded up note that is written in Draconic.

We come to a dead end, but Telrun sees a keyhole filled with mud. He unlocks it and we come into a large chamber. Suddenly we see a white dragon before us! Finnan runs and jumps on his back, scoring 232 hit points on him. After a protracted battle we finally defeat him. There is a chest in the room with 100 gold and a life drinking war hammer.

We take the kobold ears back to the Lord of Fallcrest and he pays us 400 gold for our trouble.