Knaves of Ridgefield

Chronicle, 9/24

We begin with one Eldon of Harthill, carpenter and tattoo artist with more than a little experience in combat [X decided on STR +2, CON +1, with random rolls for careers & name] who found himself by fate, luck or circumstance, to Mordha Town with an anemic purse. Unfortunately, the mostly stone town didn’t need a carpenter, but it did need someone brave enough to hunt bandits. 

Mordha Town is a caravan way station in the remains of Mordheim, a city half buried by the earthquake and landslide that swallowed Castle Mordha, home of the lost Mordha Family that ruled the island a century ago. Now a way station for the limited overland trade between the coastal cities of Shankill and Cabra, Mordha Town’s livelihood is threatened by caravan bandits set up nearby. The mayor, Dylan Locranson, offers Eldon good coin to find the bandits camp.

Eldon weighs his options of just stealing from or joining the bandits, but once the coin is in his purse he feels morally obliged to it through, and at daybreak heads back down the road between uneven hillocks to the main, elevated roadway he took to get here from Cabra. 

[X made use of the Search Hex rules to check the next hex over from Mordha Town, where the Shankill to Cabra road runs along the hex’s western border That’s a a 4 hour search but it’s also 4 hours to move from hex to hex, so it's a little after 4 PM when he finishes,.]

Moving off the elevated and well maintained roadway into the sloping mountainside jungle to the west he finds a few things of note: 

First, the corpse of a bandit killed by some sort of poisoned spear thrust into his shoulder. Eldon loots the body for its pouch of 10 coin backpack; he moves his saw, rope, and box of nails into the backpack and the coin to his own pouch, shoves the bolts of cloth that filled the backpack into his own belt and shirt, and leaves the sword and gambeson. 

Second, through a clear spot in the jungle he spies an area of cliff face that shows movement. Stopping to watch for a while, he sees a giant yellow insect – a fathom’s length from antennae to stinger – exit a vine-concealed hole. He looks over the ascent needed to reach there, decides it’s possible, and decides to not do it. It’s unlikely that the bandits are there, and one is probably dead due to messing with it. 

Third, further up the slope, some 3 miles from the road, the uneven ground erupts with more visible large worked stones, producing a shallow labyrinth. Eldon cautiously scouts it, finding where the bandit camp no doubt was – there’s signs of foot traffic and flattened spaces for tents – but his woodlore is too poor to make out much more. Still, poking around for a while reveals a formerly concealed staircase where the greenery has been stripped away to reveal stairs into the mountain. 

Eldon looked over the stairs, ascended them until there was no more good light, weighed the odds that the bandits were in there, and exited to fell some trees with his saw and gather vines. An hours’ worth of carpentry work produced a worthy tripwire and mounted spear trap into which he could lure anyone chasing him out of the dungeon. 

[X takes his Careers, their gear, and the advice on tactical infinity to heart early! So jazzed by this.]

Lighting a candle to enter the dungeon, the first room is a 3 pace square with two open doors (ahead and to the left) and one closed door (to the right), along with some sort of marking or mosaic on the wall and a thick layer of black/ grey goo on the floor that clearly shows tracks (a small amount forward, a lot to the left). Eschewing further searching, he opts to follow the path more travelled.

[Xavier didn’t want to spend a turn searching the room if the bandits might approach. He opted to follow them at ‘crawling speed’, i.e. careful as possible, cupping the light from his candle to further avoid detection, taking a turn to reach the end of the next room.]

The hallway past the entry expanded to two paces wide and stretched off some distance. Eldon moved cautiously, hiding his candlelight, and discovering that the hallway swallowed the noise of his boots, even as the grey slime coating the first room floor stopped. When the hall widened again to a 4-pace deep chamber he smelled the presence of an animal in the room. Some sort of shape moving in the darkness, large, mostly stationary, too far to see from this candle and angle. Eldon places the candle at the rooms corner and moves quietly around – past two levers in the wall, past an open passage deeper into the mountain – positioning for an attack on the… peering the shadows…Mule. 

Shaking his head, Eldon lit another candle to illuminate the room and makes friends with the beast of burden. It’s tied to a hook on the south wall, eating from a hay bale and drinking from a broached water cask, both clearly left for it next to piles of trade goods: boxes, bales, casks, crates, and assorted sundries piled in the southwest corner. It’s clearly been here a few days based on the excrement. 

Searching the passage deeper in, Eldon finds a portcullis blocking the way about a step in, with a puddle of blood another pace past that in the long hall deeper into the mountain. Not liking the look of it he moved several large crates to block the entry and vision from that hall, then moved to check the tapestry on the south wall. Turns out to be of a… forest clearing that once held a campsite. 

Briefly sorting what he could of the trade goods by value – crystal wine sets, bolts of silk and more of the high-quality fabric he found on the corpse, cured exotic meats and fruits, wine – he packed the mule with valuables and food, and exited back to the clearing, taking a moment to eat and contemplate. 

[The Delve Die indicated he needed to spend a turn resting, so this was it.] 

Returning back to the trade good room at a more normal speed, he gave the tapestry more attention as to its potential value to find… it now showed a mule in the forest clearing. The wall behind the tapestry was solid rock, easily a pace thick. The mule and the branches in the tapestry were moving in the afternoon breeze, the sky was darkening. 

Eldon pondered this, went back out to check that the mule was still there, and brought it back into the dungeon to load it up with the tapestry. As he was doing so he heard someone moving behind the crates blocking the portcullis. Whoever it was heard him and starting yelling to get his attention. Eldon heaved the tapestry onto the mule and the yelled back something designed to make him sound tougher than he may have felt and then left with the mule and tapestry to get them outside before things changed. He was back a few minutes later to hear several men behind the crates, their voices sounding increasing desperate.

Eldon moved the top crate free so he could see the men in bandit livery still trapped behind the portcullis. They told a tale of having been trapped in this part of the dungeon for days with their orc ‘allies’ who were getting increasingly hungry and some invisible monster that was picking them off. Eldon had them toss their weapons and livery through the portcullis, then secured a pledge from them to stop banditry and settle for a year in Mordha Town if he let them out. Their apparent leader, Finn, swears by Manzeryk (the eagle goddess who judges your life when you die) that he will and the other gladly complied to get the chance of rescue, with one of them running back to get their allies. 

Eldon pulled the first lever and heard a heavy ‘thunk’ from inside the floor, and then pulled the second, which raised the portcullis. The men tumbled out; the last of them slipped in the blood pool and fell just before Eldon pulled the levers to reclose the gate, and he told them “prove your worth and go get him!” Two of the bandits leapt over the crates, grabbed their friend and dragged him over the ad hoc wall before Eldon, not remembering which order he pulled the levers, pulled them both at once. The portcullis fell in eerie silence as the ‘thunk’ repeated in the floor. The erstwhile bandits were already scrambling to leave when Eldon yelled for them to stop so they didn’t fall into his trap. 

He caught up with everyone in the front room, where the group’s noise had startled the bat swarm living past the broken door deeper in the mountain. Everyone stayed still in the black shrieking cloud until the bats hit the embrowning outside (Eldon noticed non went down the corridor he had been exploring), and then everyone moved around the trap to freedom. 

Once at their old camp the erstwhile bandits try to rest, but Eldon keeps them moving, knowing the distance to town and that night is setting. Along the wat Finn explains in more detail how their group of 30 (20 men and 10 orcs) found and entered the dungeon, using what were obviously troop barracks as their new camp before the hidden portcullis fell and locked them in. Since then they have been fighting amongst themselves, with the orcs (who can’t eat cured meats and don’t much care for cooked) starting to grumble about needing food. Then whenever one or two of the men were alone, something was making them disappear, leaving just blood pools behind. Panic was setting in. 

Eldon lead the group to the corpse he found earlier, letting them know he died from killer bee sting; Finn confirmed they had lost him before the trap fell. That’s when they did a headcount and realized another member of the band had vanished in the escape. Eldon had them bury their gambesons and swords next to the grave they dug for the corpse and burn their livery. His plan is to tell the mayor of Mordha Town that Finn and Company had been captives of the Orc bandits, and as a ‘Liberator’ he had freed them, with the former captives now wanting to live and work in Mordha Town. They prepared to make their way east when an Orc hunting horn sounded.

Kicking dirt over the fire Eldon kicked himself for not remembering the lever order [Something X decided on his own, not the GM hosing him…] he asked Finn how bad this would be. The Betrayed orcs are doubtless looking for them. Eldon set the men at a run to the town, keeping back himself as defense. They were roughly halfway there when a spear flew through the woods and downed one of the bandits! 

Behind them Eldon spotted one Orc, armed with a hatchet now, preparing to lift its horn. The Liberator charged, striking a fearsome blow with his hammer, snapping the haft of it. 

But the orc still stood. Eldon and the orc exchanged blow but the orc, seeing it was just one foe remaining, never risks trying blow his horn. After several inconclusive exchanges the orc over-bears Eldon, slamming him into a tree, tearing open his backpack, denting his breastplate, and taking him to 0 HP. With his off-hand Eldon snatches the nails pouring from his backpack and punches them into the Orcs neck. The orc staggers back and Eldon takes a defensive stance as the orc bleeds out. Alas fate causes Eldon to trip on a tree root and the Orc raises his hatchet triumphantly before Finn leaps from the woods to tackle him. The two go down… and Eldon leaps to his feet to pull the Orc off of Finn before the heavier warrior could land a telling blow on the bandit. This is when blood loss ends things. 

The pair carry the corpse back to town, and Eldon “explains” what happened, the orc bandits, the prisoners, and no mention of the rest of the trade goods or the dungeon complex. The mayor thanked Elden profusely, set him up in one of Mordha Towns abandoned stone buildings, and sent him to the temple of Voynich, god of the book of plants and patron of Mordha Town, for healing. Elden hung his tapestry and found it now displayed the street outside his house. So many questions but first he needs to heal up and hope he can help the militia deal with the orcs before anyone else finds the dungeon entrance

He’s a man of morals, but there are limits to his honesty…

[Eldon pulled out three bolts of fine silk, three of the crystal wine goblets, and some coin found on the bandit corpse, netting him a total convertible value of 460 cn. That takes him about ¼ of the way to second level. He also need to replace his hammer, and perhaps get some additional armor.]

Chronicle 10/8

That night Eldon, now with a place to stay and some coin in his pocket, interrupted a bar fight between a local and an inebriated passer-through named Giglehook. Giglehook affected a strange dress – heavy fancy cloak with good boots and a face mask – and claimed to be mystic; an Illusionist to be precise. (C’s PC DEX1, INT 2, HP 2.) Eldon let the drunken man sleep it off in his on loan-from-the-town stone house.

The next dawn the pair joined Captain Aron Pike and the rest of the guard in the hunt for the exposed Orcish bandits. Aron broke the company into pairs, each with hunting horns (Eldon carrying the one taken from the Orcs; Giglehook already owns a megaphone from his Orator career) to scour the woods and call for help once any Orcs were spotted. 

[Yes, everyone acknowledges this was daft, but it got the PCs off on their own, so it was the right plan.] 

Eldon took Giglehook into confidence regarding the cave/dungeon entrance and the trade goods that he planned to claim for sale in Shankill or Cabra to raise money for a Sloop. Eldon already has plans for turning Finn and his gang into the crew of his ship. Giglehook adopts this plan wholeheartedly and a friendship is formed. 

Their conviviality does not dim their eyesight, and they spot the back of an Orcs head as he is ‘doing his business’ against a nearby tree. Giglehook’s light tread lets him get close (and hear other Orcs at a camp in the distance), and his reflexes are enough to keep the initiative when he realizes he’s been seen. Before the Orc can either flee or attack the Illusionist unleashes Gathifex’s Disguising Torrent. 

Waves of sparkling magic pour off his body, changing the appearance of the area to now include 10 armed men stepping out from behind trees, armed with crossbows and swords. Eldon finds himself taking the appearance of these men, to further the image that this is a disciplined military company. The orc yells for help and turns to flee, only for Giglehook to follow up with Auditory Illusions, making the sound of more soldiers attacking the Orc camp. Trapped, the orc drops to his knees. Before the men can capitalize on this surrender, another Orc charges into the area, either to help or fleeing the auditory attack on their camp.

Eldon blows his hunting horn and charges the confused Orc, landing a strong blow with his mace before the pair spend several seconds exchanging blows. Giglehook does his best to maneuver behind the Orc to end things, but it turns out to be unnecessary as Eldon overpowers the bandit. The Orc on the ground continues to surrender, especially with the sound of a half dozen other horns and men converging. 

The men have a whispered argument for a moment what to do with their prisoner – who was facing a hempen dance in Mordha Town - before Giglehook’s plan won out and he offered the orc, Gynk a job! In orcish, to Eldon’s shock. Since Giglehook was broke the initial money came from Eldon…. Gynk took a 10% advance on his monthly pay and agreed to watch the dungeon entrance and meet the men there. 

[C taking advantage of Knave’s recruiting rules, and his career in oratory to get a +5 on the CHA check to recruit the Orc to bring Gynk on as a Mercenary for now. The plan is to level up, each PC takes 1 pt. in CHA and then get Gynk and Finn as companions, respectively.]

The men took their orc corpse with them to convene with Aron and the guard, and Eldon is disheartened to see that the Orc bandits had taken much of the trade books with them in their attempt to flee. “Oh well, keep the guard fat and happy; they won’t be looking for the rest of it,” he thinks. The orc corpses are piled and burned, and the group heads to town, knowing that whatever Orcs are left are too scattered to be a threat. 

In town, the pair accept their reward for being part of the hunting party. Eldon spends the afternoon negotiating the purchase of a cart and a second mule, while Giglehook immediately spends his cash at the local bar. He awakens the next day with a large embarrassing tattoo across his right cheek of stars in a constellation that doesn’t exist. Eldon, an actual tattooist, mocks him furiously for his failing to at least get a good tattoo while Giglehook adjusts his mask. 

Eldon lets his friend sleep off the bender in the cart as he leaves town to head back to the dungeon entrance. Once they reach a likely spot they go off road, using their skills as carpenter and ship-wright to cut a cart-wide path through the jungle… one that hopefully won’t attract too much attention. [Fortunately based on their past careers the men are equipped with saws and axes!] 

The air is thick with pollen from the treetop spring flowers of the jungle, and their route is interrupted by a collapsed limb in their way whose flora has attracted two giant killer bees. Eldon directs Giglehook to pull the cart back and onto an alternate path while he stands watch on the bees, shield up. Eventually he steps forward to threaten them and they flit away. Still, a new path is cut around the flowers, costing them time to get to the dungeon. 

There they find Gynk waiting for them. The Orc mercenary has kept watch on the entrance, and Eldon can see that his trap has come down and there are three graves not there before: the orcs killed by his handiwork at the dungeon mouth. Eldon heads in with one mule, loads it up with one third of the remaining trade goods, returns, changes mules, and repeats while Giglehook and Gynk trade life stories and load the cart with what Eldon is bringing out. The Illusionist is thrilled to learn that his new employee has former experience as a pirate. He decides to head in to tell Eldon this…

On his third trip Eldon finds his path blocked by a half dozen small reptilian forms who either have feathers or are wearing feathered cloaks/headdresses. Not liking the idea of being rushed and not trusting the mule to be good combat backup, he hurls his bag of nails across the floor, crating ad hoc caltrops that keep three of the kobolds at bay. 

One of the remaining three hurls his spear to no effect, but of the remaining two one delivers a blow sufficient to make Eldon leap back [Some HP loss] before the Liberator delivers a brutal strike with his mace that kills one and hurls that body onto another, knocking it to the ground. This is when Giglehook appears behind the Kobolds, yelling at them in their own tongue. 

[I did an ad hoc rule that you speak one unusual language per point of INT, and C used his second here.]

Giglehook’s presence makes half the kobolds flee past him and into the room with the bats, which causes an explosion of bats in the entry way. The kobold that threw its spear snatches his fallen companion’s knife and is about to skewer Eldon when Giglehook’s yell in its language reaches it, throwing off the shot and giving Eldon a chance to seize the initiative. Both remaining kobolds find themselves flattened on the wall, knives out, as Giglehook tries to find a paid peace. Well, kind of paid. He can’t actually afford to pay… The kobolds sneer, he raises his weapons, they respond in kind, he flinches back, and they run. Eldon decides to let them go. 

The rest of the trade goods are loaded on the cart and the pair contemplate spending the night in the camp but Eldon can’t bring himself to trust Gynk with a watch yet, so they head back to town in the twilight, filtering in with a newly arrived caravan. Giglehook takes part of his share of the treasure (a topaz necklace of 250 coin value) and heads to the caravanserai filled bar while Eldon parks the wagon outside his house where the his magic tapestry lets him keep an eye on it. 

Eldon wakes the next morning to find Giglehook passed out on the floor next to a dead body. The man, dressed in the livery of a caravan guard, is dead from an axe wound and a bloody axe lies on the floor between the bodies. Eldon sighs and hides the corpse in the stone huts storage space. 

[C has perhaps become a little too fond of the carousing rules and the bad outcomes of the table, but the pair are now nearly tied in XP….]

Treasure to date

[The materials in the trade goods are

• 4 3 barrels of fine spirits (200 cn/16 slots each; 800 cn/64 slots ONE BARREL SOLD TO CARAVAN MERCHANTS)

• 3 crates of glassware (200 cn/5 slots each; 600 cs/15 slots)

• 3 jars of dyes & pigments (50 cn/5 slots each; 150/15 slots)

• 3 barrels of preserved fish (5 cn/8 slots each, 15 cn/24 slots)

• 1 topaz necklace (250 cn, 1 slot CAROUSED AWAY)

• 1 small pouch w/ 1 obsidian stone, 2 bloodstones, and 1 sardonyx (10+ 50+50+75 cn, 1 slot)

• 1 spellbook of Filch

• A vial of blue-green liquid that is cool to the touch. (1 slot)

• A long bone wand with runes carved on it. (1 slot)]

Eldon’s third trip in found more trade goods 

• 2 crates of terra cotta pottery (100 cn/5 slots each, 200 cn/10 slots)

• 1 crate of 12 salt blocks (10 cn/5 stone total, SOLD]

• 1 wrought iron braziers (45 cn/10 slots each, 90 cn, 20 slots]

Chronicle 10/22

With a heavy sign Eldon knave chucked the corpse into the cart in the predawn light, maneuvered his tarp over it, and clicked the mules to head back to the dungeon entrance before anyone could see him to question anything. The 4 hour trek was uneventful, and Gynk still kept guard on the entrance. “Got a meal for you…” Eldon said, handing the corpse over to the Orc. 

“Man flesh not favorite…” he says in his halting common. “who this guy?’

“I think he tried to killed Giglehook last night, but your boss is still dead drunk so I can’t ask him.”

Gynk shrugged, “You want to… watch this?”

Eldon considered, “No, I guess not. I’m going to go explore more.” With that he headed in to leave Gynk to do whatever with the corpse. Using the crude map Gynk had drawn he planned to head further into the barracks. The portcullis was still down, but by pushing both levers he raised it, and again heard the loud clunk from inside the floor. 

Moving cautiously examined the long corridor deeper into the mountain; the pool of blood had spread among cracks in the floor, highlighting a mosaic that ran the length of the corridor. He carefully tracked that until he found one tile discolored and slightly raised. Crouching low he pulled out his new hammer and gave the tile a whack, ready to leap clear if need be. His heart sunk at the sound of the portcullis dropping….

Heading back he could make out both levers down, and ascertained that the loud clunk was a bar under the floor latching onto the portcullis hooks. It was well and truly locked. 

Turning to explore deeper, he found the central barracks chamber. That large room contained a chandelier that rather than fire gave off an unearthly blue radiance (that grew brighter and dimmer for no discernable reason while he was here), two braziers with eagle-motif worked into their wrought iron that were clearly part of the bandit’s loot, and three more crates of trade goods. Eldon strongly considered looking in some of the side rooms but went back again. 

At the portcullis he stripped to his pants and belt and applied his cake of soap (purchased to replace the tripwire on his front door trap) to the portcullis bars before he pushed his body through the bars, leaving behind no small amount of hair and skin. [2 HP damage]

On the far side, just out of sight, Eldon, one leg still stuck between the bars, spied a kobold, who snickered and pushed the levers. The Portcullis started to raise even as Eldon again tossed nails across the floor to prevent a charge. The rising crossbar caught his leg and lifted him from the floor as he strugged to get free, dropping awkwardly on his back to the floor even as the Kobold approached with his cleaver. [2 more HP damage]

Eldon is too canny a fighter to be so easily undone, and is able to roll out of the way to the attack, the cleaver leaving sparks on the stone floor. Snatching his hammer from his belt he delivers a brutal blow that ended the battle. Eldon re-donned his armor in record time, and went back to the trap trigger and marked it with  circle of soap and the words “DON’T STEP”. It was the work of an hour to cart the braziers and crates to the front door, where Gynk loaded them onto the cart. (of the corpse there was no sign…). Not wanting to push his luck Eldon made the long trek back to town to catalogue his new finds. 

Back at home, Eldon finds Giglehook still unconscious [C thought game started at 5:30, not 4:30, and he still isn’t here]. He does a quick catalogue of his new loot, sees that one of the crates contained salt blocks, and hatched a plan for the afternoon. Investing in a bow, arrows, and some twine he went into the woods to the north, hung a salt lick, and climbed a tree as a crude blind to hunt for wild game. 

It’s a quiet, pleasant enough place to contemplate his next steps until a trio of deer-like animals, save that they are a mottled green with impala horns, approached the salt lick. Eldon delayed, wondering if these beasts might be worth more alive, and before he takes his shot three arrows strike two of the beasts. The last bounds away. 

Eldon waits and sees a quartet of hunters, one dazed and barely upright, approach. The hunters identify the salt lick and Eldon reveals himself, claiming they stole his kills. The quartet work to defuse the situation, offering him some of the meat, but he instead offers to sell them his salt so they could repeat his stratagem. The group lash the greendeer to poles and return to town to complete the transaction. 

At the house Giglehook finally rises, with foggy memories of someone plying him with drink and questions about Castle Mordha, possible entrances, and what did he know. The fellow followed him home and tried to kill him once he had learned where the dungeon access was, but Giglehook somehow won out in the battle for the axe before falling unconscious himself…. But there was no body here, and no Eldon, but the cart and its goods were still here. How long had he been unconscious? [C here with the aftereffects of a Carousing roll from the session before….]

Our heroes reconnect with the hunters, and the dazed one, who is now sucking down cheap whisky, rambles on about how the Murmuration knew they were to meet, and meet Giglehook, and that he has seen the constellation of stars on the Illusionist’s cheek in skies undreamt by man. This was Marcus. Jacob, the hunters leader, apologized for him, he was the most recent ‘sacrifice’. Eldon doesn’t care pas selling 7 cn worth of salt, but Giglehook is deeply intrigued and follows the hunters. As he watched them render the greendeer he learns that many of their body parts are valuable alchemical components and the hunters were moving with speed to sell them to one of the caravans. His attempts to take the hunters into his employ failed, as did any attempt make sense of Marcus, who he eventually decided was just drunk. 

Meanwhile Eldon explored the various abandoned houses, finding that some had entrances to an interconnected sewer and sub-basement array that predated it’s status as the half empty Mordha Town. Intrigued, he moved all of his belongings to a house where the entrance was wide enough to hide his cart in the undercity. 

The pair hit the bar together, with Eldon cautiously gambling (ending ahead 7 cn!) and Giglehook remaining sober… perhaps because he had no coin for carousing. Trusting his new friend to not do something stupid, Eldon turned in to recover from the day, assessing what he pulled out of the dungeon. 

[In addition to the salt and ornamental braziers, there were two crates of terra cotta pottery, for a total of 300 cn value.]

Giglehook, unchaperoned, decided to break into the mayor’s house. He gave the pace a minimal scouting, then used his Auditory Illusion spell to generate the sound of a conflict at the houses back door, trusting that it will draw all away from the mayor’s office. That done he easily popped the lock on the office window and entered with some stealth, exploring the room briefly before using his lockpicking skills on the desk. In minutes he found a strongbox in the lowest drawer and removed it… just as the door opened!

The Illusionist crouched and cast Gathifex’s Disguising Torrent, altering the pluses of magic distorting the image of the room to hide his presence and make an illusion of the strongbox where it belonged. The guards placed the strange flickering shimmer in the air to the dim candlelight and yelled to the mayor that they must have scared the intruder out because the window was open and desk unlocked but the town treasury was still here. The mayor came in to re-lock the desk, and collided with the invisible Giglehook! 

The Illusionist scrambled over the desk and out the window with the lockbox, but once outside the set confines of the disguising torrent he was visible again. Fortunately none of the guards had ranged weapons. In the general hue and cry Giglehook entered an abandoned building and down a shaft to the sewers. There he waited out the night in the pitch dark, hoping for a chance to escape later.

The next morning Eldon is awoken by two town guards, who are surprised to find him in a new house. They are doing a house-by-house search looking for the thief who stole the town treasury. Eldon reins in his tongue as the guard requests his assistance (being a known quantity after the liberation of the Orc’s prisoners and success as a bandit hunter). They reveal they are pretty sure they know who the thief was: a Rathax of King’s Port, one of the caravan guards who went missing the night before. When the other caravanserai had been put to the question it came out that Rathax had long been boasting of the treasure he was going to get in Mordha Town….

Wanting to keep his reputation high in Mordha Town he volunteered to help, spending the morning going exploring abandoned houses, before hearing that some of the guards had found Rathax at the bottom of a shaft into the sewers, but the scoundrel wounding one of them with a bow prevented quick pursuit. By the time they got down there the figure was gone, having fled into unmapped and lightless abandoned sewers under the city. Eldon’s suspicions on the real identity of their prey grew, his having just given Giglehook the bow the night before. He started complaining more about his new friend’s habit of drinking to excess and long hangovers. 

It was well past noon when the trio found Giglehook unconscious in an abandoned building. Clearly much the worse for the night, his cloak mud splattered to the point of lacking any color. Eldon roused him, leading the questioning to Rathax’s theft. His friend took the hint, saying that he had drunk with Rathax the night before, and late last night while in his cups he saw the man sprinting to the east of town, carrying something, before he collapsed here for the night. Eldon rolled his eyes but told the guards that he and Giglehook needed to prep for their journey, and the guards reported in to shift the search to the plantations east of town. 

Under actual questioning, Giglehook admitted to the theft, and that while running from the guards in the dark of the sewers he nearly fell into an empty cistern or similar (with some snuffling creature down below) and had to drop the box to scrabble back up. It had taken him hours to find a way out, pursued at times by glowing strange slithery things. He had just recently collapsed here. Eldon gave him a dope slap for such massively bad decision making. 

Deciding Mordha Town was now too hot for them., they took the magic tapestry to the mayor’s office, where Eldon volunteered it to the town to help prevent future burglaries: it’s ability display whatever was on the far side of a wall would surely help with security. Mayor Locrasan was overwhelmed by this act of generosity but had no way to pay them with the loss of the town treasury. Instead, he let Eldon pick any abandoned building in town and lay permanent claim to it. Eldon chose the house he was just in, with the cart sized passage into the undercity. 

[This was another 1000 cn worth of value, split between the two, taking both of them to 2nd level. HP die rolls were poor. 

Eldron opted to increase Strength and Charisma, so he is now STR 4, CON 1, CHA 1, HP 6

Giglehook increased all his spiritual stats by 1, and is now DEX 1, INT 3, WIS 1, CHA 1, HP 3]

At the mayor’s request they walked with him to remonstrate with the caravan guard captain about Rathax’s thievery: Captain Reid protested his innocence, but Declan Locharnson was having none of it: this was a black mark against Green Hornet Company in Mordha Town and if the like happened again they would be banned from town (which would mean no merchants would hire them for this trip). Reid was sour, but could do nothing more than glare; it would not serve the Hornet’s long term interests to make Lochrason an enemy. Eldon and Giglehook kept their mouths shut during this exchange. 

Eldon left Giglehook to negotiate their joining the caravan to head to Cabra (for which their wagon would have to chip in some of Green Hornet Company’s fee) while he found the former bandit leader Finn and offered him a job. One half a share of the profits of any finds going forward, laying out the long term plan of purchasing and outfitting a sloop for trade and adventure. Much of the rest of the “liberated orc prisoners” had taken jobs with a distant plantation per their promise to Eldon to settle in Mordha Town for a year, but Finn wasn’t keen on that sort of work, and happily took the offer as a way to get out of his pledge to Eldon (what effect this will have with Manzeryk, the goddess who he invoked in the pledge, if any, remains to be seen).

This accomplished, Eldon and Finn prepared the cart for travel while Giglehook purchased a second cloak and mask and took to his heels to the dungeon entrance. He made the same offer to Gynk, who also accepted; the orc wondered how he would pass among the human merchants, only to be offered the mask and cloak: let the merchants think that they are part of a religious order. If pressed Gynk is the Illusionist’s apprentice. The pairs converged back on the road as the last in the caravan, just as the wind shifted and storms approached.

[Finn of King’s Port: lvl 1, Brewer, Bandit, STR 1, DEX 1, WIS 1, HP 4, AC 13 (helmet, gambeson), Sword d6, Sling d4]

[Gynk Grey-Tooth: lvl 1, Orc, Pirate, STR 2, CON 1, HP 6, AC 13 (gambeson & chain shirt under cloak), Hatchet d6 or d4 thrown, Spear d8 or d6 thrown]

Chronicle 11/5

Clambering up the three-story bell tower in Mordha’s Town, guild-bonded courier Blanche Withingworth (L’s PC, INT 2, CHA 1) confirmed the storm line approaching the island, perhaps a day and a half distant, and reported back to the caravan’s head merchant. Wilkin Rathling, had travelled with Blanche several times, and trusted her experience. Besides, with Lochrason having a grudge with Captain Reid and the Green Hornets, he wanted to put Mordha Town behind him. They left early, just after negotiating for a new wagon to join.

Blanche circled back to take in their new companions: Finn of Kings Port, with his rangy limbs, milky skin and shock of red hair braided at the back told her that he was from Harrow Isle more than his name. The population of Oileáin Mhóra, the Grand Isles, had clear demarcations of color and build. For example, the man Finn called Liberator, Eldon Hart-Hill, shared his friend’s height but his build (wider in shoulder while still shallow of chest, with muscles made for work) and color marked him as being from Shankill Isle – she could find Hart’s Hill on her map, but never been. Both men were armed and armored, Eldon more heavily, and the bigger man was clearly the lead.

Her knowledge availed her naught with the other pair, who had run to meet them. Both men wore hooded robes, gloves, and full face masks. The smaller, a full foot and a half shorter than the larger, went by the strange name of Giglehook. The larger was Gynk, a name never given in Oileáin Mhóra, but more common in places South. She’d heard in Mordha Town Giglehook was an illusionist; was Gynk was his apprentice? Creation? Not even there?

Despite her questions, Blanche felt companionable towards them. Both Eldon and Giglehook had presence, the former an air of casual competence, the latter a chaotc charm. Maybe fate tossed them together. [Actually it’s  because they are all PCs!]

The caravan made good time south, hoping to hit River’s End and maybe Fort Peregrine before the rain caught them, but the roadway between Mordha’s Town and Cabra had no County mainting it and had fallen to disrepair. This slowed them enough for Blanche’s keen eyes to spot a thin line of smoke from what must be a camp off the road. She told Wilkin, who weighed the weather and chance of profit and opted for the latter... but cautiously. He asked if anyone wanted to scout out the camp and Eldon immediately volunteered. Not knowing the man, Wilkin asked Blanche to accompany him.

Them, actually, as Finn came with. The two men moved into the woods to flank Blanch at a distance, trusting that her non threatening presence and the badge branded onto her guild-bond bag would make her the best at contact. The camp was not what she expected. Sized for a dozen individuals there were three, along with cauldrons cooling under banked charcoal fires – one of which had glowing contents overseen by a man with smoked glass goggles – a contraption of glass and metal that might be a still maintained by a second man, and third man rendering down a hanging bear carcass. Blanch ducked behind a tree to think.

Alchemy of this sort was illegal in County Cabra, but they were outside it, so no crimes were being broken, but this still felt off. She pursed her lips to whistle just in case. Before she could find a way to confer with her allies, Edon stepped out of the woods, shocking the alchemists with his presence. One of them reached for a small clay sphere, another brandished his butchering knife, and the third swallowed something… and VANISHED!

Blanche steps out and the conversation is joined: she and Eldon learn that indeed the Alchemists are here because their work is illegal in County Cabra, that many of their number are collecting ingredients, and that they would be happy to trade some of their wares – which would fetch a high price in Cabra no doubt – for things the caravan might offer. Eldon remains paranoid about the invisible man, and all feel this is off enough for Finn to remain hidden.

Still, the man in the smoked glass goggles went with them to the caravan, explained and when Wilken moved it closer returned to the cam with Eldon, who was trading one of his casks of fine spirits to the Alchemists to have them identify the function of the bone wand and the vial of blue green liquid [a necromantic weapon that turns the targets spirit on them; a potion of heat immunity, respectively.]

Blanche stayed with the caravan, and upon noticing that they were now parked over a space the disrepair had left a film of caked and dried mud on the road, located the invisible man’s footprints. She tracked his essaying of the caravan’s contents even as the merchants were preparing to show their wares to the potential customers.

As the man with the butcher’s knife arrived to take the place of ‘goggles’, 5 more Alchemists arrived carting specimen boxes and captured game. Their leader, Vemina, got the background from the man with the knife and quickly took over negotiations with Wilkin. Blanche saw the footprints approach her and followed; Vemina was splitting her attention twixt Wilkin’s sales pitches and the invisible man whispering the caravan’s contents and defenses to her, and his thought that a nighttime ambush with their potions would yield considerable profit.

Backing up quickly so as to not bump into the invisible man, Blanche tried to figure out how to warn Wilkin when Elden re-appears and approaches Vemina...

“Are you all interested in the giant bees?”

Vemina nods distractedly, making plans for an ambuscade that night, Blanche thinks. The leader of the Alchemists adds “Their venom is useful, but we’ve only found corpses and it denatures quickly.”

“I know where their hive is,” he shrugs.

Vemina’s eye pop, “Really?! Can you show us?” Eden shrugs again, “Sure, if you want. Just give me a minute.”

Vemina whispers to the air that any ambush is off – the location of the hive is way more valuable to them than whatever they can get from here. Elden returns, muttering on how Giglehook had traded a crate of glass-wear for a Bear Form potion (already in Gynk’s hands), and Blanche wonders if the man even realizes that he’d prevented an attack.

She accompanies Vemina, one of the other alchemists and Eldon through the jungle (trusting that Finn was somewhere near, and that the invisible man likewise). helping guide them around the massive thorn hedges that prevent approach to the waterfall and pool holding Grove of the Summer Wyrm. She spent related the tale of the Wyrm, long since vanished, defeated by Saint Festus, (and the grace of Manzeryk, the eagle goddess who leads the fight against monsters), whose tomb was elsewhere on the mount. Eldon was deeply interested in the tale of the tomb…

When they reached where Eldon could see the entrance to the killer bee’s hive, he insisted that all cards be put on the table: the invisible man following them reveal himself, and that Vemina be honest. At her nod, the invisible alchemist reappeared (and our heroes saw he did so by cutting his thumb and shedding blood), and Finn emerged from the woods – Any fight was now three on three and with open terms, but it was clear neither Eldon or Vemina wanted a fight. Instead, she traded all she knew about another bandit camp, and of rangers from Fort Peregrine on patrol.

Probing questions revealed approximate locations of both, that Vemina’s troupe broke from Robelo’s ‘bandit army’ over criminal alchemy (“Robelo was OK with theft and killing, but drew the line at alchemy, the hypocrite!”), and that maybe if they went by at night Wilikin’s merchants might get past Robelo’s camp.

In exchange Eldon pointed out the hive entrance and described the entrance to a properties of the other part of the complex. Vemina seemed stunned that Eldon was handing over the location of one most sought-after dungeons on Shankill Isle, but the tall man just shrugged. He has his own dreams… thought he supposed he might like to come back here someday.

[Not discussed in play is that Finn was once part of Robelo’s “bandit army”; he and troop were led by Wardon, who broke off over recruiting the orc survivors of the pirate wreck that Gynk once sailed on. Robelo’s “army” once was 50 men and women under arms; it could have been over 60 if his devotion to Cabra’s stifling divinity didn’t stop him from working with alchemists and orcs due to both having rumors of demon worship.]

After Vemina marked the place on her own maps the group made time back to the caravan and camp. Venima and Co. breaking camp immediately to reposition near the hive; Blanche, Eldon & Finn explain to Wilkin, and then promise to run ahead, skirt Robelo’s army, and connect with the Rangers. Wilkin opts to keep moving for the night crossing, and hope that the Green Hornet Company being prepared for the attack might hold if off.

The trio cut through the jungle, with Blanche’s experience keeping them on track until they connected with the road at Saint Festus Tomb. The 20’ high standing stone, carved with Festivus battle with the Summer Wyrm at a waterfall, was covered in vines. Eldon really wanted to find a tomb entrance to delve it for buried relics, but there was no time. The pushed on to the point of exhaustion, only to find the Ranger camp empty. Eldon searched for signs of their presence and heard it from the dozen bowstrings being drawn from the woods…

Fortunately, the three were able to explain who they were – aided by Blanche’s guild-badge – to Theogrin, the Ranger leader, and got a commitment for immediate help.

Theogrin pressed Eldon on where he had learned of the bandit camp location, but aware of his oaths to keep Vemina’s group in the clear he instead claimed that the hunters of the Murmuration told him. Theogrin was aware of those strange folk and accepted it without question [And I was impressed with use of the world lore!]

Our heroes desperately needed rest [The Travel Hazard die came up with “Fatigue: rest the next watch or take 1 HP damage”] but Theogrin didn’t allow any time, as the rangers of Fort Peregrin are men of action. The three opted to join the assault, and it was a few hours into the night when they found themselves with the Rangers uphill and behind Robelo’s 20 mounted bandits, who were in turn waiting to charge down on Wilkin’s candlelit wagons.

Between Fort Peregrine’s Rangers and the Green Hornet Company the forces of law had a slight numerical edge on the bandits, but Robelo’s men were mounted… This could go either way, with the merchants in the crossfire. This could go either way and promised to be bloody.

Blanche wet her lips and crawled silently behind the bandit line while rehearsing in her mind the tune taught to her by an elf courtier. Eldon nodded to Finn to try to get to the last wagon and warn Giglehook… but the rangy man was spotted by Captain Reid and mistaken for a bandit! Finn had to leap clear of an incoming arrow….

Before the charge the courier started whistling the Masquerade Reel, and a full half of the bandits – and their horses! – were compelled to dance for as long as she kept up the tune. The other half of the bandit line attempted their charge, only for three of them to be brought down by ranger’s arrows. Of the seven remaining, Eldon charged and leapt from a tree root to slam a rider on his horse, and the remaining six found the caravan gone.

Eldon recognized the shimmering air as the side effect of Gathifex’s Disguising Torrent and knew that Giglehook was protecting the caravan, but had to move to protect himself; engaged with Robelo, the bandit chief, he was likely outmatched. He narrowly avoided a fatal wound, slapped Robelo’s horse on the rump, making it jump and throwing the bandit to the ground. Robelo tackled him and both fell into a shadowed declivity, out of sight….

The Green Hornet Company exploded out of Disguising Torrent even as the Rangers raced downhill, surrounding the elegant, dancing men and equines and ruining whatever force the six remainders had. Three of those went down, the remaining three bolted south downhill.

Out of sight, Eldon engaged with Robelo. At first neither could gain an advantage, but Eldon quickly realized that Rebelo had an edge on him. Things were looking grim before Finn, screaming “Liberator!” appeared behind the bandit and forced him to split his attention. Seeing the battle lost, Robelo found an opening and ran. Blanche from her hiding spot was able to watch him reach the river and dive in, but exhausted and struggling to keep Reel going, she couldn’t stop him.

When she finally had to stop whistling, Blanche saw Fort Peregrine’s Rangers were masters of the field. The Rangers and the Green Hornets had taken ten prisoners, killed six, and lost four. Robelo’s former bandit army, riven by internal divisions, was no more. Theogrin gave Eldon and company four of the bandit’s horses as reward for their part in this triumph. Gynk, as an orc, is a trifle too tall for the mount.

With sunrise the whole group pushes their mounts and feet to their utmost but fail to beat the rain to the town of River’s End on Crow Lake. Theogrin forces his men and prisoners to continue on to Fort Peregrine. Eldon hopes Giglehook doesn’t bring down more trouble!