Session 4: Trek into the Foothill

As the first light of dawn crept over the rocky peaks at their backs, the adventurers crouched low in a patch of scraggy brambles. Three brutish warriors in ragged, black armor had broken off from their scouting party, likely drawn by the faint curl of smoke that trailed up from the embers of the campfire nearby. Nearly two dozen Umdâgor had scoured the rocky hillside for the party during the moonless night. It seemed that daybreak marked the end of the party's good fortune.

"Do not loose until you can see the reds of their eyes," commanded Barry, as the barbarian flexed his hand around haft of his javelin. Venali nodded as she readied an arrow, while Chucho gave a low grunt of agreement as he pulled back the lever of his crossbow and loaded a bolt.

As the grey-skins drew closer, they drew cruel-looking daggers and short, curved swords from sheaths of tanned goat hide. Without warning, the warrior on the right was sent sprawling, with little more than a wet splat to announce its end. Chucho's bolt had found its mark, hitting just above the monster's right eye. As the remaining Umdâgor turned in shock at the death of their comrade, Venali loosed her arrow. With a wheezing squeal, the left-most grey-skin crumpled to the ground, an elfin arrow protruding out the back of its neck.

The final warrior managed to raise its shield just in time to catch Barry's javelin, but let out a howl of pain as the iron tip pierced its forearm. Realizing the creature still lived, Thaddeus charged out from the brush and smashed the creature's head with his warhammer. The sound of shattering bone and the dull thud of a body hitting the mossy ground signaled the swift conclusion of a successful ambush.

 

Antonio José Manzanedo

Session #4

I apologize for the delay in posting this session diary. Turns out, writing up a full blog post every week for an ongoing campaign can be more time consuming than originally planned. Regardless, here is the 5th campaign diary for my Valakis campaign. In Session #3, our heroes conversed with Ser Rolf, the lord of Darthollow Castle, before taking up the search for a set of books and a mage that had gone missing in the Cairn Moorlands.

Afternoon Tea

The party found themselves face-to-face with Cornelius Gladstone, but he was not what they had expected. Instead of a traditional wizard, before them stood a man with a bear-like head and a dinner jacket. After reassuring them he was quite harmless, Cornelius invited the group to join him for tea and retired to a large armchair in front of his fireplace.

The party questioned the strange man, with Osiris taking a keen interest in his exploits. The following is a summary of their discussion:

• Cornelius had been funding an expedition into the various ruins in the moorlands. The tower had served as a convenient base of operations for those excursions. These delves had been funded jointly by Cornelius and an order of mages known as the Argent Conclave. He explained that he and his colleagues have a keen interest in the lost artifacts and technology of the Vodfyr, the ancient civilization of humans that once controlled much of Valakis.
• Due to his cursed state, Cornelius did not feel comfortable returning to civilization, fearing persecution from superstitious folk. He mentioned that Halesport, the large city to the west, might have someone who could aid him, but give its current political and religious tensions, he felt that would be unwise.
• While in a nearby ruin, which Cornelius named as the "Temple of the Drowned God", his expedition had come across some manner of laboratory or processing chamber deep within the complex. As he and the rest of the group looked it over, they were betrayed by their scout and trap finder, Elise. She locked them inside the main chamber and activated the machine. Trapped within the powerful magic field, Cornelius and his fellows were transformed into strange monstrosities. 
• Cornelius returned from the "temple" with 3 manite crystals and 1 refined manite core. He lost a number of mercenaries during his expeditions.
• The wizard no longer has the books Serf Rolf lent to him. They were lost during the chaos of Elise's betrayal. A side effect of his transformation seemed to be memory loss, and much of his belongings were now missing. 
• The adventurers asked if Cornelius knew what the party's mysterious "pit monster" was based on their description. He believed it to be a Carrion Crawler, a kind of monstrous, corpse-eating centipede.

After answer numerous questions from the party, Gladstone wished to test the party's capabilities. The mage offered the possibility of future employment, should the group prove capable. The party was interested in his offer, and recounted their exploits to date. Convinced, the mage offered the group an small down payment and a spell scroll in exchange for the party finding the rumored location of a lost observatory in the foothills of the Skyspire Mountains. He requested the party scout the location and map the complex for him.

Agreeing to his request, the group spent the night in the tower. The next morning, they procured fresh supplies from the tower's store room and headed north.

Into the Foothills

The party traveled across the northern reaches of the moorland, reaching the foothills of the towering mountain range in late afternoon. Unsure of the precise location of their destination, the group commenced a search of the jagged foothills, scouring the cliffs that towered over the surrounding pine trees.

As they trekked over the rocky hills, dodging patches of towering fir trees, the group encountered an unexpected sight: a band of human footmen, under the command of a mounted knight was also wandering through the hills. The party hailed the men, and learned that the troupe was led by Ser Amalric, a grizzled, bearded knight in the service of Baron Horik of Highmark. 

Ser Amalric , Knight of Highmark

After a brief exchange, the party bid farewell to the soldiers and continued on their way. The players were immediately suspicious of the knight and his men. They did not accept Ser Amalric's explanation that he was leading a scouting party, looking to keep the border region of the barony safe from monsters. Thaddeus noted that the band did not fly the colors of the barony, or carry a banner of any kind. Osiris added that it was nearly a day's travel from the baron's lands, which seemed a rather far distance for a patrol to travel.

The adventurers continued on, and less than an hour they spotted a pair of dwarves traveling out of the foothills as well. This time, the two groups spotted each other much further apart, and little more than distant acknowledgements were exchanged before the dwarves hurried off to the west away from the party.

Terra dei Giochi

The Door & the Cave

In later afternoon, the party came across a strange site. Hidden behind a patch of evergreen trees there was a door carved into a rocky cliff. This hidden portal was engraved with an eye, which was ringed with a serpent biting its own tail. The group identified this as the emblem of the Argent Conclave, which they had previous encountered during their discussion with Cornelius Gladstone. 

Roughly 30 feet above the door there was a rocky outcrop which protruded from the cliff. Stepping back, the group could spot a metal cylinder protruding from the top of the outcropping. They decided that this must be the location of the observatory.

Curiously, the stone door had no handle or nob. After several attempts at opening the door through other means, the group concluded that it most likely required a passphrase or the presence of a conclave "key" in order to open.

The group decided to investigate the surround area. To the south of the door, around a curve in the cliff face, they spotted the mouth of a cave looming above them. The cave seemed to be about the same distance up the cliff as the outcrop. Due to the time of day and the angle of the light, there was no way to see into the cave, so Barry decided to scale the cliff to look within.

As soon as the barbarian began hammering in his first spike-turned-piton, the party heard a noise above them from the cave. Several gray-skinned humanoids with squat, ugly faces and crude, black armor were peering down at them from the cave. Osiris and Venali engaged in a short conversation with the creatures in their native tongue (Orcish) and the party decided to retreat.

David Honz

A Dangerous Campsite

With nightfall approaching quickly, the party made a hasty departure from the site of the observatory, and searched for a safe place to make camp for the night. Barry found a large copse of pine trees and a rough campsite was established before the long shadows of twilight surrendered to the night. Due to the altitude and potential for cold weather, the party decided to risk a small campfire. With watches established, Barry remained awake to keep watch while the others rested.

The players were distressed to learn that as night fell, no fewer than 20 orc scouts appeared from in the foothills, most certainly from the cave the group had found. Barry quickly concluded that the gray-skins were searching for the party in hopes of ambushing them in the dark.

As the party changed watches, the orcs continued to scour the hills. Possibly due to the well-chosen campsite, or the lack of light from the waxing moon, the party's location eluded the orc scouts. 

As the first light of morning began to rise of the eastern peaks of the Skyspire Mountains, the orcs retreated back to their lair. Thaddeus, now on watch, watched from the cover of the fir trees as three of the scouts broke off from the main group, drawn by the curl of smoke from embers of the group's campfire. The paladin quickly but quietly roused his companions, hoping to catch the orc trio by surprise.

As the three scouts got within 30 feet of the treeline, the group unleashed a volley of bolts, arrows and javelins, killing two of the three orcs. The third orc survived the initial hail of missiles, but was laid low when Thaddeus rushed from his hiding place and slammed his warhammer into the last scout's skull.

Barry, Chucho and Thaddeus quickly dragged the orc corpses out of sight before others could catch wind of their skirmish. The party quickly searched over the bodies and were shocked to find that these orcs were carrying an unexpectedly large amount of treasure on their persons: nearly 5,000 gp worth of coins, gems and jewelry. Shocked, but overjoyed, the party quickly gathered their gear and headed back to the tower on the moor.

Ana Kozuki

Return to "Bear Tower"

As they traveled south towards the tower, now dubbed by Barry as "Bear Tower" or "Bear Wizard Tower", the group decided on their next course of action. They hoped that Cornelius would provide them with his amulet, surmising that the door to the observatory would open if provided with a medallion of the arcane order. 

Without a road to follow, the group's trip south did not follow quite the same route as they had taken north the previous day. This new trail required the party to cross over several large outcroppings of moss-covered rock and through boggy lowlands. As they clambered over a particularly large series of boulders, the group spotted a concerning sight in the distance. Another band of nearly a dozen dragon-men were patrolling across the moor. Of greatest concern was that this group was led by two warriors riding enormous, wingless wyrms which crawled across the wetlands, hissing and snapping as their riders shouted commands at the troupe.

Deciding that they had no interest in engaging with this foe, the adventurers hid amongst the rocks until the dragon-men were well out of sight. The group then continued towards the tower at a hurried pace, not wishing to accidentally come across yet more dangers upon the moor.

As the group reached the tower, we decided to end the session for the evening, but not before the group tallied the experience they had just earned by returning an unexpected influx of treasure. After doing the requisite math, it was determined that Venali had earned enough experience to achieve level 2! The rest of the group was within striking distance of leveling up, and would certainly achieve their first level up after another excursion.

Final Thoughts

This session was a bit of a wild ride. After starting with a relatively mundane, but informative discussion with Cornelius, the session took some wild and dangerous turns. Most of the major events were just as much a surprise to me as they were to the players. The random encounter tables for the Cairn Moorlands continue to challenge and surprise, resulting in two non-combat encounters in the foothills which left more questions than answers for the group.

The group was able to find the observatory with little issue, but the presence of the orcs in the cave seemed to unsettle them. I was more than a little concerned for the party when they set up camp so close to the observatory, but thanks to some bad scouting rolls on the orcs part and a well setup ambush when their camp was finally spotted, no lasting consequences were felt. I did reveal to the group after the session that they were extremely lucky, as I had randomly rolled the number of orcs that decided to break off and investigate the smoke from their fire. The roll was a d10, which resulted in only a 3. Had 8 or 9 orcs decided to investigate the camp, things could have ended very differently for all parties involved.

Next week the group plans to return to the observatory with medallion in hand, hoping to open the sealed door and scout out what lies within. Until next time...

Onward to Adventure!