Deepingdale's adventuring logs 8

Campaign logs written by Steve, Deepingdale's player. 

Company Members Present
Slippy, 3rd Lvl Ratman - Founding Member
Venser, 3rd Lvl Human Thief Rear Guard*
Cagliosro, 2nd Lvl Human Necromancer
Hjalhir, 3rd Lvl Human Wizard
Blade, 2nd Lvl Human Cleric of Hegg, God of Blades
Deepingdale (Tal), 2nd Lvl Dwarrow
Scarr, 1st Lvl Female Ratman Thief
Stignarr, 1st Lvl Human Fighter Rear Guard*
(*Absent)

Starting and ending locations: City of Bolaar (Yellow Men area of Chasm of Nayellem), proceedings down the river west to the village of Lembde and then on foot via the old road to the Chasm Deeps.

Session 8 (19/10/2011)
After considerable carousing in the yellow mens city of Bolar, in the Chasm, Deepingdale eventually managed to train up to gain warrior hood (2nd lvl Dwarrow).  Henry and Venser had an eventful few days, meeting a strange Frog Cult in Bolar and after getting considerably drunk they managed to glean some information about the whereabouts of three of the Breets Relics, the Aquamarine Raven, the Blooded Shield and the Eye Stone.  All three of which are said to be found in the Chasm deeps.  However, what did Henry and Venser offer the Frog Cult in return for the information, we all wondered the next morning in the sober light of day, only time will tell?!  Our mage Hjalhir is still not well and although the herbs from the Rim help with his concentration, it is clear that sometimes he is unable to cast his spells correctly.  Before our departure we were unsuccessful in finding a suitable temple in Bolar to heal him.  Our inquiries about a temple of Hegg were met with disbelief.  These are a godless folk or are they?  We have decided to travel under the guise of a group of Imperial Cartographers (Clever idea of Henry’s), Venser and Hjalhir forged some suitably important looking papers with fake wax seals and the spell casters will act as our scribes and the fighters in the company as security.  After finishing our preparations, we regrouped and managed to get passage on a river barge for 8gp each, travelling west for 5+6 hours through the forest of Lensirrik (apparently it’s old name, now called Lensk).  Before catching the barge we were warned by the yellow men to disguise or spell casters as the Red Men are very warlike and hate all spell casters and see them all as witches.

After an uneventful river journey, the barge dropped us off on the river bank near the last human habitation in the Red Mens area, a village called Lembde on the far western edge of the chasm forest.  The earlier advice from the Yellow men was well served and on our arrival at the gates to Lembde, a small fortified village, a large yellow painted eye (the witch eye as it is known by the locals) looked down on the company.  On introducing ourselves as the Cartographers Company from the Imperial Cartographers Guild, we struck up a conversation with one of the gate men, a trusting fellow called Olob.  The village had never been visited by outlanders before.  After some charm from Henry (aka Slippy), he told us that this was the domain of King Mab, beyond imperial control and the deity Mox, watched over the Red People checking for any witches and that the Yellow men were their most despised enemy who they had warred against for years, although now an uneasy peace has lasted between the two peoples for the last 100 years, but they were still very weary of magic users or witches as he called them.  Olob also warned us of the numerous ferocious Owlbears in the forest of Lensk.  A pleasant enough chap, despite his bright red skin and blue hair, he was welcoming and granted our group entry into the village and directed us to the inn, he also suggested speaking to one of the local hunters, a man called Boleg, known to have defeated an owlbear and familiar with the monsters ways, he could perhaps offer some advice with our mapping.

Caglistro, Venser and Stig remained outside the village, the Necromancer, not convinced by the warm welcome, refused to enter and instead set up a small camp beyond the stockade.  On entering the village we spotted a 20 foot tower, at the bottom of which was a large cage with 3 ferocious looking Owl Bears inside it and some men stood around, clearly their keepers.  On enquiring we were told that the Owlbears were the villages “Protectors”.  When Hjalhir passed the cage, the Owlbears became very aggravated!!!

On entering the inn (and several beers purchased for the locals and 10gp later), we quickly made many new friends and many friendly locals contributed to correcting our apparently, very out of date maps that the Dax women and the one that Mol had provided us with.  The Cartography Company proved to be a great cover.  We also had a very useful talk with the Hunter Boleg, who reassured us that we were unlikely to encounter any Owlbears, as they mainly stayed in the forest and our journey by foot, west of Lembed towards the Chasm Deeps was on the old road that lay beyond the woods.  But he said our main concern should be for the large group of gnolls who inhabit the area west of the village, near the cairn and chasm deeps.  A few beers later, Boleg also told us about the chasm rifts, a poisonous volcanic area and finally, he then shared with us the tale of the legendary chasm Dragon, Meerka, who he described as a large black shadow who in the past had attacked the village and is still seen flying overhead at least once a month.  Meerka has been present in the Chasm area for many years and is thought to live in the chasm cliffs above the chasm deep.  Finally, Slippy enquired about Boleg’s facial scar and his own run in the Owlbears, we bid Boleg fair well, with the challenge of returning with an Owlbear beak, in return for a free night on the ale!

Buoyed up by such expectations and with our adventuring juices flowing, after a good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast, we set off early in the morning, down the old road into the west.  The first thing we came across was a huge run down 20 foot stone cairn with an inscription at its base, in imperial common (which Slippy couldn’t read, much to our hilarity) “Sacred Eye of the Overseer Breets the Great”.  The Sacred Eye was marked on the Dax map as relic number one, however, despite our meticulous searching; someone had already removed it from the Cairn.

We continued on, encountering nothing, seeing steam rising, probably from the chasm rifts that Boleg described, off to the North about 1 mile from the old road and eventually we arrived at the farthest west end of the chasm, where a entrance fronted by two large stone pillars, decorated in memory of past overseers, greeted us, along with a pile of old bones and a strong smell of dogs and fresh blood coming from the cave entrance (Gnolls?).

Stig and Venser kindly offered to wait outside with the horses and mules.  The humans lit their torches and bows were drawn and we cautiously walked forward.  Ahead of us lay a 40’ wide entrance which eventually narrowed to 30’ and a 60’ long entrance hall with 5 stone columns on each side, also carved depicting the overseers.  This hallway lead into a large 80’ large cavern with natural corridors leading off to the north, northwest, west, southwest and south.  Again, a pile of bones greeted us along with the sound of frogs from the Northwest passage.  Scarr scouted ahead and noticed the smell of dung coming from the northern passage.  After considering our options, we decided to try to avoid being attacked from the rear by laying marbles and caltrops at both the northern and western passage way entrances.  From the western passage a strong smell of blood and dogs emanated.  The company, especially our Necromancer, was interested in the frogs, so we headed up the northwest passage where another passage lead off to the east.  Scarr, Deepingdale and Slippy went off to explore, the little rat women thief crawled up the wall of the natural passage way which lead into another small cavern, suddenly from the darkness we head a scream and Scarr suddenly disappeared into the cavern ahead of us.  Nightwing  the owl reported that a large creature was devouring the rat women and so we cautiously entered the cavern to find a giant toad had swallowed Scarr.  Hjalhir failed to cast his magic missle and battle ensued, the toad spat Scarr out, who was fortunately saved at the last moment by a healing spell from Blade.  The giant toad was dispatched by arrows, slings, pole arms and swords.  Scarr removed the giant toads tongue, she thought it might come in handy one day!?

We returned to the passage after finding nothing of note in the giant toads beautiful stalagmite adorned cave and headed into the frog room, a circular 30’ room with an ornate pool in the centre.  Surrounding the pool were 8 statues with carved frogs on top, from inside each stone frog came the sound of real frogs.  The statues were hollow and we thought they were connected to a passage way below, where the sound was coming from.  In the pool lay crystal clear water, with no apparent source.  Scarr decided to take a quick bath in the pool and was very refreshed and whilst we waited for Scarr, Slippy had a quiet religious moment.  We managed to convince Caglisro not to piss into the pool as it may be the only source of clean drinking water available to us.

A passage way lead off to the west, which 20’ later opened up into a large oblong man made hall 20’ wide by 80’ long with a 20’ high vaulted ceiling.  Directly opposite the entrance to the hall on the west wall was a wooden door with an iron ring door opener.  As we entered the room,  Deepingdale and Scarr moved forward to listen at the door opposite and the keen eyed Scarr spotted a shadow shifting in the vaulted ceiling above us.  On careful further examination we could make out a large spider’s web and behind it sat a giant spider.  A single bulls eye shot from Deepingdales heavy crossbow downed the beast and before it could stop twitching in its death throws; Scarr had removed its poison sacks, fangs and any other useful type ingredients that rogues find useful in their strange trade.      

On examining the hall, we could see that at the southern end on the southern wall another door and a final door at the southern end on the eastern hall. In the middle of the east wall lay a large pile of rubble, old broken furniture etc.  Using our company, non-extendable (Patent pending) 10’ poles we found a yellow man skeleton with a small leather pouch with 90sp in it.  At this point we decided to rest and collected our comrades from outside.