23rd May 2020 It's a Saturday evening in front of my laptop in my living room. This can only mean that it's time for another session of Matakishi's 'In Darkest Warrens' game. Location: Darkholme. Finally, following sidetrack after sidetrack; we had at last arrived at Darkholme. Our arrival was not what you would consider a low key affair. Spontaneously materialising within a blazing teleportation circle in the centre of a bustling market square and accompanied by a demon admittedly caused some people to flee. There was however; not a riot - despite our appearance. So all in all, a restrained response. Now that we were in Darkholme, we needed to find some gainful employment. No doubt the caravan that had been advertising vacancies for guards had long since departed. We were at a loss as to what to next. After asking some questions, It turned out that the market we were in was named 'The Dirt Market'. The market could only take place here when the ground is muddy! It was traditional. Backward, but traditional. The market was open for business. Thus the ground was indeed muddy. Luckily it was raining. On closer inspection, it was only raining on The Dirt Market, the rest of Darkholme was dry? Apparently town council had gone to great lengths to ensure that conditions would always be acceptable for The Dirt Market. Backward, but traditional. After asking some questions in The Dirt Market about drinking establishments, we had been given two recommendations. 'Fiddler's Quarrel' and 'Hollyleaf Inn' Fiddler's Quarrel had been described as: 'A shabby tavern where ruffians go to drown their sorrows and fight each other.' Randulf considered this a most agreeable description, so Fiddler's Quarry is was! Fiddler's Quarry was indeed shabby, as well as loud and bawdy, with shady looking clientèle throughout. We sat and ordered drinks, noticing guards on both sides of a back door. Even with the din of the tavern, we could hear voices above it all from beyond that door. Perhaps it was some sort of private function: The noise and the bustle meant curiosity got the better of us and we tried to gain entry, but the guards rebuffed us. Our inquiries about the back room were met with tight lipped silence. We briefly considered muscling our way in, but in the end; it wasn't worth our effort. Returning to the bar, we chatted with the barkeep. He was having a bad luck with the rats in his basement. Who had ever heard of such a thing? The barkeep agreed to pay us a hundred gold to deal with the rat problem. Randulf was keen to investigate, he had not stretched his mighty thews in a while. Descending into the basement we noticed it was quite dark with something that looked like a fire light casting deep shadows across the entire basement? Investigating further we discovered it was actually a camp fire! Sitting around this camp fire were three rat-men and they appeared to be cooking food! We spoke with the rat-men and they explained that the barkeep had agreed to pay them one hundred gold pieces if they came down into the basement and dealt with the rat problem here. This was starting to sound familiar... The rat-m/en continued explaining that once they had completed the task, the barkeep refused to pay. Stating that, 'They had done the job too quickly.'. So the rat-men had decided to stay in the basement and live here until they had eaten one hundred gold pieces worth of food and drink from the barrels here. Looking around, the basement was filled with barrels of exotic foods and drinks. We could not see any rats here, so we asked the rat-men and they said there were none, they also pointed out a secret door to us! The secret door led to a tunnel, which we followed until it reached an elevator that only went up. Riding the elevator took us up and into some sort of deserted brewery. It was filled with long abandoned and rusted brewing apparatus. The barrels were empty of beer and full of cobwebs. We exited the brewery into what appeared to be the courtyard of a monastery, also deserted. The courtyard was covered in bones, both animal and human. A quick investigation revealed signs that a very large creature had been moving amongst the bones, perhaps a bear? There was a cloister that ringed the ghoulish courtyard and led to a chapel. Upon entering, we found the chapel floor covered in a number of giant feathers? There was little else of interest here, so we made for the bell tower. The way up was blocked by a giant nest! Casting a fly spell, Urham flew up the outside of the bell tower and entered from there. In the giant nest Urham found a strange dormant creature, part bear... and part owl? A bearowl?... No an owlbear! The owlbear was hibernating and Urham had left it undisturbed. We considered our next move. It was likely the owlbear was responsible for the demise of the victims in the courtyard. But it was now hibernating and was currently a threat no one. Attacking it felt like an unnecessary risk, so we left it be. The rest of the monastery was unremarkable and we returned to the Fiddler's Quarrel and the barkeep. We explained to the barkeep that there were no rats in the basement. He claimed that when he had said 'rat problem', it was the rat-men he was talking about. He didn't want to pay them because they had done their job too quickly and he had wanted us to 'deal' with them, following that of course, he then refused to pay us too! Then we asked the barkeep what he knew about the monastery. It was known as 'The Cursed Monastery' and was home to a dragon. Interesting! During this conversation, talk turned to some place called 'The Spire'. which was apparently home to a 'elf-wizard'. Next, we asked about boarding for the night and the barkeep informed us that Fiddler's Quarrel was full. The only choice now was Hollyleaf Inn, hopefully it would have some rooms free. Hollyleaf Inn was much more upmarket; it was clean and it was civil. Most importantly, it had rooms available and an extensive menu too boot. I ordered 'Wenna's Mushroom Surprise' and 'Scone Of The Day'. Urham meanwhile, ordered some 'Moonshine'. As she was drinking it, the barkeep explained that it was distilled by the 'Biletongue Goblins' of 'Halfmoon Forest'. I asked Urham, "So, you've just eaten goblin food? Right?". Urham's expression said everything that needed saying in the conversation about this particular subject. Sleep beckoned and we retired to our rooms for the night. There was no peaceful slumber or respite for me though. I woke in the middle of the night and stared at the ladder in my room. I didn't remember there being any ladder in my room? The ladder went up through the ceiling and into what I surmised was the attic. I went to the ladder and looked up, it continued through the attic and up out of the building? I woke the others and showed them the ladder. We had no idea where it might lead, but we decided to collect our gear and go wherever it led. Well, we would go once Urham had also collected some extra moonshine for the journey. Climbing the ladder took us out of the Hollyleaf Inn and up into the night sky. Up through the clouds and eventually on to the clouds. Our ascent ended with us standing on a landscape composed entirely of cloud, in the distance we could see a castle also standing on cloud. There was nothing else on the horizon, so we made for the castle. It was a strange journey, eerily quiet with a clear night sky above and bright clouds beneath our feet! After a while, we realised that it was no ordinary castle that we were approaching. It was a giant castle. The giant castle had a giant drawbridge which was raised. There was no way we could lower it. Instead we used a mixture of fly spells and rope to get past it. We were now in the courtyard, the buildings and castle walls towered above us unbelievably. There was light shining out of the highest windows of the keep. From the courtyard we managed to sneak into a building and it turned out it was the dining hall. We were forced to hide when we heard and felt booming footsteps approach. A giant came into the room, he sat down and had something to eat before getting up and leaving. Once the giant had left, we came out of hiding and began to quietly explore the castle. Our exploration led to the kitchen and pantry. Other than massive foodstuffs, there was nothing of interest in these rooms. Next we came across a bedroom, the snoring was immense, it seemed to vibrate the very air! Looking around, at the foot of the bed was a sleeping giant chicken. We knew what this might mean and cautiously investigated the chicken. There were indeed giant golden chicken eggs here! We had to have one! There was a problem though, none of us were particularly good at thievery. We did not want to risk waking the giant. Who among us was going to steal the egg? In the end, our solution was for Urham to cast unseen servant and use it to get an egg. It was successful, so we tried for a second egg, that too was a success. We decided against going for a third egg and thought it a good time to leave. We crossed the cloudy landscape to return to the ladder and back to the Hollyleaf Inn. It was a bit tricky navigating the ladder with a pair of giant eggs, but we managed it. It was now very late and the night was taking its toll on us, we all returned to our rooms for some well deserved sleep. Morning came and warm sunlight blazed through gaps in the curtains. I lay there shielding my eyes, contemplating last night's vivid dream and then came to the conclusion: No more 'Wenna's Mushroom Surprise' before bed, who knows what's in the mushroom or what the surprise is! I sat up and looked at the two giant golden chicken's eggs in my room! Ah? I immediately went and spoke to the others and told them about the giant golden eggs. They looked at me blankly! I dragged them to my room and pointed the eggs. The blank stares continued. Even though only I remembered the events of last night, we could all agree that the eggs were at least real. Next we had to decide what to do with them, the general consensus was that we should try to hatch them. It would require a very large bird to do this. There was one choice... Before our journey back to the Cursed Monastery, Urham went and got some more moonshine for the trip. Then we were off. Back at the bell tower, the owlbear was still hibernating. Even though these were giant eggs, I managed to place them beneath the sleeping creature without disturbing it. In twenty one days, the eggs would hatch and we would need to be here, to manage the chicks and the owlbear. Regardless of this: when the owlbear woke from its slumber, it would be in for quite the surprise! Safely back at the Hollyleaf Inn, we looked on with a mixture of bemusement and trepidation as Urham guzzled down more moonshine like it was going out of fashion. We knew that things could not remain this way: We knew it required another trip to the Goblin Market to get a cure, but we did not know what price we might have to pay. There was a discussion and we agreed on an alternate approach. We had heard that there was a wizard of sorts at The Spire. Perhaps they could help us? The Spire was a rickety and unstable looking place. At the base there was a bell pull, so we rung it. It was answered by an elven woman who leads us to a waiting room. We are the introduced to the elven wizard who is known as 'Petunia Rootlocks'. We discussed Urham's situation with Petunia and a deal was struck. Petunia would provide us with the cure for Urham and we would provide Petunia with a 'manticore tail'. Wait.... a manticore tail? Petunia went on to explain that 'luckily' for us, a manticore could be found in the Halfmoon Forest. Petunia then told us to wait while she went to the Goblin Market to get the cure. Half and hour later Petunia returned with the cure and gave it to Urham. Petunia also taught Urham a cure poison spell, which would no doubt prove useful in the coming battle. Upon arrival at Halfmoon Forest, I searched for manticore tracks. These led us to its lair, we had been cautiously approaching and could see that it was entirely distracted by the hapless dead goblin it was feasting on. Urham cast invisibility on Randulf and I used my Bow of invisibility. This allowed us to approach and ambush the manticore. After our opening attacks wounded it, the manticore took to the air and out Randulf's reach. It proceeded to pepper the area with poisonous barb attacks and then fled out of the clearing. Luckily I could still pursue and attack with my bow. Urham and Randulf also gave chase on foot, Urham cast a hold person spell on it and it crashed to the ground. Randulf charged in as the manticore shook off the effects of Urham's spell. The two of them exchanged mighty blows, but the manticore still stood, as did Randulf who had not succumbed to the manticore's poison, both of them were in a bad way Though. Before their battle could draw to a bloody conclusion, Urham cast smite on the manticore and killed it. We took the tail and any other parts of the creature that might prove useful or valuable. Returning to The Spire, we handed the tail over to Petunia, she was also happy to buy the other parts of the manticore we had bought with us. Our deal was complete. But perhaps there was a new deal to be struck with Petunia. We knew that when the giant eggs hatched there would probably be an issue with the the owlbear or the giant chicks or both. Perhaps Petunia could help with this? We asked Petunia if she knew of any spells that could be used with animals such as these.
Petunia agreed to help us, but of course we had to help her in return, so we agreed. Petunia told us that we must travel to 'Death Valley' and discover what was killing people. The only thing we had heard about Death Valley was: 'Probably a misnomer. A picnic area popular with courting couples'. Petunia went on to elaborate: People have been dying of the most ridiculous causes. Being stung to death by bees Falling down a hole and disappearing. Or simply dropping dead! The final thing Petunia told us was that this only seems to affect 'single' people and 'couples' are unaffected. Death Valley was just outside of Darkholme and seemed a pleasant little spot. A shallow babbling stream winded its gentle way through the valley and we could see various picnicking couples enjoying themselves. Nice enough, but we were on our guard. We spotted a single man and as we did so, he fell over! We sprinted over and found he was already dead? An examination of his body revealed that he had bled to death after pricking himself on a rose! We began looking for a potential cause when Urham tripped over on a root and broke her neck. Acting instantly, Egbert cast a heal spell on Urham and even though she didn't immediately regain consciousness, the spell saved her life. Death Valley it turns out, could be deadly place. We beat a hasty retreat! Returning to Darkholme, we went looking for sellers of lucky charms and luck potions. We found one such seller; 'Pendolin Washer'. It was rumoured that he was cursed to vanish during any full moon. Considering Pendolin's current predicament, I questioned the value of the items he was selling. So anyway, once these pieces of luck based paraphernalia had been bought, it was back to Death Valley and a deadly mystery to solve! Upon our return, Death Valley seemed it's typical idyllic and tranquil self. Whilst watching the valley, I spotted an unusual looking plant and investigated. I managed to snap my hand back before I was stung by a strange looking centipede of sorts. Egbert had heard some weird giggling coming from a nearby bush, he immediately hurled a smite spell at it. Searching within the bush revealed a dead pixie wearing a strange red hat. With further investigation we discovered that it was not a normal red hat, it was caked in blood! The pixie's hat had been dipped in blood. It was a redcap! Now that we knew what we were looking for, I found the redcap's tracks and followed. The tracks led us to an copse. Amongst the trees were a large grouping of toadstools. The toadstools all had little doors on them. We set these toadstools on fire and a dozen redcaps angrily emerged. We issued them an ultimatum: "Leave the valley, go far away and never return!". One of the redcaps wore a top hat instead of a grisly cap and was clearly their leader, he stepped forward and ordered the redcaps to attack. Quick as a flash, Randulf pulled the gorgon's head out if it's sack and pointed it at the redcaps. Immediately, ten of them turned to stone and the remaining two were dispatched before they could turn their lethal spells on us. "These." said Randulf happily as he scooped the petrified redcaps into a sack. "Will fetch a good price as garden gnomes at the market!". Back at The Spire, Petunia was pleased at the outcome. Randulf gifted Petunia with one of his gnomes, but Petunia insisted on paying for it. Finally Petunia taught the mages the charm creature spell. We were ready for the hatching of the giant golden chicken eggs!
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17th May 2020 Sunday lunch time and I'm in my sitting room, logged into Zoom on my laptop and ready to play 50 Fathoms. Location: Baltimus. After Manny Morkon had left, we decided to investigate Bruno Baltimus some more. On the next day, we looked into matters some more. It was fairly common knowledge that Bruno likes his drinking, whoring and drugs. I looked into matters a bit further and it turns out that Bruno's 'party needs' are generally all met by an individual called 'Edgar Davies'. We also learnt where and when to find him. Meanwhile Shia met with again Morkon and agreed to his conditions. - Shis will 'eliminate' Bruno and Morkan will provide her with 'Versalis'. Shia concocted a plan to poison the drugs that Bruno will take during the gala's 'afterparty'. Shia then went shopping for rat poison. The invitation is for one person only - plus entourage. We had to wait a couple of days for our clothes to be prepared. During this time, there was much discussion amongst our company. We did not agree on how we should deal with Bruno and how we should deal with the situation. The day of the gala arrived.
The invitation says to arrive at 6 pm, so we decided to turn up at 7 pm. The gala is taking place at Bruno's mansion. It is a large and expansive two storey building. Shia - under the identity of 'Vivian Veohiti' is welcomed and announced to the gala. After Shia is led to the ballroom, she is introduced to Baron Bruno. As part of Shia's retinue, we are also granted entry, however we are essentially ushered into a corner with all the other 'hanger ons' so that the true nobility could mingle and entertain themselves. The ballroom is filled with music, but we realised there was no band playing? The music must have been coming from somewhere else? We notice sa small group of young men at one side of the ballroom. These were Bruno's 'friends'. One of them was paying particular attention to Win. Meanwhile the rest of us began to mingle. Rufus and Rackham were both in the possession of some 'strong weed'. They both proceeded to generously share it around the party and particularly amongst Bruno's friends, thus ingratiating themselves. Meanwhile, I made some excuses and left the ballroom to go exploring the mansion. As the gala is drawing to a close, we are all given 'tokens'. This must be something to do with the 'afterparty'. 16th May 2020 Saturday evening is here and I'm in my living room, staring at my laptop again. Distance gaming over Skype continues with the next part of Matakishi's 'In Darkest Warrens' game. Location: The Clock Tower. After exiting the clock tower, we saw a a band of gold and roe light across the eastern horizon, twilight had given way to dawn and daylight was finally spreading across the valley. The Temple of Conrad was some six or seven miles away, the sun would have well and truly risen by the time we arrived. The journey took us up some hills and to the edge of the valley. When we arrived, we saw a structure of some sort ahead and positioned on the hill above us and somewhat out of site. A large set of stone steps led upwards and towards the top. From our position we could see several individuals on a landing above. They were wearing voluminous robes and likely looked to be followers, priests or cultists of Conrad. No doubt amongst the folds of those robes were hidden 'wicked' daggers! We could see that they were agitated or nervous and were heatedly discussing something or other. One of the mages cast an invisibility spell on me and I clandestinely climbed the stairs. Now that I was closer, I could hear their words. They were worriedly discussing how the twilight had ended, what had happened to the protective barrier and what to do next? They were also talking about a ritual. Then I was at the top of the stairs, I could see that the landing was actually a courtyard of sorts. At the far end there was a temple. The facade was as might be expected for a temple. The rear however, had been carved into the very side of the hill. The massive doors into the temple were both open, I quietly moved across the courtyard and into the temple. The temple was surprisingly empty of people. There was a carpet that led to the altar ahead and beyond to a door in the fall wall. Both sides of the temple were decorated with massive ceiling to floor drapes that depicted a series of bloody murders and violence. Observing these drapes, I saw some of them occasionally flutter, the two closest to the main doors. Perhaps there is a breeze from some sort of passageway behind them? Cautiously I investigated these two drapes. Looking behind them I saw... several robed individuals stand stationary, gripping 'wicked curved' daggers. I knew it! Wicked curved daggers can only mean one thing... cultists! They must have been guards of some sort. An interesting view from their position they must have! I went to the altar, it was a grisly affair, the entire area was smeared with blood and was clearly the site of gruesome sacrifices, human sacrifices from the looks of it. Following the carpet, I reached door at the rear of the temple. Opening it slightly, I peered beyond and saw a corridor, there were numerous doors along either side. It all looked a bit mundane quite frankly and not the kind of place a lich might be found. I decided against exploring any further alone. There were no other obvious exits from the temple, so I thought it best to return to my companions. Crossing the courtyard and still invisible, I went past the cultists. They had laid their paraphernalia out across the courtyard, had congregated into a circle and were beginning to chant. A ritual was already under way, I hurried back. With the situation explained to my friends. There was no time to lose, we had to disrupt the ritual. Charging up the steps we reached the landing. The cultists closest to us had their backs to us and were unaware of our approach. The cultists on the other side of the circle however, were facing us and we were spotted. They immediately grabbed their wicked curved daggers and ran at us screaming. Cultists! Randulf in his usual manner, charged right back at them. In the ensuing melee, several cultists grappled Randulf to the ground and mobbed Egbert and Urham. I used my flying shield to keep them at a distance. As all of this was occurring, a second band of cultist reinforcements came running out of the temple towards us; screaming and waving their wicked curved daggers as they did so. We fought hard, turned the tide of the battle and dealt with both the cultists and the reinforcements as well. The courtyard was quiet now that we had put a stop to their ritual. There was only the temple to explore. Upon entering we dispatched the guards hidden behind the drapes. Our search of the temple found that next to the altar was a black hole in the floor, also caked in blood. It appeared that the gory remains of the sacrifices were casually dumped down here. Not a place we wanted to look! We went through the door at the back of the temple. The rooms along the corridor here were a variety of sleeping quarters, other functional rooms and nothing else. Returning to temple, we searched it further and revealed that the altar could move. Pushing it to one side revealed a staircase descending into the darkness. During out descent, we noted that the walls and ceiling of the passageway were roughly excavated. The stairs were worn and uneven. The stairs took us down into a rectangular room, as roughly hewn as the passageway. Our eyes were immediately drawn to the six life-sized statues in the room. Four of the statues stood in the room, the remaining two were propped up against a wall. All six were incredibly detailed creations that fully captured the looks of shock and fear on their subjects' faces... Seeing life-sized incredibly detailed statues instantly put us on edge, we knew something foul was somewhere down here. There were three exits from here, east, west and north. We carefully peeked through the doors to see what lay beyond each one. On the other side of the east door we saw a corridor filled with animated - although stationary skeletons. Next; on the other side of the west door was another corridor, it was filled with... zombies. It looked like Conrad had definitely been busy! Meanwhile, the northern door led to an empty corridor. Our deliberation was brief, the northern way it was. The northern way took us into an octagonal room, another roughly hewn room. Previously, we had received a note about an 'octagonal' room, this included a hint about a secret room. Unfortunately, we found more life-sized statues in this room, including two statues that looked in the process of trying to shut the northern door. Some of the statues here were broken. Talking of doors, like the previous room, this had three, in the east, west and north walls. The eastern door led to a corridor full of zombies. We could see the corridor turned north beyond the zombies. The western door led to a corridor full of skeletons. The statues were carefully moved from the northern door, so as to not damage them, then we looked through the door. The corridor continued north, but up ahead, we saw another corridor branching off to the west. The corridor continues north before turning east. Neither the east or west exit was an option, so we ended up very, very cautiously moving through the northern corridor. We paused when we reached the branching western corridor, at the end was a door. There was a noise from the other side, so we immediately retreated to the octagonal room. We were sure that there was a gorgon or cockatrice beyond that door. Egbert cast a summon familiar spell and a rat came running up to him. Egbert commanded the rat to go north, then west to the door and investigate. Egbert would be 'connected' and be aware of whatever the rat sensed. The rat went north, then west. As it closed in on the door, Egbert's connection abruptly ended! This was not good. There was a quick confab and we came up with a plan. One of the mages would cast invisibility on either Randulf or I, then we would sneak forward with a sack. And when we encountered whatever the creature was, we would throw the sack over it's head and then the others would steam in and attack it. It was decided that I would become invisible, since Randulf could hit hard very quickly. After becoming invisible, I went into the north corridor. Then I saw it coming out of other corridor, half snake and half woman - with waving snakes for hair. Medusa I tried sneaking forward, but scuffed the fool. She immediately to face me and stared directly at me, or should I say through me and I was unaffected by her terrible gaze. The others deliberately made some noise from behind the door and she made her way towards it. I flattened myself against the wall. As she passed, I pounced, threw the sack over her head and frantically shouted for the others. Randulf leapt forward and stuck her with all his strength. It was enough and his mighty blow decapitated her, spilling her burning blood all over the floor. Meanwhile I was left with a head in a sack! Now that the gorgon was dead, we headed down the corridor that she had emerged from. Just before the door there was a statue of a rat, it was Egbert's little familiar! Egbert tried casting a dispel magic spell on the statue... and it worked! His familiar was reverted to normal. Beyond the door, there was some sort of boudoir. There was a bureau, with a mirror, jewellery and make up. In the north wall was a door with an ornate lock, obviously locked. We tried casting a reversed lock spell on the door, but stronger magic than ours protected it. Returning to the corridor, we followed it as it turned to the east. This led to a square room with an exit to the south. We scouted through the door and it led back to the zombies that we had seen from the octagonal room. The rhyme that talked about an octagonal room also talked about a square room with a secret door. Duly, we searched the room and success! We had found a secret door. The secret door led to a library. The library was a gutted ruin. Everything in the room had been wrecked or burnt to ash. There were clear signs that a violent battle had occurred here. Amongst the blackened debris there was a desk of sorts. Searching it revealed a large key! We returned to the boudoir and they key fitted, the door was opened. After going through the door, we stood at the top of a set of stairs that continued downwards.
There was quite a change. No longer were the rooms and corridors roughly hewn and excavated. Now they were smooth, even and well made. Before we had a chance to consider our next action; a booming, disembodied voice spoke out. It threatened and mocked us. Undeterred, we set off down the stairs. Which of course were trapped! The steps folded down and became a smooth sloped surface. As we slid down, we saw that the bottom of the steps had opened up into some sort of pit. Luckily, between Urham and Egbert both casting fly spells and my shield of flying, we managed to avoid the deadly drop. Continuing on, we came across a door. There had been inscribed on the door a large letter 'C', however at some point, someone had scratched the letter out. The 'C; must have stood for 'Conrad', or perhaps 'Crazed'? You can never tell with a lich. We went through the door. On the other side we found some sort of machine that rattled and wheezed loudly. It was covered in all manner of dial and switches. Beyond the machine was a curtain that partitioned the other side of the room. We also saw the man operating it the machine. He was weird looking, wore a crown and cackled, he turned to us as we entered and mocked us. It was the same voice that had earlier also mocked us; it was Conrad The Crazed. Reacting quickly, Urham, Randulf and Egbert charged in and set about Conrad with all their most powerful attacks, none of which had any effect. Conrad them blasted us with spells. Realising there was little to no chance of having any impact on Conrad, I needed to change tactics. So instead; I ran across the room and flung open the curtain. Beyond the curtain was some sort of small and strange shrine. At its centre was a large green crystal, perhaps the size of a head. Cables ran from the shrine to the machine. I was perplexed. But Randulf remembered that crystals are associated with lichs? It was then that we remembered something Milo had said: Lichs remove their souls and place them into crystals such as these. So long as the crystal is undamaged, the lich cannot be killed. Randulf disengaged from Conrad, ran to the crystal and struck it a mighty blow, a thick and visible ran through the crystal. It was broken. The rest of us poured the attacks on Conrad and he was finally defeated. We returned to the upper complex, over the course of a day, we restored all the gorgon's victims that we were able to. As we exited the temple, we left the 'Hand Of Brule' at the entrance to the underground area to ensure that no undead could get out. Then we returned to Sister Devotia and explain where and why we had left the Hand Of Brule. Finally, Milo appeared and invited us to his tower. He told us to go into his 'junk room' and take a couple of items as a reward. Once this was done, Milo asked us where we wanted to go. We had made several attempt to reach Darkholme, but have been sidetracked every time. Milo instructed Percival to teleport us to Darkholme. We arrived in the middle of a bustling market square amongst a great commotion, no doubt caused by the result of Percival's teleportion ability. There were a lot of people staring at us. Well... at least we had finally arrived at Darkholme. 9th May 2020 It's Saturday evening and I'm in my living room, staring at my laptop. It's time for my 2nd RPG session of the day. Tonight, Matakishi will be continuing his 'In Darkest Warrens' game. Location: A tavern in a village. We had acquired the sword 'Blight', now it was time to confront 'Conrad The Crazed'. Percival teleported us into a valley, he explained that he could not take us any further. Something was blocking his teleportation ability? We appeared to be on a vantage point at one end of a valley. The sky was dim and grey, the gloom of twilight had fallen across the landscape. In the centre of the valley we could see a bright light. There were no other lights anywhere else. Setting off, we decided to head for the bright light, since it would take us through at least one of the villages scattered across the valley. Nothing interrupted us as we made our way onwards. Soon enough we entered a village. It seemed entirely empty. Exploring a little, we came across some villagers scrambling about. When they saw us, they immediately turned and fled, however we managed to convince some of them not to flee and speak with us. The villagers explained that during the twilight, they are hunted by 'The Dark Horseman', a rider in black armour. The Black Horseman decapitates anyone he finds and his demonic servants take the remains away. They also warned us that The Dark Horseman had some sort of 'cold breathe' around him. The villagers also told us that somehow the valley was caught in perpetual twilight and they were at constant risk from the horseman. They would sneak around, quietly scavenging food when they can, never lingering in one place too long and avoiding open spaces. Next, we asked them about the light in the valley. The villagers explained that this was 'The Temple of Brule' who is the god of protection. The villagers then sneaked off. It was decided that we should head towards The Temple of Brule, using a slower but safer route. On the way there, we encountered some more villagers, we heard making a noise as they were breaking into a barn. Before we had the chance to react we saw a rider in black armour decorated with a bat insignia; The Dark Horseman. He charged and waded into the villagers and began hacking them down. We also noticed a horde of bat creatures circling above, when a villager was cut down, they would swoop down and take the body away. Randulf and I raced towards The Dark Horseman. I loosed some arrows at him, but they flew straight through him! As we drew closer, The Dark Horseman started to become somewhat transparent or insubstantial. Randulf closed and his blows also simply passed through the horseman. The Dark Horseman turned and faced us, we were both struck by what could only be described as a 'wave of cold'. Whilst The Dark Horseman attacked Randulf, the mages assaulted him with spells, this too proved fruitless. For a little longer we traded blows with The Dark Horseman, still to no effect, Then, abruptly he turned and rode off. We thought it the wiser not to pursue, given that we had no way to actually fight him. Our journey to The Temple of Brule continued without further incident. The we arrived the lights of the temple were a sharp contrast and a welcome relief from the bleak twilight that shrouded the valley. A woman came forward and introduced herself as 'Sister Devotia The Pious'. As we were talking, we noticed a statue in the temple that was missing a hand. Devotia told us it was a statue of Brule. Then we showed Devotia the stone hand that we had found in the Scarbrough crypt and she confirmed that it was indeed the stone hand of Brule. We offered it to Devotia, but she refused it and told us to keep it. It was a powerful weapon and could be used to drive away the undead. Devotia did ask to hold the hand though and when she did, she recited a rhyme for us, stating it might prove useful. The rhyme made reference to sleeping and time. After this, we rested for the night. We awoke in the morning still troubled by our injuries, the blows struck by The Dark Horseman were not healing. We spoke with Devotia and she told us we could find Conrad at his 'temple', but that he was protected by some sort of 'barrier of cold'. This may have had something to do with The Dark Horseman. Devotia also told of a tower, which was where the bat creatures nested when they weren't following The Dark Horseman around. We had two choices: Head for Conrad or head for the tower. What Devotia had told us of the barrier of cold concerned us considering our previous encounter. So we chose to go to the tower instead. We arrived at the tower without any mishap. The tower was not in fact simply a tower, it was a clock tower. It had four clock faces, all set at differing times; 5, 7 , 11 & 3. o'clock. I also noticed that the four clock faces were perfectly aligned with the four cardinal points of a compass. Below the roof of the clock tower on every side is an arched entrance and close to the each arch, a pole - no doubt used by the bat creatures to facilitate their entry and exit from the tower. We could see that the clock tower was several storeys high and their was no ground level entrance. Using our assorted magic items and spells, we flew up to the arched entrances and peered inside. Above us, the interior of the clock tower rose up to the rafters. The roosting spot for the bat creatures.
We decided it was best to avoid the roosts. The mechanisms behind the clock faces were also in this room, we were unable to move the hands though. There was also a bell here and ropes leading downwards through the floor Other than that, there was a ladder that also went down. Climbing down the ladder led to a large open room. In the centre of this room was a four by four empty square grid. There are stairs that continue on downwards. Going down the stairs, we found ourselves in another room. This room contained ancient statues, crude and worn. There were sixteen of them, it did not escape our notice that the grid upstairs contained sixteen empty spaces. There was also some writing on the floor: It referred to the 'Bane' family, five of them to be precise. Belvedere, Caractacus, Alan, Dorian and Evan. The stairs continued on downwards and so did we! We surmised that we were now on what would be the ground floor. On all four walls were mechanisms that not only displayed the time that was on the four clocks, but also the means to change them. And yet, the stairs still descended. This led to final room, another square room, the basement. The room was featureless save for the east wall, which was entirely constructed of marble. There was an iron door in the centre of the marble wall and three locking mechanisms of great size sealed the door shut. Above the door was a plaque: The Vault of the Banes, our time will come. This was Bane family crypt. So after some time, a little calculation and much experimentation, we discovered eventually that moving the hour hands on the different clock faces to specific times would free specific members of the Bane family from the crypt beyond the iron door. After some more time, we also discovered that positioning certain statues on certain spots on the grid would unseal the three locks on the iron door. With the iron door unlocked, we went through. It seemed that we had freed Evan Bane who attacked us. A battle ensued and Evan was defeated. It transpired that we had also released Alan Bane. Who, in his black armour with bat-insignia we recognised as The Dark Horseman. We managed to vanquish Alan Bane too. Now that The Dark Horseman had been dealt with, he could no longer provide a barrier of cold for Conrad. No were certain that he had been assembling an army of undead at his temple from Alan's victims. But no matter, it was time to move on Conrad. 9th May 2020 Saturday lunchtime and I'm sitting in the living room, in front of my laptop and logged into 'Zoom'. The normal Sunday 50 Fathoms game is on Saturday this week. Location: Outside Baltimus. We entered Baltimus' port. Despite being early in the morning, it is already loud, busy and crowded with people. We noticed that black flags are hanging out of various windows. We asked around about who was being mourned here? It turned out that 'Byron Baltimus' was still being mourned by some people in the city. People are less enthusiastic about his son 'Bruno', who seen as hedonistic and uninterested in ruling the city. After speaking with the harbour master, we were discussing our next step when some sort of commotion broke out. A man was complaining loudly about the 'Baltimus family', accusing them of being treacherous and betrayers of King Amemnus?. Mostly the crowd boos and heckles him - although this seems mostly out of respect for the deceased Byron and not Bruno. It appears that this man is well known for this behaviour as at least one person in the crowd knew his identity and told him to 'go home'. The man's name was 'Manny Morkan'. We were in Baltimus was to find out about 'The Sword Of Amemnus' and we needed to speak with Bruno or read his father's journals, to hopefully find out more. There were two possible approaches that we were considering. The first was to get an audience with Bruno and explain that unless we rectify the situation, the world would slowly drown and that we needed his help. If this approach worked, we would have secured the maximum level of assistance from Bruno, but only if we convinced him. If he did not believe us for any reason, whether he saw us as con-men or just didn't believe us, then it make getting the journals even harder. Since we knew how much Bruno liked to party, the second approach would require us to somehow get invited to or gatecrash one of his well known parties. Then we could 'attempt to ingratiate ourselves with him and proceed from there. It may have seemed strange to say, but next we decided to go shopping for clothes! Either we needed to look respectable and serious, or we needed to look wealthy and decadent. In either case, we needed the clothes to match the roll. I sold my used 'blue bear suit' and with the funds bought some sets of expensive clothes. The others more or less did the same thing. Since the clothes were all fitted, it would take a couple of days for all them to be prepared. By this time it was afternoon. I decided that I would investigate Manny Morkan, his talk of 'the betrayal of Amemnus, had piqued my curiosity. I asked around and apparently, Morkan was well known for being something of a rabble-rouser and constantly going on about how 'Baltimus stabbed Amemnus in the back'. I also learnt where he liked to go for a drink, an establishment called 'The Crow's Nest'. We also learnt that there was a British actor who 'toured' around the area and would put on productions of 'Shakespearean plays' for the people of Ograpog. Shia did some investigating of her own and discovered that this actor was a bit of hedonist himself and for being greedy and having what could only be described as 'shady' contacts. Shia also managed to acquire a copy if the 'Macbeth' play and began reading it. Baxter meanwhile, went exploring. Shia had, a little while ago relieved Baxter of all his money, or so she thought. Baxter had slyly kept some funds in a 'hidden stash'. Eventually, Baxter found himself in the audience for a 'Secret Play'! The play was a rather bawdy affair that gently mocked and satirised the 'authorities', however towards the end became more serious. All in all, it lasted about two hours. When the play finished, Baxter went drinking! During this time, he was approached by what could be described as 'three unsavoury individuals'. They asked if he could transport some 'merchandise' for them? Baxter said it was possible, but this depended on details such as price, location, etc. The three individuals then asked Baxter if he was OK transporting slaves? Baxter said he 'would have to think about'. As the day came to its conclusion, I went looking for Manny Morkan in The Crow's Next.
Luck is with me and I found him. I managed to introduce myself to Morkan. When I spoke to him, I explained that I found what he said about 'Balitmus betraying Amemnus'. Since I was not in Ograpog at the time. But Morkan would only talk about Bruno, he seemed obsessed about it. He told me how Bruno treated people like objects and just used them. I couldn't get anymore out of Morkan before he departed. After he had left, I noticed that a note had been left where he was sitting. It said one word. 'Versalis'. I did not know what this meant. It was getting late, so I went to meet up with my companions. Ensuring that I wasn't being followed, I returned to the others. It was at this time that Manny Morkan appeared. He approached us and said he was looking for. 'People of vengeance, people not afraid to get their hands bloody and were prepared to stab someone in the back'. We noticed in the background behind Markan, there was a young woman trying to look discrete. We asked Morkan to explain was Versalis meant and he told us it was a 'mystical' sword. He then went on to tell us that he had invitations to Bruno's next gala. He wanted us to go to the gala and wait until Bruno went to a private event at the gala and to murder Bruno! By now, he had practically become rabid. 2nd May 2020 Saturday evening is here and I'm in the sitting room, looking a Skype screen again. This means it's time for Matakishi's 'In Darkest Warrens' game again. Location: On the road to Darkholme. Now with Brenda the prize-winning cow in tow, along with our horse - that I insisted we named 'Glenda'. our journey to Darkholme continued. We had stopped for the night in a tavern and taken a convenient corner spot in the bar when the unexpected occurred. A disc of white light appeared on the floor close to us and began to expand. As the light on the floor grew, it pushed any object it touched away, creating a clear area. The disc continued expanding until was at a diameter of twelve foot, then the light rose up to the ceiling. Within the twelve foot wide column of light, we could see the silhouetted outline of two figures, one of them seemed very large. The light then vanished and standing before us were Milo and Percival the demon. The reaction from the tavern's other patrons was both predictable and instantaneous; they all fled the tavern screaming. We though, were not so easily perturbed. Milo acquired a shandy, a warm pasty and sat himself down at our table while Percival looked on. Milo explained that he needed us to complete a task for him. But before he told us what he needed, he told us a tale. A hundred years ago, Conrad the wizard, known as 'Conrad The Crazed' had begun a war with an individual called 'Oubilette The Forgotten' over an artefact called 'The Citrine Orb'. This war was prolonged and damaging. Eventually, the knight 'Sir Scarbrough' was tasked with ending this conflict. He dealt with the situation by slaying Conrad The Crazed. The matter was closed, or so it seemed. Conrad The Crazed had become a lich and was raising an army and plans to use it to invade the world. Milo was going to a meeting and since we had so many of his items, that we should resolve the threat. Milo then explained that the only way to kill Conrad now, was to use the sword that killed him before. We had to acquire Sir Scarbrough's sword 'Blight' and use it to dispatch Conrad. Milo supplied us with a map of the Scarbrough's family crypt, amusingly called 'The Crypt Of The Depraved'! The map showed the location of Blight within the crypt. With that, Milo departed. He had left Percival with us, the demon could teleport us wherever we needed to go. Since everyone here had fled in terror, we had Percival teleport us to the outskirts of an entirely different town, where no one would see him. Then we went shopping, since we knew that at some point or another we found be facing the undead, we bought some supplies, including garlic, salt, holy water and silvered weapons. We were ready, or so we thought. After Percival had teleported us, we found ourselves on the outskirts of the Scarbrough manor. It was windy and raining, night was beginning to fall. In the failing light, we could see Scarbrough house, overgrown, decrepit and fallen into disrepair. Adjacent to the house was the Scarbrough crypt, 'The Crypt OF The Depraved'. It was here that our quest took us... What could go wrong? Upon arriving at the crypt, we were confronted by a set of double doors. Above the doors a plaque read, 'Enter freely and of your own will'. Any attempt to open them was not only a failure, but it actually inflicted harm on whoever was attempting to open the doors? Eventually a spell was used to open the doors, but when some passed through, they took damage? Further scrutiny revealed that a glyph of damaging had been scribed on the floor beneath the doors. Beyond the doors, were stairs that led down into the darkness. At the bottom of the stairs was another set of double doors, we went to open them and harm was inflicted on the person opening the door again! These doors also possessed a glyph of damaging. We dealt with the doors and pressed on. Beyond the doors was a chamber, utterly dark and ominously silent, our map said this sizeable room contained the tomb of 'Lord Edgar' and something called 'The Book of Lies'? Both of which were in a large alcove along the north wall. The chamber contained four pillars, beyond them was the alcove with the sarcophagus and beyond that was a plinth containing a closed book. Approaching the book and in the flickering of our torchlight, we could see it was titled 'The Book of Helpful Hints'. Egbert opened the book and immediately the sarcophagus opened and Lord Edgar appeared. He attacked, but not in the way we expected! He stared intently at Egbert and mesmerised him, Egbert turned and attacked me! During the ensuing battle, we managed to wrestle Egbert free of Edgar's influence and defeat him, he vanished in a puff of smoke. During the battle, the sounds of encroaching wolves had been heard, most likely summoned by Lord Edgar. Egbert cunningly used a spell to lock a set of the double doors, keeping the wolves out. We went to read the book again, but Lord Edgar appeared again! It turned out, he was some sort of vampire! A second battle ensued and we drove Lord Edgar away again. Quick as we could, we ran to his sarcophagus and threw it open. The dormant form of Lord Edgar was there - and we needed to stake him! Unfortunately, stakes were an item we had not acquired during our shopping trip. One of the mages cast a hold spell on Lord Edgar after several tries, we managed to use a arrow shaft as a makeshift stake. When staked through the heart, Lord Edgar gave a great screams and disintegrated into dust. Searching the sarcophagus, we found a key. Then we looked inside the book, it listed a series of hints. - The pool of bile abhors the dark, burn it with fire to fulfil your desire. - Pamela’s pets won’t bother you if you don’t bother them. - Lady Elsbeth craves the light. Fear her embrace, not her bite. - Ladies last! It had not escaped our notice that the map labelled this book, The Book of Lies... There was nothing else of importance here, so we headed towards the east exit. We found it was locked. Locked with four locks to be precise. Well, we had one key so far. Our maps showed, that to the west was 'The Pool Of Bile'. The Book Of Helpful Hints said: 'The pool of bile abhors the dark, burn it with fire to fulfil your desire'. Cautiously, we headed west and entered the chamber, in the torchlight we saw a pool in the centre of room. As we moved in, we saw the 'pool' had eyes. The eyes immediately closed and the pool immediately attacked with an 'acidic pseudopod'. We were about to attack the pool with fire, when we paused for a second, the 'helpful hint said, 'Burn it with fire to fulfil your desire.'. Was this good advice or bad? A helpful hint or a lie? We had to put it to the test. The helpful hint said the pool would abhor the dark. So we decided to make it dark and see what happened. After we extinguished our light, we were in total darkness, the creature still attacked and we were more vulnerable than before. We lit our torch again and we saw that the creature eyes had been open and then it closed them again when the light appeared. It didn't abhor the dark, it preferred it! This meant that the hints were lies! After this, we pressed the battle and definitely did not use fire. Our magical weapons and spells allowed us to destroy the creature, at the bottom of the pool was the second key. Next, we turned south. The map told us, 'Lady Elsbeth preferred to be buried standing.'. The hint told us, 'Lady Elsbeth craves the light. Fear her embrace, not her bite.' going by our logic, this meant that she possibly feared the light and we should fear her bite more than her 'embrace'. This sounded like another vampire? So we entered the chamber at the end of the southerly corridor. It was smallish and square. In the centre of the room was some sort of square plate or tile, almost like a trapdoor. Each side of the plate had a lock on it. Beyond the plate, on the southern wall was inscribed a poem of some sort. - So now you know how all the folk on both sides of the weir, - Lost lots of sheep and lots of sleep and lived in mortal fear, - So drink the health of Scarbrough who kept the babes from harm, - Saved cows and calves by making halves of that famous Scarbrough worm. Some time was spend pondering what the meaning of it was. We had a suspicion that both sides of the weir might have been a reference to the conflict between Conrad and Oubilette? We were quite unsure what the reference to Scarbrough worm was? No doubt another key could be found beneath the plate, so we had no choice but to open it. Urham cast Detect Magic and the plate and all four locks were protected by glyphs of harming! Next Dispel Magic was cast on the plate, the glyphs vanished and with dazzling speed a snake sprang forth! A snake? I had expected a vampire, still we now knew what 'embrace' and 'bite' meant in context of a snake. A Hold spell was cast on the snake - who must have been Lady Elsbeth and we attacked. "Chop it in half!" Yelled Egbert, with reference to the line 'Saved cows and calves by making halves of that famous Scarbrough worm.' from the poem. Randulf leapt forward and in typical barbarian manner, did just that and Lady Elsbeth was dispatched. And so, the third key was found. Our map showed that there was a further chamber to the north to explore and no doubt, the fourth and final key to find. The map stated, 'Little Pamela and her revolting collection.'. The hint said, 'Pamela’s pets won’t bother you if you don’t bother them.'. This might mean that we should attack Pamela's 'pets' upon first sight. We wondered what these pets or collection might be? My money was on spiders, or rats. That would be par for the course for this crypt! We marched north, back past the pool of bile and into the northern corridor until we reached a door. This door was barred and bolted - on this side. Meant to keep whatever was on the other side from coming through? We girded our loins and gripped our weapons; the door was opened. There was only darkness ahead, and a set of stairs that led downwards. Cautiously, we walked down until we reached a landing, a second set of stairs continued the downward journey. Pausing on the landing, we heard a child's laughter and a skittering sound, spiders perhaps? Steeling ourselves, we continued. We arrived at the bottom, the chamber here was awash with insects - not spiders, but close enough. They covered the floor and coated the walls and ceiling. There was little time to spare, the insect swarm was moving in to attack us. The insect were originating from within a coffin, coming out of the seams of the coffin. Quickly we ran over to the coffin and flung it open. Inside was the corpse of a giggling little girl with her mouth wide open. Insects were spraying forth in a constant stream. We struck the corpse a blow and more insects streamed from the wound. Randulf decapitated her and even more insects streamed out of her gaping neck! And all the time the ever-growing swarm was attacking us and we were in danger of being overwhelmed. The mages used their Fly spells and I Used my Shield Of Flying to try to keep the swarm at bay. We desperately needed a change of tactic. So the mages used their Heal spells to close the wounds on the corpse and lessen the flow of insects. Then they used a spell to close the coffin. Meanwhile I rummaged around the insect-filled coffin and found the final key! With that we fled! The furthest parts of the swarm had already reached past the door at the top of the stairs. Nevertheless, we closed, barred and bolted it shut again. Luckily for us, the insects that had gotten further than the door did prove too troublesome. And we had the fourth and final key. Onwards! For the room beyond the east door, the maps said, 'Silas, Otto, Amelia and Adelinde.' and showed four sarcophagi.
The hint said, 'Ladies last.'. We surmised it must have meant 'ladies first'. The four keys fit into the four locks on the door to the east and open it up. On the other side is a large chamber that as expected contained four sarcophagi. On the maps, there is a secret door clearly marked out along the north wall, but we cannot find it no matter how much we look. So back to the sarcophagi and avoiding the glyph of damage close by, we decided to open Adelinde's sarcophagus first. As we did this, the other three sarcophagi opened and unimaginably loud screaming started coming from all of them. Randulf savagely staked Adelinde through the heart. She disintegrated into vapour which flew into the north wall. Cracks appeared in that part of the wall. We knew what we had to do. Meanwhile the screaming had grown in intensity, so much in fact that we took damage. Next we staked Amelia and again her vapour-remains caused more cracks to appear in the north wall.. Then next, we staked Otto and finally Silas. When Silas had been dispatched, the cracks in the wall shattered and way north was revealed! In all this time, their screaming had been damaging us. Our encounter with the insects earlier had left us all in a bad way and it nearly killed Egbert and I! It was a close call, but both of us survived. By now we were all on our last legs when we cautiously approached the passageway. The map showed a small room with a sarcophagus and said, 'The Sword Blight, and other curiosities.'. There was no hint about the chamber. We entered the room and searched it. We found: - 'Blight', a magic sword that would give the wielder a bonus against Conrad. Swords were not Randulf's style, but he was the best sorted to use it, so we gave it to him. - The hand of a statue that had been broken off? - An extract torn out of a book. We left the crypt and found Percival. He returned us to the first village we had started at this morning for some well deserved rest and to consider our next move. 25th April 2020 Saturday evening is here again and I'm in my living room, logging into Skype. This means that Matakishi is running 'In Darkest Warrens' again. Location: Farmstead on the road, returning to Boburn. We had been told by the farm woman that we had helped that we were now wanted outlaws in Boburn? This seemed incredulous to us, so we decided to return and sort matters out. The journey back was uneventful and as we came into the hamlet of Boburn, we noticed that the outlying buildings looked a little neglected and. The hamlet seemed unusually empty, so we investigated the closest farmhouse. Within, we found a strange sight. The residents were dressed in bright multicoloured clothes and flamboyant hats? They were eating dishes of 'summer fruits', which is in itself unusual as summer fruits were currently out of season. They offered us some fruit, but we refused. But then, we noticed that they all seemed to be missing limbs! An arm here, a pair of legs there! We asked why so many of them were missing limbs. "Food isn't cheap!" They replied! We asked them who was selling them food at such a price? They said it was sold to them by 'little chaps'. We asked them to describe these little chaps and what they described were goblins. They just didn't care about anything, not the state of their farm, or even the lack of limbs. All they did care about was getting more goblin-fruit We were staggered at what had happened in the few days we had been away. But seemed that we had been gone for more than three weeks! We went back into Boburn and looked around. It was the same everywhere as the farm was. People were dressed colourfully with flamboyant hats and missing limbs. We questioned of the people and we learned that the elder 'Vander' had put out a warrant on us, so we went and spoke with him. We spoke with Vander and he told us that a trio of goblins came into Boburn claiming that they and not we had rescued Brenda the cow, the also claimed that we had stolen the cow from them. They bought the head of the ogre that we had killed as 'proof' that they were the rescuers. No doubt this was the trio of goblins that we showed clemency when we rescued Brenda the cow. We were shocked that Vander would believe these goblins and Vander insisted that 'Wise Old Woman Wenner' had backed the claim up. So we set off to find Wenner who does not spend time in Boburn. We exited via the north gate and on a post there, we saw the ogre's head. At this moment another ogre appeared behind us. This second ogre spoke to the head, calling him 'Edward' and telling him that they were going off to hunt goblins. To our great surprise, the ogre head replied! - Calling the second ogre 'Bernard'. Bernard picked up Edward's head and together they went off to hunt goblins. Goblin hunting was something we were planning to do, but we too shocked to think and ask the ogres anything. Anyway, putting this event behind us, we moved on. Soon we spotted Wise Old Woman Wenner, she was close to the woods, picking mushrooms. She was the wise woman we had spoken to earlier and sold us 'mushroom' potions. We approached Wenner and asked her if she knew anything about the situation in Boburn. She replied that she had. "Nothing to do with city folk.". and she provided us with a rhyme. It was a pretty ominous rhyme. Wenner went on and said that she had seen three goblins riding the cow back to the village, "no doubt along a goblin-road." She explained. We did not know what a goblin-road was? Wenner took us to a unusual looking stone. It was difficult to see, but some of us saw goblins 'emerge' from the stone and head in the direction of Boburn carrying filled sacks. Wenner then tells us. "Goblin food is best forgotten.". We return to Boburn, the goblin tracks led to the inn and we followed them. The inn was empty and quiet - except for one individual. He was a little man dressed in green, with a green hat and pointed shoes, we noticed that he had only three fingers on each hand. A pixie? He introduced himself as 'Stink' a hunter of goblins. During the conversation, Stink explains that he was cursed by goblins to always smell. So he took the name Stink and became a hunter of goblins. He had actually killed the goblins who came to Boburn to sell their fruit to the villagers and hand their heads in a sack under the table! We asked Stink what he knew about what the goblins were doing in Boburn? Stink explained that once the goblins have 'taken payment' for the fruit they've sold, they take the payment and sell it on the 'goblin-market. As with the goblin-roads, we knew nothing about the goblin-market? Stink explained that he also knew very little and that we should speak with 'Milo The Archmage, Sunderer Of Crowns', he would know how to get to the goblin-market. Milo's tower is far to the east and Stink agrees to help us get there via goblin-roads. We find a goblin-road stone and kick it. The stone spouts a riddle, the answer to the riddle is what we must give the stone in order to access the road. This we did and entered the goblin-road. After an hour we emerged from the goblin-road on to a hillside. From our vantage point we saw a tower on a cliff side. We went to the tower and after some time managed to speak with Milo, who somehow manages to magically emerge from his tower. We asked him about the goblin-market. Milo replied that it was a bad idea to go to the goblin-market and that he will not help us. Milo explained that there was a map that showed the goblin-market in his tower. He challenged us to trying to get the map, he also explained that he would be gone for four hours and that is how long we had to gain it. With that he departed. There was no easy way or doorway into the tower. Eventually, the mages used their magic to open a door in. We explored the ground floor of the tower and found library. We explored the library and even through there was row upon of scrolls and books, we could read any of them, or even take them off the shelves. They were all protected by powerful magic. We went upstairs to the first floor and found a laboratory. We also found an inhabitant. For all intents and purposes, he looked a red-skinned, winged demon. He introduced himself as 'Percival' and said he was here to collect 'payment'? We explained that we did not know what he was talking about. Percival went on to say that since we were here, one of us must be his payment. We explained to him that this was not the case. Percival did not agree with us and attacked. Our battle was successful and we managed to drive Percival off, who vanished in a puff of smoke. We searched the laboratory, but found no map. We went up to the next floor; the observatory. The floor was searched and again found no map. We even checked the telescope and examined what it was looking at. There was nothing useful there either. We went back down to the library and them down again to what was a kitchen. We tried to search the kitchen, but like the library above, it was protected by magic. The stairs continued downwards, so we followed them. We now found ourselves in some sort of storeroom. Like the laboratory, we found an inhabitant here. Grey skinned, with a scary, almost monsterous visage and grey wings, it was a gargoyle. We spoke with the gargoyle and it was happy to chat with us and we when asked about the demon in laboratory, the gargoyle said it was actually just a janitor? However the gargoyle proved unwilling to help us, but it did let slip that all maps were kept in the library. So to the library we returned. After some contemplation, we realised that we could actually use the magic to our advantage. The magic would help us by providing us with what we needed. We asked the library for a map of the goblin-town and how to get there - and the library provided it! Then we also took the opportunity to ask the library for scrolls and books on spells and to magic items and it complied! We left the tower loaded with knowledge and equipment. As we left, we encountered Milo, he did not mind that we had taken some stuff from his tower. He congratulated us and wished us good luck. Stink was sleeping when we found him. He was kicked awake and using the map, a goblin-road to the goblin-market is found and off we went. Our journey to the goblin-market was uneventful, it was a busy place, bustling with people, shops and stalls. Luckily we had the map, otherwise it would have been impossible to know where to start.
Focussing our attention on the map was saw a shop call 'Things Best Forgotten'. This drew our memories back to something that the wise-woman Wenner had previously said. "Goblin food is best forgotten.". This could not be a coincidence. It also made sense; the villagers of Boburn were clearly addicted to the goblin-fruits. Something that made them forget the goblin-fruit might possibly also make them forget their addiction to it. We decided to head to the shop. Unfortunately, to get there we had to pass through another shop called 'Makeup'. It turns out in order to pass through, we would need to make up something? Urham immediately understood what was needed and made up a story. "The moon is made of candy-floss." Said Urham. The shop assistant then told us we would need to provide candy-floss in order to pass through his shop! Once more we scrutinised the map of the goblin-market for anything that might aid us and we spotted a shop called 'Sweets', headed on over and bought some candy-floss. Returning to Makeup, we handed over the candy-floss and could now get into Things Best Forgotten. Inside Things Best Forgotten, we spoke with the shop owner who did have a cure for goblin-fruit addiction and gestured at a large jug filled with liquid. The shop owner then informed us that there was a heavy price to pay for it. It would cost one of us a memory! There was a discussion amongst us and Egbert agreed to pay the cost with his memory of a language he knew. Luckily it was a language he didn't use very much! After the grim cost was paid, we left the goblin-market behind and took a goblin-road back to Boburn. Things were starting to take a turn for the worse in Boburn. Stink had killed the goblins who had come to the hamlet to sell their fruit to the villagers. Thus the villagers had gone for sometime without eating the goblin-fruit. They had become agitated and fidgety, possibly on the verge of getting violent with one another. Searching the hamlet we found Vanders and gave him some of the liquid from the jug, the cure worked! Vanders then gave the cure to a few people he could trust. Then they the cure to others. Fairly soon, the entire population was cured of their addiction to the goblin-fruit. As a reward, they gave use the prize cow Brenda! 19th April 2020 It's Sunday midday and I'm in my living room, in front of my laptop, ready to play 50 Fathoms, although for this session, we're using Zoom for the 1st time. Location: The Whip Islands Now that we had all four elemental 'ingredients', we decided it was time to 'Bluth's Crown'. It seemed like an age since we were last there, but it was just under one year ago. The journey to Bluth's Crown is uneventful, but when we arrived, we could see that the rocks were definitely the worse for wear. We docked and upon disembarking we were met by a young Kraken we recognised, Parspaltry! We greeted him and made some chat. After this, we handed over the four elements and he gave us our reward, eight potions and six thousand pieces 'o eight! The mages of Bluth's Crown took the elements and used them in some sort of ritual. This took some three minutes to complete, then we watched as before our eyes, the rocks become regenerated and repaired themselves! The magic generated by the ritual was immense, we all felt the magic, even those of us who were 'non-magical' felt this great sense of euphoria wash over us. Once the ritual was completed, we spoke with the mages, our journeys and adventures had landed us with a number of questions that needed answering. - Where or what is the sword of Amemnus? We know that Amemnus drowned years ago. - What is the heart of the archmage? Although we think that this is to do with 'Tress The Red'. - What is it that the Kraken have lost? The mages tell us that we should find Bruno Baltimus - obviously at Baltimus. He may know something of the sword of Amemnus. Failing that, it was said that his father, Byron kept a journey. Maybe the journal will contain something. The mages agreed with us that we must find Tressa The Red. She has gone missing though. The involvement of 'The Inquisition' is suspected. Finally, with regards to the question of what the Kraken have lost, the mages could not help us. Although they said that they would undertake some research into the matter on our behalf, although this would take a week to conduct. In the interim, Baxter decided to go drinking. It was a particularly heavy session and Baxter became what can only be described as totally blind drunk. When he woke, he found himself tied to a bed and disarmed! He also found himself stone broke, without a penny to his name. During his bender, Shia had relieved him of all his money and had given it all away! We decided to go searching for Tressa The Red.
We scoured the area but only found a dishevelled Califax. Win used her magic to heal the parrot, but it will take some time for him recover. In the mean time, our next step was was to go to Baltimus. The journey was expected to last three to four days and was uneventful. We have reached just outside the Baltimus docks. 13th April 2020 It's Easter Monday, Easter Sunday was a no-go for gaming, so we decided to reschedule for Monday as everyone would be available. So I'm sitting in my living room, connecting to the group via Skype. Location: The Flotsam Sea
Our fight against the Octopods continued. We are still battling the warlock and the giant octopus. Rackham manages to defeat the warlock and by using fire, Shia manages to vanquish the giant octopus. We searched the enemies' ship and found some useful spoils of war: - A sealed barrel of water, we examined this and discovered it was water from Earth. What we've been looking. - We also found an unusual pair of cannons that exuded an air of magic, they were magical and apparently known as 'The Big Pounders!' - A magical figurehead. Rackham searched the dead warlock and found a glass eye in a pocket, he senses that it was magical in some way. After this, we went deeper into the Flotsam Sea. Eventually we managed to acquire some elemental water without any trouble. After this however, a thick fog settled on the water and as we pressed on, it became thicker. Navigating our way out of this was going to prove very trying. As we are trying to get our bearings, a figure of a maiden or a girl seemingly materialised out of the fog? Even though she is not close, we easily hear her voice. She told us the following. "Seek out the sword of King Amemnus, the heart of the archmage and what The Kraken have lost? Without these, our task will fail.". With this she simply vanishes, lost in the fog. A few hours later the fog evaporates and is quickly gone. We spied some land on the horizon and now the sky is clear, we take some bearings. We are greatly surprised to find that somehow we have crossed the Flotsam Sea and found ourselves on the other side. The island we spotted ahead, is part of 'The Whip Islands' chain of islands! 11th April 2020 Saturday night has rolled around again and I'm in my living room. Tonight, Matakishi will be running the 2nd session of his 'In Darkest Warrens' game over Skype. Location: On the road to Darkholme. Whilst on the road to Darkholme, we were accosted by a very distressed looking farm woman who said. "Help, they've all been taken!". We're not the kind to turn down someone in need, so we asked her elaborate. She told us that that her three children - a son and two daughters who worked around the farm had been taken by gypsies. Some gypsy caravans passed by very recently. We agreed to help and the farm woman offers us a horse for payment. Before we went off I checked for tracks, but my findings were indeterminate. we followed at a pace the road, hoping the caravan would stick to it and that we could catch it. The road wound its way for a few hours before it took us into the dark woods. As night began to fall we caught site of the flickering of a camp fire. We drew closer to the camp fire we saw that there were five gypsy caravans camped here close to a stream. Four caravans were arranged around the camp fire, the last one was set further away. Currently, we could not see anyone sitting around the fire and everything looked quiet. As we were watching and settling on what approach to use, we heard the howl of wolves in the distance. Uncertain of what this meant, we decided that there was no time to waste and entered the camp site to investigate. As we moved closer to the camp fire, it did not appear to be generating the normal heat expected for a fire, something strange was happening here. Before we had any chance to understand the situation, the fire bloomed brightly and became some sort of creature. It moved in to attack us. The entire camp site appeared to be an illusion, but the fire creature was definitely real! As it positioned itself to attack, we retaliated. Our mundane attacks were proving to be ineffective, however Egbert and Urham were having success with their spells, as was Ranulf who was using water from the stream to attack it. Realising that my attacks would be a waste of time, I ran over to the remaining caravan. I was hoping that there would be a mage here who was controlling the fire creature and could call it off. I knocked on the caravan door and there was no answer, even though I could clearly see bright light emanating from the windows. In the meantime, my companions continued and eventually managed to defeat the fire creature. There was nothing else to do now other than to enter the final caravan. When we opened the door, we were shocked to see that it opened into bright sunlight! We knew we had to see this thing through, so we went through the door. On the other side, bright sunlight was streaming through the trees, night had become day and we had no idea where we were. We walked on and the trees thinned out. Open fields stretched out before us. We saw more woods, a village and a curious-looking fenced area off field with people in it? The fenced off area was closest, so we decided to head there first. When we arrived at the fenced area, things were even stranger! Inside the fenced off area were children, they were sitting around doing nothing whilst slowly being covered in some sort of woollen thread which was dropping out of the sky? Outside the fenced area were adults and they were clearly waiting around by some hand carts. Finally - and most strangely, we saw some strange almost man-like wooden creatures that were walking about. It appeared that they were guarding the area, as we approached they moved in aggressively and tried to fend us off, but he drove them away. The children looked quite catatonic, so we chose to speak with the adults. We noticed that they were sallow looking and also completely toothless, all of them! We asked them what was going on? They replied and told use that they wait here for the children to be completely 'cocooned' in the woollen thread, whereupon they put them into a cart and take them to 'The Moon Tower' in the village. They also explained that the wooden creatures are known as 'peg-men'! As we were talking to them, we spotted yet another strange thing. We saw what can only be described as as 'cloth-mouse' - something like a child's toy steal some wool from a child and run off! We took the opportunity to examine one of these children and found that they too, were toothless! - like The adults tell us some more about the area. We are currently in 'The Windy Field'. The Moon Tower is shrouded in darkness. The other forest that we saw is known as 'The Forest of Lost Dreams'. The smoke that we might see comes from 'The Factory'. We asked the adults about the teeth and they told us that teeth are taken from everybody and sent to 'The Tooth Treasury'? Unsurprisingly, The Tooth Treasury was run by 'The Tooth Hag'. They then told us that we can expect to lose our teeth soon too. We checked our teeth and they seemed looser than expected? Perhaps it was our imaginations or the power of suggestion? Finally we asked them why they were here and they said that they had come to rescue children, but now they were just 'here'. This did not sound very promising. When a 'cocooned' child was loaded into a cart, we decided to follow the cart to the village and see what happened. As expected, the cart was taken to The Moon Tower, the adults explain to us that 'The Nightmare Hag' and 'The Weavers' live there. They also explained that 'The Stick Hag' is in charge over, whoever she is? We arrived at The Moon Tower, it was a grim place, shrouded in perpetual shadow and approach to the tower was coated in 'canopy-like' layer thick webbing. Large, obscured and shadowy motionless shapes hung high in that webbing. We were pretty certain what they were.... We headed for the tower, but the webbing impeded our progress and nearly trapped us. We persevered and worked our way through it. Unfortunately, disturbing the webbing had the consequence of drawing the attention of the shadowy shapes above and several giant spiders walked their horrible spider-walk down the webbing to investigate. A fight ensued and we managed to dispatch the spiders. Meanwhile, the adults had dumped the cocooned children hear and were returning to the village. Now that we were within 'the canopy', Egbert cast a 'fly' spell on Ranulf.ha Ranulf soared to the top of the tower. There was a window there, Ranulf went to go into the tower when he a horrible, hideous hag - The Nightmare Hag. She had scissors for hands lunged forward to attack Ranulf. Using his great strength, Ranulf grabbed the hag and flung her out of the tower. Instead of plummeting to the ground, the hag could and she swung around and attacked Ranulf again. It turns out that when we are damaged by the hag, we lose memories! I loosed a couple of arrows at the hag, they struck their mark, but there was clearly no effect on her. Realising that we cannot harm the hag, I retreated out of the canopy. Meanwhile the hag swooped and attacked Egbert and Urham. Ranulf took the opportunity to fly into the tower and explored. Inside he found thousands of children's toys! Scanning the area he spotted a toy from his childhood, Ranulf grabbed it and his lost memory returned! Outside the tower, Egbert and Urham were having no luck against The Nightmare Hag, the three others retreated and joined me outside the canopy. Luckily, The Nightmare Hag did not pursue. We were watching the tower from a distance when later, as the day began turning to night, we saw The Nightmare Hag fly off, leaving her tower. We left too! We had seen a strange toy-like 'cloth-crow' flapping through the air and decided to follow. The cloth-crow led us to The Forest of Lost Dreams. When we entered, it had become dark. As we walked through the forest we encountered a trap, also became aware that we were being watched by several sets of strange eyes! The strange eyes belonged to three cloth-toys. We talk to them and it dawns on us that these three were the three missing children the farm woman had told us about! Somehow they had managed to escape in The Forest of Lost Dreams and become these toys. They told use that they knew how to defeat the hags. We would need to carry 'lucky heather' when we fought them. They said that they could provide us with heather, but we would need to trade with them. They needed knives, scissors and tools. We gave them what we had, but they needed more. We headed back to the village, it was late now and very quiet. We searched around for anything that might useful to trade and found a grappling hook and bedroll amongst other things We returned to the forest and traded what we had acquired for lucky heather and spent the remainder of the night there. Morning has come, we've got our lucky heather and it's time to deal with the hags!
We agreed that we should go and deal with the Tooth Hag first so we headed over to her cottage. The way is guarded by peg-men, but we managed to defeat them. Next we saw something we hadn't seen before? Metal peg-men, known as stick-cutters! We fought them too and managed to defeat them. After all this fighting we reached the Tooth Hag's cottage. It was a very disturbing sight. Everything was made of teeth, the walls, door, window frames - all teeth. Ranulf rang the doorbell and the Tooth Hag answered! Ranulf attacked her! Now that we were wielding lucky heather, we defeated her. We explored her cottage and find little of use or interest until we found the basement. Descending down, we found the basement wait deep in teeth! Anyway, enough of the Tooth Hag, next we decided to return to the Nightmare Hag and see if our luck was better this time. We went back to the gloomy Moon Tower and began cutting through the heavy webbing that surrounded it. The three remaining giant spiders came clambering down to attack us, but we dealt with them. Next, we found the Nightmare Hag and dispatched her. Only the Stick Hag remained. We headed over to her house, it was larger than we expected as it incorporated a forge. The heat it generated was tremendous and we could feel it from far away. Whilst looking on we could see that this is where stick-cutters were made. Approaching the hag, we are surprised by her shocking visage, her body had the appearance of a bundle of sticks and her limbs the appearance of sharpened twigs. We attacked the Stick Hag, unfortunately in the early rounds of combat, the hag resisted the spells of both mages and blasts us with magic of her own. We were put on the back foot, but we managed to recover. In a way that only Ranulf could manage, he wrestled her and threw her into the close by pond. This weakened her and allowed us to defeat her. The final of the three hags had been vanquished. We searched her house and freed some children from a cell, they were waiting her to be eaten! We had managed to save most of the children and adults here, who recovered their memories from the Moon tower and teeth from the Tooth Hag's cottage. Accompanied by the three children we had initially set out to save, we returned to the strange doorway that had led us to this place. Luckily it was still there and returned us to the other woods by the stream. It was less than a day's walk to the children's farm. When we arrived, the farm woman thanked us profusely and gave us a horse. She also told us that in the time we had been away, we had been marked as outlaws and wanted for being con-men? This was unexpected! |
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