After almost getting killed by zombies, the party return to Hommelet to recover and spend their hard earned booty. And their fortune continues as they weren’t even bothered by any wildlife!
After returning to home base, they immediately convert all the goods and coins at the traders and get some basic supplies. Eric, suspicious of the 2 running the store, reads their aura’s and found darkness of evil around their hearts and tells our heroes his suspicions. Most of the party at that point move on and head towards the newly constructed temple of St. Cuthbert, all except Flynn, who takes this opportunity to buy some “alternative” goods. He buys some Thieves tools and some tobacco that’s been laced with “gold leaf”
At St.Cuthberts, the party offer the temple a silver set that has religious significance. Pleased with the donation, the temple gladly offers it’s service at market price, with which the party buys up 10 vials of holy water. The party, freshly supplied decide to head back to the moathouse in the morning, after some much needed R&R.
The “Welcome Wench” is busy this evening and Flynn starts with buying the whole inn liQuid refreshment. This is met with much cheer but Flynn has his sights set on the said “welcome wench” and decides to set about removing the last remaining obstacle. Her Father. He goes up to him and he strikes up a conversation with him and offers him his own pipe and his special “gold leaf” tobacco which is very rare (according to Flynn). Impressed by his generosity, he accepts.
Flynn, along with is brother, Halden, both then promptly dissappear. The innkeeper then drops the pipe in shock which never hits the floor. The innkeeper takes a moment to get over his shock, then checks his cash drawer.
The 5 gold that Flynn paid with has dissappeared.
Meanwhile, Funkin heads downstairs to collect the drinks that Flynn has already paid for. The inn keeper collars him and ask for 5 gold. “What about the 5 gold my friend has already paid” asks Funkin, aghast. “I’ll tell you what, you get him to reappear with my gold and then I’ll refund the gold you’ll have to pay me now”. Unhappy, Funkin pays.
After paying for the party drinks, Funkin heads back upstairs and heads back into the private room that the party has purchased. He hands over a drink to Nilux the ranger, then to Eric the paladin. “Eric, your beer”
No reply. “Eric?”
The paladin turns around “I’m sorry, are you talking to me?”
“Yes, who else would I be calling Eric?”
“I’m not Eric, My name is Dagma” With that, the Paladin removes his helm, revealing a half elf with a sharpened silver canine. What in the nine hells was going on? Wondering what else had changed, Funkin looks around the room and discovers that argenten has gone in a automaton state, just like Dagma first was.
Just as things couldn’t get more confusing, a darkened cloak figure knocked at the door, Funkin opened the door. It was Gauldoth.
Gauldoth explains that the portals he used to summon the party together has other side effects, including disappearing. He apologises and presents them with more ale, which the party gratefully accepts.
Having drunk more than is good for them, Dagma removes all his clothing, barring his loincloth (thankfully) whilst Nilux and Funkin thought it’ll be a good laugh. Arg, in his current state simply remains sitting in the room, his drink untouched as he stares off into space.
Whilst Funkin and Nilux are messing with the common room lock, Dagma mutters something about a diversion so he staggers towards the stairs, trips and falls down the stairs. People of the inn look on concerned, the innkeeper going over “are you ok?”
Happy with the diversion he caused, he smiles and then wets himself. Wondering what the hells is going on, he goes upstairs and discovers Funkin and Nilux picking a lock. Realising that his diversion has failed, Dagma runs upstairs and grabs a random sword and points it at the innkeeper. “Theresh nuffink to shee ere, jush head bach down and keep uiet”. The innkeeper, throws his hands up and slowly heads down stairs, promising to keep Quiet. Satisfied, Dagma returns his borrowed sword, only to realise he may have made an error as the next thing he hears is the tavern bell ringing accompanied to the innkeepers yelling for the guards.
On hearing the guards approach, our brave heroes get in the room. Dagma, climbs into an occupied bed whilst Funkin reverses the locking mechanism on the door. Nilux, finding nowhere to hide, dives out the window, neglecting to open it first.
The guards get upstairs with the innkeeper, who then tries to “unlock” the common room, only to find it locked…again. This send Funkin into hysterics, still laughing when the guards bust through the door and promptly gets carried off. The original occupant of the bed dagma dived into wakes up and is horrified to find another man in his bed. He yells out in horror and the guards remove his “bed partner” Both Dagma and Funkin get chucked into the “drunk tank” for the night.
Nilux, hides in the bush that he fell in when he dived out of the window. The guards, believing Nilux being a thief, assumed he’d be running as fast as he can and fail to check the bush he was in. Waiting for a few minutes, Nilux then climbed out and climbed back into the room that was paid for so can reclaim his and his fellow adventurers eQuipment, he gets back in only to realise that the room has been robbed,
Using his Ranger tacking skills, he Quickly finds the thiefs trail and gives chase…
Milo, was up to now scraping a good living from swindling passing merchants in the welcome wench but was always looking for that big score, one where he could retire Quietly to Castle Greyhawk and start a brothel. He not long got to sleep when his room was suddenly invaded by guards looking for trouble makers picking locks. He then looks down, spots a half elf and hopes that nothing inappropriate happens. After they get took away by the guards, he asks the innkeeper who they were. The innkeeper explained that they were adventurers that had drank too much. This was the score he was waiting for, this was it! Milo does a Quick check to find their room, waits for it to get Quiet and then brakes in and takes everything. He then heads downstairs, yells at the innkeeper, displaying his upset for having drunkards ruin his stay and demands a refund. He then takes his gold and calmly walks off, dreaming of beautiful women. He’d been walking for 15 minutes when an arrow strikes his hip, surprised he draws his dagger and short sword, turns around and sees a ranger drawing another arrow. Milo charges, deflecting the next arrow that was loosed, the ranger Quickly dropped his bow and draws his shield and longsword just in time to deflect Milos first attack.
Milo was no pushover in a fight, being kept in practice by fighting poor losers who tried to refuse to pay but this ranger was something else. Milo feints and goes in with his short sword, exploiting the opening the ranger exposes. Victory burning in his heart, he thrusts forward only to have the ranger spin under his blades and run him through. He looks down at the cold blade in his chest, he slides off onto the cold earth. He thinks about the women that are just on the edge of the approaching darkness, “so close” he whispers to no one in particular and then he dreamt no more…
Nilux looks over the thief, takes his weapons and notices strange symbols on the dagger. So he takes his weapons and also the gold ring on his left hand. Nilux then hides his body by chucking it into the creek at the edge of town and hides in the nearby forest and spends the night in a tree.
Nilux is awaken in the early hours of dawn as a passing notices the corpse. As he wonders what he’s going to do now he is accused of murder, a shadowy figure approaches and beckons him to follow. As nilux gets closer, he notices that it’s Gauldoth and he was not happy.
Nilux and the others, after being collected from the drunk tank, find themselves back in Gauldoths temple. A feast was laid out so breakfast was not going to be a problem. They eat their fill, especially Dagma, who sampled a strange chicken meal that was in a bucket labelled KFC… Funkin also notices some oranges and grapes, rare in the world of greyhawk so he pockets the lot. Afterward, Gauldoth finally returns and informs them that he’s managed to smooth things over back in Hommelet but is unable to use the services at the, as the party now refer to as, the unwelcome wench. Gauldoth then boots them out and tells them to get back to work.
Our brave heroes head back towards the moathouse, taking 3 days on foot to get there. On the 1st night, just as it gets to midnight, Nilux on watch, hears something in the undergrowth, he wakes everyone else up and walks forward into the clearing and sees nothing.
“Hey”. Nilux looks down and sees a duck. “Got any grapes?”
Dagma, remembering the old duck song, believes that this is some kind of joke “No, we don’t have any FU$%^*! grapes and no FU%&)”$ lemonade either!”
Nilux, in the clearing , is still in shock. After Dagma’s angry reply, Nilux starts getting nervous, for the ducks eyes start glowing red.
“Theennn….DIE!” The duck then morphs into a 7 foot warrior with a heavy shield and longsword, armored in full plate and advancing Quickly on Nilux. Funkin, in blind panic, grabs the wrong fruit and lobs oranges at the duckman. This, for some reason only served to enrage the duckman. Thankfully, Dagma grabs the grapes and throws them at the duckman. The duckman manages to grab the grapes in his mouth and reverts back into his original form. “Thanks for the Grapes” says the duck, who then waddles away (waddle, waddle). The party finally goes to sleep after such a weird encounter.
On the 2nd eve of travel they settle down Quietly and rest. It was some time after midnght that Dagma hears something travelling down the road, he wakes the party and heads down, ready to intercept whatever threat approaches.
After a minute, a horse drawn cart trundles towards Dagma, the merchant throws his hands up and immediately starts begging for his life. Dagma reassures the merchant and offers the merchant somewhere safe to camp for the night. In the morning, he offers them a look at his wares, Funkin casts detect magic and looks through, discovering that one of his chainmail is enchanted and 2 bottles of holy water is actually magic potions of some description. Funkin looks over the potions and thanks to his mentors training, was able to identify the potions, a potion of healing and a potion of mirror image. The merchant offers them all those items, along with a couple of Silver daggers for 650 gold. The party are stunned. ” I bought them from a guy as junk for 100 gp. Along with the fact you guys have saved my life, it’s only fair you benefit too.” He thanks them and with fresh directions, heads off to Hommelet.
They arrive at the moathouse on the dawn of the third day. With the top floor already clear, they were able to head down without any trouble. After they head down the stairs they checkout the cells that the zombies came out from and find them empty. Across the cells is a torture chamber that has not long been used.
“Unpleasant, isn’t it?”
The party turn round and discover a ghostly figure behind them who introduces itself as “brother edmund” and informs them that there is a great devourer beyond the northern door. Before they investigate, they check out a couple of locked doors to the west. Nilux notices that despite the doors being old, the locks were brand new. This wasn’t a problem however as Nilux neatly picks them and reveals an armory behind the doors, with a variety of armors, weapons and ammunition.
Dagma heads towards the north door, towards the devourer. He carefully opens the door.
As he peers in, he spots an ogre, biting the head off his sister! He roars in rage and charges, ducking his sisters corpse as the ogre hurls it at him. Before the ogre can pick up his club, Dagma jumps and drives both his longsword and dagger into the chest. Before the others can help him, he has stabbed the ogre to death. They search the room , finding little, but they search the small room to the south, which turns out it’s the ogres pantry and find 2 human merchants and a gnome. The merchants offer little but promise to pay the party as soon as they can get back to their caravans and the gnome gives Funkin his clan ring, which will tell any other gnomes in 100 miles of here that the party s friendly.
With help from “brother edmund” they find secret doors that open out to the east. With the ghost leading the way, they head east until the party reaches a fork. The party continue east whils Nilux heads south, he reaches a big room with 3 doors in front of him. Meanwhile, the rest of our brave heroes also arrive at a big room with 3 doors. Brother Edmund checks out the doors by gong through them and sees that all three have brick walls just 5 feet beyond all 3 doors. Upon hearing this, Dagma opens the middle door.
There is a loud clang as the secret doors slam shut and an alarm goes off. Dagma hears footsteps and turns to deal with the approaching bugbears, who run up to him and bring him down. Arg runs in and despite the attacks of more bugbears arriving, heals Dagma and both manage to bring down a bugbear, the party start to prepare for a big fight when Nilux runs to them, yelling that there’s more coming…
Is this the end of our brave heroes, meeting their end in… The Temple of Elemental Evil!!!
I have took artistic licensing for this write up as a) my memory is shot and b) i had to rush a little.
I also apologise for the whole duckman incident, I clownshoed that encounter and my only excuse for that is that the ducksong was in my head for a whole week before I played that session so I like to take this time to apologise for that whole affair but I can’t promise it wont happen again.
As per usual, if you have any Questions or corrections, feel free to leave a comment here or at the meetup forum. And for those who are curious as to where the duck came from, here’s the song…Duck song
lordheartnight 