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Log Entry XXV: The Reckoning

Felix, 4th level fighter, 42 hp, played by Alex Hubbard
Drew, 4th level ranger, 34 hp, played by committee (Kyle this game)
Balinor, 3rd level fighter, 33 hp, played by Joel Green
Morgan, 4th level fighter, 22 hp, played by Alan Turnquist
Cassian, 4th level cleric of Phaulkon, 27 hp, played by Katherine Plante
Quentin, 5th level druid, 20 hp, played by Jeremy Schichor
Perry, 5th level thief, 16 hp, played by Sean Guarino
Donald Collins, 1st level mage, 7 hp, NPC

The Restenford group: (all NPCs)

Gristla, 4th level mage (Peltar's student)
Colemac, mid-level fighter
Halco, human woodsman
Prellis, half-elf fighter

Also joining us:

Martin, high level ranger, successor to Probar, freedom fighter


We had last left our sneaky party near the room with the dragon head and magic doors in it.

We decided that we not yet checked out the entire castle and crossed to the other side of the gatehouse, hoping to eliminate everyone in the keep, then take the
walls and finally the blockhouse, which presumably contains a number of barracked soldiers.

Unfortunately, one man spotted us opening a trap door leading down and managed to get off a yell before Colemac shot him to pieces with a really cool crossbow--
blue bolts and auto-recharge.

In addition, we stuffed all the warning bells so that they would be hard to ring. The yell apparently did not actually attract any notice, which was quite fortunate, since
a guard dog wandered by at the moment.

In addition we knocked out two more men in the shrine to Kord, who were sitting there praying, with help from a Sleep spell from Gristla.

We continued exploring and discovered another magically locked door on the second floor. This would lead into the area of the second level we had not yet
reached, and so Quentin Stoneshaped it open-- fortunately there was no one to hear or see it on the other side. There were several comfy chairs and a coffee table.
We restrained Morgan from lying down.

We searched one of the walls for secret doors, but found nothing.

This room also ended in another magically locked door, and we had no way to get through it, so we decided to head for the one place we hadn't explored fully.

We noted earlier that there was a light on the top of the central tower in the keep, on the fourth floor. This is above the dragon head room, which we think is the
Lord Mayor's bedroom.

Felix climbed up the ladder to the trap door, and opened it, Balinor following close behind.

Felix was slammed in the back by a zombie. On the zombie's neck was a ringing bell.

Uh oh.

Felix sliced up the zombie, but at the moment Balinor had gotten up, the trap door opened, and there was a tinkling sound.

Gristla threw her other Sleep spell on the top floor of the tower, hoping to hit anyone there.

A moment later, the area blew up.

Balinor and Felix both managed to save, but took some damage. Perry got slammed and nearly fell off the ladder, but survived. The fireball roared down and
damaged almost everyone in the group.

Colemac pushed ahead and started climbing up to help, while Goodberries were being downed by Felix. The relatively uninjured Balinor charged up the ladder and
smashed open the trapdoor.

Then he fell asleep from a spell, and fell down off the ladder and back onto the floor. The jarring woke him up. Fortunately, he didn't fall onto Colemac...

Felix got up and charged up again, getting desperate. Drew was pushing his way up as well, and the still invisible Perry was also climbing. In addition, Cassian got up
to the third floor sometime during the combat.

The fireball had, of course, completely fried the zombie.

Felix scrambled up the ladder, and smashed open the trapdoor again. Suddenly, an axe was buried in his back, and he took major damage and a wound. Felix
pulled himself out of the ladder anyway and looked around.

There was a man with an axe, the captain of the guard, who was still recovering. And then there was the female wizard in the corner, who we quickly realized was
the Lord Mayor of Garroten. There was a telescope set up, and apparently they had been doing an astrology reading.

Felix staggered toward her, while downing a healing potion. As he was doing this, the Lord Mayor lobbed another grenade by him, which dropped down the ladder
and blasted the people below.

Unfortuantely, in the middle of the action Felix was dropped by his wound.

At this point, Balinor crested the ladder, and missed the captain. Colemac managed to get up and shot the captain for some damage, but he was quite durable.

The Lord Mayor then Magic Missiled Balinor and Colemac, dropping Colemac onto the ground. Balinor was still fine, but it was looking bad.

Then Cassian managed to blind the captain with a Light spell, and Balinor turned and charged at the Lord Mayor. He ran at her and hit her once with a hammer
blow, and Morgan came up the ladder to help save Colemac and Felix.

Balinor pressed in close, spitting out "Surrender, you idiots," but the Lord Mayor was able to get off a Shrink spell, turning Balinor into a 3 1/2 foot tall angry
Northerner.

Morgan then turned and dropped the captain with another hit.

Abruptly, the Lord Mayor surrendered. She made a few threats about how we would be responsible to the Duke of Barnacus for this and yadda yadda. Balinor
BARELY resisted the impulse to kill her, and threatened her in a high squeaky voice.

Colemac and Felix were saved by Goodberries and healing potions.

Balinor turned and managed to save the captain, who was brought to stable consciousness.

Colemac suggested then that we "get down!" before we all got shot by the fifteen people streaming out of the blockhouse down below. Uggh.

Fortunately, Quentin threw a nasty Entangle on them that caught almost all of them as the guards crossed the courtyard, and they surrendered in droves.

Next, we used ESP and interrogation by a disembodied voice (invisible Perry) to discover from Sangster (who was among the surrendering people) that the "Boss"
of the assassins' guild was in fact the Lord Mayor's advisor cleric, Tellish. He turned out to be a very high-level half-orc Cleric of Kord/ Assassin. He was supposed
to be back sometime that day.

Even Sangster didn't know that the assassins' guild had been contracted to kill the Baron.

Balmoro was able to catch the one assassin who escaped over the wall, some gnome pretending to be a kid (gee, why doesn't he and the fake gnome compare
notes or something). In addition, there was a tough fight to capture the dwarf weaponsmith, who was selling unmarked weapons to them. After the dwarf had been
shot repeatedly, and stabbed by both Felix and Morgan (and Perry had disarmed the sound trap on the back door), he said "Damn," and threw down his weapon.

It was an ugly fight, and Felix took permanent damage (1 comeliness point) when he was knocked down for the SECOND time that day.

After an hour, Balinor grew back to normal height and was willing to show his face again.

Horifyingly, we discovered from the Captain (I think) that Qualton, the Abbot of the PHAULKONIAN church in Restenford, contracted the assassinations.

This was VERY bad, especially since he had just married the Baron's daughter the day before.

News filtered in from Martin the druid (not the ranger, they're different) that the Baroness (his wife) had just been assassinated!

Oh boy.

Hopefully something could be done soon. But first we needed Tellish the assassin.

So we set Drew and Colemac up as "guards" so that Tellish wouldn't be suspicious upon his noon arrival. (By the way, Tellish had been out assassinating the
Baroness, which explains a lot-- he did both assassinations)

Tellish snuck up to the secret door, and opened it to find a grinning Balinor waiting for him, with Morgan and Prellis as well, protected by a Silence spell from
Cassian. In addition, Cassian had held a Hold Person for this moment, and released it. Amazingly, the cleric froze and Balinor simply knocked him out.

That was a roaring success.

We questioned the cleric and the captain. Oddly enough, the Lord Mayor appeared to have no thoughts, or alignment, or anything else. We got suspicious that she
was using some kind of item to protect her, but there was nothing we could do.

Fortunately, the cleric of Kord revealed (through ESP) that the Baron's body was stored in a secret closet in the room we had SEARCHED FOR SECRETS
DOORS IN. On the wrong wall; d'oh!

We had the Lord Mayor open the door, and sure enough, there was Baron Grellus!

Amazingly, Harper the high cleric of Osprem had actually randomly taken Raise Dead, and the Baron was brought back to life. He took command, and sent
Colemac, Prellis, and Halco to Barnacus for help from Duke Haermond.

Meanwhile, Relkin and some guards rushed the Baroness' body over to Garroten for Raising. In addition, it was reported that Qualton (the Phaulkonian abbot) had
blown his head off with his own crossbow of disruption. It wasn't pretty.

The Baroness was Raised successfully, and was brought to the castle of Garroten until Duke Haermond's son, Commander Haermond, arrived.

After everything was sorted out (we'll actually do the grisly details next week), the Defenders were heroes and gained about 15 magic items, more than half
permanent.

Unfortunately, the one person Colemac shot was actually a Barnacus soldier sent to help with the bandit problem. 500 gp was given to his family. Generally though,
Haermond was quite pleased that we had avoided bloodshed.

Here's what happened to the people involved:

Fake gnome, and dog trainer-- low ranking assassins who reported to Captain Bazmar, and were killed in the inn.

Captain Bazmar-- reported to Sangster, a patrol leader for Garroten, and a very powerful assassin. He was killed in the inn.

Sangster-- high ranking assassin, knew the boss Tellish, and was in the castle when we captured it. He was hanged in Barnacus.

Tellish-- leader of the guild, priest of Kord and assassin. He was captured by us, then hanged.

Captain of the guard-- hanged.

Fake boy/ gnome-- captured by Balmoro. Officially, Balmoro was never there, and the boy was not charmed. Unofficially, the boy was sent to Barnacus for prison,
along with all the disgruntled former bandit orc guards.

The bandits, it turns out, were hired by Garroten specifically to shoot our horses.

The other assassins in the castle were hanged as well.

The dwarf weaponsmith was given a slap on the wrist and told he could leave or be watched forever. He opted to remain in Garroten for now. He doesn't like us.

There was a gardener in the temple of Osprem who turned out to be the second highest ranking assassin, an old guy from an old generation. He had semiretired and
was just sort of a spy. He vanished without a trace, and his whereabouts are unknown. We believe that he is the ONLY assassin who escaped the carnage.

There were a number of people in the castle who knew what was going on and helped cover it up. They were all hanged. The hanging toll came to eleven, I believe.

The other underlings such as some clerics of Kord and an apprentice or two were simply told to leave. They were not happy.

The Lord Mayor played innocent for as long as possible. Though it was clear she knew about this whole thing, she was instead going to be exiled, especially since
they couldn't actually detect anything in her mind. She did her best to hurry the proceedings along, but failed.

That is, until about a week later the effect of her crown wore off and suddenly they could read her mind.

Hanged.

The saddest case of all was that of Qualton, the abbot. He had apparently once been quite good, but in 2148 he attempted to destroy a magic item and it corrupted
him in some way. The item was gone, but he was scheming to take over the world. During his lucid moments, he was still good, but he was conniving at other times.

He waited until the bardic census of 2175, and then implemented his "plan." Qualton paid Tellish to assassinate the Baron (done using a cloak of Etherealness to get
through the walls). Then he married the Baron's daughter, and had the Baroness killed. Using church funds, he hired the assassins, and when his plans fell apart, he
finally committed suicide, just before the authorities in Restenford came for him.

Tellish was in fact grilling the Baron for information on his treasure, and it was at least partially discovered. Apparently the Baroness had something to do with it as
well.

Now for the treasure:

We got 5000 gp in training credit from Haermond, and 5000 gp in delayed cash payment. We also returned the money taken by Tellish to the Phaulkonian church.

Cassian is interested in helping out (since she is the highest level Phaulkonian in the area now) until someone else is assigned as abbot. Since there's about to be a big
downtime, that can certainly happen!

Certainly Balinor and Donald gain a level here, and perhaps other people. Donald will likely head to train with Wicker, and if Cassian trains, it will have to be in Teft.

Peltar was given the Lord Mayor's spellbooks! Donald gained the rights to copy one first, second, and third level spell.

In any case, magic items gained:

   1.Ring +1 (Morgan)
   2.Bracers AC 6/10, Bracers AC 7/7 (traded in Quentin's leather armor +1) (Donald and Quentin)
   3.Cloak of Protection +2 (Quentin)
   4.Chain Mail +2 (Cassian)
   5.Ring of Featherfalling (Cassian)
   6.Potion of Invisibility (Perry)
   7.Wand of Paralysis (Donald)
   8.Potion of Extra-Healing
   9.Two wizard scrolls, one with Web on it for Donald (no spells above 2nd level)
  10.Some clerical scrolls (was there a major spell on any of these?)
  11.Short sword +1 (Felix)
  12.Dagger +1/+3 vs. demihumans (traded in dagger +1) (Perry)

There was an intelligent longsword, but unfortunately it was Lawful Neutral and not interested in Morgan.

There were a whopping TWO MORE evil daggers (that makes three for us).

In addition there were a whole lot of other items (some +2 weapons, etc.) that were reserved for the NEXT ruler of Garroten.

Something still has to be done about this magical killer statue/golem of Kord in the front of the castle. In addition, sorry about the door!

We get to resolve juicy details like XP and more specifics next week, but the Defenders have firmly settled into the mid-levels, and gained fame and favor to boot!

A massively successful adventure, and a fine game! Thanks for the challenge, Edwin!

Joel/Balinor

Log Supplement X: Other Details

A couple of corrections:

Martin was the one who shot the captain, not Colemac-- a masterful composite longbow shot that allowed Morgan to take him down.

Balinor was in fact nailed from behind by the captain while he was attacking the Lord Mayor-- this dropped him almost unconscious and with a wound. He downed
a healing potion to remain upright (though small).

The fake kid / gnome was extradited to the Gnomish Kingdoms where he is wanted for various crimes. He apparently came to Lendore to "lay low" for awhile....

Joel (and Kyle)