The World of Telvar

That evening, we saw some weird light, almost like a flickering torch, and heard some muttering but unintelligible voices.

Thinking that perhaps it was a bandit group, we sent our new scout ahead. (This is Sean's new character, the elven mage/thief named Colin-- Gaston is in semiretirement, working at training dogs for the Baron) Colin moved after them, and there was nothing for awhile. So we put on our armor and looked over the ridge to see if we could spot anything.

Suddenly, there was the sound of a blown whistle. We raced down the embankment and saw that apparently someone was wielding a glowing weapon in the distance. We headed that way, and at about 100 feet, the glow vanished. There we found Colin lying on the ground, poisoned and burned. He was still alive, but due to his frail constitution he was not able to recover fully on the field. So we took him back to camp and decided to wait out the night.

Colin described what had happened to him: He had followed the light only a short distance, when suddenly he fell into a poorly concealed pit trap, managing to get himself poisoned. He then ran, after blowing the whistle. When he could run no more, he stopped exhausted. Then a glowing blue whip/tentacle hit him on the side of the face, burning with its touch. He fell over.

We attempted to sleep, but only about an hour later the light reappeared. This time we sent Morgan to investigate. Morgan was hit by a rockslide, and pinned. Then he was burned just like Colin. Unfortunately, the party wasn't sure what had happened and arrived nearly too late to save him. In addition, while going up to retrieve Morgan, the thing got another lash on the sleeping Colin.

Flustered, we gathered ourselves and attempted to sleep in our armor in camp. An hour later, the light appeared, and drew nearer. Suddenly, it was apparent that the thing was only about 30 feet away. Lacking no obvious light source, Quentin cast a Flame Blade, lighting up the area.

In that instant blue tentacles appeared lightning-fast, smashing Quentin and attacking Felix when he tried to bash the tentacles. Drew fired an arrow into the woods, and there was a burst of light, blinding everyone except Tyveris. All Tyveris could see was that the tentacles withdrew and sped away at unbelievable speed.

Confused and afraid, we decided to leave the area as quickly as possible. Interestingly, the hits seemed to have an additional effect of draining some of the victim's energy, making them sleepy.

We pressed on for about 2 hours (a mile away) and set up camp, taking catnaps in armor. The rest of the night passed without event.

We slept until about noon, then began the long trek home. On the second day, we had pressed into the evening, which we regretted later. Drew was in the lead, having been with Tyveris as the only unaffected people left. Suddenly, Drew was yanked from view.

Quentin quickly assessed the attacker as a trapdoor spider. Thinking quickly he cast a Speak with Animals, and convinced the spider to give Drew back for about 30 shiny gold pieces, though Drew was badly damaged, but still able to stand without assistance.

Tyveris started wondering when something lousy would happen to him. So far he hadn't even been scratched.

Of course, that day, it began to rain. A lot. Thunderstorms. Aren't we lucky?

Dragging the semi-conscious party members along, we stumbled into Restenford after about 6 days of travel and started recuperating. What was the worst thing was that we gained nothing material from this.

However, Peltar, the Baron's wizard friend, had some illuminating ideas. He suspects that the creature was a will o' the wisp. It certainly acted like popular lore says one would. The question is, is it guarding a big treasure like legend says?

Of course, Peltar has no idea how to kill one. If we did find out, though, he would certainly be interested in helping us.

We decided to hold that in reserve, mainly because of the costs of hiring a sage to help us. But certainly in the future it might be a good possibility.

There was some grim news upon returning to Restenford. Morgan had suffered greatly and has lost 3 hp and the burn mark has not healed well (comeliness -2). Worse off was Colin, who became incredibly weak (lost 3 of his 5 hp), and his once great hearing was ruined. He has retired to seek help from his old master.

We are still looking for a new scout, though we haven't yet picked one up. We decided that perhaps we could find things to do in Benct, so we traveled there uneventfully.

We restocked up on supplies, then went job hunting. We remembered the weird information about the haunted room in the inn, but we held that in reserve to see if perhaps the Nevronian church wanted something done.

There were 3 things:

1. Root out devil-worshippers in a little inland farming town to the north
2. Clear ghouls from the sewers of Benct
3. Figure out that haunted room.

#2 seems way out of our league. #1 is certainly an interesting possibility, and we are definitely considering it. But since two different people have suggested the haunted inn room, we decided we at least do some conservative information gathering about it.

We talked to the barkeep who originally mentioned it to us, and he took us up to the room. Interestingly, there was a tropical fish called Esmerelda that they just found in the washbasin of the room one day, which made very little sense. Some even suspected that the fish was the old captain polymorphed. Seizing on anything, we cast Detect Magic, and got nothing magical about the fish.

However, Quentin spoke with it. It seems that the fish somehow swam from the ocean to the "shiny orange thing" (copper washbasin). But that seems impossible, given that the washbasin is on the 2nd story of an inn, and that type of fish doesn't live in the local waters. Something to ponder anyway.

We did a decently detailed search of the haunted room. Apparently it is quite safe to go in during the day, and it's only at night that parties "disappear." Wonderful.

There was quite a bit of furniture, all of it bolted down, oddly enough. This would be normal for a ship, but not for a stationary building. This leads us to conclude a few things. Perhaps the captain was just insecure without the feel of a ship. Or perhaps this room somehow represents his cabin on ship.

Other things in the room: a locked chest, closed wardrobe, colored soap, and a painting. The desk contains tons of books on navigation and scroll tubes of cartographer maps. The painting is of the captain himself, on board a ship called the Maybelle in the picture, fighting a black tentacled thing. The painting is signed, "Yertin."

Finally, Tyveris cast Detect Magic and Detect Evil. Surprisingly, the locked chest, wardrobe (but not the doors of the wardrobe), and the copper basin all detected as STRONGLY MAGICAL. Furthermore, though nothing specifically detected as evil, the entire room detected as faint Lawful Evil.

Ideas?

So far, we've brainstormed a few things:

1. Check down at the docks for records of the Maybelle. It's interesting that the window from the room looks out on one particular collection of docks.
2. Set up a few ladders outside and observe the room through the window at night.
3. Put something inanimate inside and see if it's still there in the morning.

Log Supplement IV: Damage and Death Toll
Ok, for everyone's interest our total permanent damage has been:

* 10 hit points
* 1 strength point
* 4 constitution points
* 2 comeliness points
* 1 frailty

Permanent damage has been taken by Quentin, Morgan, Gaston, and Colin.

In other fun:

Party members have been dropped below zero in these encounters:

* Bandits-- 2
* Stirges-- 1
* Beetle-- 2
* Bandits-- 2
* Bandits-- 3
* Bandits-- 5
* Ogres-- 4
* Skeletons-- 4
* Skeletons-- 2
* Skeletons-- 1
* Spiny thing-- 3
* Skeletons-- 1
* Will o'wisp-- 2

Total: Party members have fallen unconscious 32 times! That's an average of 3.56 collapses per game session!