The World of Telvar

Our stealth group (Kodo, Morgan, Quentin, and Alduin) found them hiding about 1000 feet away. Quentin Entangled 16 of them, but the rest tried to get away. When the rest of the party heard the sounds of combat they headed up to help, but when they returned, three of the horses were gone.

A long chase began with Cassian, Felix, Morgan (and Quentin directing in crow form). They finally began to catch up to two of the escapees, but Morgan’s horse slowed down. Cassian Commanded one of them, who fell off his horse. Felix ran down the other one, who surrendered.

Not bad. Although one of them escaped during the night, we slogged through the mud to Jebel, had them tried by elders, and then refused the 90 gp reward offered and simply ate well.

We reached the Drake border in early March. This was quite annoying, since the trip took about triple the time we anticipated and left us unable to reach Teft by March 15 to find new quests. We were further angered when the Drake soldiers made our lives miserable at the border, so much that we rejected the quest, though not before handing over 150 gp for “licenses” to go into Drake.

Quentin has added Drake to the increasing list of places to destroy with elementals when becomes a hierophant druid. The party agrees.

Disgusted, we headed up to Gesh in the hope of getting our newest member, Chiaro (pronounced key-are-oh), an actual illusion spell. He had been stuck with Light, Wall of Fog, and Detect Invisibility, effects amply reproduced by one of the other spellcasters, which was supremely frustrating.

Chiaro is Koralgesh trained (under Lambu). He is quite skilled at drawing, sculpting, and mapping, and is very artistic. He is dexterous, though not physically strong or durable. He is also quite ugly and rather dislikable (though not like Balinor).

We purchased Phantasmal Force for 800 gp from the Tower, and waited and hoped for quests. We arrived there on April 1st, and they appeared to be fooling about the “City of Adventure” thing. (Actually, it was just our very unfortunate rolls)

We dropped in on Perry and nagged him for awhile, then looked for adventure. The only immediate thing was a mission to storm some former goblin secret ports that they reoccupy every so often. It wasn’t guaranteed that the goblins would be there, but all we had to lose was time.

But of course, I rolled the sea dice:

(Warning: Stone Soules players may experience Déjà vu. If feeling discomfort, please consult your local sage)

About two weeks into the four week trip, a HUGE roc appeared overhead (120 foot wingspan) and NEARLY tore off the mast, clearing it by about 500 feet. We breathed a sigh of relief, assumed it was a good omen (Cassian praised the roc), and we moved on.

Then a week later, a ghost ship appeared behind us. Frantically, we headed up to the deck to fight it, but amazingly Cassian managed to Turn the ship away just before it closed (we could see the front line of wights waiting to attack us). Cassian raised the winds and we sped away rapidly.

The ship disappeared, and we continued to the Goblin Isles.

That having occurred, we then found that all the encampments were empty, and that there was in fact no quest. Very frustrated, we returned to Koralgesh. Although there was a fairly bad storm during the trip, Cassian calmed the winds and we continued.

Then it turned out that we had missed a lovely storm an actual goblin fort mission which many of us were hunkering for. By this time, we were ready to pull our hair out.

Finally, at the beginning of June, we got a mission from the dockmaster, a one-legged dwarf who spoke very slowly in Common. Apparently one of the cloaking ships from the Far World navy had had its magical keel damaged in a fight with an attacking goblin vessel and was being hauled off. Interestingly, this particular victorious group of goblins was planning to sell the boat to a group of priests of the Queen of Grottoes, one of our OLD enemies (Zune Quog was a member of that church; he was the original owner of Maiden Basher).

This was unacceptable to the Petethalian navy and Koralgesh because this temple contained at least one 9th level cleric, and was capable of repairing the ship within two weeks. The plan was to ferry us to the island where the ship was being sold, and for us to either capture or sink it, and not let it fall into their hands. This might involve killing the priests, or it might not. With our bloodthirsty attitude toward Grotto priests, the choice was obvious.

Now, the interesting thing was that Koralgesh apparently has a number of informants in the goblin isles and learned of this sale from multiple informants. The Petethalian navy might be acting as well, we knew, but they were farther away from the scene of the action, so our own role was critical.

So, we set off on a fast merchant ship (with a second crew aboard in case we should capture the vessel). Amazingly, twenty uneventful days of sea travel passed until we reached the island.

The island was about 4 by 20 miles across, and had one town of note, called Lantern. It contained a populace of a quality seen only in Benct and Drake. Real scum. The plan was to bribe our way into some information and proceed to the temple of the Queen of Grottoes, which was somewhere on the island. We would invade somehow, trash the temple, and capture the stolen boat.

We were moored pretty far out in the channel, and had to take a longboat to get in to the docks. The captain told us that if the boat was threatened, it would have to leave the island. There would really be only one way for us to get home: on the Hand of Hindus that comes in every week.

But then we felt obligated to point out that the Hand of Hindus doesn’t like us (see summaries 7-9, 16-18). We would never make it back alive if we had to rely on them. The captain shrugged and said that he guessed we really didn’t have a good way out. That was singularly reassuring.

First, we decided to talk with most intelligent beings in Lantern: the dolphins in the harbor.

Quentin’s conversation (with Waterbreathing) proved VERY enlightening. The dolphin showed us where the temple was. When asked if it had seen any weird boats recently, it said, “Oh yeah, the invisible one?” At this point we were all shocked—how could they have repaired it so quickly? Then it hit us: there was ANOTHER cloaking ship in the harbor. Further conversation revealed that the ship was “right over there.” It is easy to see underwater if you’re a dolphin, though not if you’re a humanoid with Waterbreathing. The dolphin warned us about the undead sharks that appeared in the waters near the temple as guardians, and then said that there was an “undersea boat” that radiated pure evil.

Well good. These are the sorts of things I’d want to have in MY harbor.

We thanked the dolphin, who hoped we would kill the undead sharks for it.

We decided to identify the cloaked ship. A Waterbreathing Chiaro moved close to the boat and cast Detect Invisibility. This revealed a lot about the ship, though the details rapidly became irrelevant when he noted that the ship’s name was “Belle Venture.”

This is the same ship that ferried us to Orc Isle (see summaries 37-42). Delighted, Quentin flew over onto the ship as a crow, frightened the heck out of the crew by asking for Captain Malmir while still in crow form, and had a nice long conversation with elven captain.

It turns out that he was ferrying a group here out of Runk, called the Flaming Fist. Apparently the Petethalian navy had asked for us, but since we were still flailing uselessly about in the Goblin Isles, they went for this group. Apparently they were a group of veteran adventurers including a Nevronian priest, a druid, two very tall Northerner fighters, a mage, a female elven fighter/mage, a half-elf thief, and a ranger. The party leader was a fighter named Roderick. They totaled nine people, like we had until recently.

The coincidences grew when it was discovered that their tall fighter used the short sword, while the small fighter used axes!

The Flaming Fist had been hired to take out the Grottoes people specifically and also capture the boat—apparently whoever hired them doesn’t like that church. Join the club.

They had arrived in town a few hours ahead of us, so we decided to see if we could double our party size and gain some valuable allies. Malmir also hinted that the merchant ship we had come in looked really suspicious and stuck out badly.

Quentin returned, and we decided to head into the town and meet them somewhere. We reached the docks and for a mere 25 gp, they let us keep the longboat there. For a mere 10 gp bribe, we discovered that the party had headed to one of the inns.

The town was even scummier than originally expected. The bar was filled with people, about 70 of them, including ogres, bugbears (grrrrr), gnolls, a few elves, and many humans. We moved to the bar and spent a HUGE amount of money on drinks (10 sp EACH BEER), but the bartender refused to “make alliances,” and actually tell us anything. So, Alduin picked out a fence from the crowd, who for 50 gp told Felix one of the most bizarre things we had ever heard.

Apparently, a group called “the Defenders” had shown up in town. The townspeople had been paid by the Hand of Hindus to delay them in town for one hour, and send a runner up to the Queen of Grottoes temple to warn them so that they could properly prepare a massive ambush. The Defenders had already left town and were about to be killed.

The guy noted that we were on the “Defenders’” side and shook his head. They were dead anyway, who cares?

Felix smiled, nodded, and the party left the tavern. We even managed to make it calmly to the trees outside of town before becoming rather incensed.

WHAT???!!!!

Apparently, the agents of Hindus on the island had mistaken the Flaming Fist for us! This was understandable with the sketchy descriptions they would have gotten, but this made us VERY MAD! We had condemned another party of good adventurers to our ambush! Not only that, but the Church of Hindus was actively plotting against us!

We had suspected that Traywick had been tipped off by sources in Benct, though it is entirely possible that the Hindus agents had something to do with that whole mess. Nonetheless, we had to do something and save that party from disaster! We decided to change identities, and we became: the Flailing Fist!

At this point, we were very angry. Both churches would eventually have to pay for this mess, and it sealed the fate of the QoG priests. Any thoughts of a hit-and-run raid left our minds. Also, we began to give consideration to eventual ways to get back at the Hindus priests for their help in this.

We sent Quentin’s birds screaming out toward the temple along some reasonable paths in the hopes of stopping the party there. Each bird was a given a message in Druidic Cant, thereby allowing their druid to interpret them while not tipping off random priests of Hindus or the QoG. We then hurried toward the temple as fast as possible.

We reached a cliff with a narrow set of stairs heading down to some caves below. They were flanked on one side by the cliff face, and by the sea (filled with undead sharks) on the other. We had learned that priests of the QoG have limited control over evil sea creatures and such.

We knew that the group had headed down these stairs an hour earlier, and so we sent our birds down to find them, and they discovered the cave then. It was actually set at the bottom, and was only visible for maybe three-quarters of the tide cycle before completely flooding. The Flaming Fist, not being of sea origins, probably didn’t know that they would be trapped within three hours.

We headed down the stairs. Suddenly we found one was previously trapped. It had gone off, springing the stair into the air with a counterweight powerful enough to launch someone into the ocean. We hoped it hadn’t gotten anyone…

We then used Balinor’s old 10’ pole to tap the stairs, and when another exploded violently upward, we suddenly only had a 6’ pole. Unfazed, we noticed a mark of a wave (a favorite QoG symbol) on the trapped step. We moved on, and stepped over another step before reaching the bottom.

We headed into the cave, which almost immediately began turning and rising. We proceeded until reaching an intersection with the same mark and an arrow pointing to the left. We followed the arrow (tracks led both left and straight ahead) and came to a grisly sight.

What was left of a false door was charred on the far wall. There was a dead Northerner in banded mail on the floor whose body had been pillaged. Apparently they had suspected that the door was trapped, but not that the entire floor was a Glyph of Warding, which was clearly the case. The room had exploded and killed the fighter.

We moved back to the intersection and went straight before coming to a ruined nasty trap. Apparently it should have hurled spears and harpoons and such at the party, but someone had mangled it beyond hope. Someone very angry.

The party moved on and reached a trio of doors, one of which was much larger and grander than the other two. The left (small) and center (large) doors had been used recently. We tried the center door. Inside was a ruined major room of a temple, with splintered benches and such. There were no bodies, but there was a lot of blood on the handle on the OTHER side of the door.

We closed the door and looked at the left door, revealing a cloakroom. Much to our surprise, there was a dead Grotto priest impaled to the door with a glowing short sword, and a badly burned but not dead half-elf on the ground.

We gave her the Extra-Healing potion which brought her back to positive hp, and she explained that she was the Flaming Fist’s half-elf thief. The party had lost their ranger on the stair trap which had flung him into the ocean. The Northerner was killed as we predicted.

The party reached the doors and had gone through the center. When they had all gotten inside, the doors had slammed shut, and a voice had told them that they, the Defenders, were now trapped and dead. They were understandably confused by this, but knew how to react when the priests came pouring through the doors in waves.

Unfortunately, their ambushers had prepared spells for the encounter and the party mage was Held without being able to use his cool staff. The fighter/mage toasted some of them with a damage spell, but they were in trouble. At least twelve priests attacked, and at least three died. Roderick and the other fighter were desperately trying to hold off the clerics, and the Nevronian cleric had gotten off a Silence spell, when suddenly a pillar of flame struck him, badly injuring him. However, the thief took the worst of it, including a double wound, and fled the combat, managing to open the back door with a priest of the QoG chasing her. She thought that Roderick had been killed, but knew that any movement was damaging her. Desperate, she ran into the cloakroom, and when the priest appeared, she rammed her sword through him and collapsed to unconsciousness.

She was depressed that she had abandoned the party, but was obviously grateful for our help and joined us. With a fresh party, maybe we could finish what the Flaming Fist had begun. Clearly the priests had cast most of their spells, and this was our chance to catch them off guard.

With that, we resolved to avenge the Flaming Fist. Here come the Defenders… er, Flailing Fist… er, whatever…

Joel/Balinor