The World of Telvar

Two weeks later, Kodo was knocked out in a different alley. He awoke to find himself chained to a wall without his gear. He couldn’t break the chains, and so he waited until the door opened and a little light came in. A man of some sort entered.

The man had an item that made any lies spoken within the area of effect sound high pitched and squeaky. Kodo confirmed this with a few simple statements. The man said that he had no intention of hurting him, but would if Kodo was uncooperative.

Kodo was in fact very cooperative, but the man was cursing by the end of the interview. Why? Because Kodo joined the party halfway into its existence and didn’t really know all that much detail about our early adventures. The man seemed dissatisfied when Kodo answered that our four most powerful items where the short sword, the horn, Balinor’s plate mail, and Thunderstruck. He was really angry when he learned that we had no money to speak of. He asked about the adamantite, and was not thrilled to discover that the Baron of Restenford had the remainder of it, or that the sword was both intelligent and good-aligned. The man said that he would return Kodo’s items to him, and that this was especially easy because he already had two rings that he liked better.

Kodo woke up with bad beer all over him in a holding cell. The guards wouldn’t believe Kodo’s story (apparently they didn’t recognize him as a member of the Defenders) but freed him. Kodo’s magic items had been returned to him.

Kodo was not Charmed or enspelled in any way Kain could detect.

Two weeks later, Kain was captured the same way. He was interrogated similarly, and this time he man got really annoyed when he realized that Kain knew even LESS than Kodo! This was a source of great satisfaction to Kain. Kain retained some semblance of consciousness long enough to catch something interesting. Apparently the man was annoyed saying that “it” wasn’t worth it and “they” (probably the Defenders) would already hate him for this.

Meanwhile, weirder things were happening in Restenford, where Felix, Balinor, Cassian, Quentin, Donald, and Alduin had gone. The Baron had a 60th birthday bash at the beginning of 2181, and everyone got together for a nice celebration with old party members Gaston, Narahn, and Nakumanu.

Later in January, the new Abbot of the Phaulkonian Church, Phillip, reported that a horrendous rainy season storm was approaching Restenford. Knowing about the widespread devastation that would come, everyone set about raising sandbags and boarding up houses. The Defenders pulled out all momentoes from the house and brought them into the castle, where most of the party would take cover. Cassian opted to stay in the Phaulkonian Church and help Calm Winds there along with Phillip (a non-combatant cleric). Quentin stayed with Almax at his house.

The storm hit, and it was terrible. Rain poured into the courtyard, and Donald was smacked by flying debris and injured slightly. The Defenders’ house was completely obliterated, leaving no trace that it had ever existed (thanks to my 04 on the dice).

The Phaulkonian Abbey and Almax’s house held well through the storm, and then there was a brief calm while the eye passed over Restenford. Phillip had calmed winds in the first half, so it would be Cassian’s job in the second half. Then the storm began to pick up again.

In the Abbey, Cassian, Phillip, a fighter/cleric and another combatant cleric, and about eight acolytes were holed up. Suddenly, there was a cry from one of the acolytes in the tower. Someone yelled down that the acolyte had been shot by a crossbow!

Cassian began to climb the ladder to help when suddenly a huge crash hit the door. Someone was trying to break inside!

Immediately Cassian began shouting orders. There wasn’t a single melee weapon user in the temple, so they would need to shoot the intruders as they came inside. The acolytes raced to the armory to pull our crossbows. The fighter drew his longbow. Cassian pulled the Abbey’s most powerful crossbow from its case and immediately a blue bolt appeared on the crossbow. This was the old Crossbow of Disruption that the former Abbot Qualton had killed himself with following the overthrow of the Lord Mayor of Garroten.

Unfortunately, the door broke down before most of acolytes had armed their crossbows. In dashed three weird black lizardlike things carrying crossbows and swords. Cassian released her held spell, and two of the three froze in place. The third charged at Cassian with a spear, and he was clearly more dangerous than the two held ones. Cassian shot him, as did the fighter, and discovered that the crossbow was also one of Speed.

More lizards poured in, and Cassian, the fighter/cleric, and Phillip fell under attack. They were taking small amounts of damage, but the fighter was slowly falling. Two of the lizards had died in the initial volleys, but there were ten remaining on the attack. Some shots from the lizards were taking down acolytes as well. Furthermore, there appeared to be at least a few perched in the tower, shooting anyone who tried to approach, despite the nearly impenetrable rain and fog. One cleric got a Hold Person off, but it was resisted by all three targets. Suddenly, Cassian hit one of the more dangerous looking lizards—and it dissolved explosively, disrupted messily by the crossbow! This broke the lizards’ morale, and they tried to drag their fallen leader (the original attacker) back, but Cassian fried him with another hit from the crossbow, and they merely grabbed his gold armbands.

They were still covering the tower, but Cassian was able to restore order and no one was killed in the fighting. One of the lizards was captured and would be taken for questioning.

At about the same time, the door to Almax’s house broke, and two lizards rushed in. Inside were Fellwyn, Almax’s wife and a mage, Amos, Almax’s son and a druid, Quentin, and Almax. Fellwyn threw a Sleep, catching both of the lizards. Before the druids could finish them off, another lizard entered the room with a spear and charged at Quentin. Almax began casting a Plant Growth to seal off the entrance, but it would take a round. Quentin set for charge and both of them rammed their spears into each other, inflicting terrible damage.

Except that the lizard had some kind of Aid-like protection, and Quentin’s nasty hit didn’t damage the thing. The creature was a specialist and stabbed Quentin again, who was struck but was healed by Amos. He struck back and missed, but was forcing the creature to stay away from Almax.

Quentin took another two hits, and stabbed the creature twice more, still not injuring it. Almax completed his spell and the entrance was sealed. Then he closed with his hammer+2.

Quentin withdrew behind Almax to fight from the second rank. Amos Cured him again Quentin and Almax fought the creature. It was forced to drop its spear when it missed Almax and began doing a series of martial arts moves, pounding the powerful druid. But Almax and Quentin struck back at it. Eventually the Aids crumbled (after about 30-40 points of damage!) and the creature began taking actual damage. It turned to rip open a boarded window, but failed and was forced to continue fighting. Almax was falling steadily, but so was the creature. Just as Almax was about to go down, the creature was felled.

The people in the castle were miserable but otherwise bored.

Upon the end of the storm, the party came out to see the devastation. Three people who had insisted on remaining in their homes were killed, and were sent to the Phaulkonian abbey for burial.

The lizard was interrogated a little bit, and was discovered to be part of a race of “sea-devils” which inhabited long-lost underwater Kraken cities, had the ability to see perfectly through any amount of rain or water, and were diabolically evil. The creature laid down the usual threats about his race taking over the world, yadda yadda.

The next morning the creature was found dead in its cell. One of the guards, thought to be a half-orc because of the slight bluish tint to his skin and slightly pointed ears, confessed to the killing, saying that he could not tolerate the creature’s presence any longer. He was in actuality a half-sea elf, a sworn enemy of these creatures. He was jailed for 20 days.

Two days after the attack, the bodies in Church were found missing when the embalming ceremony was to take place. Alarmed, we discovered no tracks, but on an inspiration from Cassian, Quentin spoke with one of the rats in the cellar where the bodies had been stored. The rat revealed that something had come out of the trapdoor there.

Phillip explained that the trapdoor led to the honorable place where dead Phaulkonian clerics had been buried. Very alarmed, Cassian organized an exploration party consisting of Cassian, Balinor, Felix, Alduin, Nakumanu, Donald, the fighter/cleric, and Quentin. The Baron’s men needed to remain up in town to defend against possible attack by gnolls. This was a particular fear since Peltar the wizard was gone for the season to the School of Wizardry, speculated to be training.

The party discovered that the tomb of the priests had been ransacked and that the skeletons were lying scattered about. Felix discovered that they had been gnawed on.

Also, there was a hole in what apparently had been a Protection from Evil barrier set on part of the chamber.

Phillip cast Negative Plane Protection on Balinor and Felix, and the party clambered down through the hole and found a huge set of caverns. There was a small cliff that when the party climbed down, allowed view of an eight foot chasm with rushing water about 20 feet below.

Suddenly a weird skull thing smashed into the ground near Felix. The skull detected as evil from the sword. Still, it didn’t do anything. Then another one flew at the party but missed. Then another. This went on for a long time as we decided what to do. We couldn’t cross the chasm, so we returned to Restenford and made ourselves a little bridge which Quentin sealed into place with a Stoneshape. We also brought backup planks in case our skull hurler friend decided to destroy the bridge.

Balinor was the first across the bridge. He had borrowed Cassian’s +2 shield since he was worried about the skulls, despite the terrible accuracy of the thrower. Suddenly a skull landed in front of him and exploded, but the impact was blocked by his shield.

Shrugging, Balinor yelled, “Nice try!”and crossed. The party advanced up the slope, when they spotted a large chamber with several barrels in it. There was a shadowy thing scurrying along the sides, and Cassian shot it with her Crossbow. The thing shrieked but did not collapse. It continued to hurl skulls at the party, and Balinor moved to cover Cassian. The longbowman shot the creature, as did Alduin, but both shots appeared to have no effect (due to non-magical arrows, probably). Suddenly Balinor was struck by one and resisted, you guessed it, a level-drain!

The two creatures began running at the party, facing off with Balinor and Felix. As they approached, both fighters suddenly felt quite weak (their strength had halved to 9) but were still able to fight. Balinor missed, but Felix struck his, as did Quentin, but only for damage equal to the plus of the weapon! Donald hammered the one Cassian had targeted with a Magic Missile, injuring it further. Cassian blasted it into nothingness. (the crossbow does 5-20 against undead!)

Cassian was having trouble disrupting the undead, but was happy enough just to hit them when she saw what happened next. The creatures attacked three times, and both Balinor and Felix sank to the ground in a heap. Realizing Cassian was exposed, the brave Nakumanu charged and took the attacks, resisting the strength drain, missing, and then collapsing. This allowed Quentin to complete his Flame Blade and charge the creature while Cassian hammered it. Donald’s second Magic Missile was resisted, but Cassian hit it, and Quentin lit it on fire!

The creature collapsed.

Nasty little things. The party continued exploring after the fighters’ strength returned in about ten minutes. The barrels contained what was once wine, but was now foul smelling vinegar. There was also a room that appeared to have been struck by a fireball, as indicated by the half-melted cutlasses and other items. We learned that Restenford had previously been a pirate base, and that this was perhaps the underground part of their fortress.

Cassian had already determined from turning that this was not Consecrated Evil ground, but something was really messed up here. We spotted a natural pillar in a pool of water, with something gold imbedded in the floor, and a calcified skeleton on the bottom. Worried about the general unstableness of the place’s architecture, Felix crept forward, and tried to break the object out with a pickaxe. The floor collapsed, but Felix was caught by Balinor’s rope. Through the floor was perhaps another part of the same river of rushing water we had seen at the chasm.

There was a passageway with a boulder that had slid out of the way. Moving past it, the party discovered a rotting door with etchings of skulls on spears. We opened the door and discovered a huge shaft with the sound of rushing water below. There were six spears with skulls on the pointing into the shaft from the walls, and hanging chains that had probably once held a prison cage.

Further exploration required a spellshift, so we left the cavern, with only a set of small tunnels unexplored (only Alduin could fit in them reasonably).

For more exploration, tune in next time!

Joel/Balinor

Log Supplement QQ: QQ

I noticed a funny thing the other day:

.

Nakumanu with falchion +1

Donald with dagger +2

THACO:

16

17

Damage/segment:

2.25

2.25

AC:

3/3

2/10

HP:

25

33

Who's the better fighter?