Tienarth brought forth the deed to the Jonamor estate found in the crypt where they battled the vampire. He showed it to the innkeeper and inquired about the location. The tale in town was that it was abandoned perhaps 50 years ago by the Jonamor family. Sometime afterwards, the place was considered haunted.
Straight away, the team mounted their horses to ride south, soon finding an overgrown trail going east. Cresting a hill, they looked down on a modest house in disrepair. Through the windows empty of glass, Ferris spotted movement in the house. Azrak, Ghevont and Aderian approached the front door as Ferris and Tienarth circled to the back.
Azrak through open the door to face a pale, crouching monster. Ghevont produced his holy symbol, which instilled great fear. The creature dashed through a side door. Azrak pursued and caught what all figured was a ghoul flee through the back door with a companion. A few moment later, the two figures lay dead, pierced by Tienarth’s magic missiles.
At the sound of footsteps, they rush back to the front of the house to see two more figures disappear into the brush. Inside the house, they found pots of white paint amongst the filth of a goblin nest.
They considered the house as a suitable base of operations if repairs were made. The root cellar, accessible from an outside door might even store treasures protected by a wizard lock spell. Under a loose floorboard in the house, a forgotten box of toy figures included a lead cockatrice.
Returning to town, Azrak arranged for repairs to the house at a cost of 200gp. Work was expected to complete within two weeks. Meanwhile, they chatted with locals for more clues about the vampire attacks. They heard of an older man asking about the hearty band lead by an ancient elf. A traveller reported seeing a man enter a cave south of Muleshoe. Through probing they also heard of an ancient graveyard in the swamps north of the river, and despite not knowing the exact location, they agreed it would be a logical next place to explore.
They rode back to the ruined manor where they fought the zombie wizard who tried to escape by balloon. Not longer after arriving, a large group of bandits arrived and began calling out to the party. Foolishly, the bandits attempted violence and were quickly cut down, although a few of them nearly escaped with the horses. In the end, the party bound the survivors and marched them back to St. Orlan where they rested for a few days to mend wounds.
They returned to the manor, tied up the horses and slogged into the swap. Immediately they became disoriented. During their wanderings they fought and killed a giant frog. Eventually, they followed a river upstream, the climbed a hill. From there, they could see the expanse of the swamp and the tower at the manor. They also could clearly see the graveyard they sought. They made a quick march back to the manor, arriving well after dark but encountering no trouble.
Endnotes
- The first order of business for this session was to review player expectations.
- Jeff barely participated in this session as he’d been drinking and playing golf earlier in the day and fell asleep repeatedly.
- Characters present: Tienart/Tre, Ghevont/Jeff, Aderian/Jason, Ferris/Henry, Azrak/Nick
- Virtues: charity on the part of Azrak in paying for repairs, kindness for taking the bandits back for justice rather than killing them
- Vices: none