Peter the bum leads the party to Tolobe. Chimeras attack at night. Fiends are killed in the ruins of St. Kortus.
Days of Rest
Nate’s body was taken to Lah who raised him from the dead. Nate made a donation of 500 gp to the church. Meanwhile, Elaria made herself busy gathering information and enchanting rocks with continual light. She identified the magical items Ollie recovered from the werewolves a few days before. Ollie had already been wearing the boots, which were of the Traveling and Leaping variety. The potion was of Giant Strength, given to Nate. Ghevont took the magical shield.
The remaining treasure was split amongst the adventurers as follows.
- Jerker Share 1 (Full Share)
- Items: Comb (1,400 gp) and Necklace (900 gp)
- Coins: 222 ep, 4 sp, and 5 cp
- Total Value: 2,411.45 gp
- Ollie Share 2 (Full Share)
- Items: Brooch (1,300 gp), Scepter (800 gp), and Buckle (300 gp)
- Coins: 22 ep, 4 sp, and 5 cp
- Total Value: 2,411.45 gp
- Nate Share 3 (Full Share)
- Items: Chain (1,300 gp) and Malachite (1,000 gp)
- Coins: 222 ep, 4 sp, and 5 cp
- Total Value: 2,411.45 gp
- Mirana Share 4 (Full Share)
- Items: Malachite (500 gp), Diamond (500 gp), Fire Opal (150 gp), Aventurine (50 gp), and Aventurine (10 gp)
- Coins: 2,412 ep and 5 cp
- Total Value: 2,411.05 gp
- Caol Bhas 5 (Full Share)
- Items: Comb (700 gp)
- Coins: 522 ep, 3,460 sp, and 11,055 cp
- Total Value: 2,411.55 gp
- Elaria Share 6 (Half Share – 0.5)
- Items: Statuette (1,100 gp)
- Coins: 528 sp and 5,275 cp
- Total Value: 1,205.55 gp
Four times Elaria was successful in viewing the monster god that the shepherd and other villagers spoke of, the mysterious beast never seen but placated with nighttime offerings. The first attempts were difficult, only producing dark clouds. Her third attempt, in the early morning of the first day was a success, which made further attempts somewhat easier. In all four cases, the scenes were dark, only once even offering the dim shine of starlight. Fortunately, her elven eyes allowed the colorless vision of her kind.
That first morning, the crystal ball revealed a lightless limestone gallery. A massive, cylindrical shape forced itself through a narrow fissure. In the colorless void, its skin appeared like wet, ridged slate. Elaria observed the creature’s immense weight causing six distinct structural cracks in the cavern ceiling as it passed, moving with a rhythmic, muscular contraction.
The next night, the scene shifted to the surface at night. Under the dim, silvery wash of starlight, the high grass of the northern hills rippled. Seven clay bowls filled with raw offal sat in a semicircle. Suddenly, the earth erupted. A “jagged maw” composed of thousands of tiny, needle-like teeth burst from the soil. It inhaled a stray ewe in a single, fluid motion. As the beast descended back into the earth, it crushed two of the offering bowls, leaving behind a trail of steamy, shiny ichor.
The third view settled on a passage near a black iron door. The creature was coiled in a heap. Nearby, a pile of bones rested on a dais. Elaria noticed a clutch of six rounded, stone-like eggs partially buried in a mound of copper wires nearby. While probing with the ESP spell, the beast suddenly raised its head and turned its eyeless snout directly toward the “camera” of the scry, its mandibles twitching as if sensing her psychic presence.
The final viewing showed the creature’s midsection pulse as it digested the night’s kill. It was occupying a chamber where the walls were etched with the elven rune for “scream”. As the creature shifted its massive bulk, it uncovered a stone sarcophagus bearing the name Elnaril Phiran.
None of the attempts to view werewolves in the sewers of Slateholm were successful. Each produced only cloudy visions of mist.
Despite another week of paying agents to seek information, no new stories came back.
Coal Bhas invested 3,000 gp to raise the opportunites for Festivals, Revelry, and Training by 50 each. A sum of 1,000 gp was used to establish a permanent bribe—ahem, endowment—for the Masons and Carpenters Guilds to prioritize festival staging over municipal repairs. Additionally, he paid for the construction of a permanent Grand Pavilion in the North Gate district. This structure provided a weather-proof venue for parties and ceremonies. Both Amalgus and the Anauk took notice of this generous donation to the community. Finally, he also hired workmen to clean up and refurbish the Arena south of town which encouraged local guardsmen to begin offering combat training.
Ferris was busy closing the purchase of a vacant lot inside the city walls where he intended to build a guild hall for adventurers. Construction was to being at the end of the week (3/20). Kimo found him and offered two flasks of scorpion venom. One of them spoiled. The other was transformed into a dose of anti-toxin which was handed to Ghevont to hold.
Tolobe
On Friday (3/20), a group assembled to locate and investigate Tolobe, a place not at all known to the general populace of St. Orlan. The information they had was that Jerker’s agents had interviewed a refugee who’d recently returned from Tolobe after the mist was removed. With no better ideas, they sought out local drinking establishments. Aderian suggested The Red Mark Inn, located in the northern odoriferous district. The group consisted of Aderian, Jerker, Elaria, Ghevont, Caelith, Kimo, Nate, and Ghevont’s man, Carl.
The Red Mark was a simple wooden shack located in the stinking odoriferous district outside the walls of St. Orlan. The structure was reinforced with a heavy wooden door and maintained a small stable out back. Inside, the common room was exceptionally filthy and poorly lit by a few flickering tallow candles. Guests could pay 2 sp per night to sleep on flea-infested woolen blankets arranged on the floor near the central fireplace. The interior featured roughly hewn tables and benches. It was operated by Sanzir, a willowy female dwarf who stirred to the bright morning light let in the inner chamber as the Raiders entered.
The proprietor confessed to know little of a place called Tolobe, except that a vagrant currently squatting in the yard behind the inn spoke of it. They found him huddled against the stable wall, his cloak wet with dew. He called himself Peter, and he was filthy with soot. They plied him with a rich bribe to lead them to Tolobe, which he described as being north of the river and the swamp. A sum of 25 gp was given with an promise of another 25 gp when Tolobe was reached. They hired a barge in the St. Orlan River District. The bargeman agreed to return in two days’ time.
They set off from the north shore of the confluence of the north and south forks of the Beliannassa River (hex 1107). They a path that may have once been a well-used road now reduced to almost to a game trail that went north. Peter described Tolobe as a place “blessed” by the stink of old ash which clogs the nostrils of werewolved. Tolobe was located in the Kortus Valley, where the hills slump into “gray depressions”. It sat adjacent to the Ruins of St. Kortus (Hex 1201), also known as the “Black Scab”.
They climbed up over low hills, away from the river, then down into the Kortus Valley, a vast plain of high grass. The nine miles to Tolobe (hex 1202) were crossed with ease and presently were looking over the waving grass and towards a village of windowless huts of charred stone surrounded by sun-bleached bones. They paused there while Elaria changed into a raven, then flew into the village to observe.
Tolobe sat in a perpetual shroud of drifting soot. Low, windowless huts of charred stone huddled together like gray beetles in the dirt. Rows of drying racks stood outside, draped not with the leathery, smoke-cured meat of grassland vermin. There was no wall there, only a circle of sun-bleached bones and a heavy, graveyard silence that even the wind seemed to fear to break.
It was evening, and the people in the village were retiring for the night. Elaria returned to the group who planned to camp out of sight for the night. Kimo, seeking more comfort than a bed of grass, went into town. He tapped at the doorway of a hut and was offered hospitality, which consisted of a spot on the floor to curl up and bowl of cold, black gruel. He was grateful for it, offering payment which was refused. They were happy to share tokes of his pipe.
Back at camp, Caelith played a calm tune as everyone else other than Aderian laid down to sleep. A few hours later, the steady notes floating over the waving fronds attracted the attention of a pair of chimera. The beasts were seen from 60 yards away, and owing to Caelith’s playing, none had yet fallen asleep, so they were on their feet rapidly.
Elaria delivered a lightning bolt to one of the chimera which countered by breathing fire on her and Jerker. The other beast attacked Aderian, Nate, Ghevont and Caelith. The cleric used the cube of force to protect himself and the bard. Elaria was brought to near death by the deadly claws and jaws of the chimera, and she protected herself with invisibility before Jerker slew it. Nate killed the other chimera after is landed beside him.
During the battle, the spirit of Bremlai appeared before Jerker, a profoundly distracting sight that limited his ability to fight or defend himself. The slain mayor chastised the young warrior for unjustly slaying him, promising to revisit him until his whole tale was told. The spirit was seen and heard by all, but attacks were ineffective against him. He insisted on telling Jerker about how he had been born in the western slums, the son of a master potter. During his youth as a gate guard, he famously saved a child from a giant python that had crawled up through the River District sluices. He claimed that townspeople still refered to him as “The Serpent-Throttler”.
When the battle was over, Bremlai faded from view.
Despite eliminating a significant threat in the area, this did not reduce the overall threat of the area (hex 1202 not pacified). However, they were not disturbed again before dawn.
The Ruins of St. Kortus
The next day (3/21), the group reunited with Kimo in the village. They met Mother Gotha, the aged matron of the village. She was a 90-year-old survivor of the fire of St. Kortus whose skin was entirely vitrified into a “bark of wrinkles”. Her small band of a few families had fled from the fire that destroyed the town of St. Kortus two decades before. By a quirk of the geography, the soot produced by the fire blew steadily, even these years afterwards, over the area of Tolobe, covering everything in pungent soot.
Aderian had dragged the two chimera corpses and offered them as food for village. He also inquired about werewolves, and Mother Gotha described her faith that they were safe from such monsters due to the heavy black ash. St. Kortus burned down around its saintly patron, and her followers remained faithful to his ideals, considering the soot to be generally protective. The old city was now in ruins, but she said other residents had fled north and formed New St. Kortus.
The party bid them farewell and headed for the ruins, half expecting to find werewolves there. The skeletal remains of St. Kortus rose from the tall grass like a blackened scab on the earth. Substantial in size in its time, there were six wards, their streets now mere paths through piles of charred timber and collapsed limestone. Scorched stone chimneys stood as solitary sentinels over the rubble, their flues clogged with the nests of ravens. Thick, oily vines with purple thorns choked the foundations, and the air carried a faint, persistent scent of old ash and wet fur.
Most buildings were reduced to half walls, the ruins structurally unsound. One building was more intact than the others. Half this building still stood, including part of a second story. The inside was gloomy even during the day. Kimo approach it alone, hidden in the shadows. He climbed up through a second story window, then down some stairs and out a ground-level door.
Aderian went into to investigate himself and immediately fell through the weakened floor into a cellar. From the four corners of the space came vague, smoky shapes, what they would later understand to be shadow fiends. A battle ensued that featured abrupt shifts in artificial darkness and light. Once again, the ghost of Bremlai appeared. This time, he bragged about how he earned the respect of the town by mediating a fierce dispute between tanners and butchers regarding the placement of the odoriferous districts outside the wooden walls. He emphasized how he worked his way up from simple means to be an important member of the community.
While Caelith played a funeral dirge, the party battled for a short time with the shadow fiends, which were featureless devils composed of smoke, nearly invisible in dim light but seemingly harmed by the bright light of magic. One notable event during the battle involved Kimo hurling an ordinary iron spike, which one of the fields redirected to strike Elaria.
Before long, the devils were destroyed, and Aderian’s bag directed him to a small cache of valuables. Aside from coins and handsome pin, they recovered a potion and a scroll. The following day, Elaria identified the former as a potion of dragon control. The latter contained the following spells: Wall of Stone, Feeblemind, Animate Dead.
New St. Kortus
They had no appetite to explore further and agreed to head to New St. Kortus. Peter asked for the balance of his payment and intended to return to the river to catch the barge back to St. Orlan. They walked north to find a fortified holt designed to prevent a repeat of the fire that destroyed the old town twenty years before. It consisted of stone dwellings with sod roofs (fireproof) and 6 communal outbuildings, including a smokehouse and a stone-walled well. A 6-foot-high dry-stone wall surrounded the perimeter, topped with iron braziers that burned all night to keep werewolves at bay.
The people there were happy to meet outsiders, and they told the tale of their martyr, St. Kortus, a minor cleric of the Anointed One who served the old village. During the Great Fire, he refused to flee, standing in the center of the town square while it burned. Legend claimed his prayers turned the heat into “the cool of a spring morning” for those who stayed by his side. While the town burned, he remained until his flesh became charcoal and his heart a diamond. The villagers believed that as long as his heart remains in the new village, it could not burn.
In the center of the village was The Chapel of the Unburnt, a utilitarian stone building with no wooden beams. The roof was a vaulted stone arch. Rows of stone stools faced a central altar made of blackened, vitrified brick from the ruins of the old town. The Diamond Heart sat in a shiny, metal box beneath a glass dome.
The party planned to stay in New St. Kortus for the balance of the week to gather better information about nearby werewolves, who the villagers were convinced were nearby.
N.B. Sharing the location of Tolobe and New St. Kortus in St. Orlan would earn 5,000 xp each.
End Notes
- Days
- 3/15 – 3/19 Downtime
- 3/20 – 3/21 Travel to Tolobe and New St. Kortus
- Treasure:
- 400 cp
- 2,900 sp
- 800 ep
- Pin (600 gp)
- Potion of Control Dragon
- Magic-User Spell Scroll (Wall of Stone, Feeblemind*, Animate Dead)
- Combat (7145 xp)
- 2 Chimeras 1225 xp each
- 4 Shadow Fiends 945 xp each
- Characters (6 shares of 1191 xp)
- Aderian (human, fight, lead) 1334 xp
- Caelith (hireling) 596 xp
- Elaria (hireling) 596 xp
- Ghevont (human) 1310 xp
- Jerker (human, fight) 1322 xp
- Kimo (agile, unnoticed, good-natured, outdoors, smoker, curious, skills, suprise) 1286 xp
- Nate (human, fight) 1322 xp