Session 46, Finding the Love Shack and Blood Wraith
Paldegora
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Session 46 – 2025-02-08
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Summary
The session began in a basement room below Mott's office, where the group had previously fought Zombie Golems and found a chest with 2,000 gold and an amulet. The smell in the basement was unpleasant. They search for secret doors but found none in the cell area or the room outside it. In the main lower level room, Cal discovered a secret door on the eastern wall, leading to a kitchen. Eryn recalled a dining room off the kitchen from a previous visit. Xor heard voices coming from the dining area.
Xor and Eryn retreat from the kitchen and inform the others about their findings. They suspect Mott used this route to abduct prisoners for experiments. They headed to Lieutenant Harris's office and shared their discoveries, excluding the box, gold, and amulet. While talking, they decided to search for hidden compartments in Harris's office, as it was once Blackmoor's office. Eryn found a keyhole in the fireplace, which the key given to her by the Broke Lance Mob fit.
The key worked, and the fireplace sank into the floor, revealing a doorway with a staircase leading up. Eryn checked for traps and proceeded, concerned that this might be the Broke Lance Mob's headquarters. At the top, she found a well-appointed room with tables, chairs, and windows overlooking the cemetery and town. There were northern and southern hallways, smaller tables, and viewing areas with shackles and comfortable chairs.
They explored the northern hallway, finding a living and dining area, a well-appointed bedroom indicating a woman's stay, a simple bathroom, a nice bathing area, and a storeroom with two swords. They then moved to the southern hallway, discovering wine racks and a large room with multiple beds, a circular couch with shackles, and a harp. Harris was shocked by what they found. They also discovered a concealed opening in the bedroom leading to the roof, with a ladder for leaving and returning to the prison. They assumed that was how Blackmoor got Shea out and back in.
After leaving the prison, an earthquake occured, causing dizziness for Angelique and Symon, who blacked out. The sky lit up with swirling colors representing the eight dragons. Angelique sensed a change in the Emperor Dragons, as magic seemed to be sucked from the world and then returned suddenly. Symon blacked out but regained consciousness after a bit. He agreed that something had changed with the dragons.
Angelique, Eryn, and Xor visited the Temple of Phi, while the rest return to Cassandra's shop. Elenor needed a silver dagger for a new spell, so Cassie melted down some of the parties silver pieces to make it. At the temple, they found robes and symbols of Phi, good for allowing them to disguise themselves as priests. They also found a vent leading to a smelly room in the sewers. They rejoined the others at the forge.
Cassie finished the dagger late, and Eryn decided to try the key at the sewer gate. She snuck down to the sewer gate but found no keyhole. She then tried the Courthouse entrance to the sewers but decided against it. She checked sewer grates but the key didn't work on those. She returned to Cassandra's and rested. The next morning, they eat breakfast at the Dogg Butt and set out for Port Ahn. They encountered a group with a broken wagon and helped fix it, spending the night with them. The swirling lights had dimmed some since they'd started.
As the traveling group continued towards Frosthaven, the Orc Slayers continued south encountering fog and damp conditions. They travelled ll day and then camped for the night, taking shifts on watch. Cal heard noises and spied approaching travelers. The figures were not walking normally and were making an airy moaning sound. They turned toward their camp. He alerted Xor who alerted the others. Arrows flew in from the woods, one hitting Angelique. Her body did not succumb to the poison. They engaged in full battle with some Sluagh and Zombies.
Eryn hit a Sluagh with her bow. They flew off and returned with more Zombies. Angelique successfully turned the initial six Zombies, and the group continued to fight. Symon used a Gust of Wind spell to paralyze a Zombie and blow away a Sluagh. They killed more Zombies and then a Blood Wraith appeared, attacking Angelique. She was weakened, by two levels, after being hit once. They finished off the Zombies and then focused on the Blood Wraith. Symon fired a Magic Missile at it, causing the Wraith to dissipate.
A Wight had joined the fray, attacking Cassandra. After it's defeat, the remaining Sluagh fled. The party chased down and killed the turned Zombies. Symon wondered how the group had been turned into Zombies so close to town. The DM explained that Sluagh can turn any dead creature into a Zombie and fly them into battle.
This is where they ended the session.
Exp: 1232 + 123 = 1355
Detail
This session started where they left off, in a basement room below Mott's office. They'd just fought to Zombie Golems and found a chest with 2,000 gold and an amulet inside an ornate box. The smell is very bad down here. They begin searching for secret or concealed doors. There were none in the cell area or the room just outside of it. In the main lower level room, Cal found a secret door on the eastern wall. Eryn opened it exposing a short hallway leading to a door. She opened that door to find herself in a kitchen. She remembered from her visit in the lower section of the prison before that there was a dining room off of that. Xor heard voices coming from the dining area.
Xor and Eryn backed out of the kitchen and closed both doors. They told the others what they had found. They'd guessed that it was a way for Mott to abduct prisoners and sneak them into his laboratory to experiment on them. They went back upstairs and across the hall to Lieutenant Harris's office. He was still in and they told him what had happened and what they'd found. They didn't mention the box, gold, or amulet though. While talking, they thought that since this was Blackmoor's office at one time, that maybe they should search for hidden compartments or doors in here. Harris agreed to let them and Eryn started across the northern wall. When she got to the fireplace, she found something, a keyhole.
Eryn thought the keyhole was the right size for the key that the Broke Lance Mob had given her. It fit and to her amazement, it worked. The key turned and the fireplace sunk down into the floor and a doorway was exposed in the northern wall. She looked in and saw a staircase a little ways in that went up. Ah, finally, they'd found the “top floor”. Eryn checked the short hallway leading to the stairs and the stairs for traps. She still didn't know why but the Broke Lance mob had given her a key to open this. She was concerned that she might find that this was their headquarters. She wasn't sure what Harris thought about all of this. All she could do was press on.
Not finding any traps, Eryn made it to the top and to the closed door there. She opened it and exposed a very well appointed room with tables and chairs. On one of the tables, were cards where maybe they'd gambled. To the far north was a window and to the far south was a window. The southern one looked out over the cemetery and the town. I don't think anyone looked out of the northern window. There was a northern hallway leading around a corner and a southern hallway leading around a corner. On the western wall were a few smaller tables and then some small rooms with chairs in them. Across from those rooms were some slightly raised platforms with shackles an comfortable chairs in front of them. They all appeared to be viewing areas.
They moved down the northern hallway and found a set of double doors. They opened it and found a hallway with doors on the eastern and western walls and a 'T' intersection straight ahead. They opened the door to the west and found a living a dining area. The door to the east opened into a well appointed bedroom. There were indications that a woman had stayed here. Further down the hallway were three rooms. There was a simple bathroom straight ahead. To the east of that was a very nice bathing area. On the western end of that hallway was a storeroom. It had been mostly cleaned out. Cal did find two swords on top of a credenza. One of them was a very nice looking short sword.
They moved to the main room and back to the southern hallway where they found racks of wine and another set of double doors. They opened them and found a large room with multiple beds, a circular couch with shackles and a harp in one corner of the room. There were dividers set up between the areas that allowed for a little privacy, but not much. They exited that room. Harris was shocked about what was up here. They went back to the bedroom found a concealed opening in the eastern wall. It opened onto the roof. There was a ladder that could be lowered to allow people to leave the prison. This must have been one way that Blackmoor got Shea out of the prison and later back in.
They finally left the prison. As they got outside the main entrance, there was a sudden earthquake. It lasted for a moment or so and scared the entire town. At the same time, both Angelique and Symon felt very dizzy and out of sorts. Symon blacked out completely. It was while he was blacked out that the sky began to light up and swirling lights. It stretched from horizon to horizon. The colors of the lights, swirling about high in the sky, were the colors of all eight of the dragons. Red, Blue, Green, Black, White, Silver, Bronze, and Copper. Something has changed with the Emperor Dragons. According to Angelique, it first seemed to suck all of the magic from the world and then the magic returned suddenly.
Symon regained consciousness. They explained to him what had happened while he was out. He agreed, “Something has changed with the dragons.”. It seemed about the same time as they thought that the dragons would be born into the world. They had no way of knowing for sure. Angelique, Eryn, and Xor went to the Temple of Phi while the rest returned to Cassandra's shop. Elenor needed to have a small silver dagger made as a component for one of her new spells. Everyone had coughed up enough silver pieces for Cassie to melt down and use to make the dagger.
While Cassie made the dagger, Angelique, Eryn, and Xor searched through the temple. There was a lot of destruction. They did find some robes of Phi which Eryn scooped up along with some symbols of Phi such as amulets. These would allow them to disguise themselves as priests of Phi. They also found the bathroom with a vent leading underground to one of the smelly rooms they'd discovered below when they were in the sewers. There was food in their storerooms but it was mostly rotted. They found no sign of Father Nathanial. They left to rejoin the others. As they passed through the market, they saw simple supplies but they didn't buy anything. They detoured to Kira's where Eryn asked her to look at the powder that the Broke Lance Mob had given her. Kira didn't know what it was. They rejoined the others at forge.
Cassie finished the silver dagger pretty late. Angelique didn't need the dagger to look especially good but Cassie was a bit of a perfectionist and handed a simple polished dagger. It was late so they turned in. While they slept, Eryn decided to try the key at the gate going into the sewers. She left and snuck down to the sewer entrance. It was a little harder to do than normal as the swirling lights above made it harder to find shadow to sneak around in. She reached the gate and found there was no key. She decided to go to the Courthouse and enter from that secret door. She made it to the cell and then decided against it. She went back out locking everything back up and looked for sewer grates. She found one nearby and looked to see if they had keyholes. The key she had didn't work with them. She returned to Cassandra's and rested the rest of the evening.
The next morning, they rose and went to the Dogg Butt to eat breakfast. Soon after that, they set out, south, on their way to Port Ahn. Not long after they left town, they ran into a small group of people with a broken down wagon. They felt more comfortable around them when they saw they were traveling with children. Bounty hunters surely wouldn't bring their kids along as they sought to capture them. The wagon had a broken wheel. Their newfound friends couldn't fix it but Cassie told them that she could fix it. They were thrilled and took them to their camp where there were more of them and a fire that Cassie could use to heat the metal on the wheel to fix it. It took most of the day but she finally pronounced the wheel fixed. They took it back to the wagon and put it back on. Everything was great. They spent the night. The colored lights swirling about overhead were a little not as bright as the night before.
The next morning, group set off towards Frosthaven thinking it might be perfect as their new home. The Orc Slayers headed south again. It was damp and cold. There was a fog hovering in the trees. They stopped for rest around noon and then continued on. After a while, night fell and they moved off the road to camp. They set up a tent and a fire and took shifts as they rested. Cal took the first shift. Around 10:00, he heard some noise from back up the road. It sounded like someone moving down the road. He attempted to mute the fire some. He moved to a position where he could watch the people passing. Instead of passing, they turned to move off the road and toward their camp.
Cal tossed a rock back toward Xor. He drew his swords making sure the sound of pulling them was audible. The people approaching made this odd moaning sound. He noticed their gate was messed up. They weren't walking right. He ran back to Xor who had gotten up after he threw the rock towards him. Cal mimicked their shambling movement and an airy moaning sound. Xor hollered, “Get up!”. The others jumped up, grabbed their gear and headed out to find out what was going on.
It was then that arrows flew in from the woods around them. They realized that their were these flying creatures in the trees. Angelique was hit and though there was poison on the arrows, she was able to fend off it's affects. Once a person is able to fend off the poison, it can not affect them in the future. They rolled initiatives and the fight was on. The creatures looked like little demons. They were called Sluagh. Two came from the north, one from the west, and another from the south. They were still high in the trees.
Eryn fired her bow and hit the one to the south. The Sluagh suddenly broke off and flew out of sight. They returned very quickly carrying more Zombies. They dropped them close by the group. The Zombies attacked but they all missed. Angelique was hit as she broke off and moved to face the 6 Zombies coming from the road. She attempted to turn them and was successful. The 6 turned and began moving away. Cal hit one of the other Zombies and killed it in one blow. Symon had been casting a Web spell at a point in the trees where the six had been coming in from. They had been turned though and the spell had no impact.
Xor hit another Zombie and killed it in one blow. The Zombies attacked. Not just the two remaining but the those two plus 8 more which came in through the trees. Eryn took her usual beating getting hit twice. All of the other Zombies missed. Cassandra hit one of them but it was still standing. The battle continued as they slowly cut into the number of Zombies. At one point, Symon used a Gust of Wind spell to paralyze one of the Zombies and blew one of the Sluagh completely away. They killed more the Zombies.
Suddenly, a new creature appeared. It was an undead with burning, glowing eyes. It ran out of the trees and jumped up on this stump. It was a Blood Wraith. He sniffed the air while looking around at everyone. As he looked at Angelique, he inhaled a lot of air in one great sniff and then ran toward her. He attacked and fortunately missed. She hit the Blood Wraith with her Staff of Striking, using three charges. Recognizing that the new creature was much more dangerous than the Zombies, Eryn broke away from the Zombie she was on, taking a hit from it, and ran up to the Blood Wraith and hit it. The Zombies were about gone when a Wight came running into the fray. It attacked Cassandra.
Angelique was hit by the Blood Wraith and immediately felt 2 levels weaker. Symon fired a Magic Missile at the Blood Wraith and it made a horrible screech. As it's eyes glared at Angelique, it's form dissipated and it was no more. Symon had taken a beating and after firing the Magic Missile, decided it would be good to find a place where he could duck out of sight. One of the Sluagh was actually was able to hit Cassandra. She was able to negate it's poison. Angelique finished off the last Zombie. Cal ran up to attack the Wight. He hit it with one of his weapons. Xor hit the Wight and then hit it again and killed it. When the Wight died, the remaining Sluagh flew off. They chased down and killed off the Zombies that Angelique had turned.
Symon wondered out loud at how this group that had been so close to town, didn't make it to town before being turned into Zombies. The DM gave him a bit of information about the Sluagh. They have the ability to turn any dead creature into a Zombie. They can make them fly. Sometimes they can fly into battle and bring hundreds with them. They apparently killed their friends and flew them to just down the road and sent them in to attack.
This is where they ended the session.
Please start the recorder.
Exp: 1232 + 123 = 1355