Jack Falco - Ptolus - Entry #5 |
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10/20/06 (Real world) 2nd day of Bloom (Ptolus) Perspective: Jack Falco (Mark Cronan) Dramatis Personae: Yes, here we are. Bleeding, dragging an unconscious friend down a hallway. Half our party was missing, and the enemy was still upstairs. Still alive. And now, probably pretty pissed at us for putting two holes in their ceiling and killing half their gang. Tomorrow was going to be pretty interesting, one way or the other. That is, unless I spoke too soon and the battle had yet to end. On our way down the hall Glüg managed to wake up all on its own. With a grumble about leg pain and lack of food, Glüg found its own feet. Lucky thing too, because all of us were about to need our hands free. Suddenly all hell broke loose. We heard the sounds of shouting from the other side of the door into the house entry room, and the door actually briefly shook with the sound of something shattering. Luford the open the door prepared for a fight, and we were just in time to witness one of our Halfling foes from upstairs, standing right next to the door apparently laying in wait, stare in disbelief as his short sword mysteriously shattered! A shot was fired from our right, towards the front door of the house, and we quickly figured out that Yerrick must have found his way back to the house. Had he shattered the sword somehow? I started to back away from the fight, down the hall in the direction we had already traveled. I was in no condition for a fight, and the last thing the party needed was to carry my sorry wounded carcass around during a fire fight. Yarl decided to move in the other direction, charging past me and into the room just as we heard the sound of another sword shattering. I learned later that the second sneaky halfling had also been hiding on the other side of the door, and his short sword had similarly been shattered by a mysterious force. But at the time, all we knew was that stuff was blowing up from some sort of magical attack, and fortunately we were the beneficiaries at the moment. Yerrick reached the room and shot off a round, which apparently missed a fairly daze, confused, and now unarmed halfling rogue. A third shot blasted from near the front door, and I heard the delayed sound of a body thudding to the floor. The second halfling took off at this point, away from us and towards the privy on the other side of the building. He didn’t get far however, as we finally witnessed our mysterious benefactor: Riven! Riven, our old friend from the tavern, had finally caught up with our investigation. Apparently having run into Yerrick on the street, he decided to come and lend a hand. Good thing too, as he had literally saved the day. I doubt we could have handled those sneaky halflings in the condition we were in at that moment. Riven let loose a blast of force towards the fleeing halfling, and the little bugger went down, unconscious. His pall wasn’t so lucky, as I spotted his decapitated body near the front of the door, Yerrick’s gun blast having butchered the poor fellow where he stood. After binding our single captive and storing him in the room with our other elven guard captive, we picked off what equipment we could (two sets of leather armor and one potion labeled “Healing”), and then sat down for a chat. It didn’t take long to catch Riven up to the goings-on here. We had planned to leave the building and return tomorrow, but with the assistance of two fresh adventurers and the new healing potion, the planned quickly changed, and we decided to return to the last vestiges of the house that remained unexplored upstairs. Yarl gave me his last tiny bit of healing, allowing me to at least move around without reopening my wounds. Meanwhile, Glüg chugged down the halfling’s healing potion, and was ready to do some more damage (and eat – which would have to wait). Upstairs we went, back around to the curtain room. My lectures about weak flooring paid off, and we went very, VERY slowly this time, checking each section of floor for traps and weak spots, and inching along the edge of the wall. It didn’t take long to notice that something was fishy. From the outside of the house, we had easily spotted an overhang over the front of the house. But the area of the overhand didn’t seem be here, though it should. The two dwarves, who have a good sense of direction and distance, agreed that something seemed a bit fishy. I knew a secret door must be around here somewhere, so the search began. Now, along with checking the floorboard for damage, we also checked the walls as we went. It’s always the last place you look – or in this case almost last place. The door we were looking for was on the other side of the room, the opposite side from where we thought it would be. Once I found it, it amazed me that I had missed it earlier. Perhaps falling through the floorboards had distracted me a bit. Behind the hidden door was a long hallway that curved around the outside of the house and back towards the overhang area we knew must be there. It first led to a cubby hole with a chair, a horn on a small pipe, and a pull-cord. Obviously some sort of early warning system, which we had fortunately never triggered. There was also a nice looking locked door leading in the direction we wanted to go. I tried to pick the lock, but it was a Foreman’s special with a triple tumbler. In other words, it was a bit beyond my abilities. I gave the word to Glüg and Riven to go ahead and bash it in, but try and save the lock for me to study later. It was the sort of lock I’d need to learn how to pick if I was to advance my profession. They made quick work of it, though with the expected loud noise that came with it. Whoever was on the other side of the door surely knew we were coming, if they didn’t before. Beyond the door we found a wide chamber, spacious and grand looking. Rich tapestries covered the walls, and a silver and gold gilded throne lay in the center, back against the wall. In front of that stood an elf, who appeared unfazed by our abrupt entry. Oddly, a single candle floated in the middle of the room, apparently doing the bidding of the elf, whose outstretched hand seemed to follow the slow motions of the candle. A mage of some sort for sure. “Leave now and you won’t be harmed” commanded the would-be king of the wrecked mansion. A snort from Glüg indicated all of our feelings – not likely! Glüg followed it’s grunt of disapproval with a slingbullet, which whizzed through the air and barely missed it’s mark. The fight had clearly begun. Riven followed on Glüg’s shot with his own, energy bursting from his outstretched hand and blasting at the floating candle, missing by an inch and crashing harmlessly against the opposite wall. Rainbow flew past them both, seemingly focusing all her attention on the elf. I don’t know what she intended, but she quickly backed off. That’s when the fire happened. The candle dropped, and immediately a bloom of flames poured up from the ground. The elf had apparently covered the floor there with flammable oil, waiting for the moment to set us afire. Fortunately none of us were in the path of the searing flames, and we escaped damage. The house, of course, had not. Two holes in the floor, some random bullets and blasts to the walls, lots of dead bodies, and now a fire. Speaking of random bullets, both dwarves let loose with blasts from their firearms, missing due to the flames and smoke blocking their vision. Glüg was luckier, scoring a solid with its slingshot. Yerrick shot again through the flames, while Rainbow decided she wanted none of this noisy business and winked out of existence again. Riven joined the blasting, and finally struck home with a blast of energy against our foe. As the fire died out, it’s fuel exhausted, Yerrick and Glüg charged into the room. Yerrick gun blast hit the elf in the shoulder while Glüg barely missed. That was enough for our opponent, and he sunk to his knees in surrender. It was my turn to help out it seemed, and the interrogation began. The elf’s name was Cyrathus. Yes, he had the magical key we sought at one point, but no longer. Since his gang had been struck down by a mysterious and very deadly sickness, he had been seeking a cure. Shilukar, who seemed to be a humble cleric, had sought him out and offered a cure for the disease the prior day. All he had to do was steal the key from the locksmith, and trade it for the cure. That had seemed like a great idea to our elven gang leader, and he had sent his men to obtain the key and make the trade. The mission had been a success, and the key was traded just that morning in exchange for the cure. Unfortunately, the cure had been a fraud, and his men continued to die. Cyrathus seemed pretty upset about that exchange. More upset at this mysterious Shilukar than at us even. He wanted revenge, and the cure, and was willing to tell us everything, provided we let him live and keep some of his possessions. It took a bit of negotiation (he wanted to keep all his gold, and a valuable magical necklace that let him use some form of telekinesis, which we had seen demonstrated with the candle). But eventually we came to an agreement – he tells us where to find this Shilukar, and we let him live and keep some of his possessions. Cyrathus became pretty civilized at that point. It seemed he had never been happy as a gang leader, and the whole plan for him and fallen completely apart before it had really gotten off the ground. Based on his gang’s information, Shilukar seemed to have been only disguised as a cleric. They thought that instead it was likely this evildoer was a dark elf that had been breaking into the houses for some of the wealthier citizens of Ptolus, along with some Gnollish followers of his. Included in the list of victims of Shilukar was House Abinar, and they had a 1000 gp bounty on his head. Suddenly, our mission became even more interesting to me. The best way to find Shilukar was through a fence named Ammel Dar. The beggars would know how to find Ammel Dar, but it would take a lot to persuade Dar to listen, and Cyrathus was unsure what sort of saleable items might entice Dar into a meeting. We questioned him further, but after a long time the only remaining information we could glean was that Shilukar seemed to have a big book with him at the time. It took me a moment, but I put two and two together. The guards yesterday morning had told us that a cleric had stolen a book from a temple almost simultaneous with the theft of the key from the locksmith. Sounds like our mysterious Shilukar really liked that book and disguise he had come up with. We rooted through the remaining valuables in the room that Cyrathus was not holding onto, and found a Cloak of Magic Resistance, a Wand of Grease (19 charges remaining), some Braces of Armor, four potions of healing, a magical shortbow, some arrows (20), five magical arrows which Cyrathus called Sleep arrows, four sapphires which I judged were worth about 100gp each, three scrolls of identify, and one scroll of bulls strength. Wow. Nice haul! We decided to let Cyrathus go with his remaining equipment, and head out for the evening. Tomorrow we would see about this fence Ammel Dar, and return to the hunt for the key that can open any lock! [Yarl and Jack Falco split the MVP vote for showing up and being the only two voters] <215 experience points each party member who was there > Total XP so Far:
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