Catching Up with the Tuesday Group
okay we have actually missed like. three posts per campaign. here's what's been going on for the tuesday group
At the end of the last post, Merce (the henchcleric) had been kidnapped by a gang of mercenaries. The PCs who aren't busy training right away begin looking for the missing cleric - Celebrindel comes across an incredibly muscular man extorting another for ransom money, and Merce's magic hammer comes up on the market for a marked-up rate, but neither hide nor hair of the cleric is seen.
A few days later, the party is approached by a gnoll, who tries to demand a ransom and offers a location - the Pigpen, a seedy bar downtown. Suspicion is immediate, and the party sends their most inconspicuous characters to surveil the site. They find some incredibly muscular men, who are unpleasant, but nothing directly incriminating. Nonetheless, the party watches them go into an abandoned sealed-up butcher's shop, collect their fighting-types and a swarm of skeletonized giant rats, and mount a raid that night.
Aethelwynn kicks down the door of the butcher's shop, finding dust settled on the counter and carcasses rotting on their hooks. The paladin steps forward uncertainly, halberd in hand, as half-a-dozen pig carcasses squelch free of the meat-hooks. As the paladin fights desperately against the zombies, the noise awakens crossbowmen and berserkers in some nearby houses. The crossbowmen run out to their balconies for an angle and the berserkers try to flank around the building and enter close combat, but after a few rounds of fighting are repulsed by the dogs. Inside, Aethelwynn and Relimi slay or turn the undead pigs, and Aethelwynn advances to the second floor. A pack of ghouls ambush Aethelwynn, and one bites her, but Relimi gets a good turning roll and dispenses with them in short order. Nissa casts webs into the square to halt their escape.
Meanwhile, the crossbowmen in the apartments below are spreading out into the alley, looking for shots on the PCs above. At the same time, from the Pigpen, another body of crossbowmen are rounding the corner. Aethelwynn and Relimi hurl flaming oil down on the men in the alley, who are killed or flee - many are caught in the Webs. The other group get one volley off, knock on a nearby building for reinforcements, and flee. Reinforcements are not forthcoming, and the square is quiet.
They follow the second group, opening up another boarded-up house to find a hastily-abandoned alchemist's workshop. Some tablets are abandoned nearby. Celebrindel the Elf finds a hidden trapdoor in the floor, which opens into a great chamber, full of gnolls and a demonic statue. The gnolls have two shave-backed sorcerers among them, and an officer - the sorcerers start casting, and the party's magic-users do likewise. The melee characters remain upstairs, and do not attempt to enter combat. Magic Missile ruins one gnoll's spell - the other gets one off, to no apparent effect. Most of the troops are knocked out by Sleep, and the survivors and leader retreat to a door - Aethelwynn descends to pursue, and are set upon by Hasted shadows which are quickly dispatched by the cleric. After a brief and brutal exchange, the gnoll officer is slain by halberd blows and magic missiles.
The party proceeds to rout some people from a side room, seizing their distilling equipment, and advance into the nearby corridor. Down the corridor a little ways, they come upon a room off the corridor and enter it, finding the captives in iron cages, guarded by a huge bugbear with a Lucern hammer. Right away, the party stacks up for battle with the creature. Aethelwynn fights for a round before a little demon - a quasit - reveals itself from invisibility and casts a blast of Fear. This sends Aethelwynn running down the corridor but has little other effect. Relimi handles the bugbear and Aethelwynn returns to hedge the quasit into the corner with Protection from Evil. That's where we ended the session.
The next session, Caractacos was back and we had a full party again. A pair of Hasted carrion crawlers advance up the corridor. Caractacos and (if i rember correctly) Relimi and the rat skeletons advance to meet them - Caractacos skewers one all the way through the body and the other is dispatched fairly quickly. Meanwhile, more bugbears (also hasted) and another gnoll sorcerer emerge from a secret door on the party's flank and are met by the dogs and Aethelwynn. These guys actually manage to achieve just about zip and are all killed pretty quick, but there's a tense moment there.
The party follows the narrow passage down to a room with a black altar. Atop the altar is a dead and rotting dog wrapped in cloth-of-gold. Celebrindel, the thief, pokes the dog off the altar with a 10' pole and collects the cloth. The party looks behind a door out of this room, sees some ghouls and manes scavenging at corpses, and decides to close the door and block it with a table from the distilling room. The last room the party enters contains a fountain with a silver topper. Relimi uses Find Traps from her magic item and finds that the fountain is trapped with a kind of clay cylinder extending deep into the neck of the fountain, and somewhat attached to the topper. They decide that they don't want to go to a tremendous amount of trouble for like 500 GP and leave the situation alone.
Emerging from the dungeon they encounter some city watchmen, who take a bribe to ignore the party. The party then returns to the dungeon, looking for secret doors and more treasure, since they kind of found fuck-all. They do locate a secret door which leads to a statue separated from a main chamber by a curtain. Under the curtain, they can see feet, and the magic-user starts to cast Sleep - bad move! There's a big fight with a whole mob of berserkers led by a cleric of Demogorgon - the cleric casts Silence on the party, then Hold Person, but the fighters make their save. They withdraw around the corner and wait for the Silence spell to expire, at which point they attack and slay their remaining enemies. From the priest's corpse, they seize a set of +2 chainmail and shield.
That's where that session ended.
Now there's a couple of weeks of no session, but another one this week. It is not terribly eventful. The party start by spending some time leveling up, carousing, and buying magic items through their agents in Tor. Then they go up to Ambell looking for rumors and are tasked by Harald the Enchanter to go and collect some needleweed for him. He knows that a holdman priest in Getford has some and might be willing to trade. The priest offers to trade for some yellow mold or a rare flower, but the party heads to the abandoned druid's tower that the Saturday group had previously cleared out and collect one of the needleman corpses. Not very eventful, as I said.