Across The Valley of Asthar Rho
Party
at the start:
Mace Blackstar (Mike D.; Human Fighter)
Wilbered The Silent (Bob S.; Human Cleric)
Castor Bean (Steve B.; Human Bard)
Trygvie (NPC, normally Steve G.; Elven Wizard)
Kane (Al G.; Human Monk)
Zuran (NPC; Human Fighter)
The party awoke from their rest in the Snake Chapel without
incident. Castor the Bard was feeling poorly and had lost a
single point of CON. A restoration spell from the cleric failed
to fix the problem. With spells restored, the party got their
things together and decided to head North and East, towards what was
marked as the Shrines of Teyr and Muir on the shore of the Crystal Lake.
They started off through the jungle that surrounded the Snake
Chapel. It was a hot and misty day as usual in the valley.
As they headed into the ruins, they saw gigantic ants, about a dozen in
number, crawling towards them. The ever helpful Trygvie unleashed
a fireball and crisped insects.
The party passed the ruined frog pyramid and went north up the road
towards Guido's Fort. Ahead in the mist they could see the
silhoettes of several large creatures, probably Ogres, heading
East. They elected to follow at a discrete distance, giving the
structure marked on their map as "The House of the Master" a wide berth.
As they proceeded along the road, they could see an angry red glow of
some kind in the fog ahead. After puzzling over this and looking
at the map, they decided it was probably the glow of the volcano marked
on the map.
Since they wanted to travel North East, they turned up a street that
ran diagonally in that direction. One side street they explored
ended in a looming pile of tumbled black slag and ash that sloped
upwards like a mountainside -- obviously the base of the
volcano. They backtracked and began following the street that ran
Northeast again.
As they proceeded through the ruins, they heard a few hooting sounds as
well as the clattering of falling rocks. The group halted and
were silent, straining to see or hear what made the noise but there
were only the ruined and tubled walls and piles of stones as well as
weeds and creepers as far as the eye could see in the perpetual fog
that covered the valley. Trygvie sent his Owl familiar out to
scout the area ahead. Hootie the Owl flew into the mist and soon
came back, reporting that he had found a collection of crude huts
apparently occupied by bugbears on the road directly ahead. A few
more sounds of gravel crunching underfoot and owl hooting sounds (which
Hootie the real owl confirmed as not actually having been made by owls
but rather by other creatures imitating owls) convinced the group that
the bugbears were on the move towards them, probably with hostile
intent.
The group decided to ready an ambust and immeadiately ducked behind
clumps of weeds and piles of masonry. Unfortunately, Wilbered the
Cleric slipped on a pile of loose stones and fell sprawling into the
road with his armor clattering, just as a gang of Bugbears
emerged from the fog ahead. With outraged howls the Bugbears
hurled javelins at the hapless priest, wounding him several
times. Wilbered began running down the road with the Bugbears
giving chase.
As the Bugbears ran past the other player characters, the group sprang
their trap. They leapt from their hiding places and began hacking
into the goblinoids. A whole gang of the monsters surrounded Mace
and began battering at him with their morningstars. Several more
engaged the rest of the party. Javelins began raining down on the
rest of the group and it soon became apparent that the Bugbears were
springing their own ambush from the ruins surrounding the player's
position. A fireball from Trygvie helped even the odds a bit but
Bugbear morale held even as they fell under the party's weapons.
Finally the Bugbears attempted to break and flee and most of them were
slaughtered. One badly wounded bugbear limped off into the fog
with Kane in hot pursuit.
Kane was suddenly aware that he was coming dangeously close to the
Bugbear village. With grunts and howls the bugbears hurled more
javelins, wounding the fleeing monk as he raced back to warn his
friends. The group decided to retreat back the way they had came
and work their way up a series of side streets and pass around the
approximate location of the Bugbear village.
It was fairly easy to retrace their steps. In the faint distance
they could hear angry snarls and growls but since none of them spoke
goblin, they could not understand what was being said. The
bugbears had lost fifteen of their number in their last encounter with
the group; this, perhaps, discouraged the goblinoids from forcing
another encounter.
The side street led to a broad, weedgrown avenue. The players
began to head east down this wide street until they began hearing the
sound of bugbears shouting in anger. Since they were wounded and
out of useful spells, they elected to retreat and cut through narrow
streets further north, hopefully passing around the bugbear settlement.
Eventually the ruins ended and the party found themselves following a
muddy path through marshy fields and woods. The heat was
oppressive and the flies and gnats were thick. There were dense
trees to the north and the path led them to the shore of a muddy lake
ringed with reeds and waterplants. The air was filled with the
sounds of frogs and insects. An old road, with weeds growing
between the paving stones, led north and south. The footprints of
bugbears, ogres and other creatures, along with humans wearing boots or
shoes could be seen in the mud that lay in pools along the abandoned
road. Since the map they had taken from Cirdis indicated
that the shrines lay to the North, the party followed the road North.
Two huge crumbling temples, shrouded with creepers and vines,
emerged from the mist ahead. The road led between the two
buildings and into the dark woods beyond. A narrow, weed grown
path branched off either side of the road and led to the front
enterances of the shrines. They had reached the Shrines of Teyr
and Muir at last. Both shrines had broken and crumbled pillars;
the shrine on the left was decorated with stone carvings of hawks and
an upward pointing sword; the shrine on the right featured an eagle and
a sword with the point facing downward. Since the players
recalled that the hawk was the symbol of Muir, they elected to explore
the lefthand temple first. They hoped to deposit Tayleen's bones
somewhere here and continue on their hunt for Cirdis, their enemy.
Inside the temple was dimly lit by light coming in large holes in the
roof. A large statue of a woman in armor with a sword and shield
lay smashed on the floor. The head of the statue had been broken
off and lay by a cracked altar stone. The statue had apparently
once stood on a large round stone base with an inscription in an
unknown tongue upon it. Everything --- the walls, floor, broken
statue and altar -- was covered in grafitti written with blood,
charcoal, paint or a mixture of these substances. Trygvie
recognized that some of the grafitti was Orc and spelled out various
crude insulting suggestions; other inscriptions were in an unknown
language. The inscription upon the pedestal was also in an
unknown tongue; Wilbered thought the ancient runes looked familiar (and
they did bear a striking resemblance to the runes upon Tayleen's blade,
now carried by Zuran). He thought that perhaps he had once seen
runes of this nature in the library back in his Seminary days, but
Wilbered had never been a particulary diligent student and couldn't
remember anything alse about the letters.
Trygvie cast a Comprehend Languages
spell and read the inscription on the staues base. It said, "Speak, O Warrior, Stouthearted and True,
the triune virtues of our valorous lady." The group
surmised that if they were to say aloud three qualities that were
sacred to Muir that they might have something revealed to them that
might help indicate where to go and what to do next. They spent
quite a bit of time saying various words aloud, hoping these might
serve as the trigger, all to no avail. Trygvie even made a
list. They then decided to clean off the grafitti from the
statue, the altar and the head. Mace began cleaning the statue,
Zuran the altar and Castor the head of the statue. Mace and
Castor were harmed when two of the runes they wiped away discharged
some sort of magical energy.
The group then decided to explore the second shrine. They
proceeded down the path and across the road to the second
building. As they climbed the stairs, four blood red skeletons
ran out of the darkness and attacked them with bloodcaked swords.
After slaying one of the monsters, Wilbered raised his holysymbol,
called upon the power of Cuthbert and blasted the monsters to flinders.
They searched the second shrine and found it much like the first.
Instead of a statue of a female warrior, a central pedestal held the
staue of a seated man in robes. The staue had once grasped a
sword; all that was left was a broken stone stump. The staues
head had been knocked off and was missing. Like the other chapel,
much grafitti was in evidence. The players decided to return to
the chapel of Muir.
They returned and laid the bones out upon the altar and chanted every
word that had anything to do with honor, valor or paladinhood that they
could come up with. Mace asked if the rest of the party thought
that they had fulfilled their promise to deliver the bones of Tayleen
by bringing them here, but Trygvie pointed out that they had promised
to deliver the bones to the tomb,
not the shrine. Castor pointed out that there was a "tomb
enterance" marked on their map.
The session ended here.
Character
|
class/race
|
player
|
xp at start
|
xp at end
|
|
Zuran
|
human fighter
lvl 3
|
npc
|
4816 |
5534
|
|
Mace
|
Human fighter
lvl 7
|
Mike D.
|
20438 |
21874
|
|
Wilbered
|
Human Cleric
lvl 6
|
npc
|
19424 |
20142
|
|
Castor Bean
|
Human Bard
level 6
|
Steve B.
|
15023
|
16459
|
|
Kane
|
Human Monk
Level 6
|
Al G.
|
17642
|
19078
|
|
Trygvie
|
Elven Wizard
level 6
|
npc
|
17198 |
17916
|
|