Previously on Orcless Nerdfest (41)

The party immediately set out after the wounded ogre, an easy thing despite his head start. As they approached the ruins of the temple, they noticed a hooded figure astride a stick, lazily describing slow circles over the place from some forty feet up. At the very edge of the wood, Drake gave a signal: bows snapped as one and the figure tumbled from the sky with a despairing shriek. Silence descended–only to be broken as eight huge ogres, moving with unnatural speed, charged full-tilt down the hill. The party slew them, but their enemies’ speed took its toll. Looking up to ascend the hill, the group saw two more figures rise in the air and speed off in different directions.
A search of the upper ruins discovered a crude camp, a letter written to someone named ‘Mirulina’, and a battered black spell book. The letter seemed to hint at some kind of treasure in the temple below, and so the party descended–only to be caught in another terrible battle on the stair, as more ogres rushed forward out of the darkness at unnatural speed. Afterwards, Fath slipped on the curious black ring, winked out of sight, and crept up the long central hall to a glimmering torch. He charmed the woman he saw standing there and then shot dead the badly wounded ogre next to her from the shadows. The witch was a little suspicious, and more so when Drake showed, but she believed the tale they spun of being brigands and murderers (Drake: “Oh, I’m a very bad boy”) and immediately believed she had been betrayed, or abandoned, by her comrades above. Using a rock of darkness, she opened the heretofore-unsuspected secret door behind the little idol in its niche, revealing a pile of treasure, just as Niv’s arrow transfixed her throat. Wasting no time, the party scooped up everything within, and limped clinkingly away and then home.

Previously on Orcless Nerdfest (40)

On their way out to the monastery to track down Dominio’s journal, the party stopped to talk to two men, well-dressed Southerners on their way north into the forest. They took an especial interest in news of dwarves passing through the area, but were otherwise close-mouthed. A brief brouhaha regarding missing Stone Wulfhaar pies erupted–it developed that young Cor had sent them all to the Mermaid, while ordering at least a half-dozen from the Mermaid to be sent to the Stone Wulfhaar. Naturally, both orders were intercepted en route by an unrepentant Cor. He did pass along a scrap of information–that he’d seen birds, large crows or ravens, gathered near Fath’s house as if watching it.
At the monastery, the new librarian managed to produce the journal after a few days of searching. It proved to be interesting, if the work of an apparent madman–tiny writing, much of it in shorthand and heavily annotated, going on for hundreds of pages. Fath spent a week puzzling over it, managing to come up with a few clues, but got the feeling that more was within. It seemed the right answer was to go back to the temple; on the way, the Raven said he’d gotten a message from a place called Blackfalls asking for his protection. He was loath to give it, as they were distant and not up on the ways of blood-gift, but he’d think on it, he said. Venturing north, the party was threatened by an ogre who demanded their gear and weapons; they charged him, only to be ambushed by a cunning trap involving huge spiders, a hideous red-capped creature, and web nooses that nearly strangled them. A terrible battle broke out; two of the horses died hideously, coughing blood and green froth, and Drake was nearly killed by a spider poison only countered by a dose of the mysterious “Sovereign” in the little stone bottle. Mortally wounded, the ogre fled, and the spider-creature died with its minions. We open a minute or two after the battle has ended…

Previously on Orcless Nerdfest (39)

Our scene opened on Drake poised to defend the winding spiral staircase against an increasing horde of skeletons. He smashed them one at a time as they blundered forward into his blade. Meanwhile, Fath threw flasks of oil at the entrance to the stair-chamber, cackling as the mindless undead wandered through the pools, burst into flame, and collapsed. The fires burned bright, and he remembered and then drank his Potion of Control Undead. As the fell presence of some long-dead Rhael lord filled his mind, he sent his newfound skeleton minions against their brethren.
The flames died down at last, leaving heaps of charred bones–scores of skeletons at least. Passing beyond the formerly chained door, the group discovered a seemingly-endless series of catacombs filled with shrouded bodies. They smashed skulls as they went, only to be met by a group of slavering creatures like the ones they’d faced before. A tense negotiation followed, and the party decided to take the creatures’ offer of treasure and flee. Shoveling heaps of coin into every bag, pouch, and sack they had, they lumbered away, jingling at every step, only to hear the weird ululating twitters of the ghouls growing behind them. A desperate race ensued, out of the catacombs and up a 100’ staircase. They jammed the doors shut with worn bronze skeleton-swords and fled for the saner world above.
That night, a mile or two away, Drake was startled a little after midnight to see a black crow land by the fire, appraise him with head cocked, and give a loud “SCRAWK!” before flying away. A confused bird? Or something more?

Previously on Orcless Nerdfest (38)

A brief and uneventful journey home from Oakwell led to rest, recuperation, and a desire to visit Trantoro, a sage or scholar newly arrived in Baerun’s Watch. The pleasant and urbane man offered to identify magical goods, perhaps to buy various Thaarn relics the party might bring him, and to teach Fath a knack or two, including identify. He advised them that he knew much of magic, especially its workings and practice, astrology and divination, and a bit about the local area. He’d be happy to consult in these areas, though it might not be cheap.

That night, an eery white dog summoned the PCs to the Barrow Hill shee, where an enraged Queen Lilianthe demanded compensation for the insult Arbogast had visited upon it. She appeared to cast some kind of spell on them before banishing them back to the fields we know. An aggrieved Fath swore vengeance. The next morning the party decided to head west into the Old Forest to seek Dilys; a message from Crowhame arrived, asking them to visit the Raven on a matter of grave importance. A hunter there, missing for days, had turned up outside the gates demanding fealty to “his lord,” Avoronax, and laughed when the guards filled him with arrows. The party tracked him north, back to the temple beneath the wyvern nest. A fireball cleared out some kind of honor guard of undead, and the party descended to find Avoronax, a long-dead lord, demanding obedience and the return of his stolen lands. In the event, fire told the tale, but the group faced increasing waves of skeletons and zombies and so retreated to the spiral staircase at the entrance, there to make a noble stand…

Previously On Orcless Nerdfest (37)

The party traveled to the Court of the Silver Twilight at first light, journeying nearly a week through idyllic late summer days. It turned out that the chain, “Moonlight’s Durance,” had actually been forged by King Ithilias in his youth nearly 1,000 years ago–the maker’s mark was his, though long-abandoned–and given to the Marchwardens around T.R. 250. The king was particularly interested in King Conor Kenrick, especially his temperament and mien, although he counseled Fath “not to live a life not his own.” This applied as well to news of the temple: Ithilias suggested it be brought to the attention of the humans of Baerun’s Watch, as it didn’t directly concern the Elves. Finally, Elinithil, seeming somewhat subdued and distracted, told of his travels a few centuries before with Dominio, a priest of St Marten who was convinced that the temple-site needed cleansing, and the two of them entered it to find a scene of horror, but no apparent danger. Nevertheless, the elf watched as the priest sealed the doors and prayed many prayers over them. They parted ways soon after; Elinithil saw his friend buried three decades later, and thought that the priest’s journal of the trip had been left to the monastery. On their return journey, a briefly-lost party came across an abandoned barrow mound. They dispatched the hideous creature within and took its grave-goods back to town. On their return, Tormas informed the group that a wizard of some type had moved into an old villa near the Watch. Scarcely pausing to rest and regroup, the party headed out again, this time to the cellar of Arbogast’s castle. Fath discovered that a new knight dressed in sea-blue armor blocked the tunnel; the tunnel to the cellar was clear, the barrel of coins gone, and the secret door wide open. A fireball and some quick sword-work took care of the knight, even as a magical voice shouted “THIEF! YOU HAVE ENTERED MY CASTLE TO YOUR DOOM!” Fath left post-haste, rejoining his friends and heading to Oakwell to spend the night. There was discussion of seeking the sword Glassleaf, last seen deep under the earth at the old Rhael fortress.

Previously On Orcless Nerdfest (36)

The hideous undead offered to give gold in exchange for opening the door to the lower levels of the temple–they were hungry, they said, and wished to feast on what was below. Stalling just long enough to get some oil out of the paralyzed Drake’s pack, Fath led the remaining party members in a surprise attack. A pair of flasks sailed out, Niv lit them with a perfectly-thrown torch, and the undead went up in an eruption of flame. One lunged out, burning,and paralyzed Gorm. The room the creatures had come from had been some kind of rich bedchamber centuries ago; it contained a secret wall panel full of bright Thaarn coins, although opening it released a spring-loaded bolt that staggered Fath in his tracks. The group emerged from the undertemple an hour or so later, Drake and Gorm now recovered, and watched a wyvern performing a strange sort of dance before it dropped a body in front of another, larger wyvern. Both were quickly slain. Nobody recognized the body; it had a bandit look about it though.

Back at Crowhame, Fath returned the Thaarn greatbow to Maeve, but said he wished to investigate the matter of the elven chain among his people. The group prepared to ride for the Court of the Silver Twilight back at the Wulfhaar, discussing the dark dreams they’d had over the past few nights: strange encounters with Uther and the manteion for Drake, a weird self-out-of-self melange for Fath that ended with the vision of a burning plain heaped with webbed corpses. Tomar popped in and volunteered, for the price of a pie for himself and his self-described “colleague,” Cor, that he’d seen a heavily-armed group, loaded with supplies for an extensive sojourn somewhere and in possession of what he thought was some kind of map, head north into the Old Forest after buying up even more food from the Wulfhaar.

Previously on Orcless Nerdfest (35)

Heading deeper into the tangled forest of the hills north of Crowhame, the party encountered an enraged bear who attacked without warning. Aoife the ranger was disturbed by its behavior, although she didn’t believe it was mad. Further on, the party found another dead bear, even larger, that had been torn in half. Its bones seemed pitted and burned like those of the sheep. As they approached a large ruin, they stumbled across the bodies of Aoife’s comrade Marchwardens, right as a huge wyvern attacked. They slew the beast and discovered both Tarunas and some lost gear, including a legendary suit of elven-made chain and a Thaarn greatbow.  She also said that she identified the tracks of at least two other wyverns, and they were fresh.

The group entered some kind of temple or dungeon beneath the upper ruins; Drake turned a group of skeletons, and when they were slain Fath discovered a torn journal page on one of the bodies. They also found a secret door with a disturbing statue–a smaller copy of the one presiding over a deep well in the main nave, except its head was a single gaping mouth. A chained door behind the statue had a scroll leaning against it, with an elaborate warning about breaking the seal. Continuing to explore on the level they were on, they encountered some hideous creatures who stank of the grave. Drake sent one flying with the sign of the Hammer, and they slew three more; but one lunged ahead and struck the paladin into total paralysis. As they edged forward after the creature that had run, they saw a massively fat man, bloated and leering, step into the edge of their circle of light…flanked by perhaps a half-dozen more.