Sessions 27-28 Recap & Experience Points Awards

The Wildcats bound their prisoner with rope and marched him west across the village, as the last remnants of evening sun finally sank below distant peaks.  Tromping amid the crickets   toward the Old Lordhouse, the company came soon upon a familiar voice.  “Oh, a relief to see you,” said Bom Zumero, the jeweler’s son whom the company had first met on arriving in Admark.  “I was afraid you were still at the tower.”

“Why’s that?” replied the mage Greyndalf, sincerely mystified at the boy’s concern.

“The Leddle gang set off that way.  Ten, maybe twelve strong," the boy replied.  "Armed to the teeth—and looked to be spoiling for a fight.”

There could be little hope the Leddle gang hadn’t reached the tower already.  They would find it unsecured, and undoubtedly take up defensive positions inside.  But the Wildcats had a different objective in mind.  Thanking Bom Zumero for the intel, the company proceeded west across Admark to the Leddle gang’s main redoubt: the Old Lordhouse.

The smell of garbage and waste greeted the company as they stepped onto the Lordhouse grounds.  The manor itself sat atop a small hill, with a steep, looping ramp climbing to its front gate.  To the right of the ramp, the Leddle gang had evidently installed a makeshift landfill, while weeds and grasses choked old flowerbeds and garden spaces to the left.  In a nod the Sun Tzu maxim to “appear weak when you are strong,” the main company set off along the rise while the rogue Schlemeel skulked through the garbage pit.

The gnome’s skulking wasn’t nearly so skillful as he’d planned, however.  For his footfalls awoke some sleeping beast that resided in the trash pit, and then a second—and one of the shambling trash beasts grabbed hold of the rogue and nearly crushed him to death.  Luckily, after a tense few moments Schlemeel was able to wriggle free when his comrades intervened.  He climbed to safety as the Wildcats set the garbage pit on fire.

The conflagration naturally did not escape the Leddle gang’s notice, of course—and they now stood in numbers along the towers and battlements of the lordhouse, crossbows in hand.  Three more waited outside the front gate, and demanded the company disarm.  But the Wildcats had other ideas.

“We’ve already killed the men you sent to the tower,” the sorcerer Onog bluffed.  “Now you work for us.  Open the gate and receive your new masters.”

If the half-orc’s reproach alarmed any Leddle man, it was too dark to tell—except, perhaps, by the refusal of the gatehouse sentries to readmit the trio that retreated to the lordhouse after aggressively greeting their visitors.  The Wildcats followed closely behind, and the battle commenced as the first Leddle crossbow bolt rained down on the company. 

The Wildcats could stand little chance exposed before the gatehouse with missiles falling upon them from three directions.  So the wizard Greyndalf employed his knock spell to unfasten the gatehouse door, and the company’s strongest warriors quickly pushed through the breach. 

It did not take long for the party to secure the gatehouse, as Jowdain the dwarf brought his axe through several of the desperate guards while his comrades blasted others with spells.  

The gatehouse commander sounded an alarm; then, in view of the hopeless situation unfolding before him,  scrambled up a ladder.  Jowdain tried following him up, but was forced to retreat as several Leddle warriors awaited him at the top.

It was then that the company noticed the iron grate across the gatehouse ceiling—and several men dragging some kind of barrel onto it.  Sensing the danger, the Wildcats burst through the nearest doorway and into a tarnished old foyer, where several more Leddle fighters engaged them.  The ranger Unagi immediately called forth a spike growth incantation to lay a carpet of pain in his enemies paths, while Greyndalf devastatingly detonated a fearsome fireball in their midst.

Those Leddle warriors who survived the fire blast retreated deeper into the Lordhouse, as another team of Leddle crossbowmen swung open a door behind the company and attacked.  Led by Jowdain, the Wildcats charged the crossbowmen as Onog hurled flaming meteors at them.  Driven by their stern commander, the crossbowmen fought fanatically—but were soon chopped them down, along with their stout captain.  But this encounter had moved the company back under the gatehouse grate, and the Leddle men above quickly toppled a barrel of lamp oil to coat three party members. 

Greyndalf turned a gust of wind vertical that howled through the ceiling grate, lifting the four enemies and off their feet and pinning them to the ceiling, as droplets of lamp oil pelted them in the breeze.  Schlemeel and Unagi then teamed up on an especially cruel plan, the ranger pouring oil into the roaring upward draft while the rogue ignited the same with his burning hands.  The resulting column of flame quickly incinerated the foes, leaving little behind as the raging fire burned swiftly through its fuel and vanished in the relentless wind.

No sooner had the Wildcats defeated these men than yet another wave of Leddle warriors rushed from the foyer.  Onog greeted them with two more well-placed meteor strikes, and the company’s warriors charged back in to finish them off. 

Finally, the Wildcats proceeded up the steep, wide double-staircase of the foyer.  A young, hooded elven woman awaited them at the top, behind a line of Leddle men and a grey-skinned dwarf.  She complimented the company on their “ruthlessness,” drawing her blade all the same.  “We could use men like you,” the elf allowed.  “Trust you?  We cannot.  But oh, if only we could.”

The elf cackled a hostile laugh as she finished her remarks, and the warriors before her charged to engage the Wildcats in melee.  Only then did yet another figure appear—a tall, dark-clad rogue type with a gleaming short sword.  Jowdain never saw him coming, and took a withering stab from the figure’s blade—but the cleric Gambol had interceded with the enchantments of Cygnival, and drew half of the vicious blow unto himself. 

The dark figure then stared intently into Unagi’s eyes, and the ranger felt a mystical tug at the frayed wires of his mind—but enchantment did not take hold.  Meanwhile Greyndalf blew two of the fearsome Leddle guards off a nearby ledge with his gust of wind, then another, and another.  They looped around, climbing the stairs to rejoin the battle.  But the moments of inaction had cost them.

The Wildcats focused their attacks on the elven woman.  She quickly drank a potion of healing to recover almost all the damage from a vicious first strike, but could not long withstand the company’s concerted attacks.  When she soon fell silent, along with the first of her stalwart bodyguards, the dark figure dissipated into nothing.  An admission of defeat, it was—though a silent one.  Greyndalf, not satisfied with this, blasted the base of one far staircase with a ray of frost just in hopes of catching the fleeing rogue there.  But if he did, there was no sign of success.

Meanwhile the four remaining guards recalculated their prospects, coming quickly to the obvious decision.  “We can just call this off,” one declared.  “Nothing to fight for now.”

The company accepted the surrender, but intended to take the Leddle men captive.  On seeing this, two of them bolted and were simply let go.  The remaining pair, their egress blocked by Wildcat blades, threw down their swords and prepared for the worst.

“Who was that?” asked the ranger Unagi, pointing to the fallen elf.

“We called her ‘Akinara,’” said the first captive.  “Bold elf of the south.  She was.”

“And that man?” followed Greyndalf.  “The one who disappeared?”

“Well, that was Dicant Leddle.”

The captives pointed the way to the Leddle Brothers’ chambers, leading the Wildcats around a corner and to a brief hallway with three iron-banded doors.  “That one’s the vault,” the Leddle captive volunteered.  “Probably dangerous.”

Unagi’s find traps incantation soon confirmed the prisoner’s estimation, and that the nature of the peril was a combination of mechanical and chemical means.  Brief experimentation on the door by way of mage hand released on poison dart rigged to shoot from a number of small holes around the door, and then a second.  A single false movement would do it.

Greyndalf retrieved one of the darts, sniffed and eyed the poison.  “Ah,” said the mage.  “The dart carries the smell of the almond.  A very dangerous poison, this may be.” 

Adventure Notes

Refuse Shambler.  Between the poor background visibility and their position deep in the trash pit, you never really managed a great look at the monsters you encountered in the garbage pit outside the old lordhouse.  But old woodsmen talk of “shambling mounds”—piles of intelligent vegetation that creep slowly through forests and bogs, engulfing unsuspected animals and persons and crushing them with their giant, heavy “arms.”  These did not seem quite so powerful as those tales would have them, but you’d dubbed these creatures “refuse shamblers” for the distinct resemblance.  So far as you can tell, the refuse shambler is slow moving (speed > 20), but very strong (16 STR) and sturdy (~85 HP).  They resisted Onog’s cold-based attacks, but proved especially vulnerable to fire. 

Become Ethereal.  The Wildcats have not observed beings assuming invisibility too terribly often, but when they have the effect has been instant: the illusion taking rapid effect, with the person vanishing suddenly into thin air. Dicant Leddle’s disappearance was otherwise—a slow fade, during which an increasingly wispy vision of the man remained visible for several seconds.  The cleric Gambol suggested this may have been a different form of invisibility—indeed, not truly invisibility but a different phenomenon altogether.  “The ethereal plane binds our universe to many others,” the cleric posited.  “Everywhere in this world the margins of the ethereal dimension swirl about—like a silent storm, and invisible to most.  But not to all.  And there are even some who can step freely from this world into that one.  Undead, mostly.  Certain magical beings.  Some spells and magic items can do it.”

The cleric paused, as his voice trailed off.  And then became firm once more.  “I have not seen one travel to the to the ethereal borders before,” Gambol concluded.  ”But if I had, surely would I have expected it to appear the same.” 

Experience Points & Inspiration

                Combat/Encounters

In session 27, the company defeated two refuse shamblers and three “Leddle thugs,” four “Leddle guards,” and two “Leddle guards+” in combat.  The battle continued into session 28, in which the party additionally defeated seven Leddle thugs, ten Leddle guards, and a “Leddle Veteran” on the ground floor, before proceeding up the steps to battle Dicant Leddle, his henchwoman Akinara (a fourth-level assassin), and four (Leddle veteran) bodyguards.  The company is awarded 12,900 XP for overcoming these foes.  That divides to an even 2,150 per character.

                Interactions/Role-Playing/Quest progress

In session 27, the company had a brief but successful interaction with Bom Zumero and then a failed, yet entertaining attempt to commandeer the guards at the Leddle gatehouse.  The raging battle left little opportunity for role-playing in session 28, but the company did procure some useful intelligence and cooperation from the surrendered bodyguards of Akinara and Dicant Leddle.  Perhaps more importantly, after mounting an aggressive frontal assault on the Leddle gang’s fortress, the company has managed to secure at least a moment’s peace from the relentless counterattacks.  The company is awarded 600 XP, or 100 XP apiece, for these accomplishments.

                Inspiration

The adventure gods were greatly entertained by the rogue Schlemeel’s misadventures through the trash pit in session 27.  Though the episode may not have transpired exactly as the gnome may have drawn it up, sometimes true inspiration is found in improvisation. 

Undoubtedly the most remarkable segment of session 28 was the Rube Goldberg flame column that combined the efforts of Greyndalf’s gust of wind, Schlemeel’s burning hands, and Unagi’s olive oil.  To award three inspiration points for the singular collaboration does strike the adventure gods as a tad excessive.  But as they say in the halls of RPG Mt. Olympus, “It’s been a while.  So what the heck.”

Final Session 27-28 totals:

• Jowdain acquitted himself well in not battle, garnering 2,750 XP.
• Gambol pleased his deity and is rewarded with 2,750 XP.
• Greyndalf remained a cunning and resourceful (and still reasonably naked) adversary, earning 2,750 XP and one point of inspiration.
• Schlemeel still don’t give a f*k, but he picked up 2,750 XP and one point of inspiration.
• Onog played it cold as ice, and acquired 2,750 XP.
• Unagi looked fresh as ever and gained 2,750 XP and one point of inspiration.