Sunday, Lamashan 27, 4707; Sandpoint, Evening

It has been more than a fortnight since our return to Sandpoint. We were fortunate in that the proceeds from selling the loot we recovered thus far at Thistlestop were more than enough for all of us to train and purchase equipment and supplies.

We’re all quite busy with training and preparations for a return to Thistlestop. All of us that is except for Sedjewick.

Earlier tonight Sedjewick met with us at The Rusty Dragon and announced he was leaving south for Magnimar. In fact he would be accompanying the ranger Shalelu, who was heading down to investigate rumors of some sort of undead uprising within that ancient city. Sedjewick seemed quite enthusiastic about the journey, and exceptionally excited to be traveling with Shalelu. Rigel seemed oddly put off by this entire chain of events.

We felt compelled to join them on this trek to ensure that any infestation of undead was exterminated, but our first priority was to complete the exploration of Thistlestop. And so it was with a heavy heart we bid farewell to Sedjewick, our trusty bard.

Master Foxglove, the stylish young man we rescued from the initial goblin invasion weeks ago, has begun to hang around our group and asking to be taken along on one of our quests. I am afraid he little realizes the perils of our activities, and his death would seem the most likely outcome if his wish were granted.

Yesterday I purchased a scimitar from the local smithy. It is a fine weapon, and of much better quality than the old second hand model I have been using. Tomorrow I resume my training and hope to improve my fighting techniques with my new and improved blade.

Saturday, Neth 2, 4707; Sandpoint, Evening

We’ve purchased additional healing potions and are set to return to Thistlestop in the morning.

Sunday, Neth 3, 4707; Thistlestop, Evening

The trip back to Thistlestop was uneventful.

We carefully scouted the mainland encampment and found signs that goblins had indeed been there while we were away. There were goblin corpses from a tribe we could not identify, but they were already rotting and there was no sign of recent activity.

I do wonder about those goblin bodies, and if we have created some sort of goblin power vacuum that will increase the conflicts among the local tribes. One can hope.

Nolin and Kane climbed up to the top of Thistlestop and cast over a rope to the rest of us waiting at the cliff’s edge. We then pulled the rope bridge over and made it secure.

Once back on Thistlestop we searched for signs that anyone had been on the island, but found nothing. Kane climbed over the fortress wall and opened the gate for the rest of us to enter.

We decided to leave the rope bridge intact even though we knew it would no doubt encourage visitors of the goblin kind while we were within, but we did bar the fortress gates closed behind us.

Our first order of business was to explore the chamber we had missed last time. I had discovered this omission after we had returned to Sandpoint where I updated my journal and looked over the maps and sketches I had made of where we’d been.

Sabin and I spent a little time magically washing out the goblin latrine, which was next to the chamber, and indeed behind the privy itself Rigel found a secret door that opened into a small dusty room. A very large sea chest with a heavy lock invitingly lay on the floor.

Rigel picked the lock and managed to avoid a poison blade trap and we moved the chest into the nearby conference room.

The chest was heavy, and contained a fair amount of coins and a number of valuable items.

7432 copper pieces
2490 silver pieces
89 gold pieces
3 platinum pieces

While it might take some effort to get the coinage back to Sandpoint, the total value of the coinage was still a respectable 442gp, 3sp and 2cp.

[183] leather pouch with 34 flawed malachites [~1gp each] (Rigel)
[184] medium chain-mail shirt (Nolin)
[185] medium masterwork scimitar (Olithar)
[186] masterwork manacles (Rigel)
[187] gold holy symbol of Sarenrae (Avia)
[188] jade necklace (Rigel)
[189] fine blue silk gown with silver trim (Avia)

The scimitar was as good as the one I had just recently purchased, and it is indeed a pity we did not find this treasure earlier.

It took most of the afternoon to sort through the items in the chest, after which we stored it back in the secret chamber.

We’ve set up camp in Ripnugget’s old throne room.

Moonday, Neth 4, 4707; Thistlestop, Morning

The night passed without event… sort of. I had a very disturbing dream from which I awakened suddenly and found that I was breathing hard and my heart was racing. I remember hearing a voice from way down deep below saying, “The Whisperer shall have vengeance!”

Most peculiar. Typically dreams don’t bother me, but this one gave me the creeps. And who or what might a “whisperer” be?

Moonday, Neth 4, 4707; Thistlestop, Afternoon

We spent the early morning hours in the level below the fort, making sure nothing had crept in (or out) in our absence. We then descended to the lower level and proceeded to the chamber where Avia had detected evil.

I used a Detect Undead spell to find three entities of moderate power hiding in or behind the sarcophagi at the far end of the room.

We marched in and opened each sarcophagus as we slowly moved toward back of the room. There was naught but old bones and dust in these, but before we were half way across the room three humanoid shadows floated up and hovered above their sarcophagi.

We attacked, but with disastrous results. The lightest touch from these ghostly fiends weakened those of mortal flesh. Avia, Kane and Sabin all felt their strength ebb before we managed to destroy the shadows.

I had some restorative magic memorized, and I was able to restore Sabin’s strength with two Lesser Restoration spells. The others will have to wait for tomorrow, or even the day after for full restoration.

While exploring the remaining sarcophagi Rigel noted their asymmetrical placement, and discovered a secret door on the west wall. Beyond it was a narrow corridor that branched to the north before turning north itself.

Rigel, Trask, Nolin and I crept in and found that beyond both the branch and the turn were steps leading down. Each of the stairs ended in a door, and from behind each door we could here the soft sound of moving water.

The door at the far end of the corridor opened west into a flooded hallway that ran north, disappearing in a large dark pool of water.

The door at the end of the branch opened north into an empty room, the north- west corner of which had caved in, revealing a dark space beyond, and through which water had poured, flooding that part of the room.

The walls of this room had been carved to depict a treasury filled with coins and gems, while the right wall had a carving of a mountain. Upon the mountain’s peak was a stern face, and at the mountain’s foot was a city of many spires.

Rigel moved to the corner of the room and peered in through the wide crack and saw shiny objects glittering in her torch light, and a giant gold helmet that pivoted to face her. She quickly backed away.

I then crept down the flooded hallway and saw the submerged chamber where the huge helmet sat, partly below and partly above the water’s surface. It rotated around to face me.

I then plunged an ever-burning torch into the water, which lit up enough of the underwater scene that we could see that a large portion of this lower level had collapsed and tilted towards the west (the same as the statue lined hallway above). Part of the floor had given way and slid down into a natural cavern farther below.

There was no magic that we could detect within, and how the helmet moved to apparently track our presence puzzled us mightily.

Sabin can see in the dark, and so we covered our ever burning torches while he peered into the flooded chamber from the empty room. The helmet pivoted around to face him.

I moved a little closer to the helmet from the hall as Nolin did the same from the room. All of a sudden a pair of large crab-like claws snapped out from beneath the helmet and hit Nolin.

A massive crab must have taken up residence in the helmet like a hermit crab, but on a much grander scale. We struck back and between the physical blows and magical attacks (I used Heat Metal on the helmet to some useful affect) we managed to kill the giant crab and cook our dinner all in one fell swoop.

Using ropes and a lot of elbow grease we pulled the giant helmet out from the pool, and then extracted the crab meat. The helmet was an actual plated gold helmet, but made for a giant.

I remembered some bit I read before about how the Rune Lords had equipped giants in their wars, and realized this helmet must be a relic from that period.

We scoured the underwater room for valuables, and Sabin even swam down into the lower cavern to fetch a few gem stones we saw glistening below.

3537 silver pieces
645 gold pieces

This added another 995gp and 37sp worth of coins to our haul, but we also found some interesting objects as well.

[190] 40 precious stones [~10 gp each] (Olithar)
[191] jade amulet : +1 natural armor (???)
[192] helmet [giant] [~300 pounds]

We were quite disappointed that we did not find a seven rayed star to use as a key for the double doors in the hidden area of the complex. We decided to rest for the evening, restore what strength we could in the morning, and then search the two rooms we had only briefly looked at last time.

We’ve made an early camp down here and set up the watch. I hope I don’t have any more peculiar dreams tonight.

Toilday, Neth 5, 4707; Thistlestop, Noon

We returned to the area hidden behind the column of gold coins.

Our first stop was the “king room”, where we had seen the ghostly image of an ancient Rune Lord giving a fragment of a speech over and over again. We found nothing new here.

The laboratory was a different story. Looking more closely at the tables and their contents we found a gruesome collection of bones that gave the appearance that someone was trying to graft parts of one creature (or person) onto another. It brought back memories of the disfigured skeletons we found in the cells beneath Sandpoint.

On one of the tables was a collection of surgical tools, and beneath these was a silver and gold seven rayed star. We had found the key to the mysterious double doors!

[193] surgical tools (Sabin)
[194] silver and gold seven rayed star with knobs and blades (Kane)

Out at the doors Kane used the key and the doors opened into the room as a blast of hot, humid air enveloped us.

In the middle of the room was a fire pit ten foot long and five wide, and on either side was a wooden bench upon which candles brightly glowed. On the far wall was engraved a huge seven rayed star. The entire room radiated magic.

Avia detected a strong presence of evil in the southeast corner as we filed into the room and arrayed ourselves for battle.

Avia charged in and slashed at some invisible foe just as it became visible.

It was a large wolfish looking creature with primate like arms and hands. It growled something evil sounding — Sabin later said it spoke in Abyssal, and said “I will devour you!”

It was a strong creature, and incredibly difficult to hit, or even when hit it appeared somehow resistant to injury. None the less we were many, strong, and undaunted and pressed our attack. Soon the creature blinked over to the other side of the room, and from then on winked in and out from sight as we hewed and hacked at it.

Eventually it simply vanished in a cloud of greasy black smoke.

Other than the candles and fire pit, there was not much of interest in this room until we found two secret alcoves. While one simply contained empty shelves, in the other we found a silver box filled with sand.

Carefully sifting through the sand we found a magic ring with a seven pointed star inscribed upon it. This ring proved to be able to generate a wall of +2 force shield that can be quickly and easily activated or deactivated.

[195] 30 ever burning candles (Olithar)
[196] silver box (Rigel)
[197] ring of +2 force shield [free action to activate/deactivate] (Trask?)

We must now decide what is left to do here.

And what of this room itself? What was its purpose? Is it now a simple benign location, or is there something more sinister to find here?

The part of the complex that houses the squid beast remains unexplored, and we would be remiss if we were to leave it so. Still, I’d rather not kill some harmless beast that happens to live there if that can be avoided.

And what about the bizarre drawing of a huge goblin beneath the island of Thistlestop? We appear to have explored all of the way down to the sea level without finding any such chamber or creature — I wonder if a goblin had wandered down in years past and saw the giant helmet, and then embellished his report of the helmet with the tale of a suitably sized goblin to go with it.

Sunday, 3 Neth

After much discussion among ourselves, we determined the highest level of comfort seemed to be reached with everyone maintaining their own finances. We shall sell off much of the items we’d recovered and then split the proceeds evenly. If a weapon or armor or magical item is found that somebody else wants to carry or use, they can make a case that it is a ‘group item’ and ought not count against their share, or failing that, have the value of that item deducted from their share.

Things like healing potions and magic weapons we have generally agreed benefit the group as a whole even if wielded or used by only one person at a time, so they have an almost automatic exclusion from group sales. We do not have enough healing potions to have one per person at this time, and while my quarterstaff skills are indeed impressive, those wielding edged weapons are generally closer to the front lines and even more impressive in their ability to slice and dice foes, and it is no small surprise they also tend to be in greater need of healing. I was, however, granted a silver dagger [107] as I do have skill with a dagger, and silver weapons sometimes serve a useful purpose.

It was in the midst of this accounting that we learned Sedgewick was leaving us. He did do us the courtesy of letting us know. Shalelu, the ranger elf, had mentioned something of undead in Magnimar to him and quicker than you could say “ooo, shiny” he was off with her to go score another original tail — oops, I mean original tale, and song.

So we had one less share to allocate so while it was sad to see him go (Rigel seemed particularly affected by his leaving), it did mean a little more for the rest of us. We did decide to allocat one share of the proceeds for ‘group purposes’ which is to say the healing potions I spoke of. If we are wildly successful, it may someday be enough to buy larger equipment like carts or the like. This time, we bought 3 cure moderate wounds potions [177][178][179] at 800gp total and that used up all but 16.8 gp.

Besides, since learning the additional spells I have less need of the weapon physical; a thing I think I will grow to appreciate as time passes. But I get ahead of myself.

My share was 816 gold, 8 silver (or the equivalent, at least.) Add that to the money I already had and I appear to be a rich man indeed. I need to consider how best to carry such wealth around with me. If carried all in coin, it weighs me down some 16 pounds! But some things constrained to reduce this problem for me.

For one thing, I’ve known for some time that I wanted to consult with other sorcerors to learn more spells. It’s not going to just happen one day that I wake up with a new spell, so this newfound wealth provided me the means to seek out a … well, perhaps not a master, but more of a mentor. A paid mentor, of course, but Elgin charged a fair price of 100gp per week, which covered materials, a solid but utilitarian lunch on Moonday, Wealday, and Fireday, and even, I suppose, repairing the bit of fire damage his laboratory suffered as I practiced new spells.

But I can say that after 3 weeks and 300 gp, I do now exhibit a hesitant mastery of the spells detect poison, mending, mage armor, color spray, and flaming sphere in addition to my others. And as with my other fire spell, the flaming sphere seems to burn a little hotter than one might expect. I did not reveal all my secrets to Elgin, but being a sorceror himself he did raise his eyebrows and remark, “I suspect there are some scales in your heritage,” but said nothing again on the subject.

I also bought for myself a better distance weapon than a sling. It’s not fancy, but at least my heavy crossbow [182] might actually hurt something physically rather than emotionally (“mommy, that man threw sling pellets at me and almost got me in the eye”). After all that, my funds were down to 516.8gp – 50gp – 2gp for some bolts + 90gp I had previously for a total of 554.8 gp. Still richer than I’ve felt in a while.

That man Foxglove still is taken with our group and wants to come along sometime. I’ve not been rude to him, but several others in the group think that even socializing with him is a waste of our time. Perhaps so, but my father raised me better. I’ll make no promises but see no harm in an occasional conversation.

Others in the group had also taken some time to find trainers/mentors and improved their skills. So it was we all met together again at roughly the same time to return to Thistletop and deal with some unfinished business.

We arrived without incident, although we did find that the “bramble camp” appeared to have been used and there actually was a few goblin bodies there. Oddly, they were not Thistletop clan. (I’m actually able to recognize this sort of thing now.) But we hadn’t seem these markings before.

The bridge was still down, as we left it. We thought about camping here but felt that Thistletop was much more defensible in case of attack, and unanimously agreed to raise the bridge and enter the “fortress”.

This was done without any trouble; Kane and Nolin climbed up with ropes and we restored the bridge. The area around and in the fortress appeared undisturbed.

Olithar was going on and on about something with his maps, and we found out why it pays to have an anal — I mean, detail oriented cleric along. His map seemed to indicate a room or closet or something which seemed to have no door. Since this was close to the, ahem, bathroom, the room with the wall we wanted to search had a less than favorable coating on it, but Olithar and Kane worked their priestly spells to purify the area. Upon an intense search Rigel did find an entrance, and there was a chest behind this door. Rigel checked for a trap, found none, then picked the lock and managed to dodge the trap she didn’t see 🙂

The chest was old, pre-Nualia for sure. Upon opening it we found a giant pile of coins, and items. A treasure chest to be sure.

After a period of time, we compiled this inventory:

7432 copper pieces
2490 silver pieces
89 gold pieces
3 platinum pieces

for a net value of 442.32 gp. Not bad! Being lightly loaded, I volunteered to carry the gp and pp as they could be taken without need for cart and oxen 🙂

Plus there were

[183] a leather pouch with 34 malakite gems (badly flawed); perhaps 1gp each
[184] a medium chain mail shirt
[185] a medium masterwork scimitar (Olithar groaned; he’d just bought one)
[186] a set of masterwork manacles
[187] a gold holy symbol for Sarenray
[188] a jade necklace
[189] a fine blue silk gown w/silver trim

This seemed a good time to sleep, so guards were set and rest was had.

All but Olithar, who slept but had a dream where a voice said to him from somewhere deep, “The Whisperer will have vengeance.”

Perhaps an undigested bit of beef.

Monday, 4 Neth

And so it was that we arose rested and returned to the lower levels. I and Sabin cast Mage Armor upon ourselves and trudged on. Didn’t take long before we found a room that didn’t quite seem empty. Olithar cast detect undead and did indeed find a moderate aura centered on some sarcophagi. 3 shadows emerged from 3 alcoves. We learned, unfortunately, that these creatures could sap strength from our fighters, and they not only became wounded but weak. Kane, Avia, and Sabin all were affected. However, my flaming sphere proved most useful in helping defeat the shadows, and the fact that I could create it and manipulate it from a modest distance made me very happy. Thank you Elgin!

Olithar was able to restore most if not all of Sabin’s strength, but that was all the magic he had for today. The others would need to cope until tomorrow.

Not too far from here appeared to be a couple of rooms with access to pools! Upon further inspection, we concluded it was one pool that had flooded both rooms. At some time in the past, an earthquake, explosion, or some other significant force had cause the walls to collapse and allow water to enter. It was unclear if there was a flow, or whether this was actually a stagnant pool. The rooms themselves seemed ornately decorated; not in an extravagant sense, but in an artistic sense. There were murals and carvings on the walls of the rooms. One mural depicted a tall mountain, and a stern face above the palace in the picture. Below lay an immense city of spires.

This was all interesting enough, but then we noticed in the pool was a giant golden helmet. I mean GIANT, as in “was once worn by”. Couldn’t tell if it was gold-plated or actually gold but all that became irrelevant when it turned to face us. The water here seemed to be 3 to 10 feet deep, so ropes were brought out and people secured before approaching the water (and the helmet). Olithar tried speaking Thasselonian to the helm, whereupon it stood up and we saw the largest seafood dinner EVER. A giant crab was using the helmet as a home. Weapons were launched but between the armor it effectively wore, and its own natural carapace, we didn’t seem to be doing much.

Then Olithar used magic to heat the metal. Clever! He essentially cooked it in an upside down pot! Yes it took some more blows, but it was like cooking a steak without cutting it from the flank. In no time at all, the water around it was steaming and it had stopped moving. Get me some butter! (We did eat well this day.)

Now able to search the pool, we found

3537 silver pieces
645 gold pieces
[190] 40 precious stones (about 10gp each)
[191] a jade amulet (radiated magic)

The amulet, we found, added +1 natural armor. It was determined this magic could not help me, as I already have developed, it seems, a tougher skin and thus already have a better natural armor than others. It went to Rigel.

We discussed if the helmet might be more valuable as a relic than as something to be melted down. Need to think about that some.

[192] helmet, giant (~300 pounds)

This seemed a good place (and time) to rest again. We set up “the usual guards”.

Toilday, Neth 5

The night passed uneventfully. After searching around some more in the laboratory (and seeing the results of what could only have been gruesome experiments) we found a seven pointed star object that looked like it might be the key we need to enter the room behind the double doors.

[193] surgical tools
[194] silver and gold 7-pointed star studded with nodules and spikes

Key inserted, door unlocked, and …

This room was very warm, in no small part to the brazier-style fire in the middle of the room. For an old room, this fire seemed very active. That suggested it was magical. Nevertheless, heat is heat and while it seems to affect me a little less than my companions, it was still uncomfortable. Corners of the room had golden candles. There was a 7-sided star on the wall opposite us. The entire room radiated strong magic (enchantment).

And Avia immediately detected evil.

Trask and Sabin, consequently, immediately cast Mage Armor. Kane blessed us all.

And then the giant wolf-like creature with primate hands and feet stepped into the light and was a bit clearer to us. It didn’t look pleasant. Olithar cast protection from evil on Nolin, and I started up a flaming sphere. It seemed that only magic weapons could hit it.

The creature started blinking, which indicated it was sometimes in our plane and sometimes not. That made it harder to hit, but also made it harder to hit us. I started up a second flaming sphere. After a round or two of maybe hitting it, maybe not, and after what appeared to be a ferocious blow by Avia, it disappeared.

After a moment of making sure it had not reappeared, we searched the room. We found

[195] ever-lit candles (30)
[196] coffer
[197] seven-pointed ring — magic

The ring, we learned, generated a wall of force shield in front of the wearer.

There was some discussion about who should wear the ring, but it sounded like I was not going to be gifted with it.

Training has been completed and I have at least a week to myself as the others are still training. I have new spells transferred into my spellbook and have given that stuff to Kane to return. On the way back from the Cathedral to see Kane it occurred to me that I could try out my new spider climb spell by climbing to the top of buildings. I secured my axe and began to climb straight up the side of the closest house. Once on the roof I began running from roof to roof, combined with feather fall I easily traveled across the roof top in sandpoint. The chimney sweeps were a little nervous at first but you can’t under estimate the calming effect of a couple of rounds of free Ale. Three days after starting my roof top running routine a couple of town guards met me coming out of the Rusty Dragon and informed me that the duty commander wanted to have a discussion about my activities of late. At the garrison I was informed that running on the roofs was not proper. I tried to explain that I was training for the day when Sandpoint was invaded once again and I would need to chase those invaders across the roof tops to keep sandpoint safe. I even told him that the chimney sweeps were fine with my activity. Turns out that people are nervous about see a half-orc running across their roof tops. I have reluctantly agreed to not run across the roof tops any more, unless sandpoint is under attack. It’s not like I was hurting anyone and no one complained about any damage or noise as a result of my training. Something about law abiding citizens expecting some measure of law and order in their lives. Well at least I got in several days roof running before I was oppressed by the law. So my days of roof running have come to an end, at least until the next attack against Sandpoint anyway.

After spending a couple of days buying rounds of ale for the watch commander to ease over the tension over the roof incident I decided it was time for something new. I was walking over by the glassworks near the cliff when it suddenly occurred to me that this is a great cliff for improving my timing with feather fall. This is a great place to jump off, free fall most of the way and then use feather fall near the bottom to prevent injury. I always wondered what it was like to fall off a cliff; unfortunately it is only a few seconds of failing. Given enough height this free falling thing could be a lot of fun. Everything was going great, and after a couple of days I was able to get the timing down. I could easily run jump off the cliff, cast feather fall just before the ground and keep running. As I said everything was going well until I was handed a note by a guard from the watch commander with a very simple message.

Sabin,
Please stop jumping off the cliff, people keep reporting someone falling to their death.

And so ends my Sandpoint Cliff jumping days. I guess being 1 of the 2 half-orcs in Sandpoint make it pretty easy for the watch commander to figure out it was me. If we were back in Magnimar there would be a lot more half-orcs so they wouldn’t know that it was me. Being linked with the other half-orc who smells like his garbage is not making it easy to get along with the folks in Sandpoint.