Toilday, 24 Rova
Time has not flowed linear for me these past few days. At times, it seems I’ve been places that I have yet to go to, while other times I completely lose track of where I’ve been. The side passage, the conversation with Ameiko, the return of the incriminating notes to her …
It might be that I’m still just stressing out about the claws. Nobody has said anything, so either they didn’t see it, or they think it unworthy of comment (unlikely) or they are blanking it from their mind as one would a traumatic experience.
But the stress must not be mine alone. Kyras, against our expectations and wishes, yesterday returned the notes we found to Ameiko, on the theory that they were private property. To me, and to several others, these seemed evidence of a crime, or several crimes, and it seemed complicit to quietly return those. I don’t think we were of a mind as to what to do with them, but returning them wasn’t foremost, I’m sure.
And Kyras refused to discuss it. He got so angry he left the group. And so we find ourselves one fewer.
But well before that — or was it after? again, time has lost its normal flow to me this last week or two — we discovered a most fascinating room. It was perfectly spherical, but objects were floating in it as if in a bowl of water. No that’s not right either, because objects in a bowl tend to sink or float, not choose a point in the middle. Something about this room allowed objects to simply float in the middle.
There was a ragged book[110], a scroll[112], a dead raven (complete with maggots)[109], a twisted iron wand[111], and a bottle[113]. The walls were plated in some sort of red metal, and black lightning bolts kept shooting randomly from plate to plate. There appeared to be discomforting words formed by the bolts, like WRATH, and DESTROY ENEMIES, KILL, CONQUER.
Unconcerned, Sabin tied a rope around himself and went for a float. He helped retrieve the items mentioned above, and seemed to suffer no (further) ill effects.
It was commented that this would make a very lucrative attraction, but it was pointed out that without knowing what created the magic here, we’d be playing with fire. I did a read magic and determined the scroll was a scroll of burning hands.
Sedgwick read over the book, and announced it seemed to be a prayer book for LaMashtu, the mother of all monsters. The little demon we killed was apparently a “quasit”. The book was full of all sorts of fun LaMashtu facts, like an altar dedicated to LaMashtu appears to have dirty water oozing from it. Hey, we’ve seen one of those.
When we returned, I brought the garrison commander up to date on almost everything. He agreed to place a guard at the goblin barracks in case anything were to try to come into the city that way.
But as a party, we realized, we were all running a bit short of gold. And since the city was unlikely to pay us for our work to date, we felt that the items we’d found, if they had any value, should belong to us. And so it came to pass that we tried to sell the giant statue of the stern angry mistress that we’d found. Writing on the bottom identified it as “Elaznist”. Sedgwick thought that might be one of the ancient rune lords.
So we hauled it away — no easy task — and decided as a group to try to sell it. To someone, for some proper amount of money.
With time on our hands, we were able to inspect the items we’d retrieved a bit more. The wand, as I saw it, was a wand of shocking grasp with 28 charges. I am carrying it currently.
That evening, Kyras and Nolin and I were at the inn when there was a ruckus. A woman ran in claiming her husband had been attacked by a goblin. Avia, Sabin, and Olithar had remained at the glassworks factory, so we sent word to meet us at this woman’s house and we rushed to help.
And it really was a goblin. And her husband, I’m afraid, really was dead. And unfortunately (but we didn’t tell her) being used as goblin food. It didn’t take too much effort for three people to hunt it and kill it, but the poor husband didn’t have the advantage of superiority in numbers, nor a decent weapon.
I arranged for some pie for the kids, and a room for the family and we cleaned up the scene a bit so the woman wouldn’t have to. Father Zanthus will take care of the arrangements for a service.
Wealday, 25 Rova
Olithar got creative and seems to have made money for us all. Today he has sold the right to visit the things we found in the tunnel (altar, cells, etc.) — which we refer to as “the historical area” — for 1000gp, and arranged to sell the statue on consignment. It may go for again as much if all goes well.
But with cash in hand, all of us who needed additional training was able to afford same.
Avia, Sabin, Rigel, Nolin, and myself needed 100gp for our “continuing education credits.”
Sedgwick needed 150gp, and Kyras needed 200 gp. Of our 1000gp we’d received, this left 150gp. We purchased 2 scrolls of identify and 2 scrolls of cure light wounds for 25gp and 50gp, respectively, leaving 75gp in the party’s coffers.
And it was now, on Wealday, Lamashan 9, I think, that Kyras tried to thwart the will of the group. While Avia and Olithar were adamant that he’d done wrong, I was just upset because we hadn’t had a chance to decide as a group. It might have been the case that we’d make the same decision, but whether we did or not it was not supposed to be a personal decision but a shared one.
Ah well. He seems quite the independent spirit .. perhas our paths will cross again.
Oathday, Lamashan 10
In reading through Tsuto’s journal, there was mention of a sacrifice on “the Thistlestop altar” so we think perhaps our next clue will be found there. We do not expect the Thistlestop goblins to throw a party in honor of our arrival, so we are proceeding cautiously. I am carrying one of the scrolls of CLW as I’m one of the few that has a decent chance of using it if needed.
Despite our caution, it seems I was wrong. The goblins have thrown us a party. You could say they’ve invited us to dinner. I suppose it’s hard to be stealthy to a goblin in its home turf.
Battle ensued .. more details the next time I sit down.