Moonday, 20 Abadius

The service for Olithar is done, and the freshness of his death is beginning to fade a bit. I realized I could do with a bit more training during this apparent lull of lawlessness. I gave 225 gp to Sabin to make me scrolls of see invisible, make invisible, and spider climb while I went to do training.

Although my efforts took about four weeks this time, I am able to spend evenings away from the labs and the specially constructed rooms, and be with the group of people who, I now readily admit, I call friends. It was during these times that we also have come to know a man who, at first, seemed to be watching us. Upon talking with him, it seems it was more a matter of looking for an opportunity to meet with us. The pub provided both.

Takkad, it seems, also has a score to settle with Xaneesha, or at least her followers. He was a member of another band of mercenaries trying to prevent the murders in the city, and he saw many of his friends die. I think he’s out for revenge, yet he seems so calm and measured. “He was always such a quiet man.” On the other hand, he does seem skilled in the healing arts, and we do seem to be a troupe who excels in bloodying themselves.

Upon completion of my training, I also will know two new spells: fireball (in a way, replacing our lost Olithar’s skill) and disrupt undead, a rather low level spell which nevertheless might be able to slowly destroy an undead creature.

Toilday, 11 Calastril

The Mayor called us together to thank us again, and oh, by the way, now that we’ve proven ourselves capable of large difficult tasks, would it be any trouble to take on this one rather small task as, you know, a special favor?

Seems there’s this band of rangers to the east that have been affiliated with Magnimar in the past. They help protect a town over there … Turtleback Ferry. They’d had a little trouble with ogres and the like, but the order of the Black Arrows had helped keep things on an even keel. Except, they haven’t been heard from for a while now. Could we please go see if they were okay? Here’s 300 gold, each. If there’s any trouble, I’m sure you’ll do fine.

Well, this isn’t an afternoon type of thing. This is probably a week and a half to two week journey. That’s just getting there! We’ll be taking a little time to collect items, plus my training isn’t quite done yet.

We’ve decided on several expenditures — horses for all, suitable for light combat, at about 110gp each, and the party is buying an actual bag of holding (type I). I myself decided to acquire a handy haversack. It’s only 5 lbs but is like a bag of holding in that it can carry much more.

Wealday, 12 Calistril

According to the rest of the group, Shalelu approached them today and asked to come along. Rigel gave her a steely eye but her spirits seemed to improve when she learned that the bard Sedgwick had mysteriously disappeared. We’ve unanimously agreed she would be useful to have along, especially since she mentioned she’s familiar with the route to Turtleback Ferry.

Toilday, 18 Calastril

We’re estimating an 8-10 day journey to Turtleback Ferry. We’ll go by way of Nybor (about 3 days distant) which we are told is roughly the size of Sandpoint.

Oathday, 20 Calastril

Arrived at Nybor, about on time. It’s what we were told it would be, except the inns are more pleasant than what I expected.

From here, the Old Sanos Trail leads along the foothills of the Malgorian Mountains. Legend has it that the trail moves if you wish ill to gnomes. It’s funny the superstitions that different areas of the land develop!

Starday, 22 Calastril

Well, Tekkad has already proven his worth! At watch last night he noticed a giant snake trying to make Nolin be a meal rather than a fighter. It was ultimately dispatched, and it will serve as food and maybe trading fodder at the next trading post.

We’re estimating 5 days to Bitter Hollow. Shalelu says we’ll cross the “wicker way” which resembles a boardwalk over what would otherwise be a very marshy trail.

Oathday, 27 Calastril

Again, we made good time and did indeed reach Bitter Hollow in 5 days. Shalelu carefully describes Bitter Hollow as “less civilized” than Turtleback Ferry, and it does seem much more of a frontier town. There’s maybe 50 people or so who seem to reside in or near this town. The Gator’s Nest is the local trading post, and we hastily traded some supplies for our snake meat.

We got to Turtleback Ferry about an hour before dark. The Turtle’s Parlor is the only inn in town, so we set up accomodations and headed to the common room.

We started asking about the rangers, and learned that no rangers had come to town for supplies for several weeks, which was unusual.

Fireday, 28 Calastril

As the innkeeper went about his tasks today, I noticed an odd but significant tattoo on his back. It was a sihedron. When I asked him about it, though, he got angry and denied it was there .. which was odd because I’m sure I saw it.

Eventually he was able to tell us that it indicated he was a regular customer of the Paradise, which was a large boat that offered entertainment like gambling and ladies-for-rent. However, a few weeks ago, the entire boat caught on fire and sank to the bottom of Claybottom Lake, taking a number of customers and presumably the proprietor, an attractive lady, with it.

The same timeframe that the rangers stopped checking in. Coincidence? Maybe.

They never found the boat. It was out in the middle of the lake when it caught on fire. It would come into shore to pick up customers, and then head out to the middle for the evening. Nobody went looking for it because the lake has some serious predators residing in it.

We’ve decided to head north to the Fort and see if we can get to the bottom of this.

Later, 28 Calastril

Never did make it to the fort, but we were seriously distracted.

We had not gone far when Kane and Rigel heard the cries of an animal in pain. Not too far off the trail there was a bear in a trap. Rigel thought this was not a normal bear, and I must admit, I’d have expected a trapped animal to be angry, and it almost seemed to be whimpering. Tekkad healed it, and as Rigel manipulated the lock to release it, we heard the sound of dogs baying in the distance, and getting closer. When released, the bear didn’t run away, and didn’t attack her. It thanked her with big wet sloppy tongue kisses before turning to growl in the direction of the approaching dogs.

We decided to defend the bear.

I pulled out my disguise hat and willed it to make me look more like a hunter. Kane took to a tree. When the dogs burst upon the scene, it was obvious they were trained hunting dogs. They sized up the situation and immediately moved to surround us, although the did look a little hesitant at the size of our party (plus the bear!).

They were quickly dispatched. But interestingly, I tried to give the bear some commands, and he seemed to understand me a little. Clearly this bear was no ordinary bear.

While the fighters were having no trouble with the dogs, I ran in the direction they’d come from. Trained dogs don’t usually hunt alone. And sure enough, trying to keep up with the dogs was coming an ogre! Well, smallish one. And, as it turned out, youngish one.

Also, it really wasn’t a true ogre; those things are huge. But it was some sort of ogre/human cross, called an ogrekin, and appeared to be the mental age of about 5-7 human years old. And it seemed to respond well when treated like a young child too. Rukus, as we found it’s name was, willingly handed over its weapon, and gave us some information about its family before, ultimately, we killed the abomination. We discovered its blanket seemed to be made from a collection of Black Arrow emblems. This did not bode well.

One of the pieces of information he’d provided was that they had captured (and eaten, ugh) humans — given the patches, the rangers from the fort would be a first choice, each of us thought. But it seemed there might be several more ogrekin there, and we weren’t sure how many of those we could handle at one time. Even this young one was amazingly strong.

Avia and Rigel scouted ahead a bit and almost literally stumbled over another ogrekin about Rukus’ size. They managed to dispatch it, but Avia came back with some good bruises and bloody parts.

We retrieved

[244] a +1 ogre hook
[245] A ring of protection +1
[246] A amulet of natural armor, +1
[247] spear, +1
[248] Belt of +2 strength

So it was we decided to call on Mammy and Pappy Ogrekin. We approached a small, previously abandoned homestead. The two prominent features wer a farmhouse on the left, and a barn on the right. Everyone decided to go to the farmhouse.

Although we are usually pretty careful about traps, I’m thinking that the familiar setting of a rural home lulled us into a sense of false security. Avia detected no evil, but we failed to check for traps. Just as you might think, when Sabin opened the door he was hit by a couple of traps. First he got stabbed in the face by a hidden part of a wind chime, then attacked from beneath by large steel tines that came up through the floor boards. Not a pretty sight. Healers jumped to Sabin’s and Avia’s wounds.

Then we noticed the Really Bad Smell. But before investigating it too much, we did check for traps. And found a couple. It was easy enough to disarm them, but I don’t think we’ll make the mistake of not checking again.

Avia detected evil to our left, and since a corridor led that way, we went with the paladin’s senses. We opened the door at the end of the corridor, only to find ogrekin that we later identified as Mammy (who complained a lot), Benk, Kunkal, and Hodge.

The last three, judging from their pale pallor, were undead. If killing ogrekin was so hard, what would we do with undead ogrekin?

No matter, the battle was joined and all pitched in. The big fat sloppy ogrekin that was sitting on the bed, stretching it to the limits, was apparently a magic user. But our own magic users were able to cast an enfeeblement spell on her that made her stupid, meaning she forgot a lot of her spells, and at that point we had her. Rigel did some amazing stuff with her arrows again, and soon their bodies were spread on the floor.

My new disrupt dead spell came extremely handy. We eventually killed all 4, and retrieved from the rubbery folds of Mammys fat abdomen

[249] Masterwork quarterstaff
[250] potion (cure light wounds)
[251] scroll (animate dead)
[252] wand of magic missile (caster level 3) [43]
[253] wand of enfeeblement [27]
[254] wand of vampiric touch [33]
[255] belt of mighty constitution (+2)
[256,257] two Varisian dolls

We’ve the rest of the house to search, yet, and the barn of course. I hope we’re not too late for the majority of the rangers.