28 Calastril (still)

Jakardos, it seems, is Shelelu’s stepfather. He left when she was young, and it seems they have some issues to resolve. However, finding his stepdaughter seems, to me, to have lightened his step a bit.

However, Jakardos wants to retake the fort. I can understand the sentiment, but do we have enough people? (If we don’t, are there any other qualified peoples near enough to help?)

In any case, first things first. This farmhouse and homestead may have once been home to a hopeful, thriving family, but now it’s just … infested. We set it to fire in an attempt to destroy any physical indication of its presence. While the bonfire raged, Jakardos told us of the attack on the fort.

It was known among the rangers that ogres were about. A small clan called the Kreegs was known to live near the fort, and was the source of occasional skirmishes. They were just that — skirmishes — and never developed into full blown assaults. However, one day they noticed plumes of smoke from their area, like they were working on something. A scouting party of three was sent out … and never returned.

Fort Rannick was staffed with about two dozen rangers, so losing three was significant but not crippling. Patrols were increased and –

At this point, Kaven got upset and impatient with Jakardos, complaining that all these details were neither pertinent nor important. The ogres attacked in numbers, he said, and overthrew the defenses. The patrol that he and Jakardos and Vale were on had six rangers for safety, but perhaps in hindsight that just left the fort undermanned. “Well maybe,” replied Jakardos, “but we were delayed. Had we not needed to go back to town -” “Not this again!” exclaimed Kaven. “We had to! The captain of the guard had asked me to pick up the weapons! Curse him for the request now, but I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him we’d decided that doing so would just take too much time!”

Clearly there was some friction here. It seemed there may even be more information here.

Tekkad and I volunteered to gently interrogate Kaven some more. Tekkad talked to him a bit during the day, learning more of his background like why he joined the rangers (5 year service or jail owing to some repeatedly reckless rowdiness) Then in the evening, we used my age (close to his but a little younger) as a pretense for my hanging out with him at the pub. With Sabin ready to detect thoughts, I began a conversation which eventually turned to events surrounding the situation at the fort. It seems that Kaven was much more of a regular at the Paradise boat than he’d previously revealed, and was particularly taken with the proprietor of the boat, a woman named Lucretia. Even though the ship burned several weeks ago, Kaven had been in touch with her since then, and she’d asked a few “favors” of him. The biggest one was to learn more about the makeup and defenses of the fort, the better (we presume) to plan the attack.

He was actually supposed to be back in time for the attack to meet with her, but he decided it might be better not to be there when arrows and swords and magic were being tossed about. It’s not clear whether his treasonous revelation of fort defenses or his cowardly diversion to avoid getting back in time was more responsible for the deaths of his comrades, but he seemed to think little of it. He very much was concerned with himself and asked me to put in a good word with “our leader” about possibly joining our group himself.

With Tekkad occasionally interrupting with quiet statements about having found someone who knew about the attack and the conspirators, Kaven became very concerned about meeting this person and “learning the truth” himself. Sadly, for him, we had made sure Jakardos was listening nearby, so when our “conspirator” — actually Derrel, using my hat of diguise — got the conversation going, Jakardos was there to hear Kaven’s self incriminating statements.

He was immediately placed in shackles by an angry Jakardos. While Kaven seemed concerned about his immediate future, he did not seem to express the same concern about his fallen comrades. He seemed to feel he was owed a good and comfortable life, but his actions had earned him neither. I got the sense I was about to witness some “frontier justice” but for now, he was just jailed.

The fort is 4-5 hours away riding, but while riding will get us there quicker, it will also be noisier. Tomorrow, we will leave on foot.

1 Pharast

We are bringing Kaven along in shackles; I’m not sure why. It seems to me he would be nothing but a risk.

As we set up camp about dusk, a whistle was heard. Vale responded with a shrill of his own, and a messenger stepped out of the woods. Apparently our message to Magnimar had been expedited, and a response sent similarly. The messenger reported that Magnimar wanted us to scout out the situation. “If you retake the fort,” said the message, “Magnimar will be greatful.”

That sounds like more reward money to me!

2 Pharast

Jakardos was prepared, I think, to execute Kaven in these woods and leave his body, but a couple of the religious people in our group believed he deserved a chance at redemption rather than death. I know I was friendly to him in my talk and all but really – would you want this guy at your back? I don’t see how he can be trusted again after this major major moral breakdown. But Jakardos eventually yielded with an idea that still carried some punishment — he would be chained to a tree here, off the beaten path, and guarded by the bear. If we died, he would too, probably, but much more slowly. If we found a chance for him to redeem himself, we’d come back to get him.

There supposedly was an entrance to one of the secret passages to the inside of the fort behind the waterfall at one end. However, there were ogres patrolling, and a storm was raging and we thought a flash of lightning might well highlight us at an inopportune moment. So we waited an hour or two for the storm to subside, and then made our move.

Behind the waterfalls was a latticework of wet boards, which almost proved our undoing barely as our mission began. Fortunately, nobody fell, but we proceeded cautiously.

We surprised two modest sized lizards that seemed to be blocking our way. Before Jakardos could adequately warn us, we attacked them — and they apparently quite capable of harnessing and projecting static electricity in large bolts. Six of our parties took significant damage from the electrical discharge as Jakardos belatedly told us not to bother the “shocker lizards”. Yeah. Good advice.

We found ourselves in the fort’s secret armory. Since Jakardos seemed as surprised as we were, we asked him if this had been created since the takeover. He shrugged his shoulders and admitted he didn’t really know WHAT was in the tunnels, as he’d never been in them before.

In the armory we did find [267] six arrows, shocking burst, +2

But. Interesting. No guide. Hmm.

We came to a point where there appeared to be a dead end, but sharp-eyed Rigel was able to find a lever that opened a secret door. This seemed to lead into a crypt area, and, why, sure enough, a spectre emerged to attack us. Jakardos took a “hit” from it that seemed to weaken him greatly, but we did manage to kill it nevertheless after a while.

We followed several other passage for a while, and at one point Tekkad cast silence over an opening that appeared to go outside, and indeed it did. It was a way into a courtyard, at least, but we’d heard tales of tunnels that went under the fort, so we redoubled our search efforts.

Finally, we were rewarded — Rigel found a secret door and upon opening it safely and quietly we found we were looking into a room from behind a tapestry. There was exotic incense and a red-hued light. A wall of red silk blocked our way, although it was easily lifted if we wished.

Doing so we saw a beautiful lady in the room. Now all this time I’d been unable to fire off a fireball because it would have been to dangerous to my friends, but now they turned to me and quietly signalled that the time was right for an explosion of fire. Quietly I mumbled the words and made the gestures and … whooosh, the whole room seemed to catch on fire. Kane blessed everyone and the fight was on.

First Nolin, then Sabin, and eventually everyone ran into the room. The lady, which we suspected to be Lucretia from previous descriptions, branded us “brigands” and “evil doers” before reverting herself to her more natural state — half snake, half human. My contribution to the battle was magic missiles, which seemed to be more likely to do damage of some sort than many of the weapons that my companions carried.

Eventually, she was defeated, but it took a surprising amount of effort on our part. She tried to escape out the door, but we followed her and took her down in the hallway at the top of the stairs. Yeah, I know, I’m winded too, running stair drills. But on the plus side, resting and wheezing give me time to write this all up.