Thursday, August 26, 2010

Verden: …and Back Again.

This session happened Wednesday, August 4, 2010. Two players were unable to make, so we just had their characters fade into the background. After this initial expedition, we will always end back in town so it this won't be an issue.

Adventuring Group:
Artemis (half-elf rogue)
Arthus (half-elf paladin)
Book (elf rogue)
Gilgamesh (uffnik artificer)

We started the day spending two hours working out where were actually were. Turns out we had circled back a bit. This was the first time it hit us how difficult navigating our way around out here was going to be. This is worse than going to a part of Verden you’ve never been to. Here there is no one to ask for directions and no signs to follow. We are going to have to take extra time to avoid getting lost beyond all hope of return.

After some discussion, we decided to continue exploring north, taking extra time to avoid getting lost. At one point, Artemis spotted a sword marking a grave. Arthus pulled the sword out of the ground and the blade disappeared. He was holding the grip, but there was no blade now. The blade slowly reappeared. Very weird, but he decided to keep it. Paladins…

Further on that day we discovered a pit trap a goblin had set to catch game. We know it was a goblin that had done it because we caught sight of him too. The goblin bolted, but I ran him down and tackled him. After some discussion with the goblin (with Artemis acting as translator), he agreed that we are "not food" and we let him go. Dangling him over his own pit trap (with spikes no less) seemed to convince him of our sincerity. After the goblin ran off, Artemis spotted something sparkly in the pit and we lowered her in to investigate. She found 9 gold marks, some gems, and boots of stealth (we think). I put the boots on and Artemis decided to hold onto the gold until “later”.

That night it rained during my watch. As my waterskin was getting empty and we had not seen any other source of water, I improvised a funnel and refilled everyone’s waterskins with rain water. This is something else we had not anticipated. It is surprising what I took for granted back in Verden and expected to be available out here.

With a renewed water supply, we continued north, looking for an end to the war-debris. Around mid-day we heard the sound of combat and investigated. We discovered human being attacked by two giant oozes. We moved to assist the human, because…well, the other things were giant oozes. The Hunter (what he goes by – he never told us his name) had vials of the stuff that he threw into the oozes and it caused them to roil and then melt once we got two of the vials in each ooze. The Hunter then scooped up melted ooze into the vials, which we thought was weird. Turns out the best way to fight giant oozes is with the remains of giant oozes – that’s what was in them originally.

During the fight, Arthus was engulfed by one of the oozes. Gilgamesh used his "shank of healing" to heal up Arthus afterwards. (Yes, he stabs us with his healing device.) We talked some more with The Hunter about the area and he gave us some advice. He’s been out here a couple years, so we took him serious. I found a ring (which turned out to be non-magical) in the goo, so it was not a total loss.

Parting ways with The Hunter, we continued north a ways and found some fire beetles. We killed most of them, but Gil captured some and put them in improvised cages. They make OK light sources. We also searched the pile of debris the beetles were in and found a set of magical bracers. Gil put them on, hoping they would help him not get hit.

When we finally camped, we discovered that most of Arthus's stuff was slowly destroyed by contact with the ooze acid. We realized we now only had food for four days left - just enough to make it back to The Wall. Hopefully. During the night we got attacked by 3 ghouls (which eat the fire beetles first). We defeated them, but Artemis contracted ghoul fever. One of the ghouls had picked up a feather token somewhere. Not knowing what it does, we packed it away for later examination.

In the morning we started heading back. It took us all four days of our remaining food to get back to Vestige. We sold what loot we found to Samuel at the Gnome Hill Inn (but not magical stuff). Divided four way, each share came to 192 gold marks, 2 silver squares, and 5 copper pennies. I spent part of my share buying 10 days of rations to resupply and a night at the inn. It was good to sleep in a real bed with some surety that monsters would not wake you up by attacking.

*End Session*

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