A Road to Drop-Off Tower

This session happened Friday, June 25, 2010, and was the only session I ran this past weekend.

Short group this week, but San Ti and Sinn will join us again when their schedule clears up. It's vacation season and Sinn's player cannot get Friday's off for a bit as she fills in for her co-workers. Once that's over, they will be a very welcome addition to the group.

Adventuring Group:
Sal Ty (elf wizard)
Mog the Doomed (half-orc barbarian)
Agnes Sunbeard (dwarven rogue/barbarian)
Tycho von Helmont (elven alchemist)

With a "small" group available, the adventurers decided to do some serious exploring and trail cutting in the Edgewood. Starting from the Woodcutter's Camp, they cleared the Gravemarker Road as a trail. They cleared out a shambling mound and dealt with a giant scorpion and an assassin vine (which nearly killed Sal before being put down).

On the third day they made it to Jericho's Cairn on the seaside plains on the north edge of the Edgewood and pushed back into forest, aiming towards the Nameless Cairn. While on watch that night, Mog was jumped by a tiger. After wrestling with it (and getting severely mauled in the process), Mog broke free and the group fled, leaving a pile of rations behind to distract the tiger. [They used a resolve token to break away from the encounter after Mog broke out of the grapple.] Later, Tycho spent many of his healing elixirs curing Mog's injuries.

The following day, the adventurers successfully explored to the Nameless Cairn before pushing on to Drop-Off Tower. They wanted to reach a safer location to camp and the Tower was just within reach. When they arrived, however, they found the front doors knocked in – not closed like they left them. Agnes carefully approached the Tower, trying to scout it out, but she was so distracted that she did not notice the three giant stag beetles until they moved out of the Tower to attack. The giant stag beetles were tough, but Mog made quick work of them after quaffing an enlarge potion. That night, the adventurers saw giant ants arrive and carry off most of the beetle carcasses, heading in a southwesterly direction. Tycho made note of that, having a future plan involving the giant ants.

The next day the adventurers completed the trail, clearing the path from Drop-Off Tower to the Nameless Cairn. They then returned to the Tower to camp for the night. Sal put his engineering skills to use surveying the places the group wanted to install proper doors with good locks, allowing them to use the Tower as a secure base of operations. In the morning the group followed their new trail back to the Iron Keep, arriving in a single day of travel without getting lost once. The time spent clearing the trail had paid off.

At the Iron Keep the adventurers placed order for solid, iron-bound wooden doors. They spent the week they needed to wait hanging out in Spider's Bar to avoid getting roped into working in the mines. Sal nosed around the Keep looking for what arcane knowledge he could find and succeeded in locating a copy of the rope trick spell. After a short negotiation, he was able to copy the spell into his personal spell book, acquiring a more secure way to camp in the wilderness – one where he would not be as vulnerable to passing assassin vines.

Once the doors were done and a donkey and cart were secured, the adventurers returned to Drop-Off Tower. There they installed the new front doors before camping for the night in the Tower. The next day they installed a door securing the stairs down from the first floor (leading to the Moldy Halls) and a door securing the stairs up from the second floor (leading to the less secure third and fourth floors). This secured the first two floors of the Tower. The adventurers then returned to the Iron Keep to plan their next steps…