Session 5 - Jesters Game

General Summary

The session dates start on the morning of Jundalph, the 14th. The session ends at an unknown date. The story opens with the group waking up the second day of the Icewane Festival. While the second day of the Festival marks the more somber rituals, there are still other activities available to the people.
Gavin, Crefalo, and Kyros found their way downstairs and was served by Patroklos. Waiting a while to see if the other group members would arrive, they made some small talk with Patroklos. Patroklos was in good spirits as today was his favorite contest, the drinking contest. While he usually performs well, he hasn’t been able to beat Maccion’s champion drinker and owner of it’s only smithy: Onduth Amberhide. He also spoke that he and his wife, who was human were having some issues.
Eventually, once it was apparent that the rest of the group wasn’t arriving, the group decided to head back out into the crisp morning to attend the remaining Icewane festivities. Heading back to the square where the Icewane Totem was erected. Upon arriving they could see that a good amount of the town was present as well.
The people of the town were allowed to carve hopes, prayers, symbols into the Totem for good luck on the upcoming year. This being the last day to do this, there wasn’t a lot of space left. To make sure that there weren’t any inappropriate drawings, there was a guard posted there, Gary. Gary said hi to the group as they approached and he told them that he was looking forward to the drinking contest later. When everyone was done carving into the Totem, Demoarchos Neophytos called for everyone to gather for the final ritual of the festival: sacrifice and penance. Ceo was visibly uncomfortable with this part of the proceedings.
Two men were brought forward in chains. The group didn’t recognize either men, but they were clearly men who had spent some time in the jail. Neophytos identified both men, and relayed their crimes to the crowd. One man was a thief, who’s crimes directly impacted a family’s wellbeing over the winter, almost resulting tin the death of a child. This man had a hand forcibly placed onto the Icewane totem. Despite his struggle, Neophytos proceeded to chop off the hand of the man.
The other man, identified as a rapist, was next. However, instead of getting a hand chopped off, Neophytos produced a red hot poker. The poker was placed on the man’s face permanently branding him with a symbol to all of his previous crimes.
After both prisoners were escorted away with Ceo in tow, Demoarchos Neophytos announced the official closure of the Icewane Festival rituals and the remaining contest can be completed. To some, the most important, the drinking contest.
Three barrels were brought forward, each with marked differently. The first was a foamy stein, the other with grapes on the vine and the last with a knife on it.
As everyone began to sit down at the long tables near the barrels, the group saw their contestants. Gary the guard had removed his cuirass and sat down, joking and prodding other contestants. Patroklos also swaggered up to the table while pointing and waving to some people in the crowd. Ava even decided to join in to the contest, sitting down at the table along with everyone else.
Finally, Onduth came strolling in. Standing at around 5 feet tall, with a ring of white hair flowing down from the bald spot on the top of his head, he resembled a small Hulk Hogan, brother. As he entered the crowd cheered for their champion. Before sitting down, he shook hands with some of the other contestants, making comments and laughing heartedly.
After Onduth found his seat, the contest began. Everyone was served beer from the stein casks and our adventurers put one down without effort. So did the more notable contestants. After the second round, Gary was already feeling the effects.
As they made it through a few more rounds of beer, Gary and Kyros became drunk and started feeling the effects of the alcohol. Once they switched to wine, Gavin, Patroklos and Ava were then also drunk.
Gary, long passed out was soon joined by many of the other contestants and Patroklos as the drinks continued to flow. After some wine, Kyros decided to make his exit spectacularly by barfing on the lap of the person next to him and falling out of his chair. Ava then passed out as well.
Once there was liquor put out from the barrel, Gavin took one shot and with a warm burp swallowed back down, things reversed order suddenly and a barrage of booze, bile and integrity. It was down to Crefalo and Onduth.
Shot by shot, it was an endurance match. Crefalo matched shot to shot with the hardy dwarf. Eventually, after 16 total drinks, Onduth saluted his competitor and fell face first onto the table. At this point, Crefalo was declared the winner and was awarded the Drinker’s Tumbler.
All participants were then escorted back to the inn to rest from their ordeal.
Slowly waking, Gavin, Crefalo and Kyros woke in dim light in what seemed to an underground room. Roughly 25 square feet, the room stank of moisture and mildew. Eventually the team realized that their equipment was gone, and that they were alone.
Looking around the room, the team discovered that there was a square hole near the top of the ceiling. Light was coming through there, and with that light they were able to discern that there was a space for a door. This door had no hinges, but upon further inspection, saw that the door may slide up or down. Also in the room was a turning wheel underneath the hole near the ceiling.
After looking around the room, they decided to begin turning the wheel. At that point, there were screams heard from a room apparently on the other side of the hole. The door also began to slide open. The screams were from Gary, and he said he couldn’t see anything, but was feeling tremendous pain and a spinning sensation.
The group tried to turn the wheel the other way, which shut the door completely. Eventually, the group decided the best course was to try to open the door enough for one of them to crawl out of the room. Crefalo volunteered for this and was slightly cut from spikes that had been placed on the doors opening. On the other side of the door, the was a passage that curved east and back (assumedly going toward the room adjacent to the room he started in), and a long hallway going north.
Crefalo decided to work his way toward the east and found a room with a pillar in the middle of it. Bound to the pillar was Gary. His entrails were fixed upon a chain leading up to a mechanism in the wall that controlled the raising of the door. When the wheel turns on the other side, the pillar would also turn, and the chain would further remove Gary’s intestinal track. Crefalo decided at that point to heal Gary and take him down from the pillar. With the magic used, the wound healed but with a few feet of intestines hanging out.
It was at this point, the group tried to figure out how to open the door. Once talk of putting Gary back onto the pillar to get the door open again, he decided that between the guts still on the ground, and the potential for getting put back up on the pillar, he made a frantic exit. He made his way north down the corridor.
Crefalo made his way after him, and found that next to the door they were trying to open was a release switch. He pulled the switch and let everyone out.
As they made their way north down the dimly lit corridor, they could hear a scream and loud crunching sound. Cautiously they made their way forward and, suddenly a trap was sprung. A skeleton of a bear left in the ceiling to long fell down on the group. With no damage or live bear to worry about, the group moved down the corridor.
From the corridor, they looked into the next room. This room appeared cylindrical on the outside walls, with the interior walls forming a V that met in the far corner of the room. The room appeared like a sliver of cake cut from a circle cake. This room was also made of masonry. From their vantage point, they were able to further discern that there was a half inch gap between the wall and the floor. They also could see what they assumed to be the rest of Gary, as there was a noticeable smear of blood and gore starting small and then growing as it reached one of the interior walls.
Kyros was elected to go first and he jumped right in. The both walls immediately began to move in a clockwork motion. To those who stayed in the corridor, it looked like a revolving door. To Kyros, the room was moving, quickly in a clockwork fashion. He was able to see a nook to hide into and was able to jump into that as the walls went by.
Not hearing screaming or crunching the rest of the team entered the revolving doors. Due to the speed of the walls, Gavin and Crefalo both tripped and took some damage from the walls spinning around. Kyros was able to meet up with the team in a corridor that continued north.
Upon entering the room, they entered into a slightly larger room from the first room they started in. This room was also constructed with cut stone and masonry. Inside the room, in the corner, there was a fire in a brick oven with pokers in it. There was a table, with a butcher’s knife and blood on it. There were 4 goblin bodies scattered around the room as well. The bodies had most of their hands cut off, which also littered the floor. Further, the bodies of the goblins had various letters burned into their chests. Other notable aspects of the room were the door on the other side of the room, a mirror to the left of it and a handprint on the right side of it.
The team started investigating the room, and found that the pokers all had letters on them. The letters were all designed in a fashion where if you applied them to a surface they would appear backwards. The letters were T-R-E-S-J. The group realized that this represented Jester’s name and that they would need to emblazon this on their bodies in some way, as the goblins who attempted it didn’t have big enough “canvases.”
When they investigated the handprint on the wall they realized that it was bigger than a goblin’s hand.
Another item they found was a burnt picture taken from the Icewane Festival Season’s Puzzle Box that the group had solved two days prior. On that picture was a crude drawing of a stick figure Jester smiling widely.
Crefalo unknowingly began a chain of events at this point by trying to place a severed goblin hand onto the handprint to the right of the door. With a loud hiss, poison gas started to fill the room gradually. Frantically, the group began trying to solve the two puzzles to release them from the room. This involved holding up goblin bodies to the mirror, trying to put their hands onto the handprint and other things. Gavin then realized that he needed to take the brand and spell Jesters name on his chest. Gavin decided to brand himself, and in the process of doing so eventually passed out due to the pain. Feeling the effects of the gas, Kyros and Crefalo put Gavin on the table and finished spelling out the word. They propped him up and the mirror broke, solving one puzzle. Kyros, in this excitement started to brand himself, but stopped after doing J and E.
With the smoke continuing to fill the room and Gavin close to death, Crefalo chopped off his left hand to place onto the handprint. After chopping it off, Crefalo maintained his composure, placed his hand onto the handprint and the door slid open. The group ran out of the room, but not before taking the butchers knife and Crefalo’s hand with them.
The next room they entered, was also cylindrical with an elevated pedestal in the center of the room. Crefalo, who had healed his stump closed, entered the room and found that the pedestal also had a handprint. The pedestal was also surrounded by a raised well. Inside the well was water and symbols of weapons.
After reminding the group that he had already paid with one hand, he moved away and everyone gathered their equipment. At this time, Gavin, realllly parched from the drinking contest decided to drink some of the water in the well. This water turned out to have healing properties. Gavin and the group drank until the well was dry. For the most part the group was healed up at this point.
The group readied themselves and pushed down on the handprint. Above the exit door a circular group of symbols, colored from blue to green to yellow, began to light up. As the symbols began to turn red, the group hit the button again. The symbols started back over and resumed their countdown. After a few more pushes, the group let the countdown completely go down to the last symbol.
At the end of it, the door opened, and the group could see stairs leading out of this trap filled maze. As they approached they saw the last door. Hesitantly they searched for traps on the door and found none. They grabbed the handle and as they opened it a ghostly hand pushed them all back and with lighting suddenness grabbed the door and slammed it shut.
Stunned the group looked again for traps or any indications on how to open the door. Eventually, the opened the door again with the same result. This time however they could hear a voice say “How rude.”
Gavin then stepped forward and knocked on the door. The door swung open with the remaining steps going upward in front of the group. Daylight was visible at the top of the steps.
The group moved up the steps and out in the open. What they saw next was an Ogre sitting on a rock waiting for them. As the group gathered their bearings, he said “You see? All I wanted was to play a game with you!”
What ensued was a dragged out battle between the three groups of adventurers. Nursing their wounds, they fought the Jester, cutting into his flabby body. He struck back at Kyros after he found his back, knocking him unconscious. Crefalo got Kyros revived, and with Jesters attention on Gavin, Kyros jumped on his back to deal a crushing blow. After getting on his back, Kyros remembered a familiar feeling of appreciation for Jester, and began to shower him with complements. Soon Crefalo and Gavin were both intoxicated with Jester’s charm. The scene as it was, was quite something. A circle of adventurers, severely wounded, dancing around a clearly distracted ogre by his currently captive audience. One by one the group snapped out of it and with varying degrees of success struck back at the Jester causing further damage. Furious, Gavin took both his blades and jammed them straight into Jesters throat. As the light faded from Jester’s eyes, he tried to manage a laugh and smile, but given the placement of the strike he only managed a gurgle and a moan.
Falling backwards, Kyros almost getting crushed, the spirit of the Jester left the ogre’s body. With the group, standing over the ogre’s body, the session ended.

Report Date

24 Oct 2019

Primary Location

Maccion