Session 10 - Massive Ineptitude and Baka's New Friend
General Summary
In the stream of people fleeing Sunom there is a cart containing a pile of body parts. Was that once a man? What happened to him? As we talk to Deah Ssip we feel tremors and see some building collapsing which suggest an answer. He tells us that he managed to do some translation and crack a numbering system, but in the panic, he left them all behind. But he cannot help us with everything as some things are only known by the Ellmar. At least we can’t miss the Library which has a large stepped entrance. Inside there are two locked doors, leading down to the first basement in which he and the Ellmar had offices. He gives us a key to the first basement and explains that from there a spiral staircase leads down to the second basement, but only the Ellmar had access.
Around mid-day we leave him and approach the gated entrance to the city. Apparently, most of the buildings are boarded up and disused, and we have been warned not to go into them as they could collapse at any time. The library is not too far from the entrance, perhaps a quarter of a mile. But the issue is not the distance, but the various obstacles – fire, earthquake and orcs. Even then, there are still some troops fighting inside the city trying to protect the Library and a group of civilians trying to rescue some of the books.
We being to enter the city and just before the gates close behind us, Deah Ssip shouts out to us “find Riele if you can”. Baffled, we remember the name and continue on. As we peer into the city we can see two Orcs behind some cover watching the gate. Around us the buildings vary in size from one to three floors in height, and they seem relatively easy to climb.
Digby and Brovar take out their bows, and Brovar climbs the one-story building to our left. Once up on the roof, Brovar starts to whisper what he can see of the town. Tripp ties to follow him, but somehow falls back to the ground, and the rest of us have a hard job to control our sniggers. He tries again and after a struggle he manages to drag himself up, moving with all the grace of a sack of potatoes. “I am going to have to cut down on the pies” he thinks to himself. Keeping to the edge where there should be more support, Brovar and Tripp move to the right, but as Brovar moves to the next building he sees an Orc between two of the buildings who also sees him. The Orc fires, narrowly missing, and within moments we can hear more Orcs shouting; we have lost the element of surprise. Ominously the sound of falling tiles means that something may be climbing the walls to get to the roof.
Digby, Sai Kyo, and Baka charge the orcs in front of us, with Lilrie attacking the one on the right. Arrows fly around us and Digby is grazed by one of them. Sai Kyo acrobatically leaps the crates in front of the Orcs attacking the one on the left striking for 17D, knocking it over, doing an additional 9 damage, stunning it for two rounds and it is now fighting at -20. The other Orc looks surprised and misses Digby, who, his blood up, connects for a 39E slash, hitting it in the leg, doing 3 more damage and putting it on 3 hits per round. Tripp fires two arrows at one of the Orcs doing a 6A puncture with the first, taking its ear off, 3 more damage, stunning it for 2 rounds and putting it on 3 hits per round. The second arrow slams into the Orc’s chest for a 17D puncture, giving it 3 more hits per round, and it is fighting at -15. Brovar also fires, but misses, and takes 2 damage himself.
A moment later Brovar’s attention is drawn by the harsh sound of collapsing tiles and looking right he sees an armored war Troll, holding a piece of masonry and preparing to throw it. Luckily, he relieved himself just before entering the city, because this is a thing of nightmares.
Back on the ground, Sai Kyo strikes the stunned Orc for 14C, doing 6 more hits and stunning it again. Digby hits his Orc again doing 30D damage and taking it out. Lilrie takes on the Orc behind the barrier doing 9 damage. Another Orc appears from our left and Tripp takes aim hitting it with both arrows for 37 damage and D and E puncture criticals, a minor thigh wound giving it 3 hits per round, stunning it and giving Tripp +20 for his next attack. On the roof Brovar rolls to avoid the masonry thrown by the Troll as it runs across the roof to attack him, and it passes to one side of him taking out the roof of the building that Tripp is on. Lilrie attacks the Orc with her morning star again doing 13B crush, hitting him in the chest sending his ribs thru his heart. Lilrie also gets +20 on her next attack.
Next round Brovar bravely attacks the Troll with his long sword doing 5 damage, and his mace doing another 11 damage. Barely acknowledging the blows, the Troll, holding the huge battle axe in one hand, smacks Brovar for 26 hits, and forcing him to parry next round.
Baka approaches the Orc that came from the left hitting for 15C, breaking its ribs, and stunning it again. Sai Kyo finishes off the Orc in front of him with a 15C strike. Lilrie does 13B on the Orc behind the cover on the left and it bleeds out this round. Brovar attacks the war Troll again doing 1 damage with his long sword and 4 with his mace. He feels outmatched and realizes that these tactics are not going to win the fight. The Troll attacks Tripp this turn, doing 43 damage in total. Tripp’s run of bad luck continues as he fumbles badly, swallowing his tongue in the excitement, stunning himself and unable to parry next round. Our collective ineptitude continues as Digby tries to climb on to the roof to help, but fails as he seems to have lost all coordination.
On the ground Baka hits an Orc giving it a 10B puncture critical, 10 more damage taking it down. Lilrie is missed by the Orc, but she also misses him. Brovar, parrying for all his worth, manages to fend off the attack of the troll as Tripp, ever the narcissist, continues his self-love-in, his tongue still down his own neck.
Next round Brovar does a paltry one damage with his long sword, and three with his mace. Hardly the stuff that legends are made of. The troll attempts to punch him, but misses. Lilrie takes her turn to climb the building and fails like everyone before her. Digby, trying to show her how it is done, ends up falling back and being attacked by an Orc, taking 24 damage and a slash critical for 15 more hits. At least he manages to attack back doing a 24D slash, and 3 more damage. Sai Kyo does a 2A and 5 more damage to the Orc in front of him while Baka hits for a 13B puncture, striking thru the Orc’s cheek, killing it after 9 rounds of incapacity. Baka and Lilrie are showing the boys how it’s done.
Digby, showing that however bad his climbing skills are he can still fight, attacks his Orc hitting for a 25D slash, taking it out. Brovar changes tactics, parrying the Troll with his long sword, and attacking it with his mace. The change has immediate effect as he lands a 14A crush critical, hitting it in its lungs, doing 24 additional damage, dropping it to the ground where it dies in 6 rounds. Brovar chops the trolls head off to make sure it doesn’t regenerate. The whole party is inspired and gets +20 on their next strike. Brovar comes through for us again.
Unfortunately, we have no time to recover as three more Orcs come from the left, luckily seen by Sai Kyo and Baka who shout a warning to the others, and move to head them off. Digby runs to join them as Brovar moves to the edge of the roof, preparing to climb down. Tripp, seeking a moment of glory, runs to jump and grab the window of the building to the North, with the intent of climbing to the roof and firing into the melee. His fingers manage to grasp the window ledge, which unfortunately gives way under his weight, and he falls into the street below, taking 14 damage. “Those damn pies”, he thinks to himself again, “but they’re so good!”.
In the melee Sai Kyo attacks first launching into a flying kick, doing a 13C critical, knocking the Orc down, stunning it, so that it is unable to parry for 12 rounds. Beside him Digby hits his Orc for 47E crush, and 12 more damage, killing it instantly. In turn Baka lands a 10A puncture on the third Orc, stunning it, making it unable to parry for 3 rounds and fighting at -20. It is an easy job for her to finish it off next round, with a 9A puncture critical and 2 more damage. Sai Kyo does for his Orc also with a 32E strike.
We move off into cover and Lilrie heals Tripp for a gain of 7 hits. Wasting no time, we head off into the city with Tripp stalking and hiding in the lead, moving thru streets piled with rubble. Glancing round a corner he sees two Orcs ahead, and we plan an ambush with Baka and Digby attacking from the front with a spell and bow respectively, while Tripp and Sai Kyo creep up behind them. In this way we hope to take them out silently, before they can call for help. Everyone gets into position as Baka prepares Jolts and Lilrie and Brovar coordinate the actions of the two teams using hand signals.
Baka acts first, rounding the corner and casting her spell, but messes it up and there is a loud bang as the energy is released. This is a bad start but at least it gets their attention and Digby follows up with a shot from his bow which does a 4A puncture, stunning one Orc and giving it 4 more damage. Simultaneously Sai Kyo and Tripp launch themselves into attack their position behind the Orcs. Sai Kyo does a 20E heel kick, the Orc is on -50, stunned for 3 rounds, and takes 5 more damage. Tripp also connects well, for a 27E slash, and 4 more damage.
It is an easy job next round to finish them off which Sai Kyo does with a 30E strike as Tripp finishes off his. We didn’t make much noise and hope that no more orcs have been alerted.
We continue up thru the streets, managing to avoid more Orc patrols, and we finally see the Library at the centre of the city. Some of the buildings around it are on fire and outside there are wagons into which people are piling books and belongings. The soldiers are controlling the streets, and they and the civilians are happy to see friendly faces. After briefly explaining our mission, they allow us to enter the library. Inside the doors we can see that most of the shelves are empty and worryingly the walls have cracks in them. As described by Seah Ddip, we see two doors, to our left and right, presumably leading down into the first basement. We try to speak to people to ask them questions, but no-one is interested in talking as they are too busy getting away.
We take the door to the left in standard party order, Brovar leading the way down the stairs to a small room with doors to the left and right. We can smell smoke which puzzles us. Brovar opens the door to the south into a room with empty shelves and another door which opens into a narrow corridor. There are cells off this corridor with beds etc., but none of them seems to have been used recently. We are looking out for the curved end walls that Deah Ssip told us the offices had. Following the corridor, we pass the stairs on the other side and after that see more stairs this time going down. All the time the smell of smoke is getting stronger. We continue past those stairs for now and the corridor curves round until it is blocked by a cave-in. There is a tremor and more rocks fall down.
Turning back we go past the bedrooms and the room we initially came down into, to check the other side of the basement which turns out to be a mirror image. As we pass the stairs on this side that go down, we think we hear a screech. Moving to the top of this basement we come into a large room, with lots of destroyed, empty shelves. The roof is caved in, over in the far corner, and the remains of a spiral staircase can be seen. Now there is just a hole which we should be able to descend into with a rope.
Going back the way we came, we go down the first set of stairs to the door of one of the offices, which is warm to the touch. We open the door and the flames inside grow as the air rushes in, and we can see a desk with papers on them. Sai Kyo dashes in to grab them and sees a Hawk which flies straight to Baka, who draws back, but it settles on her shoulder. Sai Kyo calls “Riele”, but it ignores him. Looking at the bird, Baka recognizes it as an Ekar falcon, the same as Mirvog had. The bird looks deep into her eyes with an uncanny awareness. Meanwhile Sai Kyo takes the papers and we withdraw from the room, shutting the door.
We go round to the other office on the opposite side and find that it also is on fire, but these are small enough to beat out. It seems to have been mostly cleared out, and only a few books remain on the shelves. On the desk there are a few pages from a loose-leaf diary which we read quickly. It is the Ellmar’s diary and talks about a floor safe which we find after some searching. The safe has an 8-digit combination and we remember the last words of the Ellmar, told to us by Deah Ssip. So we look for the encyclopedia of flora finding 8 volumes which are strangely out of order. Tripp realizes that this must be the number for the safe and we open it finding another slip of vellum which turns out to be notes of a conversation between Sirenna and the Ellmar. This is very revealing and another piece of the puzzle falls into place.
Aware of the lack of time we lower ourselves down into the second basement thru the hole that had housed the spiral staircase and find a 15’ cube metal Vault . It seems to be made of the same metal as the tablets and the shattered mace and seems to be entirely unmarked except for an inscription on one face. Looking closer we can just make out the outline of a door, and the imprint of a hand next to it, with another inscription alongside. Baka notices that the first line includes the word, Ellios, and the last line contains two dwarven words, Bloth Laeki, meaning blood leach.
Moving closer to the cube we feel the hairs on our body stand on end, as if it is charged, reminding us of the entry in the diary about death by some kind of shock. Riele is still on Baka’s shoulder and looks round when Brovar asks it if it can understand, but quickly turns back to look at Baka. Another tremor runs thru the room, dust falling from the ceiling, more cracks opening in the floor.
Kitty
- Session start – 160 gold, 187 silver
- Income – none
- Expenses – none
- Session end – 160 gold, 187 silver
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