Session 1-09: When the Bell Tolls

General Summary

Year 116 on Arbeitag the 18th day of Kalt

Morning in the Dead Raven Inn. At some point, the party drug themselves out of the temple and into there rooms in the Dead Raven Inn, and slept through the rest of Kuntag and into the next, Arbeitag. They talk and discuss the issues at large, noting that the top 3 tasks on their plate:

Move the Skaven to safety, before more issues befall them, and they outstay there welcome.
Investigate the goings-on in Pearford, do the ravens in town indicate Trandarc is there?
Follow up with finding where Trandarc is hiding in the south.

There was a lengthy discussion on the topics, over a hearty breakfast. Resulting first in Hellah asking Tristan to escort the skaven from the valley. With the comment of "For you Hellah, I will do this task. For but the payment of a smile; so I might remember you while I travel." Hellah reluctantly agreed flashing him a smile to resolve this task. Tristian left to make preparations. While that happened, Malor saught out farmer Nartun, to hire him to drive them to Pearford. A quick exchange of some copper coins resulted in Nartun hitching his wagon and meeting the group outside of the Dead Raven. An eventless day put the whole group into Pearford by nightfall that day. The Hamlet of Pearford Noting eight warhorses outside the Undermill Pub. The group splits to investigate, with Malor, Sodyrin, and Carilius entering the Pub to look into the road wardens. While Hella, Sypha, and Tycone scouted the town before the loss of light; as well to stay out of sight from the wardens. The town does contain ravens, sitting on all the building around town, watching and looking around. Following the movement of people on the street. This was as Carilius informed the group, and they seemed similar in their dedication to observing to the ravens from the grove. Hellah spots some goblins in the fields heading to the back of the Undermill pub. She watches as they go to the back door of the pub, and an orc answers the rear door. They exchange some items before the orc goes back into the pub, and the goblins head back out to the fields and away from town heading north. Inside the pub, the road warden captain Garth, based on the horns adorning his helmet, sits by the fire surrounded by seven of his wardens. They are making a mess, with food and drink being spilled on the floor. Their obnoxious demeanor is causing the other people in the pub to keep there distance. Except one man sitting in the middle of the room watching the wardens with a dedicated eye and enjoying a steam hot beverage of some kind. Malor heads over to the man watching the wardens, despite a relaxed posture in his chair and his hat low. It is clear he is focused on this event unfolding. While simultaneously aware of Malors approach to his table. Malor requests to join the watcher. The watcher agrees and Malor, Sodyrin, and Carilius sit down. Malor talks with Griffin, whom Carilius talked with the other when he was in town. The community elected peacekeeper of Pearford, is alert and quick of mind, despite a very laid back approach to all things. Talk of the wardens and town reveals nothing new. They have come in and been here since yesterday. So far they have not gotten so far out of hand as to ask them to leave yet. Food is delivered by the cook Nox, and drinks from the bartender Roni. The evening wanes on till a bell is heard ringing from outside cutting through the din in the bar. The only people to take notice of this is the wardens. Garth stops taking his feet off the table he sits up, puts his drink on the table and says something to his men. They all rise and make their way for the door. Griffin bids Malor farewell and gets up as the last warden clears the door to follow them out. Malor waits until Griffin clear the door and does the same. Outside the wardens seemed to move to the corners of the town square and on the edges of the road in and out of town. Tycone and Sypha join Malor as he watches from the side of the pub. Inside Roni and Nox move to clean up from the Wardens, Sodyrin gets up and offers to help her, and starts without waiting for acceptance. A quarter of an hour passes as they clean when the bell chimes once more, this time a double toll comes cutting through from outside of the pub. Sodyrin and notices every one stops moving inside the pub, their eyes get a glossy far off look. Then in near unison, she hears Roni and the other people in the pub all state the following:

"I think I see some goblins sneaking around by that barn, let's go scare them off before they steal something."

With that Sodyrin watches as everyone starts shuffling for the door to walk outside. Following along Sodyrin pretends to have the same mindless march and follows behind Roni as she walks outside into the night. The Incident Outside Malor, Hellah, Sypha and Tycone watch as Griffin stiffen his lose posture when the second of two bells can be heard drifting in from the fields. They also hear him say something about goblins sneaking around. Then he starts walking into the courtyard as all the buildings and houses suddenly have people coming out into the cold night air. They watch the pub empty out with Sodyrin walking out with the other people that were in there. The people seem dazed and out of it, mindlessly shuffling. They did not get prepared in any way, as there are people in all states of dress, many without shoes and coats, even one older man wearing nothing at all. The villagers are grouped and gathered by the wardens that are not seeming to be under whatever influence is affecting the rest of the town. The wardens start corraling the villagers as they come out, directing them to the west road out of town. From there they take them to the first barn on the road within sight of the town. The group minus Sodyrin, who was in the herd of villagers, make their way behind the wardens. Carilius indicates to the group that this was the barn he first saw a raven flying in and out of. They watch as the villagers walk into the barn and simply stand in the center of the barn. A few stragglers are herded in as the group watches before the barn is closed up. Six of the eight wardens leave including Garth back into town. Tycone and Carilius stay with the western barn as the half-elves follow the six wardens back into town. Carilius sneaks around the right side of the barn to see if he can figure out what is going on inside the barn. Tycone watches the guards at the front of the barn. The Western Barn Standing in the center of the townsfolk, Soydrin looks around while trying to remain still in case someone is watching her. The townsfolk are all standing perfectly still save there breathing. No fidgeting, or looking around, eyes front the wait for seemingly nothing. The only saving grace to this many people in one space is body heat helps to warm the barn on this cold night. At least nobody should freeze to death at this rate thinks Sodyrin. Carilius finds a window on the right side of the barn, sneaking up he climbs on top of some old crates and pops the shutter moving slowly not to make undue noise. there he can see most of the barn though there is a loft above that he can not view from this angle. Sodyrin is standing near the center of the mass and he locks eyes with her. He is unsure about how to help with the situation. At this moment the rear door of the barn opens and in walks a cloaked figure. The figure is a large male human with a beard. He makes his way to the front of the group and pulls back his cowl. Sodyrin is shocked to see Baxtor the Priest of Shallya standing before her. Baxtor holds up a medallion on a chin and starts to chant in a language that Sodyrin does not understand but Carilius knows to be Abyssal, the language of the demons. As the chant continues, Baxtor gently rocks the medallion back and forth. His spell cast the whole room crumples into a pile of bodies, so quick was the effect that Sodyrin is caught off guard and still standing to stare at Baxtor. Baxtor does not miss a beat and casts another spell before Sodyrin can react, she finds herself frozen stiff staring straight ahead mouth open just starting to yell out at him. Carilius lashes out at Baxtor through the window. A bolt of electrical energy forms between the sorcerer's hand and baxters body causing minor electrical burns to appear on his robes. Baxtor retreats out the back of the barn to escape the arch of electrical magic connecting him to Carilius. As he leaves view, Sodyrin regains control of her muscles and follows, stopping short at the rear door when she hears more chanting outside. Tycone and the wardens hear the noise, however, before the wardens can act and enter the barn; Tycone steps up to engage them in combat. A battle begins outside the main door as blows from the dragonborn are exchanged with his two targets. Baxter's chanting having stopped, Sodyrin steps out to find no Baxtor. Assuming Carilius attacked from the barns right side, Sodyrin breaks left and turns that corner. Still nothing, Baxtor can not be seen, but the sound of battle is coming from the front of the barn. Carilis running forward on the right side turns as the battle takes a turn for the worse. Tycone and one of the wardens both swing and connect, both fall down. Carilius runs and slides into Tycone stabilizing him with his magical touch. Getting back up he starts the dance of a fighter with the second guard. Sodyrin comes around the left side of the barn and heals Tycone as soon as she gets into range for her prayer to be answered by Shallya. All three now make quick work of the last warden felling him soon after. Tycone strips the bodies of the belts and pouches and notice one of the wardens is missing his helmet, it had fallen off in the battle. The face under it was not human, but that of a gnoll. Tycone takes off the other one's helmet as well, to find the same results. With that, a horn is heard from behind the barn. Tycone, Carilius, and Sodyrin exchange glances and move away from the barn back toward town to find their party. The Eastern Barn The six wardens made their way back into town and then through it too a second barn just outside the other side of Pearford, the eastern side of the town. When the wardens open up the barn, a magically bright light appears somewhere in the barn. Tools for digging are seen and five of the wardens start to dig tossing dirt into the air. Harsh voices and speech come from the barn which none of the half-elves understand at first. Sypha backs away to cast a spell without drawing any attention to her of the others hiding out in the fields near the barn. Having cast her spell Sypha slowly makes her way back up to within earshot of the wardens. Translating for Hellah and Malor, she hears a lot of orders being barked out in Broken Tarsh, the language of beastmen and minotaurs. She overhears the following:

Dig Faster, Dogs!
I tire from this nightly task.
You need to find it.
Stop whining and Dig.
We are running out of places to search.
If it is not here, we will be forced to search...

This last statement was cut off by the sound of a war horn from the other side of town. The wardens drop the shovels and pickaxes and climb out of the wholes they have made. They hop up and grab their weapon belts, their armor was still on as they had been working with it on. With that, they head back into town, walking past the group laying in the tall grass near the barn. As the group follows the wardens back to town, they see a flash of light on the far side of the town. The wardens must have also seen this as they move faster, picking up their pace as they enter town. The Other Side of Town Having heard the war horn, the other three had started to move into Pearford. However as they made it to the building on the edge of town, they saw a group of more than a dozen small creatures making there way down the road. Quick thinking and a few crates and barrels near the edge of the build allowed them to hide and get out of sight. The small creatures that move slowly down the road are some form of undead. Many of there bones can be seen in the light of the moons, all showed advanced stages of rot in there bodies. As they walk down the road, they start to pass Tycone hiding near the road behind the barrels. Tycone leaps from cover to attack the nearby goblin with an unimpressive strike, that does not seem to faze the dead goblin. The strike and movement did alert the other 12 goblins of an issue. Carilius attacked with his magic and did a bit more damage. Tycone gives a crushing blow that the goblin tries to recover from but is unable to stand and join the battle. One down as Tycone is flooded with six goblins in the next moment. At this point, the dragonborn inhales, then lets it back out with fiery fury. For a second the night is lit up as the blast of flame finds and damages almost all of the goblins. None of the goblins, however, seem to be ready to fall however. Sodyrin pulls out her holy symbol and prays to Shallya to banish these undead blights from her sight. A prayer that is answered by all three goblins attacking Sodyrin turn to flee, One next two Carilius, and two from Tycone all turn to flee. Unable to back down from a fight, Tycone lashes out at one of the fleeing goblins. Tycone hits it, at the cost of it aborting its fleeing to reengadge Tycone. Carilius yells at Tycone and Sodyrin that they can outrun this foe. Sodyrin nods and she and Carilius break into a run, north around the outer hamlet of Pearford. the cross the northbridge as the half-elves cross the southbridge. Malor sees this and turns Sypha and Hellah around to pursue the rest of the group, while the wardens make it to the resent battle site of the undead goblins. Sodyrin, Tycone, and Carilius make it into the back of the Underhill pub a minute later, looking at a way to lock the door, it opens to reveal Hellah, Sypha, and Malor who push into the room to figure out what to do next. Reunited the band decides to flee upriver where Carilius knew it went into the foothills of the mountains and could lose the wardens. Flight Making a fast departure north from the town the group hugs the river hoping to hide to avoid the wardens seeing them as they made their getaway. The group travels an hour from the town to a spot in the hills they feel would allow them shelter from wind and the eyes of the wardens to make camp and get warm with a fire. As they collect firewood, they find a small distance away that another camp was underway as well. Looking down a small goblin hunting part could be seen cooking near there own fire. End of Session.