Session 6 - Finding the Caravans
General Summary
[img id="pbImage490438" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20A%20Brookshire%202a.png" alt="" width="1084" /]
We Enter the area of the statue, and the statue seems to be moving further away from us as we watch.
“So, magic guys, what do you see?” asks Benny.
“Well, put your sword in there and see what happens,” answers Nilgan.
“I am not going to put the sword of the Great Nicholas Kouzmak into an unusual magic effect.” Answers Joice.
As he puts in his normal sword, he feels a pull, but nothing he couldn’t resist.
Casting detects magic, Nilgan looks and can see enchantment and illusion type magic, swirling around in front of us.
“Interesting, let me try this,” says Zephyr. He creates a small clay figure not more than a foot high, and has him walk into the magical area. As it wanders into the area, it wanders around just fine. Zephyr gets a sense after about a minute that he is pushing the limits of prestidigitation, so the spell stops. He didn’t feel anything external; he just couldn’t hold the magic.
“Want me to go in then?” asks Benny.
“I’ll go,” answers Rivenn, and he walks in. It is colder in here, and suddenly he is engulphed in fog and can no longer see. He has to walk slow due to the fog and how thick it is.
As soon as Zephyr walks in, everyone can see him just fine, but by that point, Rivenn has vanished into the fog and is gone. It sounds like he is walking a great distance away.
“Are you guys coming?” asks Rivenn.
And to those outside, it sounds like he is 20 or 25 feet away, not the 10 he might be.
Zephyr pulls out a dagger and puts it into the dirt. As he does this, he is trying to scratch and make a path to follow to exit the area.
[img id="pbImage945336" style="font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-size:13px;font-family:'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', Arial;" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20A%20Brookshire%204a.png" alt="" width="1084" /]
Suddenly, Zephyr feels a vibration, and looking down, he sees his line in the dirt is gone. It is as if he were moved, he is no longer in the same space. He isn’t sure what has happened.
To those listening, the sound just vanishes. He was already out of our line of sight, he just vanished.
“Looks like we are going in,” says Joice.
Benny goes in, and draws his sword, and follows the groove, in hope he can figure out what happened to Zephyr and to dig deeper into the ground.
Zephyr goes back to his line, and see only 2’ of line. Add chevrons and moves forward in the direction he was going.
Rivenn pulls out the silk rope, and we pass it down and each tie up between us down the line. Rivenn, Nilgan, Benny, and Joice.
Two lizard folks show up, they are back, and they are going to take him to be sacrificed. He screams, it’s a girly scream. We can hear him way off in the distance.
[img id="pbImage127738" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20A%20Brookshire%205a.png" alt="" /]
Rivenn takes off in the direction of the scream. Benny looks to Joice and says “Rivenn is running to Zephyr’s scream, keep up!”
Joice was going to tie off the rope
Benny feels the fog is thick, but nothing he hasn’t been in before, as he pushes off something with a will save.
Zephyr targets a lizard with a ray of frost and activates the spell. He is terrified of going back. Last time he was one of a group and smallest of the group, so what the group did he did. But here, he knows what is going to happen, so he is fighting! The ray of frost slams into the creatures, and it freezes and simply vanishes. When that happened, he thinks “this is enchantment” but when he looks, he sees the lizard. He casts mage to hand to try and push the creature back. The creature slaps the mage hand away, dissipating it, and tries to throw a net over Zephyr! For his last action, he runs away! The fog swirls around and he loses sight of the creature.
Nilgan delays for Rivenn to pick a direction and follow him.
Rivenn moves forward cautiously towards the scream, pulling the team behind him tied by the rope.
Suddenly from behind, there is a hand on his shoulder, and Rivenn thinks “oh, they caught up…” but then realizes Nilgan isn’t that tall. And when he turns around, there is an undead rotting corpse right in front of him, with a similar outline of his former mentor that was killed by the scaly kind. He screams, and sprints as far as the rope will allow him to sprint!
As the rope beings to go taunt, Nilgan casts Reduce person such that he isn’t tied to the rope but can hold on and be pulled.
Benny is able to easily keep following along with the rope.
[img id="pbImage682822" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20A%20Brookshire%207a.png" alt="" width="1084" /]
Joice hears the scream and then follows the party, giving up with tying the rope. Instead, he looks at the statue to get a clearer picture of something he thought he saw.
Zephyr keeps running away from the lizard folk, and suddenly sees the statue ahead in the distance.
Rivenn keeps rushing away from the undead figure. As he watches, a really long tongue comes out of it’s mouth and snaps at him. He manages to get out of the way!
[img id="pbImage572746" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20A%20Brookshire%2010a.png" alt="" width="1084" /]
“What are you running from or to!” calls out Nilgan as he isn’t seeing whatever Rivenn is seeing. He does just see the statue off in the distance through the fog, but Rivenn is running in a different direction.
Nilgan tried to use a message spell to Rivenn to get an answer, but Rivenn doesn’t see Nilgan, and in his current state, it freaks him out more!
What Joice did see, hiding out near the statue, was a translucent figure. Maybe a ghost? An illusion? He wasn't sure but he started moving toward it. Joice kept an eye on the others, so they didn't hurt themselves, as now Rivenn was flailing a bit.
Joice raises his hand, points it at Rivenn & Zephyr, and casts “Remove Fear!”
As the spell hits the two of them, it is as if the fog lifts a little bit, and slowly dissipates, and suddenly we can all see each other and see the statue. As we look around, the monsters and lizards are gone.
[span style="font-size:13px;"]They also noticed the guards in the corner in a heap. When they checked them, they were just unconscious.[/span]
Joice then points his sword at the statue for the benefit of the party and says “Ghost!”
“How dare you point the sword of the Great Nicholas Kouzmak at the Great Kouzmak!"[br /]And then he notices Joice, "Ah, you are a handsome figure, not as handsome as the great Kouzmak, but none the less, come here, all of you! Ah-ha-ha! So, how did my bones look? I bet they were handsome!”
“They were kind of moldy.”
“Did you clean them and give me a proper cleaning and put them back. Well…except for my sword and armor, which I assume means you are worthy of them!”
“Yes, we put it back.”
“Excellent! You took up my sword and armor, are you taking up my quest? To find out what the scaly kind were doing? How long has it been. I know that I fought them, and there was that great battle of many towns and we fought them back.”
“According to the statue, it’s been about 150 years.” Answers Benny.
“But we find ourselves in a battle against the scaly kind,” says Joice.
“I don’t know anything about trade disruptions. But I know the scaly kind cannot have the three artifacts. You should have at least one, the dagger. There is the shield and the amulet. That’s in addition to the shaman’s staff and the rod of the serpent queen. You all need to keep doing what your are doing as the scalykind are up to something!”
Rivenn muttered that he knew it.
"What are they doing," asked Joice.
"I know they are doing some ritual but I'm not sure what," Nicolas replied. "Even my superior intellect could not fathom the alien depths of the scalyfolk or their ilk. I do know there were six artifacts and that they wanted them for a ritual but I hid them for a reason. I'm merely concerned that they might find it now."
“But can you tell us where you buried the items you hid?” asks Benny.
“Indeed, I can!" as he smiles, looks at the party, and waves, "Good luck!” and he leaves, vanishing inside the statue.
“Well, that wasn’t very helpful. We listened to him for nothing…”
[img id="pbImage763347" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20A%20Brookshire%2011a.png" alt="" width="1084" /]
They found a riddle on the statue and and it led to them finding a secret hiding place. The scabbard of the sword could twist away and accept the real sword!
When they put it in there, they saw a map of the southern mountain range and some areas were marked.
Rivenn was sure he would remember where they were, so they grabbed the guards and went out.
As the party heads over and starts picking up the unconscious guards, the townsfolk suddenly appear and begin congratulating us on our work.
“Thank you! Old Nick must have been up to his old tricks again!” says a villager.
We don’t get the sense that they have seen his ghost, but they have said things for so many generations that anything strange gets chalked up to him.
“And for you gentleman, we’ll get you some food and drink!” says another villager, “And what did you find was the cause of the problems?”
Benny says, “Oh, it was the Great Kaouzmak, and he was messing around.”
“Yes, he died with no heir and gave all his worldly possessions to the town and asked for a statue. So, we take care of it! He found several crypts and other old places that nobody knew about, and looked into them and found many treasures there. And he was beset upon by bandits and goblins and orcs, as it wasn’t as settled as it is no, but never scaly kind. The crypts were all around in the valley. One was near the spires to heaven, gut rock, and let’s see, the last one, oh I don’t remember. I’ve never been to the mountains, so I don’t know if they are accurate or still there.”
A woman walks into the bar, “Adventurers, thank you for what you have done. My people are grateful, I am Lena Headstand, mayor of this town.” And she offers us a jewelry case. It is small, 4x6, and she opens it up and inside there are 6 topazes. And she offers one to each of us.
Zephyr looks to see if they have magic, and they do not. Benny can tell that they are actually from one of the gem mines, because he had made many lock boxes and locks for this kind of jewelry, and these are each 275gp
We thank the townsfolk and their leader, mount up and head towards the 3rd peak. Also, the caravans are missing from this town to the next. We found out they have had 4 caravans thus far since winter.
Then the mayor came and presented them with a gem as a sign of appreciation.
They headed out the next morning as it was late by that time and the town paid for the rooms.
On the way back toward Stonebridge, having found out several caravans arrived and left, Rivenn was paying more attention to the side trails he saw.
Some were game trails, some were herders trails, but he hadn't gone more than fifty or sixty feet down them. This time he went at least a hundred yards, more like a hundred a fifty.
[img id="pbImage805089" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20B%20Grove%20of%20Trees%201a.png" alt="" width="1084" /]
On the fifth trail, heading south, he found wagon wheel treads. They just appeared. He felt a bit better that he couldn't have seen them from so far away.
They head down the trail, seeing it go toward a grove of trees. Lights were coming from there, two different areas. They headed toward the dimmer lights.
They found remnants of a caravan and humans being held by scalykind! When a group of scalykind showed up and started dragging one of the humans off, they attack!
“NO, NO, NO!” calls a human being led away by some scaly folks. Zephyr knows exactly what that is.
Jakahaiel moves far ahead of the party, leaving them behind with his monk movements. He then moves close to the scaly folk, and can see a torch by the wagons and a torch being carried by a scaly folk, along with where the human is being carried away. East about 100 yards away are lights, and some ruins through the trees. Probably some other scaly folk there, and that is probably where the ritual is happening. Seeing all this, he drinks a potion. And then charges and high kicks at one of the scaly folk, landing in front of them, blocking their way! The fist catches the lizard right in the head, and he could feel that this is a solid guy, as he expected.
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Nilgan moves forward 60’ and surveys the battlefield.
Benny moves up to the human in the wagons. He can’t do it quietly enough, and a scaly folk calls out. “I’m here to free you,” he says. Undaunted at the discovery, he cuts her bonds free and says “run that way” as he points the direction he came from.
Joice moves up, and a scaly folk rush towards him. It screams and shouts and goes into a rage as it attacks.
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It’s an absolutely perfectly placed bite and critically takes a chunk of exposed skin. The lizard then swings his morning star and again pounds into the armored warrior.
Another scaly folk rushes at Benny, who bends back and avoids the bite!
[span style="font-size:13px;"]A second scaly folk rushes at Benny, and he jumps up into the wagon and Benny flips out and avoids the bite, landing on the ground. [/span]
[img id="pbImage524860" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20B%20Grove%20of%20Trees%206a.png" alt="" width="1084" /]
[span style="font-size:13px;"]Then a 3[/span][sup style="font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-weight:inherit;"]rd[span style="font-size:13px;"] scaly lizard, rages, and he tries to charge Benny and use the wagon to jump up and land on Benny, and he fumbles but Benny doesn’t hit him. So, he bites Benny, hits him, but doesn’t inflict the poison. Benny had wanted to sneak down to help the survivors, taking on three scaly folk was not what he had planned![/span]
[img id="pbImage304374" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20B%20Grove%20of%20Trees%208a.png" alt="" width="1084" /]
A scaly folk turns to attack Jakahaiel and calls out as it attacks, but misses. He follows up with another attack that lands, striking the monk with a harpoon.
Nilgan moves closer and casts “Silent Image” up by Jakahaiel that looks just like him between the two creatures. It looks like a fighter about to attack suddenly appears. The creatures are shocked that another warrior is there.
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Rivenn throws his axe twice at the creature attacking the critically injured Joice. Loud thunks sound as both axe throws land true on his favored enemy! Huge chunks of lizard flesh falls to the ground followed by blood. A third throw from the ranger bloodies the creature. It is severely damaged, but still standing.
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The woman leaps out of the back of the wagon, and runs away past our party members. She is stumbling in the dark and she hasn’t walked in a while.
The Scaly folk stabs at Jakahaiel, hits him, then turns to the illusion, it goes right through, he grunts, and then turns back, but none of the attacks land.
A lizard grabs the human sacrifice and starts to run away to the alter. The human is trying to resist, but he is being easily dragged away towards the east.
[img id="pbImage851350" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20B%20Grove%20of%20Trees%2014%20JKa.png" alt="" width="1084" /]
Jakahaiel uses a spell like ability, casts it on the jewel on his necklace, and a sphere of darkness appears around him, engulfing him and the 3 scaly folk close by him. He then takes a 5’ step and attacks the same lizard he attacked before with a flurry of blows. He takes one last 5’ step, behind the lizard, taking the darkness with him.
[img id="pbImage282930" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20B%20Grove%20of%20Trees%2016%20NGa.png" alt="" width="1084" /]
Nilgan takes aim at the scaly folk carrying the human sacrifice. Rays of frost shoot out and strike the creature, covering it in frost and cold.
[img id="pbImage402509" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20B%20Grove%20of%20Trees%2018%20BNa.png" alt="" width="1084" /]
Benny moves around the wagon, attacks once and hits, but then moves by the end of a wagon and casts a spell on himself, and vanishes! His hope is he can hide under the wagon.
[img id="pbImage138433" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20B%20Grove%20of%20Trees%2019%20JCa.png" alt="" width="1084" /]
Joice uses the wand on himself twice, healing himself up.
[img id="pbImage8079" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20B%20Grove%20of%20Trees%2020%20JCa.png" alt="" width="1084" /]
Then activates a second judgment, “I am the defender of the faith and nothing may harm me!” He then steps forward again, target the scaly folk that attacked him, and attacks him. The creature is still standing, but just barely.
It attacks Joice, and misses once, then misses again! And then a third time, and that swing misses too! He is so protected by his judgement!
A lizard moves forward attacking at Benny, but misses, and jumps around the wagon, and misses again, and then heads off away from Benny!
[img id="pbImage839075" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20B%20Grove%20of%20Trees%2025%20ZRb.png" alt="" /]
The lizard in the dark swinging blindly, misses, moves, swings and manages to strike him in the dark. Jakahaiel falls to the ground, but almost silently among the grunts and growls of the scaly folk. Not knowing he fell, the lizard swings again, but misses on the third swing as he is aiming way too high.
Another one moves down and swings, misses, and swings under a cart, misses, and swings under the next cart, and misses under that one too! Benny dodges 2 attacks!
A scaly folk, seeing the darkness, runs away!
A scaly folk moves up towards Nilgan, who is small but visible.
[img id="pbImage566742" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20B%20Grove%20of%20Trees%2025%20ZRa.png" alt="" width="1084" /]
Zephyr rushes up to help the invisible Benny, and shoots 2 rays of cold at the lizard, striking it both times!
[img id="pbImage645351" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20B%20Grove%20of%20Trees%2027a.png" alt="" width="1084" /]
Rivenn turns and faces the lizard at Nilgan, but the creature is just out of reach, so he rushes up and yells at the scaly folk to draw its attention away from Nilgan.
The woman is whimpering, and clinging to a tree, not able to move.
Another scaly folk in the darkness decides to leave, but he heads north, then goes another direction, still not out, and gets turned around and ends up back where it started, unable to get out of the darkness.
The lizard on the wagon gives up on Benny, and runs out of the wagons, sees Joice, and charges at him.
He manages to land the attack, damaging.
Jakahaiel wakes up for a moment from his coma, still on the ground, fumbles, and manages to drink a potion of healing. He has the common sense to do this utterly silent in the darkness spell.
Nilgan vanishes, and again appears next to the escaping lizard with the human, and targets the ground, to make it slippery. Two blasts of cold go out, and the lizard was not expecting that and slips on the ice. It is enough for the human to break free, and he rushes directly north. He sees the gnome, but just keeps running north.
Benny, invisible, sneaks up behind the lizard on Joice. He gets one good attack in, but then the lizard turns around and blocks it.
[img id="pbImage334419" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20B%20Grove%20of%20Trees%2040%20BYa.png" alt="" width="1093" /]
Joice then turns around and twice cuts deeply into the scaly folk, cutting him deeply. He misses, and suddenly Nicolas allows him to re-roll the attack! It looked like he was going to deflect it, when the sword is pushed by a magical force and it gets under his defenses and he cuts the scaly folk down!
[img id="pbImage926740" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20B%20Grove%20of%20Trees%2042%20ZRa.png" alt="" width="1093" /]
Lizard folk rushes up and attacks Benny, having finally found him! He manages to easily get past the wagons and get there, but he fails and falls off the wagon. Both Joice and Benny attack at the same time, and the creature drops to the ground dead. A very unfortunate fumble.
The lizard in the dark is suddenly listening for the monk. Jakahaiel keeps quiet, and the creature moves around swinging and can’t find the monk.
A lizard rushes forward towards Zephyr. As it is doing that, Joice casts an acid splash at it to get its attention! He hesitates a second, but isn’t stopped as he attacks the gnome. He then rushes at Joice. Zephyr tries to hit him with a dagger, but he misses, so dazed from the hit.
A lizard rushes Rivenn, attacks with a huge bite, and hits. He then swings his harpoon, but the warrior deflects it twice. The attack is so bad, Rivenn gets an attack of opportunity, he takes it, and slices into the lizard with a very solid hit.
Zephyr shots 3 rays of frost at the lizard that hit him. All three rays land, coating the creature in ice and frost.
Rivenn steps back and starts throwing his axes. All three throws land, but he can’t quite kill the creature.
[img id="pbImage270793" style="font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-size:13px;font-family:'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', Arial;" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20B%20Grove%20of%20Trees%2043%20RNb.png" alt="" width="1084" /]
The one in the darkness finally manages to get out. He is disoriented and wanders away to the south.
The lizard on the ice stands up and rushes at Nilgan. He avoids the human and reaches out to grab Nilgan! He easily lifts up the tiny gnome, and starts running to the sacrifice area.
The human rushes forward and tries to tackle the lizard carrying Nilgan. He doesn’t do anything but get in his way, but he’s yelling and slapping at the lizard, trying to save the gnome that tried to save him.
[img id="pbImage96668" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20B%20Grove%20of%20Trees%2039%20NGa.png" alt="" /]
Jakahaiel does that jump with his legs that flips himself up on his feet in amazing acrobatics move. He then starts punching the lizard in the dark. Blow after blow lands on the unsuspecting creature.
[img id="pbImage859969" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20B%20Grove%20of%20Trees%2038%20JKa.png" alt="" width="1084" /]
The monk keeps moving around the creature, pummeling him from all directions in the dark. The tactic works, and the final punch drops the creature to the ground dead. He moves south and puts the darkness around the fleeing lizard that had just gotten out of the darkness! It is very panicked that the darkness is chasing it.
[img id="pbImage887194" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20B%20Grove%20of%20Trees%2043%20RNa.png" alt="" width="1093" /]
Nilgan decides to make a concentration check so he can cast a spell but can’t do it. So he tries again, and this time he manages to get a ray of frost to go off, aiming for the creatures face. It hits the creature as he jerks back getting hit in the face, and he drops the gnome. From the ground, he dimensional slides away, leaving the brave human standing next to the lizard.
Benny attacks 3 times, but even after all those attacks, the creature is still standing.
Joice, watching the display, smiles, as he reaches in and kills the distracted creature. Without hesitation, he turns around, looks at his companions, and charges at the lizard attacking Rivenn. And with one well placed strike, he cuts the head clean off the creature.
Zephyr decides the best plan is to take a potion of cure light wounds. Benny is motioning for him, so he moves over closer to the civilian woman and Benny.
Rivenn rushes down to the human, gets within range of the creature, and throws his axe. With one well placed throw, it lodges in the creature’s head and kills it.
The last lizard doesn’t realize he is the last lizard! He rushes up to Benny and attacks. Benny had plenty of time, sees him coming, and is able to dodge the attack.
Jakahaiel sees the last lizard, dispels the darkness, and charges at it. The unsuspecting lizard takes all the blows to the back of his head, and falls to the ground, dead.
[img id="pbImage747409" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20B%20Grove%20of%20Trees%2044a.png" alt="" width="1093" /]
Benny comforts the lady they rescued. She is battered and bruised, no significant injuries.
The man that had helped was named Foster, and he stays with the lady who both want to wait by the wagons until morning.
Jakahaiel says “there are a large number of scaly folks to the east in the ruins.
[img id="pbImage248510" src="http://dmgaming.pbworks.com/f/2023-05-15%20B%20Grove%20of%20Trees%2046.png" alt="" width="1093" /]
Jakahaiel scouts ahead and looks over the ruins. He sees that the sacrifice area is close!
He sees 4 ruined buildings surrounding a central area where the sacrifices occur.
There were dead bodies in one of the buildings but looked like about 6-10lizardpeople. He rushes back to inform the party.
There are more people to save!
GM Notes
- I think the group is still figuring out how to work together.
- It's better each time but still not defined.
- I think they will find a way to make it work with the characters.
- I liked the statue and it being a bit more mental stuff than physical.
- The caravan stuff was fun!