Suspicious Minds

Greenwyrm Vale, 27th & 28th of Sow

General Summary

The group awoke the day after their confrontation with the Platinum Covenant assassins with no clear idea of where they were. In the absence of any landmarks they pressed north into the forest and soon found that the woods were so thick that they were making slow progress. Breaking west, they found some deer paths and made their way out of the thicket, finding themselves in the fields behind the tiny settlement of Homelit.
Speaking to two of the residents, Jenny and her grandfather, Elder Terence, they were able to establish their location and the directions to the town of Rengula on the main road, a alf day’s travel away. On the road to Rengula, the party met another group consisting of two heavily armored siblings, Tamara and Zoltan Deak; a halfling rogue, Melinda Vass; a human cleric of Luna called Marcel Toth; and an elven ranger named Roland Katona.
Suspicious after their previous encounter with apparently friendly strangers, Marvroth tried to surreptitiously detect evil on the new group. Melinda spotted what he was up to, but it seemed only to earn her respect, though not her trust. Marvroth discovered that their was a corruption to Marcel’s holy symbol, which instantly deepened his suspicion of the cleric.
Taking this up with Zoltan, who seemed to be the leader of the group, they asked Marcel, a recent addition to Zoltan’s group, about it. Marcel told them he had taken it from the ruins of a Shrine of Luna destroyed by the orcs to replace his own lost holy symbol. Now that Marvroth mentioned it, he had been uncomfortable over the last few days, though he hadn’tbeen able to pinpoint the source. It was decided that Tamara would hold Marcel’s holy symbol until they reached Rengula and they could inspect it further.
Reaching Rengula, Marvroth, Terey and Zoltan went to warn the mayor about events to the south and the impending danger that could be coming their way. The mayor offered any help he could give to the Vale Lord’s quest. With such a large group heading north they didn’t have particularly swift transport to offer them, but a carriage was due from the north in 3 days that the party should meet on the road, and the mayor provided them with papers to allow them to commandeer it. His letter, and their Vale Lord status ought to be more than enough authority to take control of the means of transport.
In the meantime the rest of the group took rooms at The Righteous Cup Inn and met in the common room to examine the tainted holy symbol. Hado examined it and was instantly hit with a burst of hatred towards Tamara that quickly faded. Tamara admitted that she had felt something similar while in her possession. The group decided to immediately take the symbol to the Temple of Luna for them to deal with.
At the temple, the senior cleric, Father Altair immediately was able to sense the darkness coming from the tainted symbol and sealed it away in a box that he blessed with protective magic. The group retired to The Righteous Cup and caught up on news, Thurstan and Ballamin particularly interested in any news from the elven civil war that Katona might bring them. Sadly, it seemed that the war was at a stalemate with heavy casualties on both sides, but no real progress towards a solution.
One by one, they drifted off to bed. In the morning,the Vale Lords, all sharing a larger room, were awoken with a heavy knock on the door. Nobody was there, but a tray of breakfast was sitting outside the door. Still suspicious, Marvroth used magic to detect any poison, discovering that the food was fine, but the water had been poisoned with Midnight’s Tears, a delayed action poison that caused internal necrotic damage and, usually, death within 12-18 hours of ingestion.
Not knowing whether the food had been sent by someone in town or by one of their new companions, the party decided not to mention the incident, deciding that if their new companions had also been poisoned, there was nothing that could be done for them now, as Midnight’s Tears had no known antidote and if it was one of the other group that had attempted to poison them, the expectation of their own deaths would, perhaps, give away the conspirator when they all remained healthy.
The large group left town on the north road and, after half a day’s travel came to a bridge crossing a wide but shallow creek. Guarding the bridge were a gnome and a half-ogre who demanded the exorbitant sum of 50 gold per person to pass. When the party balked at the sum, the gnome confided that they were free to pass, but that his friend had worked hard to maintain the bridge, the only crossing for vehicles for many miles, and that it would be a shame if something happened to the bridge and affected trade. The party shrugged it off, rather generously offered 5 gold to the gnome and crossed the bridge.
Stepping off the bridge at the far end, Zoltan and Tamara found themselves deep in quicksand, leaving the party stopped on the bridge itself. They tried to pull the siblings out, but the heavy plate armor that they wore hampered efforts. Trying to shuck the armor, the brother and sister only succeeded in sinking further. Realizing that the quicksand was not natural and that the gnome was likely to blame, Thurstan turned to confront the gnome, only to see the half-ogre getting ready to smash the supports of the bridge,
A short skirmish broke out immediately during which several things happened – the half-ogre disappeared every time he was targeted with an attack, reappearing once then disappearing entirely; Thurstan tried to leap over the pit of quicksand, but stumbled and fell in; Zoltan panicked, but only managed to sink himself further, his nose barely clearing the surface and in imminent danger of suffocation; the gnome used magic missiles to break the second bridge support, sending Hado into the creek and knocking others prone and, finally, when threatened with being overwhelmed, the gnome triggered a circle of teleportation, in the process Marvroth and Terey were teleported with him. Where to, the rest of the group did not know.
Missing companions, a new potential friend in immediate mortal peril and two others stuck in quicksand and slowly sinking, the remaining group members need to think fast…

Report Date

26 Jun 2018

Primary Location

Rengula