The Castle Ruins Report
General Summary
Sukasi 30
After bravely running away from the rats, the group decides to explore the last building in the hamlet. They explore this deserted building and find the rotting remains of someone hanging from the rafters. The corpse is so rotten that is is largely skeleton. When exploring, Clayton goes to the second floor, looks around and sees a dresser that he carefully approaches. When wrestling the drawer, it falls, Clayton jumps out of the way and the dresser crashes through the floor.
Once the dust starts to settle, the group notices that the pile on the floor wriggles. They go closer and a swarm of 30 - 45 cm long centipedes comes out, so everyone but Felix leaves. He squishes one, and gets bitten by another, but it is unable to get through his armour and clothes. He rushes outside and is assisted in getting a couple of them off of him,
They leave the hamlet and travel for a couple of hours using an old road, fallen into disrepair. They come across a village, which is on the other side of the river from them. Felix waterwalksacross the river. When he does. he sees a young Ælf watching him. He beckons, and the youngster hides. After a few minutes a couple more come out, and approach him. They try to talk but no-one can understand each other. Even when the Ælfs yell to Saiyathey can't understand each other, although their dialect seems similar to Saiya's.
They eventually lower the bridge for Saiya to cross. She steps on the bridge and stumbles, falling to the ground. The bridge is incorporeal. Felix at first thinks this is an illusion, but after examining it, he realises that it's not. He goes into the village and tries to enter the first house, but is unable to grab the door handle, as his hand goes right through it. He steps inside (walking through the door), stumbles a little, as the ground is uneven but he can't see that. He feels around and realises that the building is not really there, somehow.
He goes back and casts a spell to get Saiya across. She crosses, but can't understand them. They see Clayton across the river. They shout at him in Halven,and eventually everyone else decides to go downriver to where there is a fjord. This takes them three hours to get back to the village.
Meanwhile, Saiya explores the village and finds that it seems to be existing in two realities at the same time, one where the village is present and whole, a thriving community, one where it has fallen to the ground for thousands of years, possibly 18 Ælfen lifetimes. Before the rest of the party arrives Felix casts know essence, and almost passes out from the overwhelming sensation from a curse that has held this village in the two realities - are they ghosts or caught in a time loop? He is now able to see both versions.
As it's approaching sundown, everyone decides to leave, because they don't want to be stuck in a ghost village after dark, largely because they are afraid the curse will affect them. They spend the night in sight of the village and notice that it becomes more solid, real, and active during the dark.
Sukasi 31
They approach the village again, and ask the day of the week again. The villagers answer with the same answer as the previous day. At this point the villagers notice the humans and, eyes agog, ask what they are. They are told that they are a people from very, very far away.
Clayton talks to one of the villagers and convinces her to walk with him away from the village. Once they get about 200 metres away from the village, she vanishes.
They spend another day observing the village, determine that it is trapped in a time loop and that no-one actually dies there, even though anyone who leaves the village disappears once they're 200 metres away or so.
They travel on to the castle without event.
The castle has a very large tent set up in the middle of it, with the smells of cooking coming out of it, and sounds of pans banging about. Saiya sneaks. up to it and peaks inside. She sees two ogres cooking. The group sneaks around to explore the tower. In searching the tower they realise that it is well set up for someone to sleep in, with a giant sized bed (ogre?). Underneath the bed the find a very well made battle axe.
The sneak past the tent again, and go into the other area up the ladder to the second floor. They realise that all of the furniture is ogre sized, and there are two beds there. They explore the rest of the building, finding a couple more beds, chests, and a third floor that seems to be a junk attic.
After a while they hear a third voice join the other two. Spying upon them, they see that there is a third, much smaller, ogre. They sneak out the back way,
A very long discussion ensues regarding what to do about the ogre's, the morality of evicting or killing them, and whether ogres are sentient or not.
Felix decides that he is going to talk to the ogres. He prepares a defensive spell (powerchord), just in case. And he starts to play a merry little tune outside the castle to attract them. The ogres hear his music and wander outside the castle to see what's going on.
"Hello, friend ogres!" says Felix. The ogres are confused and respond, "Who you?"
The ogres get upset with Felix's news that the humans want to come here an resettle the area. Much arguing ensues with the ogres, one obviously wants to smash Felix, but the smallest of them dissuades him. He asks Felix to come back later.. "Just later!" Felix agrees to come back in the morning.
Sukasi 32
Felix reports to the group. "Hey guys! Guess who didn't die today?" "Do you have any idea how luck you are?" asks Saiya. "Unnaturally so, I think." He answers.
Felix then reports his conversation with the ogres to the group. They get into a big discussion on how to deal with the ogres, again. Part of the debate goes over the morality of ogres eating Gnar and other intelligent species. Felix doesn't feel comfortable kicking the ogres out of their home, as they've lived here for at least 5 winters.
Barclay says that they might convince the ogres to go live in the abandoned, haunted tower. Felix says that's a bad idea, as the ogres would likely die there or get caught in the pillar trap.
Barclay then proposes a grift where the ogres go to a human village, raid it, and the group gets hired to get rid of the ogres, so they move on to another village, etc.
They decide to camp for the night and visit the ogres in the morning.
Sukasi 33
Felix approaches the ogres in the morning. The ogres know how many and what species everyone in the group is. They ask Felix what he suggests they do. Felix suggests the haunted tower. The ogres don't like that idea! Then they say that they want to have a house or cave or something to actually live in.
Felix states that it will take him 10 days to find them a place to live. They agree, and he says if he doesn't find anything, then he will help them find an alternative.
So, they decide to explore the area where the ford was. This is a day;s travel away.
Sukasi 34
After several hours of exploring they find a cave that appears to be guarded by two large stone statues. They go into a large cavern. The cavern goes to the left and right, so they go left. the cavern curves around, and there are some rough stairs that head downwards. They come to a doorway on the left part of a landing, and the stairs continue rightwards. The unlock the door (it's locked from the inside). Down a small set of wide stairs and there is a mausoleum with a sarcophagus of a knight. On the side is inscriber "Lord Steven of Nalkon, Paladin of Necros". They open the casket and find a corpse wearing a suit of armour and holding a longsword.
Saiya takes the longsword, which has runes on it. Felix casts know essence on the corpse and discovers that it is a draugr. Clayton takes the armour, and they dismember the corpse. Felix takes a femur bone and Clayton takes a piece of the spine. They skedaddle and travel back towards the ogres with the intent of telling them that they have found a place but need to "clean it out" first. The idea is to get a priest of Ga-La to bless the place and have it be safe from the draugr. Once they are away and nightfall hits, they camp for the night.
Rewards Granted
Very decorated battleaxe (bearded axe), ~5 feet long (including handle)
Longsword that is resistant to fire damage, stays sharp, and delivers +2
damage against armour and +5 damage against undead.
Suit of flexible armour (deflects 4) that protects against fire attackes, includes hauberk, mail gauntlets, 3/4 helm, bracers, and greaves.
Character(s) interacted with
Met three ogres, Stump, Thogg, and Iggl.
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