Lost Lore 10: Return to Wagner Abbey

In which our heroes are thoroughly stymied by a couple score Kobolds.

This is a big crew of people. This is exciting, we have like an army now! We can just wait outside and let them go in.
— Charity damning our progress for the day as we gather our allies to take on the Abbey

General Summary

Nothing in the Abbey is something you want to make peace with.
You would be surprised.
I would be.
— Brightshine and Adjenna going over what's been seen in the Abbey thus far

How quickly a year goes by! The next Founder's Day rapidly approaches... Joking aside, the next morning Ospher and I got up and had breakfast with Tadlo and Lorgan the next morning a couple of tables over from where Digby maintained his morning ritual of horking down Oatmeal in order to learn more about their skills as cut-purses. As best as we could ascertain, they're experienced pickpockets and have tools for other heists that they claim to have performed in the past. They aren't associated with the Black Thorns in their past, since they don't like trafficking in lives and don't see themselves ever aligning with them in the future. Charity came downstairs mid-conversation and was energized to return to Wagner Abbey for the first time in a week. We went to the south end of town to check in with the Qinbi family, and saw Crisnos and his extended family getting their wagons loaded and ready to go back to the farmlands. We exchanged wishes of wellness and I felt like he was maybe holding back from telling us something and we set off to the Kreastos for our meeting. We three were ushered into the Solicitor Arminias Kint's office and had a fairly dry discussion regarding the ability of non-citizens to hold deeds to land within town, even in a part of town that is very nearly considered abandoned. We found a place for a future Inn/Restaurant that would be of suitable size and proximity to the Abbey and Kint estimated it's value to be 2000 gold pieces, and did acknowledge that the price was up for some negotiation. We also took this opportunity to familiarize ourselves with where our meeting would take place that evening and how the aqueducts connect up to one another and terminate in the south west side of the city in some sort of chasm. I was told to expect a response from the Kreastos in a number of weeks and that we could update our address with the Kreastos if necessary later on. I suppose Greasom can just let us know after we've checked out of the 12 Carrots? We'll work something out.

Generally we would be more open negotiations with a citizen rather than a visitor... We're always open to hear offers, of course.
— Kint explaining how business goes in Frial

Did we do it? ...was this a crime thing? Did we succeed?
Not a crime thing! This was legitimate business inquiry.
— Charity wondering how best to help and Adjenna clarifying what was "truly" going on

We crossed the courtyard and the freshly laid silver brick from last night to the Grand Order of the Lion and asked Brightshine if he wanted to gather some duty and he was all about that opportunity. We then met up with Lorgan and Tadlo and headed to Bellhaven and filled them on Digby's rules for the exploration and what sort of weirdness we expect to see. Lorgan and Tadlo were excited to find out that this wasn't an excursion without an expectation of valuable goods. We observed a recent trashbin fire on the way in and the Abbey appeared un-entered, as usual.

That desk over there with the papers and the people? That doesn't need to exist, but they told me to man it anyway. Those people want to come in and do business with the people they're looking for. And my job would be to hamper that, so by me leaving, it's better. FOOLS!
— Ser Brightshine, with a Wisdom 20 statement

We finally got a chance to check out the final room in the front wing of the admin hallway and moved the bookshelf and book barricade out of the way to look in this last hold out of Auloro's, skulls and magical implements were left on the desk and a free standing skeleton in the corner had a number of magical runes carved into it. As a precaution, we put manacles on it's arms and it sprang to life and the symbol on it's forehead flared with magic. After a brief discussion, we decided we should preserve it for Digby and got the bookshelf onto it before it could harm anyone. As it fell onto it, it cried out. Upon learning that it talked, we got him out from under the bookshelf and tried to speak with him after he got over our ambush, but he was very insistent on finding "Master Auloro." We dissuaded him (he claimed to be Barnard) from going out into the town to look for him after a bit and looked over Auloro's office and found a spellbook and a lot of notes about creating undead.

There's no brain in there, there's no information.
Yeah there's no brain but that's not where information lives!
WHAT.
— Brightshine and Adjenna on a skeleton with no brain that talks and knows things

Leafing through the spellbook, Charity found the potion that he likely drank at Auloro's request and after confirming it, we knew that it did not work. I was able to also confirm that he could be used as fuel for a spell. He perceives his body as totally intact, strangely. Also within the office, we found the spare change box and an old glaive with a dragon on the haft of it that is also able to cast burning hands that we handed over to Brightshine since he was the only one that had the martial training to wield it competently.

Mister Barnard, did you drink a potion from him?
Yes yes, I drank it. It was a beautiful swirl of purples and blacks, it tasted like sweet sweet honey. It made me immortal!
Well, it did at that.
Preserving me for all time! I will see the end of days and the birth of a new existence. My enriched flesh has been inked into the very tapestry of reality, I am one with everything.
— Charity, Barnard, Ospher on failed magical expirments

We then traveled over to the dormitory section and we went back into the chapel, just to make sure that there were no new tracks in the area, but the floor was not covered in layers of dust which didn't exactly strike me as strange until later. We went to check out the chapel to Sandor's priest's living area and immediately upon entering Ospher noticed a chest on top of a cabinet past some chandeliers. I suspected something amiss because we noticed some shadows moving about in the dim sunlight away far from the window amongst the seating, and asked everyone to be ready to cover Lorgan as he went forward to pick the lock we saw on the front of it. He got it open pretty easily and was immediately impaled by a gigantic wooden sharpened log that sprung from the chest. I went forward to tend to him with a couple of others and then we were engulfed in darkness and saw some specters emerge from the ceiling to attack us but their claws felt weirdly solid. Lorgan's wound was also covered in feces, skunk spray and all sorts of other rotting materials from what I could tell was a part of the log that had been hollowed out.

It belongs to us! Flee! Flee for your lives!
What the trap?
The Abbey! The Abbey is ours!
— The Ghosts and Ospher arguing about the Ghosts being unspecific with their threats

Between Charity and Ospher's offensive cantrips and Brightshine's glaive's Burning Hands, we quickly destroyed the specters, though we saw some dark shapes sneak off by means of the darkness globes that we heard run off. As they escaped, they cut the rope to a chandelier, pinning Lorgan beneath it and knocking him unconscious again. All of this seemed very odd to us, Ospher took a detailed look at the "ghosts" and they were an artfully created frame and sheet with marionette like arms with farming implements attached and connected to the top with ropes and pulleys and needed to be dragged around the room with ropes that went to the ground as well. So after we combed the two rooms and found some spicy erotic texts in the priest's living quarters, a dog eared novel with woodblock prints titled "Dreams on Fire", a story about a forbidden romance between two warring houses. We closed, locked the doors and jammed the bottom of the doors in case whatever these things were could still get into these rooms with some sneakiness and crept forward down the hallway. I noticed at a little supply / linen area that one of the shelvings was spring-loaded and prepped to crush a passerby, so Lorgan and Tadlo were able to disable that. Looking about for more rope mooring and things from the ceiling to attack from above, we saw slats that had been punched into the space between floors in order for these creatures to navigate this section of the Abbey without going along the hall from the chapel to the staircased end of the ground floor. We hoisted Tadlo to glance about in the structure openings above and he said that while he couldn't see anything, he could smell a lot of feces. using Ospher's alchemical know-how, we built a small fire pit with my censer, we got a lot of smoke into their ducting. We heard some strange chitterings that, while initially it sounded like bird chirping, I was able to discern that they were speaking draconic, making me think that these were Kobolds. We sent Tadlo forward to see if he could see any of them fleeing from the smoke, and after a moment, we heard a brief shouting, hissing and then a loud crash. I ran forward in the main hall to see Tadlo lying unconscious on the ground, and in his arms, a Kobold dressed in all black, equally motionless. I was then flung by the same trap he was into the ceiling and barely managed to keep myself from succumbing to the pain. Overall a terrible experience. Ospher managed to disarm the trap, while a kobold with an eye patch down the hallway walked into a room, snickering and closing the door. They called out at us from their hiding spots, saying that they are the masters of this place, and that they are eternal and the time of dragons is soon. While I did find their boasting credible, they were unwilling to negotiate in any fashion with us, and after some silence unleashed some feral hogs to tear down the hallway at us. They looked to be starving which had whipped them up into a furor. Of the original 6, 2 of them died in their dash for us, revealing the location of a couple more traps further down the hallway and we climbed up onto the shelves of linen storage to avoid their attacks. The hogs were ravenous though and managed to knock Brightshine, Tadlo and Ospher off after we got another of these hogs down with cantrips and arrows. I jumped down to join them to hopefully shield someone from attacks which worked but the Kobolds were canny enough to capitalize on their distraction and launched an attack of their own from the ceiling at Charity and Morgan. Ospher had a couple of great ideas at this point, he pulled out his Journey Wheel Meat Pie and threw it away from us down the hall, distracting a hog, and fired his wand of fear into the opening where the compact space allowed it to affect an even greater concentration that it would in open air, sending some of the little dragonlings scampering over one another for their lives, causing more chaos in their midst. There was a second opening a couple Kobolds thought they could utilize still against us when I finally had some divine inspiration from Nisaba. Using the Mending spell, these openings that had been made by the kobolds would be sealed to prevent attacks from above us, ending the battle after Brightshine slew the last hog near the shelves. We then went back to the chapel and sealed off the openings in the ceiling there as well and resumed my earlier idea of smoking them out with a twist: their feces were everywhere up in the structure and after some careful analysis and discussion, we agreed that there wasn't anything major to jeopardize with an uncontrolled burn up there to force them out. I would seal the openings after Charity used her Control Fire spell to spread the blaze up in the gap to clean up the mess, flush the kobolds out ahead of us, and prevent them from re-establishing a foothold on this floor without some serious effort and what would likely take a while to effectively redo their progress while we systematically locked all the doors in the hallway with the master bat-head key for the wing and disabled the hallway traps and their access. As we got down to the end of the hallway, we saw a number of them bailing out of a wall opening and running up the stairs to the 2nd floor of the dormitory. We checked out the hallway at the other end leading to the spas and saw another linen closet but didn't see any more holes or traps (that we know about) and examined the spa room. The room smelled terrible, sort of like the horrible stuff that coated the spike that impaled Lorgan and after asking Brightshine to run his glaive into the brackish water standing in the four pools, we discovered that there were 20 zombies chained into each pool for, we suspect, some foul ingredient in Auloro's tinctures. Charity couldn't locate it specifically within his book, but I wasn't specifically concerned about it. There were a number of kobold weapons in here too, a bunch of vials of zombie water and a few alchemical devices that would produce darkness after thrown, explaining how they conducted their initial ambush of us. We found a common pipe that would feed fresh water to all of the spas, loaded in some of Sandor's blessed water and watched the zombies dissolve rapidly and set the controls to properly flush through now that the drains were unclogged. With the floor's hallway and ends secure, we went through, room by room and checked each room for traps and additional kobold garbage that had been left behind, saving the room where the one with the eyepatch had gone in for last. In one of the first rooms towards the entrance, we caught four of them, covered in sneaking gear with some alchemical goggles that would allow them to see through magical darkness, and they immediately surrendered to us. We took their gear, bound them and tied them to the bars of the cells in the basement after gagging them when one of them that spoke common swore that he wanted to help us disable the rest of the traps and wanted to reform himself. He was laughing the whole time and smiling at his kin, so I knew he wasn't to be trusted. As we opened the door to the room with the kobold with the pitchfork, he was jumping on the bed and had a bag labeled "gems" there and was practically begging us to enter. I laughed at this enticement, and we used our ranged attacks to try and kill him from afar. Tadlo's arrow went wildly awry when shooting at him, breaking open a window on this floor, which he then fled through and we did not pursue. We found no traps in the masonry in the room, and the bag he so "accidentally" left behind was opened at a distance by Ospher jettisoned buckets full of caltrops into the room, far more than the bag should have been able to hold. Lorgan gave the sack to Ospher, who identified it as connecting to a sort of pocket dimension. I requested that we ignore whatever preparations he had done to this room with his idle time while locked in, and Charity used her Control Fire cantrip again to burn the contents back down to the masonry. And I repaired the window and we confirmed after we finished up that they remained unbreakable from the outside of the building.

Are you the Aun-Kri?
You are not fit to say his name!
So that's a no.
I am humble Keliki. Trapmaster.
— Adjenna, Keliki, and Ospher discuss the true genius behind the horrifyingly effective defense of the dormitory wing

You take a step into this room, you'll be killed by one of my many traps. I am the trapmaster!
You don't dare say HIS name!
— Keliki and Ospher

It was looking to be early in the afternoon at this point, so we decided we'd see what we could of the next floor and then return to the inn to rest for the evening's possible activities with the Order of the Basilisk. As we climbed the stairway, we heard a troupe of the little dragons yipping and preparing to launch themselves at us. Surprisingly, they took down Brightshine with a gruesome stab in the face immediately and readied themselves to commit mayhem among us as they also had their dark-sight goggles on and three of them pulled out the alchemical globes. Ospher fired off a powerful Magic Missile at the lot of them, killing the three who had the globes at the ready, leaving just four to harry the rest of us in perfect visibility. I and Brightshine's unconscious body were in the way of anyone else making ranged attacks at the tiny creatures however, so I used my Word of Radiance to strike the four of them simultaneously, miraculously killing them before they could grievously injure anyone else. We went back down the stairs after tending to Ser, and barricaded the staircase with implements from the rooms available and Charity left an Alarm spell in place that would notify her even at the 12 Carrots if any of them were to get past the barricades. With all of their navigation points closed off on this floor and their traps neutralized, we didn't want to have to redo fighting for the floor when we return tomorrow.

Preserve... My brain...
You're going to pull through, guy.
— Brightshine and Adjenna after he got an arrow to the face

We took the four kobolds captive and returned to the central district, and turned in two of them to the constabulary and two of them to the Grand Order, in order to slow up any rescue efforts by the so-called Trapmaster. I get the feeling that the dormitory wing may take us quite a bit longer than we guessed before we can get back over to the lab wing... Morgan and Tadlo are either stressed out from Founder's Day still or had some of the worst luck imaginable. Further, they didn't really show the best judgement when rushing forward into situations that required a watchful eye. Hopefully they will be more cautious next time. Ser Brightshine proved himself to be a thoughtful person today, contrary to prior impressions of him. He's still not very interested in looking to overcome his cultural obsession with knowledge yet, but has avoided making people uncomfortable with it today. Charity did some of her best work yet today in getting the Kobolds flushed from the ceiling and diffusing some of the strange tension with Barnard. Hopefully we didn't do any lasting damage to the wing. I feel as if we're missing some key to the puzzle of what became of Abdul Auloro. We've found a lot of his personal effects among the detritus of the building and the common report of the history of his evacuation is that he fled east from Frial, but who provided witness of such fact? Barnard seems to have been his assistant in some capacity or another here and he was left behind along with one of his personal spellbooks and necromantic notes? Maybe the Order of the Basilisk can provide insight there. I have genuine reticence in slaying these Kobolds en masse, but they appear to be fanatically devoted to some creature referred to as the Aun-Kri and have attempted to deceive us blatantly when cornered to continue to further their ends. While they could likely do great harm to persons unprepared to deal with them, I would prefer to flush them from the place instead of committing further genocide. Total Confirmed Kobolds killed: 1 assassinated by Tadlo, 2 by Ospher on the Stairs, 1 frozen by Charity on the Shelves, 1 slain by Brightshine in the hallway, 4 by Adjenna on the Stairs, 5 by Inferno in the hall ceiling Kobolds evicted from the Abbey: 1(?) Trapmaster (possibly not permanently), 4 locked in two separate jails

Rewards Granted

Friendship and Fellowship! Our Companions and Us live on

Character(s) interacted with

Crisnos Qinbi - Our friend, the Champion of Correllon Lathander, departs with his family to return to Melanthris. Does he bear us or our fae friends a hidden grudge for the death of his sister? Who can say.

Solicitor Arminias Kint - Gave us the paperwork in order to get checked into for purchasing an abandoned property in Bellhaven. He had a bit of magic peppered about his office, according to Ospher and Charity. We'll see if he's part of the Order of the Basilisk.

Barnard - A victim(?) of Auloro's magical experimentation that is unaware that he is now a living skeleton. He refers to Auloro as Master, so he's probably under a magical compulsion as a side effect?

Charity Sparrow - Her magical control over fire was instrumental in chasing back Kobolds from the places in the structure that had been hollowed out for their attacks.

Digby Sparrow - Admits he doesn't own us! That's practically 90% of the work done to worm out of this agreement.

Tadlo Lerby - Has decided to apply his thieving experience towards the skill of artifice. I think this is a wide choice as this will increase the breadth of his and Lorgan's skills and allow them to take on unusual jobs.

Lorgan Honeysuckle - Thanks to the cursed Abbey, Lorgan's worst day of his life was quickly followed by the second worst day of his life.

Ser Brightshine - We gave him a magical item that allows him to cast burning hands upon his foes today. That may be one of the dumbest things we've ever done.

Notes

Brightshine - https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/31972033
Charity - https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/28079987
Lorgan - https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/33811578
Tadlo - https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/33811996

The last time one of tried to tinker with anything, someone became a frog so I wouldn't say that's our strong suit.
Maybe we shouldn't count that mishap.
We've been stealing for a long time, breaking into vaults, guarded castles, I wouldn't say we're the kings of thieves or anything, but we're pretty good.
— Tadlo, Adjenna, and Lorgan on untimely foreshadowing in the realm of skullduggery

While we're indentured to Digby, some help here and there would be fantastic.
You're not indentured, I don't own you!
Good that we have an understanding then.
— Adjenna, Digby, and Ospher covering our employment and how each party sees it

Wagner Abbey on the menu today?
Definitely, yeah. Soup du jour is the dormitory.
Time to make the doughnuts.
— Charity, Adjenna, and Ospher

I think stealing directly from the Kreastos' building would be incredible to manage, but...
You stole that thing for your shield..?
Oh yeah, nobody cares about that.
yet.
— Adjenna, Charity and Ospher discussing crimes

Ser Brightshine, we have need of your duty!
Oh, that sounds good.
— Adjenna and a very enthusiastic Ser at the Grand Order building

Some people like to just they know what to do and tell Brightshine what to do, but Brightshine sometimes knows better.
— Brightshine showing a bit of depth and Id

Campaign

Lost Lore

Protagonists

Adjenna Affreux

Level 6 Lamiah Neutral Cleric
(Charlatan)

Ospher Spurshoe

Level 7 Stout Halfling Neutral Good Wizard (Transmutation)
(Cloistered Scholar)

Report Date

23 Jul 2020

Primary Location

Wagner Abbey

Secondary Location

Frial

We can steal the doors?!
Yeah, I don't know why, but he agreed to it.
I will be taking a door, I do not own a door.
— Tadlo, Adjenna, Brightshine on why it was that Digby gave us permission to take "Gates"

So we can take... money, gems, anything like that?
You fuckin' name it.
— Lorgan and Adjenna on the rules of engagement

Now you wanna talk??
You were a very scary looking skeleton if we're being frank.
— Barnard and Adjenna on bad first impressions

Thank you for asking, it shows that you are tactically minded.
Hmm, I didn't think that it showed that, but thank you.
— Adjenna and Brightshine after declining allowing him to fire off his burning hands spell from the glaive

You should have asked me first, I'm an expert!
On Kobolds?
No, birds!
Oh, can you speak with birds?
No!
— Brightshine, Ospher, and Adjenna on languages and comprehension

After failing a medicine roll to save a kobold from death savesI lost him.
— Charity Sparrow

Sacrifices for the Dragon God! Save the eyes for the Aun-Kri!
— Kobold battle-cry

Lorgan nearly smites Tadlo with an arrow from his shortbowWhat are you doing?!?
— Tadlo in the midst of combat immediately before he fell from the shelves almost directly atop Brightshine