To Blingdonstone S02E11 Report

A special thank you to CougarKitty for putting together this report.

General Summary

Having vanquished the creature guarding the treasure in Xazax’s vault, the party set about looting the pile. Despite being a Beholder’s treasure, the pile proves to be made only of copper and silver pieces, and two weapons. Alan is drawn to the weapon Dawnbringer had sensed, a Chakram made of dark black metal with gold inlay. Joseph takes the other weapon, a longsword. Having secured the treasure and some extra, the party goes back up to the surface, accompanied by their new friend Gabagool. Xazax has disappeared further into his lair, and the party leaves the area without incident.
That night before resting, Alan introduces the party to his new weapon, Nightfall. Nightfall is sentient like Dawnbringer, though he doesn’t speak as often. Unlike Dawnbringer, Nightfall prefers shadows and darkness. Alan shows off some of Nightfall’s abilities, namely the return function and health restoration.
The mercenary army is paid all 700 copper from the Beholder’s treasure. One of the thugs approaches Mr. Garrick and asks about other money, to honor his boss’s contract. It seems the thug or his boss wants 20%. Richter interjects “We’ll give him five times as much! 20%.”
The following morning the party sets out for Blingdonstone. The first couple days were uneventful, and the party passes the time in conversation with each other. Before setting out, Alan gives Mr. Garrick fifty gold pieces and asks him to learn Alarm. Mr. Garrick agrees.
As they walk through the darkened caverns, Bug drops back to walk beside Richter, looking like he has something on his mind. After a few moments Bug asks Richter “Are we bad people? Are the things we do wrong?”
Richter grunts in response. “There are strong and weak. We are strong. Taking care of friends is good.”
Joseph takes some time walking with Mr. Garrick and tells him about his friend William Finian from back home. At the end, Mr. Garrick knows enough to attempt sending a message to William, though it is uncertain if the spell would succeed.
The first night around the campfire, Richter stands up and proudly announces he has a poem to share with the group. He recites:

“Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
If you laugh at my poem,
I will kill you.”

The entire party applauds Richter’s performance.
During the middle of the second day, Mr. Garrick gets a return message from William for Joseph. As best as Mr. Garrick can figure, Willam found someone in his city who knows him and was willing to send the message. William wants to know if everything is well for Joseph. Joseph is glad to receive the return message, and tells Mr. Garrick he will will have a response later.
The morning of day three, the mercenary Vincent reports to Alan that one of the mercenaries, Marius Kjærsgaard, has gone missing. The party is split on whether to find out what happened to Marius, or to continue on to Blingdonstone. They ultimately decide to delay starting out in order to figure out what happened. Richter meditates and summons a bear spirit to seek out information. Upon seeing Richter do this, Gunther also summons his bear spirit. Joseph searches through Marius’s backpack, finding a cryptic poem.

Lock the door, blow out the light;
The Hungry One haunts the night.
Hide and tremble little one;
The Hungry One wants to have some fun.

Hear it scratching on the door;
See it's shadow cross the floor.
The sun won't rise for quite a while;
'till then beware the shadows smile.

Richter’s bear returns to him with information on where Marius’s body is buried. Richter and the others dig up the ground where the bear spirit indicated, and find Marius’s dismembered body. Joseph shows the group the poem he found in the pack. Bug identifies the creature in the poem as an Oni.
Having settled what happened to Marius, the party reburies the mercenary and sets out for Blingdonstone. The rest of the day goes without trouble, though the news that the either the party or hired army could be hiding an Oni is troubling for everyone.
The third night, Joseph hands Mr. Garrick a short message for William, saying it is good to hear from him, and to give his greetings to William’s wife and sons.
After Marius’ brutal death during the second night, this third night the party takes watches. Richter and Alan take the first watch, Bug and Alan take the second and third, and Gunther and Joseph take the fourth. The night passes without incident.
At the start of the fourth day of travel, Alan orders the army scouts to travel ahead and see if there is anything dangerous. Gunther volunteers to go with them. The scouts and Gunther find a large cave, completely dark. Just inside the cave are some dead drow who have been picked over and anything of value already looted.
Gunther sends two scouts back to Mr. Garrick with the information. Going back to the drow, he burns the five males corpses, staying away from the female ones.
The scouts rejoin the main party, and head straight for Mr. Garrick, giving him Gunther’s message. Mr. Garrick shares the information with the others. Alan is frustrated that his men did not report back to him, and tells them as such. The scouts respond that their orders from Gunther were to take the information to Mr. Garrick.
When the main party and army arrive outside the dark cavern, Alan pulls Gunther aside.
“Gunther, we need to have a word over who the army reports to” he begins.
Gunther nods, his face serious. “Yes, my Master, Mr. Garrick.”
“No” Alan tries again. “They report to me. I am the leader of the party.”
Gunther shakes his head. “You’re the manager. Mr. Garrick is the leader.”
Alan twitches. “Listen to me, Gunther. Mr. Garrick is a very busy person, he has a lot of important things to attend to. That makes me the leader, since Mr. Garrick cannot afford to be distracted by the little mundane things.”
Gunther agrees, his voice solemn. “My master is very important.”
Inside the cavern, the party runs into a group of Shadow Dancers. The Shadow Dancers steal Bug’s hat, and chase after Joseph. Joseph activates his new sword from the Beholder’s treasure. It bursts into flame, spreading bright light all about him. Gunther uses a bright bonfire spell before polymorphing into a Tyrannosaurus Rex. With all this light, Alan is unable to use all of Nightfall’s abilities in the now bright cavern, much to his frustration.
As the T-Rex, Gunther eats one of the Shadow Dancers. Richter smashes one hard, and throws it to Gunther to finish off. Alan rallies in spite of all the light, and kills two of the enemies, including the one Gunther has captured in his jaws.
The fight is close, however with a polymorph spell by Mr. Garrick and the bright lights negating the Shadow Dancer’s teleportation abilities, the party triumphs in the end, and Bug gets his hat back.

Rewards Granted

• Nightfall
• Flametongue Sword
• Coins

Campaign

Out of the Abyss

Protagonists

Report Date

16 Nov 2019

• In Attendance
• Kevin ( Mr. Garrick)
• Christian (Bug & Darry)
• Korey (Richter)
• Carson (Gunther)
• Bethany (Joseph)
• Nicolas (Alan)