Chapter 3: Venturing to the dungeon

General Summary

Skald ran in screaming, “Jalapeño!” This time, I’m in complete agreement with him, we can’t let kids get killed. I threw one of my newly modified bombs in to give the kids some healing. Then I threw my next bomb at the bugs who were a bit further away from them. DaVinci ran after Skald and attacked the bugs. A swift flurry of blows were exchanged and the bugs were down.
“That will have supplies,” I said to myself, and I went to the bugs and looked it over for any poison sacs. I was able to retrieve two poison sacs to dose weapons.
“Thank you!” She said grabbing each of us in turn, “You saved us. Thank you so much. What can I do for you?”
“Do you know where the Red Tower is?” Eliandra asked.
“The Red Tower? The closest thing I know of to that is the abandoned lodge near here. It was claimed by the House Holzinger generations ago, but they lost it, and then it was claimed by dwarven bandits, but the Knights of the Core destroyed them years ago.”
“Knights?” Skald said excitedly, "tell me more about them."
“I don’t really know more about them,” She said looking at him in confusion, “Now it lies abandoned, but there are claims there is a portal to the Dry Lands somewhere in the ruins. The teens will dare each other to go there. Maybe that has something about the Red Tower? You can stay at my home for the night, it’s about another few hours to get there from there.” We thanked her and happily stayed the night.

The Citadel

The next day we set out to the Citadel. The ruins of the building had red lines throughout the stones, it pulsed with a trace of magic. Stones sprawled around the buildings and the remains of the roof creaked ominously. Alfred and I walked slowly through the outbuildings on the right as Skald, DaVinci, and Ash walked into the center courtyard. I saw the remains of once fine furnishings covered by leaves, debris, and animal nests. As I walked past a particularly large pile of debris, it moved and an owl bear attacked me. I screamed in panic as its claws slashed me.
“Owlbear!” I screamed, “A little help,” but as I faced a giant freaking owl bear, they were fighting a wolf and her pups.
Only, they did not actually fight the wolf, but slowly back away. For which I’m very thankful because there was no way I was going to fight off that creature all on my own. As a matter of fact, the creature knocked me out, so I do not know how we solved the fight. I just know, when I woke up it was gone.
Having learned from our mistake, we did not split the party anymore. There are way too many things in here trying to kill us, so we walked slowly together to the central building up the stairs. As we turned the corner two harpies flew at us. I threw a bomb at them and it exploded on them, damaging the two of them.
Alfred shot them, and DaVinci and Ash stabbed them as they flew by.
Skald came up with the most brilliant and stupid idea at the same time. He leaped onto one of the harpies as it flew by and stabbed it as he rode on its back. This is where it became glaringly obvious this was a bad idea as he started to fall, thankfully Ash was able to slow his fall so he didn’t die.
I shot the last harpie and it fell from the sky. On their bodies we found various change, chalk, and a lock and key, not matching of course.
The rest of the floor held nothing of interest, or nothing we wanted to mess with, like why would we want to mess with a dark room with skulls?
We started to examine the basement below us, but it was late enough in the day, we did not wish to sleep in such an undefended location, so we headed back to the farmhouse we stayed at the night before and paid them to stay at their home again. Hopefully, the money will help them get more food, as I bet they are getting tired of oatmeal all the time. The next morning breakfast had another surprise.

Report Date

19 May 2023