Chapter 4: The mighty centipede

General Summary

"Douger Lovey and his bodyguard are missing," Katherine Longbreath said, for a ten-year-old she is surprisingly well-informed. "Where were they last seen?" Skald asked. "Up the road a few hours walk," Katherine said. "I heard it from Sam, who heard it from Mary Sue. They said the Gaelor took them. There was even a noose symbol on the tree." "We better check that out," Ash said.

Abandoned Wagon is totally not an ambush

"There's one breathing in here," I said as I walked up to the broken wagon. I walked a little closer to see the dirty person in the back of the wagon. When he leaped up and attacked me. I barely got my crossbow up to try and shoot him before he hit me back. To the side, I hear Ash and Alfred fighting as well. DaVinci runs in to attack the bandits, and a brief intense scuffle later with one or two people being knocked out and thankfully healed by Eliandra later two bandits ran away, and four lay dead at our feet. We went through their supplies and found several short bows, quivers, and swords. We scavenged those to continue to improve our gear. After yet another terrible fight, I have become convinced I need a quarterstaff because I continue to be in close combat and that is not going well for me.
We continued to search for Douger Lovey and his bodyguard, after a few more hours we found evidence of his campsite, there was a nice spring nearby and it was obvious many people had stayed here before as the fire ring was quite established. "Look," DaVinci said, "Their floor covering was just left here." "There's a noose carved into this tree," Ash said, "And there is a helmet over here. It has a crimson deer on it." "I've got a vanbrace over here," Alfred said. "It also looks like there are tracks heading Southeast." "It's getting late," I said, "Let's camp for the night here, and then head on." This is where it all went horribly horribly wrong.
As I sat up on watch with DaVinci, a centipede snuck up on Skald and Alfred and bit them. We weren't watching for a large bug, we were watching for bandits. We were able to wake Ash up, but both Skald and Alfred wouldn't wake up. I poured my last health potion down Alfred's throat, but just as he started to come to, DaVinci attempted to cut the bug off him, but missed and stabbed Alfred again. I ran over to Skald and used our medical kit on him, stabilizing him, but as I run back to work on killing the centipede, Ash took one too many blows and he went down. I pulled out my crossbow and shot the centipede, blowing it off Ash. Eliandra sat up suddenly, her body just levered up and she hit Ash with a healing spell. We spent the rest of the night with a much higher fire, and much more aware of anything else that might come in to kill us.

Back to the Citadel

We followed the tracks back to the citadel we had started to explore a few days earlier. Instead of exploring the outside buildings any further, we headed directly to the basement.
The stairs on the other side of the ominous door were covered in bones dropped by the harpies. Each step we took crunched as bones were crushed beneath our feet. I tried my best to not think what the bones under our feet were made of. "Hold up," Ash said, "This is probably full of traps. I'll check with magic." He did something with music and after a minute he said, "See that half way up the landing. The holes in the wall are some kind of trap." "I got this," DaVinci said and he crawled forward through the bones on his hands and knees slowly moving past the holes, keeping himself just below the holes. As he got through the door at the bottom of the stairs, he slid forward and crashed into the pile of bones. Alfred looked at DaVinci crawling and shook his head, claws popped out of his hand and he climbed on the wall over the trap and through the door. As the rest of us were trying to figure out how to get past the trap, Eliandra shook her head and just walked past it. Ash stood there smiling for a moment as he stared at DaVinci in the bones, then crawled through the bones and down the stairs into the next room. I attempted to duplicate Ash's success, but I must have put my hands in just the wrong location because I heard a click, then a whoosh and something flew over my head to hit Skald. "Jalapeno! That hurt," Skald shouted. "Sorry," I said. "I thought I was safely through." I stood up and walked into a dining room.

Dining Room in the basement

That's right, in the basement, after crawling through a stairwell full of bones, we walked into a dining room, a table with chairs set with six candles. Skald immediately took one and attached it to his head. Apparently, this is some kind of kobold thing. I was quite confused by it. Aside from the candles and a shield in the corner, the room was empty. "Which way shall we go? The closed door with a window or the hallway?" I asked. I started to walk over to the door to peek through the small window when Skald ran into the next room.
"I hear screaming!"

Report Date

25 May 2023