Sunday, May 21, 2017

Road to Kelvin's Cairn 3

The session started off with the party determined to follow Maulnar that night to see what if anything he was up to. They had no reason to suspect he was up to anything, but decided more information was always better. Gareth and Nefresil hid where they could see Maulnar’s house and waited. He eventually emerged, and left. Nefresil stayed to watch the house, while Gareth chose to follow. Gareth was able to stealthily follow behind Maulnar at a safe distance, while he headed down an abandoned mine shaft. After walking down the mine shaft for awhile, Maulnar turned down a smaller passage. This passage ended in a stone door. Maulnar went through the door, and while it was open Gareth heard chanting inside the door, but could not see what was in the the room. After several hours, Maulnar emerged from the room, and Gareth overhead him say, “The time is almost here.” This was followed by some hissing noises, but Gareth was unable to see who or what made those noises. Maulnar then returned to his house, and Gareth related everything to Nefresil.

The next day, Nefresil, Gareth, and Dymar went back to the room and found that the key that Gareth stole from Maulnar earlier opened the door. What they found inside was a large circular stone room about 100 feet in diameter. There were several iron braziers around the room. There were also many dead bodies in various states of decay scattered at the perimeter of the room. In the center were some markings on the floors that the party knew to be a summoning circle. However, they had no idea what was being summoned, but based on the dead bodies, they did not think it was anything good.

Nefresil was able to convince Dymar to help the party the next night. They planned an elaborate trap that would have them break into Maulnar’s house and await his arrival home. They would then surprise him with a non-lethal attack, and tie him up. At this point he would be questioned. The party setup the ambush, and when Maulnar arrived home, they sprung the trap Nefresil and Gareth were able to grapple Maulnar, and instructed Dymar to tie his hands. When Dymar went to tie Maulnar’s hands, he was struck from behind, and rendered unconscious. This is when the party small a small reddish creature with wings and a tail, which they correctly guessed to be an imp. Nefresil took over tying up Maulnar, and holding him at sword point, while Gareth cast Magic Missle, and felled the beast. Once dead, the imp’s corpse turned to ash and vanished. Nefresil healed Dymar, who went to check on King Malagar. His thoughts were that whatever was happening with Maulnar were controlling the king, and that now that the imp was gone, the king would be restored. Nefresil attempted to question Maulnar, but the dwarf chose to take his own life on Nefresil’s blade rather than talk.

Nefresil suggested going to the room where Gareth heard chanting earlier, to see what if anything would happen there that night. They went into the room and hid at the far end. Not too much later 5 dwarves entered the room, and began to light the braziers. Before getting close enough to the party to see Nefresil cast Fog Cloud to obscure themselves. They waited on Dymar to show back up, hopefully with the King and his guards. As the spell was about to end Gareth cast Sleep on the dwarves, and the pair tied them all up. Soon the king arrived, and without much pomp, had his guards execute the traitorous dwarves and left. Dymar assured the party that the king would come around and would stay upset at them. He stated that the king did not take kindly to the meddling in their politics by the party.

The next day Nefresil and Gareth were summoned before the king in an intimate reception chamber. The king thanked the pair for their help. He gave them a key to the dwarves hold and instructed them how to use it. They knew this was the same type of key that Baelnar used to get them into Kelvin’s Cairn in the first place. In addition, he gave Nefresil, an adamantine long bow. Nefresil could tell that this long bow was exceptionally well balanced, and significantly heavier than his current bow. Gareth was gifted with an adamantine light cross bow. The stringing of the bow was masterfully done. Clearly both weapons were masterpieces, and no ordinary weapons. Finally, the king offered to escort the party through the mountains to the dwarf hold in Mirabar. He knew of the fighting at Fireshear and suggested that this might be a safer path home. He stated that Baelnar was welcome to join them.

The group spoke with Baelnar and all agreed to head to Mirabar, with the group’s work for Baelnor ending upon them all reaching Mirabar.

DM Recap
I thought this session went well. The group explored various paths to figuring out what was happening with Maulnar, and ultimately chose one that did not put them in too great of danger. The imp was able to knock Dymar out in one hit but doing so ended its invisibility. This allowed Gareth to be able to kill it. At the very end of the session the party decided to head to Mirabar as traveling to Fireshear was not appealing without being able to raise an fighting force from Ten Towns.

Loot and XP
The players received the key to Kelvin’s Cairn, an adamantine long bow, and an adamantine light cross bow. In addition, they will collect their XP for the session. Each player earned 137 XP, broken down as follows:
Imp - 200 XP
Maulnar - 25 XP
Acolytes - 10 XP x5

This is enough for both of the players to reach level 4. Leveling up will take place before the next session.

No comments:

Post a Comment