by James "Tao" Murphy
The day was comfortable, sun shining through the trees, just pleasant to be outside. I broke my heart when I had to go underground to fight ghost and moving stalagmites.
Kara has been staying in the castle recently so we decided to journey together to the lands of Chimeron for the annual feast. We were able bring the transport close, and unload, but there was not a lot of space near the tavern so I sent her off with it to a local park where she caught a shuttle ride back with Sir Therian.
Chimieron does know how to host a feast, when we first arrived there was a day board of cheese, crackers, bread, and various butters. There were also several types of cold colored drinks; red, yellow, and brown. My favorite thing here was the spiced garlic butter on bread.
Soon it was discovered that regional magic did not have a “future” tense (?) and had to be updated, squished and modified. However to do this first several of us had to go to Castle Chimeron [stomp] in the dreaming. Kind of an unusual group of people did this, myself, Temorse, Kwido, Malaki, and Rorin.
The dreaming is a strange place, sacks of potatoes, crowns, candles, it all went weird, but I guess we saved a princess? Married a princess? Tricked a butler? Still not sure.
After we returned from the dreaming, we enjoyed the appetizers that were brought out to us in the field, while we had some time to just talk among ourselves. Several people started working on modifying the regionals.
After a bit, an apprentice blacksmith/artesan approached us and asked for some help. He had knocked a piece of art off the wall and broken it, and needed some Iron to fix it. We did not know of any sources of iron in the area and kind of forgot about his problem.
While I was waiting for the Poker tournament to start, a fey was confronted in the tavern about stealing stuff in a nearby mine. They admitted to stealing things like candles, dice and other things from the mine. (it had a neat hat that). King Cecil immediately called for the Militia and had her tried, convicted, and sentenced within a few minutes. It told stories of Ghosts in the mine. Using this excuse…. reason to enter the mine, I asked if in return for disposing of a few monsters in the mine, if we could scrounge some iron. The King was agreeable to this and some of us set off to the mine. No, the number of us was something that was not easily determined, some said there were five, some said 7, some said more then 3, counting is hard.
We had to use an L-E-Vater to go down. I was told it was stairs that are easy on the knees. If true I thought I might have to hire someone to build me one in the Castle. However I soon learned that some creature’s tail is used to control the up and down, and, well, I would prefer not to enslave (or have to pay) some creatures for my own comfort.
After we left the sunshine and went down a bit we entered into the mine where Stalagmites and a ghost(?) were running amok. The ghost was only affectable by magic, which we did not have a lot of. I was able to drop it for short periods of time but nothing the party had could keep it down. We were able to break apart many of the attacking stalagmites. While I was busy with the monsters, several pieces of iron were found and recovered. I am not sure we made any permanent solution of the ghost, but now at least they have a way of keeping it down occasionally.
We were unable to find the apprentice when we came back out into the sunshine but some of the party would catch up with him later.
While looking for him we did find someone named Osgood (?) who was asking for help with a ritual. Always leery of these things, I quickly grabbed Kara and Temorse for assistance. He was looking to set up a space he could perform magic in without worrying about things getting out. He did not seem very experienced and we corrected several parts of his ritual so as not to get ourselves stuck in the circle.
It was at this time I went to play in the stacked deck tournament.
On a break from the tournament, several interesting things happened. The first was that representatives want to test/challenge us. They might be connected to several gods from beyond the stars. It might have something to do with Wrake’s father. Several of us feel that it might be better to do things first, then react. Time will tell.
Just as we were getting ready to sit back down I happened to notice that a ragged member of the Risen Kingdom was dragging a dead Temorse. I quickly grabbed weapon and shield and went for them. Rorin was quick to see the situation as well and ran to catch up with me.
At this point I am going to share what Kara told me later:
For the first part of the “Temorse rescue” (as Tao may call it), it really started when someone looked at me and said “You wanna take care of bandits?” (I may be paraphrasing there). The original plan, after ruling out a straight on attack and joining the bandits, was to disguise ourselves as the merchants the bandits kept targeting. I never did get an accurate look at the party, which apparently consisted of myself, Tyruss, Orion, Kwido, and Temorse. I’m not quite sure what happened, as while we knowingly walked into an ambush, we still walked into an ambush. I want to say that there were two in front of us and two in the back of us, forming a pincer attack. I got out of the fray at one point only to see everyone dead and one heading towards me. It’s at this point I cursed myself for wearing a corset that day as running in a corset is a special kind of hell. As you might have guessed I didn’t make it far, until one of them, a kid much younger than me, caught up to me. I’d like to be able to say I was able to convince the kid to leave, but no. The kid got a decent shot to my chest and I fell. I didn’t have my death watch up, so I was out until I regenerated, in one of the bandits arms, being dragged. Thankfully I was able to kill the one dragging me. It’s at this point Tao and Rorin came up and helped. -Kara Niðisdóttir
So the first thing the Risen Kingdom person said was “If I don’t report back in 5 minutes ….” Which is when Rorin hit him with lightning, and I came in from his other side. I looked at Rorin and said something like “They are within 5 mintues go that way” and we took off running.
Around a few buildings and through some trees, I saw Kara with lightning ready, getting ready to attack around a corner. I quickly asked her how many good guys were out here, while finding 4 more Risen Kingdom goons. I should mention, they looked like life had not been treating them well recently. I guess when the gate you came in gets closed, and the rest of your invading force was wiped out, it can really ruin your day. They had turned to banditry to get by.
The smallest of the bandits quickly ran to attack us, but this time Kara was ready with her lightning and took that one out quick. The rest fell quickly to Rorin and I. we poked our head around the corner of a building and found the rest of our friends. Getting some of them up and dragging the rest back to get raised we made our way back to the tavern.
I later saw that some of the party had dragged back the Risen Kingdom goons for interrogation. I still don’t know if they learned anything.
There was also a soup course in there somewhere. Both were pretty good. Later they served a bunch of yummy main courses. I ate too much.
Court happened later. Lots of stuff happened, we might need to go fight snakes soon and then dessert was served.
A lot happened in one day.