| Session 02: A Monastery's Mysteries | |
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| Real World Date | May 17th, 2014 |
| Game Date | March 15 - 16, Year 0 |
| Location | Creston Monastery |
| Enemies | The Undead, led by one horrible Ghast |
| NPCs | Adreyan |
| previous Session 01: A Carriage Catastrophe |
next Session 03: A Tome of Time |
Synopsis[]
The Party goes to the tavern/inn to get the rooms they were promised. Some of the adventurers interrogate the dwarf that Kal captured. The next day, they do some shopping around town, but are soon recruited by the monastery to take care of a mysterious disappearance and commotion. The party finds the murdered body of the head bookkeeper, as well as a riddle that unlocks catacombs under the monastery.
Full Account[]
The eponymous secret depths
As night fell in Creston, the adventurers went into the tavern to rest. They received two free rooms with two beds each. Emilie, Tahlarien, and Kal shared a room (Kal was a gentleman and allowed the ladies to sleep in the beds... he took the floor), and Vic, Sebastian, and Namfoodle shared another room. Isaac bought his own room. Sebastian left the table before paying his share for the meal, leaving Namfoodle to pay everything. Vic was very upset that he couldn't decode the notes collected from the bandits, and spent the entire night sulking in his bed, without having dinner. Before going to bed, they interrogated the captured dwarf. The Nightingale Bandit does not have a home base as far as the dwarf knows. He hires mercenaries and people looking for quick money to do odd burglary/pillaging heists, and pays them well. The notes are a code to tell the employees where to meet up. A lot of soul-searching was put into the note meanings. Kal left the group to stealthily retrieve Mrs. basket's cat Hat, and tore down the sign on the board that advertised the rescue. He cuddled the cat as he slept.
In the morning, Sebastian and Namfoodle got into an argument about the money. The group went to the family who was advertising the move and bought a few items from them-- an expandable/collapsible stick, a pair of stilts, and a pretty piece of jewelry. Kal found cat food, and started carrying around his cat in his bag. Tahlarien did not find any useful information on the traders she was searching for, but she bought a nice composite longbow. The monks summoned the "group that did that bandit thing" to the monastery, because a recent disturbance in the Head Bookkeeper's place was scary for them. They didn't want to send any of their men into the tower to see what went wrong, but they hired the group (in exchange for services, not money) to help investigate it. After reaching the top tower room of the Head Bookkeeper, the party found that he had been dead for at least a few days, with a quill jammed through his eye. He had written a note in a blank journal on his desk:
"Muzzle the heron.
He can’t digest eaten fish
For they resurface again and again immortal
Wearing down his beak
Staring down his bleak future
Where history resurfaces.
Hook the fish at the source
It ought not breathe air
Or we shall all suffocate. "
The heron was an old symbol of the monastery centuries ago, but was no longer used as such due to lack of interest or something. In the mead basement, there was an engraving of a heron seal on the ground, one of the last heron symbols left in the monastery. Namfoodle figured out how to open the seal, and the group descended into the depths. They entered an area where there seemed to be ancient prison holding cells, and fought a human skeleton, a dwarven zombie, and an elven ghast. The ghast paralyzed Namfoodle and infected Tahlarien and Namfoodle with Ghoul Fever. Kal, Vic, Isaac, and Tahlarien were all sickened (nauseated, retching, icky)
The lootings were phenomenal. The party received:
- A shiny kukri
- A spellbook
- 3 vials of ointment
- Tattered bag (verified Bag of Holding)
- Leather armour (magical, of some sort)
- A Wand (Later determined to be a wand of Inflict Light Wounds)
- 5 scrolls (?, ?, Inflict Serious Wounds, Remove Fear, Remove Fear)
- 1450 GP
Oh right, and at night Vic dreamed about running around with his pants on his head. And riding a horse into a tavern. With his pants on his head. But when he woke up he realized, with relief, that it was just a dream.
Notes[]
- For the course of the session, Vic was proxied by the DM. These were his player's guiding words:
| “ | Be sure NOT to make a mockery of my character. He is a STRONG RESPECTABLE MAN. Not someone to be made into a complete and utter "joke!" Got it? | ” |
— David
| ||
- Kal was eventually proxied as well, as her player's internet died. Her final, facebook-delivered request was for Kal to steal the cat.