Session 1: Steigs Stand Report

General Summary

Three travelers met along the road south of Steigs Stand. As it was afternoon, and a long day of travel lay between them and Shakara, they decided to pass the day's end at Steigs Rest, an Inn and taproom run by Marcus Wrathbone.   Brimble Knackles, Falkas , and Mi'tsuru'gi had travelled for the last week or so from points south, coming together on the Ward Way south of Dount. The Littlemark (i.e., Bissel) can be a small place, made smaller by the force of war that has bound all Bisselites together, and the three travelers have crossed tracks before. Brimble and Falkas were mercenaries of a sort well before the war, and shared a Shakara prision cell for a night years ago. They both have secrets from the war. Falkas and Mi'tsuru'gi served in the same Border Company and later began a business. The three's common history made trust come a bit easier along the road.   A few hours at Steigs Rest led to the normal conversations between the travelers, barmaids, the innkeeper. Rumours of the sort you hear in stop-over towns (Latest Rumours in Steigs). And as Jenni a barmaid was telling Mi'tsu about possible Ettins in the woods, a captain in the Knights of the Watch came quickly through the door asking Marcus if he had a key to Garan's shop. It looked like someone had broken into the shop and Garan's whereabouts are unknown. The travelers took their leave of Marcus's hospitality to have a look at Garan's shop. The captain was outside and asked the three if they would be willing to investigate as the Watch was stretched thin with increased patrols for the last several weeks. At the same time Thomen Jax came up to the shop, and the captain, knowing Thomen, asked him to aid as well.   The four, quickly suspected foul play. The exterior window had been broken from inside the building, the interior of the provisions shop had been ransacked, but little of value actually taken. A lockbox under the counter was undisturbed, and other valuable goods remained. In Garan's bedchamber adjacent, more strange observations, including wing-clipped cockatrice who lept from its cage, strangely unlocked. Falkas was able to subdue the small beast and shove it back into the cage.   A secret cache below the floor in the bedchamber held a locked metal box that none could open, so Brimble poured some acid in the lock to open the box. Unfortunately this destroyed some of the contents including seven garnets, now acid-etched and worth little, the smoking remains of a map (later found to be of the dungeon below), and a magical dagger, unharmed. Thomen found a secret door and stairs leading down. Strangely next to the door on the wall was a bloodstain, less than a day old.   The party descended into a dungeon, but not before Falkas triggered a trapped step and tumbled down the stairs into a jar at the bottom full of green slime. At the base of the stairs lay a storage room with niches to east and west full of boxes and barrels of dry goods, some haunches of rotten meat. These items seem well-past their use-by date, but their was also evidence of somewhat recent traffic through the room. A secret door in the east niche and a door in the north wall allowed exit, but before they could proceed, three blight rats emerged and attacked. Falkas's divine light saved him from the diseased carried by these creatures.   After killing the vermin, the party proceeded north through the door with Brimble's owl Gil providing some advance knowledge of the room. This was large chamber with sets of columns and an altar of evil at the far end, and a wererat standing behind it. She goaded the party to enter and Falkas obliged. The half-elf charged at the wererat and triggered a pit trap (see a pattern?) in front of the altar. Falkas fell 10' into the pit and a swarm of skeletal undead rats. While Falkas fought the rat hordes, Mi'tsu fired arrows, until he realised they did no damage to the lycanthrope. The wererat was a spell caster of some sort and was able to command Brimble to flee the room, as well as call a shimmering magical shield about her. In the ensuing combat, Mi'tsu switched to whipping the rats in the pit with Falkas, while Thomen used his silvered dagger against the wererat. Brimble later re-enterd the fray casting spells. The wererat threw a red shard to the floor where it shattered and released a fire mephit, and then she opened a trapdoor below her, but before she could escape, Thomen dealt the death blow. At her death, the rat transformed back into her human self, a young woman with long black hair. She carried six daggers, one with an opal set in the pommel, a key, and a bronze medallion with a grinning skull likeness, perhaps a symbol of Iuz.   Leaving the temple and the trapdoor to caverns below, the party went through the secret door in the storeroom leading to a large and disused gambling den, also accessible from a secret door in the temple and with a hallway around its perimeter with spy holes. Within the gambling room, covered in a thick dust, evidence of a long absence of patrons, there were mouldering couches, tables, and a wheel of chance built upon a large central table. Gimble casting Detect Magic was able to note a dweomer coming from inside the table. After much examination the party was able to shove off the table top and instantly a zombie mage inside began casting spells upon them. A short battle later, the zombie mage was dead and the source of Brimble's magic was found: two spell scrolls, one of burning hands, and one of chromatic orb.   Now the four must decide what to do. Why is there an evil dungeon temple, possibly associated with Iuz, an unused gambling den, and a wererat spell caster beneath Garan's shop. And where is he?

Rewards Granted

XP:   Cockatrice (subdued): 100
Giant Blight Rat x 3: 75
Zombrie (zombie magic-user): 200
Skeletal Rat Swarm: 50
Wererat magic-user: 450
  Total per PC/NPC: 220

Notes

Falkas found an electrum-handled magnifying glass in the shop (worth ~120 gp), a teak box with fancy quills and inks (woth ~65 gp), and a crystal vial of perfume (worth ~25 gp).   Mi'tsu has Garan's lockbox with 37 sp and 12 gp. He also has a magical dagger found beneath the floor in Garan's bed chamber.   Thomen has a dagger with an opal set in the pommel (worth ~120 gp) and a key, a bronze medallion, all from the wererat.   Brimble has two spell scrolls, burning hands and chromatic orb.