Session 1

General Summary

The story begins when our adventurers and almost all of their fellow friends are waiting at the pier to dock the ship. While most of these young adults are eager to go back our adventurers notice that Brian O'Donnel. They don't have to wait long for their ferry back to Teldor Village to arrive. As expected most just run up the ship as soon as the plank is down. Some are hesitant and James J. Daniels, the captain wonders what the hold up is. Those that are still on the pier explain that Brian hasn't showed up yet and want to search for him. James waits a minute or two than says: "Alright lads and lassies, last chance" and after a quick look around only our adventurers are left standing on the dock. James turns to them and says: "I'm not sure what you're hoping to find out there, but I wish you the best of luck. He's a good lad." he takes out a small rod with a piece of rope attached to it and hands it to (party sorceror), "Take this in case you need a ride back, I'll leave one of my men on the lookout." he turns to the group: "Just don't die out there, you've already proven yourself more than capable.". He boards his ship and gives order to take them back home, our party left behind on the pier.
They don't waste any time and immediately tell each other where they've been staying on the island. They soon realize that none of them had travelled near any of the ruins, as instructed, nor the crevasse known as Deep Death, so called for how deep it is and that the land surrounding it is void of life. After some discussion they came up with the simple plan of What would Brian have done? and knowing that while he's kind-hearted and a general well-loved man, he has a bit of an authority problem and a habit of getting into trouble every once in a while. So they plan to head the Deep Death crevasse and then make their way north-east towards the unnamed tower and the cave near it.
Their journey towards the Deep Death is rather dull as they only hear a malformed wolf howl during one of their nights. After two and a half days of travel they near the area where the crevasse resides. The green grass they're walking on turns a pale gray, the trees and what could only once have been a beautiful forest is now reduced to gray-black barks and not a single sign of life in sight, not even the buzzing of insects can be heard. They soon arrive at the crevasse and after the (barbarian and rogue) have a decent look around they spot a tent further up north. (barbarian) spreads his wings and takes of. As he gets closer, there's no doubt about it, brown tent, with a black and blue tarp on top THIS is Brian's tent. He heads back and informs the party and they all head there. A quick inspection reveals that Brian's sword, rope and climbing tools are missing. Gathering he's probably climbed down somewhere, they start looking for a spot on where to climb down, but not before (druid) takes out her flint and tinder, sets Brian's backpack on fire and flings it into the crevasse. It takes about five to six seconds before the backpack hits the bottom. "Why did you do that?" (cleric) asks, (druid) just shrugs and casually says "I just wanted to know how deep it was and now we know.". The party asks (barbarian) to scout the crevasse and see if he can find something. It doesn't take him long to find Brian's drop about 100 feet away. A rope hangs from a rock into the crevasse and ends at a 20 by 30 feet platform. There's a 8 foot high 10 foot wide reinforced door set in the side of the crevasse. The rope dangling another 6 feet above the door. While most want to just head down, (wizard) explains that, to be on the safe side, in case of a sudden retreat, they'd best attached another rope to the rope already hanging down and another rope (with another attached) as a secondary option of retreat. It's a sound plan, after explaining it thoroughly to some party members and so it's done and they head down.
Once on the platform they inspect the door for any kind of traps and find none, just a locked door, which (Rogue) quickly unlocks using her very lucky thieves' tools. The door opens up into an unlit corridor leading deep into the ground. The corridor is made of solid bricks, tiled flooring all seemingly made from the dark gray stone that could be seen outside. Slowly moving onward, they come upon a secondary door. Inspecting the door, they see a very thin wire inside the keyhole. Again (Rogue)'s called to deal with the minor obstacle, she uses her thieves' tools once again. Unfortunately, she doesn't disarm the possible trap, but does get the door open. looking through the keyhole, the wire is still there. For a couple seconds the party wonders what to do next, until (barbarian) volunteers to open the door. The party takes a couple steps back (you may never know what will happen) and opens the door. To their collective relieve, nothing happens and proceed.
They enter a large open room with several 10 feet in diameter pillars from top to bottom. The pillars reach to a vaulted sealing that is lost in the darkness, the pillars depict pictures of the cycle of life: Birth, Death and Rebirth in the same sequence. Which is a clear sign of Zuchai, Goddess of Life & Death, they don't have time however to admire the details as they hear the sound of footsteps approaching and realize they're surrounded. They are attacked by humanoids wearing dark robes and scimtars, it doesn't take them long to decapitate, disembowl or otherwise dispatch of them. When the assailants see that they're losing the fight, four of them manage to run away. The party leaves two of the defeated assailants alive and quickly realize they're dealing with a cult of some sort. Trying to intimidate one of them seems to have some effect, but not enough to get him talking, so they slit the throat of the one who's... less communicative. This and some more threats break the weak little cultist in telling them that they sacrifice people in here for their master, he wants to tell them more, but he starts screaming all of the sudden. He starts bleeding from his eyes, ears, nose and when you'd think it couldn't get any worse, the back of his head explodes, splatting one of the beautiful pillars with pieces of bone, a large amount of blood and brain matter. After looting the corpses of their garments and not so fancy weaponry, they go in search of the other cultists that got away. Heading in the same direction that the cultists went they come upon two doors. Deciding to split the party, they each wait at a different door, (Barbarian) takes the one of the right and (Fighter) takes the one on the left.
One, two, three... and as they open the door, (Fighter) is blown back by an arcane explosion, hits the ground 10 feet back, (cleric runs over) casts healing word on (Fighter), closes the door and puts himself in front of it, keeping the door closed as the cultists try to bash it open. (Barbarian) opens his door and positions himself in the doorway, so nobody can get past him. As he, (rogue), (sorceror) and (wizard) deal with their group. (Fighter) gets back up and aims at the door, he comes up with a plan with (Cleric) to open the door real quick, release an arrow and shut the door again. They count again, one, two, three, as soon as the door opens, (cleric) is blast away by another he hits the floor and doesn't move. While this is happening, the other group is slaughtering their assailants, (barbarian) gleefully whacks left and right while his friends are bombariding them with spells and arrows. (Druid) rushes in to help (Cleric), but in the thrill of battle and the panic of a friend actually dying, she forgets all her training and makes one mistake after the other, sadly (Cleric) dies... The group picks up their effort to eradicate the remaining cultists and the caster in particular. After a short chase they take him down and make preparations to interrogate him.
After securing the barracks (and retrieving a batch of potions and some money), they wake up the caster and interrogate him, at first he's extremely smug and taunt the party, which soon turns into slight discomfort as he hears what the party plans on doing with him if he doesn't speak. After securing his life (or so he thinks), he reveals that Brian is about to get sacrificed for the extended life of their master (the party will find out this was a blatant lie, but they didn't pick up on that). For his answer, the caster is rewarded with a sliced throat and the very surprised look on his face is very rewarding to the players, who are now in mourning of (Cleric). They rest up, take care of themselves and one another and head into the next room leaving the barracks.
They enter what seems to be a very lavish living room with a number of bookcases. After turning the room upside down, they uncover a scroll of ressurection and a hidden doorway. After discussing what to do with the scroll, they give it to (Sorceror) and help him complete the ritual. Some time passes, but (Cleric)'s body remains pale and motionless, it seems the ritual didn't work and the power has faded from the scroll. They mourn their lost friend some more and push forward. They explore the hidden chamber which holds an unslept bed which is rotting away and a writing desk, searching the desk they uncover a series of letters asking for a new ritual using the latest batch of "volunteers", signed by J. Romeni. They know that the Romenis are the ruling family of Teldor Village, but they have no idea who the J. could be. They nonetheless decide to take the stack of letters with him. They leave the hidden chamber behind and push forward.
They enter an extended hallway with a massive wall imprint stretching across the entire room. It depicts a story of how a group of unidentified humanoids break free from the endless cycle of life and death and then kill Zuchia. Some party members have read about various cults rising and falling throughout history, but no name can be found. Knowing the door on the left leads back into the hallway where they were first "ambushed", they take the door on the right. The door opens up into a small shrine with a very plain altar, behind the altar is an open door and they can see a rather large humanoid standing with its back towards them. A cloak hides most of its features, except for its ankles and feet who are a hue of sickly green with blue mixed in, various pieces of flesh and muscle hanging open. As they look past the unknown figure, they see Brian lying on a sacrificial table, his chest been broken open where the heart should've been. A pool of dried up blood surrounds the table and the unknown figure. As they approach he chuckles and turns around, revealing its very undead nature and the sickening grin on his face, made more horrifying by the flesh that starts to tear away as the smile keeps growing. The party now notices the darkened heart of Brian in the undead's right hand. "Oh..." he chuckles, "you've come for your friend. Please take him, he's no longer of use to my master." the undead says as he squeezes Brian's heart in his massive hand, leaving no trace of it as he shakes his hand and bits of muscle and dried blood fall to the ground. This send the party into a blind rage and they all attack the one responsible for Brian's untimely death. The battle itself is very short and less harrowing than expected as the party keeps resisting the Drain Life ability from the undead. In a final fit of arcane rage, (Wizard) releases his most powerful Thunderwave, as the undead is pushed away by the sheer force, its muscles start to rip apart and a blink of an eye, the undead's remains are smeared against one side of the room. The party recovers Brian's corpse in order to give him a proper burial and get out of the cultist lair. When they reach the top, they see (Monk) sitting on the stone which has their ropes attached to it. "Hi there, seems I overslept." he casually mentions. While the party is glad to see another one of their friends alive, they mourn the loss of (Cleric) and Brian.
After a good night's rest, the party wakes up and begins discussing what to do next. As half the party wants to explore the island some more (maybe they missed something) and the other half wants to go home, the latter half eventually cracks and they all decide to go onward towards the closest ruin between them and the cave/tower. After two and a half uneventful days, they finally arrive at the ruins. They can tell it used to be village of some great size, but most of it has been reclaimed by nature. As they walk through the ruins of various houses of stone and wood, staying on the road as much as possible, they suddenly hear a grunting noise from one of the nearby houses, a zombie has spotted them and falls through the window, the party makes quick work of it. It's only afterwards that they spot the hovering light getting away from them through the other side of the building. Without much thinking, the party goes into a pursuit. After some time only (Monk) and (Barbarian) manage to follow it into a tall building. When they reach the attic, the light floats out the window, as (Monk) and (Barbarian) step forward to see where the light is going, (Monk) plummets through 3 floors and falls hard on the basement floor. (Barbarian) simply spreads his wings as he dives after the twinkling light. The sound of the crash gets the party to regroup at the building. They help (Monk) back up and after some quick scouting through (Wizard)'s owl familiar, they locate a large warehouse and church not far from their current location. The party decides to spend the night in the church. Approaching the church, they see it is in relative good condition, some of the lead windows are broken, the bell is on the floor and one of the doors is lying on the ground. Entering the church they see a tapestry behind the altar with the symbol of Ajundin, Goddess of Protection goddess of protection and the ground is full of skeletons, most garments have decayed away with the passage of time. In a back room the party pillage some very old wine (four bottles of unknown taste and origin) and they proceed into the night with their regular shifts. During (Wizard)'s shift, the light (or another one, they don't know) visits them again, taunting (Wizard) to follow it. He instead sends his familiar after it, which is blasted to smithereens just a couple moments later. The light then proceeds to taunt (Wizard), he casually replies to it with a Magic Missile, sending the light running away. Nothing happens for the remainder of the night. The following morning the party heads for the Warehouse. Upon their arrival they quickly notice that anything and everything of use has been philfered a long time ago, but not for (Rogue), with her uncanny investigation skills she uncovers a hidden cache, which holds a dagger. Upon investigating the dagger, it is revealed to have a hidden compartment, which can store a single use of a poison and with a push on the pummel, the weapon becomes coated in the stored poison (Dagger of Hidden Poison). Deciding to leave the ruins behind, (Wizard) does a quick scouting with his familiar and finds a tavern in a very decent state. Wanting to grab more free liquor, the party heads in. As they're searching the tavern they suddenly hear the moaning sound of the undead. Thinking it's a straggler, the party looks outside, to their horror, they see not one... two... or even five zombies heading their way, but a large group of about fifty zombies have the party somehow surrounded...
END OF SESSION 1

Rewards Granted

• Characters are Level 2
• 12 minor healing potions (6 left)
• Dagger of Hidden Poison
• Hazirawn (will be renamed)
• 2gp 6sp
• 1 superior potion (0 left)
• 4 bottles of ancient wine taken from a church dedicated to Ajundin, Goddess of Protection

Missions/Quests Completed

Find Brian (he's defintely dead now).

Report Date

15 Oct 2023

Primary Location

Kordun