Session 9 - The Missing Mithral

General Summary

From Kleek’s Journal
Having cleared the first and second floors of the tower, we proceeded up to the third floor. There we encountered two more orcs; a warrior and a priestess. Bandua stood toe to toe with the warrior, trading blows and holding his own despite having fought his way through a dozen orcs already. Mkali and Laura proved to be a deadly pair, with the panther darting in at every opening with its sharp teeth and Laura’s arrows hitting home again and again.
As dangerous as that orc warrior’s axe was, it was the priestess that I was truly worried about. She drew on vile magics in a foreign tongue, like twisted versions of the divine blessings that I myself call upon. The black forces she wielded disturbed me, and when Mkali and Laura dispatched the warrior I rushed forward right behind Bandua to drive my dagger into her throat.
The orc pair defeated, we had a chance to explore the top floor of the tower. What we found was appalling; they had desecrated the statue of Mars that stood here when the legion still held this place and replaced it with a black effigy to Dispater, the fiend that these orcs choose to worship. The effigy must have been imbued with some kind of curse as well; when I tried to touch it a wave of cold shot up my arm, thankfully without doing any lasting harm.
We finished our search of the floor, and then proceeded to the basement to complete our sweep of the tower. In the basement we made a very different kind of discovery; a survivor from the ambushed dwarf caravan we saw on the road, who had been kept prisoner by the orcs. He confirmed our theory that the orcs took the caravan, but otherwise had little to say other than that he wished to go home.
One mystery that remained was what happened to the mithral from the caravan. We commenced a second search of the tower, and even did a survey of the outside and the adjoining stables. No mithral was found, but thanks to Laura’s sharp eyes we did turn up a bag of some quality in the tack room, that upon closer examination appeared to be enchanted. Hassan assured us that he had hear of such ‘bags of holding’ talked about by adventurers in Port Voltur, and that it would prove most useful.
By the time we had finished our sweep of the tower and stables it was late in the afternoon, and we decided to rest there for the night before returning to Nemasus. Despite ample beds Bandua refused to go anywhere near anything that had been used by the ‘filthy orcs’, preferring to lay out his bedroll on the cold floor of the dining hall. I used the extra time to further search the building for magical enchantments but found nothing.
The night passed uneventfully.
In the morning I made one more attempt to locate the mithral, calling upon Apollo's divine aid, but my spell revealed nothing, and we can only assume that they have already moved or sold the mithral. We headed back to Namasus, encountering some roman troops at the cemetery. The dwarf caravan guard proved to be a sullen and silent travelling companion, hinting at a troubled past but revealing little else.
On our return to Nemasus, we immediately reported to the Prefecta. She was surprised and pleased to hear that we had cleared the tower, although the news of the missing mithril disturbed her. True to her word she rewarded us handsomely for our efforts, though her scribe once again brought up the question of our group’s name. I gather that such names are a common practice among adventuring companies, and we resolved to collectively come up with one as soon as possible.
The rest of the afternoon was taken up with managing our ever increasing inventory and party funds. I am amazed by the amount of coin, gems, and gear we seem to have accumulated in our short time together. I had always thought that the stories of adventurers laden with gold and enchanted items to be exaggerated, but if my limited experience is any indication there is indeed a fortune to be made as an adventurer for hire, if you survive.

Rewards Granted

750 Experience Points.

Missions/Quests Completed

• Minor Milestone - Reach tower level 3
• Major Milestone - Free the dwarf prisoner (Rurik)
• Major Milestone - Repair the shrine to Mars
• Major Milestone - Restore the tower to Rome

Character(s) interacted with

• Rurik Fireforge
• Numeria Durionia
• Ianthe Kentavros

Report Date

11 Jul 2020

Primary Location

Rhodanensis