04/07/745 A.E. Continued... Approaching dawn.
Less than an hour from Little Falls, the party watches the strange giant owl disappear into the night as it flies northward to destinations unknown. Perhaps Arthur will return with the medallion, but when that might be, who can say? Of more immediate concern is the warning that a human was smuggling in 'pigmen' (orcs) into a wooden nest (a house) surrounded by a stonewall somewhere in Little Falls. This was not at all usual and it gave Trekken an uneasy feeling to have so many orcs within the confines of any human village, especially when they were obviously hiding and probably up to no good.
"Perhaps we should camp for the night and get a few hours' rest," suggested Garren, looking hopefully at the group as he shifted from one foot to the other to give his aching feet a break. It had been a long time since they had rested, and the party was still not up to full fighting trim.
"I think not, friend priest, for we are but an hour or so out of Little Falls. It'd be better we made the safety of a village first. Besides, Arthur's warning troubles me. I do not like orcs too well even under the best of circumstances, and these are far from the best." The holy warrior gathered the gear he had been hauling but let fall to the ground while talking to Arthur. Slinging it over his shoulder, he set off toward the village. Though many were disappointed they wouldn't be resting, and though they didn't really think of Trekken as party leader, this time his concerns were obvious and no one wished to dispute it. They trailed after the warrior of Thor.
Within the hour they could see moonlight reflecting off Lake Rebel. A landlocked lake, Lake Rebel was divided into two major areas (Upper Rebel and Lower Rebel) with a narrow bottleneck joining the two. Into Upper Rebel cascaded the little waterfall from which the village derived its name. Little River, flowing southward, came to its end along this high, hilly section or escarpment, a cliff-like fall where the river drained over the side and came crashing down 200 feet below into Upper Rebel, which many believed to be an ancient granite quarry, though if true, it was so long ago that not even the long-lived elves remembered who had taken stone from its depths.
Trekken circled around the lake on the only path available from this direction, skirting the cliff, eventually coming to Little River where he waded across. Janjit ran a ways and easily jumped over the large stream while other less acrobatically inclined individuals followed Trek's example. "I hate getting' wet," commented Janjit as the others shook the water off from their boots.
Though small, they could hear the sound of the falls hitting the lake's surface below, filling the early predawn with the low sound of white noise. All told, it was a rather relaxing noise, and I'm told quite scenic, but the limited light of the moons and the stars hardly did it justice at the moment.
"All right, lead us to your home, Kat," said Garren, thinking now that they were in town he could get some rest. But Trek would have none of it. "We must find these pigmen first and make sure they are not an immediate threat." Garren sighed, knowing he was not going to win this argument unless he went home on his own. Trek's mind was made up; Gillmesh also seemed intent on more immediate problems. "These warrior types never seem to tire," thought Garren. He sighed again and followed Kat and Janjit and Sedoc, who were themselves following Trek and Gill. Anne guided the wagon and was always a bit behind, but never out of sight.
Katsumi moved forward to Gill and Trek. "What about that Bird? What did it say to you? Was it anything important?" Gill simply nodded, but Trek verbally responded. "He spoke of evil, a malignancy upon this town, right here in its very bosom, a nest of orcs. We must find it 'fore we can rest our weary bones." Trek talked like that a lot, but Kat was used it by now. "Well, after we do find them, we can all go to my house. It's quite comfortable." She described some of the nice things waiting at home. The promise of comfort appealed to everyone, but first things first.
"What about the wagon? We can't just ditch it or leave it in the street, can we?" someone asked. Anne replied, "I'll take it ahead to Katsumi's house. She gave me a letter of introduction to her friend there, so I won't have any problems. I'll just wait for you there, ok?" All seemed to think this a fine plan since Anne was not great in a toe-to-toe fight, if it came to that, and she was out of spells anyway. Anne departs with the wagon.
The rest scout out the classier section of Little Falls and find two buildings surrounded by stonewalls in the area that Arthur described. Investigating the first, Janjit came back only to report he saw a woman cooking breakfast through an open window. The other building was much larger. A huge, dilapidated mansion, 125 feet by 60 feet surrounded by a 10-foot high stonewall, 220 feet long by 80 feet wide. Following Kat's suggestion, Gill, Trek, and Sedoc approach from the rear of the mansion, away from the street. Janjit, Garren, and Katsumi came in from the front.
GROUP1:
The frontal assault stealthily approached. Janjit looks over the iron gate but decides it would be far easier and quicker for him to climb the wall than to pick the lock, so he does this and soon plays out a rope for Garren. Kat nimbly climbs up the wall using her steel claws and she crouches on the wall's top like a cat, her eyes shining, ever alert for any immediate danger. Assured all is well, she preforms a simple backflip off the wall and quietly lands in the yard below. Janjit simply lets himself fall but lands deftly and quietly. Garren uses the rope, too tired for more showy methods of descent. Within minutes, the trio is crouching amongst the overgrown weeds of a poorly kept front lawn. The thistles were thick. Clearly, the mansion gave all outward appearances of a lack of occupancy for years. The whole thing was a bit of an eyesore in this section of town, and obviously out of place.
Both Katsumi and Janjit sneak up the stone steps to the front doors. The iron fittings are rusty, but a bronze knocker still seems relatively unaffected, its patina a nice, greenish-blue. "A rusty door is a noisy door," cautioned Janjit with a whisper, but Kat opens it anyway. "Sqeeeeaaaaaaaaaaakk." Janjit utters something completely uncivilized, but it's too hard to make it out.
They enter the front hallway, but no one is there to greet them. Using limited light so Kat's infravision will not be spoiled, they creep farther in, looking at 4 doors, already presented with choices. Kat ignores the other doors and continues west along the main artery of the flow of this hallway. She soon comes to two more doors, one leading south, and the other north in this east-to-west hall. She enters the south door and finds a rather nice sitting room, with two couches, a couple chairs, some stools, a fireplace (no fire) and a bar (poorly stocked). She helps herself to the bottle of scotch and the bottle of wine, putting them in her pack while the others explore elsewhere. Janjit goes north into a storage room, finding wheat and barrels of water, along with other simple provisions, but nothing of great interest. The room turns west and an open door there leads into a kitchen area, with an island counter and three wall counters, a fireplace (cooking pit) and a bathroom. Two archways continued west.
NOTE:The bathroom was typical of those often found in better homes. These exceptionally deep, dark, Erlenmeyer-flask shaped greenslime-infused pits are frequently used throughout the Alodarian Empire for disposal of organic wastes, human or otherwise. Mostly the greenslime, a highly dangerous organism, simply lies dormant, but it will feed and grow when it consumes any organic materials given to it, such as food scraps and human waste, resulting in more greenslime, water, and oxygen. Periodically, such a pit needs attention and maintenance to destroy most of the greenslime, to prevent it from becoming too large or reaching too high up from the pit's brick-lined bottom, thus leaving only enough greenslime to reseed the pit, until it requires further maintenance, possibly years later.
Janjit hears a noise, freezes, draws his weapons, and signals to his companions of the danger.
GROUP2:
Sedoc, Trek, and Gill find massive, heavy, wooden doors with iron bands, well bared along the back wall. They spend more time than the front team, but eventually they boost Gill up to the top where he helps them up in turn. Soon all three are in a backyard, muddy, disused, poorly kept, and not a very nice place to be. Narrow channels skirted the sides of the mansion leading to the front, probably, but there was a door in the corner of the building and that looked promising. Though it was locked, Sedoc could tell the doorframe was rife with dry rot and he put a little muscle into it, breaking the doorframe in without much noise or effort. Leading into a 5x5 foot anteroom, another door (unlocked) is then bypassed and the trio finds themselves standing in a great dining hall, where a large, ornately carved wooden table drew all eyes toward it, the obvious focus of the room. Big enough to seat 20 (and with 20 chairs surrounding the 40-foot long, 10-foot wide table), the massive table was an impressive piece of furniture. A thick coating of dust lay upon the (maple wood?) table, showing no one had been here in years (or at least, no one had been using the table). Gill marveled at the massive table, recalling seeing a much smaller one once and being told it cost a fortune. This table might easily bring over 1,000 GP (if one could get it out of here, but the darn thing was so big it might actually have been built in the room).
Sedoc moved out of the room, pushing a large curtain aside and entering into a long hallway. A shadowy figured moved inside. Instinctively he drew his sword and took a defensive stance, but then he saw it was only Katsumi. Front and rear groups quickly reunite in the seemingly abandoned mansion, still with no sign of foul play or anything to warrant their breaking in here. Garren worries they may have come here for nothing and he wearily sits outside on the front steps to rest and think of the possible consequences of breaking and entering in town, but mostly he sat to give his feet a break. The rest of the party gives the ground floor a cursory examination, finding several other rooms and some stairs leading up to the second floor.
They proceed upstairs, finding a hall with 5 doors and a curtain. Entering the first door, they find a small bedroom with a potbelly stove (disused). Next, they enter the room across from that one. Taken completely by surprise, Skeletons from a closet attack without warning.
COMBAT BEGINS:
S1: The bony hand of a skeleton barely misses the startled rogue, but Sedoc is not so lucky, getting hit in the side of the head with a bony fist. Janjit and Sedoc bottleneck the doorway, two skeletons trying to claw past them, hurting them if able, while 10 more wait behind, apparently anxious to take the place of any who might fall, renewing their attacks against these intruders.
R1: Janjit does his level best to avoid being hit, forgoing his attack to defend himself better while Sedoc and the others do something more damaging. Garren (outside on the steps) thinks he hears something. Kat attacks, but misses. Sedoc damages one, but his bladed weapon is not as effective as he is used to. The skeletons clip Sedoc once again.
R2: Kat crushes a skeleton and Janjit finishes the one Sedoc had hurt earlier. Two other skeletons take their place. Again, they hit Sedoc, his armor taking most of the punishment. Garren hears battle from inside, but where? He rushes in and looks around. Trek lays his holy hands upon the frontline warrior, Sedoc. "Bless this warrior who blocks my path and shoulders my burden; may he be healed in his time of need, most Holy Father," offers Trek, a quick but humble prayer instigating the minor Lay-On-Hands healing ability, and Sedoc is healed (slightly).
R3: A flurry of battle continues. A skeleton goes down but is replaced. Sedoc is hit badly. Other attacks fail. Garren rushes upstairs, following the sounds of battle.
R4: Janjit continues to dodge, Sedoc moves out and Kat takes his place, slightly slicing into a bony ribcage. The skeleton's hands rake at the adventurers, but their armor protects them from the wrath of the undead. Garren turns the corner and presents his faith boldly to the abominations of life. "Go back to hell from whence thee came, foul denizens!" Taken aback, five of the the skeletons seem sore afraid and retreat from the power of god, hiding in the back of the closet, trying unsuccessfully not to be seen.
R5: Katsumi Yuriko preforms the rabid monkey, where she pounces on the skeleton, sword first, and makes weird noises, completely destroying one of the fiends, its shattered limbs becoming a welcome mat for yet another one if its unholy brethren who were not so frightened of the representative of god. Janjit takes the opportunity to move out while Trek defends his retreat. Garren moves forward, again showing the power of his faith. "Unholy abominations, Poseidon denies your right to endure here. Flee before his might or be destroyed, cast down into the Abyss for all time!" His faith is strong, and the remaining skeletons flee to the back wall or hide in the closet again.
R6: The party advances, whacking at the cornered skeletons who now continue to fight at a considerable disadvantage, the facade of their undead courage all but gone. A few hit back and wound our intrepid adventurers, but soon all the skeletons are properly dead.
COMBAT ENDS:
The silence of destroyed undead fills the large bedroom, only a steady, heavy breathing of our adventurers remains. Thankful it's over, Sedoc moves out into the hall near the curtain. Curious, he peeks through, wondering where it leads so he may have something to think about while resting. Zombies attack! (Though they would have anyway).
COMBAT BEGINS:
R1: Zombies stagger down the hall toward Sedoc, their arms outstretched, grasping for the lone warrior. Sedoc eloquently yells for assistance and alerts his friends by shouting a single word. "SHIT!" (as I recall). Zombies being slow, Katsumi had time for a flying kick, clipped one of the undead, but it seemed to hurt it only in a minor way, more like an annoyance than an attack. Kat landed to the side while drawing her katana. Other attacks fail and the zombies are ineffective as well.
R2: Garren impales a zombie with a trident, but the damn thing grabs it and holds it inside of his ribs, making it impossible for Garren to retrieve it. The zombie just glares at the priest. Katsumi moves past the zombies, turns, and attacks from the rear in one fluid motion. A zombie falls into several pieces. Slow, a plague upon them, the cursed zombies again fail to connect.
R3: Effortlessly (or seemingly so) Kat moves and slices through the zombies, sending yet another one on its way. Janjit and Sedoc team up and make short work of another zombie. Garren presents his faith again, but these zombies seem less than impressed with him, or with his deity. In fact, one of the zombies actually hits him instead of cowering in fear, as if to demonstrate how ineffective his faith had been. Kat continues to move, but she is also clipped, hard, the blood running down her back from a wound just below her shoulder.
R4: Garren is again hit, but Janjit and Trek and Gill finally finish the remaining zombie, its lone figure falling before their combined onslaught.
COMBAT OVER:
Man! this upstairs area was filthy with undead, and they weren't even looking for undead. A quick search reveals a library (empty, but for the furniture and shelves, which were totally devoid of books), three nice bedrooms, a larger bedroom (where the skeletons were), and the master bedroom (where the zombies hung out). Within the master bedroom, Kat finds a secret door in the fireplace that leads down to the cloakroom on the first level. Nothing else presents itself, and still no orcs. They return to the first level and perform a more thorough search. Trek mumbles his unhappy feelings, "Where then, pray tell, are these blasted orcs that loom ever so near the bosom of this fair city?" As if in answer, the sun, just beginning to rise such that its holy light enters the windows, adds illumination to the room, with which they find a secret door in the bar and sitting room. It reveals a staircase leading down. Wounded, tired, with next to no spells, they nevertheless epically proceed, all in the hopes of finding the orcs before it's too late. Garren has Sedoc drink one of his vials of healing liquid. The warrior happily accepts the healing elixir and thanks the priest for it.
Readying themselves, they proceed downward into the subterranean levels below. Another hall, dark, more doors, the stench of stale urine and feces permeates the place. Sedoc recognizes the smell of orcs and others all agree it is reminiscent of the foul orc lair recently visited. Snoring? Yes. Kat hears this and leads them west to the double doors from whence the noise originates. She flings the door open in near silence, its well-oiled hinges easily opening without complaint. The heat signatures of over a score of orcs lying here, resting, sleeping, snoring. She creeps in and Janjit follows, all others waiting for fear their clumsy movements may prematurely arose them. Trek prepares a battle cry, this time waiting for the right moment.
COMBAT BEGINS:
S1: Janjit and Kat stealthily creep in and manage to dispatch three of them before a shout in Orcish alerts all to their presence. Garren cast Poseidon's mist of protection on himself and Kat (a protection spell).
R1: Janjit crawls into the shadows, preparing a sneak attack. Kat, obviously the center of orcish attention, swings wildly to fend them off but does not hit any orcs. Janjit manages a backstab, easily killing another orc. Trek advances, and since the time is right, shouting all the way, "Have at thee, unholy vermin; die under the weight of Thor's righteousness!" Trek kills an orc. The orcs scramble, a bit demoralized at the unexpected shouting and the surprise attack. Gillmesh wades into them, killing one on the path that takes him into their clutches. Sedoc similarly cuts one down. The orcs rally.
R2: Trek score a kill, Kat kills another as well, and Sedoc dispatches yet another. Janjit is attacked and wounded. Trek and Gill are also hit, their blood mingling with orc blood upon the stone floor. Garren moves in, his trident delivering a deadly blow to an advancing orc. Other attacks occur, but all miss.
R3: Kat kills another and spins around. Trek dances into the fray, killing an orc who bared his path. Garren, realizing his only remaining spell of Sleep is not useless here like it was against the undead, lays it down. Several orcs fall into a deep slumber, Gillmesh baring the way between the snoozing orcs and any possible aid they might receive from their still upright buddies. The remaining orcs swarm Gillmesh, several of them cutting deeply into the warrior.
R4: Kat nicks an orc with her dagger after her katana missed its mark. Another hit on Gillmesh! Trek relieves an orc of the burden of living and moves to protect Gill who had taken up a mostly defensive stance. Sedoc makes a dangerous move and pays the price as an orc flips the ranger's sword out of his hands. The ranger draws his backup weapon (a dagger) even before his bastardsword clatters nearly 20 feet away upon the cold, blood covered, stone floor. Garren's trident finds its mark again, impaling one of the few remaining orcs.
R5: One large orc remains, perhaps the leader. Though he preformed better than most, his was a lost cause and he, too, joined his orcish brothers in their eternal slumber.
COMBAT ENDS:
Janjit finishes off the sleeping orcs while the others rest, the sound of the party member's breathing the only sign of life in this large, 60-foot by 30-foot chamber. Dead orcs and their cruddy equipment were strewn over the floor, now slippery with fresh blood. A horrible reek of death, urine, and feces hung in the air as our dauntless party members were forced to breath the only air available to them, sucking it deeply into their pleading lungs. Man! the things they do to win.
SESSION ENDS:
© December of 1999
by
James L.R. Beach
Waterville, MN 56096