Some sessions ago, our characters made a visit to Qarn and were curious about the ruins of the city to the north and about a powerful wizard nearby. Since then your characters were able to pick up some information about both topics.

• Delbo was an ancient city built in the hills northwest of where Qarn is today. It had great gates which miraculously remain largely intact but its walls are crumbled in many places. Within the city: a ruined keep said to be built over a prison, a cursed graveyard shrouded in mist, a strange tower with no doors or windows, and the cave of a beast never seen but always heard roaring under the waning crescent moon.

• Ragnon is a wizard of some 13th or 14th level who resides in a tower in the hills north of Qarn at odd times throughout the year. It is difficult to know when he is home and his henchmen usually turn away visitors. He is never seen leaving the tower. Actually, he is typically never seen, period. He is thought to have once provided spells to the previous ruler of Qarn, Yosorif the Herdsman, but that was decades ago.

Ithimyr is training until the 1st of Long Moon.

The Cast of Characters:

• Iskandar - AC 10/10 - Spells: 2x Magic Missile, Shield.
• Davlan - AC 6/8 - Hired Link Boys and a Porter.
• Maervahr - AC 10/10.
• Gil - AC 1/3 - large shield. Spells: Cure Light Wounds, Hold Person, Light.
• Morric - AC 0/2 - large shield.
• Vras - AC 5/8.

We begin this session with an assassination.

Vras Skag is assassinating a fisherman…he finds out where he lives and sneaks in then assassinates him (via drowning him in a jug of water that he brought with him). The fisherman's backpack is full of fish and extra fish, which capsizes the boat. The fisherman fell off the boat from the weight of the fish and he had 4 hp, Vras gets 9 xp from this event.

We are headed to Akemeledain from Gren. We are looking for a cave in the forest. The party will travel south over the fields and into the forest.

After a few hours, we arrive to the cave without any trouble along the way.

The day is clear and visibility is good. Overall, the day is good and there is no Giant Eagle flying around this time.

Gil sold the magic plate mail he had acquired for 1,500 gp and split the value with Vras.

Once we are outside of the cave, Maervahr uses his Clairaudience ability to listen inside of Akemeledain. He can only hear rats. We then enter the cave…and then must roll a d6 for surprise.

We travel into the cave complex and take a right. The party moves into the large area where we encountered the Ogres last time. However, the place has changed. The Ogre corpses are dangling by thick webs and a Giant Spider hangs from the ceiling. It is 15' up and 5“ away.

We discuss how encounters can start at twice our light distance.

This Giant Spider is the size of multiple horses. Vras shoots first and Maervahr's oil flask misses. All the others also miss. The Spider moves to engage and then Gil hits. The Giant Spider is considered large sized so there is a 50% chance to not hit Morric, who is now in melee. The whole party charges in and attacks. We kill it and it lets out an awful screeching noise.

This is the same type of Spider we found outside of the Chapterhouse. Behind the hanging Ogres there is a human body with a glowing longsword. Davlan and Vras climb the wall to get to the webbed Human body. It is wearing plate mail, the glowing long sword and a backpack. We cut free the body and it drops down about 5 feet to the ground.

The magic sword is held in the corpses hand and inside the backpack is a scroll tube and 11 pp. The scroll has arcane runes on it.

• magic longsword
• 11 pp
• plate mail
• arcane scroll

Maervahr will grab the scroll and we will pick up the plate mail on the way out.

We descend down into Akemeledain.

The air is stagnant and silent. We head toward the south west and found what is left of the Goblin encampment. All the scraps of food are long gone and the bedrolls are tossed aside.

Maervahr uses his Clairaudience to listen beyond the door but hears nothing so we open the door. The door opens up to a 40 foot long hallway which in turn opens up to a circular room dominated by a statue. Along both walls, where the walls meet the ceiling, are carved a design of 8 ships upon waves. Each of the designs is labeled on a carving resembling a scroll and says: skywater, noblesong, earnestsong, and olympia.

The walls are made from sedimentary rock and there is a statue of a person with short curly hair gazing upwards with a grin. Waves move beyond his form but there is no actual movement. We inspect the statue further and find a plaque that reads:

“To this land locked place came the children of the sea. For Cine, for yesterday and for tomorrow.”

The statue has scratches all over it and some hammer marks. There are the remnants of dust all around and statue pieces littering the floor. On the collar of the waves is a thing that one would put a button into, like a clasp, but it is not part of the waves. It looks like a separate mechanical feature where something could be attached. Otherwise, there is nothing peculiar around the walls. The statue itself sounds solid.

Maervahr notices that the two ships that are in front are labeled. He can read the name “Pincilia” and the others have larger letterings. The ships on his shoulder are less detailed than the ones on the walls. It looks like the lettering leads to the ships themselves.

We re-enter the main fresco room but we do not hear anything new. We run in to the Shrieker room where we find 20 Giant Rats in a massive pile! The Shriekers emit a deafening noise, making it impossible to hear each other.

Maervahr runs into a corner. The Giant Rats have AC 7.

Davlan attacks and does an extra 3 points of damage with his new +3 sword.

There are different groups of Giant Rats, 8 of them to a group.

We enter the room and another 10 Giant Rats come from the northern entrance and join into melee. Maervahr goes invisible and then moves to flank them and cast Burning Hands. There are currently 18 total rats.

We lose initiative.

There are 6 characters and 2 dogs. 1 Rat hits Davlan for 2 damage. 6 rats bite Vras and he takes 5 hits. Vras is mowed over by a hoard of rats and is now at -2 hitpoints. Iskandar takes 1 damage. There are now 2 groups on Morric but each one misses him. 1 Rat hits Gil for 3 points of damage.

Out of 18 total Rats. 4 take 4 damage each due to the Burning Hands spell. 11 have been slaughtered by the end of this round.

Maervahr moves to bind Vras's wounds.

There was a Shrieker but it is finally killed. Eventually, all the Giant Rats are killed and we survive!

Vras receives two Cure Light Wounds spells putting him at 2 hp.

We search the room for goods and secret doors. Lying in the corner is a half-rotten, very short wooden box that sits very low to the ground. It looks like the top of it was eaten away by fungus. There are some silver coins inside and a latched top. We flip that latch and it snaps off and falls to the ground. Inside we find several items amongst the coins:

• 400 sp.
• A small cloth pouch, once white but is now brown with 7 sparkling gems:
  • peridot 500 gp
  • bloodstone 50 gp
  • amethyst 100 gp
  • zircon 50 gp
  • amethyst 120 gp
  • coral 100 gp,
  • moss agate 10 gp
• A magic harp worth 200 gp

In the next room is a stand made of stone with a harp sitting on top. The harp is held by wooden harp holder and it has 5 strings of 5 different lengths on it. Morric grabs the harp which is objectively very pretty.

As he does this, Morric feels a strain on his mind that is pulling him back to replace the harp where he found it. However, he believes that he might be able to break through the psionic barrier. Morric rolls a save vs spells, and failed. He forces himself into the hallway with the harp and his head suddenly snaps backward. He feels an incredible pain and takes 5 damage. Morric then has an awful headache and he still feels the tension from the harp being removed from its stand.

We had back to Gren with all our spoils…

We make it back to Gren unscathed but the headache persists for Morric. He thinks that maybe after some sleep he will begin to feel better.

Vras was knocked unconscious but is back on Long Moon the 1st. In his place will be Karah Spineripper, who has AC 3/3.

Maervahr can rest for 4 hours and 15 minutes per spell level to cast a new spell. We cast Detect Magic and Read Magic on our items.

• The harp is magic.
• The arcane scroll is magic
• The plate mail is not magic and is human sized.
• The Arcane Scroll contains single spell : Sepia Snake Sigil.

Davlan buys some banded mail and goes around to try and hire some Mercenaries / Guards to take on the Boarmen.

In Criss Antha he finds the following available Mercenaries:

• 3 artillerists (not as infantry) (5 gp/day).
• 5 crossbowmen (2 gp/day),
• 12 horsemen (crossbows).
• and a lieutenant (3rd level) (4 gp, 300 gp).

All of their alignments are good.

In Qarn, the most common alignment is evil and he finds the following:

• 6 crossbowmen (2 gp/day),
• 3 light footmen (2 gp/day),
• 3 slingers (3 gp/day).

In Riknettle:

• 9 pikemen (3 gp/day).

In Farius:

• 5 heavy footmen (2 gp/day).

We purchase all of the mercenaries, Minus the Lieutenant and his horsemen and the artillerists.

The group returns to inform Elvain, the Giant Eagle, of our plans. Elvain says that there were 30-40 Boarmen still and that their numbers are unchanged. The armlet of their Shaman is desired by the Druids who will grant us a reward of our choice, of something that that they can provide in exchange for the armlet.

We can pay 15 gp for an oil barrel, which will do normal oil damage. We discuss the possibility of a giant sized molotov cocktail that could be dropped by Elvain.

We depart…

On to the Boarmen. They are hidden behind the hills to the south. There is a thin river and a small bridge that is wide enough for 2-3 people at a time. There are also dugouts cut into the side of the hills that the Boarmen reside in and previously came out of. The hills continue onward toward the southern side of the river.

The party heads out toward the Boarmen encampment.

We are surprised that our approach was not noticed by anyone but we approach through the hills.

Neither party is surprised. There is a 16” encounter distance.

Atena, the weasel familiar of Maervahr, signals that it can hear things and smell things in the area and we soon find the Boarmen's camp. Neither party is surprised and the Boarmen can see us. Of course, we can also see the Boarmen. The Giant Eagle, Elvain, was ready to go and had been enchanted with Invisibility. We receive a telepathic reassurance that it will help us.

Suddenly there is a shout from the tower…and the fight begins!

The watchmen in the tower has signaled to his allies that we approach.

The Boarmen have AC 5 (or AC 1 for cover).

Our Crossbowmen attack. 2 hit doing 7 damage. The Slingers all miss. Gil shoots two arrows but misses. Gil has AC 1 and a Boarman with a Crossbow misses Gil. At this point, all of the Boarmen have come out, including the Shaman. It is wearing the armlet and his guards carry battle axes and morningstars. 30 of the Boarmen carry guisarme-voulges and a battle axe. Most of the Boarmen only move this round.

Maervahr casts Web and the Web spell only effects 3 hexes and has a range of 4 hexes. At this point, the entire sky begins darkening. Maervahr is casting Web on the bridge. The Web spell goes off and traps 6 or 7 of the Boarmen on the bridge. They are now trapped! The Pikemen need to hit them on a roll of 15. 3 hits against 1 Boarman for a total of 40 DAMAGE!

The Giant Eagle appears overhead of the Shaman and it is now mere feet above the Shaman in the sky where it is dropping the barrel at a +4 to hit vs AC 5 or AC 10 against the ground. The Eagle is a HD 4 monster. It only needs to roll a 2 to hit the Shaman…

The barrel of burning oil smashes into the Shaman's group creating a massive fireball that encompasses all of their Crossbowmen and his Guards. Based on the siege rules, this means that it deals 33 points of damage. There is NO SHAMAN remaining and everyone else around him is now on fire.

The Stormclouds immediately subside and all of the advancing troops turn to look. 2 of the Crossbowmen and 2 of our Slingers hit.

There is a Morale check for the remaining Boarmen and they fail by 77. The Boarmen throw down their arms at the bridge and they begin to backpedal in fear. Our group call out in Orcish to the Boarmen about our desire to resolve this amicably. We then tell them to flee to the south.

All of the Boarmen throw down their weapons in unison and run off into the hills. They also throw coin pouches over their shoulders behind them.

Morric and the Pikemen dispatch the Boarmen on the bridge, dissuading the ones who might have wanted to remain and fight. The Giant Eagle takes a burning barrel and it chases after the fleeing Boarmen. There is another explosion, of fire, pain and fear. And then, the Giant Eagle comes back with a Boarman in each talon. The Boarmen are dropped to the ground and there is a thumping noise heard to the north. All the Boarmen who were on fire have died.

The Boarman Shaman had on him the following:

• 2 potions (saving throw needed 20, both destroyed).
• The ARMLET RELIC (passes save vs crushing, the fireball destroys the armlet and it is unrepairable!).
• A necklace of gold bars (destroyed in fire),
• 1 potion (it saves).
• A key (it saves).

We also find:

• 1 potion
• 3 chests, locked (they open with the key).
  • potion (poison, would have killed Morric but he saved!).
  • pearl (100 gp).
  • 3 bloodstones (50 gp each).
  • 6100 cp.
  • 5800 sp.
  • 1300 gp.

The Boarmen coin pouches:

• 87 ep.
• 53 gp.

The items held by the Boarmen:

• 2 morningstars.
• 16 battle axes.
• 14 guisarme-voulges.
• 2 heavy crossbows.

114 gp for all total.

The Armlet is obliterated but there is enough that we could gather up the pieces.

FOR THE FIRST PART with VRAS:

• 203 xp for treasure.
• 39 pp.
• 2 gp.
• 1 sp.
• 4 cp.

FOR THE SECOND PART with the SHAMAN DEATH:

• Potion of Poison - Vras buys for 100 gp.
• Scroll of Sepia Snake Sigil - Maervahr 300 xp.
• Brown Potion (Invulnerability) - Morric.

• 342 xp.
• 66 pp.
• 1 gp.
• 1 ep.
• 1 sp.
• 5 cp.

The magic sword goes to Davlan and he feels that the sword wishes it could have been a bigger part of that battle. Davlan senses jealousy from the sword and it communicates empathically.

545 xp for all combined,

• Khara 419 xp.
• Vras 308 xp.
• Maervahr 1027 xp.
• Davlan 2127 xp.
• Iskandar 727 xp.
• Gil 727 xp.
• Morric 1000 xp.

This session is ENDING on Frost Moon the 23rd, 494.

We have the remnants of the armlet.

There are some spells available from Unearthed Arcana for us to choose from.