01 - Ying sing like anything

Circus McGurkus was without a main draw.

Circus McGurkus would not last the fall.

'Less its diverse forces and the ringman

Could con the circus together again.

- Mad woman at the edge of Oldfort

The Circus was without a main attraction. It had been forced to shelter in the ruins around Oldfort after fleeing the disaster at Dwarfholm, but at least the coffers were full so the Circus could afford to take some down time. Meanwhile a group of the more adventurous performers was going to set out to try and capture some new fabulous beast to serve as a new attraction to bring in the crowds.

Oldfort was a small village housed in the safety of an old castle in the center of a sprawling city fallen to ruin. The caravan would spend some time searching the ruins while a band of five performers headed up into the mountains. The group that was selected was as follows: Dax the kobold wizard (who knew of some kobold ruins that Ying bats might live in), Celeste the half-elvin bard who knew all sorts of legends about mythical creatures, Hugh the shapeshifter who could communicate with beasts and was the best scout due to his ability to fly overhead like an eagle, Yucca the dwarven ranger who knew how to survive in the mountainous hills where they were going and whose bow would be useful if they encountered any trouble, and lastly MF as some additional muscle. It wasn't an ideal group but it also wasn't like recruiting the bearded lady and the sword swallower would be any help. The most competent performers were already going. Anyone else would be dead weight.

Dax's people had been investigating potential warrens and he knew an old kobold warren he wanted to check out. Furthermore he had heard that it had a colony of Ying bats that had driven out the last tribe. The sub-harmonic melodies of Ying bats had all sorts of magical properties and might add some of the splendor that had been lost with the Songbird's escape. But also it meant he had an exact destination in mind.

The place Dax had in mind was about two days walk for his people northeast of Oldfort. But with the group's longer legs and aggressive pace the journey only took a single day. It helped that Hugh in eagle form was able to see obstacles far in advance. Yucca set a fast pace, while MF had the group eat on the move rather than stopping for lunch or dinner. It was tiring but they made great time and time was critical as the group soon learned.

It was approaching dusk when the group approached the warren.

The group had just entered the shadows of the cliffs when Hugh first spotted the Ying bats. But when he saw them they were being hounded by large black raven creatures with odd scaled patches. Watching for a moment he recognized them as snallygasters - unnatural monstrosities made when an angry ghost was bound to the spirit of an orphaned baby bird. These creations have unnaturally long barbed tongues and can cause paralysis with the barest of touches. The snallygasters dove through a cloud of bats and bats in their wake fell from the sky paralyzed. The bats were defenseless. Hugh yelled in bat tongue "Help is here, fly to safety" then proceeded to distract the snallygasters to give the bats a chance to make their way to safety.

Hugh was busy avoiding one snallygaster while the other gained altitude and moved into Hugh's blind spot. The first one kept Hugh's attention by using a kids voice to ask "Mama, I found it. Can I keep it as a pet?"

While the party was too far away to help but Yucca pulled out a fine dwarven bow and he sighted on the snallygaster about to dive at Hugh's exposed back. But before he released the arrow Celeste laid her arm on Yucca's bow and invoked an ancient elven verse "Fly true, feathered friend, and strike as the eagle from whence you came" Yucca's bow glowed brilliant white in the gathering dusk and the arrow shimmered with the luminescent form of an eagle called forth from the fletching.

Yucca's shot was true, and the arrow struck deep as the eagle dug in its claws and bit down on the larger beast's form. This called the foul spirit's attention to the group. The snallygaster wheeled and broke off its attack on Hugh to plunge towards Yucca instead. Dax stepped forth and laying a magic hand on Yucca to hide him from sight. Dax realized a moment too late that it left him as the most exposed target, but he cast invisibility anyhow muttering something about "that damned prophecy."

The snallygaster dove at the kobold lashing out with its barbed tongue, but at the last second MF materialized from the nearby darkness spearing the creature's tongue and using it to yank the bird to a premature halt - breaking its neck in the process. Hugh was still busy dodging the other snallygaster which he had carefully led close to the group. Celeste readied a shot at the snallygasters but was distracted by the band of kobolds she noticed encircling the group in the last of the failing mountain light.

M.F. immediately slipped back into the shadows while Yucca waited until Hugh led the snallygasters directly overhead and then used his spear to invisibly vault onto the snallygaster's back. But the moment his legs wrapped around the bird's neck he was paralyzed. The bird, not expecting the sudden weight, careened out of the way crashing awkwardly somewhere a ways off in the dusk.

The group looked at the half dozen kobolds visible in dusk's last light. These kobolds were Red tribe known for their fiery temperament and love of fire magics. Dax called out "We mean you no harm, stand down or we will be forced to deal harshly with you." At the threat a cloaked figure stepped out from the gloom and chuckled even as it shook out its vestigial wings. The kobold flame priest flared its neck frill in challenge as he summoned a green and red flaming ball of energy covered with grasping tentacles of flame. "You attacked the spirits I bound to clear the bats for my people. You are the ones that will beg for mercy" Then the flame priest hucked the flaming orb at Dax. Dax attempted to dodge but the tentacles grew claws that dug into his back and pulled the fiery ball onto him, burning him badly. Dax was forced to shunt energies from maintaining the invisibility spell off of Yucca to disperse the flaming mass, though it flared oddly as he did so. By this point MF had crept behind the flame priest and needed a distraction to cover the last few feet of open ground. Hugh, seeing the opportunity, dove and pulled a kobold archer aloft before dropping it right in front of the other kobolds. MF seized the opportunity only to plunge neck deep into a pit trap exposing his position to the flame priest who has already summoned another orb.

Meanwhile the snallygaster ridden by Yucca had shaken off its crash landing and saw the now visible paralyzed dwarf. The snallygaster carried the dwarf aloft once again but it flew up to the cliff wall to a small crevice and a nest full of hungry chicks. It placed the dwarf in the nest with its babies and then glanced back at the battle below.

Down below Dax looked for a way to neutralize the superior numbers of the red kobolds, and noticed that a well placed spell could potentially take out a the tree branch over three kobold archers. But when he pulled in energies to cast his signature phantasmal dragon breath spell, they drained from his mind even as the flaming tentacles surged back into life. The flame priest's spell had hooked into Dax's own power and any attempts at spellcasting seemed to rekindle the flames. He quickly released the spell but not in time to avoid getting burned again. The snallygaster considered the tasty treats below but decided to keep an eye on Yucca. Celeste attempted a healing spell but the archers kept her too busy.

Hugh saw the tree Dax had hoped to knock onto the archers below and flew up releasing his bird form to come crashing down on the branch with his full human weight. The branch broke and fell several yards with Hugh falling along with it, crushing the three kobold archers beneath. Having been lucky during the fall, Hugh shook himself off and looked up to where Yucca disappeared, thinking someone needs to do something to save Yucca. He again wrapped himself in the shape of a giant eagle but releasing and immediately rewrapping oneself in the spirit of a wild creature is something his master had always warned him was risky. Hugh's spirit became submerged in the eagle's. The eagle was hurt and hungry. Soaring into the sky he saw bats flying out to greet him, since he spoke to them earlier. But now all he saw was food. Chasing implacably he followed them back into their cave. He will eat well tonight.

Celeste heard anguished screams coming from Yucca on the cliff above. He was hopelessly out of reach of the party. The baby birds initially scratched at Yucca's armor but then they found his unprotected parts. Great hunks of flesh were ripped free and an eye was pulled out and eaten by a baby snallygaster. Below Celeste started a chant of freedom at the top of her lungs and Yucca finally began to feel his enchanted paralysis slipping.

Taking stock Yucca fended off the hungry chicks and then the angry mother. It was too far down to consider jumping. Staying in the nest was also certain doom. It appeared that the nest was built in a cleft going deeper into the mountain. Releasing Edgar, his pet rat, from where it had been hiding in his bushy beard he searched for a route to safety. Edgar immediately called Yucca's attention to a vial of healing potion strapped to an unfortunate corpse long picked bare. The dwarf grabbed Edgar and the potion before sliding down the chute relying on his sure mountain goat feet to find purchase in the darkness. It was some form of chimney he realized even as the walls suddenly opened out and his feet found no further purchase in the darkness. Shoving frantically with one foot he made a leap of faith and managed to catch a large swinging metal chandelier. The chandelier was now careening madly from his jump. Momentarily safe he felt the vial and thought of the dozens of wounds he has suffered. But none are worse to an archer of his caliber than the loss of his eye.

Knowing it will be painful and praying it is in fact a healing draught and not poison he poured the entire vial into the wreckage of his eye, forgoing healing in the hope he can mend his missing orb. Consumed by agony he rocked and almost fell to the floor however far below it may have been. His mind was consumed with agony and in that moment he felt it, a kindred spirit. There was something here, in the cavern that was also in agony. It felt his agony and reached out as if to a brother, but its agony was far older and far deeper and would drive most creatures far past sanity. But in that moment of madness Yucca could swear that he felt it, something trapped here inside the mountain with him.

Back outside things were not going well for the group. Hugh was gone. Dax couldn't cast spells. M.F. was trapped in a pit facing the flame priest. The flame priest had summoned another sticky ball of flame and was waving it menacingly at the orcish thug. But M.F. braved the threat to grab an ankle and yank the flame priest down into the pit with him. The priest released his half formed spell in shock and the spell raged out of control burning both priest and thief. But while it recoiled from the priest, it latched on to M.F. just as it did with Dax and soon M.F. was surrounded in scorching flames consuming his leather armor. M.F. tried to stab the flame priest but it just conjured more sticky flames and M.F. was pressed sorely.

Outside the pit fight Dax looked around helplessly. Glancing off to where Hugh and Yucca disappeared he attempted to find out what happened to Yucca. Pushing close to the cliff to see better, he was immediately set upon by the momma snallygaster. Dax was snatched up and hauled towards the nest. Paralyzed Dax gritted his teeth. As he was brought up to the nest, he coaxed forth power and fed it to the spell the flame priest hooked into him earlier and burst into flames. The snallygaster screeched and released him. Dax tumbled past the nest and fell down the chute Yucca had fled through moments before. The gods smiled upon the little kobold for as he fell, for the pitching chandelier was almost directly below the smokehole and Dax's robes hooked on a spar of this once great chandelier.

The guttering flames on the kobold illuminated the room briefly. The floor was thirty feet below. The room was cavernous, no kobold hall, this was an old place of power. A grand hall with a majestic throne. And on that throne was nailed a figure. A figure impaled on a great many spikes. Yucca's eyes fell on the figure and quietly he said, "I see you brother, and I will not let your torment continue if I can help it" Then the fire begins to gutter out but in the last flickering illumination the chain of the chandelier began to separate from supporting all the unexpected weight.

Back above ground Celeste picked off another kobold archer and the rest broke and fled. But in the pit M.F. was still locked in battle. MF dug in his bag and splashed a flask onto the flame priest's face. The priest immediately collapsed as the neurotoxin took effect. Without the flame priest actively directing the flaming tentacles they became much easier for M.F. to escape. So he scampered out of the pit. Turning back he saw even uncontrolled the flames still shied from the flame priest.

Celeste sang another song of longing and Hugh, even in eagle form, heard and was made sane by Celeste's gentle words. He was still trapped in Eagle form but her words brought peace and reason back. The three figures looked at the pit with the fire and the flame priest, who was still basically unhurt. They quickly looted money from the dead kobolds but left the bodies out as an offering for the snallygasters. Hoping the three battered party members would have some respite.

They finished off the flame priest carefully and checked what he was carrying. MF found a platinum keystone. Carried as if it were a great treasure. Seeing the platinum keystone M.F. suddenly realized that the stone oddity he stole from Dax long ago might be way more valuable than he had thought.

But there was still no sign of either Dax nor Yucca. The cliff was too high for the party to climb but Hugh had found another cave where he had been feasting on bats. He headed off that way hoping to find their friends before it is too late. The others followed.

Next - 02 - Let sleeping gods lie

END OF SESSION ONE

Loot :

85 coin

Platinum keystone

Healing draught (consumed)

XP :

Overall

+1 Notable enemy : Fought two snallygasters and the Flame priest.

+1 Learn something : Solved a mystery as well as discovered an ancient place of power

+1 Treasure : Platinum keystone to lost kobold warens

Bonds

+1 Dax - Yucca will play an important part in what is to come. I have foreseen it. (ongoing)

+1 M.F. stole something from Dax (ongoing)

Alignment

Celeste : +1 Use your art to aid someone

Dax : +1 Discover something about magical mystery

Hugh : Help someone grow

MF : +1 Avoid detection

Yucca : Free someone from bonds

Failures failures everywhere

Celeste :

When shooting arrow got surrounded by kobolds attracted by earlier light show

Dax :

Job "Negotiating" with kobolds

Casting dragon breath revealed that fire spell still had hooks in him

Paralysis

Hugh :

Got trapped in animal form

Failed to exert will and proceeded to eat the bats the group had come to collect

MF :

Fell into pit

Lost armor to fire spell

Yucca :

Paralysis

Celeste failure on spell led to Yucca loosing an eye (oh and boy did they hate me for pulling that one)

Total XP (character sheet vs my best guess after writing summary)

Celeste : 5 / 5

Dax : 5 / 8

Hugh : 5 / 5

MF : 7 / 7

Yucca : 5 / 5