1st May 216B The party returned to the Village of Wall and set about exchanging the Dwarven goods for money and goods in New Towne. All of the Dwarven goods were sold along with the magical morningstar from the Sunless Citadel. Several days passed in the city while Red Kate's contacts bargained for replacement goods. (magical shortsword, Magical bastard sword, resizing ring of protection, etc.) 5th May 216B During the several days of downtime, all was not well in wall. Essandri's magic became erratic and something killed Creshner's prize cow and painted bloody symbols on the trees surrounding it. Essandri later confessed to waking with blood on her hands but strong personal denial kept her from telling the group about the incident immediately. The group went into high paranoid mode and a quick check of people and equipment revealed that several people had had their memories altered. Several magical items had been stolen from the group. (including the legendary sword Shatterspike) Essandri's had been bitten by a vampire and her familiar had been stolen to ensure that she would not assist in any retaliatory attacks. The party found evidence that the town had probably been under vampiric surveillance for some time and that there were wards and other spell triggers set up to confound the party / assist the vampire. Upon assessing the extent of the situation, the party got Red Kate's permission to immediately head to New Towne to gather their gear and go somewhere far away. The party had lost thousands of gold pieces worth of gear and only Alecsander's sharp mind noticed before everyone was dominated. Red Kate accompanied the party to New Towne to assist in obtaining commissioned items and to ask the Baron to send the group out of the area quickly to reduce the threat of vampire attack. The parties painful monetary losses were offset in New Towne as Red Kate's contacts had gotten great prices on the Dwarven goods the party had recovered from Glimmerhaum. The funds more than covered the party's losses. In fact the amount of money exceeded local market capacity leading to speculation that "rich foreigners" bought up the goods. The party picked up some items and then headed to "Serendipity Oaks" to get Essandri treated for vampiric attack. The parry pushed on until late at night and Katie convinced the High Priestess of the Church of Yondalla to allow the party to sleep inside the church safe from vampires. The priestess proved capable of restoring the permanent damage done to Essandri under the vampiric dominion, but some of the taint proved too persistent for her to remove. It seemed it was a systemic infection that didn't look like it could be "cured" magically. Essandri sighed and prepared to live with the oily feel that the taint lended her magics. That night Katie has a dream of halfmen sleeping on a nest of vipers. But the vipers were sleeping as well. The group discussed this vision and everyone agreed it probably meant that the halfmen colony at Glimmerhaum would be safe at least for a while. 6th May 216B The next morning refreshed and well rested the party left Serendipity Oaks to await CeeJay on the North East road. 7th May 216B After two day of waiting, CeeJay finally shows up with some wagons. He acquired two wagons and linked up with a caravan heading north. The caravan included another prominent bard ("Spooky Tammerley") traveling in the same direction. CeeJay presented a writ of the party's official orders from the Baron. It stated the party was free to move about for the next few months as part of an "official entourage" from Wall. CeeJay was named as leader and the party were his "guardians" on the trip to compete in the yearly Gleeman's fair. This year the competition is being held in the Northern Baronies city of Brindenford. Only twelve bards from the entire baronies will be selected to compete and CeeJay was sent as regional champion of Laptier's barony. After a brief discussion with the group CeeJay took the vampiric spike from Alecsander and stowed it in a magical bag of holding to protect it from vampiric detection. He said the vampire would be very keen on getting it back if it was truly used to stake him. Apparently for a sufficiently powerful magic user it would give an arcane connection of some sort. In fact the attacks in Wall were probably Gulthias trying to recover the stake. It is probably safest to get rid of it somewhere in the north. CeeJay promises to sell it safely in Brindenford or somewhere else that he can fetch a good price for it. 8th - 23rd May 216B CeeJay and Spooky spend most of the trip north practicing their routines. The group spends most of the trip holed up in wagons (to make scrying difficult). No scrying was detected, but if the person was good enough the party might never sense the mystical eyes upon them. During the trip, the group decides that Spooky is the better performer, but CeeJay is definitely better than most. Spooky has his own personal servants and the groups mixed only at meals. Some of that is due to each bard being afraid that the other might steal parts of his act. So the party traveled in the retinue of two bards for several weeks. The trip is made at caravan speed, so it takes weeks of travel time. At one point the party had to assist the caravan guard when a pack of Krenshar attacked animals associated with the caravan. The guard's response during the attack and seeing local militia drilling make you feel that northern military experience is more about marching formations than fighting experience. 24th - 25th May 216B A few days south of Brindenford Katie and Alecsander both had dreams. (roughly the same time on two separate nights) Katie dreamed of "Masked men marching into a city of giants bearing symbols of dark powers." More details existed then but have mostly faded from people's memories. Alex's dream was much less distinct but entailed a nameless dread which left him tired the next morning. (though seemingly unharmed) 27th May 216B Two days later (half a day outside of Brindenford) Mel detected something wrong with the land and the animals. It was hard to identify but things felt "artificially disturbed". This "taint" as he called it had no clear source but felt stronger as the group neared the city. Heading into town the party was hailed by a blind fortuneteller. The lady called the blessings of Pelor and Heironeous down upon all those that passed even as people avoided looking at the sockets where eyes had once been. Alecsander tossed a few coins and after blessing him she warned, "Beware those that hear whispers in dreams. They sleep fitfully, waiting for the Speaker's plans!" Then as the party turned away the seer turned directly to Essandri and said "Milady Fae, One who can help will be at the grove outside town" Mel decided to go check the grove to learn about the taint. At the grove he learned that the taint was recent and started a few days before the fair. The druids felt that it might be related to the presence of so many outsiders in the town. As far as Essandri's taint they seemed willing to see her, but had no idea what they could do that Mel couldn't. Meanwhile the rest of the party led CeeJay and Spooky to the "Silken Fist" where they were to qualify for the bardic competition. While they tried out behind closed doors the party went to look at the fort on the north end of the city. The city is laid out on the bend of a river. The Barons keep lies on a rocky knoll overlooking the river. Two hills to the south of the keep are West Hill and Silver Hill. West Hill is a respectable Merchant district and Silver Hill is home to rich families and large estates. The East end of town is called Northford. There is a gate there and in dry times a ford to the North allows easy river crossing. Currently the water is much too high, but halfmen are camped out on boats right outside Northford ferry people across the river for silver coins. In the center of town is an old stone bell tower, one of the tallest buildings outside the keep. South-east of it lays the Chatterstreet market and directly south lays "Eastgate" at the southern tip of the city. (Local lore says that the large wooden gate was formerly at the Eastgate which is much prone to flooding. The previous baron moved the large wooden contraption to the southern gate to prevent it from getting water damaged and died before moving it back. His successor felt there were more important things to spend taxes on, so the south gate has been called East gate ever since.) Lastly the South West side of the city is called "Southspur" and from what you saw it was a pretty dodgy part of town. There are 3 gates to the city Old Ford, Southspur, and Eastgate. While exploring the city a large ruckus begins near in Silver Kill near "the Silken Fist". The party wisely avoids getting involved but checks the keep to be sure that the brawl isn't used as a diversion. The party finds the keep is safely locked down. The captain of the guard sealed the gates when the riot began and the baron was moved inside away from the crowd incase things turned nasty. Returning to the brawl the party learns that a pack of were-rats had attacked random shopkeepers and bystanders. There were a dozen deaths in the attack, but no one inside CeeJay's inn was hurt. All of the rats got away before the guard could catch them. The party goes looking for another inn at Ceejay's suggestion. The Silken Fist ran 20 gp+ a night during performances. Eventually they settle in at the Stony Gaze Tavern in the south end to wait for Mel. (Having agreed to meet at the first inn inside the town walls.) Mel soon arrives and tells Essandri that the druids are willing to look at her but are unsure what they can do. Essandri and Mel depart and arrive back several hours later. From what Mel says. The Fae king appeared at the grove soon after Essandri's arrival and mentioned being sent by a shapechanged dragon with the message that one of the Fae needed help. Upon finding Essandri was the "Fae" in question he became insulting and verbally abusive about her claiming Fae heritage and saying Essandri had no right to call upon the Fae for anything. After being told about Julia, the Fae King offered to remove the Shadis taint from her in return for past favors rendered Julia. He burned the taint off her with his sword and said "the Fae will look after their own, Julia would be taken care of by her people." With that said the king and his retinue mounted on Pegasi and rode back towards the city where the group later saw him at the concerts. Mel and Essandri made the long trek back to the city and Mel explained briefly while Essandri went to be alone. She came down after dinner red-eyed and the party decided to retire for the night. The next few days of the fair went by quickly. The party caught Ceejay's performance (a roaring success, he had apparently been holding back quite a bit during his practices.) The party skipped the other performances to look for Shoomma or anyone who might know her. 29th May 216B Smiths are quite secretive. Several have disappeared and a couple are known dead. The remaining smiths are being very close mouthed with strangers, but it is hard to hide being Dwarven and asking around for Dwarven families quickly leads them to Shoomma's place. The book buys the party a great deal of good will from the aging smith. She asks a few days to read but explains some of what has been going on in town. There has been a lot of extortion going on, causing many merchants to shut their door. And then recently the disappearances started. One or two smiths disappeared in the middle of a day and someone at one place saw a steel cat. It seemed to be hunting smiths. There was also said to be a lot of mysterious disappearances in the darkness down in Southspur. Suspecting that the extortion and disappearances might be related the party decides to set up shop in one of the abandoned smithies. Alecsander proves fully capable of running the smithy even with incompetent assistants. The fair winds down and business picks up while the party falls into the routine of being regular merchants. 3rd April 216B After a few days a pair of heavyset thugs come to shakedown the place. The goons back down after seeing Mel as a large cat and promise to return "later". Mel and Korvath (invisibly thanks to Essandri) trail the goons as they shake down another place and head to the belltower with the loot. At the belltower Mel climbs up the outside to scout the roof, but narrowly avoids a messy death as a couple gargoyles come to investigate what is making noise. Retreating hastily the party regains spells and plans a way in. 4th April 216B The party looks for a gimmick to get inside the bell tower. Alex and Katie pretend to be from the department of public works to approach the tower and filling in rat bolt holes as "civic improvement". The tower owner soon comes out to challenge them, but he is quickly bamboozled into thinking that this is his tax money at work. He even invites them inside to fix a loose flagstone on the stairs. (Alex is a talented mason as well as smith) Upon seeing the others establish contact step two of the plan commences. As Katie and Mel finish sealing possible bolt holes Korvath and Moge come up to the tower. They are goons selling "Bell Insurance" to keep the place from just "falling over with you inside". Things quickly escalates with the old man calling for help from up in the tower and then changing into rat form. Korvath and Mel jump the rat with Essandri's help. The rat is quickly disposed of while the others charge up the stairs. Moge sets off a couple of traps but resisting them due to his great fortitude. (investigation later showed that the traps were pretty nasty if they had worked properly) Finally began a long drawn out battle begins raging across several floors of the tower. Katie, Alex and Essandri were pinned at the bottom facing fighters, but Alex's burst of psycho-active slime pretty much ends the battle. Korvath briefly assists the mages before running to help Mel with a horde of slavering direrats. Mel tears through the rats at a fearsome rate pausing only to swallow one that was particularly tasty looking. Moge had meanwhile run straight up to the roof to fight the Gargoyle only to find that he had met more than his match. A pair of gargoyles and a couple dire rats surrounded the barbarian and beat him mercilessly. The gargoyles tried to force Moge off the edge of the tower roof, but Moge fights each step. By the time other characters come to his aid Moge is bleeding heavily having killed only one rat and a gargoyle. Quick intervention by Katie healed Moge while Mel dispatched the remaining rats. The gargoyle took off only to be shot down by Essandri's electrical orbs. So it wound up plunging onto the square below only to shatter upon the stone paving. A quick search of the tower roof began but Mel noticed Alex had not come up to the top floor. A quick search of the entire building found Alex's bloody body stuffed in a closet. A healing spell restored Alex but he saw very little of his attackers. A quick search of the building revealed some gold hidden on the top floor. The next floor appeared to have been cleared out by the rats. The second has far too much loose coinage to easily carry, and the first floor had mainly personal belongings. The town guard then arrived to investigate the fight on the roof and the report of falling objects. Korvath and Essandri explained the episode in the tower to the guard while the party packed up as much as possible leaving several thousand silver coins since they couldn't sneak that out past the guards. After thorough questioning and a promise not to leave town for a few days the group was released while the guards took over the crime scene. The party eventually returned to the Smithy they had renting and went to sleep. The following day the group got up early and made plans to split up and look about town for information. The group decided they would get together that evening to discuss what they have found. ENDED (5th April 216B) NEXT TIME : Find out what is happening in Brindenford? REWARDS ------- 1200 Experience to all Present. Experience Bonuses ------------------ +100 Alex (for good use of crafting skills) +50 Korvath (Matrix style move running up wall of stairs to get past enemies) Session Notes ------------- Personalized messages will be sent out disclosing what the party members find during their investigations the next day.