Adventure 17: More Anti-Paladins

[:Randy Odervay:Randy] and ["Jim"] begin their training, it's only a week for them each, but still a hard slog. While they're away with their guilds, all is quiet on the vampire front.

[:Pastor Insorce Ironfounderssonson:Insorce], while visiting his church, was tipped off about an odd house in the ["Evorlen"] district of ["Cellam"]. This district is a slum that sits outside of the wall, and is densely populated. A beggar who had been staying in the ["Danethrae"] refuges in the city informed them of the house; he'd broken into it but had encountered a well-protected cellar door, so he backed off - this wasn't the usual kind of house in that neighbourhood. Out of interest he kept an eye on the building, and noted some knights going in and out. He notified the church, and they asked him a few questions.

From what the church could determine, these knights were very similar to the ones who'd chased the party when they had a wish-magic book a few months before. The house warrants investigation, there could be wish magic books here, but the church are reluctant to call in their own Paladins - a confrontation would almost certainly ensue, as these knights were anti-paladins. If no books were found there, the situation could become embarrassing for the church. The party volunteered to take a look; the church were keen not to be offering a reward, as then the party wouldn't be in their pay for this 'mission'.

Getting Inside

After a little nonchalant wandering around, flying over and generally taking it easy in that district, the party found the house, sized it up and devised a rough plan of attack. They left the area and returned in the evening; paying a visit to the next door's property they found the place inhabited by proletarian poor folk, and offered them 50 gold pieces to use their house for 24 hours. Being as short of cash as they clearly were, the humble peasants accepted, grabbed their other clothes and went off to an inn for the night.

As all the houses of the street appeared identical, the party used this opportunity to familiarise themselves with the layout. The cellar here was very small, little more than a cold pantry with some small amounts of food in it. Whatever next door had done in their cellar, they felt it would be very different to this.

Shortly after midnight, the party made their move. With the aid of [:See Fax:the Druid]'s magic, they bent the wooden supports in the adjoining wall, and tore a hole in the plaster. This was a really easy entrance. Once inside, the headed for the main living room, across from their hole at the bottom of the stairs. In this room they encountered four guards. They put up little resistance, and were cleanly dealt with by [:Formil Ironnut:Formil] backed up by [:Randy Odervay:Randy]'s Magic Missile spell.

[:Formil Ironnut:Formil] pushed his head through the kitchen door, and was narrowly missed by a swinging ladle. The cook fell to the floor, he had no time to rue his mistake.

Next they moved on to the locked metal door. ["Jim"] had the first go at it, but couldn't open it; then [:Randy Odervay:Randy] stepped forward. His new Knock spell was designed for this situation. It opened the door easily.

[:Formil Ironnut:Formil] flew down the steps, swiftly followed by the others led by [:Randy Odervay:Randy]. The cellar here was much larger than the one next door; there were two chambers too. In the first chamber at the front of the house they found three foes, all in banded mail. Two wielded rapiers, one had a mace.

At the bottom of the stairs, [:Formil Ironnut:Formil] paused for a moment. To his surprise, the enemy began talking; the party were told how unwelcome they were and asked to leave the house. [:Formil Ironnut:Formil] isn't good at talking - he stuttered an inelegant response, and rapidly became bored with the chit-chat. He dived into the fray; as he did so an invisible magic user cast a spell at the dwarf, causing his invisibility spell to end, but it didn't stop the advancing [:Formil Ironnut:Formil], who now marched straight for the wizard. The fight took just a few moments. Behind [:Randy Odervay:Randy], ["Jim"] vaulted the banister to the cellar stairs, and joined the fight. The party took a few knocks, but they breezed through it in the end.

A quick search of this cellar showed some interesting changes to the original cellar layout. The room at the front of the house, at the bottom of the stairs had a simple wooden bench running around it; on the bench was one of the wish magic books. This appeared to be the same one the party had dragged from the wilderness many months before.

The back room appeared to be lined with some kind of metal, and there was a strange magical residue in there. [:Randy Odervay:Randy] went in to take a closer look; while he was examining the walls, rocks started to rain down from the ceiling. As each rock hit the ground it seemed to melt, evaporating into the air. [:Randy Odervay:Randy] left the room, eventually the rock fall stopped and the gnome gingerly tried to resume his search. Next the room began to fill with water, which emptied just as quickly at it filled. They gave this up, and taking the book (and one or two suits of magical banded mail) they headed back to the surface.

They tried to straighten out the damaged wall as well as they could, and they left an additional 10gp to help cover the costs of repairs. They returned to their own inn for what remained of the night.

Taking the Book

Late the next morning the party took the book to the Church of ["Danethrae"]. The senior priests were really pleased to see them, and were surprised that they'd recovered a book. If they'd known about the book, they say, they'd have sent their paladins in. There was no way the ["Cellam"] church could keep hold of the book, but they told the party about the ["Callenhall"] church of ["Danethrae"], where they had built a special secure building to house these books. The church leaders suggested that the party take the books there; they even offered a Paladin escort if the party desired it. This kind offer was declined and the party returned to their inn where they could discuss their travel plans.

It was eventually decided that they would try to use [:Pastor Insorce Ironfounderssonson:Insorce]'s clerical spell Wind Walk to try and cover the journey quickly. The only problem here is that the cleric isn't powerful enough to let them all travel this way at the same time. It was agreed that [:See Fax:Fax] could use his Druid shape change power to travel the distance as a bird, while this would slow the party up quite a bit, it would still be quicker and easier than walking (at least for the non-druids...)

They settled down for the evening, deciding to leave the following day to give them as much travelling time as they could.

During the night [:Pastor Insorce Ironfounderssonson:Insorce] kept watch over the door to the party's suite. In the early hours of the morning he saw the door to their room silently and slowly begin to swing open. It looked like someone was after the book, so he turned to rouse [:Formil Ironnut:Formil] from his slumber. This is never a quiet task, and by the time Formil was awake enough to look across the room, the door was closed and locked. Formil doubted what the cleric claims he saw.

An hour or so later [:Pastor Insorce Ironfounderssonson:Insorce] noticed that the room had begun to get cloudy. He noticed too late to prevent the Vampire from attacking before he'd awoken the other dwarf again, and ended up in a hand to hand fight with it. ["Jim"], [:Randy Odervay:Randy] and [:See Fax:Fax] woke swiftly and joined in the melee. Eventually [:Formil Ironnut:Formil] joined in with the fighting, and brought it to a swift conclusion. The others, particularly [:Pastor Insorce Ironfounderssonson:Insorce], had been hit several times; this would delay their departure in the morning.

Fixed Up and Travelling

The next morning the party headed back to the church of ["Danethrae"]. They'd wanted to set out but they really had to sort out the effects of the vampire. It took several hours for everyone to recover, but they still moved on. They wanted to put as much distance between themselves and any of ["Cellam"]s vampires as they could. They also needed to hurry before more rogues turned up trying to take away the book they'd worked so hard to get hold of.

They discussed their plan once more, and headed out onto the road. They knew they really should drop in and see [:Earl Reginald Browley:Earl Browley] at ["Eversham"] on the way through, but they really had no new information for him. They went north following the western route; [:See Fax:Fax] lead the way, as he had to flap. The others took their time following him as they Wind Walked their way.

Callenhall

Arriving at the city of ["Callenhall"] a few days later, they dropped close to the road maybe a mile out of town. They wanted to avoid raising any peasant eyebrows, and chose a safe place to land and turn off their magic. Even [:See Fax:Fax] changed back to his normal human form, and as he rubbed his aching shoulders he lead his friends up towards the road. By late afternoon they were inside the town and made their way up to the church building.

The meeting with the elders of the church went well; the party were honoured for their heroic deed, and the chief Priest for ["Callenhall"] was delighted and impressed. He showed the party round the new wing they were having built to house these wish magic books - the chamber was partially underground, and the walls looked like they might be quite thick when they're finished. But they weren't finished. The builders had expected another two weeks or more building before the place would be ready, so the clergy asked the party politely if they'd keep hold of the book until their facility was ready. The party were only too pleased to volunteer their help.

That night, while staying in their inn, the party were once more attacked by rogues. They handled this fight well, but were not looking forward to two weeks of being attacked during the night by idiots who desperately wanted the wish magic books.

A discussion over breakfast drew all to the same conclusion - it would be better to keep moving with the books. [:See Fax:Fax] wamted to hide out in the wilderness, but the others decided that he would be bound to say something like that - he's a druid. They did have other things they could do; a trip to ["Eversham"] was in order at some point, they had reached the point where an update to Earl Browley was probably due. This was a meeting that they didn't really look forward to, as they had no progress to report. But with cash supplies banked with various guilds, sects and churches in the city, they figured it was probably a good place to go, and it kept them moving.

After breakfast they set out. More Wind Walking from the cleric and a druid flying at Eagle's pace had them within fifteen miles of the city by the end of the day. They landed and camped out in the wilderness; they were sure nobody would find them out there. For once they were right, and the next morning they chose to walk the fifteen miles into town. The druid protested, he'd flown sixty miles the day before and was feeling a little tight between the shoulders. They convinced him walking would be better than taxing his poor shoulders again, and by early afternoon they arrived.

Eversham

Their first stop off was at the Earl's city home. They booked an appointment with him, and hung around - they were only waiting for an hour, the Earl must have been pretty keen to see them.

When Browley finally invited them into his study, he gave them a grilling. He was somewhat concerned that there had been no progress, although he was told of the vampire that had been haunting the party. On the one hand he saw this amusing - but of course it meant that vampires were now at large in the community. He urged the party to get this problem sorted out, and quickly.

Next he told them of developments his end. He'd been contacted by drow traders recently who were interested in getting their hands on Charles Derren. They'd volunteered to handle the matter free of charge too - but Browley was wary of their intentions, and it has been a week and he'd given them no reply. The party suggested that they meet with the drow and see if there was anything that ["The Underdark"] could contribute to their search.

Browley also told the party of a professional vampire hunter he'd been in correspondence with, Baron Constantin Von Heuran, who has a smallholding just outside of Malberina, in Jorlinum of the former Empire. He'd offered his services following a recommendation from one of the nobles at court in ["Cellam"], as a professional he'd need to be paid, but his work was of the highest quality, he had claimed.

The party knew now they'd have to get some results on this matter or their reputation, and possibly any further progress up the Feudal ladder would be jeopardised. Leaving Browley for the evening they returned to The Man and a Half inn where they usually stayed in Eversham, and then ran into an old friend in the bar.

The recognised the face of the man waving to them; it was the wizard they'd 'rescued' from the clutches of the Gelmhorst Verubin's anti-paladins as he raced across the wilderness in the direction of ["Caldonacia"]. Despite killing his colleagues, the party had saved his life - there was no way the Barnin Onaga, whom he worked for, would have been able to hold on to the Wish Magic book he was carrying. The man's name was ["Wesley Ferran"], and needed only slight reminding.

Wesley had heard of some of the recent goings on with the Gelmhorst Verubin, how the party has stolen a Wish Magic book from their secure cellar in ["Cellam"], and how they'd taken it to the church of ["Danethrae"] in ["Callenhall"]. He didn't know if they'd taken it yet, but he didn't really care; he'd been assigned to new duties, and was hoping to keep away from the actual books from now on. He'd been assigned to some work in Nuneith and had come looking for the party to renew his friendship and to pass on what little information he had. He told them that his group, the Barnin Onaga, had a team out looking for the book, and hence they were looking for the party. If the Onaga had a team out doing this, then it would probably be a safe assumption that the Brudagia had a team looking too. He told them that he'd heard the Gelmhorst Verubin were not just looking for the books, but were actively on the party's warpath.

Of all the things Wesley told them, none were as useful as the next piece of information. He told them that he'd heard of the location of where another Wish Magic book was being kept. He'd not even told his own sect about this one, he feared that he'd be sent after it himself. The book was in the keeping of the Gelmhorst Verubin, in the care of the same anti-paladins that had chased the party and he across the wilderness from Caldonacia to the Elfish land east of ["Ticetia"]. The Verubin had set up another secure facility, similar to the one the party had turned over recently, at 15 Brook Amastia Street in ["Malberina"], ["Jorlinum"], in the Former Empire.

The party spent the rest of the evening enjoying beer with Wesley before he left ["The Man and a Half"] to return to his own inn later in the evening. He promised to stay in touch whenever he was in the area. The party retired to bed, but they chose to use double watches. They wanted to be sure they still had the book in the morning; they needed to get it to ["Callenhall"] in a week or so, but in the meantime they wanted to see the Earl again - a short meeting with the Drow would be nice; and they planned to go visit Von Heuran on the Earl's behalf.

A Professional Hit

During the night the party elected to have double watches. [:Pastor Insorce Ironfounderssonson:Insorce] the cleric could cover most of the night as he only needed two hours sleep. The others took it in turns to cover the watch alongside the cleric.

Very late in the night, with dawn not far from the east and with [:Formil Ironnut:Formil] and [:Pastor Insorce Ironfounderssonson:Insorce] on watch, there was a movement at the windows of the suite in which the party stayed. Formil saw the window move out the corner of his eye. He leapt to his feet and ran over, just in time to see a small glass vial being thrown into the middle of the room. The vial broke, a cloudy gas escaped, and Formil just couldn't hold his breath quickly enough. He just managed to wake [:Randy Odervay:Randy] before the sleeping gas took hold. As the gas billowed across the rooms, Randy tried to wake the others while Insorce kept a careful eye on the door and the windows; the gas stung their eyes and they struggled to breath, but somehow they kept going.

A few seconds later the door to their suite gently opened, a dark hooded figure slipped in and move across the room to Insorce. The intruder and the dwarf squared up to each other in the doorway to one of the bedrooms, and fighting commenced. The intruder used some kind of poison on his blade, which sapped Insorce when he was hit. Randy summoned a Fire Beetle which stood behind the Rogue and joined in the fight. After a moment of intense fighting, punctuated by Randy's Magic Missle, the Rogue tried to flee through the window, but didn't get far. The Beetle scythed him down as he ran.

Randy and Insorce still couldn't wake the others from their drug-induced slumber, and had to wait until morning, guarding the others as well as they could. When dawn broke they caught one of the inn's runners and sent him down for the inn owner. They made sure he knew they'd been attacked during the night.

Eventually Brian Rivermeek, the owner of the inn arrived in the party's room. He was concerned about the break-in, but he let the party know that he'd called the guard. He was concerned about any damage to his inn, and was as helpful as he could be without actually admitting any liability.

A sergeant of the Kings Guard arrived at last, and was a familiar face; he'd been involved with the party before when they'd been involved in a robbery from the church of ["Pendaroch"] in the city (and later showed that the party had been acting to protect the church). He was concerned that an attack had taken place, and gathered as much detail as he could, but as the intruder had failed in his task, and the matter had been resolved by the party there seemed little point in spending too much time investigating here. He'd seen the glass from the vials, and the party members still drugged into repose, and decided that removing the body was all that was required.

It was nearly lunchtime when the sleep effects began to wear off. For a while the party were quite drowsy, but a good strong breakfast cleared away the last of the fog. They wanted to know who had been involved, so Jim took a walk to his old guild, the South Vale Thief Guild. Initially they weren't interested in speaking to him until he'd brought his guild fees up to date. That cost 120gp. After that they were helpful, but when they mentioned that people were after his party, he was taken into a back room to discuss further.

It took a little bribery as the senior rogue didn't really want to tell anyone the truth, it could have repercussions for him. He'd seen the job against the party come down a few days ago. They'd ignored it, it had no specific time on it, and it related to Jim, who was still considered a member of the guild - so they wouldn't normally act against him anyway. The job had been put out by ["The Mathada Rebrecht"]. They were interested in something the party carried, but were very vague about what it was. He couldn't really tell them any more.

A Second Meeting with the Earl

Despite being made to wait, the party went to see the Earl once more. They now had a Plan. They told Earl Browley that they'd be happy to meet with the Drow before he made any decisions; they needed to know if there would be any benefit from working with them on the Vampire issue. He told them that he was expecting a visit in a couple of days and invited them to attend that meeting.

They also told him of the Wish Magic book in ["Malberina"], and how they thought that wish magic was somehow important to the Vampire chase. Browley was concerned that this matter had developed from being one of a single Vampire to one of being a Vampire Cult. The party told him that they would be able to visit Baron Constantin Von Heuran while they were in ["Jorlinum"], and if he was serious about being helped, they could handle this negotiation for him. He promised to write a letter when they were preparing to leave, but he knew that they'd not be going until the book that they currently carried was delivered to ["Callenhall"].

Despite some disturbing developments the Earl seemed to accept most of what the party told him as progress on the matter. He was still concerned, though, that there had been no reports of Derren's whereabouts or any news of Magnus Elberman.

Another Professional Hit

There was some discussion about where the party should stay for safety overnight. It was eventually decided that it didn't matter; those that were hunting the books had plenty of resources, and wherever they hid they'd have the same problems defending their territory. They chose to stay in the suite they had become used to. They nailed the shutters closed on the windows and prepared for another night with a double watch.

They retired downstairs and ordered food; but even this didn't go as planned. Someone tried to poison the party. Jim was violently ill, but the others escaped unscathed; dwarves in particular have a hardy constitution. Insorce cured the poison in Jim's system, and the others investigated the cook and table service. The kitchens of The Man and a Half are kept in good clean condition, but the waiter who'd brought their dinner out was not among the staff who'd been pulled together at the party's request. It seems they'd found out how they'd been poisoned; they ordered fresh food, this time they were careful about who cooked it and who brought it out.

After their short evening in the bar, they retired early. They'd not been asleep long before someone tried to get into their room. Insorce and Fax were on watch and they both hear the scratching at the window. Someone was outside trying to open the shutter. As they'd been nailed shut, they knew this wouldn't be possible without making plenty of noise, but they braced themselves just in case. Formil was woken and the three stood guard. After a moment the scraping stopped, and all went quiet. After a couple of moments, Formil returned to bed.

Three quarters of an hour later, with Insorce and Fax still on watch, they heard someone working at the lock on the door. They hurriedly woke the others, who prepared for a defence. Randy used his Invisibility spell on Formil, who then waited by the door. Jim ducked into the shadows in the area that would be hidden by the door when it opened, and the others lay in wait to the side, just inside the bedroom.

They were just ready as the door slowly opened. The hooded figure the other side of the doorway leaned into the room as he opened the door, and threw an object around the door and toward the bedroom. The object was fizzing. Formil stepped in front of the rogue and hit him with his axe. There was a moments shock, Jim stepped out from behind the door and shot at the rogue too, who stepped neatly to the side. As he did so he was confronted by Randy's Fire Beetle. The Rogue was not alone this time, though. His place was taken by a tough-looking fighter wearing banded mail and carrying a longsword. He swung at Formil and hit, but made little impact. Formil's next attack dealt a massive blow. The fighters, now aware of the defensive position the party had organised, turned to flee. The Rogue also tried to flee, but was hacked down by a combination of the Fire Beetle and Formil's Axe.

Eventually staff of the Inn turned up at the scene (there was clearly fighting involved, so it paid not to arrive too soon, certainly not until the sound of falling blows had finished). The guests were calmed down, the body removed, the Kings Guard placated, and the party were allowed to complete their nights rest. Another attempt for the book had been dealt with severely.

Many Meetings

The following morning the party sat together in the quiet of their room discussing ways that they could defend themselves. The clerical spell Glyph of Warding still seemed to be the best approach. This required careful planning and measurement of the windows and the door in their suite.

They also discussed what to do next. They remembered that they had a meeting with the Earl and the Drow visitors about vampires, this wasn't due until the following day, they were not keen on spending another night with interrupted sleep.

That afternoon they were surprised to receive visitors; businessmen too, by the reports of the reception staff in the inn. They made their way down to lobby, and took the two burly but well-dressed gentlemen into one of the inn's business meeting rooms. This was highly unusual for them. Their guests introduced themselves as Mr Carlyle Bailey and his associate Mr Ellis McCaub. They seemed to work for a busy commercial 'firm'. They were reasonably clear about what they desired, although no direct names were given either for the book the party carried or the organisation they worked for. They offered 10,000 gp for the wish magic book in the party's possession. This sparked off a debate, both with the businessmen and between the party themselves. The money was of little interest to them - but they were unwilling to part with the book, which they'd promised to give to the church of Danethrae.

The discussions continued, the request for the book turned into an offer to loan the book for two months. The price was also raised, to 15,000 then 17,000 gp. The party were adamant that they would not turn it over, but asked for time. Mr Bailey pointed out that not giving in to the offer would see their organisation plough more and more resource into recovering the item from them. They'd handled their visitors so far, but they would continue to become much stronger opponents, and the resolve of the party has already caused the organisation to change their approach. If they cannot negotiate, then matters would become much worse very quickly. The organisation, Mr Bailey pointed out, had considerable resources at its disposal.

The party asked for a little time to consider the offer. Mr Bailey seemed to agree that taking a little time to seriously consider the offer was good; they agreed that two days would be enough, and that they would return to meet with the party after that time.