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.