Adventure 3: Following a Map
Session 1
Please note: this adventure originally formed the second half of adventure two, but the first part of that adventure came from the Book of Lairs, which is currently unavailable. It was replaced with the goblin lair and mines clearing adventure, which is so large it stands as an adventure in its own right.
This adventure opened with the whole party reconvening in The Man and a Half in Eversham, after spending a week training with their respective guilds. They spent some time planning how they were going to approach their treasure map, because none of them knew any of the places on it. A trip to the library was considered the best idea they could come up with.
Going up to their rooms, Randy discovered that his room had been broken into. Someone had put a severed human head in his bed and had scrawled a warning on the wall in human blood which read "leave our business alone, if you don't, it will be your head next". Jim the Rogue spotted an ornate, snake design dagger in among the debris of the room. It appeared to have been dropped by accident, not discarded. The dagger was secreted away before the Kings Guard turned up. The party were given fresh rooms in another part of the building.
In the morning, a scan of the library revealed nothing about the map, but the party were directed to Arnold Kenthrin, a sage who specialises in maps and cartography, he is based in Ridstock which is not far from Eversham. While searching the written texts, the party found a small note about the dagger; it appears to be linked to a less well known magic-user sect or thieves guild (or possibly both). The party spend the afternoon preparing for their trip to Ridstock, Formil buys a new Masterwork Great Axe, while Randy finds religion and joins Ascheinar's Cult.
The party travel south to Grigans Fen, halfway to Ridstock, where they spend the night. The attractive young lady that Jim spends the night talking to is brutally murdered overnight. The Guard initially suspect Jim, as he is caught in the room with blood on his hand, but later his friends find evidence which shows he is not the culprit, but the real murderer headed off on horseback in the direction of Eversham.
When the get to Ridstock, the party must wait another two days for an appointment with Arnold Kenthrin; he charges them 150gp and takes a couple more days to discover what he can about the map. This is money well spent, because he tells them that the lake on the map is the one which is just to the northeast of Eversham, and that 'shining bear' is a literal old-tongue translation of 'Nuneith', this is the county of which Eversham is the main city, and which was named after the large lake which sits on its northern edge. The party decide to head back to Eversham immediately
At Eversham, the party buy up large supplies of trail rations, and head north. They follow the river all the way to Lake Nuneith, this takes them three days, followed by another day to skirt round the lake to the west until they are on the lake's northern shore. They see the occasional band of orcs roaming around the mountains, but do not engage any of them.
They follow one of the lakes tributary streams northward through grassland until they reach the mountains. Eventually, they find a spring at the end of the day. Further searching the next day reveals an old pathway. overgrown with weeds and lichen, and cracked by moisture and bad weather. They follow this nearly-buried path, but it takes time. They find it is all too easy to lose the pathway in the overgrown wilderness, and they frequently have to double back on themselves. Eventually, the path rises into the mountains, and becomes more clearly defined. The valley through which they pass has a mountain to the left which looks ominous, but which is not as big as the one that is right before them. They press on up the valley until they see a sign at the side of the pathway, ahead.
Session 2
Reading the sign by the roadside proved difficult. The sign was made of stone, engraved with Runes of the Deepdark, but the language was difficult to decipher. The party knew that it carried some kind of warning about "Yanneg the Mighty", but (despite much head scratching) could not work out the message.
The party make their way into the underground stronghold, a huge entrance in the mountainside stood ajar. The doors had been recently opened by some goblins who seemed to be scratching around looking for something. Formil held the goblins back in the side-corridor they were advancing through, and while he struggled to defeat them, suffering several blows himsef, he eventually killed them all.
Now they were inside and could take a long look at their surroundings, the party soon realised that inside the stronghold seemed overly large large - much larger than would have been created by humans or dwarves. Whoever lived here would have been ten feet tall or more.
They press on into the complex and find themselves meeting a few orcs. These were far less trouble than the goblins, with Formil dealt with them easily, at one stage killing four of his hated foe in one swing of his mighty axe. They made their way down and cleared the lower level of the complex, but did not pass downwards into the orc lair while there was the potential of greater riches in the levels above. It took them a while to find the key that would unlock the upper level door that they had found.
Moving upstairs they have encountered no more creatures this far. The small section of the upper level they explored seemed to have been undisturbed for a very, very long time. This part of the construction seemed to be at human scale, things were back to normal.
Randy tiptoed around the pentagram painted on the floor in one of the side rooms, before they all went to explore the workshop and library beyond. All the books had rotted away, this place appears to have stood for well over a thousand years without being disturbed, and could even date to before the disaster. They made their way north, deeper into the upper level, passing the door that warned that Yanneg's resting place was beyond. They went through another of his workshops, and the session ended just at they found a door with a light coming from underneath it.
Session 3
The door with the light appeared to be some kind of reading room - the ceiling glowed with a dim light, enough to read by. The room also contained an old leather armchair and a bookcase full of more rotten and ruined books. This room lead to a small living area beyond with a kitchen. The party spent a little time in this area to be sure there were no hidden panels or secret entrances in the area, before moving out.
The final area of the complex was the most rewarding. Opening the door to the area, they were presented with the sight of two large statues of humans. Close inspection revealed the names of the individuals, the one on the left was "Derren" and the one on the right "Yanneg".
Beyond this was a corridor leading to two more chambers. The chamber to the right was checked first. This contained a ceremonial bed, made of wood - the sort of thing you might lay out a body on while it lies for viewing. Even the pillow was carved intricately of wood. On the bed was an old shoud, just laying there as though it had been cast aside. Whatever, or whoever, had lain on that wooden bed has been removed in such a way as to make one think they had awoken and walked away. The chamber also contained a high quality staff and longsword; while these were not magical, they were of the quality needed to imbue them with a magical dweomer.
The final room in this area was a treasure room, two chests were at the end of the room, the one on the left stood open, the other shut. Firstly Formil managed to set off the trap on the floor, releasing poison gas into the air. Fortunately the old poison had not stood up to the test of time very well and was now rather weak. Jim (the Rogue) had much less luck with the chest - firstly he failed to spot the trap on the lock, and when he tried to pick it (which he failed abysmally at) he got injected with poison which had survivied much better than the gas which was released earlier. He survived the ordeal, though, but had to give up on unlocking the chest; this was beyond his skill. Eventually, Insorce the cleric gently persuaded the chest to open using his hammer. Inside were some unusual gold coins and a smart looking dagger which appeared to be in good condition.
Grabbing all the treature, the party went on to do a sweep for secret entrances around these rooms, but drew a blank. Now they had all the treasure they had so far seen, they decided it was time to make their way back to Eversham. The way out was littered with orcs, which almost caused an upset before finally being finished off with some quality fighting by everyone; when Formil started hitting, he was very effective, and even Randy got involved in hand-to-hand combat.
The journey home was quite easy. There was a light earthquake on the evening the party left the underground area, but this passed quickly and no one was hurt; they were quite glad they weren't underground when that happened. They dodged orc patrols as they moved through the mountains during the day, and they only had one encounter with orcs during the night - fortunately Formil was on watch at the time, and the small band of orcs did not fare too well. Formil killed the first two quickly, the other two fled once they saw the ferocity of the dwarf.
Once back in Eversham, the party did some research into the dagger - it turned out to be a magical weapon. They also had the runes they had copied translated, these gave a warning about Yanneg waking up. The party also found out about a raid on the Fighters of Eversham training camp at the edge of Hallow Wood, and about the potential for a new thief guild war breaking out, as the Vale Elite guild were starting to flex their muscles against a much smaller rival guild. It looks like The South Vale thief guild has some work for Jim too, perhaps this is where the party will be working next?