In Search of Slavers
Summary
Adventure: In Search of Slavers
- aka: The Ssstupendousss Ssstrenuousss Sssearch for Sssigniiicant Sssquadronsss of Ssserpent Ssshaped Sssentient Ssslaversssss.
GM: Scott
Season: Summer 795 WK
- Party
- Aqualina, Female Water Mage
- Axy Geldrax, Male Ranger (Scribe)
- Darien, Male Celestial Mage )Party Leader)
- Jhiselle, Female Fire Mage
- Kary, Female Wicca
- Meseraima, Female Necromancer
- Sonic Male Celestial Mage
- Time on adventure
- 1 March to 16 April 1994 AP
- Employer
- Duke of Carzala
- Contact: Captain Brown
- Mission
- To investigate and then wipe out a slaving ring, South West of Seagate, beyond Seacroft.
- Original Scribe Notes
- Media:Snsu9503.zip
Scribe Notes
Notes
- Snakeman cult in the equatorial region of this world.
- The Snakemen (Mages) are from another plane.
- Frogmen (Mages) provide ships crew and underwater defence.
- Humans and Goblins provide the muscle - no mages.
- The slavers base - an old castle over a huge cavern through a headland.
Introducing the party
- Aqualina
- A very eye-catching if short woman, a shapechanger (Dolphin). An experienced adventurer, she specialises in the Water College. She sports very skimpy clothing - totally impractical, enjoyable but downright distracting. It's just as well I'm a healer, I expect Aqualina will catch her death of cold the way she dresses.
- Axy Geldrax
- I'm a fairly tall male Ranger. I don't belong to a magician's collage. This is my third adventure, after being party leader on my first outing, I thought I'd try scribe this time.
- Darien
- A male Celestial mage, and a Ranger like myself. As the most experienced adventurer amongst us he was voted Party Leader.
- Jhiselle
- Another female Mage, eye-catching, but in an altogether different way to Aqualina. An experienced Fire magician, who is also a Ranger. She is another shapechanger (a sparrow!).
- Kary
- A female Wicca. Like myself has a no-nonsense attitude, preferring to get stuck in as soon as possible, except she does it from a distance, and unseen.
- Meseraima
- A female Necromancer. She is very good at hand to paw combat, being yet another shapechanger (this time a Tiger). This is her second adventure, I was also on her first, and value her presence.
- And introducing Meseraima's pet Fang - a rodent eating lizard that looks like a chicken, personally I don't see any point in it apart from light relief.
- Sonic
- A male fighter who is learning celestial magics. He is impetuous and keen to get stuck in, favouring the axe. Sonic is tall, and eager, you know, Dragon fodder
The party is all human and mostly female. The former is apparently strange for a guild party, the latter is hard to get used to, at least party leader is male. However experience shows that lady guild members can hold their own in a time of crisis. This time out I am the only true fighter, fortunately a few of the others look useful in a fight.
31 March 1994
Session 1: 19/12/94
We meet with Captain Brown who explains our mission. The Duke is worried about a gang of slavers that seem to have started operating in South-west Carzala. He is worried that the slavers may have agents in Seagate, we are therefore on notice to be discrete. We have Ducal authority, but only to use if absolutely necessary.
The mission, should we accept it, is to investigate disappearances to the South-west of Seagate (2 to 3 days travel) suspected to be by slavers. The populations of farms and small villages are taken, except for the young and the old who are found slaughtered. Trails of the attackers and prisoners can be tracked for about half a mile from the farm or village and then they disappear. This suggests a very good Ranger, magic, or even a flying ship, even a combination of the above.
Objectives
- Find out where they are operating from, and who/where they are trading to.
- Rescue any captives.
- Wipe out the slavers or get word to the Duke.
- Find out if there is another organisation behind it, what this organisation is, who heads it, why is it in Carzala, where is the base, and a side order of how can it be stopped.
Renumeration
- 500 sp per week.
- 50 sp for each slaver proof by right hand or ear.
- 5000 sp for each leader of raiding parties.
- Much more for the boss, the chief honcho, the big cheese.
- Special items: the Duke gets 10% salvage.
- Large items ie carts, boats etc. The Duke gets the first option to purchase at 90 %.
1 April 1994
The party meet and, opting for experience appoint Darien leader. I am voted scribe amid competition from Aqualina. There are no military scientists in the party, I have just started such studies and hope to be of some help. The party visits the Fire Collage to get some protection from Fire.
The evening saw us visit the Duke's place under cover of darkness to avoid any agents of the Slavers. We are dealt with by Corporal Oddjob. We get horses, Army equipment, and pack mules, all signed by Darien. Army equipment includes tents, camp beds, cooking gear, rations, grappling hooks, spikes, caltrops, manacles, and rope. Jhiselle gets a very feisty tall black stallion.
2 April 1994
The day starts with a light mist, and gets steadily worse as the day goes by. A marching order is assigned straight away, and we head off to the South West of Seagate. On the road we discuss possible plans of action. With Meseraima we can talk to dead villagers. We could work out where the Slaver's might strike next and then set some bait. An outside option is to infiltrate the gang. Rain rain rain, Aqualina is in her element and the only one who's happy. Nightfall brings us to the Jolly Farmer where we stay overnight.
The women bathe (as they always seem to, even on missions). Over dinner, we discover a new apple based brew, Jack's Best Scumball.
3 April 1994
My brain hurts, thank the Gods I did some more healing studies in between adventures.
The party buys 2 kegs of Jack's Rest, NOTE - if you are ever out this way don't drink Jack's Best Scumball out of metal containers.
Off we trot, or rather off we trudge, weather report - drizzle. After one hour we leave the road and follow a trail - joy of joys. Despite being in the bush, we rangers can still get sick of bad weather.
Evening draws to a close, further discussions concerning our mission dance around the need of a good cover story. Someone who shall remain nameless suggested that we could pose as a wedding party on honeymoon.
Session 2: 9/1/95
The story we adopt is that we are after Frank the Black who murdered my brother, raped the cattle, branded the women, and stole the chickens, and worse than that he supports League. This should explain why a bunch of heavily armed people are wandering around a rather nondescript area.
4 April 1994
I get Aqualina to water proof my scribe notes and hide them in my water container. I keep a second more obvious set chronicling our search for Frank the Black.
Today is a slog, very wet, but not cold. We head for the nearest trashed village known to the Dukes men. Mesaraima talked to several graves/dead bodies, many were unresponsive. Then Kary found a medallion, a fine piece of indeterminable metal on a silver chain. The picture of a rearing cobra's head bearing fangs is etched on it. Further enquiries with the dead indicated that one of the raiders died, and would you believe it, just by the medallion. Kary divinates the medallion, there was no magic before 5 weeks ago. The magic is permanent and keyed to the bearer. It is a medallion of telepathic communication - one way within 800 miles. Kary does not know if the sender will know if it is being used. This suggests that at least one of the Slavers is a Binder mage.
Aqualina, Jhiselle and I follow a track to the sea, and then fetch Meseraima to check for deaths, but none are found.
Back at the village, Meseraima speaks with the dead. From the dead Goblin we find out that the Slavers consist of Snakemen (Mages), Humans, Goblins, and one other race, but not dwarf, orc or elf. This last race is tougher than humans, has webbed hands, breathes underwater and favours the trident, we later find out that these are Frogmen. The Slavers base is in a large cavern in some cliffs on the mainland. Above the cave there is a stone castle which is camouflaged, and so would be hard to see from afar. The raiders use 4 ships.
In the evening a violent storm woke all of the party - so I'm told, I slept right through.
5 April 1994
The storm gets even worse, but at least the wind dies down a little.
We have a second talk to the dead goblin. We find out that the Slavers operate out of a keep built in a hollow, with a wooden palisade. From the answers to our questions we have a very good idea of where the keep is located.
Aqualina goes down a well to scrie, apparently being in water helps with her magic. I ask if scrieing is wise and wouldn't it alert the slavers to our presence. The Mages of the party are unanimous in their confident reply - there's absolutely nothing to worry about. Aqualina scries and confirms the location of the keep. Aqualina also gets frazzled. I laugh, Jhiselle does first aid and I heal, after I stop laughing. Aqualina acquires a disease from poisoned well water.
We fly (Darien says it is slow, but I say WOW) back to the Guild, leaving the horses at Seacroft. I sprain my ankle landing, but two of the others are not so lucky. Kary gets two broken legs and Jhiselle is even worse, getting two broken legs, and a smashed collar bone. Jhiselle reckoned she was not used to flying this slow. Guild healers cure Aqualina's disease (rapid gangrene).
The Fire collage check out Aqualina, she was hit with a high ranking malignant fire, by a ward or item, but not an entity. The Fire Collage has not seen this magic before. We leave a message for the duke about the poisoned wells.
The guild divinates the medallion as a one way mental contact, it will tell the sender it is active, but do not know if it is a party line. It is made of a silver mithral alloy, and must be worn touching skin.
We spend the night at the guild, and have a get together to decide what to do now. We could blow the whistle now and take the money. Sonic, Kary and I are keen to take the slavers on. We could join up, but no-one is keen to kill any peasants. The last option is to follow at a distance to see where the slaves are being taken.
6 April 1994
Darien has problems with his magic and cannot get us all to fly, so we put off going back to Seacroft. With time on our hands, we visit the library. An old manuscript is found showing that a pre-fall small keep was in the area we suspect is the slaver's base. The symbol on the medallion is the same as one used by a snake cult (in the tropical areas) worshipping other planer serpents. These snakemen areas look like men and most are mages, good at anything and everything. It is probably not worth saying it, but I will anyway, slaves are normally sold in sanctuary.
Jhiselle gets a message from Captain Brown, apparently she has his horse, and if it is not returned in good order, terrible things will happen, to Jhiselle, I assume. Possibly Darien too, he signed for the stuff.
Darien gets us flying in the afternoon. Sonic and I are no fools, we fly with a mattress to cushion our landings, they work very well.
7 April 1994
We ride out of Seacroft, and joy of joys, it isn’t raining.
Session 3: 16/1/95
The second trashed village is reached. This time we find a rusty sword with a snakes head symbol, and a gold coin with snake symbol on one side. The rangers of the party, Jhiselle, Darien and I follow the tracks north until they disappear after half a mile. The tracks don't end suddenly but appear to be well covered by a very good ranger. The tracks appear orderly but not in single file. We spend the night in this second village - weather report - getting bad - drizzle
8 April 1994
With an early start, smoke is seen in the distance - the slavers, I'm off. However I feel the rest of the party should come as well. Jhiselle shapechanges into a sparrow, shapechangers seem to be quite common. Jhiselle reports a village burning to the North west. I don't quite understand, but somehow she is cursed, in Sparrow form. Getting nearer to the village, Jhiselle, Darien and I stay outside and keep a sharp lookout for tracks, the others go in to talk to the dead.
Meseraima finds bodies of villagers 6 years or younger, 35 or older, and arrows (with black fletches) from short bows.
I stay out following tracks when Jhiselle and Darien go back. The tracks do not disappear at half a mile, I return to the village after following the tracks for over l mile and don't find anything.
In the meantime, Aqualina scries the sea and spots a twin masted brig, these generally have a crew of about 20, Aqualina says. Kary brings on a storm. I go back out for another scout. Kary, Aqualina and Darien fly out to a headland to get a closer look at the ship, hoping to be able to take it if the occasion arises. The storm does not bother the ship it is still going away from shore at a good rate of. knots. Consensus deems it to be magically powered. We find two dead Goblins and one human, the latter wearing tailored black chainmail. Strange thing though, his eyes were open, and there were no marks to say how he died, or the goblins for that matter. The goblins too, had good weapons, this with the fletched arrows suggests the slavers have a good weaponsmith. Each wore a medallion.
Kary divinates the human, in the last four weeks he had create flesh golem, and animate - ah ha a binder. So why is it dead, the spell is supposed to be permanent.
Meseraima is not able to talk to the goblins or the human. We find out there was an alchemist in the village, so poison killed the goblins. We check for any escapees’ tracks, none found. Darien DA's the human he was formerly living, and cause of de- animation was - Poison.
In mid afternoon, towards dinner as we are mulling over the stuff we found, we are attacked from all sides. This is more like it, this is the stuff for adventurers!
Session 4: 23/1/95
Most of the attackers are goblins, but there is one invisible human, and an invisible snakeman. The snakeman gets fireballed by Jhiselle and disappears into the clouds trailing smoke. I take on the human fighter whilst the rest deal to the goblins. The fighter eventually goes down, under Sonic, Meseraima, Jhiselle, and myself. The snakeman tries to sneak up on us later but is spotted and we chase it away.
I stand guard while the others, particularly Sonic, loot the bodies. We don't forget the ears - proof for the Duke. Meseraima talks to the dead, apparently they were expecting us. They were looking for an item to help cover their tracks when we arrived.
We leave the village following the tracks the raiders made. After one mile we leave the tracks and go west, covering our tracks as we go.
Picking a good spot, we set up camp, Kary creates a Monsoon which was more impressive than her last storm. Mages, or is it women, are quite strange at times, although Aqualina loves water, she is almost phobic about the storm. The downpour is so great that our tracks, and our efforts at covering them will be obliteratad. Jhiselle and I nearly get splattered by a lightening bolt - the perils of outdoor life.
9 April 1994
I get Aqualina to water proof my latest scribe notes and hide them in my water bottle. It is still raining, and it's getting colder.
Kary has a look into the future, and feels that the forces of darkness and the hounds of hell will hunt us to the end of the earth. I assume it is a backfire, but to be on the safe side, I keep a sharp lookout for anything resembling forces of darkness and hounds of hell.
Safe(?) in our tent, we go over the stuff we found with the raiders: LRing, with a Tiger's eye gem, and no snake symbol. Kary says it is a reasonably powerful Celestial night vision for 150 ft. LHand-a-half sword, no aura but I can tell it is well crafted, feels better than my own so I'll swap for the rest of the adventure.
- Talwar, non-magical but silvered, again I feel it is well crafted.
- Set of non-magical plate armour.
- Non-magical tower shield.
- Non-magical long bow.
Kary hypnotises herself to like the rain, quite novel, I thought.
After lunch we pack up and leave, it's still raining but at least it will help cover our tracks. The rain gets colder, Aqualina protects herself from cold but is unable to do so for everyone else. Jhiselle daydreams about fire. She reckons that immolate self, immolate horse, and CHARGE would be pretty effective. I suspect she could be right.
Aqualina, Sonic, Meseraima, Darien and I get caught in a flash flood. My scribe paper is sodden and we end up catching colds. Kary hypnotises Sonic to like his cold, and it works!. I cure the colds, except, of course for Sonic, who is pretty keen on keeping his. In the evening Kary and Meseraima cannot talk to the dead.
10 April 1994
Travel all day, nothing eventful happens.
Session 5: 30/1/95
During our journey we discuss options. Which are basically based around trashing the place. We can free the slaves if we attack the castle, but need to know where the slaves are being held, and how they are shackled. It would be nice to know where their armoury is, and possibly arm the slaves to help us. The majority favour a straight forward trashing the place. But first we ought to reconnoitre, and of course speak to the dead.
We get a reasonable picture of the castle, the condition of the slaves, and an idea of the numbers we will be facing. A very important note, was that the keep was protected with 2 balista, one big and one small.
11 April 1994
Four lightening bolts strike all around the tents and wake everyone up at 1 o'clock in the morning. The lightning bolts seem to herald the end of the storm.
Before we attack, Kary is to summon a storm both for cover and so that the slavers will want to cover up their balista (A good idea from Sonic there), it would also cover the noise of our attack.
As we are packing up, Darien and Jhiselle find something etched (copies attached) into four trees surrounding the tents, just at the places the lightning bolts struck. Darien says that the arrows depict the star of Chaos, representing a particularly nasty group. Kary divinates only to find information on the tree itself, no magical impacts were noticed. Kary touches one of the trees, all the Mages go oooo and cower, I wait for some fireworks. Nothing happens. I'm as disappointed as much as the rest are relieved. It is notable that the symbol takes up the full width of the tree. The symbols are supposed to be cursed, but when Kary touched one, nothing happened. Darien DA'd a tree for the last spell to impact it. He must have been impressed as all he came out with was "flashy things wot Gods do", after he settled down he decided it was some sort of "control lightning". The mages say this (anag.) happens all the time!.
It is no longer raining, in fact the sun is putting in an appearance. So off we trot. Darien finds a really good camp site - in a cave with a fresh water supply. I am drying my scribe paper out slowly, in the meantime I have been using treebark.
12 April 1994
Another days march - it is clear and cool - more importantly - no rain. Aqualina notes that there are no seabirds within sight, probably because of the storm. We camp in scrub - another cave facing south, with good defenses and its own water supply.
In the evening I go through my records of Meseraima and Kary's talks to the dead. Usually all the ships (4) are out at the same time, mostly raiding, and occasionally on slave selling trips. I note that all snakemen are mages, and most, if not all frogmen use magic. None of the humans or goblins are mages.
Total numbers of slavers: 7 snakemen, 11-15 humans, 31-40 qoblins, and lots of frogmen. Slave selling trips: 2 snakemen, 3-4 humans, no goblins, 31-40 frogmen. Raiding Trips: 1 snakeman, 1-2 humans, 10 goblins, frogmen frog (man) the ship and do not take part in the raiding. At the base, if all ships are out: 3 snakemen, 4-5 humans, 11-20 goblins, 6-10 frogmen.
The slavers use 8 hour shifts and so we can assume that a third of the defending force would be asleep when we attack.
13 April 1994
Yawn, another boring travel day.
14 April 1994
We meet the cliffs by late afternoon. We reckon it will take another day to get close to the castle. Aqualina summons and talks to a dolphin. From all accounts it is pretty dumb. Aqualina gets prepared to scrie, I get ready to watch the expected fireworks. This time Aqualina takes no chances, and we all muck in to make sure she is well protected. She has protection from fire, a special fire counter spell, a mind cloak, self immolation, and some luck!. I was not disappointed at the malignant flames, but I feel the self immolation lessened the effect somewhat.
Aqualina saw a big 3 masted ship getting ready to leave, it was crewed by frogmen, and a smaller 1 masted ship. She does not see any entrances. It is now coming up to high tide, and Aqualina expects it to leave later tonight. Kary divinates Aqualina, and yes it was malignant flames.
It is getting dark.
Session 6: 6/2/95
We make the big decision to attack and prepare ourselves. Most of us have wytchsight and shadowform, Kary and Jhiselle are unseen. We hide our packs and personal things. Meseraima will go in Tigerform. Darien performs the wytchsight and shadowform, Jhiselle gives us protection from fire. They, and Aqualina rest for 4 hours, to recoup their used fatigue.
On the way to the castle, Kary lands and does her storm calling. But it is a beautifully clear night and Kary fails. After several goes, Kary does it. But it seems to be coming a lot slower than the last one. We wait a bit longer to try to match our entrance with the storm. Darien reckons the wings on most of us will fizzle out before the storm gets to the castle, so we go in anyway.
15 April 1994
THE FIGHT
We approach from the north and quickly see that the castle sits in a crater forming a deep ditch between the crater and castle walls. Half of the castle is courtyard, the other half, building. The castle is most notable for the reception committee on the roof. 1 big balista with 4 crew. 2 small balistas with 2 crew each. 1 main fighter, and 1 unseen snakeman mage. There were a smattering of Goblins around the battlements. I cannot help but notice that there are more there than I expected. The fight was furious, short, and spectacular.
Jhiselle and Kary go in first to set off fireballs at the balistae. They then stay unseen and attack from a distance using magic. Except that Kary lands in a pit trap, she is relatively unharmed and joins in from afar after a short pause. Jhiselle goes east to finish the balista crew there, but lands badly, creating another crenelation in the battlements. Darien and Meseraima go in the second wave. Darien goes to the west to finish off that balista crew. Meseraima attacks the balista crew in the middle. I fly around to the west to avoid everyone else and try to get behind the head guy and presumably a fighter to match up with. As I land I see the unseen mage and make damn sure that everyone else knows about it. Sonic tries to get straight into the fray, but overshoots the roof and ends up in a corner of the courtyard. However luck is not with him, and he crashes into an acid pit. Aqualina followed me round and lands behind me and gets stuck into two Goblins.
Meseraima ties up the boss, several fighters and several Goblins. The humans quickly learn that their weapons are no good, and look for other targets. The Goblins don't. Kary takes pot-shots at any enemy silly enough to show themselves on the battlements. This is generally by blinding them, after which they usually fall off, and hit the floor, or a trap in lieu of, just in front of the castle wall. Darien self-immolates and chases the enemy who take damage from the flames. Jhiselle has a duelling contest with the mage.
I go for the mage, but my way is blocked by fighters, so I lay into them using the sword I borrowed from a slaver. Aqualina, not being much of a fighter bravely takes on 2 Goblins, protecting my back. Sonic gets out of the acid pit and provides 4 Goblins on the wall with target practice. Thus fulfilling my comment at the beginning that he was merely dragon fodder, nay, not even that!, Goblin fodder.
We polish off the slavers, save for 3 Goblins that escaped over the wall. One human is captured alive but takes poison before we could stop him.
Checking for traps we enter the castle and quickly go down, checking each door as we go. We come across 2 big doors, very ornate and look to be the entrance of a "church". We cannot leave the possibility of leaving anything to our rear. So we go in. We open the doors and get caught in some sort of compulsion. We cannot stop ourselves, I try to go further to get at the large snakeman standing on a dias with its hands on a globe of some sort.
Despite being at its power it talks to us rather than slitting our throats. It said it was not happy at being forced to leave the area. We will be left with a fair fight, these snakemen sure have some weird ideas. Apparently its mental processes feel that we are worth 2 snakemen, several Goblins, a Troll, and a big thing with 4 legs, 2 arms, a Dragon-ogre, I later learn. After stopping our wytchsiqht and shadowforrn for the talk, we get them back, not to mention our wounds and fatigue are taken care of.
Session 7: 13/2/95
Before we can think, the big cowardly snakeman disappears and the enemy are upon us.
The Troll goes straight for me, knocking me over and sending my sword flying. But I still have my main gauche at hand, so I fight in close.
The Dragon Ogre goes for Meseraima, I only hope its weapon is non- magical, she also attracts 2 goblins. The other 2 goblins go for Aqualina. The snakemen hang back, cowards to the core. Sonic goes for the snakemen - best thing to do to mages.
He does well, shield charging one of them, breaking at least one spell. Sonic goes up in my estimation! Darien self-immolates behind me, and catches the Troll. I'm not hurt by the flames, but the Troll must have been, as it really went for Darien, not to mention me, well, I was in the way. Jhiselle stays at the back, and lets loose some fireballs, and other magic I suspect (hope). Kary too stays at the back, I assume she is trying to blind someone.
The fight looked grim at first, Sonic was badly bitten by one of the snakemen. Meseraima stopped the Dragon Ogre from stomping on our mages. Aqualina comfortably took out the two Goblins who went for her. Darien and I finished off the Troll, and after picking up my sword I go for the snakemen. Then all hell broke loose, someone let off a big spell and everyone was stupefied. I don't know what the fuss was, I only felt some pain, hut not enough to stop me. As I went for the 2 snakemen, one disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving through some holes in the wall. Kary could also take the pain and unceremoniously pushed the flaming Darien towards the Dragon Ogre. The poison from the bite takes Sonic to the jaws of death. I splatter the remaining snakeman, and the unknowing Darien took out the Dragon Ogre. Kary gets to Sonic and administers a healing potion. Freed of the snakeman, I then heal Sonic.
After the fight. we have a quick look around the room and then make a whistle stop tour of the caves. At sea level we find a really huge cavern without any ways for a boat to get out. We later find out that the cavern goes right through a headland and the entrances are covered by illusions.
We find no more enemy, not even the last remaining snakeman. The church room is searched thoroughly. I stand guard - there is still a snakeman loose somewhere, hut if we are lucky he will be long gone. A big (10 ft by 10 ft) metal icon hangs on a wall. There are also 2 doors leading to medium sized rooms, obviously used by snakemen. One room has lots of skulls, but no hidden places or doors, even behind thick drapes.
The second room has a fine display of weapons, including a magical broad sword.
The rest of the complex has another armoury, a kitchen, and an underground lake - big and black. We find a big cave with about 40 bruised and battered slaves. They are freed, fed, and I heal the badly beaten ones.
Kary does some divination on a ring which turns out to be a ring of regeneration. The way Kary describes it, it seems to be cursed.
Sonic and Jhiselle fly to the horses for our packs and food.
Aqualina and Meseraima check the boat out, they find a gem embedded in the steering wheel. The boat has a copper sheath below the waterline, Aqualina reckons it is really sleek craft and she's itching to take it out. We're not sure if we should let her loose with this valuable piece of property. They find a log of where the slaves are sold - Sanctuary (of course), and some places in the baronies. There is also a map of a group of islands near the equator, well off the trade routes that are marked - this turns out to be the slavers central base, we find out after talking to the dead.
Kary worries about the magic that has been placed on the party and divinates herself. There are no remaining malignant magics or curses.
There were some spells unknown to her that stop magic, and restore endurance and fatigue.
Kary divinates the rings and things:
- ring of enhanced agility, Kary reckons it is cursed, it stops you being quickened, or slowed. I reckon that if it was cursed, the slaver's wouldn't have worn it.
- ring of adhesion.
- ring of trollskin
- ring of malignant flames
- ring of starwings
- The 10 ft wall icon communicates off plane. Apparently it needs another piece something called a warpstone - obviously the orb that the big snakeman was gripping.
- The warpstone is made from something that was both formerly living and never living, changed, and shaped Kary says it is horrible, evil, and allows communication direct to a god, Kary wouldn’t say which one.
- The broad sword is a vampiric blade with sword breakers along one edge. The handle ends in a mouth that grips the blade.
- The gem in the boat's steering wheel allows anyone touching it to see through illusions.
Then we take turns in touching it there are gasps of astonishment as we get to see the entrances to the cavern. The cavern goes straight through a headland.
Meseraima talks to the dead snakeman. She finds out that the set of islands on the map we found are indeed the home base of the slavers. At this point, the snakeman's voice changes, as if it is taken over by something else. It says "I think you have enough from my servant now". Meseraima asked "who am I talking to?". My name will be meaningless to you, I am the head of the serpent men in this plane, now begone". With that Meseraima gets thrown across the room, this is not as spectacular as malignant flames but pretty scary all the same.
Aqualina gives Meseraima and me water breathing and the three of us go into the water to take out some frogmen. We assume that because the frogmen don't attack us, they too have fled. Their quarters were pretty rank and nothing of value was found.
16-22 April 1994
Darien and Aqualina fly back to Seagate and contact Captain Brown. A healer and 4 engineers come back with them. The healer sorts out the freed people. Two of the engineers work on detecting and making safe traps. The other two engineers go round making an inventory of the castle and caverns. We make our way back to the Guild on the Duke's sleek new boat, stopping off to collect the horses.
The End
The party worked well as a team, specially during the all important fighting. Despite the good natured jibes at Sonic on his first outing, he came through when it mattered. We succeeded in removing the Slaver threat in this area, saving 40 of the Dukes subjects from slavery, thus fulfilling our contract. We get our pay from the Duke and have nine weeks to put in some training before the next mission.