Before jumping into the activities of the last couple games I wanted to inform readers (whoever they may be) that my work and home schedules have been rather busy leading to little time for writing recaps. Thus this recap will be a condensed version of the last 3 sessions...
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Following the battle at the wagon the party continued on towards their next city on the road. Upon reaching it they visited a general goods store and attempted to sell the chests they had found, the chests containing what they would later find to be goods such as magical inks, spell components, and the like and each marked with a single white lily. The shopkeep however recognized the mark and sent his wife quietly out to find nearby guards.
After a quick discussion with the shopkeep the guards suggested they all speak at the local guard house. When they arrived they were each sepperated and the captain of the guard spoke with each of them, asking for their stories. When they all matched for the most part he then brought up how he had been informed by a woman that she was with the wagon when they were attacked by those matching their description and they were grilled further.
With no proof of any guilt or that their stories were not true, and only the word of another also implicated by the party to go on, the captain brought them all together again and in much the way of a "father figure" suggested what he thought was the right thing to do ... but alas they were free to do as they wished but his guard would be watching so they had best keep their noses clean.
When they left the guardhouse they returned to the merchant and while he was nervous and unsure they told him they just wished to return the goods to their owner if they could point the way. The merchant refused but told them he could reach out and have them met the next morning, again in front of the guard house.
When the morning came they saw an older gentleman in robes standing with two guards. While unsure of their story he was grateful for the return of what they had, and after they decided against trying to find the rest of his lost shipment, he rewarded them with some coin and went on his way.
After spending a bit of time to rest up they then continued up the coast to the Capital of Keford. Their first order of business was to seek out the Ogre's Arm Inn and deliver the ale they had been traveling with. The innkeep, sorry to hear of the merchant's death, told them he would send the payment along to the merchant's daughter but also pay them for their time and in addition gave them a room for the night.
The next morning as they decided to seek out the temples to inquire about the job exploring the new found ruins Aidan was approached by an urchin child who pressed a note in his hand. As they began to read, and with his payment in hand, the urchin ran off. The note seemed to be addressed to not Aidan but another, mentioning a double cross and how it was surprising he would show his face again and that two others mentioned would likely look to smash his face in if they saw him. It then went on to tell them to meet behind the Blue Ox at sunset.
Confused they decided to ignore the letter and continued to the temples where they met with a patron of Pelor and soon had agreed to seek out and explore the ruins, taking payment and potions up front to do the job. As they left they noticed what appeared to be a half-orc watching them from the alley, though he quickly disappeared and they headed north to leave the city for the area the ruins were said to be in.
Before they got out of the city however, while traveling through a seedier part of the town which was fairly empty during this part of the day, another small child not even a teen darted from one alley, grabbed a coin purse, and began for the other alley. As he ran however they caught his arm. As they discussed what they should do with him he wriggled free and went down the alley a ways and began taunting them. Finding it strange they began to look around, however what they looked for was well hidden and it wasn't until one of them began down the alley that the trap was sprung.
As the fight began the half-orc they had seen earlier came into the alley from the far end and told the child to flee while four other figures stood from their hiding spots behind and among the refuse in the alley. The half-orc proved to be a powerful fighter striking crippling blows against them until the bard used his magics to create a false sound of guards coming from up the street. With the guards seemingly approaching the half-orc told them he would see them again and the thugs ran.
Hurt and tired they decided to find an inn again and decided to head towards the docks once more though not to the inn they had stayed at the night before, somewhere closer instead. With no real familiarity with the town and no specific destination in mind they began walking and soon ahead they saw an inn. As they got closer, as luck would have it (or not), it would be the Blue Ox they stumbled upon. They stood discussing if they should see who was out back at sunset for a while and finally a pair of them went in to secure rooms while the others went to investigate ... though for a short while they had to deal with a drunken seaman, who would eventually enter the establishment, first.
Once out back a robed man spoke with Aidan, also mistaking him for "Madarius" and while he didn't believe him he told him that he could try to convince Gregor who was actually the one wishing to speak with him. After leading them to him he asked "what he had done with it", also not believing he wasn't the one they were looking for, but growing frustrated finally sent them off stating "she would kill them if their story was true or not" and that they should "deal with her before she found them", giving them an address and sending them away.
Returning to the inn they decided they would indeed check out this port warehouse in the morning to see what this woman wanted and see if they could clear things up, and the next morning they did in fact set off.
Upon entering the warehouse, a single structure at the end of a pier, the dwarf announced to the man and woman working inside "Madarius was here" and they excused themselves and entered a back room and almost immediately a well dressed woman came out, followed by a weasely looking man and the half-orc. "I'm surprised you'd show your face here Madarius" she said. "Where is it?"
By this time Aidan had grown frustrated that no one believed him and gave quite a bit of attitude to the woman who then told him if he wouldn't cooperate he would die. The weasely looking one magically locked the doors behind them.
Slonnie asked her to wait, to explain what was going on, and she seemed surprised and asked "did he not tell you what he had done" and "what is he paying you". Slonnie, convinced Aidan wasn't the one she wanted, tried to convince her of such but she decided she wasn't taking chances and gave them a moment to discuss if they just wanted to hand him over or if they all wanted what would come. As they discussed the dwarf said if Aidan didn't have what she wanted that proved it wasn't him, to which the woman questioned his intelligence as he could have it hidden anywhere. The dwarf, unhappy with that, then questioned her intelligence at which point she had enough and a battle began.
Things looked bleak for a while as the weasely man stepped forward and set some of them, and the shelves, on fire and the orc began to attack them viciously again. They also heard the movement of the other two and perhaps more in the back room still. The fight went back and forth with the orc falling under the combined weight of the party's attacks only to be healed and then healed again by the woman who seemed to be in charge. At one point the wizard stepped forward and unleashed a rainbow like spell that caused two of them, plus one of his own, to collapse unconscious. The back and forth continued but suddenly battle could be heard from the back room as well.
At random points as the fire spread it appeared as if the battle could go either way and in fact things looked very bleak at one point with the dwarf nearly dying as well as the party's wizard while two others were still unconscious. Finally however, as the fire spread and different things started to pop, explode, or collapse, the unseen battle in the back room seemed to be catching up and taking the focus of the half-orc and woman. Soon with much of the building on fire and it spreading quickly, and the half-orc having fallen again, the woman looked up at 4 or 5 to 1 odds against here. Despite having not been wounded yet herself she found herself alone and decided to flee. As Slonnie gave chase he got to the door of the office area just in time to see her drop into a trap door.
The scene in the back room was one of the remnants of choas with nearly a dozen bodies laying about. As the fire continued to spread the warrior bent down inspecting the body of the half-orc, or more specifically his armor. He was determined to have it he first looked to take it off before deciding the fire wouldn't allow time for that so instead he would drag it. As he was inspecting it however the dwarf pushed him onto his face as he pushed through the blocked doorway so that he could go to try and start looting other bodies. Seeing this, and having seen the dwarf stop to loot bodies while others were on the verge of death before, Slonnie decided it was time to teach a lesson and as he moved behind the dwarf and opened the trapdoor he snuck the dwarf's coinpurse off his belt.
With the fire engulfing the building the group began rushing to the door at the back with the wizard going to the trap door, all the while the warrior dragged the body of the fallen half-orc behind. Slonnie and the bard were making their way up the pier towards onlookers as the wizard jumped into the water of the trap door. Pulling the orc's body was slow going so the dwarf moved to help but just at that time something within the building exploded. Aidan was blown out into the cold sea waters and while the warrior was able to grab part of the pier the half-orc and dwarf were also blown out to sea. However the warrior was almost blinded by the desire to have the armor the half-orc had worn and jumped in after it ... but as the dwarf struggle to stay above water he finally abandoned the armor and went to the dwarf's aid.
Before long guards and a nearby inkeeper from the onlookers had rushed onto the pier and had grabbed wooded rings at the end of ropes from spots along the pier and began helping to haul the struggling swimmers to safety ... all except for the wizard that is who stayed under the pier and swam to shore.
With everyone back on short the guards suggested they be taken to the temple district for care before they would be talked to by the city guards about what had happened here.
*****Director's commentary*****
I hadn't expected the group to basically go straight to the warehouse, something that would have been a much tougher fight if I hadn't have had help show up (which all fits within the story of what was going on but I won't say much here as there are a lot of unknowns by the party that still could come up and they may read this). As it was the fight was still very exciting and a couple rolls here or there could have been the difference between a TPK (total party kill) and everyone surviving as they did.
In fact at one point with two unconscious, the dwarf had fallen and stabilized rather than died (I have implemented a system where if you fall you begin making death saves each round and damage is an automatic failure ... 3 failures you die, 3 success you stabilize), Even after stabilizing he had part of a burning shelf fall on him forcing saves again and he had two failure before they could get a potion in him. The wizard also fell at one point and had two failures, one success, when he was finally force fed a potion. Slonnie was also under 5 hit points at this time but his opponent rolled 4-5 straight attacks under 7 and couldn't drop him before he was finally finished off. Another failed death save here, a successful attack there, and it would have been very close to a TPK if it wasn't.
As is I need to remember these are all fairly new players so the RP side of things aren't as familiar to the players as a combat system would be. I spoke to them after the battle about being able to talk to others and try to seek out information. It may or may not have changed anything here but perhaps they could have asked around about the names in the note and maybe found out a thing or two before running into the warehouse. I also had to remind the dwarf's player that he can't "retaliate" for the theft of his coinpurse as he didn't notice and noone else saw Slonnie sneak it from him. His character wouldn't know and it could have been lost in the fight or the water.
Overall the game is going very well and players are really starting to get more used to the game. It's only been a few sessions and they are still learning but it has been a lot of fun for all so far. Admittedly I'd still rather be playing than running, trying to figure out the story and all that ... but it has been fun to run it as well and should only get better as DM and players alike get more and more used to things.
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