Osric: The trip to shadowdeep (7)

Renault (human fighter, seems lawful) is appointed Marshal of compliments and told to turn the bandits into guardsmen. Rolo, Jenks, Dan, Scabs, and Chester head (on foot) towards shadowdeep. During day 2 they find a mutilated hand and some cartilage and gore near the road. As they cautiously scout the area they find some tracks and a hole in the snow covered ground.

Jenks, the druid, succeeds in a very tough intelligence roll  and realizes this may be a snow worm. Mostly known through hearsay and rumor as they are supposedly responsible for the complete destruction of villages and pilgrim groups. He thinks that it has come this far south due to the particularly cold winter this year as they are not known in this area typically. After a brief think, he waves the group away from the hole, whispers what he thinks and they prepare to sneak away. It is not meant to be.

As a PC I am surprised to discover that the other name for the sand worm is a remorrhaz. I would have run away a lot faster.....arg. The monster explodes from the ground with some sort of head effect blazing from it's wings and head. Falling on Dan first the fighter looks grievously wounded and not moving. Rolo races off on his dog to start slinging from a distance, while Scabs and Chester move away too. Jenks, in foolish bravery, moves beside the beast to heal Dan (who comes to with minimum heal). The remorrhaz botches it's next attack on Jenks who manages to cast obscurement and a like heavy fog blankets the area. He is able to summon a swarm of insects to delay the monster (targeted on it's incessant bellowing and crashing.)

The group runs (with a 5 minute head start) away through the forest with the beast pursuing through the heavy wood. After a while they stumble out of the wood and encounter the league of justice who are just breaking camp and looking towards the crashing coming from the woods. They relay the situation and together the groups flee on horseback (the old bandit horses carrying the PCs) towards Shadowdeep. The league suppose that the bodies of the exiled bandits they caught may have attracted the beast towards the road. Jenks chides them about poor corpse management (a bit ironic as compliments was a bit ripe when the league was there).

The league informs Rolo that there is a bounty in the case of a murder of a wealthy merchant, Dabas. I halfling and an elf have been implicated. Rolo suggests they vouch for him and they agree(his donation of gold to the restitution of villagers at compliments obviously struck a cord with the league). Once in town he meets with the Watch captain who questions him about his plans and his clan. It turns out that the tea leaf clan halfling were found dead on the outside fence of the merchants manor one morning. The following night the murder happened. Rolo inspects a book found on the halfling corpses which has information on the merchants household (basically casing the place for the robbery). He feels that the murder wasn't done by his people and agrees to inform the captain if any information comes up. He is given a warrant endorsing him as innocent and unwanted in the crimes.

Meanwhile the group tracks down an old friend of Scabs, the Dwarf smith Flanigan. Flannigan purchases some finely made elvish shortswords off the group thereby making us liquid again. He agrees to meet us for a drink later about a potential deal (we want him to come to compliments, and also to furnish us with information on deuregar).

To kill the rest of the day we track down a sage,  Anadamas, and offer to exchange information on the near mythical sand worm in exchange for information on items to see the invisible. In an aside I am totally stoked that I get to use a sage. I've never had a chance before and as far as I'm considered it's totally old school badass. That and getting to use henchmen and followers. Awesome!

Ahem. Besides suggesting hiring a wizard or illusionist from the Academy of sorcerous arts, Anadamas checks the tomes of his grandfather and tells something of a ring that might help us. (This part is totally amusing). A ring that is known to grant the wearer invisibility as well as the ability to see the invisible went with an adventuring party of a halfling and several dwarves who went north to secure the treasure of the dragon scorchwing. The dragon was known to have a lair in the area that the now deserted city of Greenich is located.

Information on the crypt of Kas the Bloody
We now have a number of hints about the dungeon of kas the bloody. Likely there is a dragon somewhere in there. Shadowdeep hired people to wipe out greenich due to it's evil predations. The well of stars on level one showed visions of a group of a halfling and dwarves. There is further confirmation of such a group by sage Anadamus. The league of justice and the notched ear goblins both mentioned a liche there (we have a good idea of the room he is located/sealed up in).

One wonders if there is a connection between the deuregar and the dwarves that came with the halfling.