LL at Paul's: Special Guest Star

Howdy.

This week's game report's gonna be a little different, 'cos I didn't write it. I was travelling on business this week and couldn't make the game, so in lieu of my usual blather, I'll be substituting blather from fellow 10d gamer: exitsanity, who plays the mighty Kashiim.

Let us begin:

Picking up where we left off the party regrouped after the battle within the hallways of Tevlar's keep. Behind the closed doors Kashiim was re-awakened from the Hold Person spell and healing was passed around to the remaining members. The party charged out of the room to find.... the bodies of the bugbears cleared and the hallway silent. Opening a door at the end of the hallway the group found a lavish bedchamber being polluted by two bugbears; obviously either these were Tevlar's man-servants or they had slain the wizard and must be killed themselves!

Kashiim, Froggie and 1/2Klint charged the first of the beasts while Kettle, Deacon and Marklov dove over the curtained bed to flank the remaining bugbear. Kettle and Froggie took devastating wounds but the party managed to stick enough pointy bits into the bugbears to drop them finally. The keep became eerily quiet so Harth decided to cast one of his verrrry useful spells... Detect Magic! Deacon applied some healing to Froggie as Kettle called upon the god of Palengrad to heal his most grievous elbow wound.

Harth glanced around the room and noticed two areas glowing with magical auras; a trapdoor underneath a fancy armchair, and a section of wall adjacent to a portrait of Tevlar. Try as the party might they could not budge either the trapdoor or a hidden panel they found on the wall... Behind the portrait in a small hidden compartment Kashiim and the Deacon found a pouch of gems and gold coins. Other than the three hidden locations the brave adventurers only found Tevlar's lovely wardrobe though Froggie started scratching his stubble every time he looked at Tevlar's portrait. He saw a few improvements to be made on Tevlar's portrait and decided to try his hand at medieval photoshopping. Tevlar's portrait was hung back up with care; sporting a new monocle and mustache. (BigFella here: Yeah, that's gonna end well for us...)

Froggie and Kettle quickly made it clear that they weren't done with Tevlar's keep yet (even though they were both near death at zero hitpoints). Kashiim sensed their urgency and decided to lead the way through the remaining rooms. Of note the party found a complicated alchemist setup. Half-Klint, Marklov and Froggie quickly gathered up two-score of vials and stoppered containers in Tevlar's own robes/cloaks and the party went downstairs to recover an iron chest found earlier.

Without delay the group made for the road, putting the keep on the hill as far behind them as possible. It was determined that heading to Bridgefair was the next step to tie up some other loose 'ends'.

Arriving at Bridgefair it was obvious that the city had closed up its gates and strengthened the watch on its walls. Deacon deftly talked his way into the city and the group decided to find lodging at an inn named The Pikeman for an exorbitant weekly rate. After settling in their rooms the party split to take care of errands; a crowbar was purchased for the iron chest, Froggie started following up leads on the thief 'Tinhelm', Kashiim and Harth went to trade and catch up with the magician in the rich district, and the remaining members went to have the gems appraised.

The shoppe the gnomes ran in the wealthy district was boarded up. Some sleuthing revealed that an explosion was heard from within, that the gnomes may have been taken for tax evasion, and that some gnome arrived later asking a lot of questions about the gnome shoppe but may not be in town. We found a new gem cutter to deal with, Bardi. Kashiim and Harth purchased a couple of scrolls and also inquired of the ability to dispel wizard locked compartments for the possibility of finishing the raid on Tevlar's chamber.

Froggie used every bit of acumen to squeeze details of Tinhelm's location out of various townsfolk. I believe he only spent 10 gold pieces on bribes; obviously a steal for the amount of gold lost when the horses were stolen... Early the next morning Harth used his spells to determine that 8 of the potions from Tevlar's laboratory were magical; Kashiim brought those plus 2 more to the magician to be identified as the party made ready to follow up the most promising lead on Tinhelm's current location.

Okay, BigFella here again. Sounds like an interesting session. I'm just glad the Deacon made it thru okay, and look forward to pursuing our path of vengeance on Tinhelm, whilst avoiding any vengeance that might arise from Tevlar coming home to find his castle ransacked and his bugbears dead. I guess we'll dodge that fireball when we come to it.

Thanks to exitsanity for filling in the blanks, and thanks as usual to Paul for running the campaign. Lookin' forward to next week.