Matthew Hunter

Feverborne

I slew the wounded rat I was facing with one swift blow, but the big fucker stepped in to take it’s place. I gave him as nasty cut with my Yggian borrowed blade, taking a blow in return that destroyed my shield. Kiba stayed long enough to pull some spikes from my backpack to secure the southern door, but then fled. That rat bitch Vee joined the big rat, waving some sort of censor filled with toxic gas. Little does she know my pinkie ring from the sauhaugin protects my sense of smell; I f0ought on, undeterred. She tried a spell, but I shook it off and struck her in return, another solid blow. She fled, and another wererat joined Burly. That one died too.

Session map

Of course the second guard paladin at the bottom of the stairs stopped me. I tried to reason with him, explaining that I was on a mission from thew Goddess. He was symapthetic and “let” me knock him over and run past with Kiba close behind. We didn’t get much farther – yet another guard paladin blocked our way and this one wouldn’t let me pass. I wasn’t willing to fight him, so we got frog-marched back into the entrance room and disarmed. Godwin, the guard I talked to on the way in, helpfully left a knife for us to escape before leaving himnself to check on how the battle was going. We were hearing the sounds of distant battle almost continuously, beastial shrieks and the clang of swords.

With purses fattened by wererat gold, we set our plans in motion. Ygnas held a party announcing her vacation to Candletown or some such place, honoring her bargain with the rats but leaving the gold they paid her with us. Rowen did the same with a different destination. Pluck was still detained. Old friend Lyrian and new friend Kiba with her dog Kiki joined us from the Glorious Blades. Rumor has it Kiki used to run a delivery service. We hired on several new mercenaries, including a wizard Golson, and shared out silver daggers among them all. One got to borrow my longbow and 10 silver arrows. Another got 10 silver bolts for his crossbow. We spent the night at an inn. This was all very expensive, but it was rat gold buying it.

Buzz Stonebrew

Buzz Stonebrew

It all started over a barrel of dwarven ale. My barrel, that is, which I planned to enter in the guild of brewers’ contest. But the night before the contest, I started drinking early – a bit of a pre-celebration of winning. And then I woke up before dawn, head pounding, to discover that my prize-winning barrel of dwarven ale was one of the barrels we tapped the night before. So I shouldered my pack and set out in search of ingredients for a new cask. Better late than never, right? But this one was going to have to be really, really special. I’d need the most unique of ingredients. Something no one could possibly expect in an ale, and yet, still a perfect complement to the traditional flavors.

Joined by Rowen, Clubeck Pluck, Ygnas, and our three bandits, we descended once more into the sewers. I consulted Oscar’s notes and set the valves to drain the swamp around the base of Cloacina’s shrine. I would say vows before her image, and hope for her blessing to bring with me against the rats.

When I swore my vows, she appeared before me in a vision, and told me of Arimaniux’s plans to use the sacrifice of children to rise from a demon prince to true godhood. I passed that message on to my friends, one of whom elected to pray with me, but seemed disappointed when Cloacina granted him neither a vision nor a magical weapon. I left 13 sp in the secret offering drawer (feeling that the silver coins were appropriate). Clubeck left 5 gp in the public offering tray, then took it back when he still received no divine benefit. I glared at him and replaced it from my own purse; the goddess will not be cheated.

Alamar

Hey, Peanuthead!

What’s that?

Hey, pesnuthead! C’mere!

It’s like my daddy’s voice when he dreams of torturing the souls I eat for him. Except…

No, this way!

“Can the rest of you hear that?”

Apparently they can. This is new. Also, my demonic daddy never called me peanuthead.

We decided to investigate. I sent my second son – or was it third? anyways – ahead to scout and he promptly got lost. Eventually we found a strange set of giant doors, so I resummoned the imp while we figured out how to open them. After about half an hour, I decided to try pulling on the handle on one side, and it rotated in a wide circle. We were inside. And the strange voice kept yelling about peanuts and not answering my questions.

We explored the sewer systems thoroughly, looking for any changes from the previously unknown configuration, but found nothing changed in the sewer layout. Except, possibly, the cow-eating tentacle monster was gone. We did happen upon two wererats carrying a young man names Giles (clearly destined for a life of vampire hunting) into the sewers. He called out for help, and we arrayed for battle. But our new friend Clubeck cast some sort of spell to knock them out without a real fight. We woke up Giles and tied up the wererats thoroughly, briefly discussing how to handle them. With the sewer rats watching the discussion was brief; we took them back to the surface and to the temple of Dogma.

Session map

Feverborne

We left the poor dead wererat girl down in the sewers. Bringing her up to the surface and trying to collect a reward for a dead girl whose wounds matched our own silver weapons would be awkward at best, and very very awkwardly fatal for us at worst. Once back on the surface we took stock of the situation. My magic sword didn’t work, Ygnas’ god was slacking off on the job, and our halfling had just walked off, admittedly after doing well for such a stout fellow. We were all hurt, I was feeling feverish, and without healing spells it would take time to heal back to fighting trim. Ygnas was complaining about her mace being broken, too. (How do you break a mace?) We decided to sleep on it and look at options in the morning.

Alamar

Alamar

I didn’t even get the chance to introduce my son around before we were attacked by four more huge spiders. The goblins promptly fled, leaving us to face them alone. Soggy was drugged out of his mind and did nothing useful. Creg was awake but spent more time wrapped up in webs than casting spells. Faolain was barely managing to keep us alive and Prim was the only star of the fight, killing all four of the spiders herself, though I made large contributions by hurting two of them very badly. My son ran around trying to free people from webbing and did nothing useful. Then he got killed. I had to get pregnant in a hurry. It was embarassingly slutty.

Nottanis

Free! I’m finally free of that damned ooze! (Probably).

We continued training through rain and wind at the same slow pace.. the pace of the ooze. After several days of this, during which Sanfire departed, we met up with the somewhat confused bard Brad. Brad was confused about the ooze. The ooze was confused about Brad, but I convinced it not to eat him. Temporarily.

Brad dumped a lot of random gear in the forest for some reason. I picked up a small bell, just in case it came in handy, and we played music as we strolled through the trees. We kept playing until we came across a large owlbear. No, not the one from the cave; this one had cleaner feathers and the loveliest huge eyebrows. Anyway, knowing that discretion and silence are the better part of valor, I stopped playing and hid, as did Stria. Brad… kept playing. The owlbear promptly ate him in one bite. We left. I hoped, very quietly, that the owlbear would step in the ooze. My wish was not granted.