We continue our adventure in a safe house in the City of Westcrown.
The Party
Bort Taberd – Human [native Chelish] fighter. The son of wealthy merchants.
Toobufforu – Human [native Chelish] rogue. The son of the late famed opera singer (and known lover of young boys) Michelangelo.
Scarvend – Human [immigrant Khellid] sorcerer. Immigrant from the bizarre city of Starfall, he believes himself to be a prophet of the void beyond.
Max Blackstone – Dwarf cleric of Torag. Seeks to bring back open worship of deities other than Asmodeus to Westcrown.
Bindle – Gnome Illusionist. Seeks to allow art back into city.
Koa – Elven Monk of Zon Kuthon. Seeks to advance his deity’s influence in Westcrown.
The Adventure
The Black Knights will be taking the leader of our new organization, The Guardian’s of Westcrown, to their citadel about a day’s journey outside the city. We wake up early in the morning leaving us only a hour to prepare for today’s battle.
We quickly buy last minute supplies (some rope, a tower shield, a bunch of oil, and almost a dozen bags of caltrops), then make our way to the stables. One of the members of the organization has offered the use of some horses and ponies to help us to move quickly ahead of the guards. We mount up and head northwest out of the city.
We don’t know much about these parts, but we decide about mid-day to prepare our ambush where a grove of trees is nearest both sides of the road.
Our Bindle, the gnome illusionist, decides to string up the rope across the path, about 60-feet, with three rows of rope, 2 low and 1 mid-height. Behind the rope we placed the caltrops along the entire side.
The Bindle and the Max, the dwarven cleric, hide with a donkey packed full of oil. Bort, the fighter, and the Koa, the elven monk, take one side of the trap, while Toobufforu, the human fighter/rogue, and Scarvend, the human sorcerer, hide themselves on the other side.
We did not have long to wait until the prison patrol was moving towards us. In the front were six knights on horseback, a prison wagon driven by two mules controlled by two guards, and ten more guards on foot surrounding the wagon. On top of the wagon appeared to be a very large crossbow on a turret, perhaps a small ballista! What appears as a leader-type is on horseback following the wagon.
Bindle concentrating to keep his illusion over the ropes of a dozen brigands lined up across the pathway with their bows drawn in a kneeling position – the knights charge the illusioned archers and get tangled in the ropes and fall off their mount into the squares with the caltrops – our trap is sprung.
Scarvend and Toobufforu are quick to act. Toobufforu too anxious to wait for the fighters jumps out of forest and rushes the guards protecting the wagon, he is quickly surrounded by four guards.
Scarvend taking advantage of the fallen knights manages to cast Color Spray on most of the knights. Bort and Koa use their ranged weapons to engage the remaining knights.
The leader jumps off his horse nimbly and climbs on top of the wagon to man the turret. The wagon slowly starts to turn around.
Bindle, stabs a couple of oil skins and then slaps the donkey forward towards the wagon.
The leader shoots the ballista at Bort and Koa, but Max casts Obscuring Mist about half-way between them to block his line of sight. He turns his attention to Toobufforu. Toobufforu drops after several rounds of lucky strikes by the guards and the leader focusing his attacks on him.
To stop the wagon from turning around Max casts Animate Rope on the reigns of the wagon and commands them to constrict – the wagon stops turning as the two mules rear back.
Bindle creates another illusion of archers shooting their bows from a covered position behind the wagon…some of the guards turn rush them.
The donkey with the pack full of oil by now is now next to the wagon when Bindle drops a lit torch onto the pool of oil. The donkey lights up the wagon.
The leader, now on a flaming wagon, jumps down and starts to make his way towards Bort and Koa. Bort and Koa advance to fight the guards left by Toobufforu. Scarvend is fighting the remaining knights who are still blinded from the Color Spray.
Max casts Command at the leader who then flees in the other direction. Max moves towards the now burning wagon.
While Bort and Koa fight the remaining guards Max and Bindle try to release our organization’s leader from the wagon. The leader runs back and attacks Max, who is now on fire from the wagon. Bort and Koa rush in to save Max by attacking the leader.
Max is still bashing at the door trying to release the prisoner, but is unsuccessful. Bort and Koa defeat the leader and use a key they found on him to open the door to the wagon to release the prisoner – Max puts out the fire on the prisoner.
Max then channels positive energy to heal everyone, including the enemy leader on the ground. A few moments later though he is back unconscious and Bort is removing his Full Plate armor from his lifeless body.
The prisoner, a half-elf, introduces himself. He thanks us all for rescuing him from a most certain death. He asks us to help me back to town, we agree.
We travel back to town but enter town under the cover of an illusion that Bindle put up not to raise any suspicion (we appeared as a bunch of farmers bringing in hay bails for horses. We head towards the stables.
When we arrive though there is a commotion as well-dressed human is yelling at the proprietor, our friend who lent us the horses. We dismount and approach them with the horses in tow.
The well-dressed human appears to be a famous actor in town. Bindle, an Actor by Profession, is very exited and tries to impress the well-dressed human, but he seems too upset that the horses that we are bringing back are ‘used’ and won’t be right for his play.
Bort, not too understanding, threatens the well-dressed human to stop whining near him and take the horses that we are returning, all while Bindle is there mimicking every action of the well-dressed human. The well-dressed human though continues his bickering and Bort punches him square in the face. The well-dress human falls backward onto his tush with a startled look on his face.
He scrambles up and takes the horses he mumbling under his breath. Bindle is upset because the well-dressed human was not impressed with his acting skills. We return to the safe house.
We return to a hero’s welcome as the inhabitants of the household greet us and our organization’s leader warmly.
One of the house inhabitants has taken a liking to Bindle and his magical skills. He and his new apprentice spend most of the day in study. Koa decides on trying to seduce anything with a pulse, while the others tend to their gear.
Everyone rests and relaxes the rest of the day until evening where we all gather around discuss plans. The leader says that the city has a curfew at night for all citizens. He says that for the past few years creatures roam the city killing those unfortunate to be outside. Max says that he thinks these creatures are all a farce used by the city’s magistrate to do their dirty deeds to those disloyal. We decide to test this theory.
That night we position ourselves on the top of an abandoned building near the safe house. We all creep low on the roof while Bindle keeps up a Silent Image of a young girl huddled against the far wall of the building adjacent to us. Max casts Light every so often so we can see what’s happening below.
Several hours pass by uneventful until Max notices some movement off in the darkness. His dwarven eyes see what appears to be a half-man half-snake black creature making its way down the alleyway; it appears to have seen our bait.
Bindle animates his illusion of the girl to move around the building we are in and up a rope we dropped earlier, the creature follows.
As the creature climbs the rope we position ourselves on the roof, but the creature is not surprised, some how noticing us before is climbed over the edge.
We attack the creature and notice our weapons are not fully effective against it. A black swirl of mist continually surrounded the creature making it difficult to hit squarely, but we vanquish it none worst for ware.
Bindle and Scarvend are very interested in the beast. They tell us that its some kind of shadow creature, its true origins unknown. We continue our vigil.
A short time later again at the edge of dwarven sight Max notices was he immediately identifies as an Allip, the spectral remains of someone driven to suicide by madness; he warns the party.
The creature, once it notices us at about thirty-feet starts babbling and everyone except Max and Bindle are captured its hypnotic effect; Max and Bindle move to intercept.
Bindle casts Shield and defends himself as best he can. Max reaches out at the Allip and uses his positive energy from a Cure Light Wounds to critically damage the creature and then steps back.
Bindle continues to defend himself, but his he is out of spells and his quarterstaff is doing nothing against the creature. Bort comes wakes out of his charm and goes to face the creature, but quickly realizes that all his weapons have no affect against the creature.
Max draws a scroll and casts Cure Light Wounds with his now glowing hands ready to touch the creature. Bindle and Bort attack the creature with no affect. Max steps up and touches the creature, damaging it further. Scarvend wakes up and then starts Acid Spraying the creature. We eventually bring the creature down; all of us stunned and surprised at what happened.
Its now dawn and we retire from the rooftop. Everyone except the Max, who goes to pray, decides to go take the remains of the creature and the Allip to a mansion (apparently earlier in the day we learned that there was a bounty for each creature found at night).
They place the carcuses into a bin and then look around trying to figure out how they are to be paid. Scratching their heads they decide to get breakfast from an inn open across the street.
The meet the bartender, a older man, probably a fighter from the looks of his build, who gladly serves them breakfast. They don’t get too much from him, but Bindle convinces him to allow him to make a painting on one of the bare walls. After several hours past as they eat breakfast and Bindle finishes his painting they return to the safe house wondering how they are to be paid.
When they return they notice a bag of coins waiting for them, apparently the rich noble with the bounty knows about us already.
We end the session there.