SESSION 328: One Big Eye, Everything is Starting Out Just Great
It was time to reclaim the Spaceship hex, should be easy we killed everyone last year.
Day 838 (Gormandiaà15.22/0806): Clear. It was a nice early Spring day. Ding-We wrecked it for eight unfortunate hobos, “Bimbles. Raul. Assemble a team it is most urgent that we secure the lands around the spaceship it will become your monastery!”.
The ‘C’ for clearing, not chumps as Biff suggested, team was assembled along with a small support crew.
They needed to travel about six miles passing past the toppled remains of the long forgotten king, Zaphisdreal the Magnificent, the last ruler of the Skeldrene Dynasty before it collapsed into Chaos and barbarism two Cycles previous.
If we had a real sense of our geographical location we would know that we kinda lived in an interior region of the low North. That would explain the remnant snows that slowed travels. Along with the fact that troops and a couple of wagons were part of the expedition. The first day was gobbled up by travel and camp establishment in the sub-hex adjacent to the previously decimated Orcish, Festering Sore Clan, well-hidden village in the box canon.
Day 839 (15.22/0806à16.23/0304/0303àCamp): Drizzle. Spring brought constant showers this day. The group had been directed to pass by the orc lair before re-securing the spaceship. Ding-We had assured them that they had totally cleared the place and it was totally just a perfunctory endevour – guaranteed.
Well. Not for the first or last time Peg-Leg was going to be wrong. Thye mob approached the box canyon via the western arm. The drizzle sorta obfuscated things. Willy was sent ahead to stealth scope the canyon. He was confused by what he saw. A hundred or so sheep penned just outside the canyon and an abundance of grape vines just within. Deeper within he could see a red glow but couldn’t define it until he caught sight of a gigantic arm wielding a man-sized wooden spoon. A huge cauldron sat upon embers slow cooking some sort of stew. He reported back to the crew. Bimbles had an idea. They scaled the side of the canyon to be above (~40’) the narrow entrance to the box canyon. The cleric yelled some stuff that eventually elicited a response once they repositioned themselves within line of sight for the stew cooker.
Lumbering out came a cyclops of a strong twenty feet in height, “Nuthin bu mutton. Nuthin bu. You tell me you gots sump tin udder meat for me. Maybe you trade me little guy for two sheep?”. The hulk one-eyed Herbert hungrily.
The hulk seemed friendly enough once you got past his willingness to eat our gnome. Raul and Bimbles were a little off balance with the circumstance. They ended up trading all the salted meat the group had on hand along with two-hundred golden coins for a pair of sheep. “Hmm not bad. Def naut mutton. Yum”, the cyclops wandered back into the darkness of the box canyon. The team leaders didn’t rightly know what to do next.
“Gonna take a little while to make a nice lamb stew”, came from Raul.
“Hmm. Your right… Back to camp! Lamb stew night!”, directed Bimbles as he turned towards camp. “I ain’t in a rush. Don’t want to strain anything working too hard”.
Raul was not inclined to disagree.
That night the support crew presented a hearty potato, carrot and lamb stew to the assembled group. Steve’s special spices were missed but the red-wine broth helped alleviate that shortcoming.
Day 840 (15.22à16.23/0403/0503/0603): Clear. The drizzle had stopped. Bimbles and Raul didn’t have a plan for the cyclops so they would travel along the northern boundary, and clear of monsters as required, of the hex to the spaceship. As they worked their way through the rolling hills an orc day camp was discovered as they crested the saddle of a non-particular hill. The foul beastmen were hunkered down in an extra shady col between hills. The orcs were doing their best to avoid the bright spring daylight. Things would turn very fatal for them in just a few moments. Digging through the corpses they found a better haul of coin than expected. Sasha felt that the orcs had been up to something the gold had been precisely stowed in two sacks. “It doesn’t take them long to get back to evil endeavours once you take the pressure off them”, offered Azucar. This seemed reasonable. The recently cleared bugbear lair was in the local vicinity. “They are the same everywhere. Moar murder’in is needed by Crom”, was Skullcrusher’s observation. “Yes kill! Kill! Kill”, shouted Willy’s underworked sword Agolloch.
They pressed on to the obvious green dome of the spaceship that was less than a mile that way.
Along the way Sasha noted some large tracks associated with a pair of huge ass prints. Here interpretation was that two very large bipedal entities had taken a sit down against a couple of now broken trees and had a snack. Raul inquired if they were cyclops or regular giant tracks. The ranger could not say for sure, the previous days rain had mucked up the already not super fresh tracks. The info was filed away for future consideration and then the march continued to the presumed spaceship.
Sneaking up nothing looked interesting. All was intact. No noticeable tracks.
They closed in on the large entry door. I did not want to open.
“It worked so good last time..”, Bimbles lamented.
Raul recited an incantation and the enormous copper door opened shortly after an arcane knock.
They were greeted by the lingering smell of rot fouled old air. The first inner chamber was, on the northern wall, bound by the curved interior surface of the dome, that formed the wall and ceiling. Both were constructed of a strange, translucent green stone that allowed filtered light to enter through the walls. The interior walls and floor of the dome were, in contrast to the outer shell, fashioned from a shiny black, stone-like material, closely resembling obsidian, that was absent of seams or any indication of tooling. The now very well dead orcs had set up a temporary shelter within the entrance hall; a rough framework of branches covered in animal hides – a dome within the dome.
The shelter could have been more dilapidated but to Bimbles and Raul nothing rung as being different than they had left it months ago.
No life beyond the many flies spawned from the carcasses.
They moved through the chamber to the next door across the way.
ZAP!
Everyone except the rearguard had walked into a glyph and got themselves a good electrical jolt and then they found that this door did not want to open. Another incantation was required – knock.
The door was opened and they were greeted by the buzz of awakened flies and definitely stale air with just a hint of decay.
The entrance hall was 20’ tall allowing the extending corridor to be bathed in sickly green light. Two doors of beaten copper, stood beyond.
The floor between was littered with small bits of stone a well disturbed layer of dust and many, many dead flies.
Beyond, a corridor starts out ten feet wide, swooping gracefully out into a “Y” shape. At the end of each branch the walls double back in, forming open staircases; the one on the eastern wall descends down into darkness, the one on the western wall ascends up to the level above.
It was way too much of a mess for Sasha or Raul to make heads or tails of any of the tracks.
“Whoa up!”
Bimbles put a hand on Camillus’s shoulder before they progressed through the doorway. Another glyph was hidden from the normal eye but not divine sight. After detecting the trap the cleric spoke secret and powerful words granted from his deity. The glyph shattered like glass and then dissolved into vapour. The two tanks rolled in and past the doors. Bimbles was compelled to check the upper deck. As he and the fighter began ascending the winding stairwell he quietly hoped that the naga was well rotted and nothing else ‘snakey’ was slithering about.
The smell of rot was increasing with each step.
The C (clearing)-Team: Bimbles, Raul, Camillus, Sasha, Willy, Herbert, Skullcrusher & Azucar
ROLECALL
Bimbles the High Priest of GSS (C10) 348268 xp +5% <400001> CRT 1d12/III
+2 save to poison and internal body things; Double eat (gotta feed my baybay)
Raul the Voyager (MD9) 280600 xp +10% <360000> CRT 1d12/III
Fezzi-Gig (Neut: XXXX) Sword
Serious wound: permanent loss of CHA -4,
Removed one of his own nostrils.
The Henchmen
Sasha Plasha the Warden (R7) 130057 xp +10% <200000> CRT 1d10/III
Missing three teeth
Camillus the Myrmidon (F6) 61699 <64001> +5% CRT 1d20/IV
Willy the Reformed Burglar (T6) 36906 <40000>10% CRT 1d14/II
Agolloch the Eye of Purity (Lawful; XXXX) Sword
Herbert the Master Gnome Trickster (G4) 17095 xp <30000> +5% CRT 1d8/III
Skull-Crusher the Hellebardier of Crom (A4) 10069 xp <12000> +5% CRT 1d8/III
Azucar the Elven Myrmidon Warlock (E6) 83950 xp <120000> +5% CRT 1d8/II
RESERVES
Elapsed Campaign Time
838 - Gormandia
Join us for session Three-Hundred-and-Twenty-Nine when we ask the questions:
Should we evict the cyclops?
How do you evict a cyclops?
What were those orcs up to so early in the season and so close to our lands?
Has someone been messing with our spaceship?
Has the naga resurrected or arisen?
Tale of the Tape
Everything is normal, everything is fine
KILLS
Orcs (17)
Orc reavers (2)
Orc Warband Commander
LOOT
2,000 golden sheckles
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