Showdown at Vulture Ridge

(Game Date: 13/5/10)

The fire turns out to be the campsite of over a dozen men who seem to have been in place for two or three days, although Cobb knows their tracks are heading east and towards the cliff face. This sparks a prolonged debate – Shadarael is dubious of the parties ability to face down three-to-one odds – but the fact that the group might be a group of local Traladar from nearby steadings rather than bandits eventually decides the matter.

The trail leads to a rift in the cliff containing a path leading up and several beastmen markings warning against death and dire consequences for anyone who heads up there. Another debate breaks out – shorter this time – and the group follows the trail as it winds its way towards the top of the ridgeline.

Their ascent is momentarily halted when Elariah hears discussion around a curve ahead of them on the path – apparently a pair of bandits named Konnel and Darnel are debating whether they should stick with their current career choice or go back to farming (Konnel, in particular, seems somewhat keen on earning enough money to return home to Thyatis). Both men are also nervous about a black-robed figure their boss is working for, and the possible return of a man named Roarke who ducked off the check the prisoner.

Debate ensues among the party about what needs to be done. They try and lure one of the sentries out using a ghost sound of a wounded goat, a tactic that almost works until Roarke comes back and recognises the illusion. Roarke demands the intruder show themselves and Elariah walks around the bend to negotiate.

It goes well, initially – the underlings are perfectly in tune with Elariah’s suggestion that things don’t need to get violent – but Roarke grows increasingly belligerent. When his initial offer to let Elariah go as long as she leaves behind any gold and valuables is rebuffed, he starts making threats. Varis takes this as his cue and charges in, glaive waving, and gets shot with an arrow for his trouble. That one shot is the only thing that goes the bandit’s way in the fight – seconds later Roarke is incapacitated by a Hideous Laughter from Elariah and nearly dead after getting whacked by the glaive. The other bandits, including the sniper Shevell, surrender once their boss is dead. Shadarael takes their weapons.

What follows is a game of good cop (Elariah), scary cop (Varis), and vaguely demonic bastard cop (Shadarael) as the party question their captors. Konnel is the weak link and spills everything – they’re members of Gholdar’s crew, they’re bandits, they don’t usually hurt people, and they’re up in the mountains because Gholdar’s cut a deal with a mysterious robed man who talks to no-one but the boss. They were supposed to be raiding some kind of beastmen cave with help the robed man was bringing in, but Gholdar got impatient when the help didn’t arrive. The raid is going to make them all rich, but Konnel had a bad feeling about it.

They also captured the beastmen who guarded the cave, a wiry beast that’s been struggling against its bonds since the fight started. Varis kills it. Mercifully. The three captive bandits are hired as mercenaries after being offered more gold than they’d have earned from the raid (10 gp for Konnel and Darnel, 15 gp for Shevell). After satisfying themselves that their new hirelings aren’t going to turn against them at the first battle, Varis makes a third of the payment up-front.

The small group hits the top of the ridge and finds the beastman cave, along with the rope tied around the stone that leads straight down into the darkness. They follow a damp stone tunnel deeper underground, come across some dead bandits who triggered a trap, and eventually reach a larger open cave complex with dead and decaying beastmen lining the walls. The complex is built around a hollow cavern about thirty feet wide and fifty feet deep, with a small waterfall seeping through a crack in the ceiling. There are five large, balconied alcoves open to the main complex and corridors carved into the rock that links them. From the parties vantage point they can see teams of bandits gathering jewellery and weapons from the dead on the lower balconies, as well as a rope leading down the black water at the bottom of the cavern. The bandit leader, Gholstag, is towards the bottom of the cavern.

A fight breaks out, with Varis charging down to the lower balconies while everyone else fires arrows and spells from the top balcony. Getting a clean shot proves to be difficult through the waterfall, but the cover provided by the party’s high vantage point proves to be decisive – only the recently-hired Darnel is gravely injured and the combination of sleep, magic missile and archery quickly reduce the bandit’s numbers. Things go very poorly for Gholstag – he’s hit by multiple magic-missiles, a sleep spell, a glaive (twice), and demonic claws. His flunkies fare no better. They’re killed and their bodies are pushed off the balcony after being looted.

Konnel, Shevell and the injured Darnel are left to gather treasure while the rest of the group drops down into the pool. The water boils around Shadarael and Varis’ feet the moment they make contact, then the lights in the chamber flicker and dim. A twelve-foot beastmen composed entirely of shadows emerges from the water, small wolf-heads forming in the water boiling around its feet.

The shadowy Guardian snarls and makes threats, then sniffs the air and starts talking in ancient Traladaran. It makes numerous threats against the “Children of Halav” who have broken into the crypt, but when it realises that the party are following a group of bandits deeper into the cave things calm down. It warns the group that there is something unclean in the Cave of Bones – the penultimate chamber where the beastmen’s greatest champions are buried – and that it’s searching for the Skull of Ranivoros. The guardian cannot enter the Cave of Bones without triggering some kind of mass rising of the dead – and it checks the date with Elariah to be sure that it’s not yet time for that to happen – so the party is sent into the cave in its stead.

The struggle in the Cave of Bones is brief – a small team of bandits are looting the corpses set on stone funeral byres while a robed figure is searching through a pile of hundreds and hundreds skulls on the far end of the room. The bandits are quickly cut down and the robed figure flees, using a scroll peeled off its tattered patchwork robe to teleport away. There is something vaguely stiff about the robed figures movements – enough to suggest that it’s undead – which causes some consternation when the party realises it could simply make another attempt for the Skull.

Several plans are hatched and disregarded – including destroying the skull – but it doesn’t immediately show up when using Detect Magic and the difficulties of finding it amid the seemingly endless pile of skulls makes the eventual decision to leave before the Guardian gets too irritated with them and/or comes in and triggers the apocalypse of undead beastmen it alluded to earlier.

They tell the Guardian their fears about a second attempt and it assures them something will be done – there are wards to be reset and other precautions that can be taken. One of these seems to manifest as the water in the chamber starts to rise, flooding the lower levels.

Everyone runs, scrambling up to the top balcony and the rope leading out. By the time Varis climbs up, last, he’s climbing out of water that comes up to his waist. The good news is that the trio of bandits have got a lot of the treasure out while you were downstairs. The bad news is that there’s a cold, damp walk back to the Keep before you can claim Dubricus’ reward.

Gromdain, Thaumont 9

It takes you the better part of a day to retrace your steps, pick up the false Bradba, and trek back to the Keep. To your surprise, Konnel and Darnel go with you - won over to your arguments of going straight because Elariah patched Darnel up when he was dying rather than focus on the fight and the loot. Shevell is less inclined to head to the keep, still worrying about the potential repercussions of their bandit past, but tags along regardless…