March into Darkness - Session 2

I was unable to attend the last session as I was on holiday - more on that later. As a result Russell, who plays Rioja the Mage, wrote the session.

Korum was feeling rather unwell and spent the next day or so recovering in the back of the wagon. This was most likely caused by all that Elven food playing havoc with his constitution - tree leaves, bark and water seemed to be all it consisted of. No wonder Elves were so po faced!

After he had recovered, Korum managed to sneak a look into Rioja's diary. The mage was very meticulous in recording the ins and outs of his daily life. The thief copied out the most important parts, leaving out thoughts on spells, the weather and some stuff written in a wierd kind of language that must be what mages uttered to cast their spells. Still, he was getting the hang of it and reckoned he could have a good go at reading out from any scrolls that were found - magic is not only the domain of wizards!

(Following entries written by Russell, Rioja the Mage)...

From the diary of Rioja Hyrule [the day we left the Elven City]:

We left the Elven city today, and proceeded towards the mountains. Our guide is becoming visibly afraid of something; claims it’s this “master” he keeps going on about. I remain unconvinced that any such “new rising dark power” actually exists, and this is just a ruse to lure us into some trap or play some huge joke on us now we have fame.
…

From the diary of Rioja Hyrule [the day we were attacked by half-men]:

I bloody knew it. It was just a trap! If only Arken were to see this reason though...

During the night we were attacked by some ghastly primitive beings. I didn’t get a good look at them, just took out their leader with my Magic Missile, aided by Knil. I must say since getting that Elven bow string he hasn’t misfired once, a welcome improvement! After their leader was down the rest fell pretty easily. Unfortunately we’d lost an archer and have a seriously wounded light infantryman from the initial attack. Bardan has had words with the guard’s commander about watch procedures...

Bardan also had words with our guide. After those words had burn his feet and one of his hands to stumps all we had to show for it was that his master wants to kill us. A slight change in story from “my master wants to talk” but still hogwash as far as I’m concerned: he just lured us into a trap.

Arken, however, is convinced that this master exists, and has taken it as a personal affront on Din that this “master” has dared attack us like this. He used a Command spell to try and get the guide to draw us a detailed map to his master’s lair. Not a great success: the map just shows us in the sand, “the place where fishes are” to the right, the mountains before us, and “master” beyond the mountains... 

Finally Arken did something I agreed with and snapped the guide’s neck. Unforutnately that’s as far as we agree: I wanted to head home for a nice cup of tea and get back to reading the books in my tower, Arken re-animated the guide’s corpse and plans to march it into his Master’s lair and show him what happens when you cross Din... 

[later entry from that evening]

Around midday we came across a wood-walled village. Enquires revealed that they were trapped in servitude to this Master our guide had spoken of. Maybe there is some evil lord around here... but I still say staying at home with a good book was a better idea! Anyway we liberated the town, and warned them that anyone found not liberated when we came back would be in big trouble.

We were attacked again shortly after leaving the village. This time half men / half scorpions emerged from the sand and killed one of our light infantry almost instantly with a poison tail attack. Once again once Team Aphyros open fire things were quickly under control, and all three man-scorpions went down pretty quickly. 

Knowing the power of the poison these creatures had we tried to harvest it for use on arrows and other weapons. Unfortunately this didn’t go well, and Arken managed to get himself poisoned. It appeared Din was not favouring Arken this day, as for the first day in months he had not learnt Cure Poison as a spell... He soon fell into a stupor, so we loaded him onto the cart and set off, hoping the poison would abate.

Around evening we came across another town, larger than the last. To me it looked as if the poison was wearing off on Arken, but the others still fearred for his life and stormed into town demanding to see their healer. Unfortunately their healer turned out to be a deaf of woman who clearly had no knowledge of either medicine or magicks. She brewed up some concoction, probably just a stimulant, and claimed it had cured him. I was reminded of Professor Malbec’s course on Magickal Methodology, and could imagine him smiling at this performance and muttering post hoc ergo propter hoc under his breath. 

However the rest of the party is convinced this woman saved his life, and made a big song and dance about wanting to thank her. When she refused money they went to the mayor of the town and made sure she would be well looked after. The major himself was a horrible man, a total bigot with a disgusting prejudice against Elves!

Bigot or not though, he did have a number of books about the town, and hinted that there was information in them about the dark power that has risen in this area. As I’m forced to now accept that there is some dark power in this area, I now want to find out as much about it as possible. So while Arken leads charge to find him on foot, I will remain for some time in this town studying. The party has left me the quickest horse, Epona, who will speed me back to the party as soon as I find anything of import.

...