We managed to get together online for our all day event yesterday. We could all make it except for the player of our Dragonborn Barbarian, Druss.
Day 47 - A new adventure
Several weeks have passed since our seaborne mission to recover those relics for our last patron. We were now being recognised around the town of Saltmarsh as a formidable group of adventurers, but well-paid work was still little and far between.
Early this morning, however, we paid a visit to the Mariners' Guild to see what they might have to offer us in terms of employment. The elf stationed at the guild hall mentioned that the Mariners' Guild were looking to build a light house on a fog-and-reef-bound island about six hours sail away. The island was inhabited by a group of religious cultists who had allied themselves with a pirate crew. He used the past-tense term "was" as smoke had been seen billowing from the island a few days ago and he assumed the worst. He said that he would like to hire us to investigate what had happened and establish a base there for the Guild; this would be in return for our supplies, transport to get us there, and a payment of 2,000 gold crowns upon completion of the job.
As we were bored of idling around town, we took the job offered, signed the ledger, and were given a summary of the itinerary on a scroll that we were told we would need to hand back once the mission was completed for our payment. We were to meet at the docks at early light, where a fishing vessel would take us to a nearby lighthouse island to meet a Major Ursa. From there, we would be given a rowing boat to take us to the cultists' island.
Navda managed to get a look at the ledger in passing and discovered the last party left three weeks ago and had not returned; in fact, all entries in the ledger had a line through them. He also discovered that they were paying us double what other adventurer groups had been offered.
Day 48 - The journey to the island
We met the fishing vessel at the docks at the appointed time and clambered aboard with all of our supplies (given to us by the Guild). The weather was calm on the outbound journey, and we arrived at a small wooden jetty on the small lighthouse island after a four or five hour sail.
We were greeted by Major Ursa, a very military-looking dwarf, who repeated the story from the Guild about the Isle of the Abbey. Repeating what had already been said, he mentioned that a cult had established a base on the island and had been joined by a pirate crew to give them some muscle. Three days ago, smoke was seen rising from the island. No other adventurers had returned from their missions to the island.
As we wanted an early start, we had a quick meal and camped on the beach so that we could get away early the next day. Major Ursa showed us the rowing boat we were to use, so we stowed our supplies on it, along with a map of the island he handed to us. He mentioned that we should only land on the south beach as the reefs were treacherous elsewhere.
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| The Isle of the Abbey |
Day 49 - The Isle of the Abbey
We were awoken very early by the major, who handed us the oars for the boat and directions to the island. The sea journey took about an hour and a half before we spotted a fog-bound island in the distance. We could hear the waves crashing around partially submerged rocks in the distance. We approached the island cautiously and landed on the southern beach as suggested. We did look to row further up the western coast but the jagged rocks and reefs we could see put paid to that thought.
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| The southern beach and dunes |
When we jumped out of the longboat, we hauled it as far out of the water as we could and sorted our supplies accordingly. We noticed that the beach held no footprints, which we found to be unusual, and as we proceeded to scout out the immediate area we noticed that there were several items of arms and armour scattered around the nearest dunes; most accompanied by a two to three day old limb that appeared to have been ripped or torn off.
Navda climbed to the top of the nearest dune to look out for the best way forward, but all he could see was more dunes glinting in the morning sun (presumably on more items of arms and armour?) for about a mile. He also noticed, almost directly north of us, a column of smoke rising from the centre of the island.
As we did not fancy crossing all that sand and possibly disturbing something that might be lurking there we decided to hug the eastern coast. No sooner had we got underway than we were attacked by a small group of skeletal warriors that cambered their way out from under the sands.
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| Skeleton warrior |
The fight was very short-lived; Drakkon and Dharion dispatched two of them in quick succession and I used one of my god-given powers to make the rest of them crumble to dust.
Unfortunately, as we continued to head along the coast, more skeletons erupted from the dunes. Again, Drakkon and Dharion made light work of most of them, but I was beginning to use up too many of my powers. We decided to head inland instead in the hope that it would take us away from the skeleton infested beach dunes.
It seemed to us that we had jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire with our decision to journey inland. Three great flying beasts swooped over the dunes and attacked us.
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| A manticore |
Not knowing how powerful these creatures were, but thinking that they were bound to be more of a challenge than the skeletons on the beach, Gladreth decided to Fireball one of them. It crashed to the sands as a smouldering pile of smoking flesh. The other two were quickly subdued by Drakkon and Dharion.
No sooner had we recovered our breath than we were attacked again! No wonder so few of the other adventurers managed to make it off the beaches before us. This time it was four very well armed and armoured pirates. This proved to be a much tougher fight than the previous ones until Gladreth's Lightning Bolt killed one of them and seriously hurt two of the others. Navda and Drakkon killed off two of them and I finished off the last one with a Sacred Flame. As we had all taken on a number of cuts and bruises, I offered up a Prayer of Healing to revive us all. We decided to search the bodies even though the previous encounters offered up no treasure, but we found a number of silver coins and some gem encrusted gold rings.
As the noonday sun had passed us by now, we were glad to finally be getting out of the dunes. However, as we passed one dune in particular, we picked up a rather nice short sword that was in amongst the other battle field debris. We exited the dunes onto firm ground of sand and gravel, covered in short, stubby bushes, scrubby grass and boulders.
We saw the smoke rising just to the north of us, so headed towards it via as much cover as we could manage. When we got close enough, we saw that what would once have been a large abbey building had been reduced to rubble and smoking ruins.
As we were tired and battered from all of the fighting in the dunes, we decided to camp in the bushes for the night in order to rest up and survey our surroundings. Nothing of note happened during the night other than we all heard snippets of voices and the occasional clanging of metal and clunking of heavy wood.
Day 50 - The ruined Abbey
Navda rose very early and slunk about the smoking ruins. He reported back that some of the building stone and wood had been arranged into orderly piles, and that there appeared to be an entrance hidden amongst the ruins. We decided to head to the covered entranceway, pulled the wooden covering off and descended into the darkness below. I cast Light onto my holy symbol, whilst the rest either relied on their innate night vision or carried torches.
Drakkon led the way down the stairs and stopped us as we encountered a charred wooden door. He found it difficult to push open the door, but he gradually muscled it aside with a rather loud grinding screech. Through the door, we emerged at the bottom of the stairs into a large chamber.
There were three people in the makeshift dining area, and they were ready to attack us as soon as we got through the door. Drakkon was severely hurt by the spear-toting guardsman as soon as he entered the room, but Navda and I were on target with our bow and Sacred Flame, killing both the cultists. The spear-wielding guard made short work of both Drakkon and Dharion as he shield-bashed them to the floor on several occasions. I managed to Heal them both from some of the damage but more was inflicted as the guard went into a shield-biting rage. With the two fighters on the ground he charged towards Gladreth and me. I must admit that I was truly worried at this time and suggested to Gladreth that now would be a good time to use a Lightning Bolt. She did so with such great effect that Navda was able to easily submit the coup de grace.
We rested up for a few moments and I salvaged the guard's half-plate armour. It was not too singed from the Lightning Bolt.
Eight doors led off of this room, so we decided to try to get to them in clockwise order starting at the one to the left of the stairs as we came down them.
Room 1 - inside this room were several small statues of various animals, mostly dogs, and garden gnomes, as well as two life-sized statues of a skeleton and a medusa at the far end of the room on plinths. There was a pallet full of blankets in here too. Navda searched the statues and found that the plinth of the medusa statue opened to reveal a drawer containing a couple of scrolls, a large silver holy symbol (a robed figure in flames) and a tome of various evil incantations.
As we continued our search, a pile of small statues and blankets moved to reveal a rather forlorn robed figure who introduced himself rather apologetically as Brother Odim. He was wearing a holy item of a black cross with a silver skull emblem - the symbol of Sirric, an evil god. He made out he was glad to have been rescued and apologised as he did not really want to be a part of the cult. We asked him several questions about the side chambers and he answered us falsely as we later found out when he ran off.
Room 4 - we went to this room first as Odim told us it was a guard room. It was far from such being filled with empty wine barrels and bottles. Still, we found a small pouch of gold coins and a rather smart looking dagger for our troubles.
Room 3 - this room was humid and had a greasy feeling to it, what with all the dirty dishes and cold, oily water everywhere; it appeared to be a kitchen of sorts as it contained a very large cauldron and utensils. It held nothing of value, unless three recipe scrolls in a case were of any value.
Room 2 - this room was full of bookcases, along with a high chair and scribe's desk. Unfortunately, it also contained four cultists who attacked us on sight. Dharion and I were quick to put two of them down, but even after they were called to surrender, the remaining two carried on fighting and were killed by Gladreth's magic and Drakkon's sword. The locked scribe's desk revealed 2 vials of exotic ink and two more magical scrolls. The bookshelves held a rather rich-looking set of blue and copper bound books regarding evil rituals.
Room 8 - beneath the stairs the door opened suddenly as we reached it. Navda was knocked to his knees and attacked whilst down by a guard and a cleric who were in this room. A spell from the cleric rendered everyone except Dharion and me inactive. I managed to Sacred Flame the cleric, but then the door to the room beside us burst open to reveal another guard and evil cleric who cast a Spirit Guardian spell that knocked me unconscious.
Whilst I was out for the count, I was told that Dharion was able to kill the cleric that cast the Spirit Guardian spell and his guard, whilst Navda finished off the guard in room 8. It was Dharion that saved my life as he had the only spell capable of bringing me round again. It was during this melee that Odim decided to make off - his lies had caused us no end of grief.
Whilst I was being revived, the rest of the party searched the room and found two more scrolls, some ruby earrings, a pouch of gold and a very fine pair of boots beneath a loose flagstone. The more powerful of the evil clerics also had a gold medallion around his neck which we purloined.
Room 7 - Now that the inhabitants were dead, we searched the very disorganised store room. In amongst the detritus we found four potions of Healing in very fancy decanters.
Room 6 - this appeared to be an old barracks room full of second rated arms and armour.
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| The dungeon below the ruined abbey |
Room 5 - this final room had three walls draped in black velvet, whilst the fourth wall held a mural of a red dragon devouring a sheep. A man in a hooded robe in the centre of the very clean room was scrubbing the already spotless floors around a brazier. We wondered why he hadn't reacted to the commotion outside or our coming into the room. Navda eased forward and prodded him but got no reaction. He then pulled off the man's hood to see that he had no ears, his eyes had been gouged out and he had blood all over his face. Seeing as how the rest of the cultists turned out to be evil, Drakkon put the man out of his misery just in case he turned out to be something sinister.
Navda got to work on finding another way out of the dungeon and managed to find a secret doorway behind the curtain of the southern wall. A quick search around the brazier by the rest of us revealed a small silver statue and an ornate candlestick.
Beyond the secret door was a short corridor that led into a square chamber that did not look finished. Besides the door in the east wall, there were two skeletal figures holding large axes looming over a pile of corpse-like figures in the corner.
