SessionTwelve

November 22, 2008

The party leaves the bar of the undead, catches a bath, and hits the shops, looking to buy new armor. Really, only Osrik, who buys scale mail and a hammer, and Gloriana, who buys chainmail, got new gear. And Chaedi wants new clothes. [Have no idea why she needs more or how she will carry them...] Then, they eat breakfast pastries from stalls because killing the undead makes you hungry.

Chaedi's quest to get a magic orb leads the party to the Vilmians, a gypsy-like people who rove around in wagons and are generally shunned by the leery townsfolk for having sticky fingers. It's also another opportunity to possibly learn about freaky women (or men) and their bug fetishes. Anyway, the wagons are "sparkly" painted [ask the DM; it's his description], and they see activity around one of the wagons. They approach the wagon [with Osrik insisting they approach it in a friendly, innocent manner. We are armed to the teeth. How innocent can we look?!], and a person greets them and asks if they are there to see Mistress Zorba [the Greek?], who tells fortunes ... and sells magical stuff on the side. Oh yeah, she's the "master of all things arcane."

She's apparently pretty good because she charges 1 gp per reading through her crystal ball or 2 sp for an astrological chart. [And they wonder why the townsfolk aren't beating down their wagons' doors...] Since Zorba is with another customer at the moment, a Vilmian tries to "entertain" Chaedi with a shell game. Alecsa is less than impressed. Cinoi considers blasting the cups but doesn't want to make the wrong impression. Can't imagine how that could lead to the wrong impression... Chaedi jumps right in there and blows money. Miraculously, she stops playing after the second round of winning before the real suckering can begin.

Cinoi wanders off to another wagon, where he encounters a young woman name Loxara, who claims she has stuff to sell. Not surprisingly, Cinoi bought it. And miraculously didn't come out with a much lighter purse. Or bugs.

In the meantime, Alecsa checks out the third wagon, where a man tells her that the wagon is just his home. She then wanders around the wagons, looking for anything odd. She can't hear anything from Zorba from the outside.

In the meantime, Chaedi has dragged Gloriana into Mistress Zorba's tent to have her fortune told. First, she buys a +1 orb off of Zorba then tries to wheedle the woman into telling her fortune for free because she's "poor." Gloriana pays for it, just to cut that wagon of whine off at the pass! +Hey, she shelled out 360 gp; the least she could get in return is a free fortune+. Zorba tells Chaedi that her heart lies in a deep, dark place, far beneath the ground. [I wonder if this is a reference to Dudley or to Chaedi's obvious lack of one.] Looking into the crystal ball, Chaedi sees a stone chamber with four statues, holding swords and crossing them over what looks like a pit. One statue is of a human who wears a winged helm and full plate armor, another appears to be a dwarf, and two others could be elves or humans. She thinks she sees an outdoor view of a mountain with the sun behind it and a couple of towers with a path leading to them before the crystal ball's images fade. Zorba claims is it a strange and powerful vision. When Chaedi suggests Zorba tell Gloriana her future, the cleric is offended and refuses. Lir has laid out her future!

Alecsa takes a turn at testing Mistress Zorba's future telling skills. Because the day is stretching into boring and a good fortune telling is always fun. Zorba tells Alecsa that she sees a dark castle with a cloud over it, and she will seek something of great value there. [Ooh, that was a clever one.] Something of power is there, but she can't see it clearly through the cloud that wraps the castle. There are bats flying over the castle and a flag with two black crows. When Alecsa tries to get Zorba to tell something about Alecsa's life, to see if she's any good at this game, in this case where she comes from, Zorba tells her she sees trees but doesn't know where they are. They are large trees, and Eladrin are there. [I'm thinking she's picking up Chaedi, here.] Then, she claims to see a fine house where a man and woman are wearing fancy clothes. They are humans. [Have no idea who fits that bill. Gloriana doesn't.] Then, she backpedals and says they might be half-elves. Alecsa tips her but thinks she's full of it. But, it was fun.

Overall, they learn the Vilmians are there to sell horses, which were depleted during the goblin war, have some questionable fortune telling skills, and know nothing of bug ladies or anything else along those lines.

Alecsa's goal for the rest of the day is to track down any information on the bug lady issue and the whereabouts of Golnath Houd. To that end, she and Gloriana head to the temples, and the others head off to check with scholars, getting no farther than the inn. They find out the Houd is a cursed place. [Isn't everything?] About five miles north of Lad is an evil temple, Golnath Houd. It is a partially ruined place, but the evil goblins and hobgoblins worshipped there. They say it's easy enough to find if they go north of the village of Pel, where it's easily seen. There have been undead sightings there.

Everyone in this town so has no idea what happens in their own back yards- er, back alleys.

Those avenues not panning out, Alecsa starts with the tried and true method of wandering about town asking the elderly and the drunk, even the elderly drunk, what they may know or have seen, and she also stops to buy bug repellent. A lot of it. Citronella. Cinoi joins her on this venture after she asks very, very nicely, and he turns down Osrik's offer of a game of mumblety-peg. [That dwarf is just weird.] +he was just trying to be polite!+ [Why? All of a sudden? And with a knife game?] They find a wasted guy that tells them the goblins attacked with zombies that looked like the villagers of Pel last year. Says his cousin knew some of them. It's said that anyone who dies in Golnath Houd will rise from the dead. Pel is now deserted. [See, that was important information!] From there, Cinoi and Alecsa plan on a great date of burning the town of Pel and getting a lot of loot, counting gold coins under the glow of the fire! He even tosses her gold that she puts in her boot. For counting later.

They also learn that outside Lad, between Lad and Pel, there is a hill with a stone ring on it. Cinoi is very interested in stone rings, and wants to visit it. The PC's get confused about where the stone ring is and accidentally go past it without stopping on our way to Pel.

So, the party sets out for Pel, with the impatient Osrik leading the way and Cinoi talking of the prospect of adding to his pebble collection. At Pel, they come to a fork in the road and see a graveyard that looks pretty torn up. Pel itself isn't in much better shape. Searching the houses yields nothing in the way of loot or information. Checking out the graveyard, they find nothing of interest. However, Osrik becomes rather obsessed with making a wooden stake from the coffins remains. So, they go check out the temple of Golnath Houd. Here is where they realize they missed the stone ring. Cinoi is quite disappointed.

The temple is built of stone on a stone platform eight feet high with pillars rising up to the remains of a roof, all in classic temple style. [Whatever that might be in this world.] It's 150' north-south, and 50' wide east-west. Dead trees surround it, with the trees on the south side looking somewhat alive.

And so, the intrepid party begins their search of the temple.

SessionFourteen