The Arden Vul Weasels return. A hard return.
The Players:
- Referee: Havoc
- Lykourga, the Glamorous Threadspinner, an imperial goblin who dreams of being an illusionist (Level 4 Magic-User/Level 2 Goblin) – yours truly.
- Dorothea, a petty thief who was inspired to become a priestess (Level 1 Cleric) – yours truly.
- Godiva, elfin-blooded Thorcin shephard (Level 2 Fighter/Level 1 Magic-User) – spuk
- Authur, a Wiskinga fighting woman who escaped the fate of a farmer with a sword in hand (Level 3 Fighter) – dandelionprocessions
At Gosterwick, we ordered good furniture for the hall and decided that we should be living rather frugally this month as we still had to recover funds. Summer was well on its way.
After Leofwin’s death, both Eofor and Lykourga were in no good mood. Since cellar was absent, we suggested as a provision that Eofor is deeply in grief for his cousin and entrusted Lykourga to lead the Weasels.
We were joined by two new characters. The first is Godiva, an elfin-blooded Thorcin woman, a silent shepherd with magical knowledge who can be rude and uncivil, and who perhaps dreams of becoming a Druid. Leofwin meet her off-screen, trying to impress her with revolutionary speeches, and while that didn’t go anywhere (the 36 years old woman wasn’t too impressed by the 19yo blabbermouth), Leofwin declared her an inheritor in his will like a dork, and she fell in with the Weasels. Eofor ordered Hieroxinius to follow her, since she’s also Thorcin.
Meanwhile, while drunk mourning Leofwin, Lykourga hit it off with another drunkard: an Archontean cleric by the name of Dorothea, who was a petty thief until she was sure a vision sent by Athena had met her. Although she is a clearly vicious, drunkard criminal at heart (and quite creepy in appearance, due to a lack of sleep and care in presentation), her sincere faith and jovial energy helped.
Godiva tried to summon a familiar and failed.
With the death of the Weasels, Eofor is the official leader, since he’s a Fighter, however Lykourga acts as his sage counsellor, and leader in his absence. She determines that the Weasels must do another expedition to recover the remaining sarcophagus, wanting to spare Eofor’s feelings from entering that room again.
On the trip to Arden Vul, the group was caught by a mountain lion during the climb. The lion, which ignored the armored people, immediately jumped on Dorothea, who failed her roll. Her neck was undone by a swift bite and the mountain lion ran with her body to its nest, without pursuit. Lykourga asked the crew for five minutes of mourning, and, completely depressed, she ordered them to keep moving in order to recover the sarcophagus, her promise of Dorothea having potential as a great Weasel lied into nothing in her first minute of adventure.
They returned to the room of Leofwin’s death. They retrieved the sarcophagus without issue, as well as two urns. Back in town, Lykourga successfully negotiated for the treasure, but their plans of training Authur are still not enough. Lykourga took care of the funeral for Dorothea and charged Authu’s baculus with Gust of Wind. Exhausted, she smiled at everyone and determined the plans for the next day: exploring more of the third floor. At the next morning, happy to brave a new day, she surprised everyone by being six foot tall with a much denser skin, having grown into a hobgoblin during the night.
Upon return, Lykourga threw a bag of food to the rats, and explained to the newcomers that they were Leofwin’s friends, clearly looking insane. Hieroxinius just nodded, confirming her story. She cast Comprehend Languages on one of the magic mouths south, understanding its words: “Behold the Glory of Thoth! Mysteries of past, present and future are known to those who speak his name and direct his arms. Knowledge is power!”. “Direct his arms” immediately soured her mood, and she requested everyone to move on.
Moving past the east mouth, we came across a diamond-shaped chamber, and quite illuminated by magic. We saw a blue granite pool filled with dirty water, without a Cleric to purify it. Depressed again, Lykourga asked everyone to move on. We found a silent door. Inside, a dead end chamber with a thick layer of trash, most likely from the adventuring company. We moved further south in the corridor. We found a rectangular room, without exits, with grey-green mist, stone benches facing west, empty sconces, dirty mithric writing and a big black pillar on the west corner.
Godiva took her cloak to wave away the mist and make the floor a clear path for Lykourga and Authur to read the inscription. Approaching the pillar, we realized that there were a couple steps down hidden by the mist, and that the pillar should be at least double its apparent size. The inscription read “Thou May Ask of Thoth What Thou Will, Provided Thou Accept His Judgment.” Godiva, ever curious and unafraid of judgement, was blessed by Lykourga to try it. She humbly put herself in front of the pillar, touched it, and asked for judgement and knowledge of how to go deeper into Arden Vul. She was struck by great electricity that would have killed a lesser person, but was blessed with a view of Thoth, instructing her how to find a secret door in the trash room.
We went down the hidden corridor, finding some steps going up to nowhere. We found, naturally, another secret passage. A twenty-foot ceiling chamber with rows of columns presented itself, as well as many corpses. Authur noticed six translucent squid creatures floating above us, and we sneaked to a stuck door, feeling tense as Authur took a turn to open it. The corridor beyond brought us to a room that rubbed shoulders with the pillar room, covered in absolute trash. A group of beastmen (couple sheep, one pig, couple rats) led by a rat sergeant were rummaging through it. Sergeant Agathos, the leader, discussed his goals (finding furniture) and some mapping issues with Lykourga. We learned of the great hall of the Children of Deimos, and that the squid were Chasm Cephalopods, infamous for their electricity and random aggressivity.
We couldn’t find a secret door back into the pillar, so we traced back to check another door that we had somehow failed to map. While exploring the corridor beyond it, we had a random encounter with the adventuring company, who recognized Lykourga. She tried to charm the rowdy frat boys, especially the scout leader, but he reacted poorly to it. They insisted in going along with the party, but Lykourga held her ground. The gang laughed upon realizing all the present Weasels were but foreigners, and that following them would be ridiculous anyway. As soon as they left, Lykourga said, under her breath, that the Weasels would kill all of them.
We determined that we should return to Gosterwick so Godiva could rest from her electrical wound. On the way back, we found the mountain lion resting. Lykourga immediately cast Sleep, took her knife and savagely ripped its throat herself. She asked the others to carry it back so we could taxidermize it for the Hall of the Weasel, which Godiva gladly agreed to. After a week of rest, we returned to Arden Vul. Lykourga again cast Sleep to round down all the cephalopods, and Hieroxinius killed all of them. We ransacked the bodies, finding quite a few things in a wizard’s body. We moved east to see what was beyond the hall, and found a ruined alabaster bookstand as well as two doors. Past the left door, we found dead bodies and broken equipment. A lot of magic shined below, and we took three turns to find all of it.
A magic longsword. A magic shield. A gold ring. A grimoire so massive it might as well be level 6. An incandescent blue stone.
As we finished ransacking, random encounter. The door closed behind us. Hieroxinius went to open it, and after some effort, turned to us, pale. The door was painted, as we were trapped inside.
Notes
Just before we were trapped in the corridor, I proposed that we should return to Gosterwick with our findings, being conservative. We ultimately decided to explore the corridor, something we would do at some point anyway. It was the perfect cliffhanger for a session all about the struggle between being conservative with our findings and being aggressive.
So much has happened over the session that it is hard to put it into shape. Dorothea died in the first few minutes of it and shaped Lykourga’s attitude as a leader the whole way: when we met the mountain lion again, out of incredible luck, I didn’t think twice about Lykourga simply killing it with her own hands, as well as declaring that the company needs to be destroyed after seeing her friends (mostly otherized women, in fact) mocked by a bunch of weakling frat boys. We made more trips back and forth from Gosterwick than I can remember, carefully calculating every move, and ended up trapped just as I was thinking about returning to ensure Lykourga could rise to a level 3 goblin, gain more size and strength. So it goes.
I was in an incredibly bad mood at the start of the session for unrelated issues. Playing, as it always does, revitalized my sour disposition, out of the chance of being with people I like and trust, as well as the sheer energy of having a bad mood within a fictional space. I think Lykourga’s more proactive (bloodthristy?) was a natural result of the events, more than my own mood.
It is proper that the first Archontean PC in the campaign who isn’t a goblin was immediately killed five minutes in. The Weasels are, fundamentally, people out of the empire, and even the dice know it. Rest in peace, Dorothea.
Roll to Doubt 