Adventure 28

Party Members:
Cloverdung – 6th Level Ranger
Othello – 6th Level Thief
Gubikla – 6th Level Magic User
Kavis – 5th Level Fighter
Bone – 5th Level Fighter

The party is about to head out of town when Othello starts to feel sick. He is not quite sure what is wrong but he does not feel normal. Othello visits the Sisters of Mercy temple. The priest says that for a small fee he could see what is wrong. Othello pays the small tithe. Yep, Othello has a terrible curse on him. Must have come from the wererats. The priest says that for a much larger fee, he can cure Othello. Grudgingly, Othello agrees and pays the 200gp to have the curse removed.

Now, the party is ready to leave town and go search the woods for the salt that was stolen by the centaurs a few adventures ago. As the group is approaching the ford in the river, there is some noise coming from the water. Othello decides to go investigate. As he nears the river, he sees a couple of ogres splashing in the water. Othello then realizes they are bashing the water, trying to catch fish. Othello does not want to fight them alone, so he throws a rock at one of the ogres to get its attention. Then Othello throws his voice towards the rest of the party, which are several hundred feet away, in an attempt to get the ogres to notice them instead of him. It works! The ogres start running towards the party, ignoring Othello. As Cloverdung sees the ogres, about 500ft away, he launches some arrows. Even with disadvantage on the attack, Cloverdung is able to kill one of the ogres before it reaches melee. Othello does a sneak attack on the other ogre and kills it.

With that danger out of the way, the group crosses the river and heads towards the woods. There is a path leading into the woods that Gubikla walks along, invisible. Cloverdung and Kavis are off the path to the left and Othello and Bone are off the path to the right. The party crosses into a section of the woods where some members begin to tingle. It is as though they just crossed some kind of magical barrier. Sneaking further into this area, Kavis notices someone kneeling at a statue, and praying. Cloverdung starts searching the area for the stolen wagon and salt. Othello starts going around the perimeter to see what else is in this clearing. Bone watches as Kavis walks up to the praying dude and starts talking to him.

The person appears to be quit ill, if not also beaten. He tells how he and his kind were trying to retrieve something and were attacked by undead and green things at the castle just to the north of here. The same castle this group of adventurers ran away from when they got near it. This guy hands Kavis a spear and tells him to return it to his people, across the mountains to the west. Although Kavis does not take damage, he realizes the spear is for those of the good alignment. A giant woodpecker (about 3ft tall) lands on the arm of the dying man. The man states that his goddess has answered his prayers. Suddenly, the woodpecker pecks away at the dying man’s head and kills him as his brain is crushed. Gubikla freaks out a little. Othello captures the woodpecker. Bone laughs.

Cloverdung finally discovers that the lean-to tents in this area are made from the wagon that was stolen. And there are some bags of salt left in one of the shelters. Cloverdung grabs the bags and makes a travois to carry them on.

Kavis decides to take the body of the man back to town to see if the local clerics can determine what sickness he had. Kavis wants to learn what the undead did to this guy before we even think about going near that castle again.

Realizing that it is getting late, the party decides to take the salt, dead guy, and woodpecker to their hideout. That way they can stay the night and then head to town. Upon waking the next day, a large group of birds can be seen circling just on the north side of the woods. Between the castle and where we found the dying guy. The group decides to investigate this first, and then go back to town.

The party approaches the area where the large vultures are circling and eating on bodies. It seems we have found the guy’s friends. At least their bodies. There are centaur bodies part of this group as well. All of which are being eaten by the giant vultures. Gubikla decides that if we are going to loot the bodies, he will need to start casting fireball. BAM!! A couple of the birds go down. The rest briefly scatter and then start their attack. Bone cleaves a few of them pretty easily. In fact, he kills a couple without even hitting them because his ability is to do damage even with a miss. Cloverdung starts pelting a couple with arrows. Gubikla resorts to other spells as the vultures stay spread out. Kavis is having a hard time hitting them. In fact, some party members refer to Kavis as Hammar because he is missing so poorly. Othello is picked up by one of the giant vultures and it begins to carry him away. Fortunately, Gubikla is able to hit the bird and free Othello. Well, free-fall is more accurate. As Gubikla is falling, Cloverdung tries to use his flying shield to catch him. Of course, Cloverdung forgets the magic words to start flying and falls flat on his face (rolled a 1 to catch Gubikla). There is a squishy sound as Gubikla falls to the dirt. He does not die but he does take a lot of damage. The birds are eventually killed and all the bodies are looted.

With our dead guy in tow, the party heads back to town and the Sisters of Mercy temple. Kavis asks them what kind of damage did the dead guy taking from the undead. The priest inform the group that it will take some research, and money to find that out. The party throws in funds to satisfy the priest and leave to go rest.

COD Piece Award
(Character Of the Day)

Hammar

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