A Visit To Slave City

[size=16]A Visit To Slave City
So in the small hours the Swift Venture rowed out of harbour before switching to sail. It was a night of squalls which blocked the moonlight occasionally as belts of rain protested our journey. Any discord in the party after some of Malakai’s earlier antics were forgotten.

After quite a slow crossing tacking continually against the prevailing winds we approached a lonely jetty on the edge of Highport old town. Little seemed to be going on, movement perhaps imagined sometimes caught the corner of our eyes and there were very few lights showing though the first hints of dawn could be glimpsed beyond the town.

An exchange of signals with the shore using a shuttered lantern and we coasted briefly up to the jetty where we leapt onto the hostile bank, our transport drifting on to clear the headland so it could drop its oars. A gruff character called Jameson met us and said little after his curt introduction, other than to occasionally shush us or order us to take cover as we made our way through the ruins of a once prosperous town.

We reached the ruins of the temple where the slavers were headquartered surprisingly quickly, they obviously had no fear of attack from the harbour direction. The walls rose perhaps 20 feet and occasionally some movement betrayed the presence of a hopefully bored and inattentive guard.

To a scowl from Jameson we scouted a little; we had approached from the seaward side and no entrance could be seen, not could we detect any on the East or west walls though we did not risk anything more than a distant observation. The South wall was the shortest and beyond it could be seen the rooves of taller buildings especially in the South East corner. As the sky began to brighten it picked out damaged sections of wall though no serious breaches, and some rubble was scattered outside the walls.

Under Jameson’s irritated direction we chose our moment to work our way cautiously through the rubble to an innocuous section of wall where he revealed with a few deft presses a secret door that pivoted revealing a cramped antechamber with the back of another secret door at its end. We entered and Jameson closed the door behind, us sealing us into the slavers lair.

Zunee using his Find traps spell led the way and we quickly found what could be a trap: The secret door opened into a corridor and there was a manually operated spiking device there that seemed to activate a spring loaded beam to strike anyone emerging through the door when a rope was cut. Fortunately the defenders again gave the impression of complacency and there was no evidence that the area had been manned of late, Bernice checked the corridor to the right and it was clear with a door at the end. We chose to head left along a longer corridor that seemed to parallel the west wall.

Rounding a corner we found a rubble strewn chamber, the floor was covered with debris and whilst we had already seen scorched stonework as we approached this room had clearly been a scene of serious conflagration, there was even evidence of extreme heat as partly melted metal objects could be seen amongst the rubble and looking up it was evident that the second storey to this room had largely collapsed into it, though a few feet of ceiling was left clinging to the walls.

Zunee advanced into the room picking his was carefully through the rubbish and hazards on the floor, and was therefore somewhat surprised when a large number of ghouls led by two ghasts dropped from the ledges above the door. Fortunately the Ranger is well armoured and only took one hit from multiple attacks as he desperately defended himself dropping back to the doorway.

Less fortunately no one else could join him in the narrow corridor or even get a shot off from a missile weapon. Bernice dropped back to watch the rear whilst Malakai began shooting magic missiles into the horde. Zunee now managed to drive back the ghouls with the power of his faith but the ghasts were made of sterner stuff. The fight continued and fortunately the ghast’s stench did not greatly affect any of the team.

Now though the ranger was struck a paralysing blow and Varamir had to grab him and pull him clear before charging into the fray himself as the mages magic missiles were exhausted. Malachi now cast protection from evil on the dwarf to assist, and with a diminutive fighter in the lead Bernice now joined attacking over Varamir’s head. Triumph as last as the dwarf’s trusty axe cleaved the last ghast.

A grisly few moments work despatching the cowering ghouls before they recovered and then it was time to regroup. Zunee recovered from his paralysis to cast some cures and the monk scooted up the wall to search the ledge from where the ghouls had dropped. She found several gems and what looked like a potion.

We headed north to another room containing a flight of stairs up and decided to rest and recover spells which we were able to do without incident. Proceeding up the stairs a problem presented itself: This time we emerged on the second storey of a badly damaged room, burned out like the first, however whilst this room also had a ledge of damaged floor around the edges, there was also a rickety looking beam crossing the centre of the room giving three possible routes across.

On the far side could be seen an exit, meanwhile below the floor of the ground floor room had also collapsed into a cellar beneath giving a drop of around thirty feet rather than ten. The left hand ledge looked fragile at best, the central beam a little better but narrow, the right looked sturdier and broader so the dwarf set out to cross using the eastern ledge, roped as a precaution with the rest of the party holding on.

Half way across a structurally important bean under the ledge gave way causing a partial collapse of the eastern wall knocking the dwarf clean off the ledge. Might the dwarf had spotted the unsafe section?* Still no time for recriminations, amazingly the three on the rope were able to hold on and avoid being pulled down with the dwarf and they reeled him back up.

*Not rolling a 99

The collapse blocked the right hand ledge and enabled us to see a large courtyard beyond that must dominate the interior of the complex. We decided a two pronged approach to crossing the room: Bernice is of course a great climber so she climbed round the west wall just above the damaged floor in the hope that if she fell it would hold. She made it all the way round. The rest went across on the central beam which we also pulled off successfully. Last across the dwarf.

We continued on, yet more burned out corridor and found an alcove containing three barrels. After some debate the barrels were introduced to dwarf battle axe (find traps of course had shown them to be hazard free). The barrels proved to contain a vinegar like substance, possibly vinegar, but as no one had any southern fried chicken to marinade we tipped it into the collapsed room in the hope that we might find something concealed in the barrels, but no.

Continuing onward and stairs brought us back to ground level in another room. This room had a pile of rags in the centre. As Bernice scouted toward the exit on the far side the rags proved to be some kind of giant carnivorous plant, which sent snake like tendrils coated in acid towards the monk. The rest of the party leapt to assist and immediately everyone was fighting for their lives, except Malakai of course who fired magic missiles from a safe distance. It eventually expired with the party’s official assistance.

The good news was that we found three more gems amongst the root system, plus a ring that Malakai felt was magical.
The ranger and monk both had been entangled with tentacles that had some sort of strong glue secretion, but the acid was washed away using waterskins and gluey tentacles were scraped off with some difficulty. If only we’d had some vinegar to deal with it, but hey where could we possibly have found enough of that to help? Oh, yeah…

21.5.22

Experience awards
Malakai
Ghouls & Ghasts 250
Gems and Potion ghouls & Ghasts 815
Using Protection from evil on the dwarf 250
Roping the dwarf 100
Giant Sundew 485
Sundew treasure 500
Ring 2,500
Characterisation and roleplay 50
Total 4,950 +bonus = 5,445
Requires 4,354

Bernice
Ghouls & Ghasts 100
Searching the Ghouls ledge 50
Gems and Potion ghouls & Ghasts 815
Roping the dwarf 100
Giant Sundew 485
Sundew treasure 500
Characterisation and roleplay 50
Total 2,100 Reqd 7,982

Zunee
Ghouls & Ghasts 600
Gems and Potion ghouls & Ghasts 815
Healing 50
Roping the dwarf 100
Using Find Traps 50
Giant Sundew 485
Sundew treasure 500
Characterisation and roleplay 50
Total 1,325/1,325 + Bonus = 1,325/1,457
Required 11.903/24,093

Varamir
Ghouls & Ghasts 250
Gems and Potion ghouls & Ghasts 815
Giant Sundew 485
Sundew treasure 500
Total 2,050 + bonus = 2,255
Reqd 24,145


[/size]