Episode 3: Thaddeus got brave

And we're back with this new group of adventurers! Something I forgot to point out in the first post is all of us are level 1 and rather quite unskilled/green at being adventurers. We are all also quite poor at this point, so our gear is average at best.

When last we left this group our routine trip hadn't been so routine. Set upon by bandits, then wolves, things are definitely leaning towards the adventurous side of things. They had come to the end of the 3rd day of travel, circled the wagons in a wide spot in the road in the forest, and were setting up for the evening.

As a reminder in this party we have:

Kenara, the half-orc barbarian

Maermyl, the dwarven alchemist?

Viktus, the half-elf redeemer

Thaddeus, the nervous halfling fighter

Bedlam, the human madwalker

Biff, the dwarven barbarian

Glitra, the halfling bard

Settling in for the evening is fairly uneventful, we've got the basics now. Circle the wagons, make some food, set watches, rest. Glitra returns to under cart 2 for her rest period.

She was paired with Biff this time. He kept growling out one word comments. She kept telling him to use his words. It went well.

Maermyl is still trying to get folks to try her treats with varying reactions. Kenara seems to think Maermyl is trying to poison her and keeps stating as such.

But this night passed uneventfully. OK, not really.

See, two of the party members had unsettling dreams. First it gets Viktus, who sets in to analyze what he saw. Then he realized Thaddeus seems to be struggling but still asleep, so Viktus tries to settle him in for the night. Basically Viktus swaddled Thaddeus in his bedroll.

Nothing else happened though.

The next morning Viktus starts asking Thaddeus about his sleep. And they start comparing dreams. They were similar dreams, about the hill nearby. Viktus is analyzing things, Thaddeus is terrified.

And then someone got the hair-brained idea to go check out the road up to the top of the hill. Thaddeus is very not wanting to do this after the dream he had had, but eventually he was convinced to go. Captain Harkon said that's fine just be back in 30 minutes and leave one of the party with him. Off we went after deciding to leave Bedlam behind.

We are all young and energetic, but not quite in adventuring shape. Especially Thaddeus, the bakers son, who is far more familiar with sourdough than swords. By the time we got to the top of the hill, he was quite winded and had to pause for a moment.

At the top of the hill we find ruins, long ruined ruins. Maermyl proceeds to investigate the plantlife, why is it dead at the top of the hill but fades to growing when it starts going back down the hill, and if there's anything she can use. The rest of us go about the ruins investigating. At some point someone rings the still standing bell and it rings out, and we're convinced that people in town could hear it. Clearly that's why this is called lookout hill.

Glitra does find some writing, though she can't read it, so she proceeds to start drawing the symbols for the record. She also calls over Viktus, who spends some time studying it. He's fairly sure it's a dialect of Elven, though he's not quite placing it.

Then someone investigated around the sheer cliff face down on the far side of the ruins, and realized there was an interesting stain on a tiny ledge. Kenara, who is far braver than the brave halflings, rappelled down to check it out. Finding some more of the odd writing and figuring out the odd stain is very old very dried out blood, she climbs back up and tells Viktus to go check it out.

Since Viktus is not quite as athletic as Kenara, they wind up deciding it's best if she lowers him down to the ledge. After studying the writing for a bit he finally realized the dialect is an old version of the Winter Elves language and is able to decipher a few words. And in doing that, he was able to trigger the door hidden in the stone face.

Just inside the door is a long dead armored skeleton, so he call for the party to come down. The more athletic amongst us rappel down much like Kenara did, and she graciously lowered those of us aren't quite so able. Thaddeus, however, is not having it and it took much coaxing and coercion before we can get him down the cliff face.

Eventually we're all reassembled at the cave opening. And indeed just inside the doorway is a long dead skeleton wearing armor. Investigating the departed it is determined that he was at one point a Paladin. Stripping him of the remains of his armor and weaponry - they're not in good shape after all this time - Biff then tosses the bones off the cliff face.

Because we're respectful like that.

Wandering into the cave cautiously we find another long-dead armored skeleton with similar insignia to the fellow at the entrance. He also has a journal in his hand. There is also a pile of bones in one corner, and an alter against the far wall. And this alter is occupied.

There's a dead humanoid on the alter with a sword through his chest. And there's a skeletal hand holding the sword through the dead humanoid on the alter's chest. Looking about, on the far side of the alter is a 3rd dead paladin whose hand is gripping the sword going through the dead humanoid on the alter's chest.

While taking this all in we start investigating about while Biff takes it upon himself to start attempting to behead the dead humanoid on the alter. Kenara also starts picking up parts of the bone pile and chucking them out the door.

And then Thaddeus gets brave.

He walks straight up to the alter, looking terrified and determined, reaches up and pulls the sword straight out of the dead humanoid/alter.

This triggers a whole lot of problems. The door to the outside slams shut, luckily not on anyone. The dead paladin that was gripping the sword dropped into a pile of armored bones. And the dead humanoid on the alter stood up, summons the bones of the two dead paladins to rise, and attacks.

Yes, we let a mostly dead necromancer loose that promptly turns the dead paladins in to skeleton minions.

So a fight ensues and it was far more difficult than our previous combats. Our fighter and barbarians get to swinging weapons while Glitra tries to encourage and heal. Viktus keeps up his combat support role but we quickly use up a lot of our resources on this fight. Many of us are seriously damaged and at one point Biff goes down.

But we were victorious this time, and Biff survived.

And that's where this session ends!

And our heroes are now level 2!