Episode 10: Maybe we are becoming a team

When last we left this fun band of misfits we had just dispatched a statue-golem but were still trapped in a semi circular room with the tunnel we came from blocked off by an iron gate, and a count down timer with a lever on the other door out of the room.

So how does one get out of a room with one entrance blocked, an apparently trapped door blocking the other entrance, and no other exits? Well, we weren't sure, so we set about using our various skills to figure out what is going on.

After much investigation, Thonk let go of the lever and let it count down ... and nothing happened. OK, now what? Well Vohn, the one who originally stepped on the pressure plate that started the whole mess, went over and stepped on the pressure plate again. Timer started right back to counting down, so he remained standing on the pressure plate until the timer counted down to 0.

And this time the door opened. Our running theory is this is some sort of anti-chamber to trap werewolves underground and not let them up into the city and that the statue-golems were there to kill the werewolves that got trapped in that room.

So we return to our split mode of travel, Malek and Meghan in the front using their dark vision, the rest of the party following 60' behind. Paul decided to perch on Lutor's horn this go around.

At the end of the hall we found a flight of stairs up to another locked door and after a bit of tinkering, Malek opened it up allowing us all to enter the Mayor's Mansion in town. Yay! So now what?

We doused the light from Lutor's horns and proceed to cautiously explore the mansion to find it completely unoccupied. There are sounds of a rally or something off in the distance however, so we revert to our sneaky members in front while the rest follow behind mode. Malek and Vohn go first, with Paul on Malek's shoulder, Meghan and the rest a distance behind. Meghan has blind sight, she's not as good at sneaking.

Our goal is to find the library/book store where the town "crazy lady" insists there's a book that describes what is going on. Of course, the townspeople think she's the typical "crazy cat lady" so to speak. We know where her shop is we just need to get there and back to the mayor's mansion without being seen.

We were able to find the book store fairly easily and without much mishap. Behind the shop district in town is an open area, and the werewolves are having some sort of rally there involving much shouting and a bonfire, so we're trying to be extra sneaky. It is very hard to be too sneaky with a Paladin in plate armor however, no matter how small he may be. Luckily the shouting from the rally covers the sounds from his armor.

Inside the shop it's a veritable treasure trove of books. Lots of books big and small. We're all agog at this, but some of us remain focused enough to find the lock-box with the story locked inside. Malek wanted to load up on a few more books for reference, which Fizzledorp did not really appreciate just taking from this store owner, but then he discovered you can sign up for a library card and just check books out, so he did that. Ah Paladins and their obedience to the law.

So we reverse back to the Mayor's Mansion following the same plan with the sneaky ones in front, then return to the tunnels and the werewolf pups. Fizzledorp talks with the puppies to find out what they wanted to do and after a bit of back and forth we realized the puppies were en route to town with their father. Since they are werewolves, and that's where their father was going, we escorted them back to town with the promise that they not tell the other werewolves about us.

By this time it is getting late so we decide to lock up the tunnels and return to the farm house where we started. We wanted to spend some time to figure out how to get to the book, and we do need to rest at some point.

So the book is in a lockbox of sorts. There are 15 indentations and 12 stones in those indentations, plus a few extra stones, and we have to figure out how to get it to open. The mechanics of this was quite fun, basically we had to play against the "book" (the GM). Each turn the player (or book) has to take between 1 and 3 stones and whoever took the last stone "wins".

We found out very quickly that if the book wins, we get zapped.

Each of us take a turn at the book but each of us lose, and get zapped, but then Meghan got an idea of adding some of the extra stones into the mix to throw off the pattern. Then Malek goes I think I have it and used Meghan's adding extra stones and disrupted the pattern ... and we won.

So Malek settled in to read the story while the rest of us set up camp for the night and started doing our rest routines.

After the characters settle down a bit and get comfortable Meghan went to find Vohn, sat down next to him, and reached out a hand to him that holds an apple from her bag. "draki, I owe you an apology. You did your duty well today, including shooting that goopy monster I was stuck in. Thank you. "

Vohn takes the apple and starts to eat it and responds "Thank you, that means a lot to me. I never thought that working in a different group would be so hard. I am very excited about this whole new world that we are all in ... it's just ... taking some getting used to."

"And that's the problem, we're all still getting used to each other. I'm not even used to being in a group, I usually work solo especially since ... well, that's a story for another time. And to be honest, your gun is quite disconcerting to me, it will take awhile for me to become accustomed to it. As a Druid I am far more comfortable out in the natural world than ... well pretty much everything we did tonight. I will work on on this. "

"I hear you. This is extremely new to me. I've traditionally been out in nature myself. Though, my gun I am quite accustomed to. I used to work in a group with my mentor. He taught me how to use guns... I do like this though. Being in a group I mean."

After that Meghan wandered off to get comfortable, update her journal, and rest.