Session 8 Recap: Choosing a Castle

On a chilly Friday the 13^th, the team reassembled to continue our relentless search for a home. In response to our requests for tougher enemies, the first group of eels we encountered on the second floor nearly ate us alive. We finally reached our goal at the top of the base: a kraken-shaped fountain with a lever. Daisy and Royce pulled it enthusiastically, unleashing a geyser of water that carried us – and all of the base’s monsters – all the way out of the complex.

A strange party awaited us on the steps, asking for Daisy. Daisy didn’t know them, and yet they were horribly familiar – as she told her companions, groups just like this one had been popping up everywhere for some time. It was always the same: they sought to take her life. As usual, the strangers refused to identify themselves, and a fight ensued. Thanks to huge boosts in defense from Kuarjav and Harold and relentless blows from everyone else, we managed to best them, even after their leader transformed into an octopus near the end. Harold searched the bodies and found several interesting things. First, he spotted a letter addressed to George O’Brien (the Octopus Man), which promised triple the usual pay if the team managed to kill Daisy and claimed that “the future of our people is at stake.” It was signed Octavia, finally giving Daisy her first clue as to the identity of her harassers, though the name means nothing to her for now. We also noticed that each of the attackers had a variant of a strange rune bound to them: a simple octopus, squirrel, sparrow or deer, in front of a pole. These might look a bit familiar to anyone who’s taken a close look at Daisy’s rune…

That was it for the naval base, and Lynn decided to join us while she was still high on adrenaline from all the adventuring and attempted assassination. So we hopped on Vasuki and flew to the third and final piece of real estate, stopping at a couple of towns along the way to explore. The first stop was the kobold town of Highcrest, where we purchased a precious Onion Seed and some furs to trade later. The kobold in charge of the trading post was named Monty, and we made a note to visit him again later. Several kobolds around the village mentioned that they’d been seeing a black dragon with a female rider in the area, and Royce started to worry about his rival again.

Our second stop was the dwarven town of Snowview, just outside the abandoned castle we’d come to explore. After acquiring the all-important Pumpkin Seed, potato recipe and all the dwarven ale we could carry, we made the acquaintance of the dwarven elder, Cyrus, and his son Mitch. They said that Harmonia has kept the old castle off-limits to its former dwarven inhabitants lately, but a dwarf adventurer named Dale might help us get inside. We found him in the tavern, and he agreed at once.

We fought our way through several floors of forges and monsters that became increasingly dangerous for Kuarjav, who is weak to fire. Luckily, inside one of the old forges we found a set of fireproof armor, which was passed to Kuarjav without delay. The only creature waiting for us in the final chamber this time was a mad old dwarf named Ferdinand, who had named himself king of the castle and was obviously beyond all reason. So we killed him (with Dale’s approval), claimed the Brass Hammer he guarded, and reported back to the village that the castle had been cleared and was only waiting to be claimed again *wink wink*. Dale, with no adventuring left to do in the dwarven lands, opted to join the folks who were sporting twenty-one casks of dwarven ale and accompanied us back to Belhurst.

Daisy suggested that we claim the Sindar ruins as our official base of operations, keep a secret skeleton crew at the abandoned naval base in the north, and return the dwarven castle to the dwarves in exchange for their alliance. There were no objections, though Caesar pointed out that it might be some time before the dwarves were sufficiently convinced of our power to join us. And so the first recruitment drive is now officially underway. We kicked it off by picking up Gomez the Storage Guy in Belhurst for the price of a 5000 potch long-distance storage device. Dalton the dwarf was our next recruit, an armorer back in Snowview who had always wanted to leave his little village. And we finished the day in Norbank with the recruitment of Joyce the Innkeeper – though only Harold knows the full story.

When we return to the plot next week (after some serious recruiting and exploration), Caesar has requested that we try to raise some war funds to help build up the new base. He suggests that we visit the town of Lindenville near Crystal Valley and meet with a wealthy merchant named Katherine, who, as a second-class Harmonian married to a third-class, should be sympathetic to our cause. Happy recruiting, everyone!