December 1, 2024
Beggar 25, 5043
(9:00 am)
Still speaking with townspeople about travel, and trying to
become accustomed to our current diminished capacity. Seems like Val will be our guide along the
road (Down, down the Witches Road) and we will be doing our best not to step
off the road and become lost in space and time.
We are, for sure, not trying to meet Cthulhu.
We go through the curtain and onto the road with Val leading
us.
VALANTHE: The Road surface looks
the same as the Waste surface. But there
is a border between them. It looks like
6” high bamboo, except where the landing is. That looks like a 6” miniature of the
curtain from the landing side. I can
only see about 30’-40’, either into the Waste or along the Road
Arden decides to explore – plants immovable rod with
rope – walks out 5’. Finds
that he can see and hear nothing. Turns
180º and walks straight back. Wants someone to carry Val off road to see if
Val can see. Beari
steps off the road with Val and Arden holding on to Beari.
VALANTHE: I cannot see any more than you can. I think we should go back. Turn around; ok, a little more; just a tiny
bit more; there. Now go straight and we’ll
get back to the Road.
Beari turns around and steps back. While standing on the road, Arden could still
feel his hand, but could not feel Beari. Leaning down, Arden finds he can feel the
ground in the Waste with his hands.
Arden uses Intuit Direction to find North, steps off the Road, finds
that Intuit Direction to find North again, uses that to orient himself for
returning to the Road, and does.
New Marching order; Val(carried by Beari),
Beari, Arden, Zora,
Ben We walk on and on.
VALANTHE: It feels like we are just walking in a
straight line, but what I am seeing is that the Road sometimes curves back and
forth. Sometimes it is a gradual curve,
sometimes it is quite sharp. When it is
sharp, I cannot see around the curve and my sight distance is much less than
30’. Also, on a sharp curve I
cannot look across the intervening Waste and see the next loop of the Road.
Beari suggests walking songs to keep
focused. Arden starts singing.
VALANTHE: Up ahead on the left, there’s a five
foot long patch of the border which looks to be made up of wheat stalks instead
of bamboo. I don’t know what this
means, but I suspect that if we were to step off the Road there, we would not
be moving into the Waste.
We step through and see a 20’x30’
space consisting of a gravel beach to a fresh water source. We have been walking 9 or 10 hours. We decide to camp. Beari casts Rope Trick and we all climb in.
Beggar 26, 5043
In the morning – and every morning hereafter – we cast buffs for
the day (taking the place of the not available Heroes’ Feast):
Zora –
Bull’s Strength (STR 1d4+1); Cat’s Grace (DEX 1d4+1)
Beari –
Fox’s Cunning (INT 1d4+1)
Ben – Bull’s Strength
(STR 1d4+1); Owl’s Wisdom (WIS 1d4+1)
And we continue down, down, the
witches road. After another 9-10 hours:
VALANTHE: There’s another patch of wheat stalks
up ahead on the right. Probably another
small pocket of Here?
We cautiously move in. 100’ diameter grass space with floral
edge. Looks cared for but currently
uninhabited. Arden checks for tracks,
doesn’t find any. Beari casts Rope
Trick, set watch schedule; night passes.
Beggar 27, 5043
Do buffs. Walk another 9-10 hours.
VALANTHE: Up ahead on the left. The bamboo turns into miniature
evergreens. Do we want to go through?
We step in and it is wacky. The land is moving around us: up and down in
waves like an ocean. The stone, roughly
circular, we are standing on is moving like a raft at sea. The sky looks torn apart. The stone suddenly spins -- Zora and Ben lose their balance; Zora
tumbles; Ben falls for 3HP.
Round 1:
VALANTHE: I think this must be a pocket of Not Here.
A large – 12’ tall –
rooster seems to appear from nowhere. It
shrieks: Zora saves; Arden, Beari,
and Ben are stunned for 1 round. Rooster
claws Beari for 9 (+2wounding), claws Zora for 9 (+2wounding); disappears.
Round 2:
Zora does not
Spot where Rooster is coming from.
Rooster shrieks: Zora and Ben save; Arden and Beari are stunned for 1 round. Rooster claws Arden for 18 (+4wounding); disappears.
Round 3:
Zora still
does not Spot where Rooster is coming from.
Rooster shrieks: Zora saves; Arden, Beari and Ben are stunned for 1 round. Rooster claws Arden for 15 (+2 additional
wounding), claws Ben for 8 (+2wounding); disappears.
Round 4:
Zora Spots
the tiny dot that is the Rooster before it enters this dimension, hits for 78;
Rooster shrieks: Beari, Ben, and Zora save, Arden
is stunned for 1 round. Rooster claws Beari for 10 (+2 additional wounding), claws Zora for 13 (+2 additional wounding); disappears.
Round 5:
Beari, Ben,
and Zora all Spot the point where the Rooster is
entering this dimension.
Zora hits
Rooster for 27, kills.
XP:
2,100
Ben heals everyone.
Our stone “floats”
over the “land ocean” away from the curtain, full-sized evergreens,
back to the Road – returning to the Road looks increasingly difficult.
Suddenly, on a land-crest next to your stone slab, there is
a creature. It is about 6’ tall,
you do not see any legs or arms, or tentacles or other appendages. It is mostly black, but gray splotches seem
to be moving randomly around its body. The top seems to be a head, although it doesn’t
show any nose, or ears. The eyes are moving
around the head, as if it moves them instead of a neck, and is paying attention
to everything around it. It is hard to
tell, because of the way they are constantly moving, and circling behind it,
but you think there are at least three eyes.
The mouth is full of sharp teeth, and is pretty much the only way to
tell that the creature is facing you.
Except for Zora, all of you hear a
voice in your head, “You should not be here. This is a playground for my people, not for
yours. You will leave now.”
And suddenly you are all picked
up, by something, thrown across the distance to the evergreens, and then
through them onto the Road.
Yay!
VALANTHE: Let’s not go through any more borders
of evergreens, please.
We walk some more. Several hours later:
VALANTHE: Up ahead on the left, the bamboo turns into a
silver and white curtain. I am pretty
sure that will be the landing for Haxfort.
When you go through onto the landing, you see a large area,
perhaps several square miles: it is hard to tell whether you are seeing the
Waste boundary at the far end, or if the greyness is
just due to distance. There is a
two-story building a few feet away from the landing with steps up to a wide
porch with overhang and a few rocking chairs to either side of a door. You are guessing that this is an inn. From the landing, next to that building,
there is a dirt road leading out and slightly down to a prosperous looking
village. And there are several fields under cultivation, or with grazing cattle
or sheep.
A young, teenage, boy on the
porch jumps up as youall come through, grabs a
hammer, and uses it to sound a large hanging gong. He keeps banging away at it while looking at youall with fear-stricken features.
Men start running up from the fields and village, mostly
carrying some sort of agricultural tool that could easily double as a weapon,
such as scythes. Then a man comes out of
the inn who is difficult to focus on: he is holding a shield and some sort of
sword-like weapon, but his entire figure is blurred and your eyes keep sliding
off of him.
He says something to the boy, who
stops banging the gong, then comes down the steps and advances the few feet to the inn-side of the
landing, and watches you all.
We tell them we are
friendly.
Something he does turns off the blurring. He shouts over his shoulder, “These
aren’t the bandits. I’ll
take care of it. Youall go back to what you were
doing.” Then, to youall, “I won’t apologize. We’ve been beset by incursions from
bandits; thugs. We’ve sent to Dun
Add to ask Zim to send us a Champion to deal with the
bandits. But until one comes here,
we’ve instituted an alarm system to protect ourselves.
“You’ll be wanting to
spend the night at the inn, am I right?
Oh, my name is Duncan. I run the
inn here, as well as being the closest thing Haxfort
has to a fighter. Youall
go inside and talk to my wife Carole about rooms and food.” He turned to the boy on the porch and said,
“Caleb, you done real good,.”
Back to us he said, “I’d best go reassure the homefolk. I’ll chat with you some more after
you’re settled.” And he
started walking towards the village.
Inside the inn, the ground floor is divided into a pub and a
general store, with what are probably store rooms, kitchen, and the family
bedrooms in the back. There is a
stairway leading up to the second floor.
Behind a counter, which doubles for both store and pub, is a woman;
otherwise the inn is empty.
The woman introduces herself as
Carole. “Rooms are a silver a
night – would you be wanting one or two?
Baths with hot water are a half-silver each. Meals are a half-silver per person per
meal. Dinner is still about four hours
off. A pint of mead is a
quarter-silver. Stronger drink is five
silvers a shot. What would you be
liking?”
Beari’s and Zora’s eyes light up at the mention of baths.
About an hour later Duncan comes back and sits with you.
About finding a way home.
“The people in Dun Abb are your best
chance. I’ve certainly never heard
of something like that, and I doubt anyone in a village or small town will have
either. You’re going the right
direction. About three days on up the
road it’ll be joined from the left by another branch. After that the towns will get larger, the
first one is Marielles, and there will be more
traffic on the Road.”
About Beune. “That’s too bad. Caleb!
Go find Josh. Tell him Beune is recovering from an attack and needs help. See if he can find five or six others, maybe
a couple of women, to carry supplies there and perhaps stay for a few days to
help them get rebuilt. I’ll put
supply packs together here for them to take.
Plan to start out early tomorrow.”
From the counter, Carole calls,
“You’re going to put the packs together? Somehow I think you expect me to do
that.” But it is said in a
friendly, bantering tone. Carole starts
filling packs for Buhn and we notice they are quite
low on supplies. When you comment on it:
“Yes, well. We
haven’t have any supplies come in from Marielles
in too long. I am afraid the bandit
thugs have been intercepting them. And I
am quite worried that the man I sent to ask for a Champion from Dun Add has
also been waylaid.
“I have a thought.
Please say “no” if you are not interested. And I need to begin by saying that we
don’t have the coins to pay for your service. There are about thirty of these thugs. That wouldn’t be a problem, except that
five or six of them have rudimentary arms, and that is too many for me to take
on by myself. But if you four were to
join me, I am sure we could take them out.
“Their pocket is about a day and a half up the Road
from here. It isn’t very large,
mostly a fringe of forest around their “castle” – which
isn’t much more than a dike a few feet high.
“I’m not really keen on meeting out death. Usually we are supposed to refer all such
cases to Dun Add. But seeing as how that
isn’t possible, I’m declaring that these thugs have earned that
sentence.
“What do you think?
“There’s a small
pocket about two-thirds of the way there.
It isn’t very comfortable, but it would give us a place to rest
up. And speaking of resting up, Carole!
give them their money back, they’re staying here for free.”
The group asks to examine Duncan’s
shield, and he lets them. Beari’s Spellcraft doesn’t
get anything. Ben’s Detect Magic finds nothing. Arden’s Disable Device told
nothing. We give the shield back. We discuss teaming up to fight bandits. Duncan demonstrates his sword and the ray it
produces. It looks like the ray from the
Lizards’ cube. With some cautious
experimenting, we find that, with his shield activated, Duncan cannot be hit by
Beari’s Ray
of Frost, or by any weapons wielded by Arden, Beari, or
Ben. Zora’s
Ghost Touch sword can hit him,
however, as can Beari’s Magic Missile.
Ben does some healing.
Learning of Ben’s healing
abilities, Duncan takes him down to the town to provide any medical assistance
he can. Beari
goes along to entertain any children.
Beggar 28, 5043
The next morning the relief party for Beune
arrives at the inn: four men, two women, and three dogs. They accept their packs from Carole, exchange
brief hellos with the group, and set out.
Duncan has a pack with supplies,
plus his shield and weapon, and a mutt.
“Rover isn’t one of those hothouse fancy breeds, but
he’s a lot better for the kinds of work I need him for.” Rover sniffs each of you and wags his tail a
lot. He is perhaps overly interested in Valanthe, who bares her teeth at him.
We leave Haxfort
and continue along the Road. After
several hours of hiking, Duncan announces that the overnight pocket is just
ahead on the right.
VALANTHE: It’s another of those wheat stalk
borders. Must be another Here pocket.
The pocket isn’t very big,
about 30’x30’. And it is a rocky hillside, with trees, mostly
evergreens, spaced widely apart.
There’s a small stream, about 2’ wide, dashing over the
rocks in the middle of the pocket.
It’s cooler, and damp, and there is a lot of moss growing on the
rocks and trees. It looks like previous
visitors have built a fire circle and done their best to flatten out some sleeping
spaces.
Planning. Rest up here for a few hours – well into
the night. Then go the rest of the way
up to the bandits’ Here, and go in under the cover of darkness, with hopefully
most of them asleep. Beari
to cast Message on all of us, so we remain in contact with each other even if
we split up. When everyone is in places
they want to be, Beari starts us off by fireballing the inside of the palisade twice.. Arden is going to sneak around to the far
side of the Here, sneak attack where he can.
Later that night, after about
four hours more travel, you find the entrance to the landing:
VALANTHE: Up ahead on the left. Another of those silver and white
curtains. I guess that’s where
Duncan thinks the bandits are living.
Duncan says, “they may have someone on watch. I’m going to be ready to fight as soon
as I enter.” He activates his
shield and has his weapon drawn before he and Rover step through. He gives youall a
few seconds to prepare, and then goes in.
Nobody is on guard.
The landing isn’t very large, about 10’ on a side. The band of trees isn’t very thick
– you can see that it is only a few yards through – but it is
enough to obscure sight of anything on the other side, including any idea of
where the Waste edges are, and thus how large this pocket is. The moon is almost directly overhead, and
there are fluffy clouds in parts of the sky.
Sneaking through the belt of trees you see a clearing about
60’ in diameter, surrounded by trees.
Presumably the Waste edges are on the other side of the trees. In the center of the clearing is a square
structure, about 50’ on a side, consisting of a roughly 4’ tall,
4’ thick wall. There is a
10’ wide opening on the side facing you.
There are people moving around, both inside the structure and
outside. Some of those outside seem to
be controlling the movements of others: it looks like forced labor farming.
Duncan swears quietly and says,
“that’s Jorge. So he
didn’t make it to Dun Add.” a pause, then, “Youall probably know better than me how to go about
this. I’ll follow your
lead.”
Round 1:
Arden is sneaking through /
behind the trees, counter-clockwise around to the far end of the Here;
Everyone else is sneaking
straight through the trees.
Round 2:
Beari casts a
Maximized Fireball into the palisade and kills eight;
Arden sneak attacks #23 and
kills;
Zora, Ben,
and Duncan step up.
Round 3:
Beari casts a
second Maximized Fireball into the palisade and kills six;
Arden sneak attacks #22 and
kills;
Ben casts Aid on all but Arden;
Zora moves to
<blue> and attacks for 25 to his shield;
Duncan takes a double move
towards <blue>;
bandits are getting up;
<blue> attacks Zora: no damage but -1AC;
Round 4:
Beari casts
Magic Missile on <bronze> for 20, quicken-casts Magic Missile on
<bronze> for 17, dead;
Arden tumbles and hides;
Ben moves to #16 and attacks for
12;
Zora moves 10
to damage, attacks and kills #7, cleaves <blue> for 15 to shield,
destroying it, then the remaining hps kill
<blue>, 5’ step to cleave on <gold> for 25 to shield;
Duncan moves to flank
<gold>, hits and destroys shield;
bandits on Ben miss * 3;
<gold> hits Zora: no damage but -1AC;
<red> hits Zora: 4hp and -1AC;
<silver> hits Duncan for 15
to shield.
Round 5:
Beari casts
Magic Missile on <silver> for 18, Magic Missile on <silver> for 18,
kills;
Arden kills, messily, and hides;
Ben hits #16 for 7;
Zora moves 15
to damage, hits and kills #24, cleaves and kills <gold>, cleaves
<red> for 25 to shield;
Duncan moves to flank
<red>, hits for 25 to shield;
bandits on Ben miss * 3;
<red> on Zora hits for 4hp and -1AC.
Round 6:
Beari casts
Lightning Bolt on bandits and Magic Missile on <red> for 17;
Arden tumbles over wall and hits
#3 for 41, kills;
Ben hits #1 for 11;
Zora hits
<red> for 20 to shield, destroyed, and 5hp;
Duncan kills de-shielded
<red>;
#1 and #16 miss Ben.
Round 7:
Beari checks
on the prisoners, counts roughly a dozen;
Arden steps towards Ben, hits and
kills #16;
Ben hits #1 for 12, kills.
Beari is
freeing prisoners;.
Arden is searching for loot –
finds 3 not-completely-destroyed shields and 5 weapons.
Ben heals Zora
and then starts healing on prisoners.
Also find about 100gp worth of “stuff”.
We give all but one shield and
one weapon to Duncan; all the food supplies and the “stuff”. They all leave to go back to Haxfort.
We will spend the day and night
here, to rest up and regain spells.
End of run.