The First Forway to the Forbidden Caverns of Archaia
This session was played at Sketchbook Comics on Sunday, July 24, 2016 from 11:30am to 2:30pm.
The expedition included:
Alucio Aetherion the Half-Elf Ranger (Alex)
Athelstan the Human Cleric of St. Ygg (Greg)
Trenn the Newblood the Human Assassin (Curtis)
And the merry band of hirelings:
Mini the Halfling in the Yellow Hat (man-at-arms) (Alex)
Alar the Elvish (man-at-arms) (Greg)
From the Journal, as written by Alucio.
July 24th
A view of said adventuring journal:
We each heard some rumours prior to setting off on our likely brief adventuring careers.
Trenn heard some areas of The Forbidden Zone (the area around Archaia) are magic dead, might be important to keep in mind… He also heard that the ruins of Archaia can be found to the South East. I heard elves and gnomes are few in the area, elves are not to be trusted, fantastic racism I might need to deal with. I also heard there was an antique dealer in Eastdale who pays well for artifacts from Archaia, this was true as seen by the loot. Athelstan heard that the Blacksmith in the area, doesn't have a good reputation, no specifics, should probably look into this. He also heard there is no thieves guild in the region…. Mini heard the same, but also spears a good weapons due to their versatility.
We arrived at the Old Ruins, finding the remains of a few fires, we also encountered an adventuring party. They were led by the human fighter, Bertran, who invited us over to chat. They consisted of two human fighters, an elven warrior, a human magic user, and two others. They asked us if we were heading to the caverns, we replied yes, to which they gave us skeptical looks. We decided to gather info about the caverns, and told us the lore they had pieced together.
[Lore]
The city, the race who lived there, had developed magical abilities, a cataclysm occurred, earthquakes rocked the regions, city fell into the cracks, wind destroyed the lands and mountains erupted lava and destroyed the rest.
{WARNING} The area is full of landslides, and unstable ledges.
We left the ruins and proceeded to the caverns, wanting to mostly scout out for future endeavors. After an hour we encountered a party of 8 humanoids, travelling towards us, it turned out to be a hostile pack of kobolds.
The Kobolds struck first! Their first volley missed, with that, our turn. Mini the Halfling missed, Trenn the Newblood shot true and pegged a Kobold in the chest with his crossbow, down it went. Mini wanting to make up for his shortcomings, unleashed a wicked shot with his sling, decapitating another Kobold, huzzah! Not wanting to fall behind, Trenn murders another Kobold! Aler the elven shot with his long bow, and another Kobold was felled. I, myself, joined the, "Too Cool to fight" club, and took a moement to look intimidating. (A note is scribbled to the margin by Mini) He was too scared to do anything! - Mini -
After this display of brutality, the Kobolds began to flee but we pursued. Aler took the chance and shot at another Kobold, ending his life. Athelstan, with his sling, struck a wounded Kobold to finish him off! Not too long after, Mini murdered yet another Kobold, his yellow hat stained red with bloodlust. Aler joined me in the Too Cool to fight club, and during this, Athelstan finished off the last Kobold, huzzah!
Scavenging the bodies, we found a measly 92cp, and a clear potion with a blue swirl, we have no idea what it is. This potion was taken by Trenn, damn thief, can't trust him… I, myself took 3 javelins from their bodies, I suppose these will do for range for now.
From there we headed to the caverns, awed by the sight of the terrain. We will begin our scouting expedition. We saw various cave openings, pillars of white marble, similar to that of the old ruins we had left. It was a steep slope to go in, and in the distance, we saw pterodactyls, neato! Upon reaching the bottom, we had 3 caves, left, right and center. The cave to the left seemed natural, the cave to the right had an arch made of white marble, while the cave ahead of us, was also natural. We also found corpses of the party we had met earlier, rest their souls. We decided to avoid the cave in the middle, as that is where the corpses were. So we decided to go to the cave on the right, with the arch. Athelstan and I lit torches to give us light and sight. We headed north up a set of natural stairs, into a larger cavern with many natural pillars that spawned from roof to floor. Continuing through we found a mushroom forest, looks like we can be fun-gis. Trenn and I became, "Best", friends, arguing about sending Mini into the mushroom forest. After Athelstan lit his last torch, I gave him half of mine, to which we then learned Trenn is an asshole who hoards torches and doesn't offer to use his… ass. Going into the fungus forest after a bit more arguing, we found the fossilized remains of a skeleton of a wizard. We saw he was holding a scroll tube and a broken staff. A small earthquake/tremor rocked the cavern, knocking us off balance, and once we regained our footing, we went to go take the scroll tube. Trenn, again, stole it. Asshat. Travelling towards the sound of rushing water, we came across a Huge green TROLL! It came from under a bridge and headed towards us. Keeping cool underpressure, I quickly rifled through my bag, tossing a flask of oil onto the bridge, shouting at Athelstan to toss his torch to set the bridge ablaze. I abandoned my backpack to carry Mini to the entrance, a life of a comrade is more valuable than items that can be replaced.
{NOTE: Trolls want to eat people, and hate fire.}
As it was late, we decided to travel back to Eastdale, disregarding the dangers of night. I come out of this lighter, while Trenn is most likely going to come out of this with heavier pockets, asshole.
Loot: 92CP, Engraved Bone Scroll tube worth 600GP, and a clear potion with a blue swirl. Managed to convince Trenn to share his earnings from the scroll tube.
- END OF LOG -
