SESSION 35A: TERMINATION
After a week Fenton approaches the party and tells them that their equipment is ready for collection. The party use the rest of the day equipping themselves and preparing to go to the Caves as early as they can the next morning.
During the day Lothar approaches individuals in the party and asks them about what they've discovered so far in the Caves. He's heard all of Risandors tales whilst he's being staying in The Salty Tusk and the locals have told him a number of things about the Caves such as that the big dog men live very high in the caves, an elf once disappeared across the marshes and that any alters found in the Caves are very dangerous.
Lothar asks Halee if he can look at her map and talk about where the party have been and what experiences have they had at the Caves. He explains that he isn't interested in joining the party but rather he'll go with some of his friends when they turn up. He isn't rude about it but rather is quite courteous. He reasons with Halee, that they should swap notes and whilst they aren't adventuring together they do share some of the same goals (ie ridding the local lands of the monsters in the Caves and making the area safer).
Halee explains that whilst she's a bit busy at the moment, as she's preparing her equipment because they are going to the Caves tomorrow morning, she's got a few minutes.
As Lothar examines the map, he and Halee talk. Halee asks him that besides adventuring in the Caves, what has brought him to the Keep and who are his friends.
Lothar responds that besides Luki and Luther, a fellow worshiper will be joining him soon and that he was coming from the west. They had agreed about six months ago to come to the Keep on the borderlands because they had heard of the strife there. They want to earn a fortune eradicating the chaos and Lothar would like to establish a new chapel to worship Asmodeus. His friend is a mighty warrior who will join in the quest. Once they've proven themselves, they'll seek a land grant from Markis Greylock in return for an oath of fealty and they'll establish new farm lands and a new church. Lothar will serve as a priest of Asmodeus to the local community and the warrior will become a knight with service obligations to Markis.
Lothar knows that it'll take thousands of gold pieces to build a new farm but he has faith in Asmodeus and Asmodeus has given him great powers to undertake this pilgrimage.
[DMs note to Halee – sorry I'm not trying to be evasive here but I haven't received all the data and stats for the new character from the new player yet, including that characters' name. We're just working through the character concept at the moment. We're pretty sure it'll be a fighter. It'll be done soon.]
[Halee takes a Sense Motive check to see if Lothar is lying. This is an opposed check against Bluff. Lothar is unskilled in Bluff and rolls a 10 + 2 cha = 12. Halee rolls a 10 + 6 sense motive skill modifier = 16.]
Halee feels pretty confident that Lothar isn't lying to her but that maybe his plans aren't fully developed yet.
[DMs note to all players – it's going to be a bit difficult with secret plans etc. I'll need to try to find a bit of middle ground in what is revealed. Obviously the evil party players know all about the current party from reading these posts, but their characters don't. And in a similar vein, all the evil party's actions, once the evil party's characters are developed and the party has become established in the game, will be posted and known to the good party. Whilst it was an interesting concept that was proposed to me at one stage to try to run the two parties in secret from each other, I figured out to really do that we'd have to go exclusively to email and then there wouldn't be any TMP posting for anyone else who's interested in reading the posts. And sharing the posts on TMP is part of the fun, so we gave that option away. Anyway I'm pretty sure we'll find some decent compromise.]
Lothar asks about what they've encountered so far. Halee points out where they fought the goblins, killed Korga the ogre and had fought the orcs. She mentions that she thinks that there might be two tribes of orcs and that the party had interrupted a meeting between them and perhaps they were forming an alliance.
Lothar confirms that he had heard from Eldred that there were two parties of orcs in the Caves, although he supposes that Eldred might have heard that from the party themselves.
Halee asks Lothar where does he think he might try first.
Lothar says that he'd heard that the Caves that are higher up and deeper in the valley are more dangerous than the Caves that are lower down towards the valley floor. Since the party has already explored the goblin caves he points to the other lowest cave at eastern part of the system and says that he'll explore there. Lothar offers to give Halee updates when he returns from the Caves so that her map can be updated and that way they'll both know what was left to be cleared.
He thanks Halee for her time, for he knows that she's busy and needs to get ready for tomorrow.
The next morning the party hustle to get on the road to the Caves. Before they leave, Thomas approaches Eldred and asks him to take care of Karleigh whilst they are away. He gives Eldred 20gp in trust for Karleigh and says that should they not return she is to be considered to not be a slave anymore and the 20gp is to help her on her way. Eldred agrees to the terms and will keep Karleigh safe.
The party forms and moves off and sets into their regular marching formation. They encounter nothing along the way and are soon at the caves.
They discuss sending in a scouting party of Halee, Risandor and Uthalin whilst the rest of the party set up as a refuge in case the scouts need to rally back to a place of safety.
They decide to set up the camp in a little copse of trees outside of the main orc cave entrance. If Halee, Risandor and Uthalin need to retreat, they'll run straight towards the copse of trees and the party will sally forth to help them.
The scouts move off to the cave entrance.
The cave is eerily silent and dark as they enter. Halee and Risandor advance slightly in front of Uthalin. They move into the first intersection and they stop. Halee creeps off to the west and then the east to quickly check the first two rooms whilst Risandor and Uthalin guard the intersection. Re-joining the group in the first intersection Halee signals that the first two rooms are clear.
The move up the northern corridor to the corner that turns east and then stop at the first door. Again Risandor and Uthalin stand guard as Halee first listens and then opens the door and creeps into the room to make sure that its empty, which it is.
They sneak down the hall to the east up to the secret door. Halee listens and then tries the door but it won't budge. They check it a bit more closely to see if its trapped or has been locked. But it doesn't appear to be. They call up Uthalin for some extra muscle and they discuss whether they should boom the door but they decide not to. It would be too risky without the others there. Uthalin suggests that it feels like the door has been barred or blocked from the other side with something heavy like furniture, timber or rocks or something used to block the door. He suggests that he could hack his way through the door with his axe but Risandor and Halee thinks that's not a good idea as it'll just alert anything that might be on the other side.
They decide to go back to the group to discuss possible options.
In the little woods they resolve that Uthalin and the other scouts should investigate some of the other cave entrances to see if perhaps they have orc tracks coming from them.
Uthalin, Halee and Risandor go to the cave just to the east of the small copse of trees that the rest of the party have camped in.
Uthalin checks to see if he can find any tracks and identify them. To find the tracks is an all up DC of 14. Uthalin rolls a 5 + 6 Survival skill +1 tracking for being a Ranger = 12 and he fails to find any decent tracks. Rather than enter the cave they decide to move on to the next cave and try their luck there. Besides, that's the cave that Lothar is going to clear, reasons Halee.
At the north eastern most cave entrance finding tracks is a bit easier with a DC of 13. Uthalin rolls an 8 + 6 + 1 = 15 and finds tracks. Uthalin has Knowledge Nature. It's a DC 10 check to find something about a humanoid, such as what tracks are these. He rolls a 5 + 4 Knowledge Nature + 2 if it's an Orc (as it's his favoured enemy) for a result of either a 9 or an 11. Turns out these are orc tracks and the party's found the second orc cave entrance.
They don't detect any movement at the front of the cave but figure that given how dangerous the orcs are they'll go back and get the rest of the party before they go in.
The party forms up ready for the assault.
Ansic and Uthalin will go in the front rank followed by two of the men at arms. Asmara and Halee will go next with Thomas, Risandor and the two remaining men at arms making up the rear of the party.
Upon entering the cave, Uthalin and Ansic notice that there is a wall 30ft to the north which is decorated with heads and skulls (human, elven, dwarven) in various stages of decay. These cheerful greetings are placed in niches which checker about 100 square feet of the surface of the wall.
The corridor splits with what looks like a corridor heading to the east, west and maybe the north.
Suddenly Ansic points at the wall and turns to Uthalin "the wall just moved." [DMs Note – Ansic passed a perception check with a natural 20, lucky given his Perception is -2.]
"What do you mean?" asks Uthalin.
"One of the heads just moved. What should we do?"
"What do you mean what do we do? We kill them all. That's what we do." And Uthalin takes off at pace.
The rest of the party follow him into the cave.
The formation breaks up a little as they try to keep up with Uthalin and as he rounds the corner Uthalin runs straight into 5 orcs who have prepared to intercept the invaders.
DEW