[IC] The Cult of Brannulv, Chapter 2

[Izzarra]

Spoiler: Related Threads

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[OOC] The Plague of Tamor Town
Part 1: [IC] The Plague of Tamor Town
Part 2: [IC] The Cult of Brannulv

Spoiler: Recap

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Day 1
The story began when a young lad stumbles into the Old Stag Tavern & Inn in the city of Qsen, declares that a plague has befallen the town of Tamor, and promptly collapses. Several brave adventurers set out to investigate. Pushing on through the night the party arrive in Tamor in the morning.

Day 2
In Tamor almost the entire population is laid out in the Inn. with only two people taking care of the rest. The adventures harvest some of the crops to feed the townsfolk.

Day 3
Most of the animals and livestock are dead and rats are invading the town. The party kill them off. After some further investigation they decide to follow the stream that flows through the town up to its source in the mountains. Along the stream they find a small farm where the occupants are all dead and they have to fight off some hungry wolves. Continuing into the hills they arrive at a monastery where they spend the night.

Day 4
Continuing along the stream the party finds that it comes from a waterfall that flows out of a cliff face. Near the waterfall there is a doorway that leads to a dwarven mine. In the mine there are many dead dwarves. After gathering some supplies the adventurers press forwards into the underground depths. In the caves they have to make their way through caverns filled with bats, fight off giant spiders, and weird greenish lights.

Day 5
After spending the night in the caves the party wake up and press forward. After making it past some fungus farming beetles they find a large cavern with an underground lake and some cultists making a sacrifice in some old ruins. They disrupt the ceremony and are able to kill all but one of the cultists. The leader manages to escape from the cave and disappears into a thick wall of fog. When they try to heal the hobgoblin that was being sacrificed only for it to mutate almost like a werewolf transformation before bursting into flames. In the area they find two goblins that are locked up (to be sacrificed), a mule and some supplies including a map with several locations in the adjacent valley marked down. Before they destroy the altar they notice that the magic aura of it is stretched as if connected to other points in the nearby valley. The lake is desecrated ground and has many corpses in it, everyone agrees that removing the desecration will likely free the land of the plague. They spend the rest of the day removing the corpses from the water and collecting firewood to burn the bodies.

Day 6
Exploring the area outside of the caves the adventurers find a path leading to a tower with an ice golem guarding the path. They decide to return to investigate the tower later after cleansing the underground lake. They head back underground through the caves to the dwarven mine to gather copper that can be turned to silver for a spell to cleanse the lake.

Day 7
The day is spent clearing the dwarven corpses out of the mines and burning them. They get a message from the healers of Qsen requesting that the party gather some medicinal flowers from the top of the mountains. After finishing up in the mines they head back through the mountain caves.

Day 8
After spending the night in the caves the party returns to the lake where they spend the rest of the day moving the bodies out of the lake to a pyre. Using Locate Plants the party learns that the flower they are after is up the hill past the tower. After destroying the ice golem that blocked the path they go past the tower and manage to find some of the flowers they are after in an alpine meadow.

Day 9
After spending the night the adventurers manage to gather the rest of the flowers that are needed from the meadow. They open a portal to Tamor where they deliver the flowers to the healers of Qsen that go about brewing a remedy for the plague. The rest of the day is spent helping the townsfolk and acquiring equipment.

Day 10
The medicine for the plague is finished, but it is hard on the body. The day is spent recovering from the effects of the medicine.

Day 11
After finishing a few errands in town the party return to the cavern lake through the portal. They go to the tower to discover what it holds. Inside the front door of the tower they find an animated dog/wolf skeleton that does not bother them much until they try to open the next door witch sets off a trap, then it attacks. After finishing off the skeleton they explore deeper into the tower. After collecting some magical culinary equipment from the kitchen they move deeper into the tower. On the second floor they encounter a magical trap and an ooze. During the fight with the ooze the floor collapses and most of the party fall down into a locked room on the first floor that contains a clay golem and several magical circles that are protecting a teleportation circle. Heading up to the third floor they find a laboratory with a magical crystal/glass sphere, several vials of magical liquids, and a phase spider. The adventures decide to leave the tower and recover. The bard decided to attune with a cures pendant that was taken from the cultists.

Day 12
Returning to the tower the adventurers decide to try attacking the clay golem. After waking it up and finding out that it would likely kill them they decide to leave it alone. They examine the magical sphere and after a while they are able to figure out that it is controlling the fog in the valley. On the top floor of the tower they encounter a room filled with several animated objects. Once the animated objects are defeated they study the last of the magical items they found while the bard tries to pack an entire laboratory into a cart, which doesn’t go very well. When the rest of the party catch up they find the cart smashed and on fire at the base of the cliff. They open a portal to Qsen and arrive in the dwarven quarter. In Qsen they tell the local dwarves about the tragedy in the mines, do some shopping, and find a cleric. At the temple of Matatabi they find a cleric that is willing to help remove the cursed amulet from the Bard. In exchange for removing the cursed amulet they agree to find a stolen temple relic. After checking some of the waterfront taverns they get a lead and charter a boat to a nearby island. After putting up with the antics of some mischievous spirits they find the missing relic and a dead halfling. They return the relic to the temple where they find that the cursed amulet has been removed from the bard.

Day 13
After wrapping up some shopping in Qsen the adventurers head on the road walking Tamor.

Day 14
It is midday in the town of Tamor, our adventurers are making final preparations before heading back to through the caves to learn what it is that the cultists were doing.

[Valmark]

Ghiso went to make the Town Portal ritual- after that, he joined back with the group as he was ready to go.

Spoiler: Ooc

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Which is more or less my last post in the old thread if I rememeber correctly.

[Xihirli]

Lana, after ultimately deciding not to steal and free a land horse, was joining arms with Taara and met up with the others, delighted to find Ghiso nice again. He was one of the first people to genuinely enjoy her company on the surface, after all!

"Alright!" She said, excited. "Who's ready to go back in some damp, scary caves?"

[Zergrinch]

Zarron Gemblossom is slightly giddy with anticipation as he heads off to Tamor Town's leather worker to pick up a shiny new piece of studded leather armor, the same that he "liberated" from the dwarven cave and requested to be resized.

[Gluteus_Maximus]

Taara smiled at Lana. Though it had felt like months they had been together, it had only been a week or two. However, she felt so familiar with her, and the same with the others.

"Yes, let us go into the spooky caves."

[Zergrinch]

"Umm, if we have the funds, maybe we should get Miss Lana some better armor? I mean, if we're really going into spooky caves, it's better to have better protection right?"

The half-elf shivers nervously. Noticeably anxious about going into spooky caves. After all, the last spooky cave he went into featured an underground lake stuffed to the brim with ritually sacrificed corpses.

He wouldn't want spooky things happen to Lana, of course. But on a more selfish point of view, she was their primary healer. Who would get rid of his ouchies were she to be incapacitated?

[Valmark]

"Speaking of, let's remember there was poisonous moss last time- we don't want to be caught unprepared" Ghiso mentioned, not at all happy about entering spooky caves. But it was a needed sacrifice.

[Xihirli]

"What kind of armor?" Lana asked. "Aren't I wearing the best one already?"

[Zergrinch]

Zarron's eyes flit from Lana to Ghiso to Rose to Taara and then back to Lana.

"Well, I guess you're better armored than Miss Taara, but..."

[Xihirli]

"I've certainly never heard of better armor. What were you thinking of?" Lana asked again, smiling brightly.

[Zergrinch]

The young half-elf fingers the spiky metal studs on his new duds.

"Well, there's one with spikes, just like this. Makes bad guys less willing to hit you. Kind of like a porcupine? It's a... um... land pufferfish."

[Xihirli]

Lana gasped and shook her head. "Wear metal? On my body? My fairy friends would never speak to me again, it would be so embarrassing!"

[Fay]

As it seemed the group was gathering and talking, Rose got up from her spot under the tree and walked over to join them.

"I'm also ready to go! I was just relaxing under a tree for a bit."

[Zergrinch]

The bard stares at Lana, trying to formulate a response. Yes, druids do have a reputation for not wanting to wear metal on their person, but he didn't think the metal studs would be a big deal since they don't even touch the wearer's flesh. But then again, what does he know about the beliefs and values of the fair folk? They just might be capricious enough to consider that as verboten.

Realizing that he doesn't really have a good response, he makes a slight smile. "Oh, I didn't know that. Sorry."

[Fay]

Rose noted the conversation about armour and wanted to chime in.

"You're wearing leather right now, correct? Perhaps it's possible to make stronger armour if one was able to find stronger leather. I'm...not sure where to do that though. Perhaps a job for another day."

[Valmark]

"Are they truly friends if they judge you by appearances?" Ghiso asked piping up "That said, unworked animal hides would protect you just as well as studs- it would be less fashionable, I predict"

[Xihirli]

"I'll be fine!" Lana chirped. "Let's get going!"

[Izzarra]

Spoiler: OOC

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I don't see anything that I need to respond to yet.

It has been over a year OOC but IC it was only about a week ago IC that you asked about buying armor in town and found that there is none.

If there is nothing else that you want to do in town you can make it to the monastery that is on the road to the mine by dusk.

[Gluteus_Maximus]

"More armored than... me?" Taara wondered idly. "Armor makes it hard to move around... and also it is harder to get out of if you need to." She took Lana's hand.

Lana will be fine, because I will protect her."

[Xihirli]

Lana hugged Taara.
"Isn’t she the sweetest!"

[Izzarra]

You leave Tamor and head east on the road into the foothills. You arrive in the monastery around dusk where you are able to spend the night.
In the morning you head out. Once again you arrive at the lake outside the entrance of the dwarven mines. There are wisps of smoke coming from the chimneys that are carved into the rock.

[Fay]

Rose looked up at the smoke. "Hey, were the spooky caves inhabited by things that use fire last you were here?"

[Xihirli]

"Hm? Oh, these are just some nice people we met on the way there," Lana said. "Do we want to let them know that we solved the curse thing? Or... did we do that already?"

[Valmark]

"These being dwarven mines, these people are probably workers that got back inside" Ghiso said "They would already know I assume. Do you think they'd be mad about us trying to resell their abandoned equipment?"

[Izzarra]

Spoiler: OOC

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Brief recap on related content.
- The last few times you passed through the mines every occupant was dead.
- You have taken equipment, magical items, precious stones, as well as 150 pounds of copper from the mine.
- It was only a week ago that you burned all of the dead bodies that were in the mines. The ashes from the fire have not even had time to wash away.
- A few days ago Zarron told a Dwarf on Qsen what had happened here.

[Xihirli]

"Oh! Right!" Lana recalled. "These people would have just moved in! Let's say hello!"

[Zergrinch]

"We should check in. For all we know, the bad guys could be back!" Zarron says, as he confidently strides forward in the studded leather armor which clearly has the deceased dwarven clan crest clearly visible.

[Valmark]

"I remember a story. About a dragon, a kidnapped prince and a knight in dragonhide armor" Ghiso mused "Let's hope we don't end up like the knight in the story" and with a shrug followed Zarron into the mines.

[Izzarra]

You head into the mines. Inside you find several dwarves cleaning up.

One of them sees you stride in it looks like he is going to say greet you but when he notices that Zarron is boldly wearing the appropriated armor his demeanor changes and his hand goes to his weapon.

"Choose your next words carefully elf, for they may be your last."

Other dwarves start walking over, ready to fight.

Spoiler: OOC

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The dwarf you talked to in Qsen about the mines is not here.

[Xihirli]

Lana waved hello.