In Which There is Data Loss - August 21, 2015

So the entire fracking post disappeared instead of just a few lines. . .

The gist of last session:

- Lots of ideas were thrown around about how to sneak into the orc camp.
- Finally, we sent Orgul to talk to the guards on the road as a distraction while FST snuck around the guarded bit of road through the woods. (Advice from S to O, "Tell him you like his sister.")
- Finally we made it to where the orc camp was built into the side of a hill. Big timber walls with a gate and a small village worth of tents in a cleared area a couple of hundred feet deep (at least two dozen hexes worth).

Golag's Camp Layout

- The debate begins anew as we try to figure out how to sneak into the wooden gates without having to fight the orc horde. Orgul has effectively disappeared into the group. 

- Finally it begins to get dark and S casts "Disguise Self" on herself so that she looks very much like Orgul, she sits on the edge of the hill where the slope meets the timber wall, and uses "Acid Splash" to burn a hole just big enough for FST to crawl through. She is nearly discovered when a drunken orc wanders over to invite her over to his campfire for a drink. Their exchange in orcish: "Hey, Orgul, come have a drink!" - "No, I like your sister not you." - "What did you say about my sister?!" The orc swings at S and trips and nearly falls into, which would have ruined the disguise, but she dodges his drunken volley easily. - "I said she's fierce!" - "Too fierce for you!" The orc wanders away again chuckling.
- FST crawl through the small hole and find two large tents, a structure built against the side of the wall and a cave opening into the dug-away side of the hill with two guards just inside the opening.
- S concentrates for a few minutes and says she can sense some faint magic inside the cave.
- S summons an Unseen Servant and uses it torment the guards who at least twice go get a priest of some kind to dispel the spirit who is haunting them.
- After at least two hours worth of tormenting the guards, S sets off a bright flash of light in front of their faces to temporarily blind them while the girl sneak past, but T trips and bumps into one of them.
- The girls make a run for it as quietly as they can, but quickly come to a three-way fork in the tunnel.
- S realizes that the left-most tunnel is significantly less used than the other two, so the girls duck down that one.
- The tunnel quickly narrows until FST have to walk single-file, and then opens into a very small room after a few hundred feet.
- S realizes that the wall opposite is shiny, and when she points this out to the others, a gelatinous blob of some kind peels itself off that wall and a fight begins.
- S nearly gets eaten, but FT manage to kill it before she is fully digested.

- 575 XP earned ea., total of 2900 XP ea., level up to 4.

The Keepers of Lellzutho - August 14, 2015

- Minutes of previous session approved
- J has some of the kind of weird stuff to drink
- Wake up in the keep the next morning after an uneventful night
- The noise of Orgul snoring is very loud in the big echo-y chamber
- Orgul goes to see if he can catch something for breakfast
- T peeks through the crack in the ajar door and sees tables and debris
- S senses the echoes of magic, but nothing active and prods the door open with her staff
- F checks the doorway for mechanical traps and doesn't see anything
- The stuff on the floor is rubble from the roof as well as bits of broken things - glass and ceramics of some kind and broken furniture - also a dead decomposing orc with some armor

- T recognizes some lab equipment, but it more like magical lab equipment than healing lab equipment
- T takes the armor off the dead orc for Orgul and then separates the skeleton - just in case with necromancers running around
- T tries the door on the opposite side, but it's locked
- Orgul comes back with rabbits, and S cleans them and makes a stew
- Orgul is too afraid to explore with the girls because he was here before with other orcs and many died - hence the body - he takes the armor though
- F picks the lock and then opens the door slowly with a sword
- "Much peeking before walking!" - T
- There are at least 10 dead mostly decomposed orcs behind the door - same time as the one in the lab
- A magical trap was set off - there's an Indiana Jones style pedestal covered in runes with a circle where something clearly once sat
- S does not recognize the runes on the pedestal
- The door to the trapped room locks behind them automatically when they leave
- Door on the far left of the entry way is a bunk / wash room - nothing in it of use
- Second door on the left is also a bunk / wash room, but there's a long dead skeleton in one of the bunks - T determines that it was a human male and not an elf - maybe the person who set the magical trap?
- The fourth door was a library - there's a sealed glass case containing a leather bound book and some scrolls

The last door on the right is a dining room / kitchen with broken water pump and debris filled fire pit
- F unlocks the case and S starts looking through the book - T recognizes the line drawing of the disembodied hand - there is also a map of the continent with spots called out - the book is written in Dwarven, but luckily S speaks a gazillion languages
- 2 of the scrolls are too faded to read, but the third is a scroll with instructions to cast Comprehend Languages
- S goes to sit in the doorway of the keep to read the faded Dwarven script in an old mostly dead dialect in the late afternoon sunlight - T bothers her a lot "What's it say? What's it say"

- The book has a lot of description about the disembodied Hand as it had been kept in this keep - talk about how to activate it that it creates barriers / shields and can stop moving objects

- The group who manned the keep was called the "Keeper of Lellzutho"

- The book described three other objects in less detail as they were kept in other locations

- There is a sketch of a Mouth - it's depicted as a disk of a head from just under where a nose would be to just under the lower jaw - the lower jaw has little tusks sticking out much like orcs do - it is supposed to magically provide information and was located in another keep near the mountains in the Emberwood of Rhoanor

- There is a sketch of an "Arm" depicted as a tentacle coiled around itself rough in the "?" shape - purpose was to crush / destroy things - was located in a keep located somewhere on the largest island off the middle finger of the Grasping Claw Cape

- The last item is called the "Heart" - it's depicted as an ovoid precious gem - it was kept in another keep on Lionshead Island (northern shore?) - it supposedly had power over Lifeforce -This fits the description of the item that Kataris requested the girls find

- There are hints in the book that if all four items are brought together they would create a weapon of devastating power
- T found 38 GP worth of herbs for magical potions in the weeds around the keep - 133 total now - also finds some edible tubers
- Orgul goes to find more meat and comes back with the haunch off of a deer that has clearly been dead for days and has begun to rot - T eventually remembers that she can purify it so the girls can eat it, but not until Orgul has chewed on it a bit
- S makes venison steaks, baked tubers, and hardtack dumplings for dinner

- T brews 2 Potions of Healing and gave 1 ea to F & S, 33 total MC

- O tells the girls that he's seen the hand too and that Golag has it
- S and O move the skeleton in the bunk to the room with all the dead orcs - just in case
- O and T sleep while the elves trance, but F and S can't hear much over O's snoring.
- The next morning before O leads them to Golag's camp to steal the Hand - S finds some berry bushes, so they have those with some trail-ration nuts for brkfst
- Early afternoon - O stops the girls and points to a location on the trail he knows to be guarded by 4-5 Orcs that leads to the camp
- T begins to conncoct a plan to dress O as a ghost to scare the other orcs and maybe even get them to toss the hand as an evil thing

- 375 XP ea. - 2,375 total ea.