Play Report: KotB/Barrier March, Session 39 (Looting in Busterieae)

On February 21st, Gillican and Mel’on Juse convince Leerie and some other adventurers to join them going back out to Eastway and speak to the Kelrian tribesmen they saw there a couple days before:

• Gillican (MaC): Level 3 Elf Mage
  • Halen Ricter, Level 3 Human Man-at-arms
  • Altlan, Level 1 Human Cleric of Rusk
• Leerie (JaH): Level 3 Elf Thief
  • Sister Gwen, Level 3 Human Religious Sister of Sargrim
  • Simon Pundly, Level 3 Human Courtier
• Krag (JoJ): Level 3 Dwarf Thief
• Zaum (JoF): Level 1 Half-orc Fighter
• Mel’on Juse (MaD): Level 1 Human Cleric of Sky Light

They head out to a fall of boulders sheltered by pine saplings about an hour outside Eastway where they find children’s weapon and armor among the rocks. They camp under the rocks and trees where their fire won’t be observed from the village and wake on the 22nd to see a light snow having frosted the ground. They head to the village and approach with Leerie in the lead ready to negotiate.

Their initial greeting goes well and they are soon introduced to their leader Ukuyu who tells them about their quest from “the Fragmented One” to find a missing elven tower, but after encounters with a two-headed giant, goblins, giant spiders, and wood spirits, they have decided they’ve had enough of the frigid weather and took shelter in the empty village. They impart the food and blankets they brought upon the mercenary scouts and convince Ukuyu to send a hunting party with them out to an abandoned elven village a half a day away in exchange for a spare long sword Halen has with him.

They set out immediately and by nightfall, their tribesman guides have taken them along game trails to a sheltered camp an hour from the village. The tribesmen’s shelter is sufficient to protect them from the ice rain that falls during the night and in the morning, the 23rd, the tribesmen return toward Eastway and they continue on to the village.

Creeping up on the village of flets up in mighty trees, they see a handful of elves poking around in the ruins. Too far away to detect evil, they decide to stay out of sight for a while longer and circle the village looking for the elves’ point of entry, finding it in the northeast along the stream that runs along the east side of the village. Seeing nothing else as they circle, they enter the village and approach the elves with Leerie and Gillican in the lead.

They are well-received and the elves inform them than the village was called Busterieae and that they search it for the powerful artifacts of their people that once dwelt here, for while the people of this land brought disaster upon themselves by the foolish pursuit of power, they did indeed possess great power that could be of use to the elven empire. They are told they are welcome to search the village independently of the elves as long as they don’t interfere.

In the first tree house they search (sending Krag, Gillican, Leerie, and Mel’on to search while Zaum commands the henchmen in watching the animals), there are three flets. On the first level, they quickly find a hidden compartment with a trap on it, which Krag discovers and they bypass, and inside 500 gold pieces of elven provenance. The second is empty, but on the third they discover a contraption that on careful investigation they find opens a sky light above the bed.

The second house they search they find nothing on two flets, and when they are finished, they seek out the elves to share a meal together where they talk about any interesting findings and try to draw out who sent them in casual conversation. The elves tell them about several elven towers, including one occupied by a green dragon, when they hear the Kelrians were looking for one. They also reveal that their village is to the north and that they are not aligned with the Fragmented One, “hesitantly” repeating a rumor that the Fragmented One is disloyal to the Emperor of Elves. It seems their village is near a Druid Circle and they enjoy the protection of the druids, and they express no unusual activity that the party might want to investigate.

Returning to searching the flets after lunch, Krag ascends the first to find piles of furniture and trinkets milling about. Taken by surprise, he is unable to act before one turns the face of an elderly woman upon him and hands him a pillow, praising its quality and urging him to keep it. He accepts in confusion and soon all four junk-laden old women have surrounded him, offering him treasures whose great quality he doesn’t appreciate as much as they seem to, except for a particular candelabra he finds pleasing.

When Leerie joins him in the flet, he tries to extract him from the situation, but seeing he refuses to leave the candelabra signals to Gillican, who casts sleep and puts all four old ladies to sleep. Gillican urges beheading the creatures in their sleep and burning the heads and they do so (after some persuasion) and set about looting, leaving Krag to strap the candelabra to his back.

Aside: these were Junkers, which MaC recognized from Labyrinth. Krag was alone long enough for them to require five saves of him, each of which he had a 30% chance of succeeding on. He succeeded on 4 of the 5 and thus eluded an awful fat. Gillican rolling max on his 1d4 sleep didn’t hurt matters either.

Among the bundles of junk the creatures carried, they find several items they suspect of being special, including 2 rings, 2 wands, a javelin, a powder case, plate mail, scale mail, a long sword, and a dagger. They gather these near the ladder and proceed to search the flets themselves, finding only a compartment whose trap has already been sprung and whose treasure was taken long ago.

Undetered, they continue to the next tree, in which they again find nothing of any great value. However, while they search Zaum and the henchmen hear a sound as of a harp in the distance, but when Zaum attempts to go to investigate, he finds it moves all around him and while he tries to discern its direction, a woman of beautiful appearance garbed in a green dress emerges from behind the tree and the music fades.

She introduces herself as Petra and learns all of their names. When she hears they are adventurers seeking valuables here, she determines to enlist their services and offers Zaum a ring which she says that when worn will point a light to a fortress that moves from place to place, making it possible for Zaum to find it. There she says they can find a golden feather which if they return to her she will reward them generously for. Zaum confirms that his friends are permitted to join him in this quest and agrees that she can consider him under contract to retrieve the feather. With that, she steps behind the tree again and is gone in a thrumming of harp strings.

Aside: this encounter is on the “Special” table that has a 1% chance to roll on, and she only a 16% chance on that table. Luckily, I had been preparing the Harpist earlier in the week just in case.

Having finished their search of tree house, again unsuccessfully, the party descends again and determine it is time to make camp. They approach the elves to see if they will make a joint camp with them and they initially agree, and then demure upon seeing Krag and his candelabra, but are again convinced and offer to bear the burden of the watches. At the camp fire, Zaum and the henchmen make mention of the lady in green and the elves are aghast that he encountered the Harpist in the Wind and lived! From the elves they are only able to learn that her motives are inscrutable and that the stories say none have followed her music and returned.

Aside: the elves rolled a very bad reaction to the idea of camping together (1 on 1d100) and were about refuse when they decided to rob the party blind during the night. Krag’s condition spooked them a little, but they didn’t want to pass up the opportunity. However, upon hearing that they had dealing with the Harpist, they had no desire any longer to head off with any of their stuff.

They pass the night sharing watches with the elves. In the wee hours of the morning, Krag and Halen, on watch with an elf, spot movement and Halen opens up their lights and wakes the others as a score of kobolds attack their camp! Krag runs to engage them, killing one as Halen misses all of his shots and the elves kill two others. Kobold javelins wound two of the elves and Krag takes some scratches as a few set upon him. While the rest of the party awakes and rushes to don their armor, Gillican sleeps several of the kobolds and Zaum steps to a kobold and swings well over its head.

The rest of the kobolds flee and they sleep the rest of the night undisturbed. Krag awakes confused to find himself sleeping with a rather unremarkable candelabra.

Rather than beat feet back to civilization, the party has opted to pause the clock here at the village and follow up next week. They don’t want the elves finding all of the sweet sweet loot that is probably still there to find, probably.