Players and Characters
Sam G- One Eyed Willy, Tabaxi Druid
Anthony- Half-Elf Ranger Nordeyr Shortear
Dylan- Half-Elf Bard
Elijah- Blade the Second, Human Paladin
Sam M- Quintessa, Human Fighter
Summary
The group of adventurers is travelling individually to Scornubel, looking for work. While eating at the Bloody Shield inn, a badly wounded teamster staggers in. Blade and Nordeyr goes to help. Nordeyr removes the arrow from the man's shoulder, then Blade heals him. The innkeeper sends one of her barmaids to get the town's mayor. The man was a teamster on a small merchant caravan headed West for Scornubel. A couple of hours down the road, fog billowed from the woods. A red glow appeared inside and a demon stepped out and ordered them to surrender. The caravan master called upon the demon to depart in the name of the High Lord. The demon laughed and set him on fire. Arrows flew from the woods as bandits overcame the party. The teamster played dead and the bandits took two of the wagons and the rest of the people as prisoners. The barkeep asks him about Aldon and Gnarrin, two gnome merchants who were with the caravan. He says they were taken prisoner. The innkeeper has the man brought upstairs washed and changed into clean clothes.
The party returns downstairs, and the mayor comes in and speaks with the innkeeper. He approaches the party and hires them to rescue the merchants for 50 gold apiece and offers an additional gold per dead bandit. He has a map of the area and shows where he thinks the attack took place and mentions there have been bandits before, but not demons. The party accepts and the mayor pays for their rooms and meals, they turn in to get an early start. In the morning, the innkeeper has breakfast ready and their horses saddled.
The party heads out to the ambush scene and finds it, no one has come along. They find one wagon with cheap goods like wool, but the other two wagons, all the horses, and any survivors are gone. There are bodies of two dead teamsters and the blackened corpse of the caravan master. There is no sign of the gnomes. Bard hitches his horse to the last wagon to bring it along. They find wagon tracks and they follow the tracks to a nearby shallow river, where they lose the trail. Nordeyr and Willy climb trees to look around and see ruined keep downstream in the distance. They move quietly through the woods and approach the keep, which has the stub remains of a tower. Since the tower would make a good watch post, they approach cautiously.
The party stashes the horses and the wagon and approaches the castle. They climb some trees again and spot a sentry in the tower. They sneak up to the ruins and see that the wagons were brought to a door in the hillside and unloaded, then driven into the ruined building below the tower. They investigate and find the horses on the ground floor of the tower, there are stairs going up and down into the ground. Willy, Blade and Bard climb the tower to attack the sentry. He hears something and calls out "Is that you Giles? You're early." The party surprises and kills the bandit and Blade cuts off an ear. Now that Bard has seen a bandit and has a name, he casts Disguise Self and descends into the basements. He finds a common room with three bandits and yells at them for Giles to take his watch, he needs to go to the bathroom. Giles argues and throws down his hand of cards. When Giles comes up the stairs, the rest of the party ambushes him and heads downstairs. Bard is talking to the other bandits, but his imposture is wearing thin and they get up to investigate. The adventurers attack the bandits and fight in brutal close quarters combat. Two more bandits come out of one of the side rooms. Quintessa kills a bandit, Bard gets another, and Nordeyr kills the third. Bard has to heal himself and Willy heals Blade. Quintessa takes a second wind and keeps fighting. Blade calls upon his divine sense and feels an evil creature approaching. He Lays on Hands on himself to prepare, but saves some healing. Another door opens and a wizard steps through and hits Bard with Chromatic Orb, knocking him out. Some of the party turn to face him while Quintessa duels the last bandit. Nordeyr hits the wizard with an arrow and the wizard throws another Chromatic Orb at Blade and knocks him down, too. Before the wizard can attack again, Nordeyr hits him in the gut with another arrow (Natural 20!!) and the wizard goes down. The last bandit drops his sword and surrenders to Quintessa. Willy tends to Blade's wounds and he recovers enough to roll over and use his last bit of healing on Bard. The party checks the rest of the rooms and takes a break to catch their breath. They examine the wizard, he was a follower of Lolth! There are two prisoners in one of the rooms. Willy finds the hallway out and deactivates a pit trap and moves ahead to a storage area. There are two closed doors, one is barred, and an open door. Willy moves to the closed door and finds stolen goods piled up, then hears something behind her. A giant spider comes out the open door! Willy flees to the common room and yells there is a spider coming. Bard and Blade fall back to the other side of the room, Nordeyr climbs a table and prepares his bow. The spider comes in and the party attacks and kills it before it can bite anyone. They return to the storage area and find the two missing gnomes behind the barred door. The party takes the rescued prisoners and rehitches the horses to the wagons and loads the stolen goods on the wagons and return to town.
Silly Quotes and Smart Remarks
The tracks of the stolen wagons lead to the river
Dylan "I'm going to drive the wagon into the river"
Sam M "Are you going to turn the wagon into a boat?"
Elijah is talking about his character only in the third person, even in character
Sam M "Will you stop talking in third person?"
Elijah "Remember what Blade taught you"
Anthony "To drop your shield?"
Sam M "To fall down and go boom?"
Elijah is having bad luck rolling the bright orange dice he borrowed from Sam G.
Sam M. "You picked the Home Depot color" (all the players work at Home Depot together)
