Session 40: Unexpected Treasure

Tacu Island 2 – Unexpected Treasure

Heinrich lvl 1 magic user

Manfred Van Leopold lvl 2 fighter

Orwell the Onery lvl 1 MU

Howard Greenburg lvl 1 cleric

Antonio Downs lvl 1 fighter

Hirelings/animals at start:

Heinrich’s hunting dog

Manfred’s Harold and Adelbert spearmen, Jimmy and Timmy shortbowmen, goat named Karly

Howard’s pike/spearman

Hirelings/animals acquired in the session:

Antonio Downs men at arms: 11 light horsemen raiders led by a serjeant (came to island looking for raiding work with light horses) 1 Lieutenant lvl 3

Draft horses for all PC’s and unmounted hirelings

This session starts off with Heinrich and Manfred in Edinburgh looking for a way to revive Heinrich’s arm, which was severed last session and will require a heal spell to be reattached. They will make the trek to East Jews Point to have Rabbi Schmoli heal Heinrich’s arm. They know the service isn’t free, but they have a decent chunk of electrum available and hope they can afford to get his arm reattached. He carries his severed arm in a bag full of salt and is running out of time to get it reattached before he becomes permanently down a limb!

They set off in the morning time and choose to continue traveling through the night. They go all night, and start to tack on levels of exhaustion but choose to keep pushing through the day as well. They are getting almost delirious at this point when they run into a traveling band of Jewish pilgrims that are making their way back home to East Jews point. The pilgrims are friendly and offer to let the party join them on the way to Schmoli. The pilgrims set up camp and sleep a normal amount. The exhausted party would like to sleep longer, but they don’t want to be left behind so they wake up and go with the jews to East Jews point. Around noon they arrive at the holy city and most of the group breaks off to go home, but a couple accompany them to Rabbi Schmoli’s place to show them the way before heading off themselves.

Schmoli sees Heinrich’s arm and says “my goodness that’s horrible, are you here to get it fixed?” (It is somewhat commonplace to go to Schmoli on this island when needing powerful healing spells) Heinrich offers Schmoli 50 electrum for the service, which makes Schmoli laugh. “It’s a 1500 electrum procedure” If I cast the spell on you, it would use up my limited healing abilities and would mean I can’t heal somebody else, so I need the payment in full. Heinrich says he only has 300 electrum total (a lie.) Schmoli sighs and says, “so you’ll be needing a loan then” He notices the black powder flask on Heinrich’s neck and infers that Heinrich is a student of Gielinor’s. He excuses himself for a moment to call gielinor on his transponder snail. Gielinor vouches for Heinrich so Schmoli agrees to offer him a loan of 1000 electrum. He comes back and informs Henrich that a heal spell will cost 1500 electrum, but he can give you a loan for rest. Heinrich produces 500 electrum with the help of Manfred, and accepts a loan of 1000 electrum with a promise to pay back 1200 electrum next month. Schmoli agrees to these terms and leads Heinrich to a back room where he prepares the powerful spell that reattaches the wrinkly arm that looks like it has been pruning in a pool of water to Heinrich. It immediately regains movement but is very tingly like and will take about an hour to return back to normal.

The two go to a local inn to rest while Heinrich reacquaints himself with his arm. There is some sort of event going on in town, so the inn is empty save for the bartender and a few other adventurers. This is where they meet Orwell the Onery, a magic user from Krozpont’s mage’s guild, Antonio Downs, an exceptionally strong fighter with CTE, and Howard Greenberg, a Jewish cleric with a pikemen hireling. Heinrich and Manfred strike up a conversation with the adventurers and ask what it would take for them to join them. Before any agreements, they discuss how they will split up the treasure. They are all lawful alignment, so it is expected they everyone will respect this agreement, or suffer great detriment! Orwell wants dibs on any scrolls and/or spellbooks if found. Howard wants dibs on clerical artifacts, and Antonio wants the first pick at other magical items. Other than that, all monetary treasure and sold valuables will be split amongst the party equally. Nobody will be obligated to help Heinrich with his debt. Heinrich and Manfred agree to these terms, so the Tacu Island party officially grows to be 5 PC’s strong.

Some backstory information is exchanged, and Heinrich asks Manfred about Krozpont, his place of origin. Manfred doesn’t quite remember things, and gets berated by the highly intelligent Orwell for misremembering Krozpont. Manfred says, “you don’t have to be so mean about it” and Orwell responds “you don’t’ have to be so stupid!” which Manfred responds to in German curses. Everyone who recognizes what he’s saying is like Whoa dude calm down and Orwell casts sleep on Manfred. And Antonio Downs nudges him awake. The bartender overheard what Manfred said in German so he suggests that Manfred get out of town. Orwell and the rest spend the night in town to recover their spells they had to use on Manfred and they set off in the morning for Edinburgh.

They get to the dungeon and find a handful of large water bugs in the first room. Orwell uses darts to kill one then steps back and lets the non magic users finish them off. They find some crates that Manfred and Heinrich ran into last time that were empty, but now they find some electrum in them. They throw the crates to activate a pit trap they remember and continue past the columns to the door with the key. They head down the stairs beyond the door and run into a group of troglodytes. The troglodytes give them some trouble but the party kills them and finds a treasure trove of obscene proportions, jewelry and gems like they have never seen before. Heinrich is a jeweler so he knows the value of the score – worth somewhere around 70,000 gold altogether!

They immediately leave the dungeon and spend some time leveling up before returning to Schmolie to pay back Heinrich’s loan. Antonio Downs will come across a hire a light horseman sergeant leading a band of light horse raiders with scimitars, and a lvl 3 lieutenant as well. The rest will get draft horses and wagons to hold their belongings.

When they make it back to Schmolie Heinrich gives him the repayment in jewelry and asks if Schmolie has any quests for him. Schmolie recognizes he is much more powerful than he last saw him, so he mentions his sage has not come back from the swamps he was researching in. If you could confirm the sage is alright or bring him back if he is in trouble, Schmolie offers a reward. The party decides to take Schmolie up on this offer and heads south towards the swamp. Orwell snatches up some sand form the beach as they travel. A few days into the journey they come across a rocky crop and get a lucky 5 turns of surprise on a handful of fire drakes. Heinrich shoots magic missiles, Orwell casts sleep, and the raiders gallop in and slash the unsuspecting drakes causing their scimitars to burn like fire. The party is able to kill the drakes before they can breathe fire back at them. Orwell takes his water skin and pours it over a wound on the drakes and jams a vial into the wound to siphon out some drakes blood using the water to prevent contact with the air. He is able to get 6 vials from the drakes.

The drakes were eating a small group of human victims when the party come by them. The remains are mostly charred beyond recognition but they do find a set of marbles. Heinrich is able to tell they are made of some sort of volcanic glass, not particularly valuable material but the craftsmanship to make them perfect spheres gives them some value. They begin to enter the swampy area and realize they can no longer take their carts with them. The wagons have so much treasure the party is not willing to leave them behind to pursue the sage so they head back to East Jews Point.

Manfred isn’t particularly welcome in East Jews Point. Only the bartender knows what he said, but he doesn’t want to risk staying in town. He also is expecting a letter back from the church in Gnoma Scotia which will be delivered to Edinburgh, so he decides to head off there alone. He leaves his treasure behind with the party knowing they are lawful alignment and since they already agreed to split the earnings they wouldn’t steal his money without taking a strong hit to their alignment.

He only takes some copper and 5 hirelings all on draft horses. A couple hours from Edinburgh he gets surprised by 11 osquips, which snap the legs of the parties horses out from under them! By the time surprise is over Manfred and his hirelings realize they need to make a run for it. All but Manfred are killed by opportunity attacks, but Manfred is able to get away. The horses and hirelings are plenty of meat for the hungry osquips, so they don’t bother chasing Manfred down. He makes it to the town and receives his letter from the Lutherans in Gnoma Scotia. They offer to send aid if he becomes a cleric. He attempts to do so, but does not have the wisdom required to become a character with two-classes. He will need to acquire some sort of wish spell to navigate around this requirement.

Monster and treasure xp totals:

14076 each