Session 72: Items May Shift During Transport

 Session 72: Items May Shift During Transport

5/27/24-6/1/24, rest 6/2, active 6/3

PC: Valda, Zektel, Cracaryn

Hench: Arif

#ACKS

Team B chose to try to offload the Chaotic Aquila axe this session. Teutch was happy to be rid of it and used magic to help them place it in a lead-lined chest. Off they went to find a buyer.

Joshy the Merchant led a caravan of several wagons and entertained their attempts to sell him the item but didn’t have the funds to purchase such a rare artifact. He did agree to try to sell it on their behalf for a 10% finder’s fee. The groups parted on good terms.

A heavy-set peasant waved the party to his small cottage where they discovered a corpulent family observing their approach. They learned that the wife was inside the cottage suffering terribly from swollen ankles or something. Zektel of Doctors without Orders and known foot-fetishist immediately sprang to action, entering the dark cottage eager to put eyes on her feet. He moved to throw the curtains for some light.

Around the same time, Cracaryn had noticed the male child of the family staring him down, so the elf gave him the evil eye, certain that something wasn’t right here. The fat kid licked his lips in a troubling, inhuman way, about the same time that Zektel revealed the interior of the cottage to be an abattoir, with human limbs hung aging like sides of beef.

The creatures sprang on the party who discovered pretty quickly that their assailants could only be harmed by magical weapons. Two of the monsters turned into massive swollen boars while the other two attempted to hypnotize Valda and Cracaryn with crazy spinning eyeball magic.

Valda got enslaved by the magic and turned on the party, all of Zektel’s carefully curated snake collection was slain, and Cracaryn had his foot chewed off before the adventurers bested the nasty creatures. Valda had to resort to wielding the Aquila axe but was fortunately exhausted from the long and brutal combat. This prevented her unbridled rage from being turned on her allies.

The party collected some treasure from the cottage that burned during the battle, some of it lost in the flames, and continued on. Everyone was careful to agree with everything Valda said so as not to set her off as the magical axe that she wielded was quite powerful and filled her with bloodlust.

On arrival in Newbridge, the group immediately sought out the cathedral to Heironeous. The high priest Sebastian was not present, but fortunately they were seen by another leveled Crusader. After some quick negotiation the church agreed to restore Cracaryn’s injury. Cracaryn used the opportunity to privately request aid with the cursed axe, using heavy language to describe just how dangerous it was, after Valda declined to have “some funny-hat lookin’ in my brain.”

The priest agreed with the understanding that they would take possession of the item and see it destroyed. Late in the night, several crusaders of Heironeous ambushed Valda and removed the curse before she could react. Zektel sprang forward and was able to put the axe in their lead box, but he had no knowledge of the agreement with the church. Tensions were high as they talked it out, with Zektel begrudgingly relenting and allowing the priests to take possession of the item. They took it away to be stowed securely.

Musings:

I don’t think anyone really knew what was gonna happen that session. I anticipated some shopping, maybe some urban shenanigans or another tee-ball patron quest. The ambush on the road was a low percentage chance for a wild encounter that had maximum danger with every roll of the dice. It probably would have been a TPK had I properly adjudicated the rules on poison and damage immunity.

Several of Zektel’s trained snakes had save or die poison bites but were too low HD to damage the enemy. The creatures were immune to mundane damage, but not to poison. Reviewing the rules at the time, I couldn’t figure a reason for the poison not to work so the group got an instant kill on a tough enemy at a critical point in the fight. Unfortunately, the bite should not have been able to inject the poison since the bite itself could not inflict damage. It’s obvious in hindsight and won’t happen again.