Adventures in Arajara
Adventure Journal
Session 2
Joel and Valen were still looking around for the fleeing figure when Narwick joined them. After looking some more, Narwick's dog when into the pantry and began barking at the wall. Investigation revealed a hinged grate under some shelves that was about 3 feet on a side. After some arguing, they decided to look around on the other side of the grate. The found a drain-way with another grate near the other end.
Joel and Narwick went to investigate while Valennor return to the courtyard and went to investigate the stables. Inside them he spotted a creature in the loft with a monkey-like tail and wings that was feeding on a piece of meat. It looked up, a grimace on its simian face, and screeched at him and then flew up out of a hole in the ceiling. He climbed up to the loft and found nothing but a roll of strong rope. He took the rope. While he was looking around, he unwittingly walked under the hole in the roof and was suprised by the screech of the creature as it dropped on his head. But he drove it off without more than a scratch or two.
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In a Ristonn bar:
"And then I was crawling through a window into the main house. I was picking up a few coins here and there -- out of the dressers and such -- when along comes this troll -- a big ugly fellow -- he's carrying a bag full of heads he's been collecting for eating. I challenge him and he backs off -- after threatening to take my head! Ha, ha," Valennor takes a swig from his cup of ale. "So then he leaves and I'm following him. Down some stairs into the dungeons under the castle. Well, he hasn't a clue I'm there, so I follow him back to his lair. I'm trying to see what he's got in there and he come charging out, swinging a big club! I only have this knife but I'm not going to run. He swings and I stab him -- two or three times before he falls. I thought he was finished, but he gets back up and tries to swing again. So I get him right in the chest and he falls down dead!"
Now his friends have started laughing and making comments about feeble trolls and poisoned daggers.
"But it wasn't poisoned!" protests Valennor, "look, I'll show you the broadsword I took from him!"
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Narwick and Bartley explored the rooms on the other side of the gate. In one room they were attacked by kolbolds. Narwick slammed the door behind them and after catching their breaths they went back into that room. The kolbolds had left! They look around in the next room and found a number of statues and a hidden compartment with a number of gold sovereigns in a pouch. In another room, after killing a rabid rat, they found a number of clay jars containing a few silver bracelets, a gold necklace, and a ring.
Wandering down an unfinished corridor they entered a cavern room. In one corner there was a fire and near that a small figure leashed to a rock. They walk up to it and find it to be a little girl -- being kept as a pet by the kolbolds. She asks to be taken back to her "daddy" and they decide to take her back to Ristonn. The little girl tells them that her name is Adia and that this is "her daddy's castle."
As they make their way back the run into Valennor again, who gives them each a chainmail vest that he claims to have taken from a troll. They reach the place where Adia says the stairs up are and are blocked by a magically locked door. After bouncing off it a couple times they decide to try a couple of command words and manage to figure out the correct one. The door opens in to a room filled with rabid rats and, on the other side, stairs up. The run through, barely escaping dozens of tiny biting teeth and run up the stairs, slamming the door at the top, and out into the courtyard.
Valennor's flying monkey had returned and it was attacking the horses! They charged it and chased it away, but not after it had bitten one of the horses. Bartley was able to use his skills in healing to restore the horse.
After seeing a group of orcs in the distance they decided to hastliy return to the village they had left that morning.