Recap 8/19/07: Flood Festival

Hey guys,

A great session today. A lot happened. I know I’m going to miss something so feel free to add. Remember if you click to title you can see all the people’s comments.

Here are the copies of the Cauldron Broadsides you received this session:

Broadsides #3

Broadsides #4

So we started in the Drakthar tunnels. The party was feeling pretty good but was totally depleted in spells. When voices from deeper in the tunnels were heard approaching your location. The voices sounded nonchalant and were covered by a thick accent. The party lays in ambush. Soon a group of 6 1/2 Orcs wielding halberds come up the tunnels. They see the carnage and stop. They begin talking and mention the names “Blue Duke” and “Xoden” As the group of mercenaries begin to move cautiously forward. Churchkey steps from the darkness of an adjoining cave. He begins to parley extracting little information other than that they all work for “The Blue Duke”, Xoden is their organizer and more are coming in the near future.

After a few rounds of very guarded chatter, the ½ orcs realize they are not in a good situation and attack. They are very quickly dispatched and two are captured. The party marches the prisoners to the surface and turns them over to Sargent Krewis. Churchkey reports to Skellerang. The rest of the party goes off to do their own things. Donner has a long protracted conversation with Skie and hires him to identify a whole slew of magic items. Others pay a tithe and yet others prepare spells while others drink.

The party returns to the caves only to find what was a well stocked larder and a very nice room with three cots and matching clothing for a human, theifling and a dwarf. Most items have been gone through. A ledger or journal of some kind had pages torn from its pages and some other items looked like they were burned. Pepper gathered up the pieces of parchment with writing on it.

Moving forward the party exits the cave system into the jungle.

Here is the last of the Drakthar Way tunnel maps

Afterward, the party spends a considerable amount of time in Cauldron. About 4 days after surfacing the party is in a pub. People are chatting and catching up. Pepper has the most exciting of news. After many hours of pouring over those ripped pices of paper Pepper figured out that:

1. Chorlyndeyr (sorcerer), Kallev (Tiefling fighter) and Xoden (dwarf expert in engineering etc.) were part of a group of adventuring mercenaries who all work for “The Blue Duke”
2. About 6 months ago the author of this journal overheard their boss talking to some soft-spoken woman and learned that she was part of some secret society of cabolists.
3. The Blue Duke keeps a private army of ½ orcsoldiers, and is currently in negotiations with on of the nobles in Cauldron. The noble wants to augment their personal bodyguards but doesn’t want to do it publicly. So they were hired to find a way to get a number of mercenaries to secretly enter the city of Cauldron.

At this time the party is also talking about the FLOOD FESTIVAL. Churchkey, being of noble background, has an in on the events. He updates the party on the ins and outs of the different things to participate in. About the DeamonSkar Ball and the different noble houses.

Most noticeably, the Stormblades enter the pub and engage the party. Annah in her total stunning beauty and wickedly agile tongue puts a few cuts into the party and seems to only talk to Churchkey. Churchkey becomes the utmost of diplomats and does a great job of stifling the statements of Annah. Donner on the other hand makes a number of off hand comments. Annah is able to quickly reply and twist Donners comments but Todd Vanderboren and Cora Lathenmire are both visibly very angry. This goes on for a while until eventually the Stormblades leave your humble surroundings but buy a round of beer for everyone in the bar.

Life continues to go on. Donner is fired from the Lathenmire smithy job. Churchkey realizes that he has lost touch with the nobility of the city and begins to play the politics game again. He also begins to buy good clothing and jewelry to suit his station. Connel begins to workout to compete in some of the games for the FLOOD FESTIVAL. Bolgrim continues working for the Lathenmire’s but has to work harder and under more scrutiny. Barrett does what Barrett does when no one is looking and Pepper becomes a book hound and continues to attend the University.Soon the weather becomes wetter and wetter and Lord Vhalantru calls for the start of the FLOOD FESTIVAL.

Day 1. The parade begins and all are in attendance. That day the city is one big party with sales, hucksters, plays, storytellers and music around every corner. That night the beginning of the “Drink Down the Flood” Competition begins. Bolgrim crushes his opponent without blinking. Connell on the other hand does not fare as well.

Day 2. By noon, Crater Lake is festooned with nearly 1000 boats. Each participant pays 1sp for a wooden chit. Donner and Connell decide to compete. Connell has another disappointing day when he accidentally gets water in his lungs and is drug from the lake sputtering, “NOOOOOOoooooo!” After about 9 minutes of feverish swimming Donner makes a valiant attempt but then another competitor finds a match for his chit and a boat. That evening Bolgrim goes quite the distance while “Drinking Down the Flood” but puts his opponent down.

Day 3. The 12,000 foot running race around Obsidian ave begins. Donner and Connell along with 4 others very quickly break away from the rest of the crowd. It becomes a very heated and tight fight for first place. With a nearly dead heat Connell gets really pissed and pushes himself to the point of hysteria and is the first across the finish line with Donner coming in a very close 3^rd. That evening Bolgrim truly goes the distance having 13 shots in about 8 minutes but puts down his opponent.

On this day invitations are sent out for the Demonskar Ball. Connell in invited… on the invitation is a crator with a Demonclaw… that means Connell has the prestigious job of playing Nabthatoron, the demon that was defeated and thus making the area around Cauldron habitable by humans. Churchkey is going on the arm of Annah Taskerhill

Day 4. This day is one of pure joy. The city has 8 stages set up all over the city. Each stage has competitions of juggling, comedy, dance, storytelling, drama, tumbling, music and any other form of performance once can think of.

That evening after 6 drinks Bolgrim looses temporary control over his stomach as it tries to reject the foul liquor being poured down his throat and looses the round.

During the subsequent bolstering of Bolgrim’s spirits and watching of the next round an acolyte of St. Cuthburt enters the Tipped Tankard Tavern. Quickly makes eye-contact with the party and summons you to speak with Jenya Urikas.

When the party meets with Jenya they find out the she just received a message from Sarcem Delasharn via a Sending Spell. He was on his way back from Sasserine with 8 wands of control water to help with the flooding of Crater lake. When the Lucky Monkey inn was attacked. Sarcem is terribly wounded and has retreated to the basement. He has begged Jenya to send help ASAP.

The party quickly gather equipment, gets on horses provided by the Church of St. Cuthbert and makes a very strenuous all night run to the Lucky Monkey.

When the party arrives, it is quite obvious something bad has happened here. The doors to the stable are wide open, all the shutters are closed. You can hear sounds of some kind of construction… or destruction and in places there are wicked streaks of blood across the outside of the building and churned up mud that is stained red.

It becomes quite obvious that some kind of large pile of bodies is about 70’ from the back door and has turned into a giant feeding frenzy for a large variety of carrion eaters.

The party makes a sneaky entrance into a side door of the Lucky Monkey. After about 10 minutes of searching around they discover a lot of rooms that have been destroyed and overturned. Blood streaks the hallways with both splatter and streaking along the floor. What the party does know is that in the common room there are a number of local tribal hill people and member of the Alley Bashers hanging out.

The party does a surprise attack against these foes. Unfortunately luck was not in favor of our fearless party after the first round. Luck favored the enemy but in time the party overcame the odds and destroyed them. The very large Baboons in the courtyard became very agitated at the combat in the common room and started to destroy the doors to get in the room. As part of the party fled the inn to take down the last remaining fleeing Hillman the others began pressing a table against the baboon door to reinforce it.

It is here in the heat of battle that we leave our adventurers.