Leicester's Ramble: Shadowdark: Bloggah's Blog Part 9 - Wherein Bloggah Becomes an Archer

Hey Bloggah, nice bow. Hadn't noticed you carry it before.

What do you mean? I've always had this bow. It's an old family heirloom.

Are you sure? And why do I smell roses?

****

Ok, so we woke up, good and early, and recovered from the skullchildren adventure of the day before. Something told us that we needed to venture back into the Harrowing, but we weren't really in the mood yet...

Columbo was already out the door, off shopping, probably. We might as well do the same. I was still curious about that spell cast on the creepy kids. Only one place in town that might be able to help with that, so I took Nigel's advice and went down to the Guild of Arcane Knowledge. Tarin and Dremont, not having anything better to do, tagged along.

The place is pretty snazzy. Tower (of course) surrounded by a wall pierced with arches. People milling around, looking like they're on business. I go up to a guy in a robe with a bad cold, ask him about the spell. He doesn't know, sneezes into his sleeve, asks if I'm a member. Nope.

Ok, I gotta sign up. Go down the hall, turn right, not left. That's cause left looked something like this:

Bigger on the inside and all that.

Ok, right was the recruitment office. Got the spiel, signed with the bloody thumbprint, turned over a few coins. Asked them about the spell, got sent back across the hall. You guys got a scroll for this?

They go looking to see what they can find. In the meantime, I look around. What's on the counter over here?

Interesting, a bow. Too bad it's not my thing. Hmm, smells like roses. Interesting. I'll just take a closer look.

Interesting. This is my family's heirloom bow, originally owned by my seven-greats-grandfather Bagwell. It has never left my hand.

I walk out. The clerks are making some commotion behind me. Maybe they mislabeled something in their card catalog.

Anyway, as I wander back into the lobby, I see Tarin negotiating the price of a potion with some mages. I think that's what he's doing, if threatening, choking, and throwing one mage against a couple of other mages is considered negotiating where he is from.

Satisfied with his haggling, he joins me and suggests we find some side streets, perhaps a shop to duck into. A scenic route is always nice. I see Dremont hustling himself out another door. I wonder why he doesn't want to walk with us? Dwarves are weird.

We find a halfling silversmith, look over his wares. Maybe I'll get a knife and spoon to go with my fork. Tarin looks at the plates. About then, a trio of serious mages walks in. Very serious, with fancy leather robes and all. I hear someone whistling in the street. They confront Tarim regarding his "haggling." He claims to have been shortchanged by the mage, and that it was a simple misunderstanding. The mages whisper, nod, and leave. Alright, maybe he was haggling...

As we leave the shop, Tarin's brand new custom masterwork chainmail deconstructs itself and falls into a pile of tiny individual rings. He's left in his barbarian undies.

Barbarian briefs

I guess the mages negotiated a fair price in return.

He hastens over to the Adventurers Guild and retrieves some spare leather armor. Picks up Dremont and Columbo along the way. We decide that its been an eventful morning, and maybe a bit of time in a hellhole in the Harrowing will be more quiet and peaceful.

Off we go, back to the location where the skullchildren emerged. Dremont attempts to cast light on Columbo's shield so we have light going in. It fizzles. That's why I am an archer. A bow doesn't fail as long as it has arrows.

Down we go. We find ourselves in a chamber with an archway in one direction and a passageway in another. Stomping around, Columbo determines that we are in a buried city, even standing on a rooftop. Tarin chops through it and confirms that there's another room below, long-abandoned.

Checking out the side passage through the archway, we find the abandoned camp of the skullchildren. Not much is left, but we toss the tents anyhow, finding a few pouches containing some old coins and small gems.

Back to the main passage, satisfied that nothing will shank up from the back.

After a bit, we see an illuminated chamber ahead. Large, lots of broken concentric circular stone walls, very atmospheric.

In the center stands an ash elf, possibly the Cardmaster that the gang has been seeking. Patrolling around the edges of the circles are a pair of giant dwarves.... like 8-9 feet tall. Columbo and Dremont say they're ancient dwarves what sided with demons back in the long past. I slip down among the rubble. The closest dwarf's eyes are glazed and vacant. Yeah, these boys ain't all here. Dremont creeps down near me and confirms. Columbo strikes up a conversation with the elf. The elf says some cryptic elf shit about the dwarves being out of time, and that he does not create the experience, he only facilitates it. Sounds like a goblin summer camp counsellor I had one time.

The guys try to get information from this elf, but he's only interested in dealing cards.

I try to approach him, but my bow thinks better of it. I trust my family heirloom. It's seen a lot.

Dremont says he'll take a card. Cardmaster draws something and shows him. Tells him he has two paths, one is the abyss, one replenishes the forest.

source

When asked about the killer fog, Mister Mystery Elf just rambles about capturing the experience and not knowing who released the fog. Tarin gets fed up with the whole 'experience' thing.

Columbo approaches one of the ancient dwarves and gets called a betrayer for his efforts. Fine. We're fighting now. Columbo, Tarin, and the dwarf commence to fighting. Dremont and I aid as we can. The dwarf falls, and Columbo recovers a mithril coin. 100 years old. Nice collectors' item.

Columbo immediately gets greedy and goes to attack the other dwarf. He is the betrayer after all. Ok... We go beat that one down, too. I put a couple of arrows at it. Another coin. Whoopie.

I guess we get our cards now, too.

Doom's card is all about life falling before him. And he'll get what he seeks in some unexpected way. Sounds true to form.

Columbo is waiting for a ship to arrive. What he may be seeking is in a coffin. Very foreboding. I hear more atmospheric music.

Ooo, I get one, too? The bow says its ok. "Many battles to fight, many will be lost, including yourself." Sounds about right. Very sad life… Probably have very sad death. But, at least there is symmetry...

Columbo stares off into a space for a bit. Since the elf won't give us any more straight answers, not that he ever gave us a straight answer in the first place, Columbo takes a swing at him...

***

Full session here:

Well, that was fun. Paul/Tarin is always a bit chaos. And I needed to embrace my inner goblin. So of course I needed to lift something in the bigass storeroom. How Bloggah's new "family heirloom" shakes out, we'll see. As noted, he went from mage to thief to archer in a period of about 5 minutes.

Tim showed his unfazed nature among the randomness of our city crawling. Like hell we were immediately going back into that awful corner of town. He's played in his city of Scorn for multiple campaigns, so I'm sure he has everything planned out and accounted for in case a party goes down the wrong alley or stubbornly does not want to go back into some accursed neighborhood of his creation.

And around 3:35:30 I had some camera issues as Athena decided it was time to camp out behind my computer (She also shows up for an involuntary snuggle earlier in the session).