Session 59: MRORegon Trail, Part 1


 * Cornerio/Gregaro, Hemminks, and Lambert are preparing to go.
 * In addition to us: an elven ranger/guide (Miravella); 2 halfling drivers (Ilya and Ruslan), and a House Orien mail clerk
 * Hemminks asks who will join him in inventorying their supplies, and no one volunteers, so he suggests that the other 2 go find the rest of their expedition.
 * They notice more guards than usual, perhaps due to an Incident the day before. They head to a lower-class district, near the docks, where Miravella is staying... in an inn above the fish market.
 * Lambert chats with the changeling bartender, who says he got yelled at when he knocked on the door. The 2 of them head up and knock on the door for a minute straight, and then finally they get a "WHAT?" A very old elven woman opens the door wearing adventurer's leathers and a thick fur cloak. She recognizes Lambert and asks if they're leaving, then he introduces "Gregaro", who says he has "hundreds of muscles".
 * She says the last thing they need is the map, which she has, but she doesn’t know where it is in her room because she got drunk last night. Lambert obnoxiously casts sparks wherever he's looking and Cornerio eventually finds a scroll case buried under the bed along with some bottles of wine (low-quality).
 * They head back to 'Hemmingksway" (the inn). Miravella says her role is not going to be muscle or handling animals. She asks if Cornerio is an adventurer, then when Lambert is ahead, she asks if he's interested in treasure. She says there's a tower a bit out of their way that may have some good stuff in there, and that maybe they'll find things they'll keep to themselves. Then they drag Lambert away from the
 * Hemminks finds that they have about 100 lbs of free space in the carts; rations for everyone: 20 lb/day.
 * He says that we should decide our path to plan supplies. Miravella suggests that they might want to avoid Bastion, where bugbear raiding parties are common. The other path through the mountains has a tower she's interested in; she said she brought some adventurers there a few hundred years ago (and doesn’t know what happens to them). There's a legend of an old woman who "loves birds" there and maybe we should bring 'avian offerings'.
 * From there, cutting directly will bring them off the road and to Lakeside; the other way on the road would bring us to the also bandit-ridden town of Irontown. We elect to take the most direct route through the mountains and across the plain, since that's the fastest.
 * Cold weather and mountain gear would be about 30 lbs, then we add 3 days' worth of rations. 3 days from Korth to Atur (saving 1 day from the other path), then 4 days through Teryk, then 10 days across to Lakeside (saving 4 days).
 * We head to the House Valenar stables where our animals are.
 * Ilya and Ruslan are arguing at a desk with a House half-elf. The 2 halflings look very similar and are dressed identically in tunics; one is on the other's shoulders.
 * We shoulder our way toward them; apparently they gave the money to 'Barry'. The clerk says he doesn't know who Barry is and can't give anything to them. They obviously make up a description and have pocketed the coins, and Hemminks yells at them until they give it back. They get their 4 magebred oxen.
 * We head to the House Orien outpost and are directed to a very old human who asks if we're here for the caravan. His name is Yorick; we introduce ourselves as Gregory, Gregory, and 'Alas'. He says he's been "out on the road" before, Hemminks asks if he has military experience and he says he 'doesn't talk about it much' (Hemminks says 'me neither' despite his egregious number of obvious medals). Yorick mentions that he's being made to do this. We agree to meet at the gate in an hour.
 * We head back to the inn to get ready.
 * Cornerio detects thoughts; he notices Hemminks has an edge of desperation to him but that's it. Lambert is hungry, greedy, and messing with the carts a lot. Miravella is reserved and quiet, and he doesn't get the sense that she's lying about what she told us. The halflings are brothers from the Talenta Plains and they love animals; they mainly seem interested in the oxen and are pretty nervous. Cornerio asks if they can catch a bird, and he says there's a silver in it for them if they can.
 * Lambert and Cornerio separately decide to fuck with Yorick by giving him different names each time for themselves.
 * We head out on our journey.
 * The first night, Lambert notices a dwarf-sized figure in thick robes shuffling towards our camp. Lambert follows him heading straight for the campfire, and gets right behind him as he's peering into one of the tents and then tumbles straight into him. Lambert says, "HEY, can I help you there?" from on top of him and he can't really breathe but says he's a traveler named Davis O'Lear. He asks to warm himself up by the fire. He offers Lambert a little vial with a clear, sweet-smelling liquid but he doesn't take any, so he drinks it himself and seems to relax.
 * He says he's making his way out of Korth. Lambert asks if he's running from something, and he says yes. He says he was an 'applied priest' and worked in the Karrnathi army, and he couldn't keep doing what he was doing anymore and lost his magic. He thanks Lambert and gives him a scroll of Create Food and Water. He says he's trying to find his sister out on the border in Deepdark, named Lisa O'Lear, and they'll 'give him a bed' if we stop by. Lambert asks 'if she's cute' and he awkwardly says his sister is married, with children, and leaves quickly.
 * When questioned, Lambert then tells Hemminks that a 'friendly ghost' gave him the scroll in the night. (He does give Hemminks the scroll.)
 * On the road the next day, Cornerio notices a gnome walking down the road with a chicken in a cage. He stops us: his name is Adonis and his chicken is 'Old Dan'. He says he's a "great fighter" and Lambert offers to fight him, but he suggests the chicken is meant for cockfighting. The chicken makes an unchickenlike chittering noise when Lambert pokes at the cage. Adonis goes into his life story and wastes about 15 minutes of our time going on about it. Hemminks nudges Ilya to investigate the chicken; Ruslan has been sneaking up on Adonis to rob him, but stops, seeing Cornerio's disapproval. We let the gnome leave.
 * Cornerio tells him the chicken isn't worth stealing and 'we can do better'. Ruslan is lost in thought from then on thinking about what could be better.
 * That night, Cornerio is on 1st watch.
 * He notices one of the hollow trees near our camp has 3 huge, leathery eggs in there. They look recently laid, and they're cracked/empty inside. He hears something stumbling towards him in the woods; he starts running back and yells, "WAKE UP, DANGER!" He notices there's a large creature with the top half of a black-furred gorilla and the lower half of a giant spider.
 * Before anyone else is able to get up, he punches it in the head and it roars. It sprays web at the camp when Lambert and Hemminks poke their heads out of their tents, hitting only Hemminks in the face.
 * Hemminks paws at the web on his face and sputters Doom at the monster, terrifying it. Lambert casts a spell and becomes much harder to see. Cornerio pummels the monster hard from underneath, and it grabs him. Hemminks runs over and tries to whack it with his warhammer but misses. Lambert acid arrows the creature, and Cornerio tries to wriggle out of its grasp but it catches him and yanks on him.
 * Hemminks touches its body and it starts wasting away (Inflict Moderate). The acid from Lambert's arrow eats away at it more and he magic missiles it. It drops Cornerio and tries to run, and Cornerio jumps on its back and punches its head off.
 * The halflings uselessly fawn over the injured Cornerio, who convinces Hemminks to heal him. We look at the eggs; Ruslan says they're Lhosk eggs, which Lambert takes with him to cook. We move camp, and he cooks them, and no one else eats them... and Lambert only pretending to.
 * We make it to Atur. It's misty; there's a large, spooky building—a monastery, with undead soldiers and living ones guarding it. Otherwise, there's not much in town—just an inn, a couple shops, etc. Cornerio privately goes and gets himself some food to keep just in case. Hemminks goes to the temple and resentfully prays.
 * We head out to the mountains, where it's quite chilly and there aren't many people.
 * That night, Cornerio is on watch and is surprised by a male humanoid figure suddenly leaning against a tree next to him. He says, "hey" and offers a hand-rolled cigarette to Cornerio.
 * "You're Cornerio, right? "Ahh, I don't know who that is, I'm Gregaro." The figure shrugs this off and says he's impressed by him. Cornerio detects thoughts, and connects with something blindingly powerful, and he aborts it. The stranger says, "Nice try, but I don't think you want to do that."
 * The stranger then asks, "What do you think of your friend Vesun?" "I don't have a friend named Vesun." Cornerio says Vesun doesn't like the rest of the party either, and admits that Vesun gets the job done; the stranger asks Cornerio who Vesun works for, and he says, "Himself?" and doesn't really care. Cornerio points out that he left the party and doesn't really know.
 * The stranger puts his hand on Cornerio's shoulder, and some magic flows to him that remains there once the hand is removed (giving Cornerio a buff); he asks the stranger's name and instead of giving him a straightforward answer, the stranger gives him a blank, ivory die to give to Vesun when he sees him next. The stranger warns Cornerio that he is welcome to 'play with' the die but that he is unlikely to be as lucky as Vesun would be.
 * When Cornerio asks for more explanation, the stranger says, "Let's just say I come and go with the wind." "Some kind of wind god, got it." The stranger laughs and asks him heads or tails; he says heads. The stranger flips a coin and it lands on tails; then the figure dematerializes with the cigarette still hanging in the air like the Cheshire cat's grin.
 * The next day is a tougher, colder hike in the mountains.
 * Miravella points out that we're near the tower; it rises out of a frozen lake. We argue about the plan and she says she'll stay with the carts but we insist she comes with us. Hemminks tries to get the halflings to keep the caravan safe.
 * We ask her to go get a bird for us; meanwhile, the halflings start making a net for bird-catching purposes. Lambert checks the ice and finds a very brittle spot, and marks it off.
 * Finally, Miravella returns with a large bird that can't fly; we put it in a cage and head in.
 * We go to enter in through a window; it's a giant tower. There's a semicircular chamber in front of us, with a line of frost built up along the rafters. There are empty shelves. Cornerio realizes this tower is from the age of the giants. We see a large two-headed creature inside: an ettin. It says something in a language none of us understand and ducks through another door.
 * Another one, or the same one, goes up to another window and puts its back against it. Hemminks asks if it speaks Common and it doesn't appear to understand. A second ettin comes out and also appears not to understand. Lambert and Hemminks notice someone peeking out between a gap in the ceiling—she has scaly skin and horns, a tiefling. We yell at her to come down; she does and the ettins move to the side.
 * She invites us in and we clamber in. She introduces herself as Hoyana. Cornerio asks, "You like birds?" She says "ah, you've brought my mistress a gift?" She says her boss is a wise woman. She says while she gets the mistress we shouldn't explore too much, then leaves the room.
 * There's the sound of something shattering or cracking in the direction she went. Lambert asks one of the ettins if he wants to play a game and starts doing a cup game with him, but he picks up all the cups and eats them, leaving the coin behind. Hemminks peeks into the next room, and sees a hallway, and a room to the north and south. We wait for her to return, and we start getting ansty. Hemminks suggests Lambert check out the other rooms and he slinks off. One of the rooms is a bedroom with a crude wooden table with 3 giant beds. In one is another sleeping ettin. The other room has sagging canvas over the ceiling and furs all over the floor and bed, and a constructed wardrobe. There's a brazier full of brownish rocks causing a blue haze to fill the room. He reports back.
 * Cornerio and Lambert hear something tapping from underneath, lower in the tower. Hemminks looks down the stairs and sees that the water from the lake is there, with a crack in the ice on the stairs. A creature materializes in front of us—a green hag appears and shrieks, damaging Lambert. Behind us the tiefling materializes (dropping invisibility).
 * Hemminks says, "This is how you treat your guests?!" And summons 2 shadows, and the tiefling stabs him. She misses Lambert; the hag starts clawing at him. Cornerio drags Miravella and the bird into the hallway and closes the door behind him.
 * Lambert tries to cast Mirror Image and gets hit by the hag. One of the shadows saps the tiefling's strength (the other misses the hag) and Hemminks uses a Cure Serious on Lambert and switches places with Cornerio, who hits the tiefling hard. Miravella runs back and starts casting when Cornerio yells to fight. Lambert tries to get out of the way but can't, and fires his crossbow into the tiefling, who tumbles away into the water, screaming to the ettins in Common, "WHAT THE HELL! ATTACK, YOU IDIOTS!"
 * The hag starts casting and darkness surrounds them. Hemminks dispels the darkness but the hag has disappeared in the meantime. There's a slight pause before one of the ettins thumps on the door to the hallway, so Hemminks sends the shadows through the closed door to distract them, and we run into the empty bedroom away from them.