Infernal Pact

H&Y Infinite Open Table Session 3 Notes (Dakssonhold, Croakpool and Surrounds)

In Attendance:

Starting Date: Summer 04, 6023

Ronby hires Sa'id the mercenary and buys a mule. Billy hires Alcyone the porter. The new PCs introduced themselves. The party decided to head down the river Guldak to scout out an outpost location for Rolof Redmountain (see Session 2 for context).

The party hires some of the elven riverboats trading between Circlebrook and Croakpool, an elven town downriver on the shores of Lake Dak, near where Rolof wanted the outpost. The boat cost 20 coins per person/mule and took 1 day of travel.

Summer 05

Croakpool is an elven fishing village on the "shores" of Lake Dak. It's built on stilts above the shallow wetlands that border the lake itself. Most of the construction is made from reeds and rushes.

The party looked for a boat large enough to carry all of them at once that was also lakeworthy. They found Loreto, an elven merchant and captain of the Sterling Reputation. His ship was ensorcelled to follow his commands, meaning he did not need a crew. This was good, as the local dockworkers seemed to avoid Loreto as well. Ronby secured them a ride with Loreto across the lake to Dakssonhold, an old dwarven fort built during the dwarven imperial reign centuries ago. They paid 25 coins for the whole day, along with the promise that they'd try to sell their loot to Loreto first (didn't have to take his deal).

Loreto and the party set sail immediately, circumnavigating Lake Dak in a counter-clockwise fashion. They passed the end of the wetlands (dubbed "Toad Soup" by the locals) as they neared where the river Guldak exited the lake. On the western end of the river, they saw a massive redwood forest choked with fog. Loreto explained that the forest was full of ogres, shamblers and ghouls and that he'd heard rumors it was ruled by a massive forest giant.

The PCs also saw a weird structure at the bottom of the lake at the mouth of the river. It was a long cylinder of white stone perhaps 40' in length, tapering down to a point on the front end. The cylinder was lying on its side and attached to a triangle base of the same white stone. The whole structure was 60' down underwater and Loreto explained that nobody had any idea what it was.

After debating the nature of the structure, the party finally reached Dakssonhold. Loreto anchored the Reputation offshore and kept Sa'id and Ronby's mule company as the PCs left the boat around noon. The fort itself was on a promontory of rock that stuck out over the lake, covered in moss and fog, and filled with massive mushrooms covered in spiderwebs. Someone had taken the time to clear the area in front of the keep for a hundred yards or so, but the ferns and undergrowth were already beginning to creep back in.

Gunder spotted an opening in the outer wall created by the growth of 2 of the massive mushrooms. The party approached the opening, Gunder and Billy identifying the 'shrooms as Deepshrooms, a common timber substitute in the Underworld (odd for it to grow on the surface). The party climbed through the hole into the eastern edge of the fort, entering into a small courtyard between the outer wall and the inner keep.

Billy and Gunder broke up some of their rations, scattering them for the nearby rats and pigeons. They used their dwarven ancestry to speak with the rats, asking them for information about the inhabitants of the fort. The rats identified that the southeast tower was filled with "bad smell" and that there was a "big two legs" inside the keep. Zavos used his elven ancestry to speak with the nearby pigeons, learning that there were "dead dwarves that walked" inside the keep as well. Ronby used their Speak with Stone spell to speak with the stone door of the southern tower to identify that there was 4 myconids in the tower, they'd entered 4 days ago, and hadn't left.

Billy climbed the outside of the southern tower, using his iron spikes and rope as climbing tools. He climbed 30' to the top of the tower, finding it open to the rain at the top and the inside filled with new mushrooms, the bottom just a mass of myconid and fungal growth. He lit a torch and dropped it in, leaping to the top of a nearby Deepshroom for safety. The spores inside the tower ignited instantly and explosively, killing the myconids instantly and coating the inside of the tower in char. The door to the tower was also knocked a bit askew, the whole thing began leaking smoke like a chimney. The rest of the PCs hid on the ground as they heard shouts from inside the keep. A side door for the inner keep north of them opened, showing an ogre wearing 4 dwarven beards sewn together looking around the courtyard for intruders. The ogre didn't spot anything after 30 seconds and so returned inside.

The party counted their blessings that they didn't need to fight the ogre and entered the tower, eager to loot what was left of the myconids. They found 110 electrum coins minted during the dwarven imperial age as well as an admantine ring amongst the charcoal. Zavos immediately put the ring on, finding out it was cursed afterwards. He immediately shrunk 2' (prompting jokes that the party now had 3 dwarves) and found that it was a Cursed Ring of Cowardly Teleportation. Billy examined the coins and determined that they would exchange for much more than normal coins in most markets.

The party continued out of the tower and circled the inner keep going west. They came to the southwest tower and entered it cautiously, not wanting another ambush. They found an alchemical still running along with a ladder to the top of the tower. Billy found a book of alchemical formulae but before they could examine it any further, the party heard a gang of creatures approaching the tower! They hid in nearby empty barrels, with Ronby forced to hurry up the ladder due to a lack of hiding space.

The creatures were a pack of ghouls entering the tower, arguing about the still. They argued in Necril, a language none of the PCs spoke. After a few minutes, the ghouls began to get suspicious and started sniffing, apparently having caught the smell of humanoids. Billy let out Matthew, his miner's canary, in an attempt to divert their attention. One of the ghouls caught the small bird and killed it, this having successfully confused them. Most of the ghouls left the tower, leaving 1 to manage the still.

Zavos leapt from his barrel once the coast was (relatively) clear, wrapping a garrote around the ghoul's neck. The rest of the party pounced: Billy attacking with his trusty hammer, Gunder shooting his crossbow and Ronby chucking a good sized brick they had found at the top of the tower. They killed the ghoul, with the only casualties being Matthew the canary and Zavos getting a little paralyzed.

The party identified the still as producing potions of Pass Without Trace, an effect that would hide your presence and smell from any trackers. They took the current output (9 doses) in a round-bottomed flask along with the formulae book. Gunder found 4 mystery meat rations and a bone token on the ghoul with a burned-in depiction of a garden gnome. They headed out of the tower heading north.

The party came to the northwest tower, one without a door and just a giant deepshroom growing up through it. They climbed the 'shroom, checked for any threats, then continued on.

Ahead of them, they saw a small garden tucked behind the keep, filled with overgrown plants. They also saw that the northeast tower was covered in spiderwebs. Billy entered the tower, resolving that he would run screaming at the first sight of any spider. He did indeed see a massive spider inside, along with the inside of the tower covered in webs like a trapdoor spider. Billy ran out the door, Ronby casting Duplicate Stone to create another tower door in front of the first for added safety. The PCs caught they breath and saw that it was getting towards dark, so they headed back to the ship to sleep and come back tomorrow.

During the night watches, Zavos struck up a conversation with Loreto. Loreto told Zavos that he was the brother of the ruler of Croakpool, a man named Okonkwo of 1000 Deaths. He also said that he was quite familiar with curses and that Zavos's new ring would teleport him to the last place he slept whenever he got to 0 HP. Zavos gained +2 favor with Loreto. Ronby spent their watch also duplicating the alchemical formulae book onto their wax tablet, gaining the recipes for Pass Without Trace, Water Breathing and Sense Lies.

Summer 06

The party tried to sell the formulae book to Loreto in the morning, he offered 150 coins and they did not take it. They headed back into the keep straight towards the garden. The PCs harvested the garden, figuring that the ingredients there were likely what the ghouls needed for the Pass Without Trace potions. They acquired 10 slots of Aconite and 3 slots of Black Hellebore along with 1 slot of Black Hellebore Seeds. They spent some time ferrying this loot back to the ship before returning to the keep.

Billy recovered his climbing rope from yesterday. Gunder tied that rope to one of his crossbow bolts and shot it onto the roof of the inner keep, lodging it against one of the chimneys. The party climbed onto the roof of the keep.

As they climbed up, they heard a deep voice singing to themselves from the front of the keep. They watched an ogre in an apron and a straw hat come around to the northwest tower and feed the dead ghoul from yesterday to the giant spider from yesterday. For some reason, the spider was soggy and damp (it was raining overnight) and hiding in the northwest tower instead of the northeast one like it was yesterday. The ogre called the spider Gregor. The ogre then walked to the garden, found it harvested and blamed Gregor loudly. The PCs hid the whole time before leaving quickly and quietly, not wanting to push their luck any further.

They paid Loreto for 2 days and had him take them back to Croakpool. Ronby bought a barrel of water off Loreto and turned it to beer with their Ring of Party. The whole ship quaffed deeply before they returned to port, whereupon Ronby sold the rest of the barrel for a tidy profit of 10 coins.

Summer 07

The PCs hired another riverboat crew to take them back to Circlebrook for 20 coins each.

Summer 08

The PCs sold their loot. Notably, they sold the ingredients and planted the Black Hellebore seeds at Ronby's rented cottage. They also got less worth from their electrum coins than what Loreto offered for them, there being more supply than demand in Circlebrook. They told Rolof that his outpost should be in Dakssonhold but that the inner keep would need to be cleared first. Rolof gave the party 1k coins to split.

The party also asked the Council of Currents (the naiad triad that ruled Circlebrook) about the strange structure they saw beneath the lake. The Council said that they'd outfit and pay a team of divers to go beneath the lake and check it out.

XP and Cleanup:

Appendix

The "curse" was pulled from Skerple's d1000 Mutations table, a longtime favorite at my table.

Here's a map that the players made of Dakssonhold:

Infernal Pact

#HaY Infinite #Session Recap