Castles and Crusades (Session 6, Nov 10 09)

Players - PCs
Ed - Roog (1/2 ogre fighter)
Ray - Lassirial (Elf assassin)
Wes - Brother Thabitor Fisk (Human Cleric)

Jeff - Fast Fingers Freddy the Filcher (1/2-ling thief)

NPCs
Thiala - (Human Female Paladin)
Elmo - (Human Ranger)

We had another session of Castles and Crusades last night... Here's what happened.

While the party was going on downstairs, Freddy decides that he'd take the opportunity to make a little "coin" on the side. After a bit of perusing the crowd downstairs, he figures that the best mark would be Spugnoire, the merchant. A bit of chit chat with one of the barmaids and he figures out which room Spugnoire resides in.

But there's a problem, the upstairs common room has people inside and Freddy's afraid that they'll catch him in the act. So what to do? He figures out a plan, goes back downstairs to pay the barmaid enough for 9 small beers, head back upstairs and tells those in the room that someone downstairs has bought a free round of drinks. The common room clears in a heartbeat. One problem solved.

Next he heads to the merchant's room and hastily unlocks it. In he slides...the room is dark and well kept. A cloak hangs on a peg behind the door and inside he finds 8 silver pieces. Under the bed is a backpack and 5 potions. And at the foot of the bed sits a small, dark wooden chest. He looks for any traps and not seeing any he unlocks it.

PSHHHH! Tinkle, tinkle... A glass vial breaks and acid is sprayed everywhere. Only Freddy's fast reflexes saves him from a full-on blast. Still, it sears his skin and burns holes in his shirt. Ah, but inside are 3 scroll tubes of bone. And under that, hidden in a secret padded compartment lie 4 gems of moderate size. He takes all but the scroll tubes.

Hearing motion outside the room he rushes to the window and hurriedly climbs out. A little too hurriedly in fact, he slips in his haste and falls. He lands poorly and twists his ankle but immediately recovers and hobbles to the side of the Inn, feigning drunkenness. Around back and across to the house next door he stumbles....and behind he hears a gruff voice. "You OK? I saw you fall from that window."

Freddy turns and there stands the Blacksmith, from across the way. Freddy explains that he was partying with some folks up in the room and they got a bit too rambunctious and he fell from the window in his drunken state. The Blacksmith seems mollified and leaves. Freddy wanders to a nearby grove of trees, buries his treasure, wrapped in his shirt, and marks the tree w/ a small 'W'.

Now he needs a shirt. It is a warm evening, but it's rather unusual to be running around w/out a shirt at this time of night. The work camp for the castle is near and Freddy finds a rather-too-large shirt there. Afterwards he decides to see if he can't sneak back into the Inn. He climbs to the roof but finds that there's too much traffic now for him to make it inside. Seems that in the interim, Spugnoire has gone back to his room and found it pilfered.

Ostler Gundigoot gets into the action and has guards circle the building in case the thief is still out there...Little do they realize. But by this time Freddy has taken up refuge high in the old oak standing next to the Inn. The guards find nothing.

During the entire interlude, the party has let out and Spugnoire, before he's figured out that he's been robbed, approaches Fisk asking if it would be OK if he tagged along to the Moat House. He's dreadfully interested in libraries and wizardly tomes and such... and there's sure to some of that at the old Moat House right?

Also, Yessirial has taken it upon himself to find his mark. He heads to the work camp, knowing that the mark was last seen there. Sure enough, after about an hour of observation, he find the man. He's changed...of course, hard labor can do that, but Yessirial recognizes the walk. Seems he's in some type of position of authority, the men pay a certain deference to him. Well, now he's go the location, he'll save the rest for later.

Next morning comes and Elmo shows up, looking for his share of the pay. Ooops. The party tells him that they don't have it with them at the moment but that they'll buy him a magic axe as soon as they can afford it. He seems happy enough with this arrangement.

Freddy has since woken up and wandered off to find a shirt that fits a bit better. He comes across the tailor, who's tossing knives, with no small amount of skill, into a board. Perfect. He purchases, for one copper bit, a shirt previously made for a child. Outfitted thus, he heads back to the Inn to tell his story of woe.

He was beset upon while upstairs in the Inn last night. The men, possibly up to four of them, came from behind, knocked him unconscious and took him outside, via the window, to roll him. Everyone is upset. Spugnoire sits there with his mouth open, and Ostler is horrified. To think, this all happened in HIS INN! At Ostler's urging, they all decide over breakfast (which coincidentally, Roog helped cook) to go and see Burne about this disturbance. After all, it has been suggested that the escaped bandits from the Moat House could quite possibly be behind this bold assault.

Burne, ever level headed, suggests that they ask around town and find out if anyone saw anything suspicious. Gulp...Freddy's not too keen on that score. The topic soon changes to the Moat House though. Burne pays them each 20 gold talons, as agreed, for the first foray. But he's willing to offer 20 more per head, if they go back and map out the dungeons. He's got maps of the upper floors and would like to reconcile them with what the party comes up with, but he's got nothing for the lower sections.

The party agrees and takes their leave, just as a two men and women, obviously husbands and wives, come across the small draw bridge, guided by the sergeant-at-arms. The women are both crying and the men are obviously very upset. Seems that their children, a little boy of 7 and a little girl of 9, have gone missing, after heading out to the Broken Stones on a dare.

Freddy, eager to somehow clear his name, comes back and asks if there's something they can do to help. Burne says that there might be, and after a bit more research into the matter, he'll contact them. For now though, off to the Moat House.

The party gears up at the Trader's establishment, Fisk purchases a shield, Yessirial some crossbow bolts and inquires about some poison. Somehow he just knows that these two can get their hands on some. Indeed they can whispers Ranos Davl, but it will take a week to get it in. Too long says Yessirial and leaves without.

Summer breezes blow across the land as high clouds scud through the sky, the journey is actually quite pleasant, considering the last half is through a swamp. Nothing untoward occurs though and they reach the Moat House about 40 minutes before dark.

A little reconoitering by Yessirial and Freddy and they find out the the trap's still in place and it doesn't appear as if they brigands have returned. As night falls it's decided upon by the group that they will bed down in the same room that they'd occupied nearly a week past. They find it abandoned, close the door and proceed to make camp.

Later that night, on Roog's watch, the 1/2-ogre decides that the lure of spices, in the old kitchen, is just too much. He quietly disarms the pans from the door (Fisk's wily warning system), and sneaks out. Coming to the old kitchen, he peers through the door to see some type of enormous bug crawling upon the counter. He quietly sneaks in and deals the creature a tremendous blow. But the bug proves more resilient than that, it spins about and leaps upon the surprised Roog.

As the monstrous tick attempts to find purchase upon the warrior's body, Roog deals it yet another blow...that would have felled an ox. Yet the creature still moves and scrabbles for a hold.

The probiscus finds a target between Roog's neck and the armor, where it sinks in deep and starts to suck. Roog yells and pulls the disgusting bug off, dashing it to the ground whereupon he deals the final blow, smashing it to pulp. Disgusting.

Looking though the broken and rotted cabinets, Roog finds a small tun of sealed cinnamon. Hopefully it's still good... With his prize happily tucked beneath one arm, and a finger staunching the flow of blood from his wound, the tired warrior makes his way back to the room. He quietly replaces the door alarm, waking only Yessirail, and he reclines peacefully up against the wall to resume his watch. All is right with the world.

And this is where we cut it off for the evening.

I didn't feel as if I had the proper energy level last night. It was unfortunate because we only play once every two weeks and the sessions are too few and far between for me to be flat. Work has been a bitch lately though so it's been tough to mentally and emotionally get to that place I need to be. Nevertheless, I think that the guys had fun during our brief session.

We played from 7 - 10 pm. 3 hours every other week doesn't seem like nearly enough to get any kind of emotional impetus going in a game. Oh well, if that's the best we can hope to do, then we'll certainly make due.