The Search for the Loneliest Abbey

 We skip forward a few episodes now, since I couldn't be arsed keeping up to date.

The team have been given a task by the wizard BAN, the father of Princess Priscilla, who they rescued from the goblin-knight Arzxzkil in a previous episode.

The task is straightforward, on the face of it. They are to take a silk cloth, on which is painted a complex mandala, to the Loneliest Abbey, up in amongst the highest mountains.  Once there, they are to spread the cloth, and place in the centre of the mandala a silver model of a door, through which Ban can pass. Essentially, the team has to do all the hard work of getting there, so that Ban can just step through.

They've travelled through the forest by one of the Forest Roads, then struck off the path towards the mountains, and now have started climbing the mountains. After a time of climbing, they came upon an ancient road carved into the mountain, which they followed up through pines and firs and eventually up above the tree-line into the snow and fog. The road way was, at one time, a major work of engineering, with worked stone kerbs and regular carved marker posts in the form of stylised human(oid) figures

An eery occurrence: while encamped, they began seeing  a mysterious apparition, or possibly more than one, hanging in the air a short distance from where they were camped. It (or they) did not respond to any conversation, and didn't appear to be doing anything other than watch them. It (or they) appeared for just a few minutes at a time, and then faded away again, and they only ever saw it at night.

At the end of their third day of climbing the mountain road, they spied the glow of lamps or fires up ahead, though the mists reduced visibility such that they could make out no detail.

They started to hear occasional small falls of gravel from above them, running down the mountainside on to the road. They could see or hear nothing else in the gathering dark and fog.

Another disturbing occurrence:  they came upon a group of stone statues clustered against the mountain-ward side of the road, all remarkably detailed, and all naked.

Not long afterwards, they found another statue, this time of a deer, lying in the middle of the road, its skinny little legs and antlers broken off.

By the time it was fully night, they arrived at the source of the lights.

They first set up what they hoped might be a defensible camp, and then set about investigating their surroundings.

The figures on the steps they found, once again, to be of stone. But this time they were fully clothed and equipped with sturdy, and most importantly thick and warm cloaks, which Our Heroes immediately requisitioned. They fossicked through the rest of the unfortunates' belongings, but found nothing worth nicking, and nothing to indicate who they were or where they were going. Most importantly, they didn't find any convenient maps with "This Way To Ye Loneliest Abbeye" written on them. Oh well.

Cajetan cast his Wyvern Watch spell over their camp site, which proved to be a literal life-saver, since when the inevitable attack by the BASILISK occurred, and it failed its save, it gave them a few rounds in which to kill it before it could respond. 

The Basilisk

 The only casualty was, alas, Cajetan himself, who incautiously met the gaze of the beast and was immediately petrified.

They bundled the immobile (and now very heavy) form of Cajetan on to the travois they'd been using to haul firewood, and dragged him on up the steps.

As she passed under the arch, Ali appeared to fade away into the fog. Unfazed (relatively unfazed, anyway) Tirana followed after her, as did Olaf and Oliver (both being semi-inert NPCs at this time).

They all burst out into dazzling daylight, looking across a snowy defile towards an ancient and ruinous mountain fortress. Cajetan immediately sat up, showering tiny flakes of stone everywhere.

 

The Importance of Hospitality

 

Following the goblin-dude's directions, Our Heroes made their way to Castle Arsxzkil, which turned out to be not so much a castle, in the classic sense, as a tall, skinny, structurally wonky tower with a cluster of buildings and shacks built up against its base. It was surrounded by a fairly disgusting moat, choked with weed and scum and filth. There was no curtain wall as such, just the backsides of the various outbuildings, but there was a drawbridge, currently raised up.

They halloo'd from the outer bank of the moat, and a little window popped open above the drawbridge. A voice called out, demanding their business at Castle Arzxzkil.

They stated that they had come seeking the hospitality of the lord of the castle, and the voice said "Alright, alright, hold on a minute", and shortly thereafter the drawbridge began to squeak and creak and rattle its way down, revealing an open gateway and a curious elongated creature like a human-sized earthworm with arms and legs working away at a crank-wheel.

Wormy Brian the Factotum

"Come on then" it said, and headed off into the jumble of outbuildings, leaving the team to follow along as they might.

It led them through a labyrinth of passages, alleys, through and under stone-built shacks, into a largish barn-like space, at the end of which sat a fairly huge toad-like humanoid, dressed in rather fine armour. "Supplicants for your hospitality,  O Lord Arsxzkil" said the worm-guy.

"Bah!" exclaimed Arsxzkil, "more parasites come to take advantage of my enforced generosity! Is there no end to them? Come on then. I suppose you'll want me to feed you too!" 

 "Yes please," said Olaf, "and also, will you show us about your very fine tower?"

"Why do you want to see around my tower? What business is that of yours?" demanded Arsxzkil.

"Merely as a matter of hospitality" said Olaf.

Arsxzkil's face swelled visibly. "Bah! All right then! follow me, and keep up!" and he turned about abruptly and headed off, his great armoured feet splatting and clattering against the flagstones.

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A quick summary of later events:

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• Arsxzkil grudgingly took everybody up the tower, where they met Princess Priscilla. 
• Ali committed  a social faux pas by insulting their host and was taken away willy-nilly by Arsxzkil, stripped, hung up in a cell, and given a preliminary thrashing with a besom of thorns
•  Everyone was conducted by Brian to their sleeping chambers. He locked them in.
• Ti tried to break out, but found the door too sturdy for her. So she climbed up and hacked her way through the thatch. It turned out that destroying her host's property comprised an offence against the laws of hospitality, so when Arsxzkil found her she too was stripped, hung up and thrashed.
• Cajetan got up before dawn and somehow got Brian to let him out and take him to where the chickens were kept. He cut poor Brian in half with his axe (both halves scuttled away) and then cast a Silence spell on the rooster so that Arsxzkil couldn't hear it crow.
• He went and collected Olaf, and the two of them searched for and found their unfortunate comrades.
• While they were trying to break into the cell, the cock crowed (silently), releasing Arsxzkil from his obligations, and bellowing with rage, he rushed down in his brocade dressing-gown, sword in hand, to kill everyone not already manacled to a wall.
• A fight ensued, during which Ti and Ali managed to break free of their bonds (now no longer being rendered helpless), and Arsxzkil was eventually killed.
• Princess Priscilla was rescued from her imprisonment, and after sweeping aside masses of bon-bon wrappers and cake crumbs, retrieved her Go-Bag from under the bed.
• The looting of Castle Arsxzkil commenced. 

Fairytale Chic

Much has happened since last I girded my loins to write about the campaign.

The team delivered a piglet from a witch to a knight in his hilltop castle — the knight became furious with them, assuming them to be in league with the witch, and the piglet was his young son transformed.

He threw them into prison, but eventually calmed down and admitted that they might have been innocent pawns in the whole affair. His lady, however, did not forgive, and it was very obvious that if she could have had them flayed alive, she would do so without a second thought. 

Our Heroes offered to clear out an infestation of Creepers from the subterranean tunnels below the castle, to make amends for their inadvertent insult. 

That mission did not go at all well. In fact, it was something of a fiasco.

They stayed for a few days longer, but there were hints that they had imposed on his lordship's hospitality for long enough, and the lady's poisonous glares and hissing obloquy were becoming socially awkward. 

While out and about, one of them (I forget which) was slapped in the face by a large wind-blown leaf, on which was written a message: the wizard BAN, presently located at Four Corners in the Great Forest, was seeking a group of brave adventurers for a perilous and profitable mission. 

Seeking information from the chamberlain, they learned that Four Corners is the intersection of the two Forest Roads, and the site of the annual Goblin Fair. The team decided to give it a go, rather than wait around for her ladyship to have them all horribly assassinated.

They set off the next day, with the moderately good wishes of all (except, of course, the Lady, who still wished them all to die in some sort of horrible, protracted and painful manner), and following the chamberlain's directions soon enough found themselves on the east-bound Forest Road. They were told that by simply following the road, they would reach Four Corners in just three or four days easy walking.

 The following day, in a clearing, they found a great stone head with the road forking around it, left and right.

As they approached, the head spoke:

"Choose your path — go to the left, and pass in peace and safety. Go to the right and find both peril and profit. Choose your path, and abide by it." 

After not very much discussion, they elected the Path of Peril, since (a) they were, after all, adventurers, and (b) PROFIT!

They made their way past the stone head, which uttered not another word, and as the trees closed in again around the road they looked back and saw nothing but a rock jutting out of the grass beside the trail, which looked, if you squinted and imagined hard, very vaguely head-shaped.

They went on.

The trees became closer and less appealing, and the forest seemed darker and more unfriendly. The trail became boggy and dank.

A midnight encounter with a ghostly rider pounding down the road, and a shambling mass of rags coming from the opposite direction, both ruined the rest of the night and left Olaf with some sort of horrible fungal respiratory infection. 

 The next day, late in the afternoon, they came upon a small goblin-like creature that was poking and jiggling with a long stick at the corpse of a hanged man, dangling from a gibbet by the side of the trail.

It was clearly startled by their approach, but not unduly hostile or fearful after the initial surprise, and they asked it what it was doing.

It was a bit difficult to make out its reply, as it lisped and drooled a great deal, but eventually it made its purpose known: it had the right, once the corpse had fallen, to take its teeth for his own purposes, and it was just checking to see how much longer he would be likely to have to wait.

Cajetan kindly took upon himself the initiative to cut the corpse down so that the creature wouldn't have to wait any longer, and it immediately descended on the cadaver and, by some means not immediately clear, transferred its teeth into his own mouth.

His speech immediately became much clearer, and in gratitude, he alerted Our Heroes of the existence of a Goblin Knight, ARSXZKIL, whose castle was just a little further down the road. Arsxzkil labours under a geas, by which he must grant hospitality to any traveller who asks it of him until the next cock-crow. The geas works in both directions however: any guest who offends against the laws of hospitality immediately becomes helpless against him, whereupon he whisks them off to a cell where he strips them bare and thrashes them about the naked breech until eventually they expire, whereupon he eats them. Also, he has prisoner in his tower a Beauteous Princess, PRISCILLA by name, of whom he is utterly besotted. 

The team decided that this sounded like the potential profit the stone head had mentioned, and decided to go immediately to murder Arsxzkil, loot his castle, and rescue the princess.

And so, off they went. 

Archipelago III

 Our Heroes spent the evening thoroughly exploring and looting the home of the brutally murdered Dunderbas, but found little they wanted to steal until Olaf happened upon a small wooden box, hidden under the disgusting fleeces and furs of the ogre's bedding. He smashed it open, revealing a mass of shiny, glittery stones.

Most of them were just pretty stones, but among the clutter there were some real gems. There were four worth at least 1,000gp each, another twelve worth 500, another eight worth 100. All together, Olaf estimated the little hoard to be worth over 11,000 gold pieces — a tidy reward for a spot of murder and looting.

The next morning, they were woken by somebody calling from outside:

"Yoo-hoo, Dundy-bubbles, Mummy's here!"

"Where did all those children go? You haven't eaten them all already have you, you greedy boy!"

"Oh my, what's happened here to old Harvey? You know how hard it is to get reliable servants..."

 Peeking out they saw a huge, hideously deformed giantess, who was herself bending down to peer into the tower through a hole in its wall. "Here, who are you? What are you doing in my Dundy-bubbles' house? Burglars!" and she reached in through the hole and started groping blindly about for anyone she could grab.

 Everyone scrambled for another hole in the wall, on the other side of the tower, and clambered out as fast as their clambers could carry them, each of the children being carried by one of the adults. The giantess missed grabbing anyone by a mere whisker, and they all hot-footed it off down the grassy slope towards some trees in the bottoms.

The giantess lumbered after them, shrieking imprecations, but even burdened as they were by the children they could easily outpace her, and they made it to the cover of the trees by a decent margin.

Then, inexplicably, while the rest scurried off into cover, Tirana decided to stand and wait for the creature, peppering her with arrows as she approached. Her aim was true, but the arrows didn't appear to have much effect except to make the giantess even angrier, and she smashed Tirana into the afterlife with a single blow of her massive fist, breaking her neck. 

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----- More to come later, when I can get my act together -----