The rest of the evening is uneventful and we all wake up late with respect to the Vistani. They are up packing and getting breakfast. Chad sleeps late and has to play catch up most of the morning. The caravan is headed for Dunford, where the Vistani have a tale of a woman who lures children and they disappear. As we travel at the back of the caravan, 3 Vistani hang back and keep giving us sideways glances. We overhear them talking about specific items each of us are carrying. Thorsten succeeds in lifting a belt pouch from one of them as he distracts him by asking an opinion on the value of a black pearl necklace (“I’m going to steal his pants”). He finds 3 sets of caltrips in the bag. Bob, meanwhile, has to pee and ends up going on the trail. The 3 Vistani fall behind us and continue to drop back.
About 20 min later, the caravan stops. We stop at a bend in the road to repair a broken wagon wheel. Scouts have reported a settlement up ahead...looking for a building outside of Dunford. Voltaire suggests we can scout ahead. Thorston goes ahead of us as we scout since we make too much noise. He actually sees something in the forest, but looses site of it. He comes back to us and describes what he’s seen. Bob seems to know something about what this is...kind of a wilderness barbarian known as Kavan “The Grim”. He’s rather hostile and not very nice.
We go back to the caravan and tell Voltaire...he’s not surprised since they trade w/ Kavan on occasion. We decide to head down the road on our own. As we travel, we see movement in the woods and hear something off to our right. Thorston sees Kavan again and the we see a puff of smoke which moves away from us through the trees.
We approach an open area out of the woods. Thorston scouts ahead and find a forgotten game trait (forgotten by most, except the children). As he gets closer to Dunford, the ambient noise fades and he hears children whimpering. That sound fades and the ambient noise returns. He continues down the trail and hears cries coming from the NE, but they fade as he gets closer. He finds a large rickety 2 story house w/ greasy smoke coming from the chimney. He begins to feel “ill” as if something isn’t right here (he acquires 1 pt. of taint – ear scabs – from the illness feeling). This area is apparently corrupted by something. Thorston sees 8 children outside the house doing chores. In the back yard he finds un-eaten corpses half buried in the garden (he acquires 1 more point of taint – lumps and boils). There is a 12-13 yr old tending the garden.
Thorston returns to the rest of the group and describes what he saw. We take our time and move up to the house and look in. Thorsten sees children at a table w/ a hideous old woman at the head. A 10 yr old girl is on the table and she looks to be in bad shape. They appear to be feeding her to the hag (everyone makes the fort. save except Bob – odor of decay...STINKY!) We attempt to kick down the door (without checking to see if its locked!). The hag goes down in the basement via a trap door. The kids scatter and hide. The door opens when we turn the knob...DUH! Thorston can’t get into the window by the table, so he comes around front. We enter the house and find the trap door. Kids are hiding under the beds in the rooms on the ground floor. Bob asks the kids if there is a Julian there. The girl on the table is bleeding badly. It’s dripping off the table and through the slats in the floor. Bob starts to work on healing the girl.
Meanwhile, Zacher makes several torches and we through them down the trap door. This succeeds in giving us an idea of the size of the room. Thorston tries to intimidate the kids to get them to come out and leave the house, but he over does it a bit and succeeds in scaring them more. Waldo’s wolf was sent down the trap door first, but falls over after being hit by the hag several times (strength drained). Waldo brings him back up in strength and he tries to attack the hag again. Waldo goes down the trap door and gets set on fire by the torches we are throwing down there falling on him. The 1st 2 torches go out. Waldo gets hit by the hag. The wolf hits the hag. The druid creates water to put himself out and succeeds in putting 1 torch out, leaving 1 burning. Chad jumps down, falls and twists his ankle.
Thorston ventures upstairs into a hallway. Through one of the doors is a large barracks style room. Once again he fails to intimidate the kids into leaving their hiding places.
Down a few floors, the hag turns invisible causing the druid and wolf to miss her. She then passes without a trace and the wolf is unable to hit again. Bob manages to stop the girl’s bleeding. Chad misses the hag and gets hit in turn, loosing strength and crumpling onto his stomach from the weight of his gear. Waldo leaves the basement and asks Bob to heal him. Thorston, giving up his attempts to evacuate the kids, grabs a small bag of flour. Chad gets hit again...now at 1 strength. Thorston jumps down the trap door, Waldo summons another wolf. Thorston hits the hag w/ flour. The wolf hits the hag, Waldo shoots an arrow down the hold and manages to hit the wolf he just summoned. Zacker goes down the ladder (there was a ladder?!). Chad manages to roll over. Thorston hits the hag and gets hit in return (looses 7 strength...ow! quit it!). The wolf hits the hag and trips her. Zacker lands a blow and goes about half way through her neck. I think she’s dead! We were able to save 16 children total (@ 100 XP each).
Wed Nov 07, 2007 1:31 pm