#campaign tag: bells are a ringing

[nemossubmarine]

DA RP: Mini-adventure #4

I have no clue when this was actually played. Like october last year? Anyway, this little mini-adventure featured a guest in the form of Gimlet’s player, who played a qunari mage by the name of Timo. But now, let’s see if I can untangle these notes of mine enough to make an actual write-up.

This story, as all good stories, starts with someone almost dying. Our ship’s resident actually qualified teacher mage Konstantine has not been doing that great since our heroes ran into lyrium trouble and he went into a coma for a bit (back in campaign 14, if I recall correctly). It goes so bad that Elspet has to do some magics to bring him back from the brink of death. But even Elspet isn’t all-skillful, if Konstantine can’t keep himself going from day to day. Not to worry, Konstantine isn’t keen on dying so he has an idea. He produces a letter from an old friend of his, a wandering mage named Timo, who collected all kinds of books. The letter tells of an old arcane warrior -related book that Timo thought Konstantine would like; he’d bring it next time he was in town. Unfortunately this letter got around to Konstantine just before he ”passed away” officially, so he never got the book. Konstantine asks our heroes to locate Timo and ask if the book is still in his hands. Our heroes agree.

Our heroes start their looking in a Nevarran coastal town where Konstantine used to write letters to Timo. From there they learn that Timo has gone off to southern Orlais, looking for a village that was burned down somewhere in the 7th Age by the name of Besagnon. Our heroes take Barbamama and their cart and start catching up with Timo.

By mere coincidence our heroes find Timo just before he reaches Besagnon. Timo turns out to be quite a tall fellow, a tall definitely qunari fellow, a fact that Konstantine failed to mention. Boshara makes some heart-eyes in Timo’s general direction (on account of him being the aforementioned tall qunari fellow), but Timo ignores them. He is quite delighted to hear that his friend Konstantine is alive, and will be more than happy to provide the book, perhaps after our heroes have helped him with Besagnon. What is he doing in Besagnon anyway? Timo mentions that a Nevarran mage used to live in the town as a blacksmith back before the town burned, and he apparently had written some interesting books.

Randy asks what they are waiting for and orders Barbarama to gallop, he’ll race everyone there. And off everyone is towards the ruins of Besagnon. Incidentally the ruins are far from empty, there’s a group of Chantry folk camping at the ruins, including a rather famous scholar by the name of Brother Genitivi. Genitivi invites our heroes to join him and his people for an evening meal. While they’re eating, Genitivi recounts the tale of Besagnon, how the town burned down in mysterious circumstances, and how the people who managed to escape were talking about rats living in the walls. Genitivi himself is here to do digs in the ruins of the town Chantry, to recover its beautifully decorated bell.

After a nice evening out, everyone retreats to their tents for a night’s rest well-earned. Unfortunately the rest is interrupted to some of our heroes, as they wake up to the sounds of laughter around them, and see ghostly figures moving in the darkness, including a distraught monk begging people to escape the fire. There appears nothing to be done about this, so after the sounds cease, our heroes go back to rest.

In the morning Timo and Humbert decide to join brother Genitivi in his digs around the fallen over bell tower. The rest of our heroes, Boshara, Alf, Randy and Elspet go look inside the ruined temple itself. Pretty soon the quartet finds the cellar of the Chantry. Looking around Alf spots something hiding underneath a wine barrel, some kind of animal. This animal turns out to be a skeleton of a cat, that moves and talks and is named Tau. Tau graciously allows himself be handled, and even tells that he was owned by a great mage once upon a time. Elspet notices a hole in the wine cellar and checks it out in her snake form, Tau explains that was where he came from, his master’s cellar.

Well clearly this is the mages house, so our heroes take Tau and go find the ruins of the house that used to belong to the mage. Timo and Humbert, gaining not much from following Genitivi’s work join them, and immediately upon seeing Tau in Boshara’s lap, Humbert grabs the poor skeleton cat and throws him away. Alf tackles Humbert before he can smash Tau to pieces. Tau hides inside a bush, but Randy manages to persuade him to come out and stay. While he does that, others talk with Humbert about how to properly handle a skeleton cat. Humbert protests that it’s clearly a demon and must be destroyed. Boshara says she’d like to keep Tau (and Humbert can’t say no to his daughter).

They go search around the ruins of Tau’s former home, which clearly was a smith’s house. Humbert finds a magical glove that appears to be heat resistant. Tau shows the door down to the cellar. It’s locked, and magically booby-trapped to heat up when touched but with Alf’s lock-picking skills and one heat-resistant glove the door is opened and our heroes descend into the mage’s room.

There are several overturned bookshelves and a great big hole in the floor. No sight of the book Timo is after. Tau mentions hearing laughing rats inside the walls before the fire, and claims that the hole in the floor is a rat hole. Everyone doubts this is truly the case. They do go into the rathole, and come upon a big room. Elspet, Boshara and Randy see a giant spider guarding it, and attack it. For everyone else the room is suddenly swarming with small goblinoid creatures, that Humbert recognizes to be ghasts, native to Orlais. Boshara, while distracted by the sight of the giant spider takes the biggest beating of her lifetime. Perched on top of a rock our heroes notice the leader of the ghasts, and also that it has tied two books to its body as kind of make-shift armor, one of the books is, of course, the book Timo is after. Randy hooks the leader ghast nearer and Elspet covers the area with sickly miasma. The battle is tough, but our heroes make it through, and so do the books, with only a little brain matter stuck in them!

Timo busies himself in extracting the books from the ghast’s body. One of the books is the necromancy tome he was looking for, one appears to be a fairy tale about a tiger named Tau (Boshara claims that one for herself to read for Tau).

The rest search the area. Randy finds a ring. Alf finds a corpse, stuck under a fallen bell. With the help of Randy and Humbert the bell is lifted. No doubt this corpse belongs to the monk our heroes saw last night. Timo uses his necromantic talents to contact the monk and tell him it’s ok to move on, that the people got away from the fire.

Our heroes hand the bell over to Genitivi who in return gives them some magical gifts (a necklace that gives +1 dexterity and a wooden figurine that you’ll always know where it is (this is given to Elspet)).

Our heroes ask whether Timo would like to join our ship as a librarian. Timo says that sounds fine for the moment, as long as he is free to go out to hunt the books he wants. So Timo is taken back to ship where he can hand out the book about Arcane Warriors to Konstantine himself, which he does.

A matter of Tau is brought up, and Humbert hands the skeleton cat to Konstantine for a look over. Konstantine says that Tau appears to be a spirit bound into the skeleton, but probably not a demon since his master was a necromancer of Nevarran creed and Nevarran necromancer prefer the use of spirits, as demons are a bit hard to handle. So Boshara is allowed to keep her skeleton cat.

THE END