Dark Paths and Wandered Roads: Mysteries of Mystara 005T

Talyn's first person account of the events of Session #5 of the Mysteries of Mystara GURPS campaign.

Mysteries of Mystara
Session 005T

From Talyn's Point of View

211205

"There's a Castle Down Here!"

After talking to Ruanoc we headed off in the direction they indicated. Malaki leading the way with his tracking skill. While we are traipsing through the woods Malaki's bird friend Opal helps us find the path. Unfortunately these evil tree things that shot thorns impaled Malaki's bird friend and we entered combat.

While I did not manage to land a single blow, Panya handily smashed these twig blights. After the combat I suggested that she take the nickname the Chopper. As Malakai tended to himself and his friend, I investigated the bundle of twigs that was left after Panya chopped it down.

We had a discussion about what could possibly be creating or commanding these evil trees. I obviously suggested that it was an evil druid, I think I annoyed Malakai with this insistence. Definitely an evil druid, I mean if it is in the woods it must be Druids and if baddness must be evil Druids.

We then found our way back to the main road after finding tracks of small humanoids, probably goblins. Following the old road we found a crevasse with a rope tied off leading down into the darkness. We do some searching and observing of the rope, the hole, and the posts. Panya mentioned she didn't have any experience in searching, so I volunteered to help teach her how to look for hidden things.

We then decide to lower Lucky into the hole while he is holding a torch. When he reached the bottom he wound up on a sandy ledge and was attacked by a giant dire rat with sharp nasty teeth. He dropped his torch as we hurriedly pulled him back up. At which point I and Panya climbed down into the hole to deal with these vermin.

Another rousing fight happens, in the middle of it Malakai seemed to have tried to climb down and slipped. Fae apparently don't bounce. We quickly tried to finish the fight to help him. After we rolled him over we discovered one of his potions had been broken and then Panya did some weird things with pressure points and chakra, then she jammed a potion into his mouth and forced him to drink it.

After the fight we took a short rest and managed to get a good look at what was down here in the crevasse. It was a whole freaking castle that had somehow sunk into the earth, but remained sort of intact. The landing did have an old fire pit and some stairs that continued down. We followed the stairs down into the darkness and eventually after a switch back wound up on top of the wall of the keep with a door into the top level of one tower of the keep.

I moved up to the door and discovered that it had a pit trap in front, which I deftly avoided. In the pit was another dire rat that moved to attack us. We dispatched that thing handily. I then descended into the pit and searched the goblin bodies. Finding 6 gold and 27 silver. We then went through the door.

We then opened the door and found ourselves in a round tower room with two doors leading out of it. There were four dead goblins in the room, one of them pinned to the wall. Learning from our previous tower encounter, and that stupid pit trap. I decided to search for hidden things, possibly a secret guard room and the rest of the group joined in. Malakai found a secret door. He cleverly used a spear that had previously pinned the dead goblin to trigger a hidden trap on the door handle and we then opened the door.

Only to find some skeletons in a hidden guard room. Given the wounded nature of my companions and my sturdiness I blocked and held the door handily cutting down two of the three skeletons relatively quickly. The third proved to be more agile and tougher than anticipated and I slowly backed out allowing it into the room behind me where my compatriots could get some whacks in.

Once we had dispatched the skeletons we searched the hidden room and found some gold and silver on the skeletons along with three rather nice looking crossbow bolts, which of course we gave to Lucky. After the fight Lucky pointed out some runes that had been hidden under the dead goblin that was pinned to the wall. They were in a draconic language that none of us could read.

We then went and opened the southern door of the two doors, well I'm assuming it was the south door. It opened into a ruined room. Strewn with rubble the only thing of note was the heavy stone door on the opposite wall we entered that had a stylized dragon motif for the key hole. We started searching this room and a rat jumped Malakai savaging his leg. After we dispatched the rat and fixed up Malakai a bit we then decided to fall back to town, get a little rest, and resupply.

On the way back to town we discovered that some orcs had taken over the tower courtyard for the night. I wonder if they are going to try and make a home here?

Found 10 GP 30 SP, 3 nice crossbow bolts.

Session Notes

This is an In Character report from our most recent session. Talyn is a young and naïve Celestial that has recently escaped from the Cult of Vanya. He was being trained as a holy avenger but chaffed under the strict training and dogma. Now out wandering the world, the young, glowing warrior tries to fit in with a strange and eclectic group of companions and is slowly growing into the leader he can be.
I award bonus CP to players for doing these write-ups!