Game Post Update

Its been a few weeks, but to recap...the party followed the mage Vesivius into the Tar Kiln where they found his dead body and a magical staff head; they cast speak with dead on him to learn his purpose. Reluctantly the spirit returns to the body. They quickly realize that the concerns of the dead are rarely those of the living and he has little memory of what they speak; but they find that the mage's sister does remain in his mind and they promise the dead to make certain she is safe and he reveals the magic of the staff to them and his purpose. But the party must first live up to their obligations and the set out south to the town of Rotenberg to fetch his sister.

Its Winter. In route to the town, they stumble upon a white dragon, young, feasting upon the corpse of a minotaur. The battle that follows is wicked. The monk knocked to -3, ranger looses an eye, cleric's arm mangled, magi loose two fingers to frost bite. They head to town.

After some investigative work (which any American journalist could do well to learn from) they unearth the woman's trail and find that she has fled north in search of her brother. Much frustrated they must higher a priest to cast heal upon the monk to bring him up to fighting trim. They donate a magical shield  to cover the cost. The next day the set off on a mad cap race across country, six or seven days behind the woman.

After three days they arrived at a trapper's settlement complete with log cabins, mounds of dead animals with pelt, bones, meat, etc. After a little work they found that she had sold her horse only 2 days previous (it took them half the time to cover the ground she did) and had booked passage on a pole boat  headed down the Big Mud River to the town of Twin Rivers.

They cross the Mud into open country and rode hard to get there when she did (though there was little chance unless the boat stopped in journey). With clear nights they rode at night as long as they felt the going would not hurt the horses. In 2 and a half days they came to Twin Rivers.

Twin Rivers sits upon a rise of land that juts out and over the confluence of two rivers, the Mud and the Teifisch. A wall spans the ground between the rivers and a smaller one follows the banks and along the cliffs overlooking the rivers. Stone house, cobbled streets and an inner keep all denote a town that is well fortified and easy to defend. It seemed out of place in that trackless wilderness...the open country they crossed marks the end of the Tar Kiln Wilderness and the beginning of the Maenluth Plains, the southern reaches of the Gottland-ne.

When they entered they paid a small amount of coin to the guards who were heavily armed and armored. They were told they could keep their weapons but to keep them sheathed. "To cause trouble carries the penalty of death."

They entered the town.

After a little searching they found lodging at the Red Top Tavern and that the boat master (of the pole boat) frequented a bar called the Orange Hoof. The paladin, mage, knight, cleric and monk went to the hoof to find the girl or where she had gone...assuming the fellow was there. The ranger stayed at the Red Top and ordered a huge meal of pheasant and bread.

In the Hoof the paladin began poking about, asking questions; but there was no time to find out if he would succeed or not as the mage grew impatient and cast a pyrotechnics spell upon his staff and called the boat master's name. This terrified the patrons...including the party of the boat master who didn't reveal himself for fear of the mage.

This brought trouble as they had caused a disturbance. It went south quickly, the cleric summoned the gods to calm things and that made it worse and then he offered a huge amount of gold that startled the keeper of the hoof and then he cast another spell which scattered the patrons...it was create food and water and they all assumed it was tainted with evil.

By this time half the party knew their was trouble afoot and headed to the Red Top and the others broke up. The paladin tried to defuse the situation in the tavern and then calmly left and was the first apprehended by the guards.

Note: the street the hoof was on was next to the inner keep, getting back to the Red Top required the party walk in front of the gates to the inner keep.

No city watchmen this, it was a veteran troop of soldiers commanded by a grizzled captain of many wars, a captain who had the bearing of an experienced warrior. He asked the paladin to lay down his arms. The dwarf did so (very good move) and was questioned. Eventually the captain let him go but told him to bring the mage forward. Off goes the paladin, moments later the cleric comes up the street and is accosted by the captain and told to disarm and wait. After much fuming he set his weapons down and waited.

Eventually the whole party comes up the street, to include the reluctant ranger who was on his second course of pheasant. The Captain sees this heavily armed troop approaching and calls the garrison out. Its at least 40 men in the inner keep, mount the walls and come out into the street (more are summoned from the front gate garrison, which isn't far away).

The confrontation that follows was tense. They almost didn't lay down their arms, but did. Then argued with the Captain. The Captain remarked that the penalty for disturbing the peace was death "You were told that when you entered the town. If you were not, then I will flay the flesh of the gate guard's back."  The paladin said, "No. we were told." With that the Captain remitted the penalty of death and hit them with a 1000gp fine each of the three spells cast and a "go about your business." He did this for knew from past travels the dwarf paladin's kind and trusted his word.

The mage argued.

The Captain told the mage to shut his mouth or he would die then and there.

The mage argued.

The Captain ordered the attack. HOWEVER, the troops rolled a 1 and reacted slowly, so the paladin lept forward calling for calm and the pheasant eating ranger called for calm as well calling on all those who belonged to the Cult of the Swords (many fighters belong to this cult) to be calm. But too late to stop all the volley, 9 bolts fired, the mage was hit once and the ranger....a natural 20 through the chest for 12 points of damage.

But the Captain ordered the attack halted. Tripled the fine to 10,000gp or the mage and cleric would be executed then and there.

As the fine was being reluctantly paid and the mage gagged by the knight, the town master came out. A young man with no bearing or marks and talked to the party. He returned some of the fine but asked some pointed questions to the party. He clearly possessed great knowledge of the dead mage Vesivius and various things.

After that strange discussion...as this made wore only boots, pants, a shirt and heavy cloak, with no weapon or mark of experience or trait common to any profession...the party returned to the Red Cap. There they discovered the woman who they were searching for had taken lodging at ..... the Red Cap.

A good image of the barbican before which the confrontation took place.