NYR02 - The Herbalist's Secret - October 20, 2017
Oct 22, 2017 13:27:21 GMT -5
Kenneth New likes this
Post by hubertbartels on Oct 22, 2017 13:27:21 GMT -5
Aerwyn and the others were looking at a solid brick house, choked by vines and plant growth. The front yard has been cleared of assassin vines - we hope - and we can now go inside. No vines try to kill us as we walked up to the front door.
The front door won't open - it has to be forced. When we finally push it open, we are faced with a dark entry hall with stairs leading off somewhere. Stepping inside, we can see that there is lots of broken furniture and damage as if something has been beating on the walls and floor.
From the darkness, hobgoblins shamble out of the darkness. As we turn to fight them, more hobgoblins come down the stairs. After we put them down for good, we start checking the rooms. The windows are all shuttered and overgrown - causing the light to be dim at best. In the dining room, we find stacks of silverware as if ready to be carried off.
Continuing to search, we find a barred basement door. Breaking it down, Aerwyn sends her dancing lights to the corners of the room below while Sir Thabo descends the stairs. Ghouls dressed in tattered clothes, stripped of their hiding spots, lunge out at us. We finish them off.
There were two doors out of the basement room - one led to utility rooms and servants' quarters. The other was locked. It took an axe to break through that door. As the door shuddered under blows from the axe, a ghost appeared in the basement room. It was horrifying - so much so that Wolfram and Sir Thabo aged a decade or so from fright. Luckily, they recovered in time to help finish the ghost off.
Behind the locked door, we found the herbalist's working area - a room filled with potion making supplies and notes. Included in the paper is an Elven book, untitled, with an embossed carving of a tree on the cover. Aerwyn took this book to study it. It contained information on the fey and the Green Dream, and the plants and things that could be found within the Green Dream. It also gave information on how to contact them - even giving a ritual on summon "Tarmalinwe Unde Dessin Celimar", the Thing with a 1000 Young.
Back upstairs to finish searching the house. In an upstairs room, we find the hacked up remains of the herbalist. We know that ghosts form if there's something have unfinished business that they didn't finish in life. Our ghost below will reform in a day or so.
Looking out from a window into the back yard, we notice that one tree is swaying - moving separately from the other plants in the garden There are other plant creatures moving around the tree. Blights of some sort.
It is decided to return to Willowstrand and the Abbey of the Sacred Light. Abbess Wilhelmina can help Wolfram and Sir Thabo recover from the fright of the ghost and we can report on what we have discovered so far. Sir Maddox gave us 1000 silver pennies as reward for killing the manticores.
Riding back to the ruins of the village, we passed by the graveyard. Arriving at the herbalist's house, we enter the backyard gate, passing the greenhouse and going into the orchard. As we close in on the one tree, we are attacked by twig blights - our attacks sweep them away. Gideon puts a flaming sphere at the base of the tree. It responded by attacking with ensnaring roots while vine blights slammed into us. Under our flame attacks, we managed to destroy the thing. Gideon was able to recover one healing fruit. As the trunk cracked open, it revealed hundreds of animal bones - the blights had been feeding the tree with kills.
After a short breather, we decided to look into the greenhouse. It was unusually warm and humid inside and filled with all sorts of exotic plants, including one that rose up and sprayed Gideon. Gideon went unconscious. Then it jabbed a thorn at Wolfram. We stomped it into the ground. At the back of the greenhouse was a hut with hooks and vats to hang and bleed animals. The herbalist had been watering his plants with warm blood.
Turning our attention to the graveyard, we see it was surrounded with a wall in which there are inscriptions to Pelor and Beory. We can see a half-dozen hobgoblin zombies clustered around one mausoleum. This mausoleum had once been sealed with a magical chain covered in mystical symbols, now broken and lying in the grass.
As we move to the zombies, we can make out something moving inside the mausoleum. While we are busy destroying the hobgoblin zombies, Sir Thabo climbs into the mausoleum, joined in a moment by our halfling, Wolfram. As we finish off the last of the zombies, Sir Thabo has finished off the thing in the mausoleum.
Going back to the herbalist's house, we collect the remains of the dead and lay them to rest in the cleaned out graveyard. The ghost's spirit is put at ease by Duncan's Ceremony Spell. Then we can return to Willowstrand.
The front door won't open - it has to be forced. When we finally push it open, we are faced with a dark entry hall with stairs leading off somewhere. Stepping inside, we can see that there is lots of broken furniture and damage as if something has been beating on the walls and floor.
From the darkness, hobgoblins shamble out of the darkness. As we turn to fight them, more hobgoblins come down the stairs. After we put them down for good, we start checking the rooms. The windows are all shuttered and overgrown - causing the light to be dim at best. In the dining room, we find stacks of silverware as if ready to be carried off.
Continuing to search, we find a barred basement door. Breaking it down, Aerwyn sends her dancing lights to the corners of the room below while Sir Thabo descends the stairs. Ghouls dressed in tattered clothes, stripped of their hiding spots, lunge out at us. We finish them off.
There were two doors out of the basement room - one led to utility rooms and servants' quarters. The other was locked. It took an axe to break through that door. As the door shuddered under blows from the axe, a ghost appeared in the basement room. It was horrifying - so much so that Wolfram and Sir Thabo aged a decade or so from fright. Luckily, they recovered in time to help finish the ghost off.
Behind the locked door, we found the herbalist's working area - a room filled with potion making supplies and notes. Included in the paper is an Elven book, untitled, with an embossed carving of a tree on the cover. Aerwyn took this book to study it. It contained information on the fey and the Green Dream, and the plants and things that could be found within the Green Dream. It also gave information on how to contact them - even giving a ritual on summon "Tarmalinwe Unde Dessin Celimar", the Thing with a 1000 Young.
Back upstairs to finish searching the house. In an upstairs room, we find the hacked up remains of the herbalist. We know that ghosts form if there's something have unfinished business that they didn't finish in life. Our ghost below will reform in a day or so.
Looking out from a window into the back yard, we notice that one tree is swaying - moving separately from the other plants in the garden There are other plant creatures moving around the tree. Blights of some sort.
It is decided to return to Willowstrand and the Abbey of the Sacred Light. Abbess Wilhelmina can help Wolfram and Sir Thabo recover from the fright of the ghost and we can report on what we have discovered so far. Sir Maddox gave us 1000 silver pennies as reward for killing the manticores.
Riding back to the ruins of the village, we passed by the graveyard. Arriving at the herbalist's house, we enter the backyard gate, passing the greenhouse and going into the orchard. As we close in on the one tree, we are attacked by twig blights - our attacks sweep them away. Gideon puts a flaming sphere at the base of the tree. It responded by attacking with ensnaring roots while vine blights slammed into us. Under our flame attacks, we managed to destroy the thing. Gideon was able to recover one healing fruit. As the trunk cracked open, it revealed hundreds of animal bones - the blights had been feeding the tree with kills.
After a short breather, we decided to look into the greenhouse. It was unusually warm and humid inside and filled with all sorts of exotic plants, including one that rose up and sprayed Gideon. Gideon went unconscious. Then it jabbed a thorn at Wolfram. We stomped it into the ground. At the back of the greenhouse was a hut with hooks and vats to hang and bleed animals. The herbalist had been watering his plants with warm blood.
Turning our attention to the graveyard, we see it was surrounded with a wall in which there are inscriptions to Pelor and Beory. We can see a half-dozen hobgoblin zombies clustered around one mausoleum. This mausoleum had once been sealed with a magical chain covered in mystical symbols, now broken and lying in the grass.
As we move to the zombies, we can make out something moving inside the mausoleum. While we are busy destroying the hobgoblin zombies, Sir Thabo climbs into the mausoleum, joined in a moment by our halfling, Wolfram. As we finish off the last of the zombies, Sir Thabo has finished off the thing in the mausoleum.
Going back to the herbalist's house, we collect the remains of the dead and lay them to rest in the cleaned out graveyard. The ghost's spirit is put at ease by Duncan's Ceremony Spell. Then we can return to Willowstrand.