Castle Amber: A D&D Adventure

Spoonweaver · Post by **Spoonweaver** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 4:54 pm

Gontort and Tammyherself get cure serious. They are both at full.
Galse needed only a curelight but Lynda received no healing due to her condition.
Only a cure serious tammy's cure minors remain.
Kalar also does get healed because he's not there.

Kalar arrives at the ghoul land entrance to find a tough, leather armor bound Ghoul standing there. It looks at the corpses Kalar is carrying. "Are you Kalar? These two told me about you while they took the treasure that I was guarding. My name is Hrulgin. Since I no longer have a treasure to guard, I thought I'd follow their example and come follow you. Maybe that was a bad idea."

Meanwhile, the rest of the party returns tot he lab. They all look at Thistlewhistle and wonder what to do next.

BMR · Post by **BMR** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 5:12 pm

Kalar lays the ghouls down to rest. He says nothing at first, but senses that this ghoul is more intelligent and far more dangerous than the two who fell in his service. It would be a bad idea to try to force this one under his command. Much better instead to have him as a willing ally.

That decided, he says to Hrulgin, "This was an unfortunate accident. They met their ends, but it was not in my power to prevent. You are free to follow me should you choose. Know though, that I did not send these two to their deaths alone."

Kalar shows him the wounds and burns he received from the worm. "I suffered alongside them, and I fought to save them. If you follow me, then you have my word that I will protect you as I would protect myself. As you can see, I nearly died trying to protect them."

"I will be honest though, and I won't give you any nonsense speeches, if you follow, we're going to go into grave danger, but I will not send you needlessly to your death or into peril. And if you do follow me, then you'll be better off than being stuck here guarding things. Aid me, and I will aid you in whatever it is you seek."

Kalar looks around, trying to spot anything hidden. "For now though, I could use more allies. We will fare better with more of us." Kalar leaves unsaid the part where he believes that Rachelle and Tammytharn could potentially be a threat down the road.

Spoonweaver · Post by **Spoonweaver** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 6:28 pm

The ghoul nods. With a look down the hole followed by a scowl, Hrulgin says, "I've been guarding that treasure for hundreds of years, I don't even remember why I was doing it, I just had this urge to do so. When these two took it, i think whatever enchantment that was on me was broken. They told me you were responible for that, so I owe you a debt. Plus, anything is better than that fate which I have been tied to, even service to a mortal."

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 6:37 pm

After finishing with healing for the moment, and cleaning herself up as best as she can, Tammytharn sits in the hallway near the door to the safe-room.

One-by-one she drags scattered coins out of the worm's acid carnage using her Hand of the Mage, and makes a pile of them in a clean corner of the hallway. She tells the others that she will clean the pile of coins with a "Create Water" spell tomorrow after rest and meditation, and that it isn't about the money, just that she wants something peaceful and relaxing to do for a little while.

Really she wants an excuse to wait in the hallway and watch for Kalar and Rachelle to come back.

If either of them still need any healing when they return, she will offer her remaining spells.

BMR · Post by **BMR** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 6:44 pm

"I accept your service then. And as I said, that in exchange for your service you have my word that I will protect you as I would protect myself. I will also have your goals be as mine, and I will aid you in accomplishing what you need."

Kalar is quiet for a while and then says quietly, "Truth be told, although you are in service to a mortal, I do not intend to stay that way for long. Perhaps some day in the future, I shall be able to get past this pesky mortality and never have to fear death again... But that is just between the two of us, if you would be so kind."

Returning to his normal volume, he says, "Now, before we move on, are there any others down there who would be easy to bring up here? It would aid us greatly if we were able to bring a few more under our control. For one, it would increase our odds of survival. I have some good companions back with the others, but there are a few that I am dubious of, and the more of us there are, the safer we will be."

Kalar deliberately uses the phrases "our odds of survival" and "under our control" to set Hrulgin up as a partner, rather than as a servant, something he believes will better bind the ghoul's loyalty.

*I will edit Hrulgin's backstory on the TW profiler to be keeping more in line with this introduction

Spoonweaver · Post by **Spoonweaver** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 8:15 pm

The ghoul says, "The only other one down there is the portal guard. He doesn't talk much, I don't think I could get him to come up here. I'm not sure what's through the portal, I was told it was the ghoul lands, whatever those are."

Meanwhile, Tammytharn folows the trail of gold pieces back to the room full of gold. She estimates there is about 50,000 gold here. She also finds 3 jeweled cups, a longsword, a jeweled crown, a jeweled scepter, a staff, and a small green dragonfly figurine.

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 8:33 pm

As an experiment, Tammytharn attempts to levitate each of the jeweled cups, the longsword, the jeweled crown, the jeweled scepter, the staff, and the small green dragonfly figurine.

She knows that the Hand of the Mage doesn't work on magical items, so it seems like an easy way to detect whether any of the items is magical

Master K · Post by **Master K** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 10:37 pm

Lynda shakes her head and sighs. "Avarice..."

She goes in to the room of the treasure hoard room. Now that is has been diffused of its trap, she looks through the treasure. She quickly grabs the dragonfly figure, to match her humans and dog. She also takes the jeweled crown, one cup, and the scepter.

"I may seem incredibly vain, but considering that this place could kill me at any moment, why not die in style?" She says as she puts on the crown. She then goes back out to the main room, to wait around to see what her other party members will do next.

BMR · Post by **BMR** » Thu Feb 05, 2015 2:10 am

"Very well then, let's be off. I'll lead you to the rest of the party. They'll most likely be in the treasure room. Lots of gold and other items there. I'll talk to them, but please do be so kind as to search for any onyxes. I lost three of them a while back, and I'll need more to replenish our supply of minions."

He leads Hrulgin back to the treasure room. By now back to his usual self, he says to the party, "I apologize for getting us into that mess. However, I hope the treasure here is enough to make up for it. I'll claim 25,000 of the gold here, to exchange with Charles for that sword. As getting that sword will aid us greatly in our survival, I say it is a fair trade. As for those items, if they are, as I believe them to be, magical, then it would be best to take them.

"With this done then, what is our next step? We can venture forward to the Eastern Wing, or if everyone is feeling a bit battered, we can rest for the day and continue fresh tomorrow."

Gizmog · Post by **Gizmog** » Thu Feb 05, 2015 3:18 am

Galse continues his pattern of taking nothing, what good are gold and baubles gonna do us in this mess? Is this place warping their minds towards greed? He'll have to keep his narrowed eyes on this as it develops.

Spoonweaver · Post by **Spoonweaver** » Thu Feb 05, 2015 4:29 am

Lynda rushes in behind Tammytharn and starts picking things up. Tammytharn is able to figure out that most of the things in here are in fact not magical. The only thing she finds to be magical is the dragonfly figurine. She watches as Lynda scoops it up and runs off, talking about how fabulous she looks.

Kalar struggles to gather the 25,000 gold Charles asked for. At well over 500lbs and easily filling every container Kalar can get his hands on, the gold is too much for Kalar, even with the help of his new companion.

BMR · Post by **BMR** » Thu Feb 05, 2015 5:04 am

Kalar decides it would be far better to just leave the gold there for now and come back for it later once he's acquired the books that Charles asked for.

Kalar sees Lynda with her new crown and raises an eyebrow. She's been fairly reliable thus far though, so a little silliness is certainly nothing to be worried about. In fact, if it makes her happy, then an asset with high morale is always better than one that's depressed.

While waiting for the others, Kalar raises his holy symbol and sends healing energy throughout his body. The light wounds it cures will not be all that much, but it's better than nothing now that he's expended his more powerful spells mollifying Rachelle.

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Thu Feb 05, 2015 3:54 pm

Tammytharn is birefly annoyed at Lynda picking up the items when she was in the middle of experimenting with them, but she takes a deep breath, and decides it doesn't matter. Then she tells Lynda

"That lovely dragonfly is magical somehow. I'm sure you can carry it more safely than anyone else thanks to your necklace. PERHAPS we will find out later what the magic does."

Then she goes over to Kalar, as he struggles with the gold.

"I saw what you did to try and 'save' those ghouls. I may disagree with you about almost everything, but I think you deserve SOME respect for what you tried to do."

She glances at Hrulgin with a mixture of curiosity and discomfort, and tries to leave the room before Kalar has a chance to reply.

Spoonweaver · Post by **Spoonweaver** » Thu Feb 05, 2015 7:33 pm

Back in the lab again, the party discussed what their next move should be. Rachelle discussed the ladder she found as well as the angry plants that originally woke her up.
Tammytharn thought about how much time she had spent in this room, and how four people she knew had disappeared in this room with one being found in dead and another's treasured quiver being found.
Lynda looked at all her jewels, she had collected a lot of them during the time she's spent in this place. She had always want things like this, it was the reason she was adventuring. With the huge pile of gold in the other room, she thought all the other jewels she could afford. Now she just had to escape this castle so she could spend it all.
Galse looked over the food. Some of the other party members asked about the food, but he felt it wasn't time to eat yet. His stomach had always guided him when it came to eating times and it felt fine right now.
Kalar, thinking he would have to be the one to lead the party out of here thought hard about his next move. His last choice had lead to the loss of all of his minions and had almost killed him, he needed to make sure his next choice was a better one.
Gontort shook Thistlewhistle. There was no response.

BMR · Post by **BMR** » Fri Feb 06, 2015 1:41 am

Confidence shaken, but feeling the need to reassert his authority, Kalar speaks up:

"Right, lads. I say we head out for the Eastern Wing that Charles mentioned. This time around, Rachelle should take point. And before you say anything, my dear, I am not trying to get you killed. The fact stands that you are the only one who has been anywhere near that area, and you will be able to warn us of those 'angry plants' that you spoke of. This will give us all a better chance of survival.

"Lynda, I want you following close behind her. Keep your eyes out, and if anything attacks, fill it full of arrows. Hrulgin and I will be right behind you, ready to provide whatever support is needed.

"Lastly, Galse and Tammy should follow last. They will need to take care of our supplies and of our gnomish friend.

"Before we set out though, I realize we've just had a tough battle. I propose that before leaving, let's settle down here and spend the rest of the day recuperating. This place has been relatively safe; more-so now that we've cleared it out. Tomorrow, we'll set out from a position of strength, so take your time today to get your bearings, and prepare yourself for what will undoubtedly be a difficult road ahead."