Lair Of The Orc Lord - Deep 1 (Part 3)

This is the summation of two sessions. The first session was an intermission where three players had the opportunity to develop their characters to level two, viz. Kodos, Asmodeus and Xera. The rest of the players had the chance to make the evening more social than normal.

The second session continues with our six bold adventurers taking a respite from the rigours of battle. Shashari and Kodos teleport back to Sel-kai. Aiming for the Temple of Eissa, Kodos fumbled his roll and missed the foyer area he was hoping to materialise in. Instead Kodos and Shashari end up outside and to the left of the Temple. Not too bad!

Making their way inside the Temple, they eventually contact the High Priestess who accepts their request for healing. Similar to Rikku's experience getting his eye repaired, Shashari's ear is repaired, eventually. The priestess gifted with this act of kindness found it difficult to obtain Eissa's favour and so failed three times when casting her spells.

By now it was late in the afternoon, so Shashari takes Kodos to The Limping Dog where Jerrel, the proprietor, greets them warmly. They decide to have their own room for the night, remembering the bad experiences of the shared common room. It costs them a little more, but piece of mind was foremost in Shashari's thoughts. Jerrel sat with the two visitors while they ate their evening meal. Shashari gave him an updated account of their travels so far. Jerrel leaves them; he is mightily impressed and invites them to return whenever they wish.

Meanwhile, the remaining PCs are staying in a small room, resting their bodies and increasing their recovery rate in the process. Early on in the piece a squeaking noise is heard coming from one of the walls. Preparing for the worse, Rikku and Cavell check out where the sound is coming from. No giant rats, thank goodness, but there is a small hole which Rikku blocks up with debris from the room. Further debris is used to light a fire as the remaining few realise they are quickly running out of lantern oil. (In fact this is something I forgot to check regularly. Being dark here, the PCs have had their lanterns on for a whole day and more. They had originally only brought a few vials of oil with them. As GM I was generous to allow them to have one vial remaining. Shashari and Kodos bought more in Sel-kai, or so they hoped.)

A few hours later, Cavell hears something outside the shut and lightly blocked wooden door to their room. He moves closer to the door, hoping to get more information from his senses. A short time passes and he can hear sniffing right at the door. BANG! Cavell bashes the door with a solid thump. He hears whimpering as the creature, most likely a Kobold, scampers away in pain.

"A scout.", says Cavell to the others, a warning of possibly more to come. But things settle down again and all goes quiet.

After an uneventful night's rest Kodos and Shashari have a light morning meal and head off to The Compleat Alchemist to sell the two Murlogi hearts Rikku had been keeping. They were a bit messy and the owner of the store offered 10 gp for the two. Not overly happy with their condition, he tells Shashari not to use a spoon next time when extracting them. (Rikku was originally offered 10 gp for each heart, but he was warned that their condition would impact the price he got for them.)

Next came a visit to Herbs and Tobaccos to sell the two green-purple flowers Xera had foraged and to also replenish their dwindling herb supplies. Upon seeing the two specimens the lady owner of the store quickly offered 80 gp for the two flowers. Astounded, Kodos and Shashari accepted the most generous offer immediately. (Xera had told them they would only get 1 gp for each, not 40 gp as had been offered. Something is fishy here!)

Shashari then spends most of their new found wealth on herbs and a new bow for Kodos. It was an expensive item at 50 gp. A standard long bow costs 10 sp = 1 gp, but Kodos wanted a non-magical +10 OB long bow equivalent to what he broke just yesterday. This request increases the price by a factor of 50, as detailed int the Treasure Companion.

Realising they had forgotten the horses, Shashari instructs Kodos to teleport to the city stables and purchase some food. He eventually buys two big sacks of oats and teleports himself outside The Limping Dog where Shashari is waiting for him with their gear from their room. Putting all their gear on their backs, they teleport back to the horses and then to the party who are patiently waiting for their return.

With all this teleporting of Kodos you'd think he'd wear himself out. In fact this is the very situation. Kodos must rest a short period to rebuild his exhaustion points to a level that will allow a safe teleport. Kodos expends 50 ExP (exhaustion pts) every time he uses his talent. When resting, the recovery rate of ExPs = 1 + CO stat bonus/2. Kodos' CO stat bonus is 10 so he recovers 1 + 10/2 = 6 ExPs per minute, hence it takes him a rest period of 8 minutes and 20 seconds to fully recover the lost 50 ExPs.

Meanwhile the rest of the party have an uneventful night themselves. The scouting Kobold, or whatever it was, did not return and so, after about 20 hours rest, Kodos and Shashari appear in the centre of the room.

The party continues to rest to allow their wounds to fully recover, they have at least another day. Shashari opens up a dialog with Cavell describing the two incidents where the priestesses of Eissa had difficulty in successfully casting their spells. Cavell immediately suggests that maybe the priestesses are out of favour with their godess. This is again the typical correct educated guess by Cavell's long-experienced player. Other possibilities are also discussed, some being rejected by Cavell, while others have a certain plausibility.

You will have to wait until the following blog post to see what the party do next ...