The Knights of the Spoon

(Massive in terms of chronological scope, short in terms of actual size)

Tel Vos’ diary notes that since leaving the home base, we have done some, more or all of the following:

• paddled up river and avoided a sizeable war party
• fought a hydra, with Vivec heroically leaping on it. Luckily someone had the bright idea of burning the neck stumps.
• got caught in some crazy circular trap on the river, we eventually found a scroll that banished the evil spirit that was trapping us
• joined a caravan train after leaving the river. We were then attacking by a horde of bandits. Stephen was polymorphed into a dragon – after he reported that it ‘felt weird’ and he’d prefer to be a dinosaur next time
• trekked overland, and ended up spending the night surrounded by a host of the Master’s army. We hid in a cave and waited..
• met another hydra in the desert
• found a small temple/shrine (I can’t remember what happened here, beyond there being a scorpion man statue)
• found the Four Guardians – they were four giant statues in an arena. Some geezer had a loudhailer thing to make it look like they were talking. (Did anything else happen here?)
• discovered a monastery atop a pinnacle of rock. The monks have made us welcome, but warn of an evil presence at night…
• We found the evil presence – it was a frost salamander, so we killed it

Following that excitement, the next couple of days are pretty lame as we put as much stuff on the raft as possible until it starts sinking, and then take some off and start poling up river. They pretty soon realise that with me poling, they aren’t going anywhere, so I’m on lookout duty most of the time. Faustus does the heavy lifting on this obvs. Or rather the high flying.

After this the days all seem to merge into one, and it feels like weeks until something happens. When it does though, it’s a bloody great hydra coming stomping out of the river straight for us. The two muscle-men show how heroic they are by jumping off the raft and onto the darn thing, cutting off heads left and right. Obviously that means that it pretty soon has twice as many heads as it started with. Saner minds prevail, and flame-girl and me pound it with some spells, including some tasty fire based damage. Turns out that barbecued hydra doesn’t taste so nice though.

Our next stop after that is the swamp. It starts getting pretty fetid and soon we find a small hut on stilts in a pond in the middle of the swamp. The water is foul and all the fish look diseased. We try to pole off but we are stuck – every time we pole out of the pond, we find ourselves poling back in again. We try everything we can think of – burning the hut, all the spells we have in my grimoire, but nothing can get us out of here. Finally, when we are almost on the verge of losing our minds completely (and I think the hippie-chick does go a bit nuts – she’s certainly pretty catatonic), we see a mysterious figure in the reeds at the edge of the pond. By the time we pole over, she has vanished, but we find a scroll tube with a powerful dispel magic spell in it. We cast it, and the curse vanishes; the water is clear and the fish are healthy. We scarper pronto at that point.

After a while we reach our destination – just in time I think because the raft is starting to look a bit ropey. We proceed into the desert proper, and pretty rapidly make contact with a caravan that is going in the right direction, and it seems could use a few more hired hands to protect itself. We spend a couple of days getting used to how they do things – travelling twice a day at dawn and dusk to avoid the worst of the heat. After a couple of days, we get put on point duty, so we are the first people to see the horde of bandits that suddenly appear from behind a dune and start charging towards the caravan. We send the bargeman back to warn the caravan at top speed, and by the time we get back, they are laagered up and pretty much surrounded. We join the north rampart and prepare to do battle. Their initial charge is pretty devastating, and several of them break right through our line of guards and into the merchants and camels beyond before we have a chance to use the heavy artillery spells (and we had some real dozies lined up, flame-girl and me). The barbarian goes rampaging off, and the dwarf sticks to just defending the hippie chick, who summons a bunch of wolves again, so I decide to mess things up a bit. I have a wand I boosted from a place a little while ago that can change people, and decide to use it on the nob guy, just to give him a bit of a shock. I’m nice though, I turn him into a silver dragon rather than a worm or a beetle or something gross. He seems happy as larry though, tromping on bandits, freezing them with his cold breath and when they turn and run to takes to the sky to chase them down as well. I don’t think any of them got away. Unfortunately he’s back before his hour is up, otherwise he would have turned back into a non-flying person at five hundred feet altitude. Uncontrolled flight into terrain 🙂

We may have knocked out all the bandits, but they have ripped a second one in the caravan as well – quite a few dead and wounded. We do what we can for the wounded, and bury the dead, which takes a day. Then onwards through the endless desert. In a couple of days we find the hidden oasis though, which I guess just makes it the oasis. We replenish our water, and the hippie chick starts on some spell to make it produce more food. We are woken up in the night by a foul stench, which apparently often preceeds attacks from the evil ones, but nothing happens.

The next day we are sent out, minus hippie chick, on a deep desert patrol. We are right at the end of our patrol range, when we discover a strange half buried temple in the sand. Normal people would ignore it or run screaming, but we ain’t normal we ain’t. We proceed down the avenue of half-buried columns, ignoring the two human skeletons chained to the last pair. Beyond is a courtyard with a sand-filled pool, and a dark doorway beyond.

The Book of Light says ‘where the darkness is deepest, there the light can shine strongest’. Following my success in Hutarkka where I brought the light of Helim to that benighted backwater and brought peace to their warring factions with the light of my mace, I am not content to rest on my laurels or take pride in my achievements, because I am merely a servant of the eternal light.

Thus I am now here, in the western deserts of the Republic of Darokin, because the light of Helim knows no earthly boundaries, and nor do its servants. Here I am unknown at present, but soon my renown will shine across the land in the service of the Lord of Light. The distance from Karameikos can be the only explanation for why my aid has not been received with more gladness, for I have been treated in many respects as if I was a common soldier. But we are also taught that sometimes it is necessary for the light to be hidden for a while so that it may shine forth suddenly in the midst of its enemies.

I find myself commanding a rag-tag of drop-outs and misfits that are too rebellious or unbiddable to be included in the main army that moved out against the desert nomads a few days ago. My desire to smite the forces of darkness burns within me unquenched though. I command and am commanded, as is proper, so I shall excel at my duty, whatever my duty may be, even if it is unworthy of me. Do everything as if you do it for Helim.

Last night I was given an opportunity to show my valour indeed. It was the third watch and there was a cry from the wilderness beyond the palisade. Hearing in that cry the voice of a man sorely oppressed, I vaulted heroically from the palisade and ran towards the noise. When I arrived, I beheld a man being attacked by a foul creature which the sight of Helim (all blessings to him) showed to be a fiend from the deepest hells. The man was sorely hurt, but two great blows from my mace, backed with the radiant power of Helim, was enough to dispatch the foul creature back to its infernal lair.

The man could barely speak, but thrust a scroll tube into my hand and whispered something about crossing the great desert, journeying through the great pass, and defeating the Dark Master in his temple of Death. Or something like that – the details are a little hazy. But it matters not – Helim himself, in this stranger, has revealed to me my purpose in this land, and I will fulfill his will.

Fortunately my superiors concur that I am destined to bring doom to this dark master, and have concurred with Helim’s will, as they obviously must, but without struggle, which is always the best route. I shall lead my squad upriver and then into the desert, to find the great pass and the temple of death.

The next day, as my troops are preparing our rafts and supplies, we are attacked by a wizard on a wyvern and several trolls. The wizard uses cowardly tactics, casting spells from a distance, but I am able to catch him on the ground and show him the justice and righteousness of Helim until he submits and acknowledges his majesty in a most final manner.

The trolls are beneath contempt and are slaughtered repeatedly and then burnt until they stop moving.

Well, this seems as good a place to lie low as any, or so I first thought. Volunteer for the army being sent out to the desert border, and then scarper when things look like getting hot. Not that I can’t look after myself these days, since the deal was done, but no sense making trouble for myself. Trouble is this place is buttoned up like a snake’s arse, and there is no where to go anyway, except downstream. And I saw what they did to some guys who tried to run away that way. So kept my head low, and made sure that I was useless enough not to get picked, but not so useless that I get nailed for anything. And I mean nailed up. It was all OK until a few days ago, and then the main force moved out, and we were left to garrison this dump. Opportunity at last I thought, but this complete stick-up-the-arse aristocrat has put himself in charge of our squad. We seem to be all the awkward bastards and misfits and I think a bunch of them are playing the same card as me and appearing a lot more useless than they are. There is one girl who is nice enough, except she keeps playing with fire the whole time, like literally. I think she is a few loaves short of a bakery shop, if you ask me. And this dwarf who is the grumpiest sod I ever met. And a complete meatheat who is so up himself its not true, and his slimy sidekick. Plus the aforementioned nob. And some kind of hippie chick.

Anyway, night before last we were doing duty on the rampart, and suddenly heard a kerfuffle out in the desert. Black as pitch out there, but of course that doesn’t cause me no problems, not with my witchsight. I could see what was going on – some bloke in desert robes fighting with some kind of creature. Unnatural looking thing. Anyway Stephen, the nob, Stephen de Hautville he insists on being called, he shouts a warcry of somekind, and jumps over the frigging rampart. Must be a twelve foot drop to the bottom. Brains of a tadpole that one. Brave, I’ll grant you, but I’m amazed he has lived thsi long. Anyway, he goes pegging off towards the fight. The flight is getting closer, and I think the others can see what is going on now, including Stephen. The thing is definitely unearthly now, but Stephen doesn’t slow down. I think there really is quite a lot of brain missing there. Anyway, he gets in close and starts slugging it with his mace, which is quite impressive – blasts of light as he hits it. He looks like he is having far too much fun though, so I banish it back to wherever it came from. Works like a charm as well. Kill-steal! The nob looks a bit disconsolate but pulls himself back together and tends to the wounded bloke, then carries him back in. They vanish off with the rest of the boss types, so I go back to staring at the desert.

Next morning, its all go. Seems we now have a top secret mission to go on. Must be related to the bloke we rescued I guess. Anyway, far to top secret for me to know about, except that I am quite good at knowing about stuff that I’m not supposed to know about. Apparently we need to go into the desert, through some sort of great pass, and find the temple of Death. Not sure what we are supposed to do there, but I guess a bit of mindless violence will be called for. Anyway, first step is to travel up the river for a couple of days and through a marsh, then strike out across the desert until we hit the caravan route, and pick up a caravan. They try to but be on raft loading duty, and then realise that its really not what I do, lugging stuff around. So I get to round up the camels instead. Evil bloody creatures, but smart. They rapidly realise who is boss, once you give them a quick mental picture of what true suffering really is. The Stephen nob gives us a speech about how we should be proud to be doing the will of Helim. Utter claptrap. We spend most of the day doing this, and then someone spots something in the sky flying towards us. We take cover and the dragon flies pass with a bloke on it. I send Faustus up to have a look, but he can’t keep up with it and the sunlight hurts his likkle eyes. Couple of hours later, its back again, and this time its heading straight for us. We go to take up a defensive position, but suddenly the bloke on the back gestures and a mote of flame flies over and explodes in the centre of us. We’re not too badly damaged (or at least I’m not), so I blast him back with a fireball of my own – not just him, but the three trolls who have just hopped over the palisade to support him. Stephen goes charging off at him again – the guy seriously only seems to have one tactic. The flight is relatively short – I blast off a few more eldricht blasts, but make sure to keep myself well out of harms way. The hippie-chick summons a pack of wolves, which is quite impressive. They don’t last long against the trolls, but it makes it just too complex to be bothered woring out who I should be blasting. Starts getting pretty boring towards the end – the wizard on the wyvern dies quite quickly and the wyvern buggers off fortunately. It quite funny watching them chop up the trolls, which keep pulling themselves back together. Finally they start hitting them with fire spells – the nutjob with the fire fixation is obviously fairly good at that, and the nob has a neat trick where he gets his mace to burst into flames when it hits, so they all stay down in the end.

The slimeball has had a root through the pockets of the wizard by the time I get there, but my arcane sight shows me that he has a magic ring on, so I get the Brazen Tome out (a sign of especial favour from my infernal lord) and start preparing a spell of identification.

The others finally returned and we took a brief rest as we recovered from our exertions.  We then explored the rooms that they had been in.  There were two bodies, which matched their tales.  Their purses were empty unfortunately.  We proceeded to a trisection with a strange clay statue, which proved to not be magical, and didn’t attack us.  Going north, we then headed east to a door, beyond which Feyabelle heard kitchen sounds.  We burst in to once again slaughter menials, to be confronted by a mess hall and two heavily armoured warriors eating a root-vegetable stew.  

They leapt up, Sorrel cast spike growth, so they leapt on the tables and jumped across the room towards her.  One slipped and fell on the floor.  Feyabelle shot at them, and Arielle rushed in to fight the one on the table.  Thorg stomped round to the one on the floor.  Feyabelle moved further in and shot at the one on the floor, killing him just as Thorg reached him.  Thorg turned and stomped back to the other one, reaching him just as Arielle killed him.  It all seemed quite boring, so I waited in the corridor.  They certainly didn’t seem to be of a calibre to waste my magical might on.

There was a kitchen in the far corner with three menials that Thorg and I interrogated.  As we were gagging and tying them to the cupboards, the floor around the other three erupted upwards.  A woman had appeared in the other doorway of the room.  She then retreated back through the door and Sorrel followed her.  I ran up and saw a short corridor with two men at arms supporting her.  Arielle cast a circle of silence on her to stop her casting further spells, and I cast my own earth erupting spell which caught the three of them (and Sorrel as acceptable collateral damage).  The two henchmen went down rapidly, but the woman took a pounding from Feyabelle, Arielle and Thorg.  I cast a web spell on the door at the far end of the corridor to prevent her running away.  We realised later that only Thorg’s sword and Arielle’s dagger had really been doing her much damage.  Finally Thorg delivered the coup-de-grace and she exploded in a shower of razor sharp stone shards, cutting up Sorrel and Thorg quite badly (Arielle managed to dodge them all).  Now to see what lies beyond the door.

Much fighting continued.  I penned the grey dwarves in with a wall of fire, and was then attacked by the cultists who had come in through the door next to me, but used my gnomish magic to disappear from their eyes when the first one hit me, so the rest missed.  I saw Thorg finish off the bulette rider, and then go and wait for the grey dwarves to come through my wall of fire.  Invisible, I then moved around the back of the cultists and killed one with a sneak crossbow bolt, while Arielle finished off the rest.  Arielle, Sorrel and Feyabelle then vanished through that door, while I went over to help Thorg against the grey dwarves, who had still not emerged.  Thorg went through the northern stone doors, and was hit by a crossbow bolt from a concealed arrowslit so some of them were still alive.  I conjured some smoke mephits from my pipe, and sent them through the wall of fire to attack any living grey dwarves, but they soon returned, so I dropped the wall of fire.  We found the charred remains of three grey dwarves, but no sign of the other two, so assumed that they had turned invisible and sneaked past us – hopefully to flee into their deep diggings.

I guess we had better go and find out what has happened to the other three – they have been gone for quite a long time.

Having dealt with the excitement at Red Larch (and tried to persude them that we have saved them from a horrible fate and that a small amount of collateral damage from lightning bolts was a small price to pay – difficult without actually setting off the sphere of destruction to let them see the impact), we thought about our next steps. Obviously the earth temple was the next target, but given we had come in through the front door on each of the previous two occasions, I reasoned that we should try the back door this time, in case they spotted a pattern. Accordingly, we returned to the water temple and went through the passageway to the north.
We emerged after a short trek into a large columned hall. Unfortunately we got very little time to appreciate it before we were attacked by a bulette. It was chained up to a column, but the chain wasn’t really up to the task and broke. We pulled back down the corridor to fight it, and killed it reasonably rapidly, but its bite gave Thorg a couple of quite nasty nips.
Emerging back into the chamber, we spotted another bullette sleeping and chained to one of a pair of columns further into the hall. We decided to avoid another fight, so Arielle cast Pass Without Trace and we snuck past. We found a chasm splitting the room with the noise of hammering echoing up it, but were able to cross easily with the aid of some rope. On the far side we found yet another bulette, which we sneaked past again. On the far side of the hall we found another corridor. Off to the right we found a chamber lined with giant statues of dwarves with maces for hands, set up as some sort of alchemical laboratory. There was a man in there with his back to us, wearing a cloak of small stone tiles. This alone was enough to persuade us not to give him the benefit of the doubt, so we piled in on him. His reactions were pretty slow, and he went down before he could even turn around. A quick perusal of his paperwork showed that we had been right to let him have it with both barrels – he was the #2 in the earth cult and could command the statues to attack us.
Leaving his room, we proceeded north. The next chamber was another large columned hall. Near us in the corner was a group of hobgoblins around a fire, and in the far corner another bulette, this time with a rider.
I zagged to the left and lightning bolted the bullette, while the others took care of the hobgoblins. Next turn they moved towards the bulette, Feyabelle taking cover behind Thorg, while I lightning bolted the bulette again. The bullette surprised us though by leaping on top of Thorg and Feyabelle, almost crushing both of them. Thorg’s counter-attack finished it off though, although not the rider. At this moment, both doors into the chamber opened. On the right side were three grey-skinned dwarves, and on the left a bunch of cultists.

Our recuperation at Red Larch was as vigourous as normal, and it was with a heavy head that I was woken up on the second morning by shouts of surprise from outside.
We all hastened out in varying stages of undress (except Thorg – does he sleep in that armour), although not enough undress in some cases unfortunately… In the centre of Red Larch was a group of water cultists – some warriors, a priest, another shivver and an elemental in plate armour (you had to be there to understand). In centre of their circle they had a chest from which they were pulling out a sphere while chanting. The sphere was exactly as Theorgorm had described at Womford, which had caused a flood that had washed away the village. Concerned about the effect this Sphere of Destruction would have on Red Larch, we put our efforts into stopping them doing the same here.
Thorg waded forward to assault the water elemental. Feyabelle starting shooting people before getting attacked by the water elemental. Sorrel turned into a bear and starting clawing at people. Arielle ran up a house (new trick that one) and started throwing things at the priest from the chimney. I lightning bolted the elemental and the shivver and then ran behind a house and turned invisible. The shivver vanished in a puff of mist (obviously not expecting proper resistance), and the priest went down to Feyabelle’s shooting and Sorrel’s claws. I ran round the back of the house to the unattended sphere, popped it back in its box and ran out of town. I had noticed that the box had fire runes on it, and guessed that the fire runes somehow neutralised the water bomb. I was shown to be right when I subsequently had the time to cast identify on it – it turned out the bomb was only 6 seconds from exploding, but that timer was suspended while it was on the box. I made sure the box was really properly latched shut at that point.

Seeing the reinforcements arrive, and concerned that my ball-bearings would only hold them up briefly, I quickly found a pile of fabrics and cask of brandy that looked suitable for starting a blaze, so used one of the smoke mephits to set light to that pile. Before the lizardmen could spot it, I scurried, still invisible, across to the south side of the market hall and started another one.
Seeing that the lizardmen had spotted the blaze, I then prowled south from the market hall, still concealed by my invisibility. To the south was another square with a central statue. I checked the rooms, and found the lizardmen quarters, now deserted, and some other rooms. My scouting was interrupted though by the arrival of more reinforcements – another one of the one-eyed cultists and some more warriors. The leader was muttering something about the stupidity of the hideous woman who was already in the market hall, so I resolved to follow them.
I found them in the market hall, facing off against each other and trading insults. It looked pretty het up, and so I decided to see if I could get them to actually start fighting each other. Hidden in the southern doorway, I cast an illusion over one of the warriors of him throwing his javelin at one of the ogres. It missed (even ogres can probably spot an illusionary javelin hitting them), but that was enough to get the ogre to lunge forward and attack. The rest of the warriors leapt to his support and I followed up with a magic missile on the other ogre to get him riled up as well.
The hideous woman transformed before our eyes into an even more hideous hag – so terrifying that one of the warriors dropped dead of fright on the spot. The one-eyed cultist started fiddling with the strange water tank on his back and a water-snake emerged from it and attacked the hag. At the same time, he muttered an incantation, and an ogre and two of the lizardmen fled into the pool to the west.
The fight after that was fairly brief – the hag was quickly throttled by the water snake and the rest of her minions (the ones that were still alive) fled when she died. The cultist told them to run and keep going – and that he would kill them if they didn’t leave immediately. He then muttered something about stupid lizardmen setting off glyphs by mistake and disappeared back to the south – I had hidden in one of the side rooms to avoid being spotted.
When he had gone, I ventured back into the temple, but it was empty (although there were signs of a fight having taken place). There was a door on the far side, but when I went through it, there were just some unoccupied rooms. I was low on spells and tired, so decided to hide under a bed and get some sleep.
The next morning (possibly – I have lost track of time), I returned to the temple to start trying to find my colleagues. Imagine my surprise when they emerged from out of the pool of water in the temple – it turns out there was an underwater passage to a secret chamber where they had spent the night. They had also found a trove of old tomes belonging to Brulthenar, and had a defecting (and defective) priest of the water cult tagging along with them.
We decided to finish off the one-eyed cultist before we left, so headed south. We found a room with many great barrels of water, which we didn’t investigate. After that, we found him in his laboratory. Barging through the door, we achieved surprise and Thorg was able to hack him to pieces before he could even reach for his deadly water-snake backpack. A bunch of bugbears then burst in through the south door, but we fairly rapidly dealt with them to.
We returned to our original boat (our water priest cultist persuaded the troll waiting under one of the bridges that we were trusted guests) and returned to Riverguard Keep and then to Red Larch to replenish and recuperate.

Following the battle on the beach, the party may or may not have taken a long rest. Let’s assume they did.
They then row up the underground river and discover a cavern. A battle on a quayside ensues. A Dark Tide Knight riding a shark manages to knock Erky into the water while another baddy discovers that the short, hairy armoured thing can’t be pushed into the water. Erky uses Fly to escape the water and then goes for a tour of the complex. He meets some aquatic ghouls who are very pleased to see him, and nearly persuade him to join them.
The party take a short rest and then continue their exploration. North of the quay they are ambushed by a fairly concerted force of cultists, roused by the Dark Tide Knight who escaped the previous battle. Predictably, our heroes outwit and out-think their opposition. Further exploration suggests that they have now cleared the eastern portion of the temple and they can now move into the central part.
Stealthy exploration finds them a smelly door with crude carvings scratched on it. Passing by, they discover a large hall and kitchen/canteen. Much planning ensues and the death of water cultists follows. One is kept alive and pumped for information. The party learn the following:
– Gar Shatterkeel has gone down below to a place called ‘The Fane of the Eye’
– His deputies are Thuluna (thought to be a hag) and Morbeoth (One Eyed Shiver)
– Cultists identify each other with a hand signal
– The Water Cult serve Olhydra, the elemental Prince of Water. Without him they are nothing, and they seek to bring him from the Elemental Plane of Water to cleanse the world of the weak and unworthy.

Following the ‘interview’, the cultist was put to sleep and placed under the other dead bodies in a disused storeroom.
The party decide to head north to check out the Water Shrine which is just across a bridge. To either side of the bridge are culverts pouring water out into the canal. Erky sends Blinky the owl up one of the culverts to see what’s what.
Blinky telepathically communicates to Erky that the Water Shrine is here and that 5 Lizardfolk are on guard. Then communication ceases – Blinky is spotted by the guards and a hail of javelins sees him return to his own plane of existence…
Erky is cross and leads the party through the double doors….
BOOOOOMMMMM!!!!
A huge explosion is triggered by the doors and everyone is injured. With the noise of the explosion echoing through the halls, the party surge forward to engage with the lizardfolk, concerned that the noise will have alerted others in the complex.
A large, fearsome creature emerges from the water behind the lizardfolk, and suddenly the battle doesn’t look so simple.
Erky hangs back to attempt to distract any backup…
Spike Growth stalls the lizard folk for a moment, but they improvise by using a dead comrade as a stepping stone to leap out.
Meanwhile, Arielle and Thorg engage with the mighty beast – mighty blows are traded and in the end, Thorg’s persistence and powerful sword thrusts prove to be too much.
Feyabelle gets a shock mid-battle – she is hanging back on the bridge, firing arrows into combat. Suddenly a HUGE terrapin surfaces and attacks. HOLY SHIT!! IT’S A DRAGON TURTLE!!! Nursing her battered shoulder, she dived into the room and shuts the double doors.
Meanwhile, Erky sees a hideous female humanoid, a couple of ogres and more lizardfolk hurrying towards the market hall from the south. He scatters ball bearings and preps his pipe of Smoke Mephits..
Those in the shrine are now feeling bruised and scared. The party is separated and the temple is on full alert!