Session 8: Cold Stones Keep

Session 8:
Krudin waved goodby to the band of adventurers as they left the potion makers hovel.
The group moved south, and without the aid of the ‘Swamper’ would need to travel to the ghoul bridge in order to thread their way through the perilous Mist Marsh.
On the way the group encountered a lone elven woman, an armored fighter whom Aarth and Lath recognized from their time in Ellival’s household. Her name was Arianna, and she was the lone survivor from a group. The group’s leader had been a druid/ranger from the bronzewood lodge with a mission to explore and map key features of the Mist Marsh. Unfortunately they had encountered a spectral undead which rose from a submerged barrow. The creature, which Moregrim and Lath recognized as an ‘Allip’ slew the other four members of her band and she was forced to flee.
The group encouraged her to join them on their quest to explore Cold Stones Keep.
The ghoul bridge posed small problems for group, since they were prepared for the possibility on undead. Lath’s turned forced 5 of the 6 aquatic ghouls to flee, and the 6th was slain, but not before it Paralyzed Moregrim. Lath using his magic to release him from the paralysis.
The group fled to the other side of the bridge before the rest of the ghouls returned.
The group approached the sinking keep as dusk settled on the Marsh.
Their first challenge was to cross the water to get through the flooded gate house.
The group spotted a break in the wall of a nearby tower. Aarth sent his familiar ‘Scuttles’ to swim to the break and explore inside.
The familiar did so and in the gloom Aarth felt nervousness wash through him from their empathic link. Suddenly he felt panic and fear.
Aarth quickly swam the gap between solid ground and the break in the tower wall. Inside he found a partially flooded room rank with vines and growth. Scuttles was drowning in the fronds of a large pitcher plant. Aarth scooped Scuttles up, and before he could turn a large vine animated and tried to grab him. He deftly avoided the plant and moved towards the break in the wall.
Those that could swim tried to follow Aarth. Feldnar produced a scroll and began to read it’s magic. At the completion of the spell he tossed a length of rope and it animated. Arianna grabbed the rope from his hands and hurled it towards the tower. As it neared the wall, Feldnar yelled ‘Tie’ and the rope magically tied itself to a large stone. Arianna held the other end, and one by one the group used the rope to swim across to the broken tower.
By the time the rest of the group entered the tower, whatever had attacked Aarth had either fled, or remained passive for no other vines attempted to attack the group.
The adventurers move into the partly flooded court yard and went towards the keep.

The adventurers encountered little more than some unsafe rooms at first. After Moregrim and Bornir were struck by falling debris the group took a more careful exploration of the keep.
On the first floor the group found a row boat moored to a rock at a break in the keep’s back wall.
On the second floor of the keep the adventurers found a room with 6 bed rolls and a fire pit. Then while half of the group was exploring the encampment a little further down the same hallway came a bald gnome. He popped out of a doorway, with a cocked small crossbow cradled over his arm.
“Who be you?” He queried. A parlay of sorts ensued between Feldnar and the gnome, while Mendax, Arianna, and Lath looked on.
Little information was given by wither side, and Feldnar and the gnome agreed the two groups would stay out of each others way.
Then Mendax cast a spell at the gnome with no obvious effect. The gnome wagged his finger at Mendax “Very naughty casting a hypnotism spell at me.” He then popped back into his doorway and the door slammed shut.
Before he fled Mendax spotted a set of reed pipes slung at the gnomes side. A gnome Bard perhaps.
The group cautiously left the hallway, and decided to explore the rest of the keep. They encounter a quartet of skeletal wolves guarding another inanimate skeleton. This corpse was found to have a wand with a command word scribbled on a note, the wand proved to be a wand of charm person.
Next they decided to find a way downstairs. The well in the courtyard seemed promising.
Moregrim peered down the well and saw a large break in the side of the well. The break started down 10’. Moregrim was lowered in a rope harness fashioned by Aarth and he found a large break in the well wall to a room beyond. Most of the break was dammed up with timbers and stones, so that the room beyond was flooded almost to the ceiling.
After reporting what he saw to the group, he unlimbered his axe, planted his feet on the dam and started chopping.
Moregrim spent several minutes hacking down the dam, during which time Mouse was peeking to see if the other group of adventurers were nearby. Finally the dam gave free and Bornir and Arianna struggled to keep Moregrim from being washed down the well by the sudden torrent of water. Moregrim was hoisted up, and as he watched the water pressure tore apart more and more of the dam. After 10 minutes he figured it would take hours to drain the rooms beyond, and the group hauled him up.
As they had been working under torch light and with the benefit of Dwarven Dark Vision, it was deemed best to find a safe place to rest for the night and get a fresh start in the morning.