There Is No Honor...
Though the adventure path suggested that the player characters come up with some event pre-game that calls attention to them as adventurers in order for the central NPC and prospective patron Lavinia to take note of them...we decided to skip past that and just have our PCs hire on directly with Lavinia. We answered a posting around town and interviewed directly, thus introducing our characters to one another and taking our first opportunity at a little roleplay to get into the swing of things.
Ferra Redbrew (my character) is to be a CN Human Barbarian/Fighter, who'll be concentrating on Barbarian later on. She wields a spiked chain and has plans for feats such as Improved Trip and Mobility in order to complement the team's Rogue (Matthew). Ferra came across as aggressive and crude but a skilled fighter. Lavinia didn't seem to care much for her personally (and vice versa) but she won out on the grounds that she's such a versatile fighter anyway.
Harrak Dunkill (Johnny's character) is a CG Dwarf Cleric of Kord with domains in Destruction and War. He'll be aiming for the Thaumaturgist prestige class around level 8 or 9. He likewise presented himself as a frontline fighter, Johnny's preferred role, though his high Wisdom gives him some nice clerical spell options even if he intends to mainly focus on healing and summoning. With his high Wisdom he was able to win Lavinia over pretty easily, as she made clear to him she'd expect him to keep the team in line. It's clear he intends to jockey for a leadership role in the team, probably with little or no opposition (though I might buck a bit just for fun).
Rillian "Pick" Minomir (Matthew's character) is a N Half-Elf Rogue/Fighter who wield dual war picks. Having been raised as a thief he's chosen the life of an adventurer nonetheless, for purely pragmatic reasons. It's far more profitable with less chance of ending up a permanent resident of anyone's dungeon. His high Dexterity and max starting skill levels in the traditional thief skills land him the job easily. All of which makes him very cute and compelling to Ferra Redbrew, so I'll be sure to make her the bane of his existence for the forseeable future. ;)
Frizzy Cobblemacher (Melissa's character) is a CN Human Wizard with a slightly kooky personality. Though Lavinia is put off a bit by this she's nevertheless extremely intelligent (Int 18!) and knowledgeable, so Lavinia is rather forced to hire her on, due mostly to a lack of other applicants with any real arcane skill.
Once the interviews are over we all receive our letters from Lavinia within a day and return to the Vanderboren estate for dinner, our official hiring on and our first mission briefing, all at once.
On the way in, while waiting for Lavinia to welcome us, a small gang ambles through the room to give us the once over. Frizzy and Harrak both recognize them as the Jade Ravens, a group of mercs that have been in the employ of the Vanderboren estate for quite a long time. We naturally expect a little hostility at first but the group doesn't seem particular threatened by us and even seems to be on their way out on a mission of their own. They do stop to question us a bit, clearly sizing us up, but they move on soon enough with no confrontation.
Over dinner Frizzy insists on using Mage Hand to fill her plate and Prestidigitation for no other reason than she gets a kick out of it. Ferra likewise doesn't display the best table manners and drinks a bit more wine than she probably should have, all the while complaining there's no mead. Despite all that Harrak manages to keep things on topic and Lavinia clues us in on exactly what we're being hired on to do.
It would seem her parents left her with quite a lot of unsettled debt at their untimely passing (something we all recall hearing about - a tragic accident in which the ship they were on caught fire). Her ship, the Blue Nixie, has some sizable fees attached to it and the local docking authority has seized it until the debt's settled. Lavinia has paid a whopping 100 platinum to the men holding the ship...but they seem to have kept the money and are pretending she hasn't paid. We then are hired on to get aboard that ship, take back the money she's paid them and find out what exactly they're up to on her ship. Lavinia makes it clear she considers the men to be pirates and there's a clearly unspoken encouragement to deal with them violently given any provocation.
Furthermore, most of her inheritance is locked away in a family vault that she can't access without one of her parent's signet rings and the only one she's aware of, her father's, is most likely somewhere on that ship. So we're to retrieve that as well.
The Blue Nixie
After the meeting is over we put our heads together and decide to wait until morning, recon the area and see if we can waylay one of the men when they step off the ship. When we get there the next morning we find the ship anchored about 100' off the dock, making it unlikely the men are coming and going at all. Still, we wait until noon to be sure, then give up and make plans to get on the ship directly. Harrak goes off to find someone he can hire to row us out there and the rest of us split up to gather what info we can on the men holding the ship.
Once we're back together again we head down the dock and engage the men aboard. Pick then attempts to Bluff the men with an offer of even more platinum to turn over the ship to us right away but he fails and we're rebuffed (which leads us to figure there really is some other reason these guys want that ship and they aren't just stiffing Lavinia for the docking fees). With that we decide to wait until nightfall and just storm the ship itself.
We wait until roughly midnight then Harrak harries the man he's hired out of bed to row us out there. There isn't much activity visible on board the Blue Nixie but we can tell there's plenty going on inside. Still, it's slow going so it's no surprise that one of the men spots us when we're about 25' feet out. Since we're within speaking distance Harrak casts Command on the poor guy, commanding him to "approach" and he does so...flipping right over the rail and into the water, since he was leaning over the side to yell at us already. Someone else was apparently nearby to witness his comrade inexplicably vault over the rail, so we end up confronting him as well. But since this guy didn't hear Harrak and thought the other guy just fell overboard he comes to the rail to laugh at him and doesn't even spot us right away, giving us plenty of time to take action.
By the time the man spots us and starts to call out for others to come run us off, Harrak has already cast Magic Weapon on his bow and the rest of us have taken a shot at him. Ferra and Frizzy both hit, with Frizzy delivering a killing blow that drops the man dead right away. Another man pops up to check on him, still not spotting us. Harrak finally fires his bow at the new arrival and drops him dead with one shot, though. With no one else appearing at the rails above we turn our attention to the man in the water, who's been hollering for help the whole while. When he ignores our calls to surrender or else and swims for the nearest hanging rope to climb back up to the ship, we let loose at him as well. Eventually we knock him out of the running and there doesn't appear to be anyone else to shoot at for a while. All in all a pretty violent approach to resolving the whole situation but we figure we are dealing with pirates of a sort after all and the distinct disadvantage of storming a ship at sea justifies it somewhat.
Having finally reached the Blue Nixie we scale up the hanging ropes to take the deck and find it deserted. A quick peek by Pick down into the cargo hold shows about three or four men down there among a lot of cages filled with all sorts of animals (one of which seems to be a very large, very dangerous and very nasty looking bug of some kind). We dump the bodies overboard and check the other rooms accessible from up here (Officer's Quarters, Ward Room, Captain's Quarters, etc.) We don't find anyone or anything worth scavenging but Pick does manage to find Lavinia's dock fees (100 platinum), as well as her father's signet ring stashed in the headboard. With the ring we also find what is obviously a puzzle clue of some kind, so we stash that away as well.
Back out on the main deck Frizzy sneaks up to spy on the men down on the cargo hold. Once she gets the nod from the rest of us, she uses her Mage Hand to flip the latch on the big, nasty bug's cage and swing open the door. Then she pokes it a few times to get it moving. By the time the men notice it's gotten free it's already jumped on the nearest man and is busily gnawing on him. With the men busy fighting that critter we all edge around and down the steps to the door to the cargo hold. There Pick spies through the keyhole and we wait until the action dies down a bit before charging in there ourselves.
By the time the pirates put down the bug one of them is already dead and another badly wounded. We dash inside as the men are delivering the last killing blows to the big bug, with Ferra leading the charge. She misses on her first swing of the fight though but Pick follows up by tumbling to her target's flank, landing one hit with his pick in a successful Sneak Attack that drops the man dead right there. Harrak likewise charges in and drops his daily Destruction domain attack right on the ring leader, Vark. He not only lands the attack but gets a critical as well for a whopping 25 damage that just splatters the guy all over the place. Frizzy drops a Magic Missile on another guy that disables him and the sole remaining man immediately throws down arms and surrenders. Again, pretty bloody but effective over all.
Taking the two surviving men in hand and disarming them, we tie them up and leave Frizzy to torture them with cantrips while the rest of us search the ship. We don't find much else of value except the gear some of the men were wearing. A quick interrogation reveals that the men were smuggling exotic animals out of the city to some contact of theirs, hence their need to hang onto Lavinia's ship for a bit longer. With that we drag the men up to the deck, untie them, strip them to their undies and kick them overboard as well (although in hindsight we really should have kept them prisoner and turned them over to the authorities). Ferra and Pick stay on board the ship (giving Ferra the opportunity to get to know Pick a little and decide he'll be her new toy) while Harrak and Frizzy report back to Lavinia.
When Lavinia comes to reclaim the ship, install a proper crew on board and secure the docking fees in order to pay them properly tomorrow, she takes the opportunity to officially hire us all on permanently, with a monthly income of 100 gold. Not at all bad and she even has another job for us already. With most of her inheritance still locked away in the family vault (including the 200 gold each she originally promised us) we're to accompany her there to access that at last, now that she has her father's signet ring. As it happens these family vaults are traditionally trapped and guarded, and she's fairly sure she's heard her parents refer to a construct of some sort guarding theirs.
The Vanderboren Family Vault
The following day we all ride out to the place and Lavinia goes through the clerk to access her family's vault. Once down there the ring springs the door as expected and the team goes on ahead to check the place out, Pick leading the way Searching from traps and hazards. Pick and Frizzy both notice the eight pointed star on the door as identical to the symbol adorning one of the buildings in the merchant district, though none of us knows what it's supposed to represent. Still, we make note of it. Pick also quickly notices the column on the north side of the room has a snake pattern that's a bit different from the others and so is likely our way through to whatever treasure this place holds.
Before we can check that out the Iron Cobra guarding the place slithers in from behind a pillar to our right, nearly surprising Ferra when it attacks her. Though it takes three rounds we finally put the thing down, with only Ferra taking a single bite in that fight. Luckily she makes her save vs. poison in the process so there's no major damage. Pick then finds the hidden switch on the north pillar and opens up the next room. Once inside we immediately see the painting of various critters on the wall matching the paper we found with the ring on the Blue Nixie. Digging that out we pour over it a bit until Frizzy realizes it's referring to the number of eyes each critters has. With that we have the combination to go with the central column, which Pick has already discovered revolves with a distinct "clicking" sound. Matching the turns of the pillar with the code on the paper springs various hidden alcoves around the chamber and the treasure chests each holds.
When Lavinia come forward to claim her inheritance however, we find most of the chest are empty. Though the remaining one or two still have enough to pay off the debts her parents left her with, it doesn't leave a whole lot remaining after that and Lavinia is naturally beside herself now. Still she manages to find a cache of documents written in Sylvan, which Pick just happens to speak fluently, and he's able to give her the gist of their contents. They apparently document a whole cornucopia of outstanding debts owed to her family that she can collect on, which in the end should make her fairly wealthy. We head out back to Vanderboren estate so Pick can properly transcribe them for her.
On the way out Lavinia stops to question the clerk and she's surprised to find her brother Vanthus has been dropping by here, apparently busily cleaning out the vault. Naturally this angers her quite a bit, since the inheritance was left to her when her parents died, not him. He had no legal right to claim any of it. Moreover, Vanthus has apparently been missing for quite some time and this is the first lead she's had on him in a long while.
After we arrive back at the estate Pick gets busy transcribing the documents for Lavinia and she pays us what she's promised. She also drops our third mission on us right away, finding Vanthus and bringing him to justice. Up until now she's been concerned that he's fallen in with bad men and has been looking for him, hoping to bring him around after a nasty falling out some time back. Now, after nearly wiping out the family vault, she's just as interested in getting her inheritance back. Once Pick has jotted down a rough translation for her we all head out to rest for the evening before hitting the streets the next morning looking for Vanthus.
Seeking Vanthus
After working as team around the merchant district with no success, we take a chance and split up to cover more ground. Dropping a few gold coins here and there all over town we still don't manage to find out much of anything at all about Vanthus, even after three full days devoted to that task. Finally, on the fourth morning we're approached by a man named Shefton who claims to know where Vanthus is hiding out and who's willing to lead us there for a small fee. After paying the ten gold total for the location and to hire him on as a guide, we head out to Parrot Island and he points out the hidden entrance to the underground lair. We're naturally already suspicious of this guy and when he refuses to go down with us, claiming he only hired on to show us the place, we promptly knock him on the head and tie him up, promising him an additional twenty gold when we return. Or tying him to a rock and tossing him in the bay if it turns out to be a trap.
Parrot Island
Once we're down the shaft Shefton's body follows us soon after, dropping to the floor beside us stone dead with a slit throat. Up above none other than Vanthus himself stands mocking us from the trap door, which he promptly slams shut and rolls some rocks onto when Ferra starts back up the rope to beat up on him. He cuts the rope she's climbing first though, landing her on her butt (for which she vows to repay him sooner or later). With no easy way back up the shaft and the trap door probably completely blocked off with rocks now, we decide we'd best get about clearing the area down here and finding another way out.
Heading down the nearby tunnel we find an adjoining tunnel going east and west. We head west first and find a large room with a pool occupying the southern half. With Pick scouting ahead for danger we're a spread out in a line right alongside the pool when some very large and nasty crabs start scuttling out to attack. After all our success in combat so far we made the mistake of forgetting we're 1st level characters and ended up in our first big mess of the campaign.
Rather than dropping back into some kind of defensive formation we stood our ground instead, with everyone coming under attack...including poor Frizzy, our 1st level Wizard. Ferra managed to kill the crab coming for her before it even closed in, with an attack of opportunity as it approached. Frizzy however got hit with both claws immediately after and was already down and dying. Harrak then immediately ran over to drop a Virtue on her to stabilize her but got hit with a couple of AOO himself by crabs along the way.
Already things were going badly and with everyone spread out in a nice buffet line, the crabs engaged all of us and Harrak himself was down and dying immediately after. Pick likewise was hit hard and disabled, forcing him to back off (luckily avoiding an AOO in the process). Then the GM decided the crab on Frizzy was busy gnawing her face while she was down and poor Frizzy kicked the bucket. Our first PK of the campaign.
The crab chasing Pick landed another hit and put him down and dying as well. Now facing the possibility of our first TPK in the very first adventure we were fairly kicking ourselves over how stupidly we played this one. Ferra, however, got lucky and dropped a couple more crabs, falling back and drawing them into range of her chain while doing so. She managed (barely!) to take out the ones threatening Harrak and Pick, then drop the one coming for her as well, though she was pretty badly hurt in the end.
With all apparent threats neutralized Ferra managed to successfully Heal Harrak, even with a not so great Heal skill. Pick managed to stabilize on his own, thankfully. In the end there were both unconscious and Ferra was forced to drag the two to the safety of the nearby empty room to tend to them until Harrak was up and around enough to heal everyone properly. With that we ended the session in order to regroup and figure out what to do about Melissa's character being so living impaired.
Though the adventure path suggested that the player characters come up with some event pre-game that calls attention to them as adventurers in order for the central NPC and prospective patron Lavinia to take note of them...we decided to skip past that and just have our PCs hire on directly with Lavinia. We answered a posting around town and interviewed directly, thus introducing our characters to one another and taking our first opportunity at a little roleplay to get into the swing of things.
Ferra Redbrew (my character) is to be a CN Human Barbarian/Fighter, who'll be concentrating on Barbarian later on. She wields a spiked chain and has plans for feats such as Improved Trip and Mobility in order to complement the team's Rogue (Matthew). Ferra came across as aggressive and crude but a skilled fighter. Lavinia didn't seem to care much for her personally (and vice versa) but she won out on the grounds that she's such a versatile fighter anyway.
Harrak Dunkill (Johnny's character) is a CG Dwarf Cleric of Kord with domains in Destruction and War. He'll be aiming for the Thaumaturgist prestige class around level 8 or 9. He likewise presented himself as a frontline fighter, Johnny's preferred role, though his high Wisdom gives him some nice clerical spell options even if he intends to mainly focus on healing and summoning. With his high Wisdom he was able to win Lavinia over pretty easily, as she made clear to him she'd expect him to keep the team in line. It's clear he intends to jockey for a leadership role in the team, probably with little or no opposition (though I might buck a bit just for fun).
Rillian "Pick" Minomir (Matthew's character) is a N Half-Elf Rogue/Fighter who wield dual war picks. Having been raised as a thief he's chosen the life of an adventurer nonetheless, for purely pragmatic reasons. It's far more profitable with less chance of ending up a permanent resident of anyone's dungeon. His high Dexterity and max starting skill levels in the traditional thief skills land him the job easily. All of which makes him very cute and compelling to Ferra Redbrew, so I'll be sure to make her the bane of his existence for the forseeable future. ;)
Frizzy Cobblemacher (Melissa's character) is a CN Human Wizard with a slightly kooky personality. Though Lavinia is put off a bit by this she's nevertheless extremely intelligent (Int 18!) and knowledgeable, so Lavinia is rather forced to hire her on, due mostly to a lack of other applicants with any real arcane skill.
Once the interviews are over we all receive our letters from Lavinia within a day and return to the Vanderboren estate for dinner, our official hiring on and our first mission briefing, all at once.
On the way in, while waiting for Lavinia to welcome us, a small gang ambles through the room to give us the once over. Frizzy and Harrak both recognize them as the Jade Ravens, a group of mercs that have been in the employ of the Vanderboren estate for quite a long time. We naturally expect a little hostility at first but the group doesn't seem particular threatened by us and even seems to be on their way out on a mission of their own. They do stop to question us a bit, clearly sizing us up, but they move on soon enough with no confrontation.
Over dinner Frizzy insists on using Mage Hand to fill her plate and Prestidigitation for no other reason than she gets a kick out of it. Ferra likewise doesn't display the best table manners and drinks a bit more wine than she probably should have, all the while complaining there's no mead. Despite all that Harrak manages to keep things on topic and Lavinia clues us in on exactly what we're being hired on to do.
It would seem her parents left her with quite a lot of unsettled debt at their untimely passing (something we all recall hearing about - a tragic accident in which the ship they were on caught fire). Her ship, the Blue Nixie, has some sizable fees attached to it and the local docking authority has seized it until the debt's settled. Lavinia has paid a whopping 100 platinum to the men holding the ship...but they seem to have kept the money and are pretending she hasn't paid. We then are hired on to get aboard that ship, take back the money she's paid them and find out what exactly they're up to on her ship. Lavinia makes it clear she considers the men to be pirates and there's a clearly unspoken encouragement to deal with them violently given any provocation.
Furthermore, most of her inheritance is locked away in a family vault that she can't access without one of her parent's signet rings and the only one she's aware of, her father's, is most likely somewhere on that ship. So we're to retrieve that as well.
The Blue Nixie
After the meeting is over we put our heads together and decide to wait until morning, recon the area and see if we can waylay one of the men when they step off the ship. When we get there the next morning we find the ship anchored about 100' off the dock, making it unlikely the men are coming and going at all. Still, we wait until noon to be sure, then give up and make plans to get on the ship directly. Harrak goes off to find someone he can hire to row us out there and the rest of us split up to gather what info we can on the men holding the ship.
Once we're back together again we head down the dock and engage the men aboard. Pick then attempts to Bluff the men with an offer of even more platinum to turn over the ship to us right away but he fails and we're rebuffed (which leads us to figure there really is some other reason these guys want that ship and they aren't just stiffing Lavinia for the docking fees). With that we decide to wait until nightfall and just storm the ship itself.
We wait until roughly midnight then Harrak harries the man he's hired out of bed to row us out there. There isn't much activity visible on board the Blue Nixie but we can tell there's plenty going on inside. Still, it's slow going so it's no surprise that one of the men spots us when we're about 25' feet out. Since we're within speaking distance Harrak casts Command on the poor guy, commanding him to "approach" and he does so...flipping right over the rail and into the water, since he was leaning over the side to yell at us already. Someone else was apparently nearby to witness his comrade inexplicably vault over the rail, so we end up confronting him as well. But since this guy didn't hear Harrak and thought the other guy just fell overboard he comes to the rail to laugh at him and doesn't even spot us right away, giving us plenty of time to take action.
By the time the man spots us and starts to call out for others to come run us off, Harrak has already cast Magic Weapon on his bow and the rest of us have taken a shot at him. Ferra and Frizzy both hit, with Frizzy delivering a killing blow that drops the man dead right away. Another man pops up to check on him, still not spotting us. Harrak finally fires his bow at the new arrival and drops him dead with one shot, though. With no one else appearing at the rails above we turn our attention to the man in the water, who's been hollering for help the whole while. When he ignores our calls to surrender or else and swims for the nearest hanging rope to climb back up to the ship, we let loose at him as well. Eventually we knock him out of the running and there doesn't appear to be anyone else to shoot at for a while. All in all a pretty violent approach to resolving the whole situation but we figure we are dealing with pirates of a sort after all and the distinct disadvantage of storming a ship at sea justifies it somewhat.
Having finally reached the Blue Nixie we scale up the hanging ropes to take the deck and find it deserted. A quick peek by Pick down into the cargo hold shows about three or four men down there among a lot of cages filled with all sorts of animals (one of which seems to be a very large, very dangerous and very nasty looking bug of some kind). We dump the bodies overboard and check the other rooms accessible from up here (Officer's Quarters, Ward Room, Captain's Quarters, etc.) We don't find anyone or anything worth scavenging but Pick does manage to find Lavinia's dock fees (100 platinum), as well as her father's signet ring stashed in the headboard. With the ring we also find what is obviously a puzzle clue of some kind, so we stash that away as well.
Back out on the main deck Frizzy sneaks up to spy on the men down on the cargo hold. Once she gets the nod from the rest of us, she uses her Mage Hand to flip the latch on the big, nasty bug's cage and swing open the door. Then she pokes it a few times to get it moving. By the time the men notice it's gotten free it's already jumped on the nearest man and is busily gnawing on him. With the men busy fighting that critter we all edge around and down the steps to the door to the cargo hold. There Pick spies through the keyhole and we wait until the action dies down a bit before charging in there ourselves.
By the time the pirates put down the bug one of them is already dead and another badly wounded. We dash inside as the men are delivering the last killing blows to the big bug, with Ferra leading the charge. She misses on her first swing of the fight though but Pick follows up by tumbling to her target's flank, landing one hit with his pick in a successful Sneak Attack that drops the man dead right there. Harrak likewise charges in and drops his daily Destruction domain attack right on the ring leader, Vark. He not only lands the attack but gets a critical as well for a whopping 25 damage that just splatters the guy all over the place. Frizzy drops a Magic Missile on another guy that disables him and the sole remaining man immediately throws down arms and surrenders. Again, pretty bloody but effective over all.
Taking the two surviving men in hand and disarming them, we tie them up and leave Frizzy to torture them with cantrips while the rest of us search the ship. We don't find much else of value except the gear some of the men were wearing. A quick interrogation reveals that the men were smuggling exotic animals out of the city to some contact of theirs, hence their need to hang onto Lavinia's ship for a bit longer. With that we drag the men up to the deck, untie them, strip them to their undies and kick them overboard as well (although in hindsight we really should have kept them prisoner and turned them over to the authorities). Ferra and Pick stay on board the ship (giving Ferra the opportunity to get to know Pick a little and decide he'll be her new toy) while Harrak and Frizzy report back to Lavinia.
When Lavinia comes to reclaim the ship, install a proper crew on board and secure the docking fees in order to pay them properly tomorrow, she takes the opportunity to officially hire us all on permanently, with a monthly income of 100 gold. Not at all bad and she even has another job for us already. With most of her inheritance still locked away in the family vault (including the 200 gold each she originally promised us) we're to accompany her there to access that at last, now that she has her father's signet ring. As it happens these family vaults are traditionally trapped and guarded, and she's fairly sure she's heard her parents refer to a construct of some sort guarding theirs.
The Vanderboren Family Vault
The following day we all ride out to the place and Lavinia goes through the clerk to access her family's vault. Once down there the ring springs the door as expected and the team goes on ahead to check the place out, Pick leading the way Searching from traps and hazards. Pick and Frizzy both notice the eight pointed star on the door as identical to the symbol adorning one of the buildings in the merchant district, though none of us knows what it's supposed to represent. Still, we make note of it. Pick also quickly notices the column on the north side of the room has a snake pattern that's a bit different from the others and so is likely our way through to whatever treasure this place holds.
Before we can check that out the Iron Cobra guarding the place slithers in from behind a pillar to our right, nearly surprising Ferra when it attacks her. Though it takes three rounds we finally put the thing down, with only Ferra taking a single bite in that fight. Luckily she makes her save vs. poison in the process so there's no major damage. Pick then finds the hidden switch on the north pillar and opens up the next room. Once inside we immediately see the painting of various critters on the wall matching the paper we found with the ring on the Blue Nixie. Digging that out we pour over it a bit until Frizzy realizes it's referring to the number of eyes each critters has. With that we have the combination to go with the central column, which Pick has already discovered revolves with a distinct "clicking" sound. Matching the turns of the pillar with the code on the paper springs various hidden alcoves around the chamber and the treasure chests each holds.
When Lavinia come forward to claim her inheritance however, we find most of the chest are empty. Though the remaining one or two still have enough to pay off the debts her parents left her with, it doesn't leave a whole lot remaining after that and Lavinia is naturally beside herself now. Still she manages to find a cache of documents written in Sylvan, which Pick just happens to speak fluently, and he's able to give her the gist of their contents. They apparently document a whole cornucopia of outstanding debts owed to her family that she can collect on, which in the end should make her fairly wealthy. We head out back to Vanderboren estate so Pick can properly transcribe them for her.
On the way out Lavinia stops to question the clerk and she's surprised to find her brother Vanthus has been dropping by here, apparently busily cleaning out the vault. Naturally this angers her quite a bit, since the inheritance was left to her when her parents died, not him. He had no legal right to claim any of it. Moreover, Vanthus has apparently been missing for quite some time and this is the first lead she's had on him in a long while.
After we arrive back at the estate Pick gets busy transcribing the documents for Lavinia and she pays us what she's promised. She also drops our third mission on us right away, finding Vanthus and bringing him to justice. Up until now she's been concerned that he's fallen in with bad men and has been looking for him, hoping to bring him around after a nasty falling out some time back. Now, after nearly wiping out the family vault, she's just as interested in getting her inheritance back. Once Pick has jotted down a rough translation for her we all head out to rest for the evening before hitting the streets the next morning looking for Vanthus.
Seeking Vanthus
After working as team around the merchant district with no success, we take a chance and split up to cover more ground. Dropping a few gold coins here and there all over town we still don't manage to find out much of anything at all about Vanthus, even after three full days devoted to that task. Finally, on the fourth morning we're approached by a man named Shefton who claims to know where Vanthus is hiding out and who's willing to lead us there for a small fee. After paying the ten gold total for the location and to hire him on as a guide, we head out to Parrot Island and he points out the hidden entrance to the underground lair. We're naturally already suspicious of this guy and when he refuses to go down with us, claiming he only hired on to show us the place, we promptly knock him on the head and tie him up, promising him an additional twenty gold when we return. Or tying him to a rock and tossing him in the bay if it turns out to be a trap.
Parrot Island
Once we're down the shaft Shefton's body follows us soon after, dropping to the floor beside us stone dead with a slit throat. Up above none other than Vanthus himself stands mocking us from the trap door, which he promptly slams shut and rolls some rocks onto when Ferra starts back up the rope to beat up on him. He cuts the rope she's climbing first though, landing her on her butt (for which she vows to repay him sooner or later). With no easy way back up the shaft and the trap door probably completely blocked off with rocks now, we decide we'd best get about clearing the area down here and finding another way out.
Heading down the nearby tunnel we find an adjoining tunnel going east and west. We head west first and find a large room with a pool occupying the southern half. With Pick scouting ahead for danger we're a spread out in a line right alongside the pool when some very large and nasty crabs start scuttling out to attack. After all our success in combat so far we made the mistake of forgetting we're 1st level characters and ended up in our first big mess of the campaign.
Rather than dropping back into some kind of defensive formation we stood our ground instead, with everyone coming under attack...including poor Frizzy, our 1st level Wizard. Ferra managed to kill the crab coming for her before it even closed in, with an attack of opportunity as it approached. Frizzy however got hit with both claws immediately after and was already down and dying. Harrak then immediately ran over to drop a Virtue on her to stabilize her but got hit with a couple of AOO himself by crabs along the way.
Already things were going badly and with everyone spread out in a nice buffet line, the crabs engaged all of us and Harrak himself was down and dying immediately after. Pick likewise was hit hard and disabled, forcing him to back off (luckily avoiding an AOO in the process). Then the GM decided the crab on Frizzy was busy gnawing her face while she was down and poor Frizzy kicked the bucket. Our first PK of the campaign.
The crab chasing Pick landed another hit and put him down and dying as well. Now facing the possibility of our first TPK in the very first adventure we were fairly kicking ourselves over how stupidly we played this one. Ferra, however, got lucky and dropped a couple more crabs, falling back and drawing them into range of her chain while doing so. She managed (barely!) to take out the ones threatening Harrak and Pick, then drop the one coming for her as well, though she was pretty badly hurt in the end.
With all apparent threats neutralized Ferra managed to successfully Heal Harrak, even with a not so great Heal skill. Pick managed to stabilize on his own, thankfully. In the end there were both unconscious and Ferra was forced to drag the two to the safety of the nearby empty room to tend to them until Harrak was up and around enough to heal everyone properly. With that we ended the session in order to regroup and figure out what to do about Melissa's character being so living impaired.