BlueFlames' Editorials
Offline Exploits - Part 2 -- Written by BlueFlames
I would have updated yesterday, after an eight hour session, if it hadn't have been quarter after five in the morning.
The party started that session with a small [read: huge] mansion to clear of a few monsters and loot. We picked up....err....acquired.....uhhh.....yeah..... We went into the mansion with not much and came out with a keg of beer, some smokes, eight bottles of firewine, a ton of artwork and jewelry, and some masterwork, cold iron weaponry. Oh, and a solid diamond statue that exudes a suspicious magic aura... Can't forget the diamond statue that's larger than my head....and torso....combined....including my limbs.
Of course, getting that statue wasn't easy... It was in a small but deep river that ran through the wine cellar. We didn't see it in the murky waters too well, but some light glinted off the lock of the chest containing the statue. Naturally, I dove in, rolled an eighteen on my swim check (add four ranks, subtract my check penalty of zero, for twenty-two), and proceeded to do a quick examination of the chest before emerging with the exclamation, "JACKPOT!" The other characters produced three sets of rope, which I swam down with and attached to the chest. The lock was a DC 23, which I beat handily. Upon seeing the statue, half the party soiled themselves, since we're from a town called Berg in a county called Bumblefuck. (It was a joke originally, and then it got written into the plot. Oops.) Somewhere in there, I hit level three (Ranger 1/Rogue 2).
We hauled our loot to a nearby port city, keeping the statue in its chest, so as not to attract too much unsavory attention. Unfortunately, five ogres surrounded us on the way back. One had barbarian levels. Of the party's four characters and two NPCs, we've got two tanks... The one insistant upon leading the formation has Sorcerer levels. Two ogres (including the big one) went after him, but not before he put another one to sleep. With a 23 on my initiative check, I decided to pull of to the side, and went into backstabbity mode. Unlike Fighter, they weren't wearing full plate, so sixty-six stab wounds to the back is quite feasible.... Even with a masterwork rapier in place of a dagger. With a little help from my employer (an annonymous stranger to everyone else and a serious badass in combat), the ogres died. The party fighter had about two hitpoints left at a few points in time, but between backstabs from myself and another party rogue, and crazy badassitude from that tall guy named Simon, all five ogres bit it, and we proceeded to the port city of Laan.
We went about selling off (and buying) mundane goods before doing anything with the statue besides hide and guard it. I had the awkward job of taking a DC23 lock to a locksmith and asking for a key to be made. Kinda hard to phrase that question inconspicuously. Fortunately, most of the locksmiths in Laan are more crooked than Torgaash. They don't ask questions; I don't give answers. Just an extra silver piece on the side.
Our next major task was to find out exactly what that statue was (and for the other rogue and myself, exactly how much it's worth). The party priest made his way to the largest church he could find to get some information about the statue (being far too brutally honest about its composition). The other rogue set off to find a thieves' guild, to see what they might know about this object (being a little more careful than our naive, almost Lawful Good priest). I set off to find someone as a part of a well-travelled actors' guild that might know something about.
I struck gold with the guy I found. He knew of some group of elves (extremely rare people in this realm) in town that seemed to have quite a massive collection of historical texts. Of course, when I saw the book entry with this statue in it, my character compiled it all into "historical value == money += ++platinum;". No, he doesn't normally think in C.
When all of us met back at the inn, we kind of came to the sudden realization that we told people connected to about everyone in Laan what we had in our possession. As evening fell, an expedious retreat became the foremost thought on our minds. Considering that the only places with enough money to buy the statue or enough knowledge to handle it properly were across a bit of an ocean, seafaring became the logical choice. Now, finding someone reputable would have been nice, but reputable doesn't seem to exist in Laan, hence the need to go. The priest and fighter struck out to find a captain and ship the nicey-nice way, and I set off to find a ship with valuable cargo and rob it.....err.....find someone bribeable......err.....knifeable..... Yeah.... You get the idea. (Is it bad when your cover story is that you're just going to rob them blind?)
As players, we were all quite hungry, so with little to no convincing necessary, the DM sent the rest of the party on a food run while it was my turn to do my thing. Torgaash met up with Simon before boarding any ships, so it's a good thing that the only places open at 3:00am are about a twenty minute walk away from his apartment. My employer ended up recommending the same guy that the other two found... The only alternative was still a day off shore and would be moored for a week, and since we were looking for a quick departure, that would have been way too much of a wait. He also gave me a gold piece, another rarity in this realm.
After that, we loaded our horses, our cargo, and ourselves onto the ship and set sail. We're about halfway to where we're going to have to make port, and the trip has been pretty routine thus far. I kicked back a little more firewine than usual one night, but nothing happened, so blah. That's where we left off because a couple of us were starting to fall asleep.
Play time for that session: Eight hours.
Experience gained in that session: 600 per character for the ogres. (25 quest experience for me because I'm that awesome.)
(The mansion was actually cleared out earlier, but I couldn't make that session, so someone subbed for me and filled me in later.)
Go Back to Part 1 ---- Proceed to Part 3
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