Alev: Astercote and Vannondale

March 23, 998 CE

The would-be assassin last night prompted us to depart early from Saragost. We camped a good ways outside the town and proceeded to move on just before lunch.

We found Astercote. At least, we found where it once was. It looks as if someone picked up the whole town and moved it. A strong magical residual aura surrounded the area, according to Rumus. It would have taken some powerful magic to do this, but the town was supposedly run by a Wizard.

Arriving in Vannondale, we are yet greeting with open fear and reticence. This is becoming a normal greeting for us; I am almost accustomed to it now.

We find and rescue one of the noble's sons who is being pursued by Harpies. After the group slew the harpies, we were able to return to the inn and make accommodations for the night while the noble filled us in on what was happening. He, and his family, had been cursed by a wizard named Petrus Carolus. This explained the insect mask covering his face that was unable to be removed. The wizard's intentions were unknown, but the house was filled with monsters brought by Petrus.

Party decides to rest, select new spells and attack on the morrow.

March 24, 998 CE

In the morning we make for the Colombe family manor. We use the hole in the sun room window that the son used to escape the day before. Immediately we are setup upon by a large undead brown bear. This fight is extremely tough. As we move into the house we find more undead, these are bugbears though, and quite resilient, but we do vanquish them.

We find a room just inside the hallway with a fireplace and secret compartment. We decide to hold off on this for now and continue searching. We find two more bugbear zombies in the next hallway, how many does this wizard have? We also discover the guards, humanoid looking men with the heads of dogs; they are sitting around playing poker. We play a few hands, which they are obviously cheating at, and then they attack us. We had no choice but to kill them. Pity, but they weren't very good at their job anyway. Across the hall we find a magically locked room, but no one had the Knock spell prepared. Moving on we hear talking from the dining area. Seebo checks it out and it appears to be a two headed giant, an Ettin I believe they are called.

We perform a flawless pinching attack from both sides, taking down the Ettin with ease. Apparently it was a female one at that. Too bad for Rygorh, I'm sure he's never laid with a giant.

Moving into the front parlor, we are beset upon by invisible creatures. Annoying, giggly little things we later discover to be quasits; quiet loathsome little creatures. After trying to run them off, we decide to retreat and rest, as we are low on spells and don't think we are capable of taking on the wizard at that time. We were right, oh how we learned that the hard way.

While resting at the inn, the wizard comes in and confronts us, asking us what we are doing and what we want. He then makes a deal with us to find some lens for a telescope thing, which I believe is a very large spyglass for looking at the stars, at least that is what Rumus believes. We agree to help find it the next day after we have recovered from our bout with the wizard's minions.

Then, we foolishly sneak back into the house to search that fireplace and its hidden compartment, which activated a magical trap, turning the large pipe construction in the middle of the room to life and annoying all of us. But, we are able to discover a hidden passage in the pantry that leads to a ladder going up and down in the house; at the bottom are the remains of a long dead person, believed to be a missing member of the family. The wizard shows up and spoils our search, his little flying spies are everywhere. We don’t find it and decide to go rest and indeed come back in the morning.

March 25, 998 CE

The Day of Fools. That is what I call it remembering our stupidity and arrogance that day. In the morning we decide that taking out the wizard and preventing him from completing his work is the best option, the party feels he is evil, but I don’t agree. So, we surprise the wizard in the foyer with a surprise attack, Rumus gets his blind and Neil gets a coin of silence tossed next to him. And the fight and flight begins. The wizard escapes, as do 3 of his 4 quasits, but Rumus is able to kill one, which happens to be the wizard's familiar, Shithead. What an accurate name for the little creature. We continue with our search and Knife finds the lens in a second secret compartment behind the family crest in the fireplace, which has the lens inside. We return to the Inn to plan out our next move.

While holed up in the inn, 2 of those bugbear zombies show up banging on our door, so we attack. We weren't counting on the Wizard being invisible in the hall as well. Within a round he drops Rygorh, and nearly kills Rumus and myself as well. We are outclassed and outmatched, so we stand down and hand over the lens. The wizard promises to finish his work that night, remove the curse on the family, and leave.

If, indeed, the wizard had been evil, he would have killed us. Well, most likely, because wizards very much dislike losing their familiars. But, he did not.

After letting him go, we discuss amongst ourselves, while tending to our wounds. It is decided that we must try and speak to him again, for if it was a neutral party, we may have shifted his allegiance to the enemy, something we can ill afford at this time. So, we went to meet with the wizard. Unfortunately, we did not finish off his pets it seemed, because I was attacked by a half-lion, half-human female thing. It was disguised as a Sphinx at first, but changed after it was slain. Nasty little creature tried to charm me. Then we found a golem of glass in the library. It was like a fountain of knowledge and very inquisitive. Amazing how much this thing knew. Neil and Rumus volunteered to distract it and keep it occupied while the rest of us went further up into the tower.

Whoever built this residence had to have been a wizard. The path further up to the wizard was a secret door behind the symbol of The Reaper, which was on top of the bookcases, surrounded the round room. This led us to a platform which had no walls, from our vision. Seems that either the magical walls surrounding this telescope allowed the user to see outside or they were just illusions. Very interested and definitely in need of further study some day for my own fortress.

Petrus sits with us, someone hostile, but I am able to shift his attitude some and make him more friendly. Doesn’t do much good. The only new information he shared with us is that he suspects we are the Starborn and he has yet to decide which side he will choose. He promises the release of the family at the conclusion of his work this night.

Unable to get more out of him, we go and calm down the nobles waiting for Petrus to conclude his work. True to his word, Petrus comes down that night and removes a mask from each of the nobles. Interesting magical devices he has, kind of fitting with the myriad of followers he keeps. He leaves after that. We immediately search the top, but find that he has already taken the lens with him, damn wizard. We do find a sheaf of paper with some of his notes on it, whether he left it on purpose or not is to be determined. Confusing, but it speaks of Astrology and other masters of the trade. This will require more research to determine what it truly means.

After speaking again with the Colombe family, they promised us the use of two ships in the harbor at Saragost and gave everyone some very nice gifts as thanks for the help we did for them. The armor and shield they bestowed upon me are amazing. This will definitely help in the coming battles.

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