Kharmlund 6: The party meets the hate wall and deals with their first Moon-Haunted encounter. And..the battle of the entrance!

Once again, the party enters Kharmlund! Why this time, you ask? Well, it certainly won't be to talk to people, that's for sure! Having met the desperate Imperials of NewForge the party decided it wanted more money, fast.

So, without much delay Kharmlund 6: The party meets the hate wall and deals with their first Moon-Haunted encounter. And..the battle of the entrance!

Our Players...

Ildaberd played by anon

Turk played by anon

Nibbles - DMPC

Lemmy - DMPC

Lemmy has done ever better for himself, spending all of the "chaff" money (which is still a lot but dismissed by the party as having no value) on some basic arms and armor. He's basically a base level hireling, and that's pretty good for what was effectively a torchboy. Nibbles is unchanging and strange, his weapons and clothing always spotless (rumors say he spends hours on this), but always odd and mysterious. Ildaberd has many questions! 

The party went deep into the depths of Kharmlund this time, north of mighty NewForge and discovered some interesting things, many of which they absolutely refused to touch. The bloody cowards! Since there was a lot criss-crossing and back-tracking in this session, I decided to draw an arrow of the party's progress, because they did a loop here. This won't be 100% accurate but it will be close enough.

 

The order of party movement is Red - > Yellow -> Blue -> Purple -> Green

RED

The party decided to strike out in a different direction than before. Entering into the large area, they found it mostly empty except for a chest on a small island, surrounded by bubbling green liquid. So, they roped the chest and yanked it off, which caused the (unlocked) chest to noisily spill its contents all over the room. The subsequent divvying up of coins was interrupted by people hiding right to the south. It's a simple "bait and ambush" operation by some of Kurgan's men. The party used entangle and murdered them all in short order. Good stuff, to be honest. Can't let bandits start pushing you around. 

After this, the party continued to the south before running into a repeating dart trap. Lemmy made his save by 1(one) number and managed to block the insta-killing poison dart with his shield. 

YELLOW

After waiting a full ten minute time block for it to stop firing, they shrugged and moved around to find a way to shut it off. They didn't find one, but they managed to find a cache of gold, and green wins out over caution.

BLUE

Not to be deterred, Lemmy and his small shield were recruited to lead the way, as it was determined that the darts were firing down three corridors. They pushed all of the way to the far right of the three hallway chamber, plugged the arrow, causing a buildup of ammo, and ultimately a jam. They were then attacked by their first moon-haunted: an eyeless man with a lantern who shrieked loudly when his lantern glazed against them as they leapt around a corner to avoid this. The shrieking caused more moon-haunted, the ones with obsidian black eyes, to peel off the walls around them and attack. Ildaberd, trapped in a corridor and with nothing else to do, fired his lighting rod wand at them. It did exactly what it needed, but then bounced back and killed Ildaberd - with a save - and he was forced to use one of the five mellinated man confections he bought in the first session. He spoke briefly to the same wight that sold them to him, which cheerfully warned him that he had four things left - and then he would be theirs.

Then they fled into a room where they found another wall-face. This one, speaking only in text appearing on the wall, told them it had a quest: kill yourselves. It also began to angrily quote AM from I have no mouth and must scream so the party shrugged and moved on. No gold, no glory. They followed a path and emerged into the starting room, having found their first major shortcut. 

PURPLE

At that, they went to the northwest in search of gold. Exploring rooms, the party found a dead wizard surrounded by skeletons.

The party responded with a resounding "hell no", and then entered into an open room, to find their first wandering adventurer group. These guys were hauling a massive statue out of the room - solid gold. There was an extremely tense minute where the party deliberated robbing them - they chose not to. They allowed them to leave with that beautiful gold statue worth 2500 gp! Crazy, these adventurers. 

 Finally they checked out the south-western part of the revealed maps. There, they found some ratmen drilling into a wall in the room there. A simple use of a sleep scroll dealt with that, and then the party found the switch to open the secret door to the room the Ratmen were trying to dig into. 

They found their first gemstone wand and statue, alongside a ruby gem in one of the Ratmen's pouches. With this find, and unlocking their own fast travel system, the party decided they had done more than enough and headed back. The gold take was okay, but the real win was the wands. On the way out, they caught up to the rival adventurers, current in battle with some of Kurgan's men over the statue. Hiding out of sight, the battle between the NPCs generated enough noise to summon a battle group of ratmen, and the NPC party lost two, but managed to barely make it. The players followed them up and pinched the gemstone statue in the entrance. 

Awkward cart ride back home, but at least the PCs had managed to get their own fast travel system working!