Starting Danger at Darkshelf Quarry
In this session we start our first module, A0, Danger at Darkshelf Quarry. This is the first of five in the Against the Slave Lords series originally written for GenCon 13. There will be some fairly heavy editing of the modules to fit them into our campaign world, but by the end of it, you should expect a review of each individual module as well as the entire series in the Dungeon Masters Blog.
Arriving at Darkshelf
The Mürmaids linked up to the the Petyra river far to the north of the bandit hideout, and traveled south to the fishing village of Darkshelf. As you may recall from our heroes' last session, they had accepted a job from Jed on behalf of the leader of their new thieves guild, Nirnfi R. Bindlestiff. Nirn had made a considerable investment in the limestone mine at Darkshelf, as well made arrangements with the town's mayor, Overlord Neistor, for the rights to use his village as a shipping hub on this side of the continent.
Not only had Neistor recently complained that Nirn wasn't keeping up his side of the bargain by keeping crime out of his town (a recent rash of piracy had broken out along the coast) but Nirn was highly concerned that although the mine had at first produced a significant amount of revenue, profits were dwindling quickly.
The M&¨rmaids floated past the quarry on their way downriver, and noted the fortified guard house overlooking the complex. They went out to the Sea of Fog, anchored the River Maven slightly north of the city and took their newly acquired skiff into port to enter the village.
Speaking with the Villagers
Their first interaction was with an old fisherman who was taking in his sails for the evening. After some friendly conversation, they learned that yes, Neistor had sold off the rights to the mine in the hopes of gaining some quick revenue to develop their small village more quickly. While the town still was a partial owner, most of the mining rights were sold off to some vague group of foreign investors. Neistor also stopped managing the mine himself, and instead contracted a hunch-backed ginger dwarf by the name of Bazili Erak to manage mining operations for a share of the profits. At first, all was well; production spiked, profits earlier this spring were through the roof. Lager, though, things seemed to change. The human miners who had once worked the quarry were relegated to moving stone from the quarry to town in two shifts, and Bazili brought in his own crew of dwarves to dig deeper into the veins of high-quality limestone. All of a sudden things slowed to a crawl, and less and less limestone came from the place.
As less stone was available, fewer ships came to port, and fewer merchants, and this year the semi-annual village fair was decidedly less profitable for the poor fishermen of Darkshelf.
On the plus, side, though, they had recently raided and captured seven slavers who were camping north of the city, an released half a dozen of their own villagers who had fallen into their clutches in prior weeks. In that respect, the villagers were fairly happy with Neistor's efforts to protect them. The captured slavers were currently in the stocks, awaiting hanging in a few days.
Splitting the Party
The party decided to split up for a short time, sending the two dwarves Clyde and Bad Cheese (Igrom) up to the mine to see if they could speak with the dwarves, while the remainder of the party stayed behind to try to find more information about the local happenings. It was a far walk for the dwarves, but we role played that part first. They came up along the edge of the quarry, and found the narrow path leading up to the guard house just before dark. Loudly they pounded on the door, but with no answer. They were sure that someone must have been inside, since this seemed like the only point of entry, and it was locked from the inside, but there was no answer.
Clyde had the idea to send Igrom down into the quarry proper to see if he could find someone. Clyde looked over the edge as a very flustered Igrom was shooed out of the mine shaft by a skinny female elf who was yelling about who was allowed in which place for which reason, and walked him back up the narrow path to the small wooden bridge that crossed the chasm surrounding the guardhouse. Angrily, the elf (the paymaster of the mine named Glyrthiel) explained that it was 3rd shift, and no visitors were allowed while the mining operations were going on below. They would have to wait until Bazili came back to talk about finding jobs there, if thats what they were looking for. She quite rudely recommended if they wanted work, that they try to sign up with the other two shifts of men who ferry stone and wagons back and forth from the quarry to the village.
Stopping the conversation in its tracks, Clyde interrupted her to say "Let my dwarven brethren go, they will be your prisoners no longer." Glyrthiel looked at him quizzically, and replied "they aren't slaves, they can come and go as they please. But they are not of your clan, and would prefer to be left alone to their work."
Clyde isn't one to be brushed off, so he raised his shield, and with a scream from the elf, he raised his shield and shoved her towards the edge of the chasm. Igrom loves a direct course of action, so he lifted his wooden maul and swung with all of his might directly in her midsection, sending the now grievously wounded elf over the edge to tumble down the cliff and land in the quarry below. Immediately shouts rang out from the guardhouse wall, and the sounds of crossbow bolts ricocheting off the rocks around them send the dwarves running back across the bridge.
After a few dozen yards, just out of range of those crossbows, they ran into a group of sentries coming up the path towards the guardhouse. A small conversation came out, where Clyde tried to hide their actions by saying that goblins had just attacked the guardhouse, and they helped in its defense. Unfortunately for the pair of dwarves, this group of sentries was actually comprised of a field of goblins, with one human leading them. Immediately the goblins attacked, launching arrows from the back and charging forward with swords, axes and clubs. Unfortunately for the goblins, Igrom and Clyde were well trained goblin slayers. With Igrom going berzerk in the middle of them, and Clyde hacking away at the human leader, they quickly dispatched the group, and agreed together that they should flee back to their friends in town. They began the several-hour long trek back.
Speaking with Neistor, the Mayor of Darkshelf
Long before the sun set on Darkshelf, Horace, Guido & Oliver arrived at the small store-front of the merchant/governor Neistor. They quickly got the run-down from him.
- Bazili's workings at the mine are very suspicious
- The slavers' activity in the Sea of Fog is of the highest concern, though, since they are attacking fishermen and villagers, burning ships, kidnapping able-bodied peoples all around.
- Bazili's dwarves had apparently learned of a slavers' encampment a few hours ride to the north, and Neistor's men quickly overtook them, though the surviving slavers have very little in terms of information to provide. The posse that overtook the slavers also rescued 6 villagers from their clutches.
- A string of what seems like animal attacks has broken out lately, and 10 villagers and farmers have been found in recent months all chewed up, sometimes very far from water, but carnivorous fish are suspected (by the local fishermen).
- A hunter who lives south of town near the river outlet found the majority of the bodies.
Questioning the Slavers
After taunting the slavers who had been in the stocks for several days at this point with water, one of them finally agreed to give up some info.
- He did not know who his contact was, but he was supposed to sell off the villagers he had captured with some local ally.
- He usually sells his slaves into a very large market in an underground lair in the city of Freeport, at the southern tip of the Sea of Fog, from where the slaves usually head overland far to the south.
- There is another port on the west side of the continent which encourages the sale of slaves, but getting up around Ikelund can sometimes be tricky, since the Ikes are solid seafarers, and dislike the group of pirate slavers.
- The group that overtook them was villagers, but yes, he did think there was at least one dwarf in the party. A redhead who walked with a hunched back. He slew their leader at the onset of the battle
A "Friend" in Town, talking with the Hunter
The party also found in one of their pockets, a note that had been put there by some skilled thief. It alerted them to a meeting place where they could converse with one of Nirn's agents in the area. They headed off to a nearby warehouse, and met Snake, a smiling gnome, wiping the blood off his hands from the torture of one of the slavers he had kidnapped, greeted them with a smile. His companion voiced some conern over whether or not skinning the man slowly was the best course of action, and Snake agreed, so he slid his sword into his companions ribcage, and then smiled at the Mürmaids again and said he would skin the man more quickly from now on.
They spoke for a while, Snake told them who was fair game and who was not in this town, and that they could feel free to use his warehouse as a safe-house whenever possible. He also shared what information he had found so far, and encouraged the party to stop back often for more.
Leaving Snake's ware house with a shudder, the party went on to the hunter who had been finding the mangled bodies. He told them that he generally hunts boar, though had also dabbled in the occasional black bear or mountain lion in the area, and this was definitely not any of the more dangerous animals they are used to. These beasts tore some of the villagers in half, and has huge claws like a bear, but smaller paws, like that of a mountain cat, from when he found tracks nearby one of the muddy banks of the Petrya river. He confirmed that the attacks started sometime in early summer, just a few weeks after Bazili took over the mining operations and moved his own band of dwarves underground and kept the villagers out of the mineshaft proper.
A Reunion with the Miners
the Mürmaids decided to join up with the second-shifters, miners who were about to lead their wagons back up toe quarry to pick up their day's load of stone. A few questions were asked, though the miners didn't provide too much information. Their jobs were easy now, and Glyrthiel and Bazili paid them the same, so it seemed okay, though fewer employees were needed for transport as had been before the dwarves showed up to take over. None of them had actually ever seen any of these dwarves up close, but it looked about right from a distance that yes, they were dwarves.
Also, none of the human of half-elf villagers had been down in the mine for months, at least since the beginning of summer. Before then, though, they had hit a spring when they mined a bit too deeply in one area, and some river-water had back-filled a deeper part of the mine. They worried that this is why Bazili was so eager to get the humans out, and bring the dwarves in.
Clyde and Igrom met up with the group just as they were about to leave town, and the Mürmaids started to discuss a plan to go back up to the guardhouse. While the plan may still be somewhat up in the air, it appears as if the dwarves will hide in the woods, out of sight from the guardhouse while Horace, Guido and Oliver will seek out someone in charge, acting as merchants, or perhaps surveyors paid by one of the mine's owners to review the operations. Before the wagons headed up the road to the mine, we decided to stop the session there. We will pick back up with the group deciding the next steps to take.
Until Next Time
Be excellent to one another, and party on, dudes.
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