This 2E Dragonlance game is set in the city of Haven, during the War of the Lance. Haven is a city undergoing great upheaval. First massive numbers of refugees pour in, then the city is conquered by a draconic army. Can our heroes survive under this dark occupation?
Haahqae, Arulia, Gobax, Felran and Ne-Chanz (Deserted Building)
After completing his prayer, Gobax looks at the door and the floor leading up to it. He sees nothing out of the ordinary with his enhanced vision. This is a good thing, because Haahqae goes ahead and opens the door anyway.
The gnome enters what appears to be a kitchen nook, with some shelves, pantries and even a stone oven and large iron pot for cooking. There are also some barrels, crates and sacks spread about, likely containing food and water. The delectable smell of fried pork sits heavily here.
To the southeast the room opens up into a larger chamber. From his vantage point, Haahqae can hear plenty of activity coming from there. He hears the gentle tinkle of iron cutlery and porcelain plates, as if people were having a meal. No voices, however, so it's apparently a rather silent meal.
The gnome finds no traps in the kitchen area, and the walls, ceilings and floors appear safe to him.
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Gobax casts Find Traps for 30 rounds. He detects no traps. Haahqae searches the kitchen area for traps [TN 25%] (1d100): 85, fail. He finds no traps. Haahqae checks for unsafe walls, ceiling and floors [TN 07] (1d10): 2, pass. The walls, ceiling and floors appear safe to him.[/color]
Kendra Greylock (Haven's Vale)
The group carefully proceeds to the campsite, Perp leading the way. They reach the edge of the rock cropping and can see down a few levels where the campsite is--three large tents are set up and there's a dead campfire nearby. There is, however, no sign of anyone around--unless they are hidden in the tents.
"I don't like the looks of this," Krup whispers. "Could be a trap. We should keep our guard up."
Grubnick pops his head back in the room with the rest of the party, motions for silence and waves them to continue on. To Ismene he whispers You might be so kind as to help Haahque scout using your invisibility. He can be a little... brash, and you can perhaps br a calming infleuence on him... He then moves to the door the gnome entered and listens. Waving for him to return if he can get his attention.
After resting for a while Tulbas returns to his senses. He open his eyes and tries to move his arms and legs. With a lot of pains he manages to get into a sitting position. He holds his breath and pushes himself out of bed.
Haahqae looks back to the rest of the group and holds his finger up to his lips in an effort to tell them all to be silent, then he creeps forward to get a better look at this meal to find out who was there, if they had weapons, and mostly if it was some sort of devious trap.
Seeing Haahque disregard his request to return, Grubnick (or 'Gobax') motions silently to the others to stand ready. ...the little guy is determined to get himself killed...
Haahqae, Arulia, Gobax, Felran and Ne-Chanz (Deserted Building)
The rest of the party joins Gobax in the storage room. When the goblin gestures for Haahqae to return and he does not, Gregeddin shakes his head and gives Gobax a look that says, 'I told you so.'
Haahqae creeps forward and peeks around the corner to find an expansive room with two long tables in the center. The tables are surrounded by wooden chairs. There's a nice bounty of food spread out on the tables. Beneath the tables are a pair of long blue rugs with gold trim. To the north is a raised dais with a stair leading up to it. This area has a smaller table over a red carpet. A pair of chandeliers hang overhead, one over the smaller table and another over the two larger ones.
In the far side of the room is a large and detailed statue of a giant cobra snake. Upstairs, behind the table, is a door leading north.
Sitting at the lower tables are eight Histahcii, all eating and drinking. None are armed, but as the party learned earlier, histachii do not need weapons or armor. There is only one person at the upper table, although 'person' might be pushing it a bit far. It might have once been a human, but like the acolytes it has strange snake like features. But these features are far more pronounced than the acolytes. His lower half is a snake's tail; he has no legs at all. His arms are, in fact, snakes themselves--he uses their mouths to pick things up. It's a rather disquieting sight. He's wearing simple brown robes, concealing any weapons or armor he might have.
Note: Numbers 1-8 are the Histachii and 'S' is the snakeman priest.
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Kendra Greylock (Haven's Vale)
"Good idea," Krup says to Kendra. "You and Slinn flank right, Tern and Grev flank left, and Perp and I will move forward. If this is a trap, we'll lure them out, and the rest of you attack from behind."
Tulbas Erogund (Cultist Lair, Barracks)
Pain shoots through his legs when he puts weight on them, but Tulbas finds that if he can grit his teeth and follow through, he can stand and even walk, despite the pain.
That food looks good, Haahqae is quiet, and super stealthy, and he could really use a chicken wing. They wouldn't even notice it's gone! But then again they might be slightly interested in the chicken wing as it slid away by a near-invisible hand. (Or maybe even an invisible hand, that was possible too). But most of all, once the histachii were removed, Haahqae could easily get himself a meal, and he wouldn't even have to try very hard.
Quietly Haahqae makes his way back to the rest of the group and whispers what he's found to the others. "Nine of them there, eating at tables. eight of them are these weird lizardmen-things the other one's even weirder, it's got snakes instead of arms, but it still uses the snakes as if they were arms."
Tulbas tries to move in the room. He knows his spellbook is only one locked chest away from him. He cherished his book. Not only because without it he is almost useless as most mage apprentices are, but also because it holds many memories of the time he was taught the Art by Raetmal and some side nots he wrote in his book are even mentioning Raetmal and other family members by name.
He already saw where his stuff are locked last time he was in this room... when was it? Only yesterday... it seems like eternity.
He searches the room for anything that will help him crack it open.
Relieved that the Gnome returned, Grubnick hustles him back into the other room and closes the door quietly. We need a plan. Thpse lizard-things are fanatical, but simple minded. We should try to keep the priest from crying out. We need to keep the noise down as much as possible to prevent alerting the rest of the compound. Ismene, is there a chance you could approach invisibly and do something to neutralize him from a distance? The rest of us can rush in to cover you. Or do we have a way to make some of our heavy-hitters invisible?
"Well yeah I can make them invisible, no problem. But what will that achieve?" Haahqae wonders. "Half of you sound like a marching band while you walk, no offense, I don't know much about the perceptiveness of theses creatures, but if the other ones we encountered are anything to judge by, they're good enough to find most people."
"Oh yeah, and it's not like my invisibility is permanent or anything like that, the potion's effects end immediately when you strike out at something, so it's not like it would give us the edge in the long run."
If they're all eating and not paying attention, they might not notice. The lizard-things don't seem to act on their own much. I think if our three best fighters could get to the priest before he knew what to do they could dispatch him. Then we could deal with the others, or plan something to happen at the same time.
"hmm, interesting, and maybe if I sprayed their eggs and ham with some food colouring crystals I could distract them from the noise enough to let you guys slip by invisible. I was thinking green would be a good colour, don't you think?"
The plan, of course, relied on slipping under the table to fool his allies that he was close enough to sprinkle crystals on the food, then casting a spell without anyone noticing the faint sound of chanting coming from under the table, then the Histachii noticing the green eggs and ham and replying with a simple "huh, isn't that interesting, let's talk about it instead of paying attention to those heavily armored warriors sneaking past us." So in a word, it's foolproof.
Of course, in Haahqae's opinion, it was on balanced on a thin line between satisfyingly challenging and outright brilliant.
