Session #18, Clock tower's bell rung, rest and move on to the hut in the Market Square!

From the journal of Sadobras:

Weren’t good.  Nope.  Thought we’d don most o’ the work… slayin’ the dragon and all them trolls.  Already had us a fancy opera singer an’ a couple young’uns in tow for the rescue.  But that’s where it hit the fan!  The rescue.  Once we found the exit, we figured it’d be safer to get the squishies to safety before clearin’ out the rest of the clock tower.  But lo and b’hold… no sooner do Zaaz and Yoska walk them squishies the door, that some statues come to life and separate the party.  Dalomar moves in to help them two leavin’ me alone in the hall.  I guess that’s better than bein’ out there with the statues.  Wait!  No ‘taint!!  Not now that more trolls and a festerin’ dog start comin’ outta doors and tryin’ to make a Sadobras sandwich.  One hit from the big, ugly one (well I guess they’re all ugly) and my dog is done.  Daggit!  I’m laid out and I can’t get up without takin’ another punch from the troll.  Hell, even if I could git up… turn’s out a sprinter I ain’t.  I’m not likin’ the looks of things in here, but it ain’t no better out thar.  I guess Zaza was really taking a beatin’ cause I see her tryin’ to fly away up the stairs, but that troll got other plans and jest swats her down like a pesky bug.  She goes limp and starts bleedin’ bad on the floor over there.  I wanna go help her, but I’m about one swat away from ending up jes’ like her.  Anyhow, I gotta do sumpin' cause that mangey mutt is trying to use ol’ Bras like kibble so I pull a patch off my robe an’ make a winder to crawl through.  Thought I was gonna be safer away from the trolls, but the statue moves over and starts to swinging.  No way we can take on both them statues and both them trolls so I gotta think fast.  So’s I take another patch off my robe and drop a big ol’ pit underneath that statue.  One down!  Yoska and Dalomar are whoopin’ on the other one and he ‘splodes into little bits.  Back ’n forth through that winder a few times and slingin’ stones at them trolls when I can.  Once Yoska gets his big electric sword a’swingin’ things start to fall away real quick like.  When there’s a break in the action, I sneak over and pour a potion down Zaaz’s gullet.  It’s been too long I fear.  I hope she’s awright.  Shoo… she starts to breathin’ again.  She’s still with us thank the gods!  Once we’re feeling better we have look ‘round.  We loot what we can from the tower and make our escape.

The opera singer and the kids ain’t nowhere to be seen.  No s’prise there.  So, we head back to Temple.  Yoska a good un, but I fear he’s a gettin’ cunnywhooped cause he brought the wolf-girl into the secret temple.  I know he likes her, but I don’ truss her one bit.  Yoska won’t believe me, but I done asked to the priest to keep an eye on her an’ he confirmed… she’s evil!  Nevertheless, we ain’t never gon’ steal Baba Yaga’s Hut without Yoska so I just tell Dalomar, “We gotta keep a close eye on her.  She’s upta sumpin’.” 

So, now we gonna steal Baba Yaga’s hut from the market square.  Ain’t that a hoot.  Actually, yeah.  A hoot is exactly what it is cause we use Dalomar’s new magic owl to scout out the forest and he lets us know there’s a clearin’ in there.  Gotta be where the Hut is at!  We head in and see the path guarded by three more ice trolls.  Ain’t no end to them things ‘round here and frankly, I’m tired of lookin’ at ‘em so we jest go right at ‘em.  I charge right in and the gang (and one wolf bitch) come right behind blades a’swingin’.  I dun like her much, but that wolf bitch can swing an axe.  Helped us take them trolls out real quick like.  Now we gon’ head into the bush to steal a house.  Ain’t that a hoot.  No tellin’ what we gonna find in there…

Caryatid Column

Greta in human form

DM Bullet points:

•  The group continued downstairs in the clock tower looking for any children or other captives.

•  The party walked into a room with 3 doors and found the one door lead outside.  After leading Bella Belvorica (the opera singer) outside into the courtyard Zaaz entered back into the clock tower via the front doors and the two statues sprung to life attacking Zaaz and Yoska.

•  The others were trapped inside the room with 2 ice trolls now coming through the door attacking from both sides flanking the party.

•  After the battle the party explored the rest of the lower level finding the quarters for the female ice troll leader, the prison where the children were being kept and fattened up prior to their feeding to the Trolls, an armory, barracks, and other living quarters.

•  The party rested back at the Shrine of Everbloom and were healed in part by Solveig.

•  Yoska brought his new “girlfriend” Greta to the shrine while the party was prepping for the attack.  

•  The area surrounding Whitethrone's Market Square is now overgrown with a thick forest that erupted almost overnight around the Dancing Hut. Every day, the Winter Guard chops down the forest, only to see it regrow overnight. The streets around the square are a wreckage of stumps and fallen trees, and many of the traders residing in the Merchants' Quarter have been evacuated. The Market Square itself has almost entirely vanished save for a few buildings that are now completely out of place in this sylvan landscape.

•  The party scouted the area from the air using their new owl artifact and they saw that it was densely overrun with very dense thorny bushes and foliage that made it appear to be very difficult to enter except through an opening that was being guarded by 3 ice trolls.  The rest of the area was pretty much covered with the growth of vines and thorns, even pushing some houses and structures up into the treetops.  A huge dead tree was spotted in the northern quadrant, a large pool of water in the southern region as well as some interesting rock formations in another area in the southern region.

•  The center of the square the owl could see a giant hut, but there was some sort of shadowy “force” sphere that surrounded that portion of the market square and seemed to isolate the hut from the rest of the area.


•  The party made quick work of the Trolls and now stand at the entrance of what used to be the market square, but now looks like a dense forested area with open areas/paths within the growth.