(G345 17/02/2018 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM), MJ) WA23

(G345 17/02/2018 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM), MJ) WA23

DAY 312 (17th Hammer)(January) cont ...

As he clung to the feathers on Arahel's broad eagled back, watching the snow covered miles of forest roll past, Fenrir had time to reflect on his recent murders.

Paynon and Bale he was certain were evil, the other three he had no idea of, but on balance he hoped he had done a good thing. Or at least something that was neither bad nor good.
Even so, the blood of five people were on his hands. Should he feel bothered that he didn't feel bothered about it? He decided it was best not to dwell on it.

They landed about a mile away from Klapton and walked the rest of the way. They gates were closed though and crowded with people wanting to get in. It took them a while to get inside, but the warrant from Lord Karden stood them in good stead.

A dwarf who appeared to be the captain of the guard arrived and introduced himself as Thunda Kegshaper. He did not seem to think much of these 'big city coppers' but agreed to escort them to Lord Paynon's house.

He took some persuading but in the end he let them search the place. There was a squad of town guards in the mansion house too, guarding it from what exactly was anyone's guess as Fenrir pointed out,
'Why have all the guards here, do you think Paynon and his guests will get murdered again?'
Kegshaper was not amused.
'No listen here, boy...'
Fenrir saw that jests would not work on this surly dwarf so he tried to give the impression of being more professional.

Just as he was winning Kegshaper around, from a room down the hall in the house came the wizard
Tamba Wazerio.
'What?!' he exclaimed on seeing Fenrir (who should be called "The Always Leaves A Witness  Assassin"). 'What's he doing here! He's the one that killed them all!'

There was a three way argument at that point as Fenrir attempted to turn it all around on Wazerio. 'A bit convenient isn't it? You were the only survivor and the only witness?'

Kegshaper didn't know what to make of it all, although he did think it unlikely, Wazerio, a man he knew reasonably well, was a murderer and a liar. On the other hand this young man from the city sure was convincing...
'Bah! I'm reporting this all to the magistrate. He can sort it all out!' growled the dwarf.

Fenrir agreed and as Wazerio stormed off, he set back to searching the house. It was a large building, as you would expect for the richest man in town, but after a good search all they found of real interest was a large iron bound wooden door in the cellar.
Kegshaper followed them from room to room to make sure they didn't steal anything.

There was a large chain by the door and Fenrir pulled it. The grill at the top of the door opened and a large troll glared at them from behind it. The troll then slammed the grill shut again.

Unfortunately for our heroes from Westgate, Arahel, being an untypical druid, had an untypical set of spells remembered for the day. She had no Wood Shape or Stone Shape spells, so it was up to Veddic and his trusty crowbar to go for the door.

He was not really getting anywhere, just making a lot of noise, when the door half opened and the troll started clawing at them. Fenrir didn't want to use his eldritch blast as it would rather give the game away to Kegshaper (as it would corroborate Wazerio's version of events) so it took a bit longer than usual to beat the troll back. Once Veddic had whacked it a few times and Arahel had shot it a few times with her Acid Arrow Crossbow it pushed the door shut again and sat down behind it.

Fenrir, sheepishly asked Kegshaper if he could go get some lamp oil. The dwarf wasn't keen on burning the house down but sent one of his men. They tried to get some of it under the door and when they lit it they could hear the troll grumble as it put out the flames on the other side, but it sounded like they had not greatly inconvenienced it.

Veddic then attacked the door with the crowbar for another ten or fifteen minutes until he was utterly worn out. Fenrir turned to Kegshaper, 'Can you bring more of your guards? Oh wait...'
Arahel was tugging at his sleeve. She whispered in his ear.
'If we sent them all away, then I can turn into a giant and bash the door in...'
'Oh right, ahem, Mr Kegshaper can you...'
The dwarf held up his hand to silence Fenrir.
'Before you come up with some other stupid plan, would you like to borrow my massive axe?'
Fenrir, for the first time, noticed that the dwarf had a huge two handed axe strapped to his back!
'Err, yes please...'
'Stand aside,' grumbled the dwarf, then under his breath. 'Parcel of idiots...'

He smashed down the door in a matter of minutes, then joined the attack against the troll.  It fought them off for a short while, but in the end Veddic finished it off with a Flame Strike spell. They stepped over its body and into the chambers beyond...
   

(G344 03/02/2018 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM), MJ) WA22

(G344 03/02/2018 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM), MJ) WA22

DAY 311 (16th Hammer)(January) cont ...

Now I admit at this point, when I first heard this story retold to me, as I committed it to paper, that my first thought was 'I bet they just go to their beds now, without a care in the world and give everyone in the valley enough time to come to terms with the fact that watchmen from the city have just shown up.'
So, fair play to Fenrir and his friends that they did not do that. Perhaps they are finally learning from all their past mistakes?

I am thankful to record then, that they did not rest that night, judging wisely that the perpetrators of the crime of dragon bothering would most likely be all a flutter and highly active that night.

Fenrir, flying and invisible, with Arahel, flying and invisible as a will-o-wisp flew to Berwin Bale's house at around seven o'clock that evening.

They could not gain entrance, but after about ten minutes Bale, accompanied by a guard, exited via the front door. Fenrir and Arahel followed her to Lord Paynon's manor house.

The doorman ushered her in quickly and Arahel zipped inside also. Fenrir made a noise (he sniffed!) though and  everyone froze. He froze too, not wanting to give his position away further, so was left outside when the door was shut.

Arahel followed Bale into the bowels of the house where she met Paynon. Paynon ordered a servant to 'Fetch Tamba Wazerio from his tower!' and then offered Bale some wine.

Fenrir managed to get through an upstairs window. He listened to some servants talking in another room, but could not make out the words and made his way downstairs.

I'm totally confused as to what happened next, but I think Fenrir followed a messenger out of the house for a bit, then made his way back in through the window again. In any event he managed to get into the room where Paynon and Bale were.

By this time the meeting room contained:
Lord Paynon
Berwin Bale
Tamba Wazerio - a man that seemed to be a wizard of some kind
2 unknown men
1 unknown woman

Fenrir used his 'Detect Magic' ability to also discern that Arahel was in the room, floating up by the
chandelier.

The people in the room were talking about Fenrir and his friends. They were agitated and after some discussion Paynon said, 'Well, our course is clear. We need to kill them. They are too close to discovering our secrets.'
The other's nodded agreement.

At this point, the chaotic Fenrir, the one that acts first and thinks later that I am more familiar with returned. He swept the whole room with two eldritch blasts. He was gaining power now and could not only do a cone shaped blast, but chain them from one person to another. He did one of each and the only person left alive to react after that was Tamba Wazerio.
The wizard did look charred, but still had enough life left in him to step into the shadows and vanish.

Fenrir appeared and had a look around. The wizard had gone, using a Shadow Walk spell.
'Not fair!' he cried as Arahel appeared (if a will-o-wisp could face-palm it would have been doing it now)
'Not fair! How could he have survived that? All these other's got burned to a crisp! Even if he was a really high level wizard he must have... how? That's cheating! Cheating wizards, I hate them!'
Arahel didn't know much about wizards but could see that everyone else in the room was very dead indeed. Whatever she thought about Fenrir's latest set of murders she was still willing to help stuff all the bodies into Fenrir's bag of holding for later looting.

Veddic was just thinking about changing for bed when they arrived through the window and told him. 'Pack your things, we're leaving!'

At around ten at night, they walked out the inn and through the city gates. They then returned to Haggam's cave.

DAY 312 (17th Hammer)(January)

They arrived at the cave at about one in the morning. The hermit was asleep but awoke as the entered.

They spent the night in the cave and in the morning they asked him how much treasure he thought had been stolen. 'About a wheelbarrow load I expect,' was the answer.

As Haggam tidied up the breakfast things and started to wash the dishes he was shocked to see them pull six burnt corpses from a bag and then proceeded to relieve them of their rings, jewellery, coins and anything else that looked valuable.

As they did so they discussed their next move. Various ideas were floated, one of which was to go and talk to the dragon.
'I don't think that will work,' warned Haggam. 'The dragon will kill anyone he finds in his lair without question. Like a man killing a rat in his house.'
They thought about Arahel taking on a form that the dragon might be more friendly towards or leaving it a letter written in a language it might understand.

In the end though, it seemed clear that in order to prevent its full wrath they should find the missing treasure and bring it back. If they had that with them when they next went to see it, it might not kill them straight away.

Their first port of call would be the scene of Fenrir's latest crime - Lord Paynon's house.

(G343 27/01/2018 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM), MJ) WA21

(G343 27/01/2018 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM), MJ) WA21

DAY 311 (16th Hammer)(January)

In the morning, over breakfast they asked some more questions of the Haggam the Hermit and learned the following things:

- There was once another village, down at the gulf coast. The dragon had destroyed it 25 years ago and now all it was, was a collection of houses for the people that served the port and a small castle
nearby where the lord of this area lived.

- Haggam reckoned that whoever the thieves were had been up twice. The first time a month ago and the last time about 15 days ago.

And so, Fenrir, Arahel and Veddic started their day by flying down to see the largest village first. They  did the usual thing of Arahel carrying them on her back while in eagle form. They landing out of sight about a mile away and then continuing on foot. I should say at this point that when not an eagle Arahel took on the form of a young female human.

Some man and a couple of children met them on the road and walked with them to the gates. These people were let in by the guards but Fenrir and Co were told to go away, 'We've already paid!' the guards shouted.
'We are not tax collectors!' said Fenrir which then lead to the guards saying, 'You need written permission from Lord Karden to travel these parts, foreigner!'

They next flew to the castle and were given a warm welcome by Lord Karden himself who was just sitting down to breakfast. They talked to him about what their mission was and he tapped his left leg,
'See that? Wooden! Lost the flesh one 25 years ago when I battled that bloody dragon. I lost all my friends that day.'
As he wrote them up a travel warrant he went on, 'When he destroyed the port we went up there to sort him out, what fools we were. Well, we were strong, but not that strong. Eight of us went up and only I came back.'
'Can you make it a search warrant too?' asked Fenrir wisely. 'And put a bit that all town guards have to take orders from us.'
'Gladly,' said the old lord. 'If people have been stealing from the dragon they must be found and stopped! I am very happy for any help we can get from Westgate.'

From the warrant they learned the names of the villages. Upper Fedred was the forest village, Lower Fedred was the one with the antlers on the gate and the largest was called Klapton. The port was called Port Seder.

They went first to Lower Fedred. Here they found that the mayor was suffering from a dreadful illness and was bed bound. They talked to his advisor, Mildred, who told them that she did not know of any person who had recently been spending more money than usual.
'We are simple honest folk. None of us have huge fortunes.'
Fenrir asked if there was anyone that was capable of making it up to the dragon's cave. She shrugged and said that some of the younger ones liked to mountain climb in the summer. She thought that a young man called Tom had been up there last year.
She also knew that Upper Fedred had a druid that lived there that could turn into a bird. Finally, she knew nothing of Klapton as anyone from 'up the valley' was not allowed in.

Fenrir went to talk to Tom and his family. They all appeared honest and it seemed unlikely that this young man was the thief. The family were fairly well off, being vintners, and as they sat down to eat with Tom's father Fenrir arranged to buy all of his bottles of wine, assured that he would be able to sell them at twice the price back in Westgate.
As he sat back and enjoyed his third glass of brandy Fenrir imagined a new found wealth based on his ability to fly and his possession of a bag of holding.

Next they went to Upper Fedred. They met Rodger the Druid in his well kept garden and joined him for lunch. There was also a young red headed lady in the garden playing with a dog.

Arahel spoke to Rodger in druidic. He was not a very friendly fellow, as I'm afraid to say most of us are, but he was willing to talk and offer them some food and refreshment (brought to them by a wood wose).

Among other things he told them that he never went to Klapton as he was not welcome there and that in his opinion it might not be anyone from the valley stealing the treasure, but...
'Perhaps just someone who wants to see the valley destroyed? Someone from outside after vengeance? Just a thought.'

Arahel spent another two hours with Rodger, talking about plants. Fenrir and Veddic amused themselves by trying to find plants that might have intoxicating effects. Arahel pointed out some seed pods that 'will make your heads spin if you chew them,' but in the end they decided against it.

Lastly, that day, they visited Klapton. It was a large village, or a small town if you prefer to see it that way, with an inn and several shop. There was a river running through it which appeared to divide the village into a rich and poor area.

They had learned that the most powerful man in town was a chap called Lord Paynon and so they went straight to his house. It was large enough to have its own grounds and a gate house. When the doorman let them in they found Paynon (a tall and fat old man) playing bowls in his main hall with four other men.
They flashed their warrant and he met them alone in his study.
'Mad old man in a cave eh?' he snored in disdain. 'I'm not even sure this dragon is real you know!'
'Have you noticed anyone becoming very rich recently?' asked Fenrir.
Paynon flicked through a ledger on his desk. 'Berwin Bale,' he said.
She'd apparently spent a lot of money at the last vintner's market.

Miss Bale was a horrible old woman, with a large house and several servants. Initially Fenrir was more interested in doing more wine trade, but it turned out she a share in a ship so she did not have to pay for its transport as the vintners of Lower Fedred did. They spent an hour or so talking numbers but in the end it seemed it would only ever by worth Fenrir's while if she ever needed to dump wine on Westgate really quickly, in order to undercut a competitor for instance, but she rarely did.

Fenrir managed to ingratiate himself with her by agreeing that poor people were little better than animals and other horrible things. She said she blamed Lord Karden for the destruction of Port Seder (and the loss of a lot of her business) 25 years ago. It was him and his friends raiding the dragon's lair that prompted its attack, not the other way around, she maintained.

As they left a servant girl whispered to Arahel, 'Meet me at the tavern tonight!' and fled. Berwin Bale also left saying 'I'm off to see my... ah... sister!' at the door.

They took rooms at the Klapton Inn and later than night the servant girl, cowled in a hooded cloak came and whispered to Arahel again, 'The rich eat the poor here! And my mistress is one of them!'
The girl ran off and Arahel was too dumbfounded to follow her.

When they retired to their rooms she relayed this new information to the others.

(G342 20/01/2018 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM)) 63

(G342 20/01/2018 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM)) 63


DAY 177 (mon) cont...

Kirk and the crew of the Caco now found that the ship's rogue AI was more or less in full control. Kirk wasn't going to just give up though, or wait for a cogent plan come to that, and he immediately started by trying to gain access to the kitchen / engineering station where the AI core was located (under the work top).
He told everyone to put on their MATSEs and breathing apparatus as a safety measure and then tried to open the door. Quorg responded immediately by saying, 'All crew return to your cabins.'

When Kirk did no such thing, the AI altered the life support settings and the air began to get hotter and hotter.
With sweat lashing off him in rivers, Kirk carried on. He opened the door and got to the kitchen. The air was as hot as an oven and scalding to his exposed skin. He reached the AI core and hit the 'off' switch and...  ...nothing happened. The AI was apparently clever enough to ignore a digital signal from a control panel.
'Paterson has collapsed from the heat!' yelped Murphy over their communicators. 'She's going to die!'
Kirk ordered everyone back to their cabins and the temperature returned to normal.

It wasn't long before he was trying again though. He knew there was a panel to kill power to the warp core in a crawl space under the hold. Something weird in Numiri logic also meant that not only was it hard to access there was also a ten minute procedure to shut it down. Kirk was fairly sure this would also kill the power to the AI.

He couldn't go himself so he used a handset to communicate with his faithful Engineering Bot and sent it down there. The door to the crawl way was sealed off so the Bot started to cut it with one of its many inbuilt tools.
'Stop that!' said Quorg over the coms and Kirk reluctantly sent the Bot back to its station.

Later that day, as they cruised along at warp speed, somehow they managed to his a meteor. This is not something that usually occurs at warp speed, but the Delta Quadrant is an unusual place or perhaps the AI had turned off some warp safety measures for some reason.

They dropped out of warp immediately and started drifting, badly damaged. Quorg ordered Kirk and Dell down to the engine room to start fixing things. The main Deflector Control was overloaded, smoking and sparking. Kirk requested the Engineering Bot and it came to help out.

It took them the rest of the day, but in the end everything was patched up.

As he headed back to his cabin, worn out and covered in soot, Kirk was informed, 'Start studying for an Astronomy Exam sucker! And Numiri training exercises are at five am sharp!'

   
DAY 178 (tue)

After his exercises and exam Kirk was awarded his breakfast - two slices of dried toast and a pea.
The crew were then allowed out of their cabins for one hour of social interaction.

Kirk tried the replicator but it was under control of Quorg.
'He has control over everything,' said Dell glumly. 'James Adams is gone and Quorg is in his place.
I think Quorg is the original Numiri AI.'
Kirk rubbed his chin, 'But he was replaced by Adams. Perhaps we can replace him again?'
'Return to your rooms!' barked Quorg.

Later on, in frustration, Kirk exited his room and with the Engineering Bot headed for the hold.
Together they opened the door to the Warp Reactor kill switch. He then ordered the Bot to head down the crawl space.
When Quorg told him to stop. Kirk ignored him and told the Bot to keep going. The poor bot was then cut in half down the middle when an emergency door slammed down on its back.
'Return to your cabin, sucker!' bellowed Quorg.

The crew behaved themselves for the rest of the day, doing the work that Quorg assigned to them.

DAY 179 (wed)

At four in the morning Kirk was woken by Dell contacting him on the MATSE. Luckily for them it was a means of communication that Quorg had no control over and could no listen in on. Using text so they could not be overheard Dell explained that perhaps they could use an AI from a virtual game that Dell had.
He had figured out how to channel it through the MATSE to Kirk who could then play the game to 'rescue' the AI from a 'dungeon'.
Its the best I could do with so little time, said Dell. While I work on the code to fit our AI in with the Caco, all you need to do is play the game to unlock the AI, it shouldn't be hard.

Kirk adjusted his headset and the game appeared before him in virtual reality. The first thing he had to do was choose which AI to 'rescue'. He knew underneath it all the AI would be much the same regardless.
This was just the game giving it a 'skin' or level of personality.
His choices where:
Fenrir - some sort of warlock sex pest
Rollo - some sort of druid know-it-all
Arahel - some sort of green skinned child
Sylvia - some sort of grumpy woman in armour
Veddic - some sort of grumpy man in armour

He selected 'Fenrir' feeling some sort of empathy for the fellow and entered the dungeon...