Pixies Weekend 2-4 June

an unreliable extract from Hamish's diary...

We join our party in the tower at mid-morning, nosing into things that don't concern them.
Whether it be native orc architecture or why there are two "dwarves but not dwarves" buried under several tons of rubble in the cellar of the tower, nobody wants us to have the answers.
The townspeople arrive, all armed, some invisible, some flying, and tell us "you and your kind are not welcome here". "Our kind?" we ask, but they just tell us to leave.

We use Bazin's speed bonus to yomp cross-country and lose the pursuit. We reach the bay at 68,008 in 20 hours, before the Lady Cloud reaches it. When the ship arrives, it is followed by a fog bank which blocks the exit between the two headlands.
The ship runs up the beach for the crew to make repairs.
Something is telling the weather mages that it won't let them leave until they free its friends, and the not-very-specific "They're killing them".

By evening the ship is repaired and ready to leave. The party is still debating what's going on here.
The captain tells us that 6 months ago, the trade through Tower of the North ramped up. That would be about the time that the GSOV lifted and legendary creatures appeared. He can't let us open the chests, because that's part of his contract, but under clairvoyance we see they hold ingots of mithril. They are silver-coloured with a red tinge.
Just then a Dark Dwarf arrives, dragging itself along with spatulate hands (it has been hamstrung and can't walk). It also has no tongue, and can't tell us anything.

It is trying to reach the water weirds that are creating the fog. We help and she reaches out to the tentacles of water. On contact, she dissolves and threads of mud flow out to sea.

We got an impression (by ESP?) of 30-ish dark dwarves in a mine somewhere inland of Tower of the North (which agrees with the direction of her trail).

We set off to the mine, pausing in 71,010 for the first night. We evade a couple of patrols on the way, but Francis dismisses them as "no rangers" for their lack of fieldcraft.
Next morning, Kurac sights a cave entrance. Also one hill that looks like an old spoil heap, now covered by grass. There is no obvious heat from any current smelting work. We tour the area and use the sword of direction to find the shortest way to the cave entrance from the other side of the hill, and it is still to go over the hill and come back the through a single entrance.

The cave mouth looks natural, but has been smoothed and enlarged. In front of it is a zen garden of raked gravel to show footprints, and little tripwires to make noise.
2 guards (1 human, 1 orc) stand inside. While we watch & plan, the shift changes. The interior is lit with cont. light rocks. Clairvoyance reveals an 8'-wide tunnel behind the entrance, one side of which has been hewn to enlarge a natural fissure.
Twoo fires a Silenced arrow at the guards, while Bazin casts Hold Person on the guards, someone else casts Sleep and Umar charges in to finish them off. The Sleep didn't work.
Bundling down the passage in single file, we find the next guard who runs off to get help. We follow into a mined-out seam of coal. This has been worked-out for some time, probably years.

The next big gallery is 30' high and about 50' square. We take down 1 invisible guard, but then two groups arrive from both exits, invisible and hasted. 6 archers on a shelf above us, 10 fighters on our level. The fight is on!
Hamish hurries into a corner of the chamber, where 6 fighters are perfecly lined up for an 80' lightning bolt to hit them all on the way out, then bounce back and hit them all again. Only 1 goes down, but the rest must be close. The archers target dangerous spellcasters. Hamish knocks aside one arrow, but gets hit by two others. He is delighted to be categorised as a dangerous spellcatcher and feels 4' tall.
Hamish and Dougal independently react by throwing Webs at the archers. They all get caught and begin to suffocate.
From nowhere, a Stinking Cloud hits the middle of the chamber and most of the party, but within 4 rounds it's all over. 2 guards ran away, 1 is subdued.

The captured guard (we don't even bother to ask his name) tells us that this raid was just a test to see how tough we are, all mercenaries, not the hard cases from the village. Also, the mithril comes from an Elvish stone ship in a cave and draws us a map. Also there are dark dwarf hostages to ensure the others work. We keep our side of the deal and let him leave, but he soon comes back to tell us that the cave mouth has been sealed with a stone wall (magically).

We move on toward the ship. Joshua scouts ahead and sees two invisible guards. He shouts "we can see you!" and they leave, heading further in to the mine. Joshua grabs a couple of tripwires with bells and starts shaking them to ring as he walks. He doesn't care that the locals know he's coming.

We reach the dwarf quarters, where 4 hostages are chained to the wall. We explain what we're doing and they snap their chains to join us.

At the stone ship, Joshua's bluff that we are so much harder than the locals works. The villagers have posted guards by each dark dwarf. One calls out "what do you want?". We reply "we've come for the dwarves, you can keep your mithril". The negotiator comes forward and discusses details: no reprisals by the village against us or the ship, and we won't tell anyone about this stone ship, both to apply for the next 180 days. He agrees to deliver the dwarves tomorrow at dusk after one last job. Garaf and their follower of Percival shake on it.

We wait in the gallery where the fight was. The other dwarves arrive as promised. Only 12 remain, the rest have been used beyond their endurance. The workers have been hamstrung. They tell us they spent the extra day to dig into one last big chest of mithril. The others are too difficult to access without disturbing the sarcophagus.
Now they all want to go home to The Water. The dwarves are creatures of earth and Soratan allied them with creatures of water, along with the other merging that happened among creatures of the Wyld.

We take them to the bay, using travois we rig from sailcloth, rope and poles we brought from the ship for the purpose. They rush forward to merge with the water. As we prepare to leave on the Lady Cloud, we see a bar of mithril left on the beach with a note in Dwarvish "use with care".

3 days later we reach Norport on the edge of Solaran territory. The captain may not tell us where he is due to deliver the chests of mithril, but he will leave with the cargo tomorrow at 10, if we want to follow him.
The party splits up to various destinations:
- Francis, Brokev and Quercuis go to the Wildwood shrine of Morn (and stay overnight)
- Caradoc and Hamish will follow the cargo
- Wun & Twoo go to the Universal temple
- Joshua will finish his Legend Lore on the stone ship, while Bazin keeps watch
- Garaf meets the local equivalent of Olg, who tells him that large amounts of mithril are flowing through Norport to Bristol

Next day at 10, wagons arrive and the shipment sets off, hidden as bundles of wood. It is offloaded at Collas's Trading Emporium. Caradoc & Hamish watch from a cafe and nibble croissants, but nobody turns up to collect it. They check the area and find that all the shops in a block have a shared back yard, and a back gate leads out of the yard onto another street, so the goods could already have been moved on, or just moved into another shop on the same block, so they head back to the inn.

Garaf comes back to the inn with a man aged 30-40 wearing a Percival symbol. He asks why the Alveran agents have us on their watch-list. We tell him that we think we work for them, with Vinmira as our contact. He asks us whether Vinmira has ever given us his word. We continue to wonder who Vinmira is working for...

Joshua completes his spell and gains a legend about the Empress's mithril. Hasandra defeated some enemies and had the mithril statue of their deity melted down and loaded onto her personal ship. She was then assassinated for this sacrilege, but there is something special about this mithril, which contains the blood of the gods. Full version to follow...