Session 5, 2007-08-18: Expedition to Nestull's Lair

Session 5: wherein Jakob acquires a pen, a bottle of wine, and an inactive golem.

Players (Characters)
Scott (Filthy Ike)
Jeremy (Flynn Flamm)
Tony (Brother Jakob)
Rachel (Lotus)
Tom (Nathaniel Graythorne)
DM: Catherine

A local elven wizard named Kelialin summoned the party to his tower, and offered to pay them a moderate sum of money to retrieve a clay golem manual from a cottage outside Nestull's lair. Mary agreed this would be a worthwhile expedition, particularly if the party could retrieve any of Nestull's spells for controlling constructs. The party set off on the road, and quickly encountered a swarm of tiny needletooth dinosaurs. Ike fired several arrows into the pack, skewering dozens of little dinos while Flynn encouraged him. Lotus destroyed the remaining beasts with a quick blast of lightning, and the party continued onward. A green dragon passed overhead, and Ike nearly drew its attention with a flurry of arrows, but Nate managed to distract him with something shiny.

When the party stopped for a quick meal, Ike began cooking his freshly skewered dinosaur snacks. Soon, a pack of wolves approached, and one tried to steal one of the roasted dinos. Ike screamed out "bitch, get off my food", and soon had a wolf to go with his dinosaurs. Jakob broke another wolf's neck, and the rest quickly scattered, recognizing this group would not make easy prey. As the party continued on, they encountered a small group of forest trolls. Lotus cast a spell of Entangle, and Ike began picking off the helpless trolls one by one. The party retrieved a few construct-related scrolls from the corpses.

The next morning, the party approached Nestull's lair. A swarm of animated books charged toward the party, intent on bludgeoning everyone. Jakob grabbed one and broke its spine, while Ike pinned several others to nearby trees. Lotus burned a few more to end the threat. A short distance beyond, the party came upon a pit. Suddenly, a dinosaur skeleton leaped out of the pit and attacked. Jakob began pummeling it while Lotus hit it with various elemental effects. Nate and Ike sat back and watched, virtually useless in such a combat. Flynn's inspiration gave Jakob the strength he needed to crush the dino's bones.

The party's next encounter was with a manifestation of magic -- a living spell. The sphere of magical energy flew up to Jakob and dispelled his mage armor. Luckily, the spell was physically weak and easily dissipated. Shortly thereafter, the party encountered a living spell of suppress command, which was chasing after a clay golem. Soon, the golem was completely inactive, and the spell wandered away. Jakob began dragging the inactive golem behind him, hoping it would be of some value to Kelialin.

The door of the cottage outlying Nestull's stronghold was guarded by a massive and powerful stone golem. Not wanting to face it directly, Nathaniel used a scroll of hide from constructs to make the party invisible, and then distracted the golem with an illusion of a man passing by the cottage. Inside the cottage, most of the furniture appeared to be animated, including a hat rack that was dancing around in the main room. The party moved carefully between rooms, making sure to close doors behind them to limit the number of constructs that could attack if Nathaniel's spell ended. When the party opened a bedroom door, a tapestry flew past and attached itself to a nearby wall. Jakob narrowly avoided contact with the tapestry, which likely would have resulted in every construct in the room becoming aggressive. One supply room held only a single animated pen, which Jakob captured under a barrel and then dropped into his bag. The party easily retrieved a clay golem manual and several scrolls from the supply room, and then snuck past the stone golem guardian with yet another illusion. Heading back home, the party encountered a swarm of wine bottles. As the bottles attacked, Jakob caught and smashed each one in succession, until he simply caught and captured the final one. Nathaniel would reprogram the pen and the bottle when he had the opportunity.

The next morning, the party encountered a few more forest trolls, which were easily defeated. Mary sent a message for the party to hurry back, but didn't give any specific details. Once the party reached the main road, they were able to move more quickly. Soon, they noticed a cow standing by the side of the road drinking extremely large amounts of water. Flynn and Nathaniel spoke with the farmer who owned the cow, and found that both he and the cow had been feeling somewhat ill and drinking excess amounts of water. Both had encountered a strange black sand earlier in the week. Lotus cast remove disease to cure the farmer of this "thirsting" disease, and the party killed and buried the cow to keep it from spreading the disease, paying the farmer a few gold pieces to cover his loss.

Back in Waecleft, Kelialin paid the party generously for both the golem manual and the inactive golem. Mary promised the party a runestaff with each of the spells they'd retrieved for controlling constructs.