D&D Adventures III

As the day continued, the crew of the Fortune had to stop their boat as they came to a large steel gate that crossed the length of the Black River.  Unable to get around it, the party had no choice but to set out to the two large towers on either side that would contain the mechanisms for drawing the gate open.

Charmer and Tiberius took it upon themselves to climb into one of the Fortune’s dinghies and row to the northern bank.  The self-proclaimed expert rogue carefully inspected the area for any traps laid by Alexia or her lunkies, but nothing was found.  Tiberius, however, found one that Charmer overlooked while opening the door.  Fortunately, Charmer had a potion to counteract the poison, so they ventured in.

The inside of the tower was covered in guano.  Looking up, razorbats were perched on the ceiling.  Tiberius and Charmer had to move quickly to fight them off.

Meanwhile, back on the Fortune, Arya and A’ine studied the southern tower from afar.  That was when Arya noticed that there was something at the bottom of the gate, under the water.  Neither she nor A’ine could make it out, so they took the other dinghy and rowed out to the gate.

Tiberius and Charmer, having finished the razorbat infestation, climbed to the tower’s second floor, and together began turning the huge turnstile that operated the gate.  The first few attempts failed as the gate resisted being drawn in.  But then, with a huge klunk heard in the distance, the gate suddenly rushed closed.

Arya and A’ine, studying the gate, came to the realization that a chain was holding the gate together under the water.  They could only watch as the northern half of the gate was attempted to be retracted, straining the chain underwater.

The klunk was the chain snapping as Tiberius and Charmer put enough weight on the turnstile to pull in the gate.  The chain and padlock snapped, sending metal in all directions, several shards of which penetrated through the dinghy that Arya and A’ine were on!  The dinghy barely lasted at all, leaving the girls clinging to the gate in the middle of the river!

A’ine, having been trained as an acrobat, easily sauntered up the gate, and balanced across it to the southern bank.

Tiberius, curious of the contents of something hanging from where the razorbats had hung, grasped the mossy sphere from where it hanged.  Immediately, tens of tiny baby razorbats clawed their way into his arm!  He threw the nest to the ground, beating off the bats, and the two of them exited the tower.

But not before Charmer set it on fire.

The two of them walked back into the open daylight with an explosion at their backs.  "Charmer did it."  Tiberius openly proclaimed.

Oddly enough, as they gazed out at the half-open gate drawn in by one tower, Arya was in the middle of the river, hanging from the gate pole, waving frantically!  A’ine was walking across the top of the gate, heading to the southern bank.  The two men blinked, and looked at each other curiously, before running down to their dinghy and rowing across.

Between ferrying Arya across and A’ine’s gatewalking, the party reassembled on the southern riverbank.  One of the gates had been opened, the other still remained.  Entering the southern tower quietly, Charmer and Tiberius were particularly wary.  They did not want a repeat of the other tower.  But, the four of them found nothing.  A large empty room.

They did hear scuffling from the top room.

Charmer volunteered to climb the iron rungs at the back of the room, and quietly poked his head into the second floor.

With a gut-wrenching kthunk, Charmer’s body hit the ground.  He had been viciously attacked with a large blade, and he lay unmoving.  Arya and A’ine rushed to his aid.  Tiberius, now aware of the threat above, closed his eyes, and feystepped into the room above, gaining the split-second of surprise he needed to engage his foes.  He defended the entrance to the second floor for the time it took for A’ine to treat Charmer’s wound, magically repairing it as if it had never been.

It had turned out that Alexia had left a small surprise, a couple of undead guards, to attack anyone who tried to come near the gatecrank.  The party, once Charmer was on his feet again, joined Tiberius on the second floor, and together made quick work of her Risen spawn. 

Charmer and Tiberius easily opened the other gate, and the path was clear for the Fortune to pass.  Before they left, Tiberius bent to pick up the blade one of the Risen had been using.  It had gleamed with a red luminescence.  He took it for himself.

The blade shed its light quietly.

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OUTTAKES

1. Dan:  “I bet she levelled you up last night.”
   Ken:  “Or rather, early this morning.”
   Dan:  “Well, which was it?”
   Edna: “I did not get a timestamp for you.”
2. Dan, cleaning off the dry erase tokens with a not-so-wet paper cloth:
   “I’m gonna need another wet one!”
3. Ken returns from kitchen, chewing on a sausage link.
   Edna, surprised: “What are you doing?”
   Ken, confused: “Eating my sausage.”
   Everyone: *Awkward silence*
4. Dan, after saying no a thousand times to Jacob’s incessant questions:
   "There has got to be a way to mute you.”
5. Edna, after Jacob dropped his sword:
   "I am holding onto my sword REALLY hard!”