DM: Tam
Participants: Bardy, Glanfath, Isaac Wilde, Jerime, Lily and li’l ole me (Oxalis Tetraphylla).
The town of Port Mirandia is growing, so people are trying to set up farmsteads there. Being a civic minded person (and mindful of the fact that Teach had given me a note with only the initials PM, where so far I have only found this city to match the initials), I decided to join a mixed crew that had decided to help the farmers clear the ground in preparation for tilling and whatever else a farmer does. Under ordinary circumstances, and in normal surroundings, this would not need the security of additional bodyguards, but this is Sleeper Island, so we of course were ready for any kind of unfriendly encounter.
It all seemed a sunny and calm day, one of those days I loved back when Teach would show me the court of Oberon. And no, the farmers were not accosted by any kind of monster at all; instead when removing a large rock from under the roots of a tree stump, they found what they called a “large hole” and drew our attention to it.
Very carefully, we made our way down on a rope one of us had brought along – into a large chamber with a paved stone floor and several grates and grated doors leading out.
None of these appeared to be trapped – and while we were down in that ruin we did not encounter a single trap – so we set out to explore this underground “building”. We did see a couple of rooms containing moldy straw, dead humanoid bodies and luminescent fungi, though we were not certain as to the purpose of this building. There seemed to be a number of holding cells and a single large dining room with a (badly broken) table and a damaged sideboard. Theories were uttered, the most likely explanation for this building being that it was a kind of prison – or a monastery, the “cells” being the sleeping rooms of the monks and the dining room the refectory. In 20/20 vision, I would say the first explanation being the more likely one.
As is the wont of abandoned buildings, there was quite an assortment of vermin, mostly rats. A short talk with them told us these critters were not afraid of much – with the sole exception of three (?) “big ones”, which they could only describe as being about the size of the largest group members. Our further exploration unfortunately was cut short when we were in the dining room/refectory, when some weird creatures showed up. These creatures seemed to be able to go invisible and short-range teleport, in addition they looked quite fuzzy around the edges – a status that unfortunately did not apply to their dagger-like weaponry that not only caused nasty gashes, but also because some kind of minor migraines. During the fight, in which we were hampered by the fuzzy look and our opponents ability to move around seemingly at will, the healing abilities of our assorted group members were sorely needed, especially as these creatures seemed to be quite resistant to mundane physical and magical necrotic damage, but fortunately not against forced damage.
We are still unsure exactly what we met there: was it ghosts or some other undead, or was it a group of bandits having their hideout in here, protected by some unusual and some common magicks? We were not able to make a closer identification of the creatures, although one of them to me seemed to be tiefling-like.
When we finally came to the conclusion that we were in real trouble – even though we had managed to down one of these creatures – , it was decided to beat a retreat, in which our opponents did not follow.
In the meantime, the farmers had uncovered another ruin, paved in a similar stone to that we had been standing on while down on our fight. As it was getting quite late, we could only warn the farmers against going down into that hole to explore further, before everyone headed home for a while well-needed rest.