Evil!Party: Onward to Rockdale!

We’re sitting in Garamond when Cardinal LaRoche appears. 

Jenny: “Can I kill him?” 

LaRoche: “I’m on your side.”

Durest: “The lassie jes wants tae kill things. Do you have things for us tae kill?” 

We stop for drinks and conversation, and he brings us up to date on the rest of the war. Maodeus is pleased. “Of course, we’ll have to destroy the bridge at northfair before the Tarrasque gets there. Still, we’re patient, we’re just going to take it slow.” They’re taking their time to let their armies enjoy the spoils of war. “Our eventual goal might surprise you,” he mentions, off-handedly. 

Chuck: “Have we not earned our way into the inner circle at this point?” 

Cardinal LaRoche: “So you’ve heard of Thoughts of Vecna, and like that? I am a Vision of Vecna, one of seven. Cassadia Armanda up in Janbridge is another. And, of course, Kaz Lucien, one of the highest and High Provost of Annon. I have been charged with matters along the cliff road.”

Durest: “Excellent! Have ye any black onyx on you?”

LaRoche: “And now we reach the best part of my job. You see, when we sent you here we weren’t sure you’d succeed… but you’ve proved yourself.” He starts pulling out new equipment for us, including magical protections. For Durest, a sun ruby and some more black onyx… and a scroll that would allow him to create regenerating undead of the sort we’ve encountered before. We’ve also got some treasure from the palace at Garamond, including a crystal ball with detect thoughts, which is… useful. He assures us that if we continue to further their cause, there are more rewards and more knowledge to come. 

“Do we remember the two mages? The Baron had recalled them. And the baron at Rockdale has recalled some of his, so each of them thins the ranks of the Solari army.” 

He also goes down a list of our prisoners: the baron, his wife, his children and their spouses… including a young man who might arguably be the Baron of Springhollow (though the King likely would disagree). We ransom back the nobles, Chuck eats the Chancellor, and we leave the Chamberlain in charge of what’s left of Garamond. Also, the king’s acceptance of the ransom is full of complaints about how much the ransom costs and how much he hates Barons who get themselves captured. Chuck eats the rest of the nobles, and we take Theophilus Boulon the chef with us. It’s getting to be a bit of a wagon train by this point. 

Durest makes Bob a regenerating  skeleton, and generates a new retinue of undead: 

Bob, new and improved, wielding the Ogre Solari's sword and armor. 

4 wraiths

2 ghasts

2 mummies

Samson the Ogre Solari, who is now a skeleton.

LaRoche gives us a little more info on Rockdale: “I have good news. You’re going to get to kill a lot of Solari. Unfortunately, they’ve called in help. Father Raphael Montaigne has sent a cardinal and a contingent of sun priests to reinforce the baron. You’ll probably be facing a cardinal, and some backup troops equipped with sun and fire spells. This is rarely done – the highest ranks of the order of Helios rarely leave the temples. This will be a problem, especially since they’ll be expecting you. We’ve also got the Baron’s Solari, including the master of the monk school and two disciples. Then there are three more Solari. Two are elves, a master of the bow and another of the two-bladed saber, and a retired pirate turned wizard who specializes in elemental magics. Rockdale is a smaller city than Garamond; the Baron, Maxine Gerard, is thirty-seven. He has a wife and one child. He has two brothers, one of whom runs the family winery there in rockdale. He has a fairly standard retinue of advisors. The local economy consists of stone quarries, some furniture-making, plus taverns and inns for travelers and traders, plus a handful of wineries with their own distinctive vintages.” 

Taverns in Rockdale include: The raging cockatrice, Furkin and Sons, and Dragon Senders which was supposedly once burned down by the dragon that lives in the dragon mound. 

 

The castle is a strong stone structure near the center of the city.

Chuck has a plan. We’re going to break them economically, and in the process try to draw out some of the baron’s fortress. 

We arrive at the outer wooden walls, and one guard VERY reluctantly steps forth. “Um… would you guys mind wating just a few minutes? The constable wanted us to tell him as soon as you arrived.”

 

We give them the benefit of the doubt and wait. 

The constable actually does come. “So, um… it’s my job to make you feel at home.” He tells us that the Baron and his family are up in the mission temple. ”The castle is empty."

Chuck: “Tell the Baron that if he surrenders himself, we’ll leave the townsfolk alone.” 

So the baron is apparently hoping that if we know where he is, we’ll go try to kill him and leave the townsfolk alone. 

Chuck: “Tell the baron he has forty-eight hours to meet us a Caramel Ridge with whatever he wants to bring.”

Forkbeard: “So there’s a manse waiting for you on the far side of town, and these rings will let people know to give you things. But I’m supposed to keep you out of trouble.”

Chuck considers: “I like you, Forkbeard. Maybe you should come and work for us.” 

Forkbeard’s got about 180 guards; he’s the only member of the council that isn’t up in the mission. We offer him a fair amount of money to come over to our side, then we pull out and find a decent cavern or something that we can take over for a headquarters.

Next morning we wake up and find this huge group marching towards our camp. It’s Hogan Forkbeard and his mates. They want to take us up on our offer. They’re very concerned about their families, though. We pledge not to destroy the town. They don’t think they can help us assault the temple; they're pretty sure Master Fedoki and the other monks would take them apart. 

 

They are now Forkbeard’s Fellows, and they work for us. 

That night, Forkbeard tells a little more about the temple: a main building with the towers of meditation on top and sleeping cells for the monks on the bottom. New monks sleep outside or up in the towers of meditation, mostly to build discipline. There’s a fighting/training room on the second floor, alongside chambers for the upper echelon of monks. The lake in the back is rumored to have no bottom. Then there’s a shorter second building, which is the Citadel Of Trials. There’s a trial of fire, a trial of ice, and a secret final trial. 

We’re not going to be able to starve them out, but we have basically cut their connection to the town. Using the crystal ball, we learn that the Baron is occupying the Master Monk’s chambers. 

Since we’re not raiding the town, we decide to try a surgical strike: the three of us, and Ferroustopher the iron golem. We teleport in, which will probably never work for us again. 

Chuck opens by casting Fireball, and wipes out most of the lower-level monks. The senseis are now up and on their feet, but this has gone badly for the monks. Master Fedoki is out here and barely damaged. Ferroustopher attacks one of the senseis, hitting twice. Jenny whips her chain around and takes out a couple of monks. 

Master Fedoki moves in between Jenny and Chuck, and hits Jenny with a Stunning Fist attack, but she shrugs off the effect. One of the monks tries to attack Durest but misses; we teleport out, taking the corpse of Deschim with us. We question the corpse, learning a bit more about the mission and Master Fedoki, who is frighteningly skilled. 

We receive a message about mid-morning. The Baron wants to know how much it’ll cost to get us to move on. We respond with 600,000 GP and do not receive a response to that. (We think that's about three times what the whole Barony generates in a year.)

We poke around a little bit, and learn that there’s a temple of Helios in town. Chuck starts a tradition of nightly orgies for anyone who wants to attend. We Unhallow the castle, and fix a dimensional anchor to prevent good-aligned people from teleporting in or out. We also turn over the mansion to our troops. 

Next day, we go into the Temple of Helios in town and Unhallow that as well, adding Deeper Darkness for the pure sake of adding insult to injury. Then we chip the sun sigil off the altar and send it to them. We do not receive a response to this either.

So Chuck commissions a painting of us desecrating the temple... as depicted by the least competent painter in town. They don’t react to that, either. Okay, fine: we'll try another strike.

 

Durest tries to teleport in and bounces off a protection; he drops into the lake and sinks like a stone. At the bottom of the lake he finds a cavern and, since he can’t cast Teleport underwater, he just starts walking along the bottom until he gets to the far end and emerges in this underground room. There’s a wooden door, with writing indicating that He Who Is Sound Of Mind WIll Let No Obstacle Prevent Him. 

Durest: “I’ve nae had enough drinks fer that.” He teleports out. 

So, our plan for next time is to go back in and UnHallow the Hall of Trials, bring in the undead, and then make these guys come inside and fight us.