Garamond is a small city of 11,000 or so people; the surrounding area is about 33,000 people or so. The castle has multiple sets of walls and an inner keep; Baron Fabrese Poitier is in charge. He is now on his third, younger wife, and has three adult children who are mostly betrothed or promised to the neighboring nobility in Springhollow. The town is big on furniture factories. Trowel and Hammer, the Golden Sun, Mistress Frumpy’s, the Three-Billed Duck, and Last Stop are all taverns (except the princess one, which is a brothel).
Chuck scouts ahead as a bat; there are two guards at the gate, and Chuck flies down and attempts to dominate them. He taps the first guy on the shoulder. The second guard whips around and says, “You! There! Who are you?” He levels a halberd at Chuck, and Chuck dominates him.
There’s an archer on the tower, who’s trying to figure out what’s going on; this is collecting a lot more attention than it really should. Chuck Dominates the second guard: “Tell them it was swamp gas,” he says, and assumes Gaseous Form, leaving them to their guard duties.
Chuck comes back as we’re getting close to morning; he disguises himself and off we go. We walk up to the gate and… there’s a new pair of guards. The archer on the wall is leaning over and accuses Chuck: “It’s him! The guy who was messing with Mordid!”
Chuck: “What? There’s nothing here but these lepers.”
One of the guards flees, but the archer on the tower keeps shouting orders. Jenny growls at the guard, and Chuck Dominates the archer. He gets the archer to let us pass, and the other guards don’t object.
We proceed to the mouth of the alley and yank up the sewer grate; then we proceed down into the sewers. Jenny and Durest keep talking to Bob, which is making Chuck crazy since he doesn’t hear the giant skeleton talking. There’s an old portcullis down here, and somebody moving around on the other side.
Chuck makes himself invisible and then Gaseous Forms his way through the gate. He sees three lizard-folk down here, signaling to each other. They draw their clubs and seem to be about to ambush us. Jenny also notices a winch on the wall just beyond the portcullis. She whistles, but Chuck ignores her. A moment later there’s a bolt of lightning, and these two die.
More lizard-men come, but Chuck has already opened the gate. Jenny comes through, and after a while there are no more lizard-folk. We find where they’ve set up (along with fifteen gold and some leather armor and clubs and silver pieces). We equip the ghouls with the armor. Then we try to go to sleep for the day.
Durest awakens because of a tremendous crashing and screaming; Bob has a guy in his hands, and has ripped one of his arms off. He looks like some sort of rogue: hand crossbow, all daggers. Durest has one of the ghouls paralyze the guy, and then he heals him. “Jenny? Would you like to ask this nice young man some questions?”
Jenny comes into the room. “Do you consider yourself good lover?”
The guy blinks twice for No, looking terrified.
Jenny: “Are you a spy?”
No.
Jenny: “Are you lying to me?”
Nothing.
Jenny: “Are you a spy for the handsome sunburst-man?”
Yes.
Jenny: “Durest, I want to keep him.”
Durest: “Aye, well, he cannae have his arm back.”
After a while he can talk again. His name is Wolf Stonegate. He’s one of Maximillian’s spies – as we suspected. He will cooperate with us to save his life. If he doesn’t return, Maximilian will know that something’s up. Bob has taken a shine to his arm, and is not giving it back.
We serve him some lizard-folk moonshine, and he immediately throws it back up.
Apparently Maximilian heard that a group had penetrated the city and thought it was maybe a rogue thieves’ guild, so he sent Wolf to investigate. We strip him down and tie him to the top bunk for Jenny’s amusement. He wasn’t too terribly well equipped; a +1 dagger and some masterwork leather armor. Durest dresses up one of the ghouls in his equipment.
Chuck wakes up as night falls: “Hey, is anybody keeping this? Or did you leave it as a snack for me?”
Wolf: “Are… are you a vampire?”
Chuck: “YES.”
Wolf pisses himself.
Durest, meanwhile, has turned the severed arm into a Crawling Claw and set it loose. Chuck gets ready to go up top and visit the brothel, while Durest gets ready to send the ghouls out to kidnap people and turn them into more ghouls.
Chuck shows up at the brothel, and the madam greets him cordially. “You look like someone of peculiar tastes. We have boys and girls at your disposal.”
Chuck: “I’m here for a good time. Someone told me this was the place.”
She invites him to have a drink by the fire while some of the employees demonstrate their skills at dancing. It turns out that she is the current Mistress Frumpy.
So various entertainers come by and try to entice him. There’s also a guy in officer’s clothes at another table who seems fairly drunk. After a couple of likely candidates, an older woman comes up, takes Chuck’s drink, and pours it down the front of his shirt before slapping him. Chuck: “Now that’s more like it. We’re gonna need a room.”
Two hours of really rough behavior later, she’s laying back on the bed with a spliff of Chuck’s best gold, and starts asking questions. The guy in the main room was Cecil somebody, the captain of the guard. He’s rich enough that he come in fairly often, especially since half of the Solari got called off to war. The baron kept his more loyal Solari close to home, not that he needs anybody other than Samson – the ogre. The war has mostly bypassed Garamond; Springhollow didn’t get so lucky. Fortunately, Duke Corbin came down to set things right.
The baron’s son Michel comes down here fairly often; he’s divorced, and a bit of a playboy. His favorite girl is a Cecily. Edward Moreau, the oldest son of Baron Mroeau, is married to a Poitier and here in town; if the Baron doesn’t come back, Edward is theoretically the heir. Maximilian the Solari knows everything that goes on in town.
Has she heard anything about the lepers? She has not. Does she like what she does here? She likes it with him. Would she like to enjoy it even more? Does she want to live forever? Chuck demonstrates his vampire abilities for her and tries to persuade her to become a vampire. She could become the new Mistress Frumpy.
…She’s in.
Chuck hands off some gold and heads back to the sewer.
Durest, meanwhile, sends out the ghouls; they kidnap three people and bring them back, infected and on their way to becoming ghouls themselves. The next night, Chuck goes back to check on the prostitute and finds that she’s turned about half the brothel; Durest’s ghouls, meanwhile, bring back another five people.
So, on the third day Durest is settling in to sleep when Bob alerts him to the presence of people coming into our sewes.
Jenny comes at them along the passage; Durest teleports himself and some of the ghouls to cut off their escape. He reaches out and touches their mage with Slay Living; the fellow dies.
Cleric: “How dare you slay Avron Firesoul!”
Durest: “Oops.”
Jenny comes strolling down the passage and kills the rogue. Then the ghouls swarm over the other two, and that’s the battle. Looks like they were offered a 100 GP bounty to come clear the zombies out of the sewers. We drag the bodies further in and re-close the portcullis.
On the sixth night Chuck goes to check on his new minion, and finds that she and the other vampire prostitutes have been slain. Meanwhile, another party of adventurers has slipped into the sewers, slain some of the ghouls, and surprised Durest and Jenny while they’re playing catch with Bob.
The guy with the pansy-ass elvish double-scimitar steps in and attacks Durest, hitting him once. Their sorceress puts a blade barrier across the room, and the cleric drops a Flame Strike on Jenny and Bob. A half-orc fighter steps in and attacks Durest, power attacking.
The elf guy attacks again, hitting once, and Durest calls for his mummies. He also dispels the blade barrier. Bob strides up and smacks the orc pretty hard. The cleric puts the blade barrier back, and catches Bob with it but only damages him a little bit because he’s a skeleton. Jenny rages and charges through the blade barrier and hits the orc, damaging him fairly significantly. The cleric casts Greater Command: “Drop your weapon!” Jenny drops her chain.
The orc attacks Jenny, and the guy with the double-scimitar attacks Durest but misses. Durest drops a flame strike on the two clerics and the guy with the scimitars for a fairly significant amount of damage. Bob sinks his axe into the orc again, but fails to take him down.
The cleric casts Mass Cure Moderate Wounds, healing herself and her companions. Jenny picks up her chain, taking some damage, but promptly kills the orc and attacks the elf, hitting him.
Meanwhile, the mummies come up behind the clerics and lay into them with slam attacks. The cleric fails her save and in addition to damage she now has Mummy Rot. The cleric casts Flame Strike and damages Bob, Durest, and Jenny. The orc attempts to take down Jenny, but misses. The other guy with the scimitars hits Durest badly, but Durest heals himself and Bob takes down scimitar-guy.
The senior cleric heals the younger one. Jenny charges and attacks the younger cleric, damaging her. The mummies follow up, one of them hitting her. The cleric attempts to turn undead, forcing the mummies to flee. Durest hits them with a Inflict Serious Wounds, Mass and heals Bob while injuring the clerics. Bob attacks the younger cleric and takes her down. The senior cleric steps in and casts Harm on Jenny, who avoids the worst of it. Durest heals Jenny, and Bob attacks the cleric but fails to kill her.
The cleric casts Hold Person at Jenny… but she shakes it off. The cleric tries to Hold Person on her again, but she shakes it off and murders the cleric.
Chuck comes back a few minutes later: “Hey guys, I think we’ve been found out– oh.”
We have not killed Muriel (the druid), Samson (Ogre knight), or Maxmilian (rogue).
