Aporeu chronicles Issue 66: Securing Kehrim Manor
Stories from the adventurers
This week
Short introduction
Securing Kehrim Manor by Ranra
As it is expected from every adventuring group to deliver a mission report, one has to accept the fact that it is one’s turn eventually. So it was, that on this day of sadness, I was tasked with writing the report for the ‘securing Kehrim manor’ quest. Having heard that day that my good friend, Doctor Vasilievsky, had died, as well as his beautiful wife-to-be Phaedra, I was not really in the right mood for a mission. I honestly liked these people; they were weird but had huge hearts for the people around them. Also, they saved my life once. But, anyway, I signed up for it, and business is business, and life goes on, as my dad would say. Four adventurers had signed up for this quest, myself included. Then there was Naïlo, a huge firbolg who smells really nice. He doesn’t like caves, sadly. And two of the adventurers were real rookies (and they both talked a LOT a pretty knowledgeable and slightly annoying gnome with a crossbow called GnArt (he has been to the underdark, so that gives him credit), and a foolish girl called Kenzie. She thinks everything can be solved with singing and talking. Not bad with a crossbow though, so I give her that. She kept throwing unveiled insults at me for some reason. Lornan talks us through the briefing, and we’re underway soon. Apparently some merchant wants us to clear the place. Some warlord named Kehrim had owned it a couple of centuries ago, got mad and killed everyone in it. There’s mention of a tomb, so we expect some magical shenanigans at best. Kenzie ends up hitting on every other traveler we meet on the way, as well as our fellow adventurers. It gets old soon. I do feel for the poor girl, she must be really desperate for money to sell herself like that. I am determined to keep her safe this quest. Once off-road, we follow an overgrown path and the land seems to… change. It’s hard to describe, but there were weird purple-blue flowers and it feels… off. It was too quiet too. We find some overgrown remnants of buildings, and get attacked by wooden creatures. We quickly dispatch them, although the big one was annoying, as I had bitten it as a steeder, but got stuck with my jaws. Luckily, it was finished off before it could hurt me more. We find a gatehouse with a crumbling mansion behind it, and in the gate a wooden creature is standing, seemingly not hostile. It talks to us, welcomes us back, asks us about the 2 sons. We tell it we have no clue what he is talking about, and he walks away angrily. Naïlo and I follow it, only to get showered with a bunch of acid. That hurt like hell, but at least I can take a hit. We end up killing it rather easily. Then we take our sweet time investigating the gatehouse. GnArt is really interested in the blasted mechanism that dumped acid on us, and Kenzie really wants to find clues about the story of what happened here. I decide to scout ahead. I get into steeder form to investigate this manor building from the outside. It’s partly collapsed, but I notice 2 weird things. One, there’s an elf bound in the kitchen, and there’s a huge bedroom with something moving, even though I can’t quite see what. I go back to my team, motion them to follow me (how annoying to be unable to speak while in animal-form). We get to the elf first, who is remarkably calm for someone held prisoner in a place like this. I also feel as if he knows I’m not actually a steeder, which slightly creeps me out. He also tells us just about nothing, just that he thought this place was interesting. He calls himself Dane. Well, whatever, he just leaves, fine for me. I’d rather just do this with the team I’m assigned to, I’d rather not have any untrustworthy elves peeking over my shoulder.
In any case, Naïlo tries to open a blocked door, so every attempt to stealth is out of the window. Kenzie feels the need to inspire one of us by singing a song. With a bit of dread, we go upstairs to the big bedroom, which is indeed huge, and overgrown with vines, like everything here. We spot a beholder on a bed, and of course Naïlo and I go for it. Too bad the thing explodes into some kind of poisonous gas as soon as we hit it, which hits Kenzie pretty hard. After the gas is diffused, we search the room thoroughly. I get grappled by a vine as soon as I open a closet, and then, Naïlo asks the vine to let me go, which it does. Amazing. Kenzie find some gems, GnArt finds some art, and a safe. Some of us decide to take a little rest, because this place is littered with floral traps and we still need to visit the crypt.
Just as we are rested, Kenzie gets hit by a wooden spike and goes down immediately. Damn those nasty wooden creatures again. I use my underdark power to get her back on her feet. As Naïlo and I take to the front, the rookies shoot from the back. A very wise decision. I once again use the flaming sword, which I am starting to like. It’s pretty effective against these creatures, who can hit pretty hard. One tried to climb on Naïlo’s back, and he throws it against a wall. Very impressive. And a vine helped him against the wood things. He also smells nice. We all finish off the things fairly quickly, and take another rest.
We now decide to go find this crypt. I am excited to go underground, a sentiment not shared by all. Naïlo has a pretty effective lantern, so the poor creatures without darkvision can see as well. Well, there’s a huge tree in this place, a sarcophagus and a large wooden creature. Naïlo tries to talk it down, and even lays down some of his weapons. The rest of us wait, hesitant to mess this up, but still at the ready for any hostilities. The creature comes forward, grabs Naïlo’s discarded axe and tries to take a swing at him. Then several things happen. First, I shower the creature with underdark-light, making him even easier to hit. Kenzie yells obscenities at it and I’m not sure what GnArt did, probably something with his crossbow. The thing is sufficiently distracted though, as he misses Naïlo by a mile. Naïlo, tired of playing nice, hits it heavily and strikes it down.
Curious, we decide to investigate the coffin, which is overgrown with vines. As GnArt inspects the thing for traps (a smart move after all the shit we stumbled into here), he gets hit by a vine from the tree, which apparently is magical. We immediately team up to destroy the thing, beautiful as it may be. Believe it or not, but Kenzie actually does the final blow, fading out the blue light that sustains it. After that we try to pry open the coffin. It takes me as a Rothé and GnArt’s block and tackle, but we find a skeleton with a magical plate armor. Well, that’s money we definitely want. We also cut up the tree (or chisel actually, the wood is petrified by now). Could get some nice armor made from that. Kenzie, determined to find everything she can about the story of this place, decides to do a thorough inspection of the manor house. Thanks to that we find another hidden room, where we find two heavily marked skeletons on a wall. Guess we found the sons after all.
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