So, to set the scene…

Aeli, the Hero of the Vale, decided to follow the mystery of her family to Caleston, and the Lawful Wizard school of Thyckletray. Then, in a desire to buff up her Hero cred, she decided to take the Patriarch Priest of Valetown up on his request to investigate some sort of monster (“DRAGONS!”) issue in the far northern hills of the Vale.

So this session begins as she’s taking her posse out of town, but see’s a former NPC associate packing his things with a group of men at arms. Curious, she asks the NPC, the cleric Osash, “what’s up” and learns that he is taking men to investigate the Tomb of Alaxus that Aeli recently opened. With the Minotaur Mage defeated, the Patriarch was curious about the tomb and wanting to see what else might be learned from the former despot of the Vale.

So… Aeli’s VERY tempted to go and asks the NPC mage (Tironell) what he thinks. As Tironell points out this would be the third destination decision in three days, angie thePrincessWife looks at me and quips “DId I mention the ADD?” However, Aeli sticks to the plan and moves out on the road that will take her to Valecross and the tiny thorpe of Wyvern Falls.

Along the way, she stops for the evening at Golinville, a tiny village of ten buildings. However, she’s not very well greeted, as there was just a murder in the town and everyone is understandably shocked and upset. The tailor, Ms. Ferguson, was apparently butchered in her home without anyone knowing. One of the men allowed Aeli into the tailor’s home, after she proved she worked with the Patriarch (he’s considered the de-facto leader of the Vale).

It was a gruesome and creepy sight. Dried blood was splashed all over the walls, but the hut was otherwise undisturbed. And there was no body – none had been found. The townsfolk had sent someone that same day to Valetown to have the Sheriff summoned, but neither had returned yet.

It was at this point that Angie – the player – started wondering if she was supposed to start investigate this and we half-roleplayed, half-discussed what she should do. I was introducing her to the concept that the world will continue to evolve and do things despite her, and that not all things in this game would necessarily relate to the thread she was following. She could decide to change her mind and stay and investigate, or she could continue on. She opted to allow the Sheriff to do his work and spent the night in the town’s barn. The next morning, she left, but strangely, no sign of Sheriff or messenger as they rode back to the main track.

Another two days of uneventful travel and the band arrived at Midvale, a hub of sorts. Midvale would be the Indianapolis of the Vale, all roads lead there, but it’s not the center of power. Aeli spent some silver to try and find out news and events, but apparently she was a bit too nosy and pushy and really did not get anywhere. (The dice were still not favoring her. She’s now named her dice “Derpy.”)

After leaving town, Aeli happened upon a very strange sight – a halfling sitting on his cart pulled off the side of the road, happily smoking a cigar. Halflings are known, but they really don’t chose to live in human lands so much. The fact that this halfling had decided to put aside the nomadic life and settle down in the Vale was very odd, although he did travel quite a bit as a merchant/trader between Valecross and Midvale. He joined Aeli’s band going north and told her some interesting things about these “monsters” that Aeli was going to investigate:

• He’d heard of the attacks of these strange lizard creatures on cattle and folks around Wyvern Falls. Some say dragons, but old-timers speak about “wyverns” – the namesake of the tiny thorpe. Whatever these creatures are that are attacking, they are huge monsters, jaws big as a man, dripping venom and whip-like tails that sting.
• The place that is being attacked is called “Wyvern Falls.” It’s on the border of the hill country at the north edge of the Vale. It’s a thorpe, more of a meeting place than a town. There’s nothing of the Vale more northern-most than it.
• Tales are told by old timers of when Alaxus ruled the Vale, his soldiers would ride beasts called “wyverns.” When the Vale was resettled after Alaxus died, many bones and skulls were ground up in the fields around the Vale.

(Halflings in my campaign speak with an Irish brogue, but there was no way I was going to try and imitate that. I let her imagine it.)

On the second day of travel, they passed through a very strange village called “Shireless.” Shireless has about 15 buildings in it, and the road to Valecross runs right through it. There is an older stone watchtower to the east side of the village. As Aeli and crew approached Shireless, Murri remarked that “folks here be odd and verra strange.” And sure enough, as the crew rode through town.. well, imagine the scene in “High Plains Drifter” where Clint Eastwood first rides through Lago and all the townsfolk run inside or hide? Well, that was pretty much the scene. Afterwards, Murri related that he’d tried to trade in Shireless, but the town leader brought out a huge book of “rules” and would only trade according to the prices in the book. They also acted with strange manners and customs, almost like people from the Southron Empire. Aeli’s very curious why folks would come from the South to live in the Vale, but she’s now on a mission and that was set aside.

The rest of the journey to Valecross was uneventful and we paused here.

Four goblins surrounded Aeli, the Hero of the Vale. They yammered and hooted, surrounding her. Aeli expertly swing the famed Runeblade and sliced through the armor of the first goblin, spilling its blood and its life. She swung the sword back, moving to cleave the goblin next to it in two… except her sword kept going back and back… and she fell flat on her back in front of the now joyous goblins, who rushed in with their crude spears to end her life…

And so started the first combat of the resurrection of my solo game with @thePrincessWife- Angie. It has been almost 4 years (March of 2011) since we last played, when Aeli (Angie’s character) managed to insult the ambassador of the Southron Empire and miss on the apology (Jeff Rient’s Carousing rules FTW!) But with time on my hands now, and a little bit of brain power to devote to thinking about gaming, we gleefully jumped into a game this weekend. We pulled out miniatues, dusted off books, I converted things to a simpler D&D (using OD&D / S&W WhiteBox – sixes and twenties, yo!) And we got to playing elf games once again.

I had to reconnect Angie with the campaign progress and status, so I had typed up a recap in our Obsidian Portal campaign wiki. I also had to set up what the state of the world was like for her, after she had slain the Minotaur Mage and recovered a mysterious black orb. One that radiated magic and Chaos. She received warnings about the artifact from the Sage that she’s befriended, and she learned a little bit about Thyckletray, the “school” of Lawful mages. She had decided to visit Thyckletray in order to learn more about her wizard ancestor, why her family was killed over this ancestor and more about the mysterious crystal orb. However, it seems that Thyckletray has fallen into a miasma of infighting and politics – worried more about the status of each competing Tower within the school than to the lawful use of magicks within the world. And as a closing comment, the sage told her that the books she’d recovered from the Tomb of Minotaur Mage were written in a black, Chaos language, but hinted that the orb she carried was a harbinger of Death and Chaos.

Despite the bad news, Aeli decided to press on. “So how are you getting to Caleston” I asked. After going through the options available in a relatively civilized/settled area, Aeli decided to buy her own covered wagon, a 2nd nag horse to help with the wagon and a war horse for herself. Apparently converting to a silver standard gave her an excuse to spend those silver coins gave her a reason to shop (or maybe she was hoping for Black Friday prices!)

After the purchases, Aeli hunted around for her mobile healing/turning service, I mean, a cleric. :) Her first attempt was to visit the dour cleric of the Sea Goddess. (Think Grumpy Cat in cleric’s skin) If I was to describe the coversation, it went like this:

Aeli: So, Worlale (the cleric), could you send one of your acolytes with me on a secret personal mission that may be very dangerous? (flashes a smile)
Worlale: Uhhh… so the taverns with the adventuring clerics are that way…
Aeli: But… [that’ll cost me more money] …
Worlale: Have a nice day!

(The dice were not favoring Aeli on reaction rolls…)

After a brief negotiation with two adventuring clerics (after spending coin on drinks and bribes), Aeli ended up with a cleric and they were off. A day’s travel through the hills separating Westport and Valetown was a simple matter, except for bandits and goblins have been marauding through there lately… and an encounter came up.

Eight goblins jumped out and surprised the party, but they spent their surprise round demanding money and loot. Aeli drew her sword and the rest of the party jumped out of the wagon. Implementing the OD&D “Fighting Men get to beat up a lot on Less than 1HD oppoenents”, Aeli was going for the hat-trick but ended up flat on her back. Three successful goblin attacks and Aeli was looking pretty badly off. Fortunately, the battle turned her way and after scrambling to her feet, and a well placed Sleep spell, 6 goblins lay dead and 9 more were webbed or snoozing.

So, Aeli finished the trip to Valetown, met up with the local cleric there who loves her. When asked what she was doing “Oh, just looking for adventure”, the Patriarch asked “The Hero of the Vale” to help with a mysterious sighting of dragons killing cattle, destroying crops and terrorizing people. Except… dragons are a mythical creature, fables and legends only. Aeli put her travels to the mage school on hold. Off to Wyvern Falls and help local farmers!

Aeli arrives to Westport and meets Tironell looking to hire adventurers to explore an old destroyed Wizard’s Tower (Zenopus’s Tower) that has begun to show strange signs of activity – lights, figures, sounds. Aeli’s first adventures in the wizard’s tower. Set up base of operations at Inn of the Dancing Sea (Burlbur) Meet the armor/weaponsmith – Thumbold (Dwarf) Hires two new guys – Turchao and Rather – they say they are brothers, Rather mainly says “yea!” to everything, Turchao is the talker. They look nothing alike.
Aeli meets Worlale – priest of the temple to Cheliduus (Goddess of sea)

Aeli has visions of a dark man, probably Calypso.

Aeli and Company continue to explore the ruins of the Wizard’s Tower, run into more and more goblins and bandits. A very bad goblin attack leaves them all very badly wounded and hireling dead. In order to get healing, Aeli agrees to do a service for Worlale, help Lord Risz with an issue with the castle of Westport and its food stores. Knights had gone chasing bandits and in meantime, a strange monster has appeared in the food cellars of the castle.

Aeli goes back to tower with Tironell, finds a wizard at the top, kills him. Lots of treasure and books and a strange ring.

They meet Nicodemos, a book seller and sage, who will buy the books and research the ring. Aeli keeps/hides the ring after showing it to Nicodemos.

Meantime, news comes of a rich merchant offering a reward for his daughter who has been kidnapped by bandits.

Aeli’s adventure under the castle to free the food. She kills a gelatinous cube, runs into a strange man, Markus, who ends up being a wererat, and loses Nodwig the torchbearer to a horrible and lonely death to a pack of rats. Lord Risz names Aeli “Champion of Westport”, grants her privileges such as continuing to explore the Wizards Tower in Westport. He also mentions knowing her family – the Therran family. She reveals that her sister, her sister’s fiancee and a cousin were the only survivors of the attack.

Nicodemos tells Aeli that the ring belongs to Um Loran – the mage in the tower was a black mage. This is bad and she will be marked. He tells herthat her family comes from the famed Kellus who helped free the Vale from Alaxus, an evil wizard. She remembers Calypso wearing a similar ring. Nicodemos says that Calypso must be Um Loran mage. He must be hunting something related to Kellus and killed her family for it. To find out what it was, she will have to seek out ancient mage towers and go to mage schools to learn about Kellus. Thyckletray in Caleston is the school that Kellus was instrumental in founding.

They come back to find their rooms have been robbed and the ring taken. The Inn was set aflame. The sword that Aeli found (which reads “Desire Me”) keeps causing her to “black out” and continuously clean/sharpen it during these blackout times.

To help out with Bandits, Aeli travels pretending to be merchants to Valetown. They are set upon by 4 bandits who fight to the death. They arrive in Valetown. She meets/hires Quellan, son of the jeweler Asham. They hear of a strange ruin that teens found, with skeletons. The teens were investigating it because of a rash of cattle deaths. They go to investigate. It’s the ruins of a wizard’s tower built into the side of a hill. They find a passageway leading into the hill from the base of the tower. They explore, find a ghoul who has been eating the cattle, but it was holed up in an old library. They fight undead and win. Many old books. They chase the ghoul through secret passage, icky swampy tunnel and into a strange room with a tile floor with a design in it. A stone circular door with runes the door. In room is an iron door with bull’s head and a lock. Ghoul had the key in a box. They come to a bridge over chasm with 4 skeletons in front of a door on other side. Aeli decides to back off and build a giant slingshot.

They return and Aeli is now the “Hero of Valetown.” according to the Bards.

Aeli goes bandit hunting, does recon at the “Vicious Pixie” and finds Nib. With Nib’s “help”, they plan an ambush of a temporary bandit campsite. It’s successful and Aeli captures some bandits. Nib runs away. There is confusion at returning as the badits argue they are innocent and it’s Aeli & Company who are the real bandits. After a night in jail, the owner of the Vicious Pixie – Ghax – vouches for Aeli’s story.

She meets with clerk who speaks for the Patriarch – he is impressed at the description of the library. She gets the slingshot created, hires a cleric. At the wizard’s tower, all the bodies are gone. Doors are closed. She opens, cleric turns the skeletons (let down!). They find an adventurer’s body and a small dog, which Aeli starts to beat up on. Rather befriends the dog. They run into more skeletons and then find a strange smokey dragon who scares the crap out of them. They retreat to figure this out. Tironells says that the runes on door radiate evil, when he cast a spell on them.

The Patriarch’s clerk recommends she finds a sage who might help break the mystery of the smoke dragon.

They take the bandits back to the Keep, where Captain Equay reveals that the goblins and bandits are working together – somehow. Nicodemos agrees to research the smoke dragon if Aeli will keep bringing him books and information. In the meantime, they return to Zenopus’s Tower to explore it more. They capture a goblin and take it to the Keep (Notuk – naked goblin parade).

Tironell won’t tell Aeli why he’s not in a school.

The goblin reveals that the Goblin leader is called “Green Iron Fist” and has made a pact with the bandits. They are keeping the guards away from the docks and shore so the bandits can operate to capture merchants and learn of caravans so that goblins/bandits can capture them.

Aeli & Company return to Zenopus’s Tower, explore more, find the mask room and the sundial. It activates and answers her question about Calypso – it knows nothing. It answers one question a day. Aeli finds the bandit camp which was an unknown cavern leading to the sea right next to the docks. They “rescue” Lemunda and get a rewards. Nicodemos is very interested in mask, and he talks about why he’s interested in Kellus – Kellus studied magical myths, strange things, things that most mages don’t care about. Nicodemos accompanies them to the mask (and is attacked by a wandering ghoul who paralyzes him for awhile). When mask is asked if Zenopus had anything to do with Kellus, mask says that Zenopus studied Kellus.

Nicodemo finds answers to how to defeat smoke dragon – it’s a construct. Find the item that it is bound to and destroy it. He also tells her the story of Alaxus, who was 1 of 4 wizards who founded Um Loran. He was an evil overlord, who enslaved the lands of the Vale for his use. Eventually, a female paladin bearing a famous sword “Blade of Runes” defeated Alaxus, but his body was never recovered and she was never seen again. He believes the tower might have been Alaxus’s main headquarters. Alaxus was known as the “Minotaur Mage” for some reason.. and a Minotaur is half man, half bull. The iron door with bull’s head is strong clue to Alaxus.

After returning to Valetown, Aeli gets to meet the Patriarch. He reveals that more skeletons were seen at wizard’s tower and they chased workers away. The Patriarch was having the books removed. He is surprised to hear that the library and tower might be Alaxus’s but he agrees. As the leader of the local church, he agrees to help her with healing and help.

They return to the tower and defeat the smoke dragon who was bound to a brazier. They find a door in the cavern wall which leads to a series of hallways and chambers. The chambers have obelisks in the center and paintings on the ceiling of Alaxus’s career. They encounter a gelatinous cube and the party takes the worst of it. Aeli loses her “pretty sword” as it gets stuck in a wall. They have to run away. On the way back to Valetown, they are robbed by goblins. It’s a low point.

Thanks to help by Patriarch, they re-equip, re-arm and return to the tower, now believed to be the tomb of Alaxus as well. They defeat the cube and recover Aeli’s prety sword. They come to a second chamber and find “ratlings” – creatures that are bipedal rats that seem intelligent. They have several battles and decide to retreat to rearm and re-equip. They decide to try and see if there was another way into the tomb, since the ratlings had to come from somewhere. They find the opening and sneak in. They find the tomb… only to have the door shut in their face! The bull heads morph into a lock and keyhole. They encounter the ratling leader, who has the key, and a glowing blade with runes on it – the Blade of Runes! They defeat the ratling king, recover the blade, Aeli dons the armor of a skeleton who they now realize is the famous paladin. Then… Aeli starts having serious blackouts with her “pretty sword” and they realize the sword is cursed. Back to the Patriarch to get rid of the curse. On their way back, they encounter bandits and Nib! He’s captured and taken in chains.

Now freed of the cursed sword, Aeli returns to the Tomb, opens the door with the key and the team working together, they defeat Alaxus!

They recovered many books written in the black tongue of Mhaldor, gold and a strange black crystal orb, that was embedded in the coffin lid. Above Alaxus is a painting, showing him holding the black stone, the Vale, his Tower near Valetown, another Tower near a waterfall with a dragon statue holding a green stone, similar to her black orb, near the town of Valegate. Further on is the black towers of Um Loran.

Upon returning to Valetown, they celebrated. Aeli was involved in a diplomatic incident with an ambassador from Southron. She has been forbidden to ever enter the lands of Southron. She was summoned to a meeting with the Patriarch and farmers. Strange creatures, perhaps dragons, are terrorizing the farms, near the town of Valegate.

Aeli took the orb and books to Nicodemos in Westport. He cast spells to try to translate the books, but was unsuccessful. He said that she should go to the school of Thyckletray in Caleston, that the mages there could probably help with the books and orb.

It looks like from her notes that she decided to go traveling to Caleston. A “Kenthrix” will help her there?