Abyss Modified Session 21: Chasing Daddy Fate

Dinak, Xanaphia, Orion, and Tamin came up from the depths of the mine to find Godric, Syre, and Thelrum waiting for them by the strange goblin’s front gate at the entrance of the mine camp. The goblin (barghest) was confused to see the other group alive and well and turned into a large wolf like fiend and howled. Three other such creatures burst out of the small shacks and joined the other in attacking the party. Dinak hunter’s marked and shot the closest one three times, Godric hexed the one nearest to himself and attempted to stab it, missing. Orion ran in and punched another, each hit bypassing the monster’s resistances. Tamin attacked from the mine tunnel and attempted to hide again, his usual tactic. Thelrum moved and waited for Syre to act. Xanaphia tempted fate and launched a chromatic orb at one of the barghest, seeing the electrical damage deal less of an injury than expected. Syre attempted to cast bane on all of the barghest but only two of them succumbed to the spell, and Thelrum banished the one Godric had hexed.

Combat went swift and they killed two more quickly and the last one attempted to escape with dimension door, which Thelrum countered. It instead tried to climb over the palisade wall but Godric misty stepped in front of it and blasted it back off the wall. The party was amazed as Orion ninja ran and attempted to leap off the nearest building to hit the now levitating barghest, but misjudged the jump, and broke through the ceiling of the tiny hut. Orion saw a few goblin sized bedrolls and animal hides strewn about. Thelrum took his chance and dismissed the levitate with dispel magic, causing the barghest to fall ten foot, breaking its leg, and dying.

The party took the chance to rest, having disposed of all the fiends and split their watches. During one of the watches they heard strange owls and went out to look, finding an owl pellet that had a few fairy bodies in it, as well as a few normal pellets. During the next watch they heard someone stumbling in the woods and found Telegar, their ally broken and wandering. It turned out Daddy Fate and his crew waited till the party was gone and abducted the halflings of Thistlebottom. Telegar tried to fight them and was wounded, escaped and found his way to the mine. The party finished their rest and returned to Thistlebottom.

They found the town empty, except for the town hall which had what appeared to be the village elder milling about. Half of the party turned invisible and snuck in. Syre, with greater invisibility got up right next to him and touched his shoulder. The “elder” grunted and looked at a whole bunch of nothing there, and reached into the drawer he had been rummaging through and grabbed a handful of charcoal and chalk dust and threw it out in front of himself, revealing that something was there, but not what. They counter spelled his cone of cold, watched him become a large sized ogre monster in a smaller building, and bludgeoned him almost to death, forcing him through the wall and killing him outside. Tamin also wandered the house during the battle, finding a locked chest which he opened and found a strange large skull wrapped in a comforter. It was identified and they found it could cast two spells for a charge each… finger of death and Animate dead. It has a few other abilities, more on that later.

The party realized the caravan was a quite a few hours ahead of them, and they had no horses or any other means of transportation. They searched and found one lonely pony in the woods and Syre remembered there was an odd town further north called Low Harbor, that was only a few hours walk but might have horses they could borrow or buy. They set off after naming the pony, Little Marshmallow Dipstick. They found the town of Low Harbor with another wooden palisade across the mountain pass. The town was built at the base of a mountain on the shores of a lake. The guard shouted out a greeting, the party was excited to see a dwarf on the surface for some reason and once inside the town saw it was mostly gnomes and humans with a few elves making a living on their small lake and whatever they could scrounge from the mountains. They were told there were places to get transportation near the town center and found a group of gnomes working on a strange contraption. It seemed a group of adventurers from Acquisitions Incorporated had crashed their battle balloon in the center of town and wracked up a six hundred gold bar tab and repair bill but disappeared before paying. The party traded silver they took from the Thistlebottom mine as well as one of Dinak’s drow dresses from the underdark for the airship. They got a basic flying lesson, Syre got a drink from the bar. They took off after Daddy Fate’s caravan at a very fast speed, tearing across the sky following the main road they knew would lead them to Baldur’s Gate.

They remembered the gnomes said something about the adventurers being knocked out of the sky by a gryphon as they saw such a creature off on in the distance. Thelrum summoned a few elementals and the rest of the group readied a few options as well if the creature got any closer. The gryphon kept its distance, eventually disappearing from their concerns. They saw a cluster of trees moving below and saw the troll from Daddy Fate’s caravan carelessly breaking things. They yelled down to him to see what was up, and it seemed his cart lost a wheel and the rest of the caravan went off without him, hoping to send help later on. Godric snuck down and tried to see if any of the halflings were in the cart but just found two dead hunters in ruined gear. They scared the troll, he thought there were ghosts and ran off into the woods. The party went back into the sky and followed after, finding a few of the caravan’s hunter and trackers readying bows and trying to calm the troll. They decided to not get shot out of the air and flew off before getting filled with arrows. Thelrum sent his elementals to vex the hunters and troll, hoping to delay them. It might have worked.

They continued flying until they found Daddy Fate’s caravan stopped in a clearing and setting up for the night. They flew over the guards and saw many familiar faces milling about and preparing food and feeding the monsters. They also saw Daddy Fate leave his giant tent and mill around with a few of the guards. Godric, Dinak, Syre, and Tamin went into the camp, hiding out of sight and trying to make it to the tent while Orion, Thelrum, and Xanaphia stayed behind in the balloon. The stealth team also took Thelrum’s familiar with them so he could spy. Godric used mask of many faces to become one of the guards and asked about the halflings, finding out a few had tried to escape and a few had died on the journey so far. He also found out they were being kept in Daddy Fate’s tent.

Stealth team made their way into Daddy Fate’s tent. They first noticed the tent was way larger on the inside. They found animal cages stacked on top of each other with all kinds of creatures, from displacer beasts, to a small white dragon, and some normal run of the mill animals all caged and ready for training. They also found another daddy fate was sitting at a bench tinkering with something. That caused them to pause, they had also seen Daddy Fate outside at a table with the guards eating and drinking. We stopped there for the night, we will see what chaos will come of this.