Caltaras Fair



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[return to what came before]    [sessions 19 and 20]   [sessions 21 to 23-Vanduin's letters]  [This tale from Magdor's Viewpoint[Interlude]  [look forward to Hommlet]

session 19 (cont) and session 20

Goodmonth 20th, 591 CY

A Trip to the Fair

On the 20th of Goodmonth, the heroes finally arrived from the wilderness and arrived back into civilized lands.  As they traveled along the road toward Caltaras, they saw a festive site, with colorful flags and ribbons all about the city.  It appeared a fair was going on in the fine city!

Although there was great delay in getting into the town, as each person was inspected by guards, weapons and spell-components fitted with 'peace knots', the town was indeed in the middle of a great fair.  The streets were aburst with people, with entertainment, drink, food, and wares at every corner, and even crammed along the narrow streets in between.

The dwarves stopped at the very first beer vendor to get a drink, while the rest of the heroes advanced along the main avenue, intent upon finding room and stabling and then locating Madame Hucrele, whom they had heard was in town. 

Suddenly ahead of them through the crowd, they heard shouts of terror, and the crowd surged toward them as fairgoers fled whatever was causing the disturbance.  As Tara and Daesha attempted to push forward through the panic stricken mass of people, Legacy and Kentir headed to the rooftops to make quicker progress.

Much to everyone's surprise, as well as his own, Gamble shot into the air like a bird to get an overview of the situation.  After taking a few moments to adjust himself to this strange sensation of flight, Gamble assessed the situation.  Humanoids, gray of skin...no wait, FUR, not skin, were making a mess in the town square ahead.  Tossing carts, wagons and people alike about and wreaking havoc.  Large rats, the size of dogs, scampered about and bit at any they could reach, seemingly working with the furry humanoids as well.  Gamble let loose with volleys of magic missiles, as the others in the party continued to make their way forward as well.

The first volley of missiles from Gamble felled one of the humanoids, and as it fell, the others fled into the side streets, slowly transforming into regular humans and disappearing into the crowd of panic-stricken fair-goers.  Were-beasts!

The giant rats, however remained, and were attacking a fallen merchant, and Gamble continued his volley of death from above.   Legacy arrived in time to finish off the last of the rats, and the others of the heroes followed behind to help clean up.  Grateful to the heroes, several of the vendors gave the heroes the name of a nearby inn, and the recommendation needed to get a room, despite the city being overcrowded due to the fair.

After procuring an inn room, the heroes ran into Van and Archren, other members of the Blades, and discussed events both old and new.  Then each went about his business in town.  Madame Hucrele was contacted, and discussions regarding the rebuilding of Oakhurst were had.  She agreed to lend the support of her merchant house, as the trade with the kobolds still had the potential to be quite lucrative.  Her terms where that the heroes would recruit the service of their dwarven friends to build a wall about a portion of the town, after first building a nice big gate before the entrance to the underdark within the Sunless Citadel nearby.

Further business was done about the town, as some of the heroes met with the priesthood of The Temple of the Sun, and others found Schooma, dwarven smith of such great age that even the dwarves in the party were in awe.

During this time, Legacy and Daesha discovered that they were being tailed.  Confrontation with the gentleman proved of little use, and caused Daesha to put a tail on the tailer.  Unfortunately, those who followed them did not mind being followed, and Legacy was led into a trap!  It was here he found that their foes were lycanthropes, able to change into rat-men during battle.  Legacy fled for his life back to the busier streets of town, evading his pursuers.

The party learned this day that much was not right within the City, tales of rat infestations in the Bell tower spread like wild-fire after the wererat attacks in the town square.  Other, more unusual  tales, of violent and messy murders in southspur, a moaning ghost in the streets of westhill, and greatly increased crime in chatterstreet came to the ears of those of the heroes who made any attempts to find out what they could about happenings around town. 

Goodmonth 21st, 591 CY

The Fair turns Fouler

Awaking the next morning, the heroes found the fair continued, yesterdays events putting little if any of a damper on the activities of the townsfolk.  After a quick breakfast, the party regrouped, as they'd been separated the day before; the dwarves had not been seen since stopping for beer when entering the town (they found the dwarves at Schooma's, having spent an entire night working at crafts with the venerable smith...you know how dwarves are).  After everyone got done admiring the new gear which Magdor had outfitted himself with, Archren proceeded to the library in Westhill, to research wererats and lycanthropes, while the others proceeded to the Temple of Sun, to inquire after Tara.

Here they were told that Tara was busy helping the many sick and wounded that a fair of this magnitude tended to bring to the temple doors, and that she would catch up to them as the fair wound down.  They also found that they had again picked up their tail.

Aust, being ever the friendly dwarf, walked up the man tailing them and had a friendly chat.  He learned the man's name was Squim, and was even invited to have drinks with Squim at a tavern in Southspur later that evening.  Blissfully unaware that Squim had been tailing them (as none who had noticed bothered to inform him), Aust returned to the others across the street and let them know of the invitation.  Squim wandered off down the street, seemingly content to no longer follow now that he'd been made.

The heroes stopped in at the library to check on Archren, where she informed them of the need to use silver in order to kill a lycanthrope.  Gamble shrugged at this, noting that his magic seemed to work just fine the day before, but the others took it too heart and headed back to Schooma's where they found the smith already prepared for the silvering of weapons.  Word of lycanthropes in Caltaras had spread fast, and she did run THE Smithy, after all.

Their weapons silvered up, they headed towards southspur.  Though it was quite early in the day yet, the heroes figured to arrive at the tavern long before the time of their invitation.  Gathering up Archren from the library, they headed enmasse into the litter-strewn streets of Southspur, the poorest district in Caltaras.

Little  signs of the fair were evident in this district.  The streets were much less crowded, and what meager carts and entertainment could be found were not only poor in quality, but spread quite far apart.

As they approached a streetside performance at an intersection, again chaos struck, as filthy, eyeless, gray-skinned brutes poured out onto the stage from behind the curtains and began to slaughter actors and audience alike.  It took only a few moments for the heroes to realize that the blood splattering about the stage was not a part of the act, and Aust, Daesha, Legacy and Magdor rushed forward to help, while Van watched the streets to the rear, wary of ambush.

The battle with the eyeless savages was fierce, and Van found that his caution was well founded, as several wererats descended from the rooftops above to strike from the rear.  Though wounded, and tired, the heroes did prevail.

Looking behind the curtain, from whence the beasts had come, Magdor found it opened into a small shack, whose rear door exited into the alley behind.  Daesha used her tracking skill, and was able to back trail the beasts through the winding and twisted alleys, to an abandoned warehouse.  All windows and doors of the building were securely boarded shut, save one window which stood open, beneath which rested a stack of crates, making a convenient way in, and out.

Sure that this was the lair the beasts had come from, they determined to investigate.  The first one through the window was Aust, who found himself on a raised platform inside a large warehouse, the smell of rotting flesh almost nauseating.  Before he had a chance to note much else, however, the entire warehouse went dark.  Aust, who'd spent his whole life knowing his darkvision would serve him even when there was no light, was shocked to find he could see nothing.  He clutched his axe tighter and backed up to the wall, "That's not right."

Hearing the dwarf proclaim something was amiss, the party noted that the view through the window, already dim of light when they had first arrived, had gone completely black, as if a curtain of darkness had been pulled to cover it.  And then they heard the sounds of battle inside.

Aust found himself attacked by an axe-wielding warrior of some skill, and learned that battle in total darkness was no easy thing.  Magdor rushed through the window, groping for and finding Aust's belt as he pulled himself into the warehouse to assist.  He figured where he had no eyes, he could fight with his back to his brother now that he'd found him with his grasp.  But this was not to be.  Legacy, in his impatience, pushed Magdor the rest of the way through the window, causing the dwarf to lose his grip on Aust.  

Lying in the darkness on the floor within the warehouse, the stench of death and rot assaulting his nose, and the sounds of battle his ears, Magdor wondered how it was that he could help his friend now, without risking hitting ally rather than enemy.  And then he heard Aust cry out in pain, combined with the sound of an axe penetrating armor, rending flesh, and cutting deep.  There was a thump as a body crashed to the floor near him, and Magdor felt the wet slickness of blood as it spread from the fallen combatant  His senses assailed by all these things, and no vision to see WHAT was going on proved too much, even for the brave veteran dwarf, and he scrambled back along the floor until he was tight to the wall.  He felt with his hands for the window, and leaped out, sending others of the party, who still remained outside on the crates, to the ground beneath him.

By this time, Archren had managed to squeeze past the other heroes who still blocked the ally and climb up on the crates.  With a quick flick of her wrist and some arcane utterances, she touched the inside of the windowsill, and brought light to the darkened warehouse.  Just in time to see an eyeless, gray skinned humanoid jump atop the fallen body of Aust and sink a hand axe into his skull.  Legacy, still hanging outside the window using his psionic spider climbing ability, rushed through behind Magdor who had steeled his courage and gone back inside to aid his friend.  As Daesha lost patience and chopped through the warehouse door, Legacy and Magdor engaged the fiends, the one who wielded the axe, and two others who assisted it.

As Daesha finally burst through the door, and others of the heroes had gone in through the window to help, they managed to fell their foes and found themselves in a large, single room warehouse, the floor strewn with human bones.  It appeared they had found the lair of those responsible for the many grisly murders in southspur of late.  But Magdor took no time to look around; he fell upon the fallen axe-wielding enemy and, with axe blow after axe blow, assured that this was one foe who would NOT be getting back up.  Then, taking the body of his fallen friend, he rushed from the warehouse to seek aid.

From here, the letters of Vanduin Silverthorn tell the tale well.

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