Frontier Bulletin 24: The End of Cahn or Vampire vs Kaiju!

Players:

Laughing Fox, Shaman

Dogbreath, Fighter

Hellena Keller, Dwarf Machanist

Laurentius, Cleric

Boldvay, Magic User

Mark, Thief

Whiskey John, Explorer

Plus Boldvay's dog

After being forced to retreat twice, and at deadly costs, the players were taking no chances against the ancient vampire Cahn and his undead army. Some sessions back, the players had found the Black Eidolon and it's manual. The last session they befriended a family of storm giants, the Bunyans. With these turn of events in mind, they quickly formulated a plan. They decided to be back at the mines after sunrise, have Zappos the Wizard to summon and use the Black Eidolon to dig out the vampire horde, and finally get the Bunyans to pour down their holy water upon the hellish undead. Simple, right? Pretty much and it was executed nearly perfectly.

Flying with the giants in their castle Storm-Anvil, the players quickly arrived at the deadly mines as the sun was rising. Zappos began the hour long summoning process of the Black Eidolon. The players themselves prepared themselves. The Black Eidolon, which was just a foot tall black statue, grew into a gargantuan 300 ft tall, animated golem. With Zappos controlling the giant, eldritch weapon, it began to dig into the mine with its mighty hands. 

Soon, many of the vampires began falling from the eidolon's hands, landing into ash. The other undead, ghouls, wights, skeletons, etc., landed on the ground, crumpled and unmoving. Some of the older vampires (probably Cahn's daughters) tried to escape by flying away as giant bats, but were burned away by the sun. . While the eidolon was digging, the Bunyans let loose their pool of holy water to rain down upon the vile dark creatures and flooding the mines. Finally, a black stone coffin fell unto the ground. 

Before the party could get to it, a black, many eyed and tentacled eldricth horror from ancient times emerged from the now gaping pit: a Shoggoth! It grappled with the Black Eidolon who was forced to stop it's digging. Unfortunately for the tentacled, many eyed creature, it proved no match to the gargantuan stone giant. The shoggoth let out a high pitched, artificial sounding scream, and was soon torn apart and stomped on until it stopped moving. 

The players soon raced towards to the coffin. They pried it open to shine some light on Cahn. Clad in his black armor with red bat, he began to emerge while half burning away. Laughing Fox, in a moment of mad genius, covered his naked hand in garlic and punched Cahn in the face. Cahn flinched, but Laughing Fox was drained, again, of two levels. Sad!

Cahn soon succumbed to the rays of the sun, and now only ash lay within his black coffin. Lauerintius had the other pour some of the holy water inside the coffin, just to be sure. With the vampire menace destroyed, the party soon looted Cahn's treasure chambers. And a great haul was obtained! They found many spell scrolls (including Wish!), much coins and gems, and even some magical items, including a pair of Eagle Eyes. In Cahn's coffin, a Rod of Control Shoggoth was found. Zappos claimed this as his part of the loot, while the Bunyans took a share of the coins and gems. After all was said and done, the Bunyans bid their farewells and headed west, and players and Zappos set forth back to Pottsfort.

Session 18: Meatball & The Hypnoblade

Players:

Laughing Fox - Shaman

Quirkus - Elven Spellsword 

With Mummy Rot contracted, Laurentius, Laughing Fox, and his henchman Dogbreath seek help curing their ailment. First they think of Brother Took, who and his knights reside in the keep that the party found the werewolves all the way back in session five. They also believe they could explore more of the ancient city around Crystal Lake once they're cured. Before setting out, they think that maybe the curious wizard Zappos could possibly cure them of their annoying curse. They go to him and seek his aid. Not expecting this, I decide to bust out the Tome of Adventure Design and see what I can randomly come up with. A few rolls later, I've got what I need! 

Zappos informs them that he does indeed have enough Remove Curse potions available to help them, but under the condition that they travel to Rivertown and bring back The Hypnoblade that he's loaned out to a mob boss named Meatball. Meatball has made his headquarters in an abandoned warehouse he's named the Pasta Bowl. He tells them to save time, he will let them use his magic mirror that will teleport them there and back again once they are finished. Zappos also informs them the last time he had dealings with Meatball, the man only had about three thugs working for him. Laughing Fox then contacts his ancestors and asks if they know anything about Meatball, what time would be best to obtain the magical dagger, and how many men Meatball has working for him. They respond with yes, that the party should go at night, and that he does have more than three thugs. With that, they head through the mirror to Rivertown.

Laurentius's player leaves his cleric behind with Zappos and takes his elf Quercus. They also bring with them five charmed black panthers, now dubbed the Jackson 5. They emerge from the portal at the front of the warehouse at night. They split into two groups, with Laughing Fox and his group exploring the east side of the building while Quercus takes the left. Before splitting up, they see a bloodied and wounded man emerge from the west side of the building mumbling about serpent men of the black scales. He soon expires. Laughing Fox takes the east side of the building, while Quirkus takes the west side. They make their way around to the back of the building and Quirkus with his elven abilities, soon finds a secret door. Before entering though, emerging from behind Laughing Fox, a group of Craymen try to attack the reunited party. While the craymen numbered seven, the our two heroes, along with their henchmen, made short work of the walking crustations. The party finds on the craymen four craygod idols made of electrum and thirty silver arrowheads, worth 100 silver each. They soon unlock and enter the secret door.

After they make their way in, the soon find dead bodies of Meatball's men and craymen. Looking around a bit more, they soon find a trap door that leads to a basement level. Inside they find a dead crayman killed by a trap and catch two serpent men and three craymen unawares as the look over the body of a very fat man. Before surprising the scaled folk and their henchmen, the party hears one of the serpent hiss out that "Master Skale wants the Black Eidolon found." The party gets the jump on their foes, and soon emerge victorious, with both snakemen and their (water)bugmen joining the dead. Looking over the dead human that the serpent men were examining, Laughing Fox realizes he matches the description given to them of Meatball. They find three black keys on his body.

Further exploration in the underground level soon reveals Meatball's office, along with three chests made of black oak and black iron. They use the keys they found and are successful in opening all three chests. What they find is an assortment of treasures: folders of blackmail, various gems of high quality, ten gold bars, the Hypno-blade, and what appears to be a footlong, primitively cut, statue of a man. They believe this to be the "Black Eidolon" the snakemen were looking for. Knowing that there's a bounty for the heads of the vile snakemen race, the two adventures take the heads of their downed foes and retreat back to where the were teleported to by Zappos's mirror. They arrive back in Zappos's store and tell them what happened. They turn over the blade and let the eccentric wizard look at the Black Eidolon. He believes this to be an ancient magical weapon that could cause catastrophic destruction but needs to find more information about the relic. Before leaving, Zappos cures our heroes and they soon turn in the serpent men heads to the lord commander for their bounty in which they recieve 1,000 gp for each head.