Wheat Hollow Adventure Log - March 10th, 2012

Here's the latest adventure summary from last Thursday. Enjoy!!

Wheat Hollow Adventure Log
May 10^th, 2012

Player Characters
Bucky – Badger - 1^st level - Fighter  (Bobby Smith)
Chip – Squirrel - 1^st level - Ranger (Nick Perk)
Fist – Mouse – 1^st level - Wizard (Chris Brown)
Maple – Squirrel Ranger – 1^st level - (Anna McConnell)
Munk – Chipmunk – 1^st level - Illusionist (Bruce Heard)
Persephone (Pip) – Mouse - 1^st  level - Rogue (Rebecca Rudaski)

When we last left the adventuring group, Bucky and Munk were guarding the front door of the mansion, Pip was checking out the back door, Fist and Melbo were guarding the rats that they had overcome, with Maple having climbed up to the third window from the right and Chip having climbed through the second window from the right and into an empty room.

Pip having rolled a “1” on her listening check, accidentally slipped on some rocks/debris near the door knocking her head against the door, possibly alerting someone inside to her presence.  Silently cursing her bad luck she waited to see what would happen. Much to her dismay she could hear someone/something opening the door. She quickly hopped behind the door as it opened out, hoping she would not be spotted. Again, luck was against her as the rat that opened the door noticed a foot poking out from behind the door and investigated. Spotting the mouse, the rat cook (he was wearing an apron and wielding a butcher knife), wanted to know how the mouse got out there and what it was doing outside.  Not believing her story, the rat told her to get back inside. Pip disagreed and quickly took off and headed to the front of the mansion. The rat cook followed her shouting for her to come back. When she didn’t he chucked the butcher knife at her, missing badly.

As the rat came around the corner, he was very much surprised to see a bunch of other critters lying in wait for him. Before he could utter a word or shout, Munk hit him with a Color Spray spell, knocking him senseless.  The group quickly bound him up and added him with the collection of others rats that werehanging from the trees in the woods.

Sensing some urgency was needed, Chip told the rest of the group to climb up the rope to the second floor – which was done quickly and without any difficulty. Maple climbed through her window and met them in the empty room. Before they could decide what to do next, they heard something coming up the stairs that led up to the room. Looking down, the party saw two rats dressed in shabby leather and armed with short swords and a couple of other dark, furry creatures they had never seen before.  Munk quickly hit them with a Hypnotism spell, suggested that they flee the area.  The four creatures suddenly had a funny look in their eyes and decided that the mansion wasn’t the place to be. The group could hear more sounds coming from down below and decided to head down the stairs to investigate.

The stairs led down to an empty room with a closed door in the north wall. Bucky opened the door and looked out. He saw a hallway that ran east-west and an open arch that lead into the kitchen (Pip could see the open doorway that the rat cook had gone through).  They could hear someone yelling , it coming from somewhere down the hallway to the west. The party decided to follow the sound of the yelling to see what it would bring them. As they started heading west down the hallway, they saw a couple of rats rush past ahead of them, coming from an opening from their right, and out the front door. As they got closer to the yelling, they could tell that someone (or something) was being terribly berated for their poor work. When they reached the point where the rats went through, they could see the front door to their left and room to their right that had an opening to the east and west. Pip quietly snuck up to the opening to the left to take a peek at who, or what, was doing all the yelling. When she looked in she could see a very large creature standing at the far end of a long table with a bunch of rats gathered around it. He had large red eyes, a torn left ear, and a scar that ran down most of the left side of his face. He also had a slightly pugged-nose and big, sharp teeth. Pip came back and quickly told the party what she saw. It was decided that Bucky would go back down the hallway and would start taunting the bad guys in the room, to draw them out so that they could attack.

As to be expected, the rats ( eight in number) quickly came running out of the room with the large creature yelling orders behind them to find out what was going on out there. Being deathly afraid of the leader, the rats ran past the adventuring party, not one of them noticing the group. Fist then casted a Sleep spell at the rats which dropped the back four in a heavenly slumber. Munk walked into the doorway and tried to cast Hypnotism on the larger creature, now indentified as a wolverine. Much to Munk’s chagrin, the wolverine just smiled and asked the chipmunk, ever so nicely, to come to him. Munk didn’t think that was such a great idea and quickly turned and ran with the wolverine quickly on his heels.  Fist then hit the wolverine with a Magic Missile.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party was battling with the four remaining rats – three with the main group in the room and one with Bucky out in the hallway. Bucky quickly dispatched his rat with a mighty whack and Maple slightly wounded one with an arrow shot. Following his success from the previous rat, Bucky came into the room and the three remaining rats were quickly slain.

However, for Pip, things were not going so well. As the wolverine came through the doorway, she attempted to back-stab him and missed. The wolverine feeling the ineffective attack, turned towards her. Swinging the large spiked mace that he was carrying with him, he smacked Pip with a nasty blow, sending her flying back into the wall, bloody and unconscious. Sensing a very deadly foe, Munk decided to try and cast Hypnotism one more time to see if it would work. Luckily for the party, it did. The wolverine was mesmerized by the spell, the spiked mace slowly sagging to the ground.

Fist took this time to quickly go over to Pip and give her a healing potion, saving her from a certain death. While Fist was doing this, Maple, ever so gingerly, climbed up on the wolverine’s back with the idea of strangling it with her bow string. Bucky, seeing that the foe was a wolverine, had a different idea. He quickly went into a battle-rage and hit the wolverine with a mighty blow. The attack, causing the wolverine serious injury, also broke the Hypnotism spell, sending the wolverine into a rage. Maple, surprised the explosive fury of the wolverine, did all she could to hang on, dropping her bow string in the process. Luckily for Bucky, with Maple hanging on to the wolverine’s back for dear life, the wolverine was unable to get a good swing at the badger. With a couple more hits from the party and the wolverine was down.

With the evil wolverine and rats defeated for the moment, the party took a moment to rest and assess their situation. Other than a few nicks and bruises, the party was in good shape – well, Pip was recovering and alive, but not all happy. While resting and discussing what they were going to do next, the two rats that ran outside earlier returned. Finding the leader and buddies dead on the floor they turned tail and ran for greener pastures, never to be seen again.

Searching the large room that the wolverine and rats were originally in, they found a map on the long table and fireplace with a large shield above it. The map was rough map of the surrounding area with a large circle around the area where the village of Wheat Hollow would be. It was quickly deduced that the wolverine and his crew had an eye on taking over the area and was using the old mansion as a base of operations until the village could be taken over. Bucky, having taken the shield off the wall, found it to be surprising light and strong (magical, perhaps?). It was painted with stripes (red, yellow, and blue) with an orange starburst in the middle).

With the room searched, the party decided to check out the rest of first floor of the mansion. They found a bunch of empty rooms, the kitchen, and a room with a stairs leading down. The group decided to finish checking the upstairs, not wanting to have anything that might be up there come sneaking up behind them.

With the first floor searched to their satisfaction, they proceeded to go back up the stairs to the second level of the mansion. They exited the empty room into a hallway that went east-west. They came upon a doorway on their right side about 10-15ft from where they exited the other room. Bucky tried forcing the door open, but could only budge it about a foot, just enough for Munk to peak in and look around. He saw a large room with books scattered all about and bookcases that had been knocked over. After a good hour or more of searching, they discovered books about birds, plants, and other rather mundane subjects, but nothing of the magical sort. They did come across a book that had a badger fighter holding the same shield that Bucky had found displayed on the cover. It was written in a language that none of the others could read except for Bucky, for it was written in badger. It was a book about the badger, Sir Ignatius, and the adventures that he had had. They kept it thinking that it might prove useful in the future.

After thoroughly searching the library, they exited the room and entered a large intersection. The area to their left had a large statue of a strange creature none of them had ever seen before – a winged creature that had three heads. The other direction led to a hallway that ended in a window. They continued straight on down the hallway they were already in and found four doors – two on right and two on the left. They decided to check the doors to the right first.

The party tried both doors and found them locked. This was quickly remedied by Bucky knocking one in. Upon entering the room, the party saw a large four-poster bed and a wash stand. The bed was old, but looked recently slept in. The party searched the room with Bucky pulling the mattress apart and Munk finding a large, locked flat-box underneath the bed. Pip tried to search the lock for traps and failed – getting a prick in the finger and some damage from a weak poison. Bucky used his strength to smash off the lock. Inside they found a bunch of gold and silver coins, five gems, two potions (cure light wounds and neutralize poison), and a nice dagger.  

Satisfied that they room contained nothing else of value, they decided to check the doors on the other side of the hallway. The first door was unlocked and the room empty. The second door had a drop bar in front of it with the words, “bee wer” written on it. The party listened at the door and could hear what sounded like a humming, buzzing noise. They correctly deduced that there were bees of some sort on the other side. They removed the bar and opened the door. Directly by the door were the remains of a rat that had been stung to death. They quickly closed the door before the large yellow-jackets reached the door. However, before the door was closed, they noticed a large hole in the ceiling that led to the outside. They decided that they would smoke the hornets out before trying to enter the room. They gathered a bunch of rags and other debris, stacked them on a shield, lit it and slid it into the room. One yellow-jacket was able to buzz past the door before they could close it, but was quickly whacked down the hall by Maple’s staff. Once the room cleared of smoke they found nothing of value, but the room was now cleared of the yellow-jackets.

 Having searched and cleared the second level of the mansion, they decided to head down to the basement. The descended the stairs that were located in the kitchen. When they got to the bottom they found a small room with a couple of spears lying on the floor; other than an opening in the west wall, the room was empty.  They went through into the next room and found a door directly opposite of where they came in and a door that was locked on the wall to their right. Pip was able to pick the lock and Bucky opened the door. Inside the found a group of rather dirty and beat-up looking animals wearing farming clothes – rabbits, squirrels, and mice. The Harvesters!! They quickly checked them all over to make sure they were healthy enough to travel back to the village, which they were.

Behind the other door to the north, they found a large room filled with boxes, barrels, and crates – all filled with food - the remaining crops of Farmer Thistlewhite’s. 

As the curtained closed on this night’s session, the adventurers and the harvesters were gearing up for the road home...