Campaign journal
by RPGPunditThe PCs found themselves in Darokin City, and decided to spend the next 12 weeks living there (in the house owned by Corwyn), training their weapon slots, and trying to work on the construction of a few magic items.
Besides that Galafilo and Corwyn started work on their future dominions, Corwyn securing permission to start a monastery/temple just outside of his birth town of Mar. Galafilo had long ago gained permission to move his clan from Threshold (Karameikos) to Heartshire (in the Five Shires) and start a new town, and he now sent word to his clan to get ready to move, and confirmed that the site he had chosen in Heartshire was still available.
Corwyn also has enough income to become Elite "Platinum" Class, the "aristocracy" of plutocratic Darokin, and joins the Merchant's Guild in preparation to start his own Merchant company.
When the group gets back together and is ready to go, they prepare to travel south to Mar, where they'll clear out the hex that the Darokinian government granted to Corwyn. In the interim, Galifilo bought himself a trained Hippogrif, transported all the way from Thyatis, and Alendalan made himself a Surfboard of Flying. Thus, between that and some creative uses for rope and boots of levitation, the party heads out flying toward Mar.
On their first night out the party is attacked by a pair of very large Wyvern. They manage to kill the creatures, but not before Galafilo's hippogrif is very badly wounded. It turns out that Wyverns were some of the monsters that Alphatian wizards have been teleporting to Glantri to wreak havoc with Glantri's infrastructure and hamper their war effort. Only these two managed to fly away south into Darokin. The party learns this when Corwyn casts Find The Path to try to discover the Wyvern's lair only to learn that their lair is not on this continent.
The PCs continue heading south the next day and end up detecting (with the help of the metal-detecting sword) a community of Goblins who've set up camp in the hills north of the Malpheggi Swamp. The goblins (about thirty of them) initially threaten the party, declaring that their mighty chief is "almost Expert Level". When the PCs retort that they're Companion level, the Goblins nearly **** their pants with fear. The PCs realize that the goblins aren't worth killing, they don't even have magic items, so they scare the Goblins into retreating back into the swamps from whence they came, and go on their way.
That same night, the PCs are attacked by surprise by a band of brigands. Hathalon wipes them all out with a single Ice Storm. These brigands turn out to be carrying a great deal of loot with them, more than would be expected. The PCs are left wondering about this, but happy for the find.
They move on the next day, and again the metal-detecting sword goes off, pointing the PCs toward the hills near Mar, but off the main road. There they find a makeshift fortress, headquarters of the brigand band of which those men were just scouts. There's 160 men holed up there, a small army of bandits clearly there to raid the mountain pass between the Shires and Darokin. In their lead is a 9th level fighter, three 5th level lieutenants of his, an 11th level wizard, and an 8th level cleric! They're armed to the teeth with weapons and magic.
The Wizard gets the first hit in, blasting the entire party with a Fireball, when they're still out of arrow range. The party moves in, and with combination attacks manage to kill the wizard before he can do any more damage. The warriors try to hit Hathalon, Alendalan and Corwyn with slingshots, and the enemy cleric tries to rush to save the wizard, but Corwyn blocks his path with a Barrier.
The brigands then let loose with a sea of arrows, enough to drop Galafilo who falls on the wall near the cleric.
Alendalan summons a Fire Elemental to start killing off the brigands, while Hathalon flies down to the wall to use a potion of healing on Galafilo. Sir Firearm sets loose on the warriors, killing the Brigand chief.
Corwyn finishes the job of healing Galafilo, but then the cleric hits Hathalon and drops him. Sir Firearm takes down the other fighters, and Alendalan directs the Fire Elemental in a gross slaughter of the mooks.
Galafilo isn't having much luck with the Cleric, but Corwyn heals up Hathalon and Hathalon blasts the cleric with a lightning bolt. The cleric desperately fires off hold person spells at the three, but they make their saves and finally Corwyn cuts the cleric down.
With all their leadership dead and no way to stop the Fire Elemental the remaining brigands run for the hills and disperse.
The PCs find droves of treasure, which they proceed to identify the next day, when they at last get into Mar. They find a +5 shield, a ring of spell turning, some +1 leather armours, a couple of +2 chain mails, a +3 warhammer, a +2 sword, an amulet of protection from ESP and Crystal Balls, and a potion of invisibility.
They draw lots for the ring of spell turning, which everyone wants, and it turns out Galafilo wins. But when Alendalan (who'd done the analyse) moves to take the ring off and give it to Galafilo he finds that he can't! The ring appears to be cursed.
Alendalan is confused but not immediately worried. When he tries to cast remove curse the next day, and the ring stays on, and eats all his remaining memorized spells, then he panics! Its the dreaded Ring of Spell Eating! Until its removed by a 25th level spellcaster, the ring will eat all memorized spells the moment he casts his first spell. Essentially, the cursed ring has reduced Alendalan to being able to cast only one spell a day!
With that difficult scenario, we pause for the day, with the party still having to clear out Corwyn's future temple site, and planning on taking a trip (to either Corunglain or Thyatis city) to try to get the curse lifted.