Game Session Five

Tuesday October 19th. (Game time: Pharast 20)

Another late one...but hey, at least it's happening before the next game!

So we're led by Nit-Pick and Nat-Pick, our new-found kobold allies, to the Sycamore tree, wherein we are to find the mites, and the kobold's totem. Brother Lothar and Elsbeth head out to do a bit of reconnaissance, but are unable to find much due to the lack of light and experience in locating such things. About the only clues are the numerous footprints as well as a small chimney located in the branches of the dying, 100' tall sycamore tree.

After the return of the scouts, the rest of the party advances upon the tree and surround it at a distance in order to watch for the mites. While we're waiting Selah dredges up some information about the lowly mite. Apparently they're related to the family of fey, but are evil and quite ugly in demeanor. They particularly loathe gnomes and dwarves...and apparently live in dying trees. Who knew?

We decided after a few minutes to be a bit more proactive in our attempt to flush the mites out. So Brother Lothar climbed the tree and plugged the chimney as the others sat in ambush. Sure enough, a small hidden door opened near the base of the tree and two hugely ugly, diminutive, blue-skinned creatures came scampering out. Chittering to one another in the language of the dark fey, they eventually figured out that the wineskin that the drunken monk had placed in the hole was the cause of their distress.

Pulling it out was step one in their demise, step two was uncorking the top and figuring out that the contents were quite tasty. Naturally! After roughly 10 minutes we had a couple of capering, drunken mites, whom we promptly tied up. Oh, all this, after watching them play some sort of twisted game that entailed them catching and swallowing caltrops of all things!

Heading down into the humid stinking hole, the party eventually makes their way through the upper reaches of the cramped mite lair. Another hole leading down was found and this is where we got a wee bit "tied up" you might say.

In short, Elsbeth falls to the bottom of the 35' shaft, falls unconscious and of course Durvil promptly follows suit, falling down the shaft himself. But the doughty warrior doesn't succumb to the damage and stays on his feet. At the bottom of the shaft though is where we find our first challenge.

It seems that the mites have gathered for some sport, and are teasing, poking, prodding and generally torturing a captive kobold (named Mik Mak). Well, all their attention was upon their cruel sport until we crashed their party. Quite literally! The fight was on...and for little guys, they were deceptively difficult to take down. (Apparently Fey are very resilient to our weapons in general. We'll have to figure out how to circumvent that in the future.)

The running battle includes fighting an enormous centipede! We'd heard that the mites had some sort of natural empathy towards insects...but this thing was something to see. Huge...with a LOT of nasty little legs. Oh, and poison too. Kiril again comes to the rescue and lays the monster low with one enormous blow. (Rolls a crit and does 37 hps!!) It was Ix though who delivers the killing blow. Ha!

Our next serious challenge was the chief of the mites, one Grabble, Lord Among Mites. Now it wasn't just the mite himself, but his mount, that truly gave us pause. He rode a giant tick, quaintly named "Tickle Back". The party eventually wins out as Durvil charges and shows what a knight can truly do...(Another crit!)

After the fight we find a bag containing:

• 193 cp
• 120 sp
• 32 gp
• The bone totem
• A cure light potion

And a few other things that we ended up giving to the new chief of the kobolds, Nit-Pick. (MW buckler, armor, and spear.)

I think our game ended w/ us having to see the kobolds home, ensure that Nit is chief and to retrieve Svetlana's ring from the Shaman in trade for the totem. On our way though we met a ranger named Benwick. He was kind enough to share his fire with us...and obviously quite the prodigious hunter. He ended up getting us our "cow" and making sure that the troll was paid what we owed it. He also helped supplement our low food stores. Which was nice.

I'm not sure if we made it back to the fort... But I think so.

Anyway:

901 EXP

Total EXP: 2004 (Second level!!)