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Rise of the Runelords Update

After a bit of a hiatus, our humble party got back underway on the Rise of the Runelords campaign.  Ranier was in good form this week.  We started this week having split all the loot and gold from the end of the first big adventure and wearing a shiney new level 4.  For Ranier, this meant now having the ability to use wands to perform melee attacks with his scimitar.  Here's his report:

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It's been a quite couple of weeks in town.  The sheriff is still grumbling because we left town to deal with the goblins and others.  Oh well, we saved the town... again... from evil.  And the town guards does squat.

I've been copying scrolls into my spellbook and have quite a collection now.  It is unfortunate that some of them I have not truly figured out yet.  I have found a new trick -- being able to charge my scimitar attacks with spells from wands.  I suppose I'll have to share this one with the group, because certainly they will notice.

I've been working with Sol, and besides guarding, he can now also fetch and track by scent.  He's a good dog, and I'm sure his new skills will help the group a lot.  I just need to get some armor or something to protect him better.

Amico is still providing us with a place to stay, and we give her a shoulder to cry on after all that has happened.  The Red Dragon Inn has become a good enough home for now.

The sheriff showed up this morning at breakfast, skulking in to sweet talk us into another job.  It appears a gruesome murderer is loose, and we get to mop up the mess while keeping it all quiet.  Actually I shouldn't say much more -- the rest is meant to be kept close.  Just don't read ahead if you don't want to know (SPOILERS ALERT)

We got a couple of notes from the sheriff from "his lordship", the murderer.  It looks like Jericho is somehow connected -- this guys wants him in on something.

Today there were two victims at the sawmill.  Before there were 3 victims in the young widow's bard at Cougars Creek.  The scene at the sawmill was awful.  Katrina and Harker, her love interest, were both murdered.  She was cut in half by the saw.  He had his face craved off and had a 7 pointed star carved in his chest.  The place was covered in a terrible smell.  The footprints leading in and out of the window lead us to believe that a barefoot intruder did this, despite Jericho's discussion of a murder / suicide.

Tari and I check out the Lords' houses to make sure nothing strange is going on there.  Meanwhile Jericho and Alex interrogate the Katrina's father, Vin Vinder, and the finder of the bodies, Ibel Thorn.  They also check out the bodies -- all but Katrina with the star and the face removed.  Grim.

I question Amico more about the lord's houses -- Scarnetti, Valdemar, Devron, and Kajitsu.  Of course, Amico is the last lady of Kaijitsu with her father and brother and mother dead.  Devron, the mayor, lost a brother to chopper, an infamous serial murderer in the area in the past, and a father killed in a riding accident.  Scarnetti runs the lumber mill.  The widow's farm was handled by the Devron family.  Too many connections.  I guess that is the way it is in a small town.

We check out the barn of the widow where the murder occurred. From the widow we learned another person was taken in at the scene of the first murder.  Graste was found to be insane and was sent to the sanatorium.

At the sanatorium we got held up by the doctor, who took off after a loud noise from one of the patients.  We checked his files and found some inconsistencies in his story.  Further investigation found him under attack by Graste, who was changing into some strange monster.  We took him down quickly, but not before he gave a message to Jericho.  Jericho was desired as "part of the pack" before the killing would stop.  I used my "new trick" with the wand of shocking grasp channeled through my scimitar, and when it hit him (crit), it electrocuted him so quickly that I thought he would explode (33 damage -- woohoo!).

The doctor was experimenting and monitoring the changing patient.  A man in purple robes appeared from seemingly out of nowhere and offered to help for our silence. Its the same thing the sheriff directed us to do anyway, so I shook on.  I am convinced it is best that people don't know this truth.

The purple robed necromancer took us down under the sanatorium where he had been doing his own research.  He had several zombies nearby.  He indicated that the outlying farms had been hit by the group of ghouls.  It looks like the leader is a still-somewhat-human ghast.  They tried to lure Jericho into the west where they have been identified to be operating.

We are off to help the people of the outlying farms.  Hopefully some of them weren't change by the bite of the ghouls, or we'll be taking several days to kill all the ghouls running around.  I could get really dangerous in a hurry.

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We covered so much ground this session that now were are leveling up to 5.  Wow.  Next level -- Shadowdancer!

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