007 – 31st of Skerpla

It is raining as we approach the outskirts of the Forest of Iherick. We hear axes being wielded on the other side of the gates. As we pass through, Tibor calls out to the workers and greets them. She explains how she lost her legs. As we continue to the camp, the workers call out to others calling out that Tibor is back. We gather for a meeting at the camp. We tell our story and tell of our great heroics against the huge monsters. We tell the loggers that they need to clear out as soon as possible which they are very happy to do. We are hailed as heroes while we are here. We set out to search for the shrine that we are to meet Paget at so that we may be well prepared for the meeting between Paget and the Shapeshifters, and we make our camp here for the night. I speak to the pigs whether or not they would like us to meet them back at the first camp as originally planned, or should we have everybody meet here at the shrine. He says he is willing to meet up now and Thorgrim summons Paget here to us. Paget opens a portal before us and Paget steps through. Paget and the Shapeshifter have their meeting (Turns out the leader guy followed us).

They talk and come to an agreement.

Paget says that feels uneasy about these people and also myself having come from another realm. He think that Loki may be involved.

Paget reward us with an amulet instead of the ring which brings up to 6 people to him instead of just the one. Also we are now friends of Paget. We may call upon him if we should need, and we can use the amulet to speak to him as well. We are also gifted a small pouch with a number of platinum coins (100 platinum pieces (these are worth 10 gold each, so this is equivalent to 1000 gold)), we are also given a handy haversack (bag of holding).

• This is where I left the session –

When I was gone, the following happened:

“We met Don Jon the mining Dwarf at the pub. He beat Shaw at dice games. – Don Jon is the overseer of a mine.

• Shaw had his yearly bath.

He takes us to a nearby mine to find workers for our mine, he can’t come work for us, but he can help us find staff for our mine. – On the way to the mine there was a group of dead orcs that were frozen suddenly. Don Jon says that it looked like a white dragon had taken care of them.

We travel to his mine, and see no dwarves, only rat folk. – They are wererats who think that they now own the mine. They apparently used to live at an old abandoned shrine down the road but they’ve now taken up residence at the mine. – Some were humans though

We talk to their leader, they want us to take the dwarves and all leave, Don Jon says “GET OFF MAH LAWN”

We offered rat folk if they join us, we can go and fight the orcs in their old home. They said no, they like this one

Thorgrim and Shaw tried to intimidate them into leaving, and even though their words were good, they rolled 3s on intimidation.

We basically gave them the ultimatum to leave peacefully, and made it clear we aren’t backing down. We still don’t know where the ‘real’ miners have gone

Next session:

What we know about Wererats is that they are shapechangers that can change into human looking beings, they can look half rat-like, and they can transform into larger rat things. They have a reputation for being very sneaky they are very tribal. If you see one there is always a lot more. They also have a reputation of being cowardly and if they think they’re on the losing side they will come back at a more opportune time.

Don Jon asks them “who’s really in charge, where are my people. This is MY mine” A woman wanders in casually and says her name is Zalline. We are addressing she who must be obeyed, so be respectful. They have taken the mine and it is theirs by right of conquest. Either clear out, clear out their old home, or die. Don Jon goes white in the face and looks flustered. He looks unsure of how to proceed. He inquires after his people. She says “yes they’re safe and they’ll be let out when it time for their next shift.” Shaw says that if they want us to fight the orcs we need them, we need the numbers. She says that they had 5 miners captive with their families captive elsewhere. Don Jon got upset because he had 25 men originally. We discuss the situation and try to come up with a plan of action. We leave so that we can discuss the plan better in private.

When we have left and cannot be overheard anymore, Don Jon says that he is very concerned obviously. He says maybe we can use of other other two entrances to sneak in to release his men as the rat people have only been there for no more than a few days and they couldn’t know their way around the mine very well by then. One of these entrances is used as an emergency exit and is a bit more difficult to get there.

We decide on the following plan and carry it out: We go to the entrance at the back that Don Jon spoke os and I turn myself into a rat to try and sneak through to scout out the place. We walk around the mountain and Don Jon points up and he says that there’s an entrance up that way and there’s another one around near the tree but we see dug up dirt and we see that there are a whole bunch of graves with pickaxes in the place of headstones. It would seem that these may be the graves of the missing 20 workers. He points out another entrance that is covered in brush that is likely unknown to the rat people. We decide to look through the village first to see what’s happened there as this is where the miner’s families live. Jonathan sees tracks along the road that looks like many people have come up this trail including children as we see a small toy. The village is deserted. Either the villagers were forced out under duress by the hand of the rat people, or, they’ve escaped. There are not any orc tracks.

Don Jon looks in his office it appears the villagers left him a note. The note says there was an invasion of the mine and they were forced out. There was a big fight in the mine a lot were killed. They buried who they could and they’ve taken off to the nearest dwarvan settlement. It appears that the rat people were lying about the family members being captured. It is odd that the villagers had enough time to bury the fallen miners. Jonathan thinks the graves are about 3 days old so the villagers fled about 3 days ago.

We go back up the back door cave and I turn into a rat and along with Ferdinand I head into the cave to scout it out.