An untamed frontier. Dark cults. Fickle fey gods. Ravenous fiends. Nothing black powder and sorcery won't fix... . Timberlands Campaign Diary
With the town of Inniscrone still under siege by roving gangs of flying weapons, the heroes continue to sneak from building to building looking for any sing of the famed blacksmith Gerwald Knapp. According to the enslaved fey smith Cindermane, Gerwald is responsible for the calamity threatening Inniscrone. The heroes hope by finding Cidermane’s arm, which Gerwald hid away, they can free the fey and bring the terror to an end.
To that end, the heroes approached the lord mayor of Inniscrone’s manor first. Just off of the city square, the well-built edifice had barred and shuddered windows. While it’d seen some damage during the attack, the building was in good shape. They already knew there were people alive within and smoke curling from the chimney. Sykes the eladrin assassin climbed onto the roof of the manor. She made her way over to the chimney and lowered a note in a bottle via a string. The missive offered their assistance if they were given a way in. After a few minutes, she got a tug on the string and hauled it back up. While the bottle was scorched and warm it carried a new note. Written in an elegant hand, the message explained there was a trapdoor in the nearby stables that would facilitate a meeting. Sykes rejoined her associates and together they snuck to the back of the stables.
Things were going well until the bearfolk wizard, Ea, got stuck in one of the stable’s back wall windows. It just wasn’t big enough for the agrothier to get through on his own. His wiggling made quite a bit of sound and alerted the flying weapons nearby. All Ea could say was, “oh bother.”
Riley rushed to his aid while the other heroes hid among the stalls awaiting the attack. A pair of flying swords back up by aFlying Shield (also Greatswords)entered. Wild the tabaxi ranger and Peregrine the half-orc warlock let missiles fly at the swords while Sykes battered the flying shield. The archers quickly destroyed the swords, while the rogue wrapped the shield in a swath of canvas and wrestled it to the ground. Still, more weapons veered for the building. Ea was freed with a pop and once he got to his feet shrouded the stable interior with an illusion that it was empty and everything was fine. Thankfully, animated objects are not known for their keen critical thinking skills and the mob of weapons drifted off. They wrangled the remaining shield into the bag of holding. A very short search later, they found the trapdoor and the root cellar beneath.
It wasn’t long after that one of the wall shelves opened up with a leather armor-clad human peeking from the other side. He introduced himself as Deben, one of the town guards, and motioned for the heroes to follow. He led them down an earthen tunnel and up into a sprawling basement beneath the manor. There they were confronted by other guards and their leader, Knox the town sheriff. Knox sized them up and expressed surprise at such a heavily armed group successfully getting into town without being cut to ribbons. He let them know not to try any funny business and lead them upstairs to speak with the lord mayor.
Levinia Greye was her name and the auburn-haired woman was pleased as a peach to receive the heroes in her dining room. The lord mayor was dressed exceptionally well and her manners were closer to what one might find in a court at the heart of the Congressional Colonies instead of its frontier. The smooth-voiced and small woman introduced an adventurer already under her employ, a satyr monster hunter named Aelric. The gruff blood hunter greeted the party and opened another bottle of wine to drink directly from. He’d grown bored while cooped up in the manor house and wanted to get to what he did, hunting monsters. Aelric was also put off because he’d not been allowed in the basement, which clearly held a safe route out of the building.
Levinia explained that she’d had the manor house shuttered up since this terror began last week. She’d gotten what townsfolks she could into the manor, but alas it happened so fast there weren’t many she was able to house. Then she asked what the champions were doing here. They explained their want to find Gerwald, first with the intent to hire him to come work at the Convent but now to find out what hand (pun intended) he had in unleashing the animated objects. Levinia was displeased to hear someone was trying to tempt Gerwald from Inniscrone, as the smith’s wares were one of its main attractions. However, there was no doubt it was his work that had come to life and now threatened the town. The heroes shared that the blacksmith had kept a slave captive to do all the work. Levinia was quite shocked by the news. No more than anything the lord mayor wanted the heroes to get to the bottom of this and save her town. Levinia offered them quite a bit of gold to do so and even extended the help of Aelric. The satyr was happy to get back into the action.
Before she saw the heroes off, however, Levinia brought up one other issue. A corrupt tax collector had come to town just before the trouble started and was causing issues all her own. This woman, Wren Holdfast, might even be a factor in the troubles here. She knew that Wren had been poking into Gerwald’s business too and was likely staying inside the inn across the way, the Broken Bough. She knew that the innkeeper, a retired adventurer Edvan Reeve, was a bit sweet on Wren for some reason. Levinia offered a bigger purse to deal with the tax collector. Sykes’ mind boggled as she’d received a missive from her former, unremembered life that was a hit on the very same person!
The assassin didn’t share this until the party traveled back down the tunnel and back into the stables. Wild and the others were unnerved that she was getting offers to kill people, though Aelric offered to off Wren if no one else had the stomach to do it as long as he got the lion's share of the bounty. The heroes, being heroes, committed to not acting on the hit until they had more information. Again, Sykes ascended to the roof of the inn and used the same message in a bottle trick from before. Likewise, she got a response directing to a back window.
Sykes returned to the party and they tried to sneak to the backside of the inn. However, they alerted another squadron of flying weapons. This time, the heroes were too quickly swarmed by the weapons and got stuck in. Wild took an elevated position as usual but was changed by flying great swords and Sykes hurried up to help him. Peregrine tried to take cover behind the wall of the same building, but he and their goblin ally, Niq, got pinned down. Riley tackled weapons flying in from the south side of the city, their rapiers singing with each strike and riposte. Aelric changed the central line of weapons directly, summoning a spectral wolf and activating his lycanthrope powers to great effect. Ea hurled spells and helped whittle down the number of blades.
But then the Vainglories got involved. The animated weathervanes pulsed with arcane power as the front two peppered the heroes with guiding bolts and the back two healed their peers with crackling witch bolts. Ea nearly faltered as he was pounded over and over with guiding bolts while Wild and Sykes could not quite escape all the swords zipping around the roof they were on. Finally, the ranger used misty step to escape to the ground and Sykes followed with her fey step. Bleeding from dozens of wounds, Riley the changeling dervish finally put down the flanking foes and rushed to Ea’s side. Matters were touch and go still for several minutes before the heroes broke the weapon’s assault.
They ran to the back window of the inn and were greeted by Edvan Reeve, clad in his old armor, helped them through. Waiting in the other side in the inn’s tavern was Wren Holdfast, a half-elf woman in brigandine armor and armed with a shrewd look along with her two guards.
Unbeknownst to the heroes, the hob mobs around the center of the town came bouncing out to rapidly clean up the broken weapons… and repair what deadly instruments they could.
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