Brinewood

A Campaign Archive

Chapter 3 Strangers on the Road Chapter 5 Strangers and Flames

CHAPTER 4: Escape from the Basement

Battle of the murder basement

We meet our adventurers in the “murder basement”, a secret room below the mayor’s mansion where the party discovered evidence of necrotic experiments and sacrifical rites. An evil specter – with a body of black smoke below a skull wreathed in black flame – emerges from the wall, and a battle ensues.

During the course of the battle, Drubb was attacked by a shadowy mastiff leaping from a cage. Knocked to the ground, he heard an echoing sound through a grate in the center of the floor. Attacks went back and forth until the party was able to defeat the specter (almost losing Spiphy in the process) and the mastiff became invisible and ran away.

The dice are stacked.

Afterwards the party decided to remove the grate to see what might be lurking even further underground. Spiphy used her grappling hook as a way to climb down, while the rest of the group leapt ten feet into a dark, wet underground tunnel. Scattered bones and stagnant water lay around them, and ahead they heard a light skittering sound.

Moving closer to the sound, they came into a larger open area of the tunnel. After investigating (and destroying) an old wooden crate, they discovered the diary of what appeared to by the mayor’s wife. Flipping to the last entry, they read the following:

I suppose this is the last time I shall write in this journal. Despite his best attempts, my dearest husband cannot keep me locked in this house any longer. I’ve discovered a way out – the grate beneath my workshop leads to a sewage tunnel away from the house – and I believe it is time that I left home for good. The things I know, the things I have seen, there is a power in this world that I never knew existed, and I can control it! I need to grow these abilities, to learn from a teacher, and I may have found one. Or he found me, I’m not sure, but a master has arrived.

Leaving my son behind with that fool I married may be a mistake. The master has told me that a blood sacrifice can be strong, even stronger if the relation is my own offspring, and that child could be the key to unlocking a door I’ve yet to open. Perhaps I shall return, when the time is right, if he shows any promise.

For now, I will be content to discover my purpose. If that path requires the Freehand, that motley gang of close-minded buffoons, then I will use them. The master has much to teach, and the first lesson is that anyone can be useful – some may live to serve, some may die as tribute, some may teach the powerful, and a very few will rise to lead. I wonder – which path is mine?

The book was signed Miriam, and the last dates were nearly fifteen years old. Other accounts in the diary indicated a growing interest in magic, specifically necrotic, as well as a resentment towards her husband’s fear and lack of support.

As the party read the journal, the skittering sounds grew louder, until suddenly a large number of reflective eyes appeared further down the tunnel. Crawling on the ceiling was a giant worm with glittering teeth and flicking tendrils coming from a giant maw of a mouth. It suddenly surged towards them, and the party fought with the creature until striking a killing blow.

The party emerged from the underground tunnel a long distance south from the mansion, and as the dawn sun rose, they made their way back to the center of town.


Meanwhile, a young dwarven warrior named Kaladin, traveling from Dur’khalad, arrived from the road west and came upon a small crowd in the square. A hastily constructed gallows, currently unoccupied but foreboding nonetheless, stood near the large fountain, and next to it were two people in stocks, their hands and heads locked in place, on display in front of a murmuring crowd. Although unknown to Kaladin, it was Burlap and Ned who were trapped in front of the crowd.

A middle-aged priest began to read from a parchment with a practiced ease, addressing the small crowd of people in front of him:

Citizens of Brinewood – by order of Lady Soshanna of the clan Ashevale, who, by direct request of Baron Osterfeld himself, has traveled from Ostar Linae in Shae’mir to be custodian of the fair town of Brinewood during this most troubling time, and, per the findings of the emergency council court based on evidence presented by guardsman Jerreth Wains who, upon great personal injury bore witness to the criminal atrocities of recent days, the two men before you, Burl’hap Oakmount and Nedry Landers, are found guilty of the wanton and premeditated murder of Mayor Cartwright, guardsman Thomas Westford, and guardsman Samros Fiddler, and as such are sentenced to die by hanging at dawn tomorrow morning.

Until that time, they shall be chained in the city square, on display as a testament to the inevitability of justice and judgement of the gods for the crimes they have committed.

As the priest finished condemning the two to death, the party emerged on the east side of the square. The crowd began to disperse, and the group began to talk to Burlap to determine what had happened. He told them that other guards had come to the prison, discovered him next to Sam and Tom’s bodies, and put him through a “farce of a trial” with the new head of the council, the Gray Lady.

He asked the group to relay his apologies to his son, Bain Oakmount, who was in Lightholt last he knew, and seemed resigned to his fate.

The party watches the goblins from a nearby hill...

The party then rested at the inn to regain their strength before heading back out in the early afternoon towards the spot marked on the map they discovered in the mayor’s basement. After traveling past farms and fields, and then trekking through the forest east for a short while, they came to a hill overlooking a small cave entrance.

Hiding behind the bushes, they were surprised to see goblins guarding the entrance. Vyranys attempted to distract them while Spiphy climbed a tree to get a better angle, and a battle broke out between the party and the goblins. Reinforcements came from the cave opening, and a small raiding party came around the south side of the cave as well.

The party watches the goblins from a nearby hill...

The party was able to dispatch most of the goblins, but two of them ran back into the cave. After evaluating several scenarios, and triggering a small trap, the group walked into the cavern and into an ambush – many goblins, several wargs, and a bugbear were ready for them.

More battle ensued, and while Drubb barely survived the encounter, the party was victorious. The group began recovering from the fights they had incurred with goblins, standing in a cavern with tunnels going in two different directions as well as a large boulder seemingly blocking another wall.

We end our chapter with the party ready to dig deeper into the cavern, looking for any evidence to prove the innocence of Burlap the guard before he and Ned are executed at dawn.