Notes on the Gameplay

First Session 4/29

PCs present:  Alexander - human cleric (Herman); Dryden - 1/2 elf fighter (Jeff); A - 1/2 elf rogue (Jeff- temporary); Roth - 1/2 elf sorcerer (Ramon). 

In Cillamar:

Lady Chauntessa of the Slumbering Drake Inn hires the PCs (3 free nights at the Inn) to go ask the Monks at Castle Whiterock if they have any books for sale.

PCs travel - have a fight with some spiders on the way, get a bit beat up. Reach ruins, enter through gate-tunnel, are invited in, have tent collapsed on them, manage to hold their own in a tough fight, kill 4 regular slavers and the slaver leader, Ikenvar. Explore a bit, find wagons in stable- find cages and realize there's some sort of hanky-panky going on. Keep exploring, get attacked by the preying mantis in the collapsed tower. Quite exciting, both the cleric and the fighter went down, nearly died! I thought it would be a TPK.

Left off with them advancing to 2nd level - and headed back for town to talk to Lady Chauntessa - they're convinced that SHE hired them only to allow the slavers to kidnap them... Now they want to have a stern talk with her!

Session 2: 5/7: 

Alexander and Dryden spent two days running around Cillamar talking to various folk there, trying to find out if the escaped slaver "monk" had come to town. Yes he did go to the temple for healing. From there they tracked him to two different gambling taverns, and then to a potential employer - the Umberwood Undertaker/Coffin Maker. He didnt know much about the man, insisting he'd fired him a few days earlier for showing up drunk and wounded to work. From there, the PCs talked to another night watchman at a nearby weaponsmith's shop, and found out where he lived. Going there to see if he was home, they were ambushed by thugs - one of whom was the man they were looking for. The PCs managed to kill the others, and capture their target, then question him. They learned that he was a low-ranking slaver who knew very little, but told them that the slavers were selling most of their captives to orcs who live in mines below Castle Whiterock, and who put the slaves to work for them. He said that there were probably 4-5 more slavers, including another Monk who was a tru monk, but who was their liason to the orcs.