The Farm

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Episode no.	Episode 40
Date	2009
Game Master	Abbe
Characters	Dorothea Gloriana Honeypot Nell Velicia
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The rain got worse and we got ready to continue on to Fort Rannick when Honeypot said
"The bear want to go into the woods."
"Then let it." I answered.
"It's well kept, better than any wild bear would be." Honeypot said.
"It's probably the companion to one of the rangers from the fort. It might be looking for it's master." Velicia suggested.
"Alright, let's follow it." I said pulling the reins over Creampuffs head to lead him into the woods instead of riding on.

Walking through the dense forest we noted several simple traps that was easily avoided. We reached a small clearing from which we could glimpse a farm up ahead. Honeypot cast her telepathy ritual so we could talk without being heard and hear each other over the rain and distance. We left the horses and slowly continued through the wood toward the farm. Gloriana and Velicia stayed a little behind, but we others continued to the edge of the trees to get a good look at the farm. Peeking through the heavy rain we saw two more deformed half-ogres with too many fingers working the field in front of a really big barn and an equally oversized house. Honeypot and I sneaked around to the barn through the very dense forest and found even more traps along the way. When we got there we tried to peek through the slits, but the wall was covered on the inside by something that I thought looked like simple tapestries, but that's strange to have in a barn. Honeypot said that she thought it was cob web.

We told the others and continued on to the house. The main door was facing the field and there was a side door also visible from the ogres that we could see. We sneaked around again to get a better look at the back of the house. Honeypot almost walked into one of the traps but saw it at the last moment and we got there without any further trouble. There were no doors on the back side of the house, but it had windows. They were blocked and I sneaked up to one to try to get a peek inside. There were planks nailed sparsely over the window and instead of glass was a tense skin. I tried to cut through it to see in but it had a curtain too.

We decided that to get into the house we had to go in through one of the doors and then we had to get rid of the half-ogres in front of it. I and Honeypot sneaked up as far as we dared and waited for the others to get into place. Gloriana started by attacking one of them with her lighting magic and Honeypot and I stormed right out into the field. A big fight followed where the poor bear got attacked by really large snakes coming out of the woods from behind. We killed the half-ogres and scared off the snakes. I was worried for Creampuff. If the snakes couldn't get a bite out of the bear they might attack the horses. We got them and left them in front of the house instead together with the bear as we entered the house.

We went up to the side door. As there had been a lot of traps in the woods surrounding this place I looked for traps on the door. I thought about how stupid those inbred half-ogres was putting traps everywhere when Gloriana told me in my head to keep those thoughts to myself. Oups. I'm not really used to that telepathy thing yet. I was sure there were no traps on the door and we opened it. There was a kitchen inside, but Velicia who entered it soon looked as sick as I felt from just standing outside. There was a stench from old rotten flesh that was at least as bad as Aldern's cave under the Foxglove manor. I remembered that I had promised myself to buy perfume, but haven't yet. We left and headed for the other door. As the kitchen door hadn't been trapped I wasn't up front to check for traps, but luckily I noted some strange contraptions on the porch before Velicia who was at the door had time to open it. There was a trap making scythe blades swing down from above if the door was opened without disabling the trap first, so I did. We entered a room with an awful couch made from body parts. There was still a stench but not as bad as in the kitchen. Suddenly Dorothea fell through the floor. It turned out that there was a trapdoor in the floor in front of the couch. There were sharp spikes at the bottom but Dorothea seemed to handle it well and teleported up from there.

I got a closer look at the door before we open it and that too was trapped. I thought I dismantled it but a swinging scythe missed Velicia when she opened the door to a corridor and we continued into a dining room that had human head on the table. Through another trapped door was a nursery. There were lots of grotesque things in there and drawings on the wall of a devil throwing children from a cliff and a monster with tentacles in a lake. There were also two "children". They were larger than me and the one I saw best had deformed legs and was playing with sculls. I threw my dagger from the dining room hitting it in the neck. The other ogre laughed and said:
"Ha, ha. You got a dagger in your neck."
The others charged into the room, but the one I attacked ran out to me and shut the door. I made a riposte that I learned recently. The door was opened and I got back to the others. We killed the young half-ogres but I felt guilty afterwards. They thought we were playing, but the game killed them. Perhaps my own childhood is part of the reason for my feelings. Usually I don't feel for monsters such as these.

We took a short pause while Honeypot performed some cleansing rituals on Gloriana and Dorothea. I regained my strength and collected my thoughts. Next we looked through a bedroom and a storage room that had been used as a toilet too. While Gloriana, who was magically protected from filth hesitated to search the last room Velicia used her magehand. The last room was a really grotesque room with several corpses, body parts and flesh. In that dimly lit, awfully smelly room was also an incredibly fat female half-ogre that could hardly move at all. When we attacked it, three of the dead bodies started moving. It was half-ogres that probably was its own offspring that was animated using some evil magic. The fight that followed was initially fierce but soon we had destroyed the zombies and it turned into a fight against the fat half-ogre. Its fat often protected her making my daggers bounce, but in the end we killed it. Shalelu was heavily wounded and retreated mid fight.

We had looked through all rooms on the first floor except the kitchen and found two stairs leading up and down. As the one to the cellar was through the kitchen we went up first. Velicia who were first as usual opened a door and there we found a workshop for making traps. Dorothea and I went in careful not to set off any traps. After a quick look around we found four flasks with acid that we brought along. We took two each and continued to the next room. It was a bedroom that contained apart from beds and disgusting half-ogre stuff a small cedar chest. Gloriana opened it with a magic hand and a trap tried to cut it. The chest contained some valuables like coins but there were icky teeth mixed in.

We continued to the stairs down to the cellar through the kitchen. I got all groggy from the awful stench. I can't understand how they could stand it. I closed the door to the kitchen behind me and soon felt better when Velicia opened a door below. Gloriana stormed into the room and told us using the telepathy that there were apart from a half-ogre with an extra head in the back, a broken jaw and bad legs, also rats hiding in the corners. I threw my dagger into the big half-ogre and looked around. I noted that there were rats in a nearby room, under the stairs and even in the walls. The rats ware really big, almost as big as me but we killed them and even the half-ogre was killed at last. During the fight Gloriana summoned a storm that completely surrounded me and hurt rats all around me but I stood in the eye of the storm and was unhurt. It was a very strange experience.

In the cellar there were a room for dismembering bodies with half made chairs of flesh and bones, a gory bedroom, a room with farming equipment and a wide corridor to a room with a mossy floor with a lot of fungus and the remains of a half-ogre with roots and vines growing through it looking like tentacles protruding. I screamed "Vorels curse!" using the telepathy but Honeypot calmed me that that was a fey curse. It was the worst thing they could do to anyone so somebody had done something very bad to a fey. She also said that whatever the half-ogre had done it deserved to be kept like that and not killed. We thought of leaving when we saw the door on an opposite wall. We made a plan. Honeypot played soothing music to distract the creature while I sneaked in and hopefully free the prisoners. It worked very well except that there were no prisoners. I thought
"Yippee! A treasure chest." before adding "Oups, I mean, Oh no, No prisoners."
It contained several beautiful jewelry items, a dress and some magical items apart from the dress. There were also a boring elven bow. I brought it as Shalelu might want it. Honeypot was still playing so I could sneak out without the creature ever knowing I stole all the treasure.

To get out of the cellar we had to go through the kitchen again and as the last time I almost threw up and was completely distracted when Velicia thought that someone was coming from the barn. I got some deep breaths from the clean air while the rain flooded down my back. I could hardly see 30 feet in front of me. I moved out to the side and kept low to avoid being seen. Velicia who had circled out to the other side said she was attacked by three half-ogres that seemed to be a little drunk. I sneaked up to them and we all fought near the well, tricking some of them to slip into the well in the water sick grass. The well was full and they got out quite easily, but they were eventually killed.

We continued into the barn. The barn had a wall halfway through with big double doors. In front of it stood a big still. Gloriana, Honeypot and I climbed one of the two catwalks that lined the walls. There were doors through the dividing door on the catwalks too. Velicia used her magical hand to open the big doors on the ground level and Gloriana did the same with the one in front of us. Everybody waited standing back, so I sneaked up to the door and peeked in. I saw a cage at the end of the catwalk where three unconscious men were chained. I also noted that there were two huge spiders and hundreds of small spiders hiding below. Velicia walked up to the double doors preparing to help out if we got in trouble as I sneaked up to the cage. I picked the lock as Honeypot caught up. We entered the cage and as I picked the locks on the manacles of the first Honeypot helped two of them to regain consciousness. The spiders below started stirring. We were noticed, but they didn't attack. Yet. Honeypot and I looked at each others.
"Do you need help picking the locks?" she asked me.
"No start on the next one. We got to be quick." I answered.
We both picked the remaining locks and one of the men picked up the third and carried him out and we all left.