The Circle of Five

October 24, 2006

The group is back in Hightown for a while. However, soon they go their separate ways with no impending danger. Reese and Eric go to the other towns and small hamlets in between, performing at each place. Victor and Duece spend a lot of time with the Rangers, learning more skills.

One night, when they are back in Hightown, Eric and Victor think they spot the lich from the Fortress. It turns out, he is looking for them! He wants them to help with the next experiment, because they ruined the last one. The three of them meet up with Duece and Reece at the Inn and the group tries to plan what to do next. The eventually agree on getting Byron as well as the high priest.

The high priest arrives first and is very reluctant to do anything. In fact, he pretty much questions them with everything they have done, including finding out that the group attacked the lich, they weren't attacked. Further, the "lich", as it is obvious the priest doesn't believe the group, is spending a lot of money in the town, which is good for the town. He is reluctant to stop that.

Byron reacts by getting the guards together and ready to help the innocents in the Inn as well as helping the group. He says he won't have his men act until he gets a signal from the group.

Unfortunately, the signal never comes. Instead, it is a small comedy of errors, as the group tries to misdirect the lich, Molmas by name, at every turn. They try and delay leaving by taking time with the horses, taking a while to get supplies, or sending Molmas, and doing whatever they can to slow things down.

In the end, they don't have a good idea of how to deal with him, and don't like the priests reaction, such that they agree to go with him. He takes them a few miles outside of town before creating a portal to another place. The landscape looks familiar, so they don't think they are traveling that far.

Eric is unable to sleep so takes first watch. And then second. During this, he notices a fight to the south, involving magic. He wakes the others, who immediately want to watch. They find a man dressed in plate and a mage fighting some orcs. The orcs are giving a good fight and the two are hard pressed until the group charges in and kills them. Victor, though, is mortally wounded from a lucky sword thrust.

The mage introduces himself as Martin and his friend as Nigel. He says that Nigel isn't as hurt as Victor and offers a potion that heals Victor right up. (Quite the change from the long, drawn out time he had with the owlbear!) He then asks if they have a camp. They explain they do but they want to kill the person still at it, Molmas. Martin is confused but agrees to go with them. When they arrive back at the camp, Molmas and his tent are gone. Duece can find no tracks and the group is left with this mystery.

Reece is quite forthcoming with their story and their brands and Martin is a bit dubious about them. However, having little choice, he decides to trust them and to stay in the camp.

Martin explains that his group, the Circle of Five, were investigating some nearby ruins when they were attacked by surprise. One of their number died in the initial onslaught and two others fell in the retreat but he thinks they were captured, not killed. However, the problem will be his friend, Nigel. Nigel is a noble's son, and the one with the charter for the group, and he will probably report them as criminals. When the group offers to help rescue the other two companions from the orcs, Martin thanks them and says that will help with Nigel's attitude.

Martin then checks on Nigel, who is still out cold, and gets some sleep for himself. The others talk about what they should do. They do agree to help with the rescue, regardless of what Nigel will do or say afterward.

Notes

• We had a very good talk about Basic Skills and how to handle that in Alternity. I think it worked out well and was quite happy with the results.
• I also mentioned to the players that the high priest is more of a bureaucrat, and therefore unable to cast spells. They couldn't understand why he didn't try to "turn" or detect undead and seemed to be on the "lich's" side! For me, this is the strength of Alternity, although I suppose an Expert class from DND could work, in theory.
• I don't know if I forgot to mention it to the players or not, but it came out that the brand they have from prison denotes they should be in prison. When their term is up, the brand is removed perhaps replaced with another that says they are a criminal but are free. Put quite a twist on some of their discussions.
• It was quite fun playing Molmas. As I told the group, I know who is and what he is doing and so it was very enjoyable to be able to have him answer as he should and make sense overall, even if they didn't understand. That and he is fun! He also referred to one of the big plot points of this campaign. Of course, silly me, I was thinking it would be easier to remember the big things but only one player did! That was funny to me.
• We only had about an hour of game time left when they agreed to help rescue the others. I offered to speed things up and finish it all tonight or to split it up and do more with it next week. They said splitting it for next week was fine, hence next week's session The Rescue.
• I had a lot of fun talking to the players about things and watching them disseminate that information to their characters. They did a very good job of keeping things separated. Further, this allowed me to join the discussions myself! That was awesome! It also is a way to keep player interest, as they can all participate, rather than having to sit their quietly. Lots of fun!
• One player was disappointed in how little time we spent playing the game. There was an awful lot of out of character chatter. From my perspective, I said I wasn't going to change it. If the group wants to play the whole time or talk and only play half the time, I was going to go with the flow. After years of trying to get players to conform to my way of playing, I have finally figured out that is wrong and am not going to try it anymore. I like the people who play, I enjoy their company, so I will go with the flow.