Trail of Bargle

Last week, the players in my Swords & Wizardry campaign set out in search of their adversary, Barragan, the Wizard. Barragan made attacks directly against the player characters' friends and disrupted their plans, so I was hopeful the party would feel hell-bent on bringing him to justice, but he turned out to be more of a chore for them. Developing a nemesis for the party takes work.

The adventure was adapted from the 5th Edition adventure "The Forgotten Hold" written by Benjamin Palmer of Adventure Awaits Studios.

Session 167: The Forgotten Hold

Lakima (human magic user), Eathwund (human fighter), Aldus (human cavalier), Ambro Feyvine (elven thief), Domago (human cleric NPC), Ian of Darkhollow (human cavalier NPC), Luna (charmed Human Fighter NPC).

The Members of the Company of the Black Dragon are in a deep dungeon beneath Mudstick Hill. This was the lair of the evil magic user Barragan, the infamous one. Barragan fled using magic once he lost control of a gate to the elemental plane of fire.

“Let’s check a few more doors and then leave. The fire elementals are no longer a threat,” Lakima says.

“We need to find some treasure,” Aldus adds.

With Ambro leading the way, the group searched a chamber full of skeletons. Half of the skeletons animated and attacked, but Domago turned most of them, and Aldus and Eathwund made short work of the rest.

“Should we check these prison cells,” Ambro asked.

“We should leave. We accomplished what we set out to do,” Lakima said.

“Not much treasure to show for it,” Aldus added.

They heard knocking at one cell door and a voice calling out to be rescued. The voice claimed to not remember their name when asked. Lakima and Ambro suggested they move on, but Aldus kicked in the door. Behind the door was a mummy.

“See, this is what happens,” Lakima sighed.

Domago forced the Mummy back into its coffin, but Aldus and Eathwund attacked anyway, destroying it. The coffin turned out to be depressingly empty.

“No more cells!” Lakima said.

The group made their way back up through the dungeon's levels. When they reached the exit and the corpse of the owlbear they had killed, Ambro had a question.

“Do we have time for me to skin this owlbear?”

“Do you know how to?” Lakima scoffed.

Ambro set to work and, in her mind, did a pretty good job of skinning the dead owlbear. The skin was fairly intact.

“Can we go now?” Lakima said.

The group left the dungeon and mounted their horses. It was early evening, so they decided to stay at the Wheatsheaf Tavern in Winchem for the night. Ambro paid the Innkeeper’s wife to wash the owlbear skin.

The next day, the company rode on to Dolmvay. Ambro asked around for a tailor and got many suggestions.

“Can we stop at a tailor?”

“We need to make haste to the Duke’s Palace,” Lakima said.

Outside the stone walls of the Duke’s Palace, the guards looked nervously at the eight adventurers on horseback riding up to the gate.

“No one enters, move on.”

“We are the Company of the Black Dragon, and we have urgent news for Duke Robert!” Lakima responded.

The guards made the adventurers wait while one went up to check with the seneschal. Word came back to let them in.

Duke Robert and his advisors met the company in a sitting room. The spymaster, Nathen Melius, received the documents and read them over. He wordlessly handed them to Duke Robert with a nod. Duke Robert read the same papers and then gave them to Mikael, the Wolf Lord.

“Thank you, Lakima,” Duke Robert said, “This is grave information indeed.”

“Rest assured that we will act upon this information.”

The rest of the meeting was made up of idle chatter. Soon, Duke Robert’s seneschal suggested that the meeting was over.

“Well, okay, we will be heading back to Edgerton,” Lakima said.

“Wait, could one of you recommend a good tailor?” Ambro piped up. Several of the men paused, their mouths hanging open, and then Lady Elena, the Royal Scribe, spoke.

“Surely. I will write you a recommendation for an excellent tailor.”

Lady Elena wrote a note and handed it to Ambro while the rest of the adventurers headed out of the palace. Once out of the Palace, Ambro insisted on going directly to the tailor, Hellerin’s Clothiers, on Spark Street.

At the clothier, Ambro handed over the owlbear skin and negotiated a price of 240 gold coins to make it into a cloak.

Once their business was done, the group headed to the King’s Bridge. Lakima instructed everyone to wait while he teleported to the Bridgeway. A short while later, he returned and told them to walk through the portal to the Bridgeway. Thankfully, no residents of Dolmvay came along for the ride. From Dolmvay, they took the Bridgeway to the bridge across the river in Edgerton. The horses were brought to the local stable, and the company headed to the Manor House.

The next day, Domago and Aldus discussed the issue of the magic user who had escaped to Lakima.

“Don’t worry, I plan to bring Bargle to us,” Lakima said.

Trusting in Lakima, the rest of the company went about their business: Eathwund spent time at the Sign of the Purple Bugbear, Domago headed to the Church of St. Aleena, and Aldus returned to his wife. Ambro Feyvine cashed in some of the treasure she purloined at a local jeweler. She also spent some time at the Library of Antiquity researching local lore and gods.

Lakima worked on his own unique project. Using a summoning spell and a limited wish, he created an invisible stalker and commanded it to find Bargle and return him to Lakima at the Manor House.

After a week, Lakima checked the Arrow of Direction and found it was spinning aimlessly when he asked for the location of the invisible stalker. It appeared that the stalker had been destroyed or banished.

Lakima announced the news over dinner one night.

“It looks like we need to track down the magic user ourselves. Who will join me on the Cloudstealer tomorrow?”

Eathwund, Aldus, Ambro, Domago, Ian, and August agreed to join the expedition. As usual, Luna did not acknowledge the question.

The following day, the Company headed out on the Cloudstealer. The arrow of direction pointed out along the same direction as the wilderness road, so the ship followed the Dolm River to the village of Larm. In Larm, they spoke with Haldo Bramwise and Durgam, the scout at the Borderland Tavern. Durgam told them of sightings of the iron dragon around the village of Grimstone in the mountains. The Cloudstealer set out for Grimstone the next day. In Grimstone, the dwarves suggest that the iron dragon terrorizing Wilderness Road could be coming from an old Dwarven ruin in the mountains. Thelgrim Dale offered to guide them to the ruins.

“I’ll not be entering those haunted halls,” Thelgrim told them. I’ll wait outside. Those dwarves who enter the Forgotten Hold never see the light of day again.”

Thelgrim expressed nervousness about going aboard the Cloudstealer and flying over the mountains, but Lakima told him not to worry.

“We don’t want to get attacked by that iron dragon in the air. We will hike to this ruin.”

The Forgotten Hold

It took two days to reach the dwarven ruin. A single stone door in the mountainside flanked by two twenty-foot-tall statues of forgotten Dwarven kings.

“This is as far as I go. I’ll wait here for you for three days,” Thelgrim said.

The company approached the door, and Ambro examined it. Finding it safe, she moved back and let Eathwund open the door. A short hall led to a tall, pillared hall with walls carved with dwarven icons. They heard the clanking sound of many suits of armor marching toward them and were attacked by six animated suits of iron armor.

In the melee, Eathwund fought with deadly furry. All six of the animated armors were smashed by him. But while fighting the animated armor, a war band of Hobgoblins also attacked the group. While Eathwund dealt with the armor suits, Ambro, Aldus, and Lakima dealt with the hobgoblins. After a long fight, the hobgoblins were dead, and the suits lay in piles of antique armor. One hobgoblin almost ran away, but Aldus and Ambro tracked him down and killed him.

“We need to stop and rest,” Domago said, “Look at our comrades.”

Aldus, Ian, Ambro, and Domago were all badly injured. Domago took the time to pray over the wounded, healing most of their wounds.

The group headed deeper into the dungeon, Ambro disarmed a booby-trapped chest, and the group surprised another group of hobgoblins, killing all of them.

Finally, they found a dwarven library and in the back a hunched figure of a wizard wearing blue robes, and a blue cap.

“Who are you,” Lakima demanded.

The magic-user turned to find himself surrounded by a group of adventurers.

“I am a powerful wizard, so you had better begone from my sight.”

“Well, you aren’t Barragan,” Lakima stated.

“Phooey, Barragan, the self-important one. I am my own mage. I take commands from no one!”

The mage is questioned but is reluctant to provide much information. When Lakima turns insistent, the mage becomes invisible and tries to flee. However, Lakima casts detect invisibility and can direct Ambro and Aldus to where the wizard is. They grab the invisible mage and prevent him from escaping.

The mage strikes Aldus once with a staff of striking before being disarmed. This has the effect of negating the invisibility spell. The mage eventually tells them his name is Krastos, and he is the builder of the iron dragon. He rambles on and giggles incessantly.

“This guy is an idiot,” Aldus says to Lakima.

“Possibly. Or he acts the idiot.” Lakima replies.

“If you want to continue living, you will take us to the mage, whatever his name is,” Lakima says.

“Call him Bargle. He hates that name. It was his name as an apprentice,” Krastos says.

Ambro pulled her dagger and held it to Krastos’ neck.

“Last chance.”

“Okay, okay. Calm down. I will take you to meet the mighty infamous one himself.”