Don't Fear the Roper

It's early morning, and there is a pounding at the main door. Ravosh and I are up so we both go to answer it, but then there is a pounding come from the master bedroom. Ravosh runs off to see what it is, while I see who is at the front door.

A guardsman is outside reporting that there is some of fire at Davomir's house, and I run off with the guardsman.

Meanwhile, Ravosh has found the Lady Reva has breathed her last, and the scream was from one of the servants.


Davomir's house is burning with a strange purple fire, and the smoke blankets the area with a heavy haze. I make my way into the house through the wine cellar, and heave my way up through the trap door.

Sai was near, and unknown to me, he manages to get into the second floor loft.

But, to both our dismay, Ravosh also arrives on the scene, and he blows the door open, collapsing one of the struts and knocking Sai down. I make it up to the second floor loft, helping Sai up. Davomir's daughter would have been here, but the room is empty.

Ravosh tries to leap onto the loft, but it collapses under his weight. I drop to the main floor, and I look around a little, and find Davomir's body in the store room. I carry him outside, but now free from the choking smoke, it is clear he has expired.

Ravosh looks around in the main bedroom, and spots an odd glint through a knothole. There is a space below, and forcing his way through the floor, he finds a secret room, filled with alchemical ingredients. He takes a few, and exits the building.

We put out notice on Davomir's wife and child, Raychelle and Allie, as they are still missing.

Dhell examines some of the vials, and identifies some of them. Some of it is poison, but it's mostly just ink.


It takes much of the day to clear away the rubble of the now smoldering house, and we investigate the secret room more thoroughly.

Dhell detects conjuration magic, which finds him a skeleton of a small critter, as well as leading a trail to a trap door in the wall. Sai crawls through. The tunnel is dusty and disused. There is a sigil burned into the floor of it, which Dhell says is a magical blade barrier trap. He disables it, causing a tiny magical blade to fall out, and gives it to Sai, who takes it and continues in.

The tunnel ends in a room with a few long dead skeletons. Dead guardsmen, by the looks of it.

There is also a tree trunk leading up from here, which goes up to an old dead oak.

I've been waiting outside, and Sai and Dhell return out of the hole telling me what they saw, saying Ravosh is insisting on giving the guardsmen a proper burial.


Ravosh works on getting the guardsmen out of the tunnel, but he falls into a pit in the tunnel. The spikes must flow. But there's no spikes. The skeleton breaks and something seems to slime and grasp at the bits of skeleton.

It's a roper. Ravosh is grappled by it, and he uses the shatter spell, which causes the ground around him to cave in.

We're out of sight of the ruins of the house at this point, but we hear a rumble and then a guard comes running and yelling about how the giant sinkhole just swallowed up the house.

We rush back and start trying to dig Ravosh out, when a bit of the roper is unearthed and grabs a guard. I slice the tentacle, and the guard collapses to the ground, freed from its grasp.

The roper emerges completely from the dirt, and we attack it. Ravosh also emerges, and finds that Sai had been standing on top of that very ground, and is knocked away.

Very soon the roper is slain, being finished off by Dhell's magic missiles. Dhell harvests from the juices from the creature, saying it's a useful solvent.

We find several magical items of interest in the roper's "hoard".