Game Date: Saturday, August 16, 2008
In-Game Dates: Lassday, Grimander 13 – Marksday, Noctaver 2nd, midday
The weary adventurers get some well-needed down-time as they recuperate in the guest suites of the Royal Palace. Blood Eagles stand guard at the door, and serfs take care of their needs for food, drinks, even going out into the city and selling their loot, and buying other magical items and adventuring gear. Dalatris sweetens the pot by giving them 12,000 gold as a reward for their continued services for the city and an additional 4,000 from her personal account. She wants to treat them to a dinner, nothing fancy, just a last meal before they leave early the next morning.
After lunch, Kitala comes in carrying Bartelby. The pseudodragon stammers an apology to the group, which is accepted more by some members than others. After an awkward silence, he leaves. Kitala makes some strained conversation as well, but soon has to go. Caspian has had a headache that is getting steadily worse. Finally, just before supper, the others notice that he’s being unusually snippy, and is pale and sweating. Lumi feels his forehead; he’s burning up! She mixes him an herbal remedy to bring his fever down, and he drinks that. He feels some better, but still is strangely weak and clumsy. He goes with everyone to supper, but still doesn't look or feel well at all.
Supper is a simple but excellent affair. Dalatris, DuVrok, and Kitala are there, along with the crown Prince, Anadan. Dalatris tells them that she has never met Kartharine, but has heard of her, and hopes this book will be safe in her hands. She tells the party that they know there are Vaniri agents on the royal city, who will quickly learn that the Jeredrakes have failed them, and most likely come for the book themselves if they want it so badly. They know next to nothing about the secret agents of the Vaniri Empire, only rumors that they use a kind of magic unknown in these lands, or any of the other kingdoms. Whatever their abilities, they are sure to be watching the roads between Fallo and Brindinsford. Dalatris breaks out a map of the kingdom and traces a suggested route that goes west and then north, cutting through the forests and grasslands. It will take longer, perhaps more than a week longer than normal, but their passage should be nearly impossible to track.
Rowan mentions to Dalatris that Caspian is sick, and wonders if she can heal him magically, so they all start out on their trip healthy. Dalatris frowns as she studies him, then casts several spells in succession. The first removed the disease, and the others cured his weakness and slowness. She tells them that he'd contracted Slaad Fever from one of the blue slaads that bit him the day before. Unchecked he would have eventually become a slaad himself. Though Caspian likes the idea of having massive claw attacks, he decides that he enjoys being human a bit more.
They spend a pleasant night in the palace quarters, and the next morning a squad of Blood Eagles accompanies them to the city gates. A few early risers in the city recognize the party and cheer and wave, but for the most part, their exit is unremarkable. The weather has finally changed from an unseasonably warm late fall to chilly and damp. A thin drizzle falls as the party leaves the city, and continues throughout the day. The first night they spend in a roadside inn, realizing that this is the last time they'll have warm beds for quite a while. Rowan is suspicious of everyone in the tavern, but most seem to be local farmers who know each other. There's one solitary half-elf who is dressed like a ranger sitting near the fire, not seeming to pay attention to anyone. Rowan goes over to check her out, but the conversation quickly turns into the other ranger crying over some adventurer who just left her. Rowan retreats as quickly as she can, looking uncomfortable.
By the early afternoon of the next day they have traveled past the outlying farms and ranches surrounding and supporting the capitol city. They reach the road marker that Dalatris pointed out on the map, and cut into the woods. Rowan uses her easy trail spell both to help the party cover ground faster and to help hide their tracks from anyone following them. The forest literally parts for them, and they simply ride along in an ever-moving island of clear space for the first three hours of the day. Rowan can cast the spell twice a day for three hours at a time, so she uses it at the beginning and the end of the day. The rest of the time she forges a trail for the others to follow as best she can, which is pretty well.
The only encounter they have in the first few days is coming across a camp of several bugbear hunters. The party manages to creep around the camp undetected, and continue on their way.
Ten days out of Fallo, they reach a small town nestled in some low rolling downs. The rain breaks and the sun shines for the first time since their leaving the city. The people of the town seem friendly. Very friendly. In fact, everyone they pass greets them with some variant of “Hello stranger! Welcome to Calm!” Lumi and Althea feel strangely at peace as they enter the town, but everyone else is really creeped out. Rowan would have everyone just keep going, but Aiden's horse threw a shoe earlier in the day. The farrier/ blacksmith is just a large, fair-haired woman who is just as congenial as everyone else. As they look around, Rowan notices that everyone, even the mayor, seems fairly young. No one looks older than their mid 30s in the town. Even creepier.
Getting some lunch at the town's tavern, they meet a friendly innkeeper, a beautiful innkeeper's daughter, and a friendly local Priest of Pelor.
Lumi has a chat with the priest, who explains that for whatever reason, this whole area is suffused with positive energy. It keeps people calm and happy, and healthy as well. The town really doesn't have any problems except the occasional magical beastie that wanders out of the forest once every half-dozen years or so. Rowan has asked Althea to do her mind-reading spell to see if these townsfolk are on the level, but as far as Althea can tell, everything is okay. There is something she picks up on, about something that happens to travelers after they've spent the night in town. Everyone keeps alluding to the inn serving a truly wonderful breakfast, but refuses to elaborate more. Rowan explores the inn and the surroundings with her headband of true seeing activated, but everything is as it appears to be.
Finally Rowan is convinced that no one here intends to do them harm, and she gives in to the relaxing feeling of the town. The whole party gets their horses shod with shoes better suited for traveling through the wilderness, and they enjoy a day of relaxation, including a dip in the local bath-house, which pipes water in from a nearby hot spring. Finally they retire for the evening, and all sleep very well. Aiden entertains a few of the town's ladies in his room, and Althea entertains the entire tavern with a few songs. Even for a town where happiness and beauty are an everyday part of life, the patrons and innkeeper find themselves deeply moved by Althea's music.
In the morning, the party gets their breakfast orders, and each breakfast comes with a small crystal glass filled with a few ounces of a clear liquid. After a last bit of trepidation, the party drinks up. They feel the effects immediately... feeling stronger, healthier, quicker. They look up in amazement at the innkeeper's daughter as she explains. There is a spring in a cavern deep beneath the city that slowly fills with this liquid. The spring always produces just enough for every member of the town to have one of these drinks every year. It's also custom for strangers who spend the night to get a glass as well. The reason they must spend the night is because only those with good hearts can stand to be in Calm for any length of time. By staying overnight, the party has proved themselves worthy of their drink of the elixer of youth. It isn't true eternal youth; for people here still die after their allotment of years is up, but they stay strong and healthy until that time.
Feeling great, the party leaves the town and heads back to the trail, feeling refreshed. The cold weather and rain returns as they set out again, but the party doesn't mind too much.
Three days out of the village, they come within sight of the small fort that stands just inside the border of Pythia. Rowan sees evidence of patrols, but they skirt around the fort without encountering anyone.
Another three days pass, and the party comes upon a crossroads. They breathe a sigh of relief... they are exactly where they hoped to be, and a little ahead of schedule! Lumi notes a glint of sunlight on metal in the trees across the road. Rowan peers out, and can just make out a man keeping watch in the tree with some kind of goggles on his head. Everyone takes cover in the trees and brush; it doesn't seem as though the watcher has spotted them.
The party confers. It may very well be a ranger in the employ of Pythia, or it could be an enemy. Or it could be some bandit and have no bearing on them whatsoever. Figuring that it's safer to avoid detection if possible, the party creeps off, parallel to the road for a mile or so before crossing the road and continuing North by Northeast.
Another few days pass. The party comes upon a pair of deer standing stock still on the game trail Rowan is leading them down. The adventurers approach, but the deer don't move. A closer inspection reveals that the deer have been petrified. Further on, they find a few more petrified creatures. The words “basilisk,” “medusa,” and other evils are muttered by the party. Aiden remembers that powerful beholders can petrify as well, but keeps that thought to himself, as everyone seems strung-out as it is.
In the misty grey light of late afternoon, just before Rowan activates her easy trail spell, they hear a crashing of creatures coming through the woods towards them. The party readies weapons and spells, but what comes crashing through the brush are a group of frightened deer, followed by a quickly-moving badger. The party relaxes for a moment after the animals pass, but soon the sound of several more large things crashing through the trees. This time the noise comes from two enormous skeletons of what used to be trolls. Behind them creep two large hounds who seem to blend into inky invisibility when they creep through the shadows of the underbrush. Behind them come two black, thin, humanoid shapes that float a few inches off the ground. Their eyes are the only thing in them that isn't black, and those gleam with a pale malice and a hatred of all things living. They seem to be moving with a purpose through the woods, but when one of the hounds spots the party, the creatures turn towards them.
Rowan fires off an arrow at a shadow, which sails through the incorporeal creature without doing it damage. Caspian casts true strike and readies his weapon for a blow. Aiden sends a fireball powered with positive energy into their midst, bowling the shadow mastiffs off their feet. The humanoid shadows don't seem too affected, but the troll skeletons definitely lose some rib bones and other sections of their animated skeletons.
Lumi steps up, brandishing her new holy symbol, and shouts a word of power. Her holy symbol blazes with a blinding white light. Under it's intense glare, the shadows dissolve into nothingness, and the troll skeletons collapse into inanimate bones, the evil power giving them un-life blasted away.
Althea glows with the brilliance of the noon-day sun as she uses her Aasimar power of daylight. The shadow mastiffs growl as their ability to meld into the shadows is neutralized. The bard begins singing her haunting melody as the mastiffs creep forward, their powerful jaws slavering and their red eyes glowing with rage...
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Session 07: Entrance of the Gladiators
Game Date: Saturday, August 9, 2008
In-Game Dates: Wainsday, Grimander 12, night – Lassday, Grimander 13, morning
The party stared at the note. The thought: Really? Do we have to rescue the girl who insists she can “take care of herself?” flits across everyone’s faces. Well, maybe not Lumi’s. Sighing, everyone agrees to at least play along with the Jeredrakes for the time being. They hang a lamp outside the window as the note instructs, wondering how the hell the author of the note knew they were after the missing pages of the book.
A second note arrives in short order, and this one tells them that at dawn they will receive a third note telling them where to go. They’ll have a half-hour to get to the designated location, which will be possible if they hurry. The second note is signed by someone calling himself “the Emissary.”
Sending Bartleby to fly over to the Royal Temple and see if the place is in an uproar about a missing priestess, everyone decides against alerting the authorities to the letters they’ve received, not sure of who can be trusted. The pseudodragon returns a short while later with the news that Kitala is indeed missing, and the bodies of two priests had been found stuffed in a store-room, stripped of their priestly robes.
The party sleeps uneasily, planning to awake an hour or so before dawn to possibly get the jump on the Jeredrakes, since they now know the location of their base, and they’re pretty sure no one else (other than Brovann) knows.
Lumi dreams a strange dream… She is back in her church in Miel, and goes into the temple to find Father Tilok with his back to her, kneeling before the altar of Pelor in prayer. She approaches him, and he stands and turns to face her. She realizes with a gasp of awe that the man isn’t Father Tilok, as she thought, but Pelor himself! The Sun God’s glowing golden eyes gaze kindly down at Lumi as she bows before him.
“I am pleased with the good works you have done in my name, young Lumienne,” he says. “You have been a faithful servant all your life, and I wish to reward your deeds. I foresee that hard trials will be soon upon you, my young cleric. You will need all your strength to endure, but keep faithful, and you will prevail. But to aid you, I will give you powers I do not normally grant my followers. I will give you a new holy symbol,” and he pulls out a small golden disk with his symbol on it, but stylized in a way Lumi has never seen. “Keep it with you, and it will grant you some power to cast spells in my name. Now awake as a Radiant Servant of Pelor, and go forth to protect the innocent and battle evil in my name.”
Lumi feels herself being pulled towards consciousness, but before she awakes, she hears Pelor’s voice in her head say, “One last thing… if someone asks you for a service, do not be afraid to give your consent!”
Lumi awakes to find the rest of the party stirring as well. She looks down, and hanging from her neck on a thin chain is the holy symbol Pelor gave her in her dream!
Quickly, while everyone is rousing, Lumi prays for her daily spells. Everyone is trying to decide whether to jump the gun and hit the Jeredrakes base before dawn and take them by surprise, or to wait for the note. Lumi casts an augury spell, which seems to favor going to the arranged meeting point rather than going to the Jeredrake’s base. So, deciding to wait for the note, everyone heads downstairs and has breakfast.
As people are finishing up their meal, the innkeeper comes out and hands them the third note. The meeting is to take place in the city’s old arena. Although the note promises a peaceful transaction if the adventurers don’t start trouble, none of them really believe it, and set off towards the old arena geared up and ready to bust some heads.
Riding on horseback, the party arrives well before the half-hour is up, and does some quick reconnoitering. Finding nothing terribly out of the ordinary, they head in the main doors, sending Bartleby up to the roof to be ready to go get help if things turn really ugly.
The arena’s circular tiers of seats are empty. In the arena pit, a tall, lithe, bald man stands alone at the far end, dressed in loose-fitting garments. The party vaults over the railing down onto the sand and crosses the floor of the arena towards him. Rowan, suspecting a trap, activated her headband that gives her true-seeing. The man before them is as he appears to be, and no invisible creatures lie in wait for them that she can see.
When the adventurers are perhaps 40 feet away, he greets them, introducing himself as the Emissary. He produces the priestess Kitala, who is enclosed in an Otiluke’s resilient sphere, unharmed, but trapped. Rowan, her true-seeing still active, sees Kitala as well, but also sees what Kitala truly is. She gasps quietly in shock, but has no time to tell anyone, as the Emissary is speaking once more. The Emissary tells them that he will give the command word to release her when they give him the book. He tells them as well that there is no shame in surrendering the book; that no one wins all the time.
Lumi steps forward, telling the Emissary that they never found those missing pages. He smiles almost sadly at her, and tells her, “Lies do not become a Radiant Servant of Pelor, young one.”
At the same time, Aiden removes his wand and fires off two scorching rays straight at the Emissary.
The man goes from stock still into a whirling dodge almost faster than the eye can follow. Both rays streak past him and burn dark scorch marks into the stone walls of the pit. “You’ll have to do better than that, warmage,” says the monk, assuming a balanced defensive pose. “So be it,” he sighs, clapping his hands loudly twice. Aiden casts haste on the entire party as they draw their weapons.
From a trapdoor opposite the one Kitala’s sphere rose from, four creatures pour out and streak towards the adventurers. Their bodies are hairless and the same general shape of a large dog, but they have no heads. Instead, a long neck grows from the very center of their backs, ending in an oversized mouth full of serrated teeth. The misshapen head has no eyes or ears, but they charge unerringly towards the party. Rowan in turn charges towards the Emissary, her blades whirling. Caspian, dodging the acidic mucus that the twisted dog-creatures spit from their mouths, does fairly well in taking them down. Unfortunately, four Jeredrakes that had laid in hiding peek over the raining and begin firing arrows down into the arena at the party.
Rowan takes a few strong punches from the Emissary, but she presses her attack with a savage desperation. He takes cuts and stabs from Rowan, and another searing ray from Aiden, but his face never shows a hint of pain. He looks Rowan in the eye as they exchange blows. “You are doing very well,” he tells her, flecks of blood at the corners of his mouth, “but you cannot hope to win this fight.”
Rowan, concentrating on avoiding the Emissary’s kicks and punches, does not reply. But at last she sees an opening in the monk’s impressive unarmed defenses, and runs him through with her longsword. As the Emissary slides off her sword to crumple to the ground, he looks almost sadly at her. “Now you’ve done it,” he murmurs, and then he falls to the sand to breathe no more.
The dog-things have all been slain, and both Lumi and Aiden have magical shield spells keeping the arrows off them. Althea unleashes shots from her bow at the snipers, Lumi summons giant bees to sting and hamper them, and Aiden fires off fire spells at them. The Jeredrake rangers appear to have resistance to fire, so he tosses a cold spell at one bowman, killing the Jeredrake instantly. A second bowman falls to arrows and spells as Caspian charges the wall of the arena. He jumps and very nearly clears the ten-foot wall in a single awesome leap. He balances somewhat precariously on the rail and cuts at a startled bowman.
“STOP THE FIGHTING,” intones a voice that fills the air of the stadium. Almost simultaneously they hear Bartleby’s voice in their head say, “Oh, shit.”
From the sky above them descends an awesome creature. Standing some 10 feet in height, the being has the scarlet skin of a demon, but the feathered wings and serene beauty of an angel. From atop his head where hair would normally grow, wisps of grey smoke rise and dissipate into the cold morning air.
Althea recognizes it from an old, old legend, from the age before elves and men, when gods made war against the lords of chaos. The Angel-killers were chief among their agents. Not killers of angels, but angels who killed. They were agents of true neutrality, made to destroy those who would upset and destroy the balance of creation. Now the ones who were left sometimes hired themselves to those who could afford them.
Althea relayed this via a message spell as the creature landed. The adventurers stood still, waiting for the creature to make a move. It turned to the two (barely) surviving Jeredrakes. “LEAVE US.”
Surprisingly, this creature, the master whom the Jeredrakes had so darkly hinted at, shows no signs of being upset at the slaughter of his minions. The Angel-killer tells them that the Jeredrakes had nearly fulfilled his purposes anyway, and he soon would have destroyed them anyway.
“I HAVE NO MORE INTEREST IN THE PRIESTESS, FASCINATING THOUGH SHE MAY BE,” he says. “HOWEVER, I HAVE BOTH A PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL INTEREST IN THE BOOK YOU CARRY. THAT BOOK IS OLD, ALMOST AS OLD AS I, AND I AM FROM AN AGE BEFORE THE AGE THAT CAME BEFORE THIS ONE. THE LAST TIME IT WAS USED, THERE WAS VERY NEARLY WAR IN HEAVEN. THERE WILL BE MUCH UPHEAVAL IN THE CELESTIAL REALMS WHEN NEWS OF THE BOOK’S EXISTENCE BECOMES KNOWN. THERE WILL BE UPHEAVALS IN THE ABYSS AS WELL, ALBEIT FOR SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT REASONS.
“MY LATE SERVANT’S OFFER STILL STANDS: THE BOOK, IN EXCHANGE FOR YOUR LIVES AND THAT OF THE PRIESTESS.”
Rowan steps forward boldly. “You would have to take that up with the book’s rightful owner.”
The Angel-killer’s mouth twists in what could almost be called a smile, “I AM CURIOUS TO HEAR WHO WOULD CLAIM OWNERSHIP OF THE BOOK, SINCE THE AUTHOR DISAPPEARED IN A STORM OF DIVINE WRATH MILLENNIA AGO.”
“This book is the property of Kartharine of Brindinsford,” states Rowan, not giving an inch.
For the first time a genuine emotion shows on the creature’s face, surprise. “KARTHERINAX THE GREY? SHE STILL LIVES? AMAZING.” He strokes his chin with one hand, staring off into the sky. “YES…” he murmurs. “YES, THAT WOULD BE ACCEPTABLE.”
Looking at the party once again, he cocks his head to one side, “I AM SORELY TEMPTED TO LET YOU KEEP THE BOOK AND DELIVER IT TO ITS OWNER… BUT I HAVE BEEN OFFERED SUBSTANTIAL PAYMENT FOR DELIVERY OF THE BOOK TO AGENTS OF THE BLACK THRONE OF THE VANIRI EMPIRE. WHAT CAN YOU OFFER ME?”
Rowan, thinking hard, remembers that once she overheard her father talking to a cleric friend of his about celestial beings. She remembers that divine beings, having no use for currency, often bartered in services and favors.
“We could owe you a favor,” she offered.
The Angel-killer nodded again, with the small smile. “THE VANIRI OFFERED ME A VERY IMPRESSIVE SUM OF GOLD. HOWEVER, WHAT IS GOLD TO ONE SUCH AS I? YOU SEEM CAPABLE, AS FAR AS MORTALS GO, SO VERY WELL. I HAVE NO NEED AT PRESENT, BUT I WILL BIND YOU ALL TO ME; YOU WILL OWE ME ONE SERVICE. CONSENT TO DO THIS, AND I WILL LEAVE YOU WITH BOTH THE BOOK AND THE PRIESTESS.”
Lumi speaks up, telling the others of her dream, and what Pelor told her about giving consent to someone’s service. Reassured, the party gives their consent to owe the Angel-killer one service. Aiden is extremely hesitant, but finally agrees when Caspian does.
Bartleby flies down from his perch atop the arena and lands on the outstretched arm of the creature. From the look of things, the pseudodragon is speaking telepathically to the Angel-killer. “YES, YOUR SERVICE TO ME IS COMPLETE,” he says. “YOUR MASTER IS BEING HELD FAR TO THE SOUTH, IN THE TOWER OF THE SCARLET CLAW. IT WILL NOT BE EASY, BUT THERE IS STILL TIME TO FREE HIM.”
The sphere holding Kitala fades at last, and the girl falls forward into the sand of the arena floor. The Angel-killer turns to her and says, “AS I SAID, I HAVE NO FURTHER INTEREST IN YOU, YOUNG ONE. TELL YOUR MOTHER THAT MALAKAR SENDS HIS REGARDS, AND THAT HE HAS NOT FORGOTTEN.”
With that, the creature vanishes with a muffled thunderclap.
Shaken, Kitala gets to her feet. She apologizes to Aiden and the party for her behavior at the graveyard yesterday. Apparently DuVrok tore a stripe out of her when he found out what happened. She tells them she just had found out that she was brought to this city to be married to the Grand Duke of Pythia’s oldest son for the sake of political expediency. Needless to say, this has greatly upset her, but it doesn’t excuse her actions.
The party leads her back to the Temple, amassing quite a crowd as word of the priestesses discovery spreads. By the time they reach the temple steps, they have an honor guard of half a dozen watchmen, Brovann included, and a score of Blood Eagles.
DuVrok and Dalatris are waiting at the temple steps, and mother and daughter embrace to the joyful shouts of the assembled citizenry.
Brovann congratulates the adventurers, telling them that he and a bunch of watchmen raided the Jeredrake’s hideout late last night, killing perhaps a dozen and capturing six more. The party tells Brovann a brief summary of the events in the arena, though they omit mentioning Malakar, and tell him the Emissary was the Jeredrake leader, and that he is dead.
Overjoyed to see her daughter alive and unharmed, Dalatris ushers the adventurers in to her office, along with DuVrok and Kitala. Once again the party describes the morning’s events, this time omitting nothing. Dalatris seems somewhat uneasy, but definitely relieved. From her looks, she hasn’t slept at all, but her smile is wide and genuine as she gazes upon those who have now twice saved her daughter.
Rowan, however, shifts uneasily in her seat. The high priestess is still sharp, and notices her discomfort. She asks Rowan what the matter is. Rowan, unsure of how to say what’s on her mind, begins hesitantly, “When we went to save Kitala, I used a spell of true-see-”
“STOP!” shouts Dalatris. She turns to DuVrok. “Will you escort Kitala to her room, and make sure it is completely secure?” Kitala is obviously confused, but does as her mother bids.
Once the door is closed and the footsteps have died away, the high priestess slumps forward slightly, her perfect composure cracking. In a voice barely more than a whisper Dalatris says, “She doesn’t know.”
“What?!” exclaims Rowan. “How-“ The rest of the party looks on, confused as hell.
“I was cursed, and must remain as you see me,” says Dalatris softly. “Apparently the curse was passed on to my daughter, though I hope to someday break its hold on her.”
“Can I… tell my companions?” asks Rowan, sensing the four pairs of wide eyes drilling holes in the back of her head.
Dalatris smiles sadly. “The fewer who know, the happier I will be. If you truly trust your comrades, I will not object. Otherwise I beg you to keep this secret forever.”
Rowan looks torn, but sighs, “Very well, high priestess, I will keep your secret.” Muffled sounds from behind her indicate this is not what the rest of the party wanted to hear. Curious beyond her ability to stand it, Althea casts detect thoughts as subtly as she can on Dalatris. Dalatris notices however, and shouts a warning to Althea, but it is too late.
White fire stabs through Althea’s head like the worst migraine in history. With a small scream she staggers back, clutching her head. Fortunately, the pain soon passes, leaving the bard gasping.
Dalatris smiles, “I can understand your curiosity, and I am sorry for the backlash, but that was ill-mannered of you.” Red-faced, Althea mumbles an apology that sounds embarrassed but sincere.
Dalatris looks at them all. She will reward them with as much money as she can convince her treasurers to part with, and since the party wishes to keep something of a low profile before they leave the city to return to Brindinsford, the high priestess promises them lodging for the day in the royal palace. The party nods wearily, ready for rest despite the fact that the sun has barely risen over the city.
In-Game Dates: Wainsday, Grimander 12, night – Lassday, Grimander 13, morning
The party stared at the note. The thought: Really? Do we have to rescue the girl who insists she can “take care of herself?” flits across everyone’s faces. Well, maybe not Lumi’s. Sighing, everyone agrees to at least play along with the Jeredrakes for the time being. They hang a lamp outside the window as the note instructs, wondering how the hell the author of the note knew they were after the missing pages of the book.
A second note arrives in short order, and this one tells them that at dawn they will receive a third note telling them where to go. They’ll have a half-hour to get to the designated location, which will be possible if they hurry. The second note is signed by someone calling himself “the Emissary.”
Sending Bartleby to fly over to the Royal Temple and see if the place is in an uproar about a missing priestess, everyone decides against alerting the authorities to the letters they’ve received, not sure of who can be trusted. The pseudodragon returns a short while later with the news that Kitala is indeed missing, and the bodies of two priests had been found stuffed in a store-room, stripped of their priestly robes.
The party sleeps uneasily, planning to awake an hour or so before dawn to possibly get the jump on the Jeredrakes, since they now know the location of their base, and they’re pretty sure no one else (other than Brovann) knows.
Lumi dreams a strange dream… She is back in her church in Miel, and goes into the temple to find Father Tilok with his back to her, kneeling before the altar of Pelor in prayer. She approaches him, and he stands and turns to face her. She realizes with a gasp of awe that the man isn’t Father Tilok, as she thought, but Pelor himself! The Sun God’s glowing golden eyes gaze kindly down at Lumi as she bows before him.
“I am pleased with the good works you have done in my name, young Lumienne,” he says. “You have been a faithful servant all your life, and I wish to reward your deeds. I foresee that hard trials will be soon upon you, my young cleric. You will need all your strength to endure, but keep faithful, and you will prevail. But to aid you, I will give you powers I do not normally grant my followers. I will give you a new holy symbol,” and he pulls out a small golden disk with his symbol on it, but stylized in a way Lumi has never seen. “Keep it with you, and it will grant you some power to cast spells in my name. Now awake as a Radiant Servant of Pelor, and go forth to protect the innocent and battle evil in my name.”
Lumi feels herself being pulled towards consciousness, but before she awakes, she hears Pelor’s voice in her head say, “One last thing… if someone asks you for a service, do not be afraid to give your consent!”
Lumi awakes to find the rest of the party stirring as well. She looks down, and hanging from her neck on a thin chain is the holy symbol Pelor gave her in her dream!
Quickly, while everyone is rousing, Lumi prays for her daily spells. Everyone is trying to decide whether to jump the gun and hit the Jeredrakes base before dawn and take them by surprise, or to wait for the note. Lumi casts an augury spell, which seems to favor going to the arranged meeting point rather than going to the Jeredrake’s base. So, deciding to wait for the note, everyone heads downstairs and has breakfast.
As people are finishing up their meal, the innkeeper comes out and hands them the third note. The meeting is to take place in the city’s old arena. Although the note promises a peaceful transaction if the adventurers don’t start trouble, none of them really believe it, and set off towards the old arena geared up and ready to bust some heads.
Riding on horseback, the party arrives well before the half-hour is up, and does some quick reconnoitering. Finding nothing terribly out of the ordinary, they head in the main doors, sending Bartleby up to the roof to be ready to go get help if things turn really ugly.
The arena’s circular tiers of seats are empty. In the arena pit, a tall, lithe, bald man stands alone at the far end, dressed in loose-fitting garments. The party vaults over the railing down onto the sand and crosses the floor of the arena towards him. Rowan, suspecting a trap, activated her headband that gives her true-seeing. The man before them is as he appears to be, and no invisible creatures lie in wait for them that she can see.
When the adventurers are perhaps 40 feet away, he greets them, introducing himself as the Emissary. He produces the priestess Kitala, who is enclosed in an Otiluke’s resilient sphere, unharmed, but trapped. Rowan, her true-seeing still active, sees Kitala as well, but also sees what Kitala truly is. She gasps quietly in shock, but has no time to tell anyone, as the Emissary is speaking once more. The Emissary tells them that he will give the command word to release her when they give him the book. He tells them as well that there is no shame in surrendering the book; that no one wins all the time.
Lumi steps forward, telling the Emissary that they never found those missing pages. He smiles almost sadly at her, and tells her, “Lies do not become a Radiant Servant of Pelor, young one.”
At the same time, Aiden removes his wand and fires off two scorching rays straight at the Emissary.
The man goes from stock still into a whirling dodge almost faster than the eye can follow. Both rays streak past him and burn dark scorch marks into the stone walls of the pit. “You’ll have to do better than that, warmage,” says the monk, assuming a balanced defensive pose. “So be it,” he sighs, clapping his hands loudly twice. Aiden casts haste on the entire party as they draw their weapons.
From a trapdoor opposite the one Kitala’s sphere rose from, four creatures pour out and streak towards the adventurers. Their bodies are hairless and the same general shape of a large dog, but they have no heads. Instead, a long neck grows from the very center of their backs, ending in an oversized mouth full of serrated teeth. The misshapen head has no eyes or ears, but they charge unerringly towards the party. Rowan in turn charges towards the Emissary, her blades whirling. Caspian, dodging the acidic mucus that the twisted dog-creatures spit from their mouths, does fairly well in taking them down. Unfortunately, four Jeredrakes that had laid in hiding peek over the raining and begin firing arrows down into the arena at the party.
Rowan takes a few strong punches from the Emissary, but she presses her attack with a savage desperation. He takes cuts and stabs from Rowan, and another searing ray from Aiden, but his face never shows a hint of pain. He looks Rowan in the eye as they exchange blows. “You are doing very well,” he tells her, flecks of blood at the corners of his mouth, “but you cannot hope to win this fight.”
Rowan, concentrating on avoiding the Emissary’s kicks and punches, does not reply. But at last she sees an opening in the monk’s impressive unarmed defenses, and runs him through with her longsword. As the Emissary slides off her sword to crumple to the ground, he looks almost sadly at her. “Now you’ve done it,” he murmurs, and then he falls to the sand to breathe no more.
The dog-things have all been slain, and both Lumi and Aiden have magical shield spells keeping the arrows off them. Althea unleashes shots from her bow at the snipers, Lumi summons giant bees to sting and hamper them, and Aiden fires off fire spells at them. The Jeredrake rangers appear to have resistance to fire, so he tosses a cold spell at one bowman, killing the Jeredrake instantly. A second bowman falls to arrows and spells as Caspian charges the wall of the arena. He jumps and very nearly clears the ten-foot wall in a single awesome leap. He balances somewhat precariously on the rail and cuts at a startled bowman.
“STOP THE FIGHTING,” intones a voice that fills the air of the stadium. Almost simultaneously they hear Bartleby’s voice in their head say, “Oh, shit.”
From the sky above them descends an awesome creature. Standing some 10 feet in height, the being has the scarlet skin of a demon, but the feathered wings and serene beauty of an angel. From atop his head where hair would normally grow, wisps of grey smoke rise and dissipate into the cold morning air.
Althea recognizes it from an old, old legend, from the age before elves and men, when gods made war against the lords of chaos. The Angel-killers were chief among their agents. Not killers of angels, but angels who killed. They were agents of true neutrality, made to destroy those who would upset and destroy the balance of creation. Now the ones who were left sometimes hired themselves to those who could afford them.
Althea relayed this via a message spell as the creature landed. The adventurers stood still, waiting for the creature to make a move. It turned to the two (barely) surviving Jeredrakes. “LEAVE US.”
Surprisingly, this creature, the master whom the Jeredrakes had so darkly hinted at, shows no signs of being upset at the slaughter of his minions. The Angel-killer tells them that the Jeredrakes had nearly fulfilled his purposes anyway, and he soon would have destroyed them anyway.
“I HAVE NO MORE INTEREST IN THE PRIESTESS, FASCINATING THOUGH SHE MAY BE,” he says. “HOWEVER, I HAVE BOTH A PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL INTEREST IN THE BOOK YOU CARRY. THAT BOOK IS OLD, ALMOST AS OLD AS I, AND I AM FROM AN AGE BEFORE THE AGE THAT CAME BEFORE THIS ONE. THE LAST TIME IT WAS USED, THERE WAS VERY NEARLY WAR IN HEAVEN. THERE WILL BE MUCH UPHEAVAL IN THE CELESTIAL REALMS WHEN NEWS OF THE BOOK’S EXISTENCE BECOMES KNOWN. THERE WILL BE UPHEAVALS IN THE ABYSS AS WELL, ALBEIT FOR SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT REASONS.
“MY LATE SERVANT’S OFFER STILL STANDS: THE BOOK, IN EXCHANGE FOR YOUR LIVES AND THAT OF THE PRIESTESS.”
Rowan steps forward boldly. “You would have to take that up with the book’s rightful owner.”
The Angel-killer’s mouth twists in what could almost be called a smile, “I AM CURIOUS TO HEAR WHO WOULD CLAIM OWNERSHIP OF THE BOOK, SINCE THE AUTHOR DISAPPEARED IN A STORM OF DIVINE WRATH MILLENNIA AGO.”
“This book is the property of Kartharine of Brindinsford,” states Rowan, not giving an inch.
For the first time a genuine emotion shows on the creature’s face, surprise. “KARTHERINAX THE GREY? SHE STILL LIVES? AMAZING.” He strokes his chin with one hand, staring off into the sky. “YES…” he murmurs. “YES, THAT WOULD BE ACCEPTABLE.”
Looking at the party once again, he cocks his head to one side, “I AM SORELY TEMPTED TO LET YOU KEEP THE BOOK AND DELIVER IT TO ITS OWNER… BUT I HAVE BEEN OFFERED SUBSTANTIAL PAYMENT FOR DELIVERY OF THE BOOK TO AGENTS OF THE BLACK THRONE OF THE VANIRI EMPIRE. WHAT CAN YOU OFFER ME?”
Rowan, thinking hard, remembers that once she overheard her father talking to a cleric friend of his about celestial beings. She remembers that divine beings, having no use for currency, often bartered in services and favors.
“We could owe you a favor,” she offered.
The Angel-killer nodded again, with the small smile. “THE VANIRI OFFERED ME A VERY IMPRESSIVE SUM OF GOLD. HOWEVER, WHAT IS GOLD TO ONE SUCH AS I? YOU SEEM CAPABLE, AS FAR AS MORTALS GO, SO VERY WELL. I HAVE NO NEED AT PRESENT, BUT I WILL BIND YOU ALL TO ME; YOU WILL OWE ME ONE SERVICE. CONSENT TO DO THIS, AND I WILL LEAVE YOU WITH BOTH THE BOOK AND THE PRIESTESS.”
Lumi speaks up, telling the others of her dream, and what Pelor told her about giving consent to someone’s service. Reassured, the party gives their consent to owe the Angel-killer one service. Aiden is extremely hesitant, but finally agrees when Caspian does.
Bartleby flies down from his perch atop the arena and lands on the outstretched arm of the creature. From the look of things, the pseudodragon is speaking telepathically to the Angel-killer. “YES, YOUR SERVICE TO ME IS COMPLETE,” he says. “YOUR MASTER IS BEING HELD FAR TO THE SOUTH, IN THE TOWER OF THE SCARLET CLAW. IT WILL NOT BE EASY, BUT THERE IS STILL TIME TO FREE HIM.”
The sphere holding Kitala fades at last, and the girl falls forward into the sand of the arena floor. The Angel-killer turns to her and says, “AS I SAID, I HAVE NO FURTHER INTEREST IN YOU, YOUNG ONE. TELL YOUR MOTHER THAT MALAKAR SENDS HIS REGARDS, AND THAT HE HAS NOT FORGOTTEN.”
With that, the creature vanishes with a muffled thunderclap.
Shaken, Kitala gets to her feet. She apologizes to Aiden and the party for her behavior at the graveyard yesterday. Apparently DuVrok tore a stripe out of her when he found out what happened. She tells them she just had found out that she was brought to this city to be married to the Grand Duke of Pythia’s oldest son for the sake of political expediency. Needless to say, this has greatly upset her, but it doesn’t excuse her actions.
The party leads her back to the Temple, amassing quite a crowd as word of the priestesses discovery spreads. By the time they reach the temple steps, they have an honor guard of half a dozen watchmen, Brovann included, and a score of Blood Eagles.
DuVrok and Dalatris are waiting at the temple steps, and mother and daughter embrace to the joyful shouts of the assembled citizenry.
Brovann congratulates the adventurers, telling them that he and a bunch of watchmen raided the Jeredrake’s hideout late last night, killing perhaps a dozen and capturing six more. The party tells Brovann a brief summary of the events in the arena, though they omit mentioning Malakar, and tell him the Emissary was the Jeredrake leader, and that he is dead.
Overjoyed to see her daughter alive and unharmed, Dalatris ushers the adventurers in to her office, along with DuVrok and Kitala. Once again the party describes the morning’s events, this time omitting nothing. Dalatris seems somewhat uneasy, but definitely relieved. From her looks, she hasn’t slept at all, but her smile is wide and genuine as she gazes upon those who have now twice saved her daughter.
Rowan, however, shifts uneasily in her seat. The high priestess is still sharp, and notices her discomfort. She asks Rowan what the matter is. Rowan, unsure of how to say what’s on her mind, begins hesitantly, “When we went to save Kitala, I used a spell of true-see-”
“STOP!” shouts Dalatris. She turns to DuVrok. “Will you escort Kitala to her room, and make sure it is completely secure?” Kitala is obviously confused, but does as her mother bids.
Once the door is closed and the footsteps have died away, the high priestess slumps forward slightly, her perfect composure cracking. In a voice barely more than a whisper Dalatris says, “She doesn’t know.”
“What?!” exclaims Rowan. “How-“ The rest of the party looks on, confused as hell.
“I was cursed, and must remain as you see me,” says Dalatris softly. “Apparently the curse was passed on to my daughter, though I hope to someday break its hold on her.”
“Can I… tell my companions?” asks Rowan, sensing the four pairs of wide eyes drilling holes in the back of her head.
Dalatris smiles sadly. “The fewer who know, the happier I will be. If you truly trust your comrades, I will not object. Otherwise I beg you to keep this secret forever.”
Rowan looks torn, but sighs, “Very well, high priestess, I will keep your secret.” Muffled sounds from behind her indicate this is not what the rest of the party wanted to hear. Curious beyond her ability to stand it, Althea casts detect thoughts as subtly as she can on Dalatris. Dalatris notices however, and shouts a warning to Althea, but it is too late.
White fire stabs through Althea’s head like the worst migraine in history. With a small scream she staggers back, clutching her head. Fortunately, the pain soon passes, leaving the bard gasping.
Dalatris smiles, “I can understand your curiosity, and I am sorry for the backlash, but that was ill-mannered of you.” Red-faced, Althea mumbles an apology that sounds embarrassed but sincere.
Dalatris looks at them all. She will reward them with as much money as she can convince her treasurers to part with, and since the party wishes to keep something of a low profile before they leave the city to return to Brindinsford, the high priestess promises them lodging for the day in the royal palace. The party nods wearily, ready for rest despite the fact that the sun has barely risen over the city.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Session 06: The Missing Pages
Game Date: August 2, 2008
In-Game Date: Wainsday, Grimander 12, mid-morning -- night.
The party is trudging back to the Royal Temple when Rowan gets an idea. “Hey, do you think Brovann would let us cast speak with dead on the noble Colwyn was supposed to have murdered?”
Even though the party knew Colwyn was framed, and now have evidence to prove it, this course of action might provide them with a few more pieces of the puzzle.
The party finds Brovann and informs him that they have proof that Colwyn was framed, and that the Jeredrakes are behind it. Brovann agrees to come with them to the home of the bor-Kennets, and to ask Lady Aseara, Meder’s sister, if they can speak with Meder’s corpse to try and find her brother’s killer.
She gives her consent, and Lumi finds herself casting speak with dead for the second time that morning. She casts it, but demands that she be bought candy later on. The corpse gives some answers, but also raises more questions. They find that the person who murdered him was not Colwyn. On a hunch, they ask the corpse what it knows about Jeredrakes. The corpse replies that the word means Dragonlord in an ancient tongue. The corpse tells them that the argument the servants heard was actually because there was another buyer interested in the book, and Meder was refusing to divulge the buyer’s identity. The corpse, however, has no problem telling the party who the buyer was: an agent of the Vaniri Empire.
Armed with that disturbing piece of information, they drop Kitala, who still seems either angry or depressed or both, off at the temple. Rowan mentions to Brovann that the shady arms dealer in the warehouse district seemed to know something about the Jeredrakes. Brovann tells them he’ll go and drag the shopkeeper in for some questioning. The party offers to help, but Brovann says they’d be interfering in City Watch business. He tells them it would do them no GOOD to be IN THE AREA around 4:00 when he makes the bust. With a smirk, he heads off to attend to filling out reports.
The party, meanwhile, has some time to kill, so they decide to pay a call on the Baroness Tarmikos. They arrive in time for lunch, and the baroness and her consort tell the party that they have found things out about their quarry, Colwyn Daystar, but it’s unfortunately nothing they don’t already know. On the plus side, lunch is very good, and afterwards Rowan asks if the baroness has a way to communicate with Kartharine. The baroness remembers she has an old mirror in her basement that can probably do the trick. She has it brought up, and speaks the incantations necessary to call up Kartharine back in Brindinsford. Kartharine is pleased that they have the book, but is very concerned that the pages may be in the hands of some enemy. She tells the party to keep looking, but if another week goes by with nothing to show, that they should just head back to Brindinsford with what they have. She also says it is imperative that they book be shown to as few people as possible, if it must be shown at all. (Brovann mentioned that city officials may want to see the book as evidence in the now-reopened case of Meder’s murder.)
After departing from House Tarmikos, Althea hears a strange small voice in her head. She turns her head, startled, to find Bartleby staring at her from his perch on her shoulder. It turns out that Bartleby (and all pseudodragons) can communicate telepathically, but Bartleby was playing dumb because he wasn’t sure he could trust them. But now that he saw them talking to Kartharine, he knows they’re on the level. He tells them that he has a few of his master’s effects (and a lot of his master’s money) in a bag that he secreted on a rooftop nearby his master’s apartment. Bartleby is fairly certain that the bag doesn’t contain any missing pages, but can’t be sure.
The party goes to the building in question: a two-story building belonging to the city sanitation. Bartleby flies up to the roof and finds to his dismay that the bag is missing. The party breaks into the building and makes their way up to the roof. Rowan and Aiden spot a few signs that some creatures were up here in the last 24 hours. Rowan casts a tracking spell that allows her to read the nearly non-existent tracks as easily as a blazed trail.
This trail, however, leads down into the city’s sewers. Following the trail through the dank tunnels beneath the city, they come across the partially submerged corpse of a gnoll. Up ahead, a large, low domed chamber opens up. This, apparently, was the living space of a band of gnolls. Until something attacked and slaughtered them, anyway. And very recently, too, from the look of things. Rowan’s trail ends here. The strange thing that she notices is that the campsite is large, probably home to over 50 gnolls, maybe more. But there are scarcely a dozen bodies strewn around the chamber. As she passes by the body of the chief gnoll, his eyes flicker open and he attacks her with a mindless savagery. Rowan, Caspian and Lumi quickly dispatch the already grievously wounded gnoll, but as it dies, it growls something about snakes.
Rowan discovers a hole in the wall near the chief’s body. A blood trail leads down the hole; bodies were definitely dragged though the hole. Since the bag isn’t among the debris of the camp, it seems a third party now has the bag. Lumi can fit down the hole easily enough, but the others have to squeeze though until it opens up some 20 feet beyond. The larger tunnel slants downward at a sharp angle, but at least the trail is easy to follow. The tunnel ends, and before the party is a chasm some 25 feet across. Down, far below the range of their lights, the sound of rushing water can be heard. Across the chasm is a fair-sized ledge, and the entrance to another tunnel. Lying on the ledge is a bridge of sturdy wooden planks that can be laid across the chasm to form a bridge. Caspian volunteers to try and jump the chasm. He shrugs out of his armor, and the party casts what spells they have to increase his speed to give him a better running start.
He takes a run-up and leaps into the air, sailing across the chasm, clearing it by an almost miraculous margin. He actually lands a few feet inside the tunnel beyond the ledge. Moving the bridge into position, the party continues. They reach a large-ish chamber with the bodies of a few gnolls that have been strangely crushed and mangled. One to two dozen weapons lie scattered around the floor of the cave.
As the adventurers make their way across the broken floor of the cave to the tunnel on the other side, many of the weapons lying on the ground fly into the air and attack the party. In the dim light, they can just make out the black tentacles that hold the weapons that come swinging at them. Where the tentacles meet, a black, misshapen head like an octopus’ emerges from its hiding place. Tentacles without weapons bash into the party as well, wrapping around them and trying to crush the life out of them. Althea goes invisible, but the thing is sensitive enough to vibrations that it can still attack her with impunity. The bard goes down after being knocked senseless, still invisible.
Caspian, who’d been seized and squished, teleports a few feet away to get out of the grasp of the tentacle wrapped around him, then charges the thing’s head, dodging and jumping tentacles as he goes. He delivers a massive blow to its head, which along with Aiden’s spells and Rowan’s blades are enough to bring it down.
Gasping, the party heals themselves, and Lumi revives Althea once she becomes visible again. Collecting the weapons the creature held, they find that quite a few of them were faintly magical. One is an extremely valuable short sword. Lumi casts her old shortsword aside and yells “I call it!”
From here the tunnels continue down, but branch off into a maze of twisting and branching routes. Rowan can barely make out the blood trail now, and finally is forced to guess at a fork in the path. Her guess leads them into a large chamber. There is a stretch of rocky ground before them, and beyond this a fast-moving river of black water seething across the chamber. The river stretches a good 70 feet across. There are rope lines anchored into the stones of the floor that stretch across the river at about chest height. On the far bank of the river, pulled partway up out of the water, a raft is tethered to the ropes, enabling people to pull themselves hand-over-hand across the raging waters.
Just as the party considers climbing across the water on the ropes without the raft, Bartleby asks for a line of rope. Taking one end in his mouth, he flies across the river and lands on the raft, anchoring himself to it as best as his small clawed hands will allow. The adventurers pull the raft across the river to their side and then pull themselves back to the opposite shore.
Before them are two doorway, one relatively unmarked and leading down, the other carved into the gaping maw of a snake’s head. Bartleby volunteers to investigate the tunnel going down, and reports back a few minutes later that it’s empty save for a few storerooms with nothing interesting in them, and a closed door. He saw a snake slithering along the ground, but as far as he knows, the snake didn’t spot him.
The party, feelings of foreboding in their hearts, creeps through the carved doorway. Well, considering their light source probably gives them away, and half of them are wearing heavy armor, they can’t creep all that well.
At any rate, creeping as best they can under the circumstances, they find themselves in a large natural cavern. Ahead of them, carved into the solid rock, is an ancient temple. Steps lead up to an entranceway that is also carved in the shape of an open-mouthed snake, only much larger. The party goes cautiously into the temple, their eyes peeled. They pass through a huge hall flanked with spiraling columns (also carved like snakes. There seems to be a snake motif here.), into a circular chamber with a deep, seemingly bottomless round hole in the center of it. On the far side of the chamber, matching curved ramps move up to a platform and altar that overlook the chamber, and the hall beyond. Behind the platform is a huge statue of a snake-man that stretches almost all the way to the 70 foot ceiling. This is a temple to Mershullk, the evil snake-god of the Yuan-ti. As they turn to leave, a dry, raspy voice calls to them and asks them why they have intruded on the domain of the Yuan-ti.
A figure, colored to perfectly blend in with the marbled patterns of the walls, glides forward and rests his clawed hands on the altar above them. The party honestly responds that they just want the bag the gnolls stole, and that’s all. Although they can’t see any other creatures in the chamber, the flesh on everyone’s neck seems to be trying to crawl around to the other side of their bodies. No one doubts that they’re being watched by multiple malevolent eyes.
Suddenly Althea takes out her lute and begins strumming a strange but low, hypnotic tune. It seems to fascinate the creature above them. In a lilted voice that blends with her music, Althea tells the creature that it would be best if the noble and powerful Yuan-ti gave them the bag so it’s contents would trouble them no more, and then she and her friends could return to the surface, and it would work out well for everyone.
Amazingly, the creature agrees, and hisses some words that no one in the party understands. Moments later, two creatures with the bodies of men but the heads of snakes bring two nearly identical bags. Bartleby nudges Althea, and the party takes the bag that Bartleby identified. They slowly and carefully back away, bowing low to the creature behind the altar, who still is swaying his head in time to Althea’s hypnotic tune.
One they are out of earshot, they realize they have about a minute before the effects of Althea’s music wear off and all hell breaks loose. They bolt back through the cavern and haul ass across the river on the raft, slicing the guiding ropes when they reach the other side. Freed from it’s anchoring ropes, the raft quickly disappears into the darkness down the underground river. Then the party runs on. Fortunately Rowan’s Ranger senses are working overtime, and they navigate back through the labyrinthine tunnels quickly, only getting turned around once. Even so, they can head sounds of pursuit as they reach the chasm. Racing across, they pause long enough to heave the bridge into the chasm, and dash back up into the sewers.
They have just enough time to make it to the warehouse district before 4:00, so the party moves through the city at a jog, their odor helping to clear a path for them in places. They arrive at the shop before Brovann, and stall for time by pestering Grulluth, the tiefling who runs it. Finally Brovann appears, ducking his massive head under the doorframe, and the party heads out of the shop. Caspian turns invisible and tries to sneak back in, but something in the doorway negates his invisibility, and he sheepishly heads back outside. Outside the shop, the party makes some small talk with the five guards that accompanied Brovann. Inside, the conversation grows a bit louder in volume, making it easier on the party to eavesdrop.
Grulluth makes a few barbed comments about Brovann’s past, and Brovann tells him that he can do things here, or down at the station. The tiefling sighs heavily, then says, “All right, you win. Let me just close up here and I’ll come with you.”
Althea, curious, casts detect thoughts on Grulluth as Brovann turns to leave with a grunt. Althea gasps at the thoughts flitting across the surface of the tiefling’s mind. She shouts a warning to Brovann, but she’s a second too late, and Brovann is a second too slow at figuring out where the danger is coming from.
Grulluth’s spell hits Brovann square in the face, and the Minotaur doubles over, braying in agony as his flesh erupts in blisters and boils, and his eyes go red and begin to drip blood. He lays in the doorway, partially blocking it, spasming uncontrollably with pain.
Aiden shoots an acid arrow into Grulluth, who howls in pain himself. Pulling a scroll out of his cloak, he reads a spell that seems to fill the air with power. There is a muffled bang, and three towering creatures appear in the alley outside the store. They have faces like toads, but stand erect on two legs, and are over ten feet tall. Their arms are massive and hang almost to the creatures’ knees. At the end of each forearm, two massive bone claws stick out from their arms. Instead of attacking at first, they surprise the adventurers by casting spells! One of them tries to freeze Caspian, but he shrugs off the spell’s effect. Rowan is not so lucky, and is held helpless in place. The third slams his hand onto the ground, and a wave of chaotic energy surges out from him. Three of the guards are knocked off their feet and very nearly killed outright, and several of the party take damage as well. Rowan shakes off the effect of the paralysis and heads into the shop to aid Aiden in restraining the tiefling, who is trying to escape. Lumi casts hold person on Grullth, freezing him in place before he can flee. Aiden, not knowing how long Grulluth can be held, calls for back-up, trying to knock the tiefling out without killing him. Rowan comes to his aid; she slaps Grulluth across the temple with the flat of her longsword, knocking him unconscious. Nialia has backed into the shop and is singing her haunting melody, which throws off the hulking brutes by enough of a margin that Caspian, Lumi and Rowan (who ran back outside after dealing with the tiefling) can evade many of the blows that would otherwise have really, really hurt. The two guards who survived the creatures’ initial attack are not so lucky. Claws rip apart one guard, then cuts another one nearly in half. It takes a while, but finally the party manages to bring down first one, then another, and finally the last one succumbs to it’s multiple wounds and pops back out of existence.
They help Brovann to his feet while Lumi franticly stabilizes the three guards who hadn’t been ripped open. She manages to save them, much to the appreciation of a badly shaken Brovann. Unfortunately, even though they paralyzed Grulluth without killing him, there was still an acid arrow in his side, dissolving his insides. He is quite dead when they finally try to bring him around.
For any other group, this would be a serious impediment to the interrogation process, but not to Lumienne “The Corpse Whisperer” Tilok! The gnome cleric sighs as she casts speak with dead for the third time in a day. While the corpse of Grulluth doesn’t know where Colwyn Daystar is, or who the leader of the Jeredrakes is, or if they work for the Vaniri (the corpse answers that they work for whoever pays them), they do learn that the Jeredrakes can be found in the brown house by the centaur fountain in the old town area.
The party notifies the nearest watch house to send aid to Brovann, who remains behind at Grulluth’s store. Then they report to the office of the High Sherrif of Fallo as Brovann asked them to. The High Sheriff is a kind but stern man, as focused as he is charismatic. He has the party dictate their findings under the city to several clerks.
Finally, as the sun sets, the weary party heads to their hotel and eats a hearty dinner. Going up to Rowan’s room, they finally have a chance to pull out Colwyn’s bag they got from the Yuan-ti! In it is a large sum of money and jewels, and a ring of sustenance. However, there is a second ring that Bartleby squeaks in delight to see.
It turns out the ring is actually a ring gate. When the command word is spoken, the ring enlarges to a diameter of about 18 inches. The other ring is set in a storeroom of Colwyn’s which he magically hid somewhere. With baited breath the party sends Bartelby through to see what’s in the storeroom. He tosses out some clothes, a few trinkets, but that’s it. He pokes his head back through the hole and speaks to everyone.
“Sorry, guys, but there’s nothing else in there.”
Everyone’s face falls. Back to square one…
“Except these torn pages!” yells the Pseudodragon’s voice in their heads. He pops all the way out of the ring gate, holding the missing pages in his claws and grinning like only a dragon can. The pages are all there. Finally, their job is done!
There’s a knock at the door. The party has a message that was delivered to them. Curious and wary, Rowan opens the note and reads it. The note says that the author of the note has a certain priestess in his possession, and wishes to make an exchange: the book for the priestess. If the party agrees, they are to hang a lantern outside the window of any one of their rooms, and more instructions will follow.
The note is simply signed “J”, and underneath is the all-too familiar seal of the Jeredrakes…
In-Game Date: Wainsday, Grimander 12, mid-morning -- night.
The party is trudging back to the Royal Temple when Rowan gets an idea. “Hey, do you think Brovann would let us cast speak with dead on the noble Colwyn was supposed to have murdered?”
Even though the party knew Colwyn was framed, and now have evidence to prove it, this course of action might provide them with a few more pieces of the puzzle.
The party finds Brovann and informs him that they have proof that Colwyn was framed, and that the Jeredrakes are behind it. Brovann agrees to come with them to the home of the bor-Kennets, and to ask Lady Aseara, Meder’s sister, if they can speak with Meder’s corpse to try and find her brother’s killer.
She gives her consent, and Lumi finds herself casting speak with dead for the second time that morning. She casts it, but demands that she be bought candy later on. The corpse gives some answers, but also raises more questions. They find that the person who murdered him was not Colwyn. On a hunch, they ask the corpse what it knows about Jeredrakes. The corpse replies that the word means Dragonlord in an ancient tongue. The corpse tells them that the argument the servants heard was actually because there was another buyer interested in the book, and Meder was refusing to divulge the buyer’s identity. The corpse, however, has no problem telling the party who the buyer was: an agent of the Vaniri Empire.
Armed with that disturbing piece of information, they drop Kitala, who still seems either angry or depressed or both, off at the temple. Rowan mentions to Brovann that the shady arms dealer in the warehouse district seemed to know something about the Jeredrakes. Brovann tells them he’ll go and drag the shopkeeper in for some questioning. The party offers to help, but Brovann says they’d be interfering in City Watch business. He tells them it would do them no GOOD to be IN THE AREA around 4:00 when he makes the bust. With a smirk, he heads off to attend to filling out reports.
The party, meanwhile, has some time to kill, so they decide to pay a call on the Baroness Tarmikos. They arrive in time for lunch, and the baroness and her consort tell the party that they have found things out about their quarry, Colwyn Daystar, but it’s unfortunately nothing they don’t already know. On the plus side, lunch is very good, and afterwards Rowan asks if the baroness has a way to communicate with Kartharine. The baroness remembers she has an old mirror in her basement that can probably do the trick. She has it brought up, and speaks the incantations necessary to call up Kartharine back in Brindinsford. Kartharine is pleased that they have the book, but is very concerned that the pages may be in the hands of some enemy. She tells the party to keep looking, but if another week goes by with nothing to show, that they should just head back to Brindinsford with what they have. She also says it is imperative that they book be shown to as few people as possible, if it must be shown at all. (Brovann mentioned that city officials may want to see the book as evidence in the now-reopened case of Meder’s murder.)
After departing from House Tarmikos, Althea hears a strange small voice in her head. She turns her head, startled, to find Bartleby staring at her from his perch on her shoulder. It turns out that Bartleby (and all pseudodragons) can communicate telepathically, but Bartleby was playing dumb because he wasn’t sure he could trust them. But now that he saw them talking to Kartharine, he knows they’re on the level. He tells them that he has a few of his master’s effects (and a lot of his master’s money) in a bag that he secreted on a rooftop nearby his master’s apartment. Bartleby is fairly certain that the bag doesn’t contain any missing pages, but can’t be sure.
The party goes to the building in question: a two-story building belonging to the city sanitation. Bartleby flies up to the roof and finds to his dismay that the bag is missing. The party breaks into the building and makes their way up to the roof. Rowan and Aiden spot a few signs that some creatures were up here in the last 24 hours. Rowan casts a tracking spell that allows her to read the nearly non-existent tracks as easily as a blazed trail.
This trail, however, leads down into the city’s sewers. Following the trail through the dank tunnels beneath the city, they come across the partially submerged corpse of a gnoll. Up ahead, a large, low domed chamber opens up. This, apparently, was the living space of a band of gnolls. Until something attacked and slaughtered them, anyway. And very recently, too, from the look of things. Rowan’s trail ends here. The strange thing that she notices is that the campsite is large, probably home to over 50 gnolls, maybe more. But there are scarcely a dozen bodies strewn around the chamber. As she passes by the body of the chief gnoll, his eyes flicker open and he attacks her with a mindless savagery. Rowan, Caspian and Lumi quickly dispatch the already grievously wounded gnoll, but as it dies, it growls something about snakes.
Rowan discovers a hole in the wall near the chief’s body. A blood trail leads down the hole; bodies were definitely dragged though the hole. Since the bag isn’t among the debris of the camp, it seems a third party now has the bag. Lumi can fit down the hole easily enough, but the others have to squeeze though until it opens up some 20 feet beyond. The larger tunnel slants downward at a sharp angle, but at least the trail is easy to follow. The tunnel ends, and before the party is a chasm some 25 feet across. Down, far below the range of their lights, the sound of rushing water can be heard. Across the chasm is a fair-sized ledge, and the entrance to another tunnel. Lying on the ledge is a bridge of sturdy wooden planks that can be laid across the chasm to form a bridge. Caspian volunteers to try and jump the chasm. He shrugs out of his armor, and the party casts what spells they have to increase his speed to give him a better running start.
He takes a run-up and leaps into the air, sailing across the chasm, clearing it by an almost miraculous margin. He actually lands a few feet inside the tunnel beyond the ledge. Moving the bridge into position, the party continues. They reach a large-ish chamber with the bodies of a few gnolls that have been strangely crushed and mangled. One to two dozen weapons lie scattered around the floor of the cave.
As the adventurers make their way across the broken floor of the cave to the tunnel on the other side, many of the weapons lying on the ground fly into the air and attack the party. In the dim light, they can just make out the black tentacles that hold the weapons that come swinging at them. Where the tentacles meet, a black, misshapen head like an octopus’ emerges from its hiding place. Tentacles without weapons bash into the party as well, wrapping around them and trying to crush the life out of them. Althea goes invisible, but the thing is sensitive enough to vibrations that it can still attack her with impunity. The bard goes down after being knocked senseless, still invisible.
Caspian, who’d been seized and squished, teleports a few feet away to get out of the grasp of the tentacle wrapped around him, then charges the thing’s head, dodging and jumping tentacles as he goes. He delivers a massive blow to its head, which along with Aiden’s spells and Rowan’s blades are enough to bring it down.
Gasping, the party heals themselves, and Lumi revives Althea once she becomes visible again. Collecting the weapons the creature held, they find that quite a few of them were faintly magical. One is an extremely valuable short sword. Lumi casts her old shortsword aside and yells “I call it!”
From here the tunnels continue down, but branch off into a maze of twisting and branching routes. Rowan can barely make out the blood trail now, and finally is forced to guess at a fork in the path. Her guess leads them into a large chamber. There is a stretch of rocky ground before them, and beyond this a fast-moving river of black water seething across the chamber. The river stretches a good 70 feet across. There are rope lines anchored into the stones of the floor that stretch across the river at about chest height. On the far bank of the river, pulled partway up out of the water, a raft is tethered to the ropes, enabling people to pull themselves hand-over-hand across the raging waters.
Just as the party considers climbing across the water on the ropes without the raft, Bartleby asks for a line of rope. Taking one end in his mouth, he flies across the river and lands on the raft, anchoring himself to it as best as his small clawed hands will allow. The adventurers pull the raft across the river to their side and then pull themselves back to the opposite shore.
Before them are two doorway, one relatively unmarked and leading down, the other carved into the gaping maw of a snake’s head. Bartleby volunteers to investigate the tunnel going down, and reports back a few minutes later that it’s empty save for a few storerooms with nothing interesting in them, and a closed door. He saw a snake slithering along the ground, but as far as he knows, the snake didn’t spot him.
The party, feelings of foreboding in their hearts, creeps through the carved doorway. Well, considering their light source probably gives them away, and half of them are wearing heavy armor, they can’t creep all that well.
At any rate, creeping as best they can under the circumstances, they find themselves in a large natural cavern. Ahead of them, carved into the solid rock, is an ancient temple. Steps lead up to an entranceway that is also carved in the shape of an open-mouthed snake, only much larger. The party goes cautiously into the temple, their eyes peeled. They pass through a huge hall flanked with spiraling columns (also carved like snakes. There seems to be a snake motif here.), into a circular chamber with a deep, seemingly bottomless round hole in the center of it. On the far side of the chamber, matching curved ramps move up to a platform and altar that overlook the chamber, and the hall beyond. Behind the platform is a huge statue of a snake-man that stretches almost all the way to the 70 foot ceiling. This is a temple to Mershullk, the evil snake-god of the Yuan-ti. As they turn to leave, a dry, raspy voice calls to them and asks them why they have intruded on the domain of the Yuan-ti.
A figure, colored to perfectly blend in with the marbled patterns of the walls, glides forward and rests his clawed hands on the altar above them. The party honestly responds that they just want the bag the gnolls stole, and that’s all. Although they can’t see any other creatures in the chamber, the flesh on everyone’s neck seems to be trying to crawl around to the other side of their bodies. No one doubts that they’re being watched by multiple malevolent eyes.
Suddenly Althea takes out her lute and begins strumming a strange but low, hypnotic tune. It seems to fascinate the creature above them. In a lilted voice that blends with her music, Althea tells the creature that it would be best if the noble and powerful Yuan-ti gave them the bag so it’s contents would trouble them no more, and then she and her friends could return to the surface, and it would work out well for everyone.
Amazingly, the creature agrees, and hisses some words that no one in the party understands. Moments later, two creatures with the bodies of men but the heads of snakes bring two nearly identical bags. Bartleby nudges Althea, and the party takes the bag that Bartleby identified. They slowly and carefully back away, bowing low to the creature behind the altar, who still is swaying his head in time to Althea’s hypnotic tune.
One they are out of earshot, they realize they have about a minute before the effects of Althea’s music wear off and all hell breaks loose. They bolt back through the cavern and haul ass across the river on the raft, slicing the guiding ropes when they reach the other side. Freed from it’s anchoring ropes, the raft quickly disappears into the darkness down the underground river. Then the party runs on. Fortunately Rowan’s Ranger senses are working overtime, and they navigate back through the labyrinthine tunnels quickly, only getting turned around once. Even so, they can head sounds of pursuit as they reach the chasm. Racing across, they pause long enough to heave the bridge into the chasm, and dash back up into the sewers.
They have just enough time to make it to the warehouse district before 4:00, so the party moves through the city at a jog, their odor helping to clear a path for them in places. They arrive at the shop before Brovann, and stall for time by pestering Grulluth, the tiefling who runs it. Finally Brovann appears, ducking his massive head under the doorframe, and the party heads out of the shop. Caspian turns invisible and tries to sneak back in, but something in the doorway negates his invisibility, and he sheepishly heads back outside. Outside the shop, the party makes some small talk with the five guards that accompanied Brovann. Inside, the conversation grows a bit louder in volume, making it easier on the party to eavesdrop.
Grulluth makes a few barbed comments about Brovann’s past, and Brovann tells him that he can do things here, or down at the station. The tiefling sighs heavily, then says, “All right, you win. Let me just close up here and I’ll come with you.”
Althea, curious, casts detect thoughts on Grulluth as Brovann turns to leave with a grunt. Althea gasps at the thoughts flitting across the surface of the tiefling’s mind. She shouts a warning to Brovann, but she’s a second too late, and Brovann is a second too slow at figuring out where the danger is coming from.
Grulluth’s spell hits Brovann square in the face, and the Minotaur doubles over, braying in agony as his flesh erupts in blisters and boils, and his eyes go red and begin to drip blood. He lays in the doorway, partially blocking it, spasming uncontrollably with pain.
Aiden shoots an acid arrow into Grulluth, who howls in pain himself. Pulling a scroll out of his cloak, he reads a spell that seems to fill the air with power. There is a muffled bang, and three towering creatures appear in the alley outside the store. They have faces like toads, but stand erect on two legs, and are over ten feet tall. Their arms are massive and hang almost to the creatures’ knees. At the end of each forearm, two massive bone claws stick out from their arms. Instead of attacking at first, they surprise the adventurers by casting spells! One of them tries to freeze Caspian, but he shrugs off the spell’s effect. Rowan is not so lucky, and is held helpless in place. The third slams his hand onto the ground, and a wave of chaotic energy surges out from him. Three of the guards are knocked off their feet and very nearly killed outright, and several of the party take damage as well. Rowan shakes off the effect of the paralysis and heads into the shop to aid Aiden in restraining the tiefling, who is trying to escape. Lumi casts hold person on Grullth, freezing him in place before he can flee. Aiden, not knowing how long Grulluth can be held, calls for back-up, trying to knock the tiefling out without killing him. Rowan comes to his aid; she slaps Grulluth across the temple with the flat of her longsword, knocking him unconscious. Nialia has backed into the shop and is singing her haunting melody, which throws off the hulking brutes by enough of a margin that Caspian, Lumi and Rowan (who ran back outside after dealing with the tiefling) can evade many of the blows that would otherwise have really, really hurt. The two guards who survived the creatures’ initial attack are not so lucky. Claws rip apart one guard, then cuts another one nearly in half. It takes a while, but finally the party manages to bring down first one, then another, and finally the last one succumbs to it’s multiple wounds and pops back out of existence.
They help Brovann to his feet while Lumi franticly stabilizes the three guards who hadn’t been ripped open. She manages to save them, much to the appreciation of a badly shaken Brovann. Unfortunately, even though they paralyzed Grulluth without killing him, there was still an acid arrow in his side, dissolving his insides. He is quite dead when they finally try to bring him around.
For any other group, this would be a serious impediment to the interrogation process, but not to Lumienne “The Corpse Whisperer” Tilok! The gnome cleric sighs as she casts speak with dead for the third time in a day. While the corpse of Grulluth doesn’t know where Colwyn Daystar is, or who the leader of the Jeredrakes is, or if they work for the Vaniri (the corpse answers that they work for whoever pays them), they do learn that the Jeredrakes can be found in the brown house by the centaur fountain in the old town area.
The party notifies the nearest watch house to send aid to Brovann, who remains behind at Grulluth’s store. Then they report to the office of the High Sherrif of Fallo as Brovann asked them to. The High Sheriff is a kind but stern man, as focused as he is charismatic. He has the party dictate their findings under the city to several clerks.
Finally, as the sun sets, the weary party heads to their hotel and eats a hearty dinner. Going up to Rowan’s room, they finally have a chance to pull out Colwyn’s bag they got from the Yuan-ti! In it is a large sum of money and jewels, and a ring of sustenance. However, there is a second ring that Bartleby squeaks in delight to see.
It turns out the ring is actually a ring gate. When the command word is spoken, the ring enlarges to a diameter of about 18 inches. The other ring is set in a storeroom of Colwyn’s which he magically hid somewhere. With baited breath the party sends Bartelby through to see what’s in the storeroom. He tosses out some clothes, a few trinkets, but that’s it. He pokes his head back through the hole and speaks to everyone.
“Sorry, guys, but there’s nothing else in there.”
Everyone’s face falls. Back to square one…
“Except these torn pages!” yells the Pseudodragon’s voice in their heads. He pops all the way out of the ring gate, holding the missing pages in his claws and grinning like only a dragon can. The pages are all there. Finally, their job is done!
There’s a knock at the door. The party has a message that was delivered to them. Curious and wary, Rowan opens the note and reads it. The note says that the author of the note has a certain priestess in his possession, and wishes to make an exchange: the book for the priestess. If the party agrees, they are to hang a lantern outside the window of any one of their rooms, and more instructions will follow.
The note is simply signed “J”, and underneath is the all-too familiar seal of the Jeredrakes…
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