Arcanis: Gonnes, Sons, and Treasure Runs (COMPLETED)

A Walk in the Park: Part 2a – The Encounter by the Canal

Dril arrived just in time to see two byakhee crash to the ground. From the thorax stretched two wings, two limbs, and a head. Two additionally clawed limbs grew from the forepart of the opisthosoma. They screech and croaked as they landed, fixing Kham with terrible eyes.

Beldin charged at one of the things while Vlad attacked the other. They had fought the creatures before. Both of the warriors kept their shields up to hold snapping jaws at bay.

Sebastian pointed at one of the byakhee. “Radius Incensio!”

Spiraling flames scorched the beast. It reacted with an unnatural wail.

Kham dove and rolled past the two squawking monstrosities. “I’m coming for you Quelch!”

Quelch pointed at Kham. “Glacialis cursus!”

“That won’t work on me!” Kham’s voice was slurred.

“Kham!” shouted Dril. “Wait!” He lowered to one knee, aimed, and fired his rifle at the byakhee fighting Beldin.

Quelch pointed at Vlad next. “Glacialis cursus!”

Vlad’s eyes widened as he moved to take a step forward. The byakhee nearest him launched itself into the air, bringing all of its claws to bear on his shield. “I can’t move my legs!” he shouted.

With one of its wings perforated by Dril’s shot, Beldin waited for the byakhee’s neck to dart forward. When it did, he hacked downwards, beheading it.

Dril reloaded his rifle. “We’ve got to stop Kham before he gets to Quelch.”

“Stop Kham?” shouted Vlad. “What about me?”

“No problem,” said Beldin. He swung his axe in a wide arc, forcing the beast back.

Quelch pointed at Beldin. “Fas: Fugio!”

A slack-jawed expression overcame Beldin. He turned and ran.

“Radius Incensio!” shouted Sebastian. More blazing rays struck the remaining byakhee. It fell to the ground, a smoldering pile of melted flesh and bone.

“That’s enough from you, sorcerer,” said Quelch. “Vomica del Puter Corpus!”

Sebastian gasped as his flesh began to rot. He looked at his hands, watching his fingers peel and burst like rotten fruit. Sebastian struggled to contain his stomach as it groaned beneath his robes. It split and gushed, his organs spilling out of his body…

“What’s wrong with Sebastian?” shouted Vlad.

The dark-kin wailed and fell to the ground, unconscious, but he was otherwise unharmed.

Kham drew Talon from over the sheath across his shoulders. “Where!” he shouted, “IS! COOMBS?!”

Quelch ducked sideways and pointed at Kham. A hissing, bubbling gout of filthy black energy seared towards him. It tore a hole through Kham’s coat, which writhed at the unholy ray’s touch.

Dril drew both of his blades as Beldin returned. “We’re going to have to press him! We can’t keep this up!”

Beldin nodded, his face red from the embarrassment he suffered at Quelch’s hands. “Now he’s made me mad!”

They charged forward behind Kham.

“Mad?” shouted Quelch. “You have not seen Hastur’s fury yet, fools. Niger evum!”

A wall of black, rubbery tentacles boiled out of the ground. Before Beldin and Dril could react, they were held aloft, each limb wrapped and squeezed by the tentacles.

Vlad watched from afar, helpless. There was nothing he could do. He was going to watch his friends die like dogs in the street of Freeport.

Or maybe there was. He reached for his crossbow.

A Walk in the Park: Part 2b – The Encounter by the Canal

“Those tentacles won’t stop me, Quelch!” shouted Kham. “You’re running out of tricks!” He tumbled and flipped past the squirming wall of black limbs, landing right next to the antiques dealer.

“Manus de Colubra!” shouted Quelch. His arms warped and undulated, transforming into hissing snakes. It was enough to even give Kham pause.

Talon smacked one of the snakeheads as it darted towards Kham’s head. There was a sharp pain in his thigh as the other mouth connected. He smashed the hilt of his scimitar into the snakehead and it let go.

The burning sensation burrowed its way up his thigh. Poison!

“Where’s Coombs, you son of a bitch?” snarled Kham. He took a staggering step forward. “I’ll kill you!”

The snake arms bobbed and weaved, looking for an opening. Quelch knew it was only a matter of time until the poison took effect. “Kill me? All because Coombs blew up Freeport?”

“He killed…” Kham wavered. He was having problems focusing. “He killed…my father.”

“No,” sneered Quelch. “You killed your father. One does not leave the vassalage of the King in Yellow lightly.” The arms rose up—

A crossbow bolt jutted from Quelch’s forehead. Even such a killing blow only stunned him, causing him to slip backwards. He disappeared off the side of bridge.

Kham dropped Talon and stumbled over to the edge. Both of Quelch’s unnatural arms hung by their teeth, clinging to the bridge as the cold water dragged at him.

“Don’t let him go, Kham!” shouted Dril. “We need him!”

Kham looked down at Quelch, vision blurred by rage and tears. Slowly, he took a pistol out.

“Kham!” shouted Beldin. “Put down the pistol down! Throw it away!”

Quelch glared up at Kham. “It’s surprising how easily one can purchase information from the men in your Society.”

“What did you say?” asked Kham.

“I don’t know what it’s like to have a loving father,” said Quelch. “He seemed like a good man. But that wasn’t enough to save him, was it?”

The pistol trembled in Kham’s hand as he brought the barrel to point at Quelch’s forehead.

“Kham, listen to me,” said Dril. “Don’t do this. He’s our only link to Coombs.”

There was a millisecond pause. Kham changed the angle of fire.

BLAM!

He blew one of Quelch’s arms to pieces in a splattering explosion.

Quelch screamed, his left arm flapping uselessly. The one good snakehead still clung to the bridge.

Kham aimed again and shot Quelch in the leg. Quelch shrieked, rolling, incapable of letting go of the bridge.

Kham shot Quelch in the other arm. He spasmed, wrenching as the flesh tore and snapped. Still gurgling in pain, Quelch disappeared into the waters.

“I know where his house is,” slurred Kham. Before they could say anything else, he left.

The tentacles retracted into the ground. Sebastian blinked and sat straight up. Vlad was free. Quelch’s curses were fleeting in their efficacy, but his words were far more painful.

“We’d better catch up with him before he hurts himself,” said Sebastian.

A Walk in the Park: Part 3a – Exploring Quelch’s House

Quelch’s house had three stories and a cellar. The entire place was very untidy, dirty, and dusty; packing cases, boxes and old newspapers took up nearly all the available floor space, whilst books, bills and manifolds littered every other surface, including the stairs. The ground floor had a selection of middling quality furniture.

Kham walked through the place in a haze. The first floor had more than a thousand occult, theological, and philosophical books shelved in no particular order. A quick glance indicated that some were quite rare, some extremely rare.

Nine steps lead down from the ground floor into the small cellar area. He crept down the steps. It was a five-foot high space meant for nothing more than coal storage. The stench was horrible.

Moonlight illuminated the stairwell from above. Something glittered in a dark corner.

Kham crept over to it. It was a vial. An empty vial, with a grayish liquid still at the bottom.

He sniffed it. He put a pinky inside the vial and tasted it.

Kham knew the taste. He laced his wine with it. Ghoul juice.

Two red dots hung in the air in the corner. It took Kham a moment to realize they were a pair of eyes.

Something roughly bipedal, with a vaguely canine aspect, came slouching out of the hole. It had a rubbery hide, a mold-caked body, half-hoofed feet, and scaled claws used for burrowing.

It moved forward, sniffing and huffing. It circled him. Kham didn’t move.

More came out of the hole. Three. Four. Five.

They circled him, sniffing and hooting softly to each other. And all the while the red eyes watched him, drinking him in.

There was a shout behind Kham. It might have been Vlad, but he wasn’t sure. Sounds of combat. Screams.

“Ghouls!” shouted Vlad.

They overwhelmed the Milandisian. Grasping claws clutched at Vlad, yanking him into the enveloping womb of darkness. Kham caught a glimpse of his feet disappearing into the tunnel.

“Stand back!” Sebastian shouted behind Kham. “Incendiaries globus!”

Flames licked around him.

Kham sat, slouched in the corner, oblivious.

He just rocked himself and whispered over and over. “Why didn’t they attack me?”

Uh-oh -- a villain "dying" by falling dramatically into the water and being swept away. You know what that means...

That's right! Never count an enemy dead unless you are physically in possession of his dead body.

And then you cremate it.

And then you spread the ashes.

And then cast a wish to wish that he can never be brought back.

A Walk in the Park: Part 3b – Exploring Quelch’s House

Vlad couldn’t move. Paralyzed from head to toe, he could only watch with wide, staring eyes as the ghouls dragged him from their tunnel to…

Someplace familiar. It was the Well-Dressed Man’s drug den! The place still stank of snakeweed and abyss dust, but those odors competed with a more powerful smell: human sweat and filth. About a dozen ghouls were sprawled about the room in various stages of drug-induced stupor or drug-deprived delirium tremens. The cushions, curtains, and just about everything else that wasn’t nailed into place had been uprooted and ruined. Several slogans, written in a substance he’d rather not identify, covered the walls.

Ghouls gathered around him, their red eyes burrowing into his soul. Gleaming wet maws moved closer…

There was a shout. One of the ghouls looked over its shoulder and then, like a rabid dog, barked and ran. The others scattered like roaches.

Dril popped into view. “You okay?”

Vlad struggled to respond.

“Look at those scratches.” Beldin’s bushy beard became visible. “He’s infected.”

The bite and scratch marks from the ghouls had turned a purplish black.

“Infected?” managed Vlad. He propped himself up on his elbows. “Infected with what?”

“How long do you think it will take?” asked Dril.

“Don’t know,” said Beldin.

“Well, we can’t just leave him here,” said Dril.

“What do you mean by infected?” asked Vlad, his voice rising.

“There’s got to be some means of stopping it,” said Dril.

“Well, we can’t do it here,” Beldin replied. “If he turns—“

“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?!” shouted Vlad.

“We’d better get you to Peg-Leg,” said Beldin. “If those really are ghouls, you’re going to turn into one of them soon. I’ve seen a pack of ghouls burrow their way into a dwarf colony. One week later the place was lousy with them. We had to burn the whole colony out. Nasty stuff.”

Vlad swallowed hard. He looked sick. “Now I really don’t feel so good. What about Kham? Those ghouls treated him like a brother or something. It was weird.”

Beldin peered past the wall, looking out through boarded up windows into the den of scum and villainy that was Scurvytown. “What are ghouls doing in a drug den?”

“The more important question is, why does a drug den have ghouls in it?” Dril kicked at a pile of empty vials; they were everywhere.

“Ghoul juice,” said Vlad.

“If the ghoul juice makes ghouls, and ghouls make other ghouls…” Beldin was cut off by something howling in the distance. It wasn’t a dog. But it wasn’t quite human either.

Dril frowned. “Look.” He nodded towards one wall.

On the wall was the usual infantile graffiti, which included “Orcs go home!” But there was one message written in blood that was separate from all the others.

It read: Beware His Return.

A Walk in the Park: Conclusion

When they arrived at The Last Resort, there was another note for Kham. After explaining what they had witnessed, Bobbin dropped all pretense of protecting Kham’s privacy.

“I found this in his room.” He handed Vlad a letter. “Look at the return address.”

Vlad’s brow furrowed. “Corinalous val’Abebi.” He passed it on to Dril.

“Either this is someone’s idea of a cruel joke,” said Dril, “or it was sent before he died.” Dril turned the envelope upside down and the letter slipped out. “Kham read it already.”

The letter spoke of Lucius and of his book, The Walker by the Lake. But it was the second visit that was most intriguing,

Corinalous had brought papers with him, transcriptions from Lucius’ book, and read a passage from it in Milandisian to Lucius. Not being skilled at languages, he stumbled over the phrases, but then Lucius responded. He spoke the text along with Corinalous. As Lucius did so, Corinalous stopped reciting and tried to engage him.

Lucius kept speaking and it became clearly that he was overly excited. Corinalous reached out to touch his shoulder. As he did so, he suddenly felt very weak.

As Lucius spoke, Corinalous was no longer in the cell. He was walking in a park and was looking at the buildings across the way. Corinalous knew it was not a dream; it was in the detail and the normalcy: the mallards setting up their noise and up ahead the paperboy calling. The sun was setting.

Corinalous reached into his pocket for a copper for The Shipping News, and as he did he heard a scuffed step behind him. He turned.

A sharp-faced man, quite tall, held Corinalous’ gaze. “A package for you, sir,” he said.

He handed Corinalous a box with an elaborate bow. Corinalous undid the bow and discovered a tall jar inside with five gems. When he removed the jeweled stopper from the jar’s neck, the world exploded in flames.

When Corinalous opened his eyes, he was looking up at the sky. And there was the paperboy’s white face. He tried to say something to reassure him but couldn’t. And then Corinalous knew no more.

The next thing Corinalous knew, he was lying on the floor. The Tombs guard was down on one knee, giving Corinalous assistance, and Lucius stood above them.

Lucius face was his old one and very sad. “I am very sorry, Corinalous,” he said. “I cannot change what you saw.”

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Chapter 33: The Seventh Sin - Introduction

This is a Living Arcanis adventure set in the Freeport setting, written by Simon Collins. You can read more about Arcanis at http://www.onaraonline.org. Please note: This adventure contains spoilers!

Our cast of characters includes:

• Dungeon Master: Michael Tresca (http://michael.tresca.net)
• Beldin Soulforge (dwarf fighter) played by Joe Lalumia
• Sebastian Arnyal (dark-kin sorcerer) played by George Webster
• Vlad Martell (human fighter) played by Matt Hammer

I did something different with this adventure. Ilmarė had been away for awhile and I wanted to wrap up a few loose ends with Ymandragore. So instead of simply just having Ilmarė return from her soul-searching trip in becoming a Keeper of the Belisardan Sign, I thought it was appropriate to have a few reminders that Freeport is increasingly becoming a dangerous place.

What’s interesting is that Ilmarė was kidnapped pretty easily despite all her defenses against mind-control powers; she rolled a 1 on her Will save against Vladimir’s first spell. Additionally, this adventure tied in events of Tatters of the King (I replaced Aleister Crowely with Talathiel and the Golden Dawn with the Golden Pillar Society). It propels the plot forward in strange ways.

As usual, things didn’t go exactly as I planned. Talathiel didn’t quite get to impart all the information I expected (in fact, he got dragged in as an innocent bystander), and the fight with Vladimir was much deadlier than anticipated. Still, our three heroes managed to save the fair maiden.

Now if we can just get the Forty-Second Act of Debauchery out of our heads. Ick.

The Seventh Sin: Prologue

Ilmarė was on her way to the Marquis Moon, a new agreed-upon meeting point that Kham picked, when she felt a strange tingling sensation from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes.

Her body was completely frozen. Only then did a man limp out of the alleys of Freeport.

He was of medium height and build, with hair missing in clumps on his head. He had sunken brown eyes and wore a brown cloak with a small silver clasp in the form of an owl.

Ilmarė recognized him. It was the Commandant from Ymandragore.

“Well,” he rasped, “it seems I’ve finally caught up with you.” The Commandant was overcome by wracking coughs. “My name is Vladimir val’Sheem. I want you to know that it was I who ruined you, just as you ruined my country.”

Vladimir reached for Ilmarė’s head and removed her helmet. “We’ll just take this little trinket.” Then he tugged the rings off her fingers. “And these.”

Vladimir paused, peering at the amulet around Ilmarė’s neck. “And I’ll take this as proof.” He snapped it off her throat.

“Now my dear. It’s time for you to go meet your new friends. Follow me, please.”

Ilmarė followed him behind the Marquis Moon. Vladimir lifted up a sewer grate. He pointed down at the stinking depths.

Against her will, she descended.

“I’m going to leave you in the care of some associates of mine,” said Vladimir with a malicious sneer. “They will take…good care of you.”

A striking woman with long dark red hair and a lithe body stood before a gleaming silver door, bright and seemingly unaffected by its fetid surroundings. Set in the center of the door, at about chest height, was a large golden circle. A few lines of text were engraved within the circle. The door was hot; Ilmarė could feel the warmth emanating from it.

Before she could make out more, the woman blocked her vision.

“An elorii, Vladimir.” The woman stroked Ilmarė’s cheek. “Just as you promised.” She seemed impressed. “She will do nicely.”

“Make her suffer,” snarled Vladimir. He whirled and disappears out of Ilmarė’s field of vision.

The woman turned back, whispering something to the door. It opened before her.

In stark contrast to the sewers behind Ilmarė, the room was decorated in sumptuous style, hung with rich silks and curtains of wine-red and gold. The stale air reeked of perfume, body odors, and a cloying sweetness that was hard to define.

Several masked figures stared at you expectantly, dressed in revealing robes. An immensely tall, well-muscled man with a topknot dominated the room, his skin covered in strange tattoos. The man remained masked, and held the only obvious weapon in the room – a whip.

“Perfect,” said the man. He lifted his hands up to face the ceiling. “Oh Larissa, Mistress of the Forbidden Pleasures and the Temptress of the Pure! Oh ye, Divine Harlot of the Sixty-Seven Acts of Debauchery! We, your loyal servants, offer you this sacrifice.”

The held a goblet filled with blood-red wine to Ilmarė’s lips. Against her will, she drank it.

All went dark. Just before she lost consciousness, she heard, “Let the forty-second act of debauchery begin!”

The Seventh Sin: Part 1 – The Missing Elorii

The Indecipherable Scroll was a small, narrow tavern on the western edge of Freeport. A red-faced, sweating minstrel was just finishing a song as you enter, casually accepting the crowd's applause as he prepares to take a break.

The crowd itself appeared to be a young and eclectic mix of students, artists, and wealthy young adults with no obvious occupation. As the applause faded, intense discussions of literature and local politics raged, instead of the sea shanties and drunken arguments that were more common in Freeport's taverns.

The bartender was a wiry, clean-shaven man in a stylish red doublet. He occasionally engaged in brief conversations with a middle-aged, bespectacled woman who surveyed the crowd from behind the bar.

The minstrel was drinking lustily from a bottle of cheap red wine. He had the face of a man who lived a long life in a relatively short time, and not an easy life at that.

Beldin Soulforge joined the minstrel at the table. “I’m looking for information.” He clanked a bottle of expensive wine on the table.

The minstrel perked up. “How may Zako Sebesteyen serve you, noble dwarf?”

“I’m looking for an Osalikene elorii woman with silver and purple hair. Have you seen her? She’s a gifted singer, like yourself.”

Zako poured himself a drink from the new bottle. His breath and slightly slurred words suggested that it wasn’t first drink of the evening. “Ah yes! Quite a looker, not fond of humans?”

“That’s her.”

“Ilmarė Galen. I’m afraid I don’t know her well. You might try Vikki Haddon.” He nodded towards a nervous-looking woman in the car corner of the tavern. “She’s the daughter of Aljandros Haddon. She’s quite nervous these days, and in my experience nervous people usually know something they should not.”

Beldin nodded. “Thanks, friend.” He made his way over to the woman.

Blending in with the crowd of students and artists was a petite, auburn-haired woman. Vikki was attractive but not stunning, dressed in flattering but not overtly sexy clothing. She moved casually through the crowd, listening much more than she spoke.

Vikki eyed Beldin’s approach warily. “Yes?”

“I’m looking for an elorii.” Beldin had rehearsed the speech several times and it showed. “Zako mentioned you might have seen her. She’s an Osalikene elorii woman with silver and purple hair.”

Vikki pursed her lips. “I have information regarding this elorii. I think we can help each other. But you must help me first.”

Beldin arched a bushy eyebrow. “How so?”

“My friend saw the elorii kidnapped. But she’s in a bit of trouble right now and needs to get out of Freeport. If you agree to help her get to the mainland, discreetly, she will tell you everything she knows.”

Beldin stroked his beard. “In that case, I think we can help each other.”