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Story Hour
Erkonin (Campaign #2) [Session 45: Rajalmin's Agent]
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<blockquote data-quote="prabe" data-source="post: 8171585" data-attributes="member: 7016699"><p>Session 27: Those Poor Unfortunate Souls</p><p></p><p>Dramatis Personae:</p><p></p><p>Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Druid</p><p>Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest)</p><p>Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul)</p><p>Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster)</p><p>Marxine Deepfoot - Dwarf Fighter (Champion)/Paladin</p><p></p><p>GM - Everyone Else</p><p></p><p>(Note: This session was held on Discord.)</p><p></p><p>We ended the previous session taking a long rest -- we had been pointed to Tomud Grennett, the person with the Green Hand the madam at Tilla’s paid rent to and planned to go see that person.</p><p></p><p></p><p>14 Plantarin 749 (Campaign day 106)</p><p></p><p>The next morning we put that plan into action. On the way we talked about how best to approach him -- Marxine suggested that we approach the conversation from the angle that we wanted to help them deal with a problem they might be facing.</p><p></p><p>We found Tomud at an establishment called the Simmering Poppy. There was an imposing goliath at the door.</p><p></p><p>Vinya, to Marxine: You want to handle this?</p><p>Marxine: Uh, yeah.</p><p></p><p>The doorman stopped us and we paid the door charge of 1gp per person.</p><p></p><p>Doorman: What’s your pleasure? I can direct you.</p><p>Vinya: What are our choices?</p><p>Doorman, confused: What are you here for?</p><p>Marxine: Where here to talk to someone.</p><p>Doorman: Who are you looking for?</p><p>Marxine: Tomud Grennett.</p><p>Doorman, raises eyebrow: Does he know you’re coming?</p><p>Marxine: Maybe. We were talking to Tilla last night.</p><p>Doorman: I’ll go see if he’s receiving visitors.</p><p></p><p>He was gone for several minutes.</p><p></p><p>Doorman: Mr. Grennett is in an observation room attached to his office.</p><p></p><p>He gave us directions to Mr. Grennett’s office and let us into the Simmering Poppy. Inside the place was an interesting warren -- the entrance went into a sort of mezzanine level -- there was a walkway looking over a large lower level that had all sorts of gambling. The wall around the walkway had many small rooms -- most of the doors were closed, the ones that were open were open to empty rooms. This had all the signs, including the smell, of an opium den, though we were pretty sure some of those small rooms also had prostitutes in them.</p><p></p><p>We followed the directions and found ourselves in an office that overlooks the gambling floor below. Tormud is very tall for a human, with very red hair. His office smelled of smoke and spice and as we got closer to it, he smelled even more strongly of it.</p><p></p><p>Tomud: Tilla hasn’t had trouble paying the rent. Why did she send you to me?</p><p>Marxine: Have you heard about the missing people associated with her?</p><p>Vinya: Well, missing all over Stormyside. We heard that many of them had connections to the Green Hand.</p><p>Tomud: It would be hard to find a person in Stormyside who wasn’t connected with us as employees or customers.</p><p>Vinya: That’s why we wanted to talk to you -- we figure these disappearances have got to be impacting your business. Maybe you’ve looked into it yourselves even. You might have some information for us. We’re trying to find the missing people and bring them home.</p><p>Tomud: Some people who report to me have mentioned it. The gentlewoman I report to hasn’t said anything. But I worry about her.</p><p>Vinya: In what way? If you don’t mind me asking.</p><p>Tomud: She’s young to be in her dotage, but she’s stopped caring about business and her usual interests.</p><p>Vinya: That seems unfortunate for someone in a leadership position in a major organization.</p><p>Tomud: Until someone steps up or into her place.</p><p></p><p>(Note: Aldalomiel noticed that he was totally sober despite all the opium being smoked elsewhere in the establishment. She also got the sense that he’s ambitious and capable of being ruthless -- but he’s being pretty straight with us right now.)</p><p></p><p>Vinya: You mentioned that some of your direct reports have said things. Did they have any useful information to point us in a direction?</p><p>Tomud: Near water. Yesterday was the first lobstrosity that’s come up -- but it seems like whatever is taking things is connected to the water.</p><p>Elderron: Maybe someone is controlling the monsters that are taking people.</p><p>Tomud: That’s probable. Something else is being controlled. Tilla’s is still okay, but some other places with missing people have changed the way they run things in weird ways.</p><p>Elderron: Due to the disappearances?</p><p>Tomud: As if someone had developed other priorities.</p><p>Vinya: Do you mind telling me when your gentlewoman stopped caring about things?</p><p>Tomud: Within the last 10 to 12 days -- it has been both a recent and sudden change. She’s been trying to see if the people upstairs at Tilla’s or some employees in the small rooms here could get information out of our patrons. That’s not really our line. I guess I’m a purist -- we’re good at giving people their vices.</p><p>Vinya: Could it be another gang trying to destabilize you?</p><p>Tomud: It doesn’t feel like another gang. That lobstrosity just isn’t something any of them would do. Not their style.</p><p>Vinya: Does it feel like a cabal or cult instead, perhaps? I’ve lived in New Arvai and know that’s a persistent thing.</p><p>Tomud: If that lobstrosity had been a demon or a devil, I’d say definitely.</p><p>Vinya: There are other things to make deals with and/or worship. Those lobstrosities are, we think, minion creatures of a powerful aquatic something.</p><p>Tomud, after a moment’s thought: We get powerful tropical storms, some years worse than others. The city has extensive storm drains. You might look at how the locations of the storm drains and the waterfront relate to the locations of the disappearances.</p><p>Vinya: Thank you. You’ve been helpful. Hopefully we can help you.</p><p>Marxine: Don’t take that too literally. We want to help the missing people.</p><p>Tomud: I’m glad to help. Your pleasure is our business.</p><p>Vinya: If our researches lead us to want to talk to the gentlewoman you report to, would you be able to make an introduction?</p><p>Tomud: I’d be happy to.</p><p></p><p>We left. A few blocks away we stopped to talk about our next steps. We decided to head to Seneschal to find a map of the storm sewers -- which involved figuring out where to go to get one. It took Elderron a bit, but after an hour of talking to people and getting directed around, he located an office related to the storm drains. (Part of the problem was some confusion regarding whether we were looking for the sewers or the storm drains.)</p><p></p><p>We went into the office to see if we could get a sense of the storm drain layout. Anything to give us a hint as to where to go. The office had a lot of maps and some hugely oversized pipes and valves running through -- some of them big enough for a human to walk through. On one side of the room was a gnome sitting at a gnome-sized desk.</p><p></p><p>Gnome: Hi! What can I do to help you?</p><p>Elderron: We’re looking for a map of the sewers.</p><p>Vinya: Storm drains.</p><p>Gnome: What part of the city?</p><p>Vinya: Stormyside.</p><p>Gnome: That’s where the storms hit worse. Got a lot of storm drains there.</p><p></p><p>He got a suspicious look on his face.</p><p></p><p>Gnome: Are you looking for a cabal?</p><p>Vinya: Yeah. We think so.</p><p></p><p>We told him about the missing people and the lobstrosity and explained that we wanted to correlate the drains with where the people have gone missing. We showed him the information that we’d taken from the job board (and that we’d gathered talking to people) and he pulled out a map. He was able to find that there are a couple of major drains in specific areas where the people have disappeared -- where something could have come up through a manhole (though we knew the lobstrosity didn’t, but we never considered the lobstrosity to be the only monsters involved).</p><p></p><p>He started drawing us a map of the storm drain tunnels and where the entrances and exits are.</p><p></p><p>Gnome: If you get off this map, come back to where you’re on it. You can get lost down there. Particularly if there’s a cabal at work -- they change things, block tunnels, open passage-ways.</p><p></p><p>Elama: You’re making me feel real good about going down there.</p><p>Gnome, missing the sarcasm: I’m happy to help!</p><p></p><p>Vinya suggested going back to the job board to get more missing person reports to correlate to the map -- to see if we could find any hot spots.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel: I was thinking that.</p><p>Elama: Let’s just dive in and stir the pot!</p><p>Elderron: Let’s do both -- find a hot spot, then dive in.</p><p></p><p>We went by the job board and took all the missing person notices we could find and plotted the locations as best we could onto the map the gnome gave us. From that, we could see that there was one line of storm drains that was definitely a hot spot of problems.</p><p></p><p>We talked briefly about going into the storm drain system through the outflow, before deciding that was a bad idea and that we’d just go in through a manhole instead. In order to reduce some stress of walking around in water, Elderron took ten minutes to cast water breathing on the party.</p><p></p><p>Then we found a manole and proceeded to dive in and stir the naughty word.</p><p></p><p>The storm drain is a big pipe, like a large culvert with a channel in the middle that was a couple of feet wide and a foot deep. That channel had water in it, but the pipe wasn’t otherwise flooded. (It is not the rainy season or tropical storm season.) It’s a big storm drain made to handle a lot of water -- the gnome had told us that there was magic on the outflows, so that the water actually appeared in the ocean well out to sea, to avoid erosion and backflow.</p><p></p><p>Once we got in through the manhole, Aldalomiel, Vinya and Elderron noticed that there was a smear of dried snot-like stuff on the wall and on the ladder. We decided to follow the slimy stuff, but had barely come to that conclusion when it went into the stream of water in the middle of the channel. Fortunately, the water was not enough to hide, or even swim, in and we were able to spot occasional flecks of the snot going upstream but not down.</p><p></p><p>We went upstream.</p><p></p><p>As we moved up the storm drain the entire floor was slimy and slick, even where it was not wet. Ew. Aldalomiel and Elderron heard some sort of noises up ahead -- checking the map it looked like we were coming up to some sort of junction.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel cast pass without trace and she and Vinya snuck up and took a peek. Aldalomiel basically disappeared into the darkness. Vinya basically did not. But we were still able to sneak up to the junction - we saw two humanoids -- but they were slimy and looked sort of amphibious. One of them looked like a human with the Innsmouth look. The other one had horns and a tail -- a tiefling with the Innsmouth look, maybe. Like they’d been altered somehow.</p><p></p><p>There were just the two of them in there, armed with crossbows pointed in the direction we’d be coming from.</p><p></p><p>We went back and told the others. Elderron went back with Aldalomiel to see if he could get additional information looking at them, but he wasn’t able to.</p><p></p><p>We all headed back in their direction with Vinya and Marxine in the front and Aldalomiel and Elama on the sides and Elderron behind us. With Aldalomiel’s pass without trace still up, we managed to sneak in that direction and got to a place where we could see them before they noticed us.</p><p></p><p>Elama, crouching behind her shield said: Hello!! Is anybody up there? I did not expect to see people in the storm drain?</p><p></p><p>Elama then saw them “aim” their crossbows and fire wildly in our direction, missing wildly.</p><p></p><p>Elama: How rude!</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel took a shot at the tiefling-looking one and dropped it with one arrow. Vinya fired a sunbolt at the human-looking one and dropped him with one shot.</p><p></p><p>Marxine: Weren’t we looking for a tiefling?</p><p>Vinya: Oh, god! Yes!! Can we stabilize them?</p><p></p><p>Elama bound their wounds to stabilize them -- their skin was slimy and clearly needed to stay wet, so we set them into the channel of water in the drain. We carried them downstream a ways and took them into one of the feeder pipes, setting them in the water. As we set them down a large tentacled fish-like thing appeared in the water in front of us -- though it was clearly too large to have been in the water.</p><p></p><p>We all heard a voice in our heads.</p><p></p><p>Voice: Who dares to trespass on the realm of Dlublul?</p><p>Elama: Hi!! We’re looking for some people who’ve gone missing.</p><p>Vinya, thinking the words as she says them: Are you Dlublul</p><p>Marxine: What makes you think this is your realm?</p><p>Elderron: Why are you taking people?</p><p>Dlublul: I am, indeed, Dlublul, for sufficiently broad definitions of am. It is my realm and the people are mine to do with as I please. Before the gods were, I was. After the gods were, I am. What I have chosen as my realm is my realm.</p><p>Vinya: Your realm is a sewer and the people are not yours.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel fired an arrow at the fish thing -- the moment the arrow hit it, the monster shimmered and a thin sheet of water collapsed back into the stream.</p><p></p><p>All of us: Holy naughty word. An aboleth.</p><p></p><p>We collectively knew that they can project illusions within a mile of their lair.</p><p></p><p>Elama: We need to go further.</p><p>Vinya: How can we save these people?</p><p></p><p>Elderron told us that it will take a high level cure disease spell to cure them, and they need to be in water. They take damage if they’re out of water for too long. They’re telepathically enslaved by the aboleth too.</p><p></p><p>Vinya, as the fastest in the party, went back to the Temple of the Seafarers and Wayfarers, where we were staying. Vinya found a cleric that Elama had talked to when we arrived in New Arvai -- a halfling named Jarvil Honeyhand. She arranged with Honeyhand that we could bring unfortunate souls to them. The temple will have tubs that they can rest in to stay wet and will coordinate with other temples for the necessary healing.</p><p></p><p>Then she ran back to where the rest of the party was waiting. She was gone probably 20 minutes.</p><p></p><p>While she was gone, the party was attacked by two of the lobstrosities.</p><p></p><p>Elderron: Finally! I get to fight one.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel took a shot at the one slightly further away, hitting it and using the faerie fire bow to light it up. She then shot it again to even greater effect. Marxine moved up as far as she could and readied an attack with her waraxe. Elderron moved a bit closer and hit the faerie fired one with two scorching rays. Elama moved so she was close to the rest of the party and blessed Aldalomiel, Marxine and Elderron.</p><p></p><p>The lobstrosities moved and dashed to get closer.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel shot the faerie fire’d one again and did a lot of damage to it. Then she moved back 35 feet. Marxine attacked that same one with her axe -- getting two critical hits and dropping it. She then did an action surge and attacked the other one -- hitting it twice, once critically, doing a lot of damage. Elderron backed up some and fired off some magic missiles at it. Elama cast sacred flame on it.</p><p></p><p>The lobstrosity flailed and clawed but didn’t land a blow on anyone.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel shot at it twice, hitting it once and doing a lot of damage. Then Marxine attacked with her axe, getting another critical hit, and dropping it.</p><p></p><p>Just a few minutes later, Vinya arrived and told them what she’d set up with the temple. We put sacks over the heads of the unconscious people and took them to the Seafarers and Wayfarers getting them into a tub before their skin started drying out and hurting them.</p><p></p><p>Jarvil Honeyhand was waiting for us. He immediately covered the heads of the unfortunates with sacks, then showed us where to take them. Once we’d gotten them settled, we asked if there was anyone who could give us useful information. He recommended going to one of the libraries, or maybe the Lightbringers Temple.</p><p></p><p>Looking at the missing person notices we’d collected from the job board, it appeared that people were being taken at a rate of a couple of people every couple of days, but that it was accelerating.</p><p></p><p>Jarvil wrote us a letter of introduction to the head of the Lightbringers and we headed there. It was afternoon, heading toward evening, so we didn’t want to have to pay to get into the Library of the World, because it would be a hundred gold for just a few hours of research time -- though we figure out that we’ll wind out there.</p><p></p><p>We wanted information about aboleths in general and this one in particular. At the temple of the Lightbringers, we talked to Androth Terminger, a male human. We handed him the letter and he read it then leaned back to look at us.</p><p></p><p>Androth: What exactly do you want to know?</p><p>Marxine: Everything. We can’t have him stealing people.</p><p>Elama: How to fight them.</p><p>Androth: The species has racial memories going back before the gods were born.</p><p>Vinya: He said something to that effect. Is he that old?</p><p>Androth: No, but the species is. If they hit you with their tentacles, there’s a chance that you’ll get turned into a slimy humanoid thing. If you fight them underwater, they can emit a cloud of mucous into the water that will render you capable of breathing only underwater.</p><p>Marxine: We want to avoid that.</p><p>Androth: They can drain vitality from their minions into themselves. And they can see through their minions’ eyes. That’s why they’ve covered their heads with sacks over at the Seafarers and Wayfarers.</p><p>Elama: Is there any way to stop people from becoming minions?</p><p>Vinya: Why is he claiming the storm drains as his realm?</p><p>Androth: They’re amphibious. He might also be interested in blocking the drains before the next big storm and flooding part of the city.</p><p>Marxine: If we kill the aboleth are all the minions freed from the telepathic control? Will they still need healing to get rid of the slime?</p><p>Androth: When someone is hit by one of the tentacles, you have about a minute to cast a regular cure disease spell to stop the transformation. Once the slimy transformation is complete, it takes much more powerful magic to save them.</p><p></p><p>Marxine, as a paladin, can cure disease one time a day. Elama can do it three times.</p><p></p><p>We thanked Androth and went and had dinner back at the temple we were staying at. We decided to have Elderron put up a tiny hut down in the hot zone in Stormyside -- keeping watches and having a long rest while we tried to keep an eye on things and prevent anyone else from being taken.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="prabe, post: 8171585, member: 7016699"] Session 27: Those Poor Unfortunate Souls Dramatis Personae: Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Druid Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest) Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul) Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster) Marxine Deepfoot - Dwarf Fighter (Champion)/Paladin GM - Everyone Else (Note: This session was held on Discord.) We ended the previous session taking a long rest -- we had been pointed to Tomud Grennett, the person with the Green Hand the madam at Tilla’s paid rent to and planned to go see that person. 14 Plantarin 749 (Campaign day 106) The next morning we put that plan into action. On the way we talked about how best to approach him -- Marxine suggested that we approach the conversation from the angle that we wanted to help them deal with a problem they might be facing. We found Tomud at an establishment called the Simmering Poppy. There was an imposing goliath at the door. Vinya, to Marxine: You want to handle this? Marxine: Uh, yeah. The doorman stopped us and we paid the door charge of 1gp per person. Doorman: What’s your pleasure? I can direct you. Vinya: What are our choices? Doorman, confused: What are you here for? Marxine: Where here to talk to someone. Doorman: Who are you looking for? Marxine: Tomud Grennett. Doorman, raises eyebrow: Does he know you’re coming? Marxine: Maybe. We were talking to Tilla last night. Doorman: I’ll go see if he’s receiving visitors. He was gone for several minutes. Doorman: Mr. Grennett is in an observation room attached to his office. He gave us directions to Mr. Grennett’s office and let us into the Simmering Poppy. Inside the place was an interesting warren -- the entrance went into a sort of mezzanine level -- there was a walkway looking over a large lower level that had all sorts of gambling. The wall around the walkway had many small rooms -- most of the doors were closed, the ones that were open were open to empty rooms. This had all the signs, including the smell, of an opium den, though we were pretty sure some of those small rooms also had prostitutes in them. We followed the directions and found ourselves in an office that overlooks the gambling floor below. Tormud is very tall for a human, with very red hair. His office smelled of smoke and spice and as we got closer to it, he smelled even more strongly of it. Tomud: Tilla hasn’t had trouble paying the rent. Why did she send you to me? Marxine: Have you heard about the missing people associated with her? Vinya: Well, missing all over Stormyside. We heard that many of them had connections to the Green Hand. Tomud: It would be hard to find a person in Stormyside who wasn’t connected with us as employees or customers. Vinya: That’s why we wanted to talk to you -- we figure these disappearances have got to be impacting your business. Maybe you’ve looked into it yourselves even. You might have some information for us. We’re trying to find the missing people and bring them home. Tomud: Some people who report to me have mentioned it. The gentlewoman I report to hasn’t said anything. But I worry about her. Vinya: In what way? If you don’t mind me asking. Tomud: She’s young to be in her dotage, but she’s stopped caring about business and her usual interests. Vinya: That seems unfortunate for someone in a leadership position in a major organization. Tomud: Until someone steps up or into her place. (Note: Aldalomiel noticed that he was totally sober despite all the opium being smoked elsewhere in the establishment. She also got the sense that he’s ambitious and capable of being ruthless -- but he’s being pretty straight with us right now.) Vinya: You mentioned that some of your direct reports have said things. Did they have any useful information to point us in a direction? Tomud: Near water. Yesterday was the first lobstrosity that’s come up -- but it seems like whatever is taking things is connected to the water. Elderron: Maybe someone is controlling the monsters that are taking people. Tomud: That’s probable. Something else is being controlled. Tilla’s is still okay, but some other places with missing people have changed the way they run things in weird ways. Elderron: Due to the disappearances? Tomud: As if someone had developed other priorities. Vinya: Do you mind telling me when your gentlewoman stopped caring about things? Tomud: Within the last 10 to 12 days -- it has been both a recent and sudden change. She’s been trying to see if the people upstairs at Tilla’s or some employees in the small rooms here could get information out of our patrons. That’s not really our line. I guess I’m a purist -- we’re good at giving people their vices. Vinya: Could it be another gang trying to destabilize you? Tomud: It doesn’t feel like another gang. That lobstrosity just isn’t something any of them would do. Not their style. Vinya: Does it feel like a cabal or cult instead, perhaps? I’ve lived in New Arvai and know that’s a persistent thing. Tomud: If that lobstrosity had been a demon or a devil, I’d say definitely. Vinya: There are other things to make deals with and/or worship. Those lobstrosities are, we think, minion creatures of a powerful aquatic something. Tomud, after a moment’s thought: We get powerful tropical storms, some years worse than others. The city has extensive storm drains. You might look at how the locations of the storm drains and the waterfront relate to the locations of the disappearances. Vinya: Thank you. You’ve been helpful. Hopefully we can help you. Marxine: Don’t take that too literally. We want to help the missing people. Tomud: I’m glad to help. Your pleasure is our business. Vinya: If our researches lead us to want to talk to the gentlewoman you report to, would you be able to make an introduction? Tomud: I’d be happy to. We left. A few blocks away we stopped to talk about our next steps. We decided to head to Seneschal to find a map of the storm sewers -- which involved figuring out where to go to get one. It took Elderron a bit, but after an hour of talking to people and getting directed around, he located an office related to the storm drains. (Part of the problem was some confusion regarding whether we were looking for the sewers or the storm drains.) We went into the office to see if we could get a sense of the storm drain layout. Anything to give us a hint as to where to go. The office had a lot of maps and some hugely oversized pipes and valves running through -- some of them big enough for a human to walk through. On one side of the room was a gnome sitting at a gnome-sized desk. Gnome: Hi! What can I do to help you? Elderron: We’re looking for a map of the sewers. Vinya: Storm drains. Gnome: What part of the city? Vinya: Stormyside. Gnome: That’s where the storms hit worse. Got a lot of storm drains there. He got a suspicious look on his face. Gnome: Are you looking for a cabal? Vinya: Yeah. We think so. We told him about the missing people and the lobstrosity and explained that we wanted to correlate the drains with where the people have gone missing. We showed him the information that we’d taken from the job board (and that we’d gathered talking to people) and he pulled out a map. He was able to find that there are a couple of major drains in specific areas where the people have disappeared -- where something could have come up through a manhole (though we knew the lobstrosity didn’t, but we never considered the lobstrosity to be the only monsters involved). He started drawing us a map of the storm drain tunnels and where the entrances and exits are. Gnome: If you get off this map, come back to where you’re on it. You can get lost down there. Particularly if there’s a cabal at work -- they change things, block tunnels, open passage-ways. Elama: You’re making me feel real good about going down there. Gnome, missing the sarcasm: I’m happy to help! Vinya suggested going back to the job board to get more missing person reports to correlate to the map -- to see if we could find any hot spots. Aldalomiel: I was thinking that. Elama: Let’s just dive in and stir the pot! Elderron: Let’s do both -- find a hot spot, then dive in. We went by the job board and took all the missing person notices we could find and plotted the locations as best we could onto the map the gnome gave us. From that, we could see that there was one line of storm drains that was definitely a hot spot of problems. We talked briefly about going into the storm drain system through the outflow, before deciding that was a bad idea and that we’d just go in through a manhole instead. In order to reduce some stress of walking around in water, Elderron took ten minutes to cast water breathing on the party. Then we found a manole and proceeded to dive in and stir the naughty word. The storm drain is a big pipe, like a large culvert with a channel in the middle that was a couple of feet wide and a foot deep. That channel had water in it, but the pipe wasn’t otherwise flooded. (It is not the rainy season or tropical storm season.) It’s a big storm drain made to handle a lot of water -- the gnome had told us that there was magic on the outflows, so that the water actually appeared in the ocean well out to sea, to avoid erosion and backflow. Once we got in through the manhole, Aldalomiel, Vinya and Elderron noticed that there was a smear of dried snot-like stuff on the wall and on the ladder. We decided to follow the slimy stuff, but had barely come to that conclusion when it went into the stream of water in the middle of the channel. Fortunately, the water was not enough to hide, or even swim, in and we were able to spot occasional flecks of the snot going upstream but not down. We went upstream. As we moved up the storm drain the entire floor was slimy and slick, even where it was not wet. Ew. Aldalomiel and Elderron heard some sort of noises up ahead -- checking the map it looked like we were coming up to some sort of junction. Aldalomiel cast pass without trace and she and Vinya snuck up and took a peek. Aldalomiel basically disappeared into the darkness. Vinya basically did not. But we were still able to sneak up to the junction - we saw two humanoids -- but they were slimy and looked sort of amphibious. One of them looked like a human with the Innsmouth look. The other one had horns and a tail -- a tiefling with the Innsmouth look, maybe. Like they’d been altered somehow. There were just the two of them in there, armed with crossbows pointed in the direction we’d be coming from. We went back and told the others. Elderron went back with Aldalomiel to see if he could get additional information looking at them, but he wasn’t able to. We all headed back in their direction with Vinya and Marxine in the front and Aldalomiel and Elama on the sides and Elderron behind us. With Aldalomiel’s pass without trace still up, we managed to sneak in that direction and got to a place where we could see them before they noticed us. Elama, crouching behind her shield said: Hello!! Is anybody up there? I did not expect to see people in the storm drain? Elama then saw them “aim” their crossbows and fire wildly in our direction, missing wildly. Elama: How rude! Aldalomiel took a shot at the tiefling-looking one and dropped it with one arrow. Vinya fired a sunbolt at the human-looking one and dropped him with one shot. Marxine: Weren’t we looking for a tiefling? Vinya: Oh, god! Yes!! Can we stabilize them? Elama bound their wounds to stabilize them -- their skin was slimy and clearly needed to stay wet, so we set them into the channel of water in the drain. We carried them downstream a ways and took them into one of the feeder pipes, setting them in the water. As we set them down a large tentacled fish-like thing appeared in the water in front of us -- though it was clearly too large to have been in the water. We all heard a voice in our heads. Voice: Who dares to trespass on the realm of Dlublul? Elama: Hi!! We’re looking for some people who’ve gone missing. Vinya, thinking the words as she says them: Are you Dlublul Marxine: What makes you think this is your realm? Elderron: Why are you taking people? Dlublul: I am, indeed, Dlublul, for sufficiently broad definitions of am. It is my realm and the people are mine to do with as I please. Before the gods were, I was. After the gods were, I am. What I have chosen as my realm is my realm. Vinya: Your realm is a sewer and the people are not yours. Aldalomiel fired an arrow at the fish thing -- the moment the arrow hit it, the monster shimmered and a thin sheet of water collapsed back into the stream. All of us: Holy naughty word. An aboleth. We collectively knew that they can project illusions within a mile of their lair. Elama: We need to go further. Vinya: How can we save these people? Elderron told us that it will take a high level cure disease spell to cure them, and they need to be in water. They take damage if they’re out of water for too long. They’re telepathically enslaved by the aboleth too. Vinya, as the fastest in the party, went back to the Temple of the Seafarers and Wayfarers, where we were staying. Vinya found a cleric that Elama had talked to when we arrived in New Arvai -- a halfling named Jarvil Honeyhand. She arranged with Honeyhand that we could bring unfortunate souls to them. The temple will have tubs that they can rest in to stay wet and will coordinate with other temples for the necessary healing. Then she ran back to where the rest of the party was waiting. She was gone probably 20 minutes. While she was gone, the party was attacked by two of the lobstrosities. Elderron: Finally! I get to fight one. Aldalomiel took a shot at the one slightly further away, hitting it and using the faerie fire bow to light it up. She then shot it again to even greater effect. Marxine moved up as far as she could and readied an attack with her waraxe. Elderron moved a bit closer and hit the faerie fired one with two scorching rays. Elama moved so she was close to the rest of the party and blessed Aldalomiel, Marxine and Elderron. The lobstrosities moved and dashed to get closer. Aldalomiel shot the faerie fire’d one again and did a lot of damage to it. Then she moved back 35 feet. Marxine attacked that same one with her axe -- getting two critical hits and dropping it. She then did an action surge and attacked the other one -- hitting it twice, once critically, doing a lot of damage. Elderron backed up some and fired off some magic missiles at it. Elama cast sacred flame on it. The lobstrosity flailed and clawed but didn’t land a blow on anyone. Aldalomiel shot at it twice, hitting it once and doing a lot of damage. Then Marxine attacked with her axe, getting another critical hit, and dropping it. Just a few minutes later, Vinya arrived and told them what she’d set up with the temple. We put sacks over the heads of the unconscious people and took them to the Seafarers and Wayfarers getting them into a tub before their skin started drying out and hurting them. Jarvil Honeyhand was waiting for us. He immediately covered the heads of the unfortunates with sacks, then showed us where to take them. Once we’d gotten them settled, we asked if there was anyone who could give us useful information. He recommended going to one of the libraries, or maybe the Lightbringers Temple. Looking at the missing person notices we’d collected from the job board, it appeared that people were being taken at a rate of a couple of people every couple of days, but that it was accelerating. Jarvil wrote us a letter of introduction to the head of the Lightbringers and we headed there. It was afternoon, heading toward evening, so we didn’t want to have to pay to get into the Library of the World, because it would be a hundred gold for just a few hours of research time -- though we figure out that we’ll wind out there. We wanted information about aboleths in general and this one in particular. At the temple of the Lightbringers, we talked to Androth Terminger, a male human. We handed him the letter and he read it then leaned back to look at us. Androth: What exactly do you want to know? Marxine: Everything. We can’t have him stealing people. Elama: How to fight them. Androth: The species has racial memories going back before the gods were born. Vinya: He said something to that effect. Is he that old? Androth: No, but the species is. If they hit you with their tentacles, there’s a chance that you’ll get turned into a slimy humanoid thing. If you fight them underwater, they can emit a cloud of mucous into the water that will render you capable of breathing only underwater. Marxine: We want to avoid that. Androth: They can drain vitality from their minions into themselves. And they can see through their minions’ eyes. That’s why they’ve covered their heads with sacks over at the Seafarers and Wayfarers. Elama: Is there any way to stop people from becoming minions? Vinya: Why is he claiming the storm drains as his realm? Androth: They’re amphibious. He might also be interested in blocking the drains before the next big storm and flooding part of the city. Marxine: If we kill the aboleth are all the minions freed from the telepathic control? Will they still need healing to get rid of the slime? Androth: When someone is hit by one of the tentacles, you have about a minute to cast a regular cure disease spell to stop the transformation. Once the slimy transformation is complete, it takes much more powerful magic to save them. Marxine, as a paladin, can cure disease one time a day. Elama can do it three times. We thanked Androth and went and had dinner back at the temple we were staying at. We decided to have Elderron put up a tiny hut down in the hot zone in Stormyside -- keeping watches and having a long rest while we tried to keep an eye on things and prevent anyone else from being taken. [/QUOTE]
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Erkonin (Campaign #2) [Session 45: Rajalmin's Agent]
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