12/15 session
The session starts with the party trying to leave the ziggurat, surrounded by undead. These are quickliy dispatched (the flooding trap was disabled and without the time limit none of the combat encounters on the way out are all that dangerous). They next encounter the room with the illusionary floor trap, the gidim war beasts are quickly dispatched although they do give Ford a scare as the is at stage two of Distant Madness, and their attacks can advance the disease. There are more traps after this, none of which give the party any difficulty, nor do the mummy's at the entrance. However, things are less rosy upon leaving the ziggurat.
Exiting the ziggurat the party is surrounded by undead. Their choices are stand (and die?), go back into the ziggurat, or go up. They decide they like up and up they go. Once at the top of the ziggurat, they are addressed by the Voice Of Rot:
“My slumber is disturbed. You, agents of King Kelland, shall redress this offense. Most that fled your mortal trap were mute beasts. One had reason. It can be judged. Follow the scent of its homeland’s blood. Find it. Cut its flesh, then do as you please. Kill it, and it will rot. Send it home, and it will despair. Either, and I shall be appeased.”
And suddenly everyone can perform Detect Planar Energy (and has a palette of two energy types to pick from, Apet and the Bleak Gate). Before leaving the party tries to detect both Apet and Bleak Gate energy, finding trails of both heading back towards Agate. Arriving at Agate they try both again, discovering a boat that took some tieflings and a very large shipping crate to Bole. At Bole they spend a Streetwise IP and discover that a rail car was used by a secretive group of people including some tieflings to transport a very large shipping container, they find the car and detect both energy forms on it. This trial is lost in Flint. On the return trip Savanna and Laci recover from Distant Madness but Ford struggles to avoid succombing to the disease and is at stage two when they get back to flint. (And gets 2 days R&R to recover from the disease with psychic treatment. Fortunately their was some good reading waiting for him when he got back, the treatise on the war beasts and martial scientist techniques to fight them was finished.)
That night Cyrus notices that something isn't quite right at his apartment. He spends an Evidence Collection IP and notices that some of his furniture and belongings have been moved. He makes a thorough search and finds a dagger with dried blood, a pouch /w 1,000gp, and a note presumably from Kell congratulating him on picking up Kaja's smuggling operation. He recalls that this very distinctive and rare dagger (or one very similar) was used to kill a merchant's servant in a robbery that occurred just before they left for the ziggurat. At this point he looks out the window and notices a squad of bobby's headed towards his apartment building. He's on a tight clock, and decides to destroy the note using chemicals from his lab and toss the bag/dagger on the roof of a nearby building. Some stealth and acrobatics checks get this done with just enough time for him to make himself look “casual” before the bobby's arrive with a warrant to search his apartment. They don't find anything but he doesn't do so good on a bluff check and appears nervous, so gets to spend the night at the local police station repeating his story over and over. Savanna discovers a similar note and some artwork that was stolen from the aforementioned noble in her apartment, she has a bit more time to get rid of the evidence but is equally bad at bluff and spends the night in a precinct herself. Delf politely ignores their lack of sleep the next morning.
After meeting with Delf, Cyrus find a letter at his desk smelling of coffee stating “haven't seen you in a while.” He and Savanna start for Cippiano's coffee shop but notice they are being followed and divert to a different coffee shop and spend a few hours drinking coffee.
Meanwhile Laci and Carlie head to the canals to check for Apet energy where they had previously found the Bleak Gate energy trail. They find nothing there but do find a trail of Apet energy leading to a warehouse. They also disover that they too are being followed. The lower windows of the warehouse are blacked out so they cannot easily peek in and the door is locked with a rather large and impressive lock. Carlie takes them to the busiest town square in the district, waits until the peak lunch hour traffic, and spends a Streetwise point to lose their tail. If they can get back to the square in 15 minutes or so they can pick up their tail without him realizing they left the square. They make a beeline for the warehouse. The lock looks too hard for them to pick so Laci climbs the wall and checks the upper windows (3 floors up). They are also locked but the lock is not nearly as impressive and she is able to pick it. She quickly drops down, sheds her plate armor (5 minutes), climbs back up, enters and drops down. She finds signs of a struggle and a fair amount of blood, at least 3 people died here, and that the bodies were dragged away by someone small and light. Xambria is the immediate person that comes to mind, and she does fit the general size description. She also finds an empty shipping container that had held a vaguely 6' diameter disc. Later that night they follow the paper trail through the shell companies to discover the warehouse is owned by Bergeron. She quickly exits, after a few tries manages to re-lock the window, drops down and gets back into her armor. She & Carlie get back to the square with a minute or two to spare, and re-pick up their tail.
That night Savanna attends a formal ball upon invitation from Viscount Nigel Price Hill, with Cyrus as an escort. They have a fine night socializing and drinking, and Savanna spends some quality time with Nigel. She is asked about any aspirations to higher office, but much to Nigel's disappointment she has none.
The next morning they get the good news that Bergeron has been found and the bad news that he's dead. They head over to his suite at the Silver Swan Inn to investigate. Several things are discovered:
- Door & windows are locked and teleportation is blocked.
- The map with the marks over Xambria's ziggurat and the (presumably) other ziggurat location. This also has latitude/longitude coordinates.
- Journals from Xambria's dig site.
- A chest that appears to have a false bottom. They cannot figure out how to open it so break it open to discover it is empty.
- Bergeron's jaw has been unhinged and his brain has been removed through a hole in his upper palate. This happened while he was still alive.
- Bergeron is wearing a ring with the inscription “Old Bergeron Gold”, marking him as a member of the Obsurati (but what Gold means, if anything, is unknown).
- They cast speak with dead and it doesn't work. This means either Bergeron's soul is trapped or it's gone. (Aside to module authors Speak With Dead here can really break the module!)
- Bergeron's body has bleak gate energy traces, he had been there a lot.
Next they visit Xambria, but find she has disappeared. They convince the apartment super to let them into her apartment “in the interest of her safety”. They find signs of a struggle and energy from Apet. The visit the arms fair and detect energy of Apet on one of Rock Rakus' stage props which looks like it could be an Ancient's sacrificial dagger, and decide a conversation with R.R. Is in order.
At R.R.'s jail they encounter the docker protest, Laci and Carlie have prestige 3 with the dockers and are recognized. The dockers are sure that they will get R.R. released. R.R. is only too happy to tell his story, the adventures, the scrolls, the trip to the feywild, the fame, the parties, the sex, etc. The important bits are that he helped Bergeron recover a seal attuned to Jiese, and that he has a scroll that will (most likely) take them someplace “interesting” (what exactly interesting will mean is TBD). They discern that long term he's not a good thing for the docker movement; they decide to get him released (not much work since this was basically going to be done anyway) and then Laci and Carlie will have a talk with some leaders of the Docker movement and let them know that R.R. isn't really what people think he is and that some distance from him before he crashes and burns is probably a good idea.
It's now the morning of the 17th of Autumn, Ford is back feeling much better. They are all set to head to Ber with their steam ship and temporary crew. One of the dockers loading the ship bumps into Cyrus who discovers he has a note in is pocket. He makes for a privy to read it without the ever-present tails seeing him do so. The note has an address and the words “Kell” and “burn” written on it. Shortly after this an RHC escort arrives and requests their presence back at RHC. It appears that an anonymous tip for a drug operation run by Kell has been delivered and that someone important has specifically requested that the PC's handle the search & seizure. The entire area is very combustable and Carlie (a fire elementalist) has some serious issues regarding Kell, this is not exactly a good combination. But off they go. Savanna serves the warrant and violence ensues, the violence is complicated by the fact that the entire facility is filled with combustable dust in the atmosphere. The combat is fast and bloody, Laci almost dies twice and Cyrus also gets pretty beat up, but the only real question here is how many of Kell's men die in bonfires and explosions caused by Carlie's fire attacks. She spends an action point to resist her compel to kill everyone there and as a result only 3 die and only part of the building burns down. They end up with 10 prisoners and 50-75k in illegal narcotics and supplies. Kell will NOT be pleased (which of course pleases Cippiano).
The session ends with the party on a boat sailing for Ber.
Goals for next session:
- Explore whatever is at these coordinates.
- Don't drown (there are several grumblings about heading to a possibly underwater site without the ability to breathe underwater).
- Find Xambria.
- WTF ripped Bergeron's brain out of his head.
- Find the Apet seal and whoever took it. (Xambria?)
