the Kyri Chronicles - last updated 22 Oct

[Plane Sailing]

The foul, filthy bites of the giant rats have infected Auriel and Crail with filth fever. Lysander calls upon Asura to heal Crail, but Auriel will have to wait awhile, and she finds her strength starting to fail, so she plans to spend more time resting.
Crail, Lysander and Azrin spend a little more time looking around the festival. Crail picks up rumours about deaths down in Southspur, the poorest area of town outside the fortified walls.

Also, apparently Tonar, the chief of the guard has disappeared a couple or weeks ago.

He was investigating something down in Chatterstreet or Southspur and hasn’t been seen since.

They also hear about a foreigner selling exotic weapons near the bell tower, and go to make his acquaintance. The see a swarthy man called Chandra, dressed in a broad-brimmed hat and clothing with fringes along the arms and legs.

He greets Crail happily, and shows his Chakrams - exotic thrown weapons that look a little like steel frisbees (think of Xena).

Azrin tries to make conversation with him, but Chandra tells him to “keep his stinking Singharese nose out of things.”

DM note: Chandra comes from Tillan, a small state far to the west across the barrier range which is continually threatened by the religious super-state of Singh. He is understandably upset when one of his hereditary enemies tries to strike up a conversation with him!

The group decide that the exotic weapon looks interesting, and several are purchased. They then pick up Auriel and decide to pay a visit to the strange little bookshop which was going to be selling the Candlemakers spell book for them.

Proceeding into West Hill, Azrin is surprised by yet another tirade when a passer by starts shouting at him.

“You priests, you say you are looking after our spiritual welfare, but what are you doing about the ghosts around here, eh? What are you doing about the West Hill ghosts? You are just foreign scum trying to get our money and prayers, aren’t you!”

Azrin can’t get a word in edgewise, and is bemused - he certainly hasn’t heard of any such trouble, but apparently ghastly moans and gibberings have been heard in the neighbourhood of cheap street and the jewellers mall at night.

 

[Plane Sailing]

They proceed on to the bookshop and once more find the lecherous old man, who intersperses every statement with licking of his lips and slobbering glances towards Auriel, to whom he addresses all his comments. If anything he is worse than before, and Auriel finds herself particularly disgusted. No, he hasn’t managed to sell the book yet, yes he does have a potential buyer but it is expensive, and the sale can’t be rushed, and would the young witch like a quickie behind the stairwell while the others leave? No? Perhaps next time then?
Shortly after leaving the vaguely disturbing bookshop, as they travel back to the Queen of Cups, the group are accosted by two more tall men with long black greasy hair. One of them swigs a potion and suddenly grows to large size, as they both transform into humanoid rats and press their attack!

This time the battle goes much better for the party - they have Azrin’s silvered weapons to hand and even with the reach advantage enjoyed by one of them the creatures are quickly defeated.

As the party watch the bodies return to their human forms, a merchant hurries out of a nearby bakery. “Please”, he calls out, “can you do something to stop the depredations of these creatures? We have all been paying protection money out of fear, but it looks like you might be able to stop them? I don’t know if its any help, but the festival stallholders who are near the bell tower have been complaining about rat problems...”

 

[Plane Sailing]

Making their way back to the town centre, the party visually survey the bell tower, standing tall in the middle of the town. It is tall and sturdy, with only the one entrance. Auriel decides to keep watch over the tower until dusk, drawing her Elven cloak around her shoulders and fading into the shadows. The others will meet her back here at sundown.

An argument breaks out between Lysander and Azrin. Azrin seems more interested in knowledge about the wererats and less about the terror which they have been inflicting on the local people. Lysander is incensed that Azrin would place his own thirst for knowledge above the well-being of people. Issuing a dire threat for the priest to keep out of his way, he storms off into the festival.

Crail was somewhat intrigued by this exchange, and engages Lysander in conversation. In turn, Lysander decides to try to interest Crail in the tenets of Asuran religion, and Crail decides to get into a full blown theological discussion. As the time is whiled away, Crail finds the arguments advanced more and more convincing, and somewhat against his earlier wishes finds himself a convert to Asura! Lysander decides that there is no time like the present for introducing him to the temple, and proceeds off there with Crail in tow.

Lysander continues to have great difficulty in getting to see Alkanar - he is still “too busy”, and it is only by really forcing the issue does he get to see him. It is an unhappy conversation with Alkanar - not least because after voicing his concerns about Azrin’s suitability, Lysander is actually charged with his protection, much to his horror.

Alkanar seems very distracted, not his normal pleasant self, and he dismisses Lysander abruptly.

The fuming Jazumai returns with Crail to meet Azrin (Who is given the command “stay out of trouble and stay out of my way”) and then to join up with Auriel outside the bell tower.

Auriel has had a boring afternoon. There hasn’t been any activity around the bell tower, nor from the surrounding buildings. The single door at the base of the tower hasn’t moved while she has been watching. Although the street festival is continuing into the night, they are away from the bright lanterns, and the noise covers their activities. The party decides to unravel the secret of the bell tower...

 

[Plane Sailing]

Crail picks the lock, and finds a lobby with a door opposite and a stairway on his right that probably spirals up around the inside of the tower. Pushing open the door gently, he sees an elderly man sitting in a comfy armchair, reading a book by the light of a small oil lamp. The room has a small bookcase, a bed and several bell-ropes hanging down the centre of the room.

“What are you doing here? Go away” shouts the elderly man.

“Sorry” replies Crail and he shuts the door again.

The rest of the party look at him - thief, burglar extraordinaire - and he says “sorry”?

DMs note: the rest of the players just cracked up over this whole exchange - they couldn't believe the politeness of his response when they were intending to clear the place of were-rats!

They decide to leave him there and head up the staircase. Crail and Auriel lead the way, both moving silently and hiding amidst the shadows. A full spiral around the stairway has taken them up about 20 feet, and reveals another door, which they decide to open.

They enter the small, empty room which is littered with debris and smells of damp fur, and suddenly they are ambushed by three wererats who had been hiding above the doorway!

One of them attacks Auriel, the other two attack Crail. Spying the silvered spear that the witch carries the wererat decides to make a disarm attack, and he then steps sideways and places his foot firmly on the spear so it can’t be picked up.

Crail desperately fences with the two facing him. Hearing the call for help, the rest of the party start running up the stairs.

Auriel moves to one side and casts shillelagh on her cudgel. Crail shifts his position slightly and two of the wererats spot their chance, move to flank him. One strikes, critical hit, triple damage! The next one strikes, critical hit, triple damage!

Mortally wounded, Crail stumbles but heroically attempts to strike once more. The ratman who was attacking Auriel swings round and strikes the wounded rogue too, running him through.

Crail slumps to the ground, dead...

... to be continued!

DMs note: I make a point of rolling important rolls to hit out in the open, and I couldn't believe that both of the flanking wererats got a critical hit on poor Crail. If he'd slumped to the floor they would probably have left him, but he didn't want to leave Auriel alone and the rats percieved him to still be a threat.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Auriel finally lands a solid blow with her shillelagh, taking down one of the wererats, and Lysander appears at the door and strikes down a second. He calls out “Surrender” to the final wererat, and it complies, throwing down its weapon.

Questioned, it says that Squim, the leader, is up at the top of the bell tower with his two remaining cronies.

Lysander and Auriel start up the stairs to the bell room, and on the next landing there is a flash, and cold black energy leaps around Lysander, but the divine grace he enjoys from Asura keeps the enervation trap at bay.

Finally, at the top of the bell tower they find Squim and his two remaining cronies, in ratman form hiding up amongst the bells and ropes. Azrin is sent downstairs, and an arrow knocks one of the ratmen down to the floor.

Auriel goes to take advantage of the downed wererat, but finds herself flanked by Squim who has read a scroll summoning a strange alien squid being which attacks Lysander, grappling him thoroughly.

Squim lands telling blows against Auriel, who starts returning the favour. Lysander struggles to free himself from the squid-things grasp while it produces a cloud of inky darkness around itself.

After a scrabble for a few rounds the squid thing is dispatched, as are two of the ratmen. Squim makes a run for it, quickly climbing up the bell ropes and escaping through one of the small windows.

Outside, Azrin who was waiting and watching sees Squim attempting to make his exit - quickly calling to Chandra, the Tillanian weaponsmith, he points to the wererat. “Can you hit *that*?”. Chandra whirls one of his chakrams at Squim and knocks him from his precarious perch.

The 40 foot fall wounds squim severely, and Azrin leaps forward and grapples the wererat, pinning him quickly in his weakened state. The others burst out of the foot of the tower, and help to quickly tie the wererat up, so he can be taken to justice.

Searching him, they find something particularly interesting... he has some notes on him that are written on headed notepaper - notepaper from the strange little bookshop up at West Hill...

 

[Plane Sailing]

That same night the two captured were-rats and the body of Crail are taken to the temple of Asura. Knocking at the side door, they are allowed in by a local acolyte - but to their surprise are told that Alkanar is unable to see them because he is unwell... but a new high priest, Daros can speak to them!

Daros meets them in the main temple sanctuary - a big, bluff man, with the shaven head typical of the religious natives of Singh. He is pleased to meet Lysander, and tells Azrin to “speak up man! If you’ve got something to say, spit it out!”.

He introduces them to a companion of his, Felgar - a female Jazumai who came with him from Singh. His duties will place him in charge of the temple until Alkanar recovers, then he will be moving on.

He is pleased with their nights activities but disappointed to hear of the death of Crail, their recent high-profile convert. Although Alkanar always believed in waiting for holy days for performing the mightiest magics, Daros tells them to leave Crails body here and return tomorrow after dawn. Even though it is only Moonday, he will pray for the power to raise Crail from the dead.

The next day the party assembles early at the temple, and Daros performs the rite of resurrection, breathing new life into the young rogue, their friend. They spend the rest of Waneday with Crail, helping him to recover from his ordeal and planning their next steps.

Several clues seem to point towards evil activities up in the West Hill district, and the arcane bookshop with the lecherous bookseller would seem to be near the centre of the problems. Auriel leaves them to spend a few days meditating in a grove outside the town.

Walking through the fair and talking with the guards at the West Hill guardpost, they find out a little more about strange goings on - mysterious deaths (“we don’t know what killed him, but it wasn’t sword or blows. He seemed real pale-like though” . There have also been mysterious mists rising up in the middle of the afternoon. Azrin suggests that maybe this is to allow people to move in and out of the bookshop covertly...

That afternoon, as they are checking out the jewellers mall close to the arcane bookshop, mist billows out across the square. Without hesitation, Lysander charges into it...

 

[Plane Sailing]

Crail follows him into the mists, and they zero in on the sound of two men talking - engaging them, Crail finds himself struck by magic missiles, and a fan of burning flame also shoots forth from the mist.

These two hooded sorcerers would not be too much of a problem though, and Crail quickly takes one of them down - but suddenly with an awful sucking sound a huge, tentacled slimy worm like creature appears in their midst.

Its head dips down and five of its tentacles slash Lysander, hauling him up in the air and transferring him towards its terrible sucking mouth. Ynnsfeardh and Azrin head into the mist to aid their fellows, the monk striking at the creature with a kama, while Azrin finds himself duelling across its tail with the sorcerer who produces flaming hands.

Lysander calls upon the healing powers of Asura to keep himself going, and the worm gets bored with him and flings him aside before attacking Crail. Things are starting to look serious when suddenly the creature vanishes, sucked back to whatever plane it had come from. One of the cabalists has escaped, the other is captured, relieved of a number of potion vials which Azrin looks after, and a wand in a holster which Crail appropriates.

They need to take some time to recover before tackling the bookshop itself, so they drag the cabalist off for questioning, but all they get from him is babbling inanities

- "the door swings open", "the dreamer awakes", "doom will befall all, all will fall before him Mwha-ha-ha-ha!".

Lysander is a little concerned about the way that the cultists mind seems to be going, considering the religious secret he uncovered during his recent studies in the library - that some prophets teach that there is an unspeakable entity, imprisoned forever by mighty Asura in the dawn of time, the god of this world and its inhabitants before men ever arose. Some prophets say that one day this unspeakable one will awaken and destroy the world. No wonder that information is well hidden!

DMs note: every 5 ranks in Knowledge(religion) or knowledge(arcane) will reveal one of the campaign secrets to a player)

They decide to take the cultist back to the temple, but on the way Crail notices that they are being followed...

 

[Plane Sailing]

Just before they reach the temple Crail ducks into a side alley and doubles back around a couple of side streets to find himself behind the follower. It is a man, clearly a foreigner with straight, jet-black hair, sharply featured nose and cheekbones and a tunic made of some kind of fur. He seems to be studying sweetmeats at a stall, but when he sees Lysander striding back up the street in his direction he turns to leave - and is tripped by Crail, or very nearly.

He stops himself from falling and first attempts to bluff out of the situation, but as Crail waves Lysander over, he changes his tune.

“Why were you following us?” Crail demands.

“I’d prefer not to talk about it in such a public place” the man retorts. “Could we step into an alleyway? You choose one”.

Crail agrees, and Lysander senses no overt evil from the man so the three of them step out of the immediate vicinity of the festival.

His name is K’tan, and he is one of the mages of Cadlan, a mountaintop city far to the North of Knightsbridge. Apparently the mages are concerned - “Crystals deep under the mountain have started moaning” and as a result representatives have been sent across the known world to track down any evidence of attempts to waken “the dreamer”, a mysterious prophetic figure.

K’tan had been following up rumours of strange activities in West Hill, and observed their combat with the Wyste, an alienist creature summoned by servants of the dreamer.

“You are in great danger”, he warns them. “We all are”. “The cabal of sorcerers working out of the bookstall have much magical power - I would be willing to aid you in any assault on the place should you so desire”.

Lysander sends Crail a little further away in the alley to confirm some of his suspicions about the nature of the dreamer - (which Crail lip reads, the sneaky beggar) and then agrees that K’tan's help would be valuable. They will meet with him in the Silver Hill amphitheatre late that afternoon, and proceed to the bookshop.

Having arranged that, they return to the temple to meet up with Azrin and Ynnsfeardh once more. They are let in by *yet another* new acolyte from Singh who leads them round to the meeting room where the others are waiting. How many new guys are there in the temple anyway?

As the acolyte leaves them, Lysander concentrates and receives the familiar sensation on the back of his neck - he’s pretty sure that the guy is deeply associated with evil! He looks across at Azrin - is it normal for a church to be subtly overtaken and placed in other hands...?

He finds himself in a dilemma - it is well known that Asura has evil as well as good worshippers - but both are concerned with the rule of law and the promotion of the worship of Asura, even though they may have different, uh, methods of going about it. It seems that this alienist plot that they have uncovered at the bookshop is a greater and more insidious evil, stretching back to an ancient horror... this temple politics is probably safe to leave alone for a short while.

Isn't it?

 

[Plane Sailing]

Late afternoon on Markday they return to the amphitheatre and pick up K’tan, then head off to the bookshop in West Hill. Crail scouts around the alleyway behind the bookshop and disables the lock on the rear door, to make sure that nobody is going to be leaving that way in a hurry. Then they meet up around the front again.

The shop appears to have been doing its customary poor trade, and nobody is inside, so they enter.

“Yesss?” intones the obsequious bookkeeper from behind his counter. “What can I do for you? Have you got that pretty witch with you again so I could SEE her? (snigger snigger)”.

Disgusted by this foul pervert, Crail walks around the counter and tears down the curtain to the back room, revealing yet more bookshelves, a stairwell and a large cupboard.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing!” cries the bookkeeper

- then Lysander steps up to him and picks him up by the throat “Tell us about the cabal, you scum” he says, menacingly.

The bookkeeper isn’t intimidated. “I don’t know what you’re talking about” he replies, choking.

“Wait” says Crail. “I can hear some strange, manic humming in here”.

He opens the door and a horrific gibbering sound fills the room, as a mound of flesh covered all over with eyes and mouths spills out into the room in front of him!

Steeling his nerves against the horrific sounds, he strikes at the creature to no avail. Three of its mouths launch out on tentacles and latch hold of him, sinking deep into his flesh. Three more lash out and grab Azrin too.

In desperation, Azrin drinks two of the potions they found earlier - and he finds his feet levitate off the floor and his outline becomes blurred and shifting.

Lysander takes a step into the room, and against the better judgement of his conscience casts the bookkeeper into the midst of the aberration, where he is engulfed.

K’tan concentrates and the sound of a low hum builds rapidly into a crescendo of a shout and the open door next to the creature is shattered as if by a blow.

Lysander moves in to the attack and calls upon Asura to bless his blade. Asura says "NO". DMs note: he should have listened to his conscience...

Both Crail and Azrin feel themselves weaken as blood is drained from them by the awful sucking mouths. Worse, Azrin is tugged off his feet and enveloped into the centre of the heaving mass and feels a dozen more small mouths biting at him!

Another soundless shout comes from K’tan and a portion of the doorframe is blown into splinters. The power is there, but his aim today is rotten. (DMs note: Concussion is a ranged touch attack which can affect objects in my campaign).

In desperation Crail whips out the wand he got from one of the cabalists earlier and attempts to suss out how to use it - somehow he is successful, and the wand crackles with electricity - he swings at the creature and electricity lances into its amorphous form, felling it with the shocking grasp.

As it collapses into a stinking pile of goo, Azrin floats up from its midst. Among the remains on the floor is a partially devoured and bloodless husk of the bookkeeper...

...Action hotting up a bit now, and Lysander has made a bad mistake in his actions here. While not quite going as far as stripping him of his Jazumaihood (aka Paladinhood), Asura is certainly withholding certain benefits and graces until atonement is made. Oh dear.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Fog starts rolling down the stairs, and a large fiery ball bounces into the room. Lysander leaps up the stairs and is confronted by a hooded and robed figure just visible at the head of the stairs, who conjures another fiery ball between them before retreating into the mist. Lysander attempts to leap over the ball and doesn’t quite clear it, getting scorched toes. Ynnsfeardh follows him up. Back on the ground floor Azrin grabs a fire bucket and douses some of the fires started by the rampaging fire sphere, before following Crail and the others up to the first floor.

Detecting the cabalists by the sound of their enchantments, our hero’s cross the floor and attempt to engage them; Lysander is struck by an Acid Arrow, and Crail ducks two of them during the combat. One of the cabalists is cut down, the other escapes up a further set of stairs in the mist after Azrin manages to fumble and trip Crail rather than his target (This came just after an inspired lunge by Azrin *underneath* the rooms table to trip the cabalist, although nobody was able to take advantage of that effort.)
Azrin levitates up the next stairwell, bursting through the mists, and is greeted by two flaming bolts, both of which sear into his chest.

Asura is clearly smiling on him, as only a miracle keeps him from dying instantly (rolls a 20 on his save vs instant death). In the thinning mist on the first floor the company see his dying body, and Crail and Lysander quickly run up the stairs, followed by K’tal and Ynnsfeardh after some rudimentary first aid keeps Azrin alive.

(I wonder if I've got the record for highest number of posts in a storyhour without anyone else saying anything )