CB's City of the Spider Queen v3.5

[CanadienneBacon]

Szith Morcane lies in the upper Underdark. Merchants in the former drow outpost of Szith Morcane uneasily gossip that Szith Morcane lies nearly directly beneath an ancient burial ground known to Daggerdale surface dwellers as the Dordrien Crypts. A large chasm forms the basic structure of the outpost of Szith Morcane. Szith Morcane is a sprawling network of caverns and tunnels leading in all directions. The locations known and used by the party members are the Barracks level, the Bazaar level, and the Commoner's level. In addition to these three well-used primary areas, those residing among the ever-growing tumult of Szith Morcane have also heard recurring rumors of an inverted tower, and the last reminant of a stronghold long held by the drow House of Morcane. The inverted tower, however, is strongly and visibly guarded at all times. The word among those who traverse the Bazaar is that the Council uses the tower for its meetings, arriving in its halls either via magical transport or using hidden tunnels. House Morcane, however, is left largely alone due to persistent rumors of an undead priestess ghost of Lolth who favours the stronghold's halls as she keens in thirst for the souls of the living.

The busiest sections of Szith Morcane lie across a chasm that yawns 30 feet wide, its unplumbed depths a sheer drop met by darkness and a bracing wind. By crossing the chasm, it is said that one may access the surface world via the Dordrien Crypts above. The Szith Morcane Council, however, keeps nearly as tight a hold on access to the Crypts as they do on their annexed inverted tower. Guards stand watch on both sides of the chasm, ready to slay any who dare to cross without leave, regardless of whether they be surface dwellers or creatures of the Underdark. Myriad tunnels lead from the southeast side of the chasm wall into the caverns that house the outpost.

Szith Morcane is swelling in ranks as the days pass and the Barracks are rapidly becoming untenable due to the stench and heat shed by too many in too close quarters. As you pass Laduergar's Lap, one of the more palatable drinking holes in the Bazaar level of Szith Morcane, a notice written on vellum is being tacked up to the Lap's outer wall by a dark-skinned dwarf wearing a meat-smeared apron. The lettering on the vellum is printed in thick black script in Undercommon and reads,

"MAERIMYDRA HAS FALLEN!

To accord a scouting party
for the purpose of gathering
information on the Great City's
demise, the Council will hold
an open quorum in Desydra's
Playhouse. Those who hunger
for riches or revenge welcome.

Time: Spider's Rest.
Date: 1374 DR, 3rd Chitine of the month of Chalice"

Lower on the vellum the announcement is reprinted in coarsely scribed Common.

This version of the Underdark uses a distorted DR calendar. Since we are in the Underdark, I haven taken the priviledge of creating a special drow-based system of months and days. There are 16 months. Each month has 24 days, divided into 3 weeks of 8 days each. More on this to come in the OOC thread. Please continue to check the OOC thread regularly.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

Hael walks up and reads the notice a second time, the normally cold eyes of the duergar glint at the prospect of gold. Speaking in dwarven he curtly asks the blood spattered dwarf if he heard any more about Maerimydra or its fall.

Lyssa, the little Gloaming, flutters out of Laduergar's Lap weaving somewhat. She has been drinking and seeking inspriation. The crowded stinking hole that is Szith Morcane is growing stale for her. Her pouch is light and she feels a sense of wanderlust. The dwarf and his notice attracts her attention. She flutters up reading over the shoulder of the cold eyed duergar. She shakes her head trying to think as she listens to the dwarven conversation and adds, "Any news of the Golden Blades, a mercenary company in Maerimydra?"

K'yorl, finding that the stench was beginning to bother her, quit the Barracks in favor of the Undercity's Bazaar, the crowds only slightly less to her liking. K'yorl wasn't used to having to press her way through - normally a path would have opened for her, the badges of her office instilling a pleasant degree of fear in the faceless members of the teeming throng. But here she didn't dare wear them. Here she sought only to blend in, to disappear. And she had managed to do it, despite the difficulties and the thousand little insults to her pride. When the time came, and she was finally able to twist the knife in her sister's back this would all have been worth it - this and much, much worse - but in the meantime...

In the meantime the whole thing was starting to wear her down.

Normally she would have paid no attention to the grubby little dwarf and his sign, but some clumsy oaf, not watching where he was going, forced her to dive out of his way. She nearly had to grab the meat-stained stump just to keep from falling into the filth. Catching herself, she looked up, about to say something cutting, and the words he was posting bored their way into her brain: "MAERIMYDRA HAS FALLEN!".

"Fallen? Fallen!?!? What the... Fallen to what? What in the devil is the meaning of this?!?" K'yorl rounds on the dwarf, her face a mask of fury, a thousand kinds of murder swirling in her eyes.

Prixo walks towards the Lap, hoping that some ale will help lift his foul mood. He openly carries weapons, a large sword and a composite bow. He has a chain shirt over his traveller's outfit, and a black cap on his head. A voice ahead gets his attention. Fallen? Prixo sees a priestess, a gloaming and a couple of dwarves crowded around a sign on the wall and considers turning away. Could the priestess be here to slay me? Thinking it unlikely, Prixo focuses on what those gathered are looking at. The one that is sent to slay me, I wouldn't see in advance. Besides, my face is disguised, thanks to this magic hat. Still at a discrete distance, Prixo peers closer at the gathering and the announcement being tacked up outside the Lap before approaching a bit closer to the assembled group. How could the city have fallen? Well, this could be a good opportunity to make some gold. When the priestess wheels on the blood-spattered duergar to pepper the dwarf with questions, Prixo remains silent.

Zarra, observing somewhere nearby, perked up her ears and listened intently to the questions being put to the small grey dwarf. Perhaps these are the ones?

A swath through the thick crowds is quickly cut for the impending figure of a minotaur hulking down the Bazaar's crowded byway. Long before Blite the minotaur reaches Laduergar's Lap, the little grey dwarf--the Lap's cook by the look of him--whispers something softly to the other duergar looking at the announcement. Fluttering in sudden fear, the cook abruptly breaks off the pair's conversation in favor of fleeing to safety inside the inner depths of the tavern. With naught but a dark look cast at the drow priestess and a muttered oath at the drunken gloaming, the cook skitters away.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

We lost several pages of roleplay due to a database crash at EN World. The above text, from my own originating post and a small portion of the first page of our IC thread, was kindly recovered by the players and myself. I have taken the liberty of condensing the players' original first-page posts and creating a narrative out the material I had on hand. I have tried to edit everyone's comments as little as possible and to remain true, in those instances where editing was necessary to make the content fit an appropriate paragraph format, to the essence of the players' words.

What follows below is a condensed re-cap of the action and actions of the players lost to the database outtage.

Ardyth arrived at Desydra's Playhouse well before the appointed start time of Spider's Rest. Accosted by the lusty eyes of the tiefling clerk out front the playhouse who was sweeping refuse from the front of the building, Ardyth entered the playhouse to scout out the building well in advance of the gathering. Half an hour before the appointed meeting time, a team of duergars--armed and armored to the teeth--scuttled into the playhouse and seated themselves up front, in the center of the third row. Perhaps some fifteen minutes before Spider's Rest, a throng of folk and all manner of Underdark creatures began to filter into the playhouse. Lyssa, still half drunk, Zarra, Hael, Prixo, K'yorl, and Blite all took seats scattered throughout the ampitheatre. Prixo selected a seat in the back row closest the playhouse's foyer and exit. K'yorl seated herself along the far wall in the back. Blite sauntered in nearly at the end and seated himself near in the middle rows. Lyssa and Zarra, having already formed a partial bond, paired up and seated themselves somewhat near Ardyth.

After waiting a nigh unbearable half an hour, the crowd, several hundred strong, began to grow restless and impatient. Not too far akin to the cramped environment at the Barracks, the heat inside the ampitheatre generated by so many packed in so tightly soon became overwhelming to the lesser races. Just at the point when voices were about to rise in anger, a drow priestess--rumored by the astonished voices of several in the crowd to be Tierak Morcane--appeared with a flash and a pop center stage on the ampitheatre's pit floor. The drowess was soon accompanied by a squad of eight drow guardsmen bearing the insignia of House Morcane. In a flowingly smooth and generous voice, the drowess proclaimed that her guests must be thirsty from their long wait. Wererats semi-human in form were commanded to serve those assembled in the audience Calimshan ambermead, a rare and costly aperitif normally sampled by noble families in Faerun's southern reaches. The drink was alternately cautiously, non-chalantly, and greedily accepted by the crowd.

K'yorl, having cast detect poison on the ambermead, readily found the beverage to be impure and refrained from tasting its delicacies. Zarra, drow herself and long used to the intricacies of politics, likewise refrained from drinking the ambermead. Following Zarra's lead, Lyssa looked with longing at the tiny glass cup containing the golden-hued beverage rumored to be worth thrice its weight in platinum, but did not drink. Hael, shrugging and not caring either way whether the ambermead was brimming with poison, readily tossed his down his throat and found that while the aperitif was at first an ecstacy in itself it soon burned a hole in his gut broader than the Great Rift. When the ratlings came round to offer Blite his thimble of ambermead, the minotaur successfully reached out to grasp the miniscule cup but in the process of doing so inadvertently startled the wererat serving him. The ratling scuttled backward and in his haste to flee the huge minotaur, dropped its tray of ambermead. A mad scramble quickly ensued for a three-row radius in all directions as members of the audience dashed in to collect what they could of the dropped distillation. A kuo-toa, either daring or half-mad, crawled on all fours to lap up the ambermead pooled on the playhouse floor. When the crowd discovered the kuo-toa's breach, the piteable creature was shortly pummeled and kicked to a violent death.

One of the duergar to arrive shortly after Ardyth began to sense the crowd's unrest and stood to make his way hastily to the foyer and exit doors. The duergar instead tripped on the fallen kuo-toa's slippery innards and fell to the stone steps of the ampitheatre, his lips and mouth an ashen white before his head even hit the floor. K'yorl, from the corner of the arena-style seating, stood up and declared in a loud voice, "POISONED!"

K'yorl's declaration, accompanied by the crowd's realization that the duergar had indeed died of poison of one variety or another, soon began scrabbling over one another to reach the exit doors up top the arena. A mass riot ensued. The drowess, a wickedly pleased smile on her lips, moved to stand behind her crescent ring of drow guardsmen down on the pit floor. Lyssa, Zarra, K'yorl, Blite, Hael, Ardyth, and Prixo were wise enough not to join in the stampede but to move out of the crowd's way and stood against the walls (or, in Lyssa's case, fluttering just above reach) of the playhouse. When the crowd had at last dispersed and those who suffered the poison's ravaging effects were either dead or slumped unconscious, the drowess again came forward, this time to commence the quorum. Declaring that the poisoned ambermead had been the quickest way to divest those worthy from those unfit for the long and arduous journey ahead, the drowess called for volunteers. A bare 35 members of the original audience of several hundred remained in the ampitheatre and conscious by the time the drowess made her declaration. Of these 35, eight volunteered and were selected: Alex the surface-dwelling human of the drowess's own guard, Hael, K'yorl, Zarra, Lyssa, Prixo, Ardyth, and Blite.

Satisfied that her task was complete, the drowess turned face and, her persimmon silk robes fluttering behind her, exited through the pit floor's right side door. Alex, who no doubt had greatly displeased his mistress by volunteering, was left behind with the remaining seven drow guardsment to clean up the mess in the playhouse. Wearily shedding his leather cap helmet and doffing the House Morcane armor, Alex turned to address the new team.

"I expect you'll have questions. I've been afforded some small measure of detail by Mistress Morcane, which I shall share with you. I warn you, though. I'm no leader in this expedition so don't expect such from me."

Post at will. If anything was posted over the weekend just before EN World crashed, I didn't see it and will need you to please re-post it to the best of your ability. Thanks, and thanks too for your patience.

 

[Voadam]

Mr. Charm

Giving Alex a hard-eyed glance Hael says "Spill it then, human.

First. What are the terms here of this commission from your Lady.

Second. What can you tell us of Maerimydra and its fall.

Third. Tell me your capabilities. I heard humans can't even see in the dark and I want to know what I'm working with."

 

[kinem]

Prixo closed his mouth, surprised that the dwarf had gotten the jump on his questioning of the human. He merely looked intently at the human, searching for any sign that the forthcoming answer is dishonest.

 

[wmasters]

Blite eyes Alex supsiciously, distrusting the human after the events in the playhouse. Adding to Hael's questions, he growls "What about Tierak Morcane? And why did she go about 'recruiting' us in this way?"

 

[Guest 11456]

Ardyth : Female Human Wizard 10

While the others ask their questions she begins observing her new companions. First she notices that, with the exception of the gloaming and duergar she appears to be the shortest. Her gaze goes from one to the next examining as best she can. These are the ones she will trust her life to and they her or so she hopes.

 

[Eydis]

Zarra sits back and decides that she will just watch everyone's mannerisms and listens intently to their speech and waits to see if interference will be needed in such an odd bunch.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

Prixo, searching for any sign that the forthcoming answer from the human guardsman is dishonest, senses the man's irritation with the duergar's curt interrogation. The human appears to be a man of integrity prone to the forms of polite society and visibly chaffes at Hael's insinuation that a human companion isn't worth his salt in the dark. Still, the human masters his will and marshals a reply to the duergar.

Alex stiffens at Hael's verbal assault. Clearly beleaguered and weary, Alex rebuffs Hael's barrage, chosing to first address the duergar's last demand. With flat eyes that leave no room for play, Alex narrows in on Hael with an uncompromising look. In a quiet purposeful voice, Alex intones, "It's not my eyes you need worry about, little dwarf." Alex removes a length of spiked and barbed chain fashioned of glittering silver and holds to outstretched between two hands in a horizontal line. The chain, by the look of it, reaches a full ten feet. Making a slow quarter turn of the pit floor so that all assembled can view his somewhat unorthodox weapon, Alex continues. "I live by the Chain. As it defends my blood, so shall it defend yours." Gingerly recoiling his spiked chain and eyeing Hael full on, Alex lilts his chin in a silent declaration of pride. "If you've yet to see such a weapon in action, then I bid you hold your calloused tongue. No doubt you'll have ample opportunity to see its whirling maelstrom ere long...the way to Maerimydra is long, or so sayeth Mistress Morcane."

Alex hangs his length of gleaming chain from his belt. By the wariness of his gestures and movement, Prixo determines that the human is actively gauging the other seven selectees for worth and is uncertain yet who, if any, shall claim the honor of worthiness in his eyes. In this sense at least the human seems no different from any of the others assembled.

Alex begins with a nearly courtly introduction, albeit without a bow and his eyes never removed from the other seven. "I am Alex. The Lady Tierak Morcane," and here Alex's voice betrays no small degree of loyalty and respect for his employer, "bids me welcome you in her stead. Having passed the Council's test of fortitude and endurance, you are deemed worthy volunteers; the Council is pleased to count such men and women of strength among its guardians. The terms of the commission are simple. We are to journey to Maerimydra by land. Once we arrive, we are to determine the nature of the incursion, the damage leveled upon the city, and the state of affairs inside Maerimydra's walls and are then to remove ourselves to a safely discrete distance and make our report. Pockets of faerzress that have long surrounded the Great City and some other wall of newly formed magical interference prevent the Council from transporting our team via magical means. Mistress Morcane has further deemed it unlikely that whomever holds the city will suspect our entrance on foot; she hopes to level the advantage of surprise in our direction by sending us afoot."

Alex pauses to stand stock still on two feet, his hands behind his back. "In return for your aid in this little scouting mission, the Lady Morcane offers you the Right of Pillage with the exception that the following Houses are to be left untouched: Morcane, Ned'razak, Wharreil, Mar-Shinn, and Umaerh." Alex pauses to let the list of reserved Houses sink in. "Houses T'sarran, Thendrik, Thenduk, Dumian, and Nelinderra and their treasuries shall fall to your able hands. If there is opportunity, the Lady Morcane has stated that she would have you return with proof of the demise of the entire household of House T'sarran" here Alex pauses, slightly uncomfortable, "family and slaves in all." Clearing his throat, Alex continues. "By way of compensation for the proven demise of House T'sarran, Mistress Morcane herself further offers you a sum of commesurate with your success but valuing no less than 2000 platinum florin. Each."

Alex clears his throat a second time and lifts his chin. "I have been afforded no details regarding the fall of Maerimydra, save only that its destruction was not recent. The faerzress prevented the Council from timely recognition of the trouble that has beset upon the city. Having never been there myself, I had hoped you might speak to me of the possible nature of the city's fall."

For those with ranks in Knowledge (local) or Knowledge (nobility or royalty), you may call for a knowledge check to see what of Alex's description jives with or clashes with your knowledge of political affairs in both Szith Morcane and Maerimydra. Anyone wishing to roll a Sense Motive check on Alex's words may of course do so--along with any other action or skill use that you deem appropriate to this situation.

 

[Eydis]

[Zarra's knowledge (underdark local) is +8]
Zarra will continue to hold her thoughts in until others have said what they want.