ADVENTURE 2: THE SINISTER SCRIPTORIUM
PC Roster:
Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 1
Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 1
Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 1
Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 1
Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 1
Game Session Date: 25 July 2020
- - -
Sleep came easily to the five new friends and adventuring companions: the previous day had been eventful but they'd found comfortable quarters near those Thurloe had already booked for himself for the duration of his training with Donegal Garabedian. So now they slept, and as they'd each expected, they met up again in the Dreamlands, having been guided by individual moogles who were there waiting for each of them.
"Hey, kupo!" was the greeting each received, before the moogles guided them through the Dreamlands to the throne room of the Queen of Dreams, where they all assembled together as a team. The first thing they noticed was the Queen looked slightly different than she had the previous night: she still wore a gown seemingly fashioned of living butterflies, still carried a silver staff, and still sat upon the same Butterfly Throne, but her hair was blonde now and her face, while recognizably mostly the same as it had been before, was very slightly different: her nose a bit longer, her eyes a touch farther apart.
"Such is the nature of dreams," replied the Queen to their unspoken question. "This is a completely different reality than the Waking World to which you are accustomed and it plays by different rules."
She smiled down at them from her throne. "In the meantime, since last we met I have had my servants" - and here she indicated the kittenish moogles who hovered in place around the throne room, their little batlike wings flapping nearly soundlessly - "make inquiries into the dreams of the mortals near your present physical location, specifically seeking out anyone dreaming about the mineral
dreamstone. I believe they have found one dreamer near you who has recently encountered a source; if its dreams are accurate, then I believe there should be a collection of dreamstones inside an underground cavern complex in the mountains to the north of the city in which your bodies currently reside."
Rising from the Butterfly Throne and walking gracefully down the steps before it, she approached a wall of the throne room, which at her touch became a vertical map of the local area to the north of Port Duralia. She indicated a spot on the map along the Shieldwall Mountains.
"Tomorrow, when you awaken, you should make preparations for an excursion into a cavern complex, located here," she said, a thin finger pointing to a location between two peaks. She then opened her other hand, revealing a smooth stone, black with flecks of white and gold. "This," she explained, "is dreamstone. You should try to gather a dozen or so of these. I have an idea as to how they might be used to aid those who have succumbed to the dreaming sickness."
The Queen of Dreams motioned for a moogle to approach. “For now, though,
Mogo here will begin your initial training. Mogo, please instruct them as we discussed."
"Sure thing, Your Highness kupo!" agreed the moogle, leading the five dreamers out of the throne room.
Mogo took them down a narrow hall filled with paintings whose figures moved about, giving them the appearance of windows into other places. "What will we be learning tonight?" asked Alewyth eagerly. She wanted to learn everything she could about dream manipulation - it sounded fascinating.
"Tonight we start with the basics: how to fall asleep, kupo!"
"Seriously?" asked Xandro. "We already
are asleep - that's how we're even here in the first place."
"Oh, sure, it's easy enough to fall asleep at bedtime, kupo," agreed Mogo. "But the only time you can communicate with the Queen of Dreams or with any of us is when you're dreaming, kupo! Don't you think there are times you might need to ask us questions in the middle of the day or something, kupo?"
"I suppose so," allowed Xandro. Mogo proceeded to instruct them on a calming ritual that would assist them in preparing their minds to fall asleep, even at times when neither their bodies nor their minds yet required the rest of slumber. "Unfortunately, you can't practice this lesson now, kupo!" replied Mogo after going through the paces of the ritual several times. "But you should practice it every night when you go to bed - and then sporadically throughout different times of the day, too, kupo!"
"I suppose practice makes perfect," admitted Alewyth. She was somewhat disappointed that the first lesson was on so mundane a topic, though - she was eager to get to the good stuff!
But the next morning they awoke, refreshed, and set about getting themselves prepared for a journey to the mountains. "We'll want mounts," replied Thurloe.
"Xandro and I already took care of that," answered Zander. "And Alewyth has her goat cart."
"Actually, I don't," interjected the dwarven cleric. "The
ivory goat cart was loaned to me just to get the keystone delivered; I sent it back to my temple with a note that I was taking a leave of absence. That was one of my options for after I delivered the stone."
"Well, then the three of us will need mounts," amended Thurloe. "I know a dealer in the area who can give us a good price."
"I do not need a mount," offered up Wakuren. "I can walk."
"Don't be silly - it's a long way to the mountains and a long way back. Plus, with any luck, we'll have some treasure to load up on the trip back - besides the dreamstones, I mean."
Wakuren was silent for a moment, then, not having found a means by which to sidestep the argument, came right to the point: "I do not have any funds with which to purchase a mount. I spent all I had saved on my armor and shield, in preparation for my...becoming a cleric." He'd been about to say "for my initiation ceremony," but he'd been cheated out of that at the last moment.
"Tell you what: I'll buy one for you and you can pay me back later," offered Thurloe. Wakuren tried to argue his way out of it, but the human fighter wasn't having any of it. "If we need to get going somewhere quickly, for whatever reason, a horse'll go a lot faster than a tired half-orc in heavy armor."
"I'm getting a mule," offered up Alewyth. Eventually, Wakuren agreed to allow Thurloe to purchase him a mule, once he learned that mules were less expensive than riding horses. "You sure?" Thurloe asked again. "I'm getting a horse."
"I will take a mule, with thanks - and I will pay you back when I can," agreed Wakuren, and that was that.
Thurloe, never big on sentimentality, ended up picking up a riding horse he simply named "
Horse." Alewyth named her mule "
Mica" - a good, dwarven name if ever there was one. Wakuren picked out his mule but dithered over a name, eventually deciding he was in no particular hurry and could wait until he found a name he really liked. They purchased saddles for their mounts and saddlebags to go with them.
"Did you guys ever name your horses?" Alewyth asked Xandro and Zander. The horses they'd taken from the thieves who'd tried to rob the bard on his way to Port Duralia were both black, each with a white star on their muzzles.
"I'm calling mine '
Eddy,'" the elf responded.
"I'm naming mine '
White,'" answered Xandro.
"What else will we need?" thought Thurloe aloud. "Rope? Pitons? It's a cave network, right?"
"Some of you are probably going to want light sources," Alewyth pointed out. She and Wakuren had darkvision and thus could make do without any sources of illumination but the two humans and the elf weren't going to get very far without some way of seeing while deep inside a cave network.
"Yeah, good point," agreed Thurloe. "I got a sunrod, but just the one. Okay, let's head this way. I know a shortcut to a place where we can get what we need."
Thurloe's shortcut took them through back alleys, some of them narrow enough they needed to ride single file. But it was in a wider section of alley that they saw a man stagger through a solid wall, blood spraying down his front. He collapsed onto the street in the alleyway, his finger moving erratically as he desperately tried writing a message in his own blood.
Thurloe urged Horse forward at his best speed and leaped from the saddle once he'd approached the dying man. The man's hand trembled one last time as a gurgle of air escaped from his very obviously slit throat, bubbles forming in the blood flowing out of the gash. The fighter saw the exact moment life left the poor man's body.
He also looked down at the street where the man had died and saw his last, desperate message. There, finger-painted in blood, was written the following:
Thurloe put his hand up against the wall the man had staggered through and was surprised to feel it as solid as...as a solid wall, actually. He'd heard of a spell that allowed you to walk straight through a wall;
passwall, he was fairly certain it was called. If that was the means by which the man had exited the one-story brick building, the spell was apparently no longer in effect.
Alewyth dropped down from Mica's saddle and approached the dead man in the alley, saddened to see there was nothing she could do to help him; the
cure light wounds spell she'd planned to cast was very obviously not going to do anything for a man clearly already dead. She looked down at the man's message. "Any idea what that means?" she asked Thurloe.
"Address, maybe," Thurloe hazarded.
The others approached and all but Zander dismounted from their own animals. Xandro looked the message over and said, "I'm fairly familiar with this city - I don't think that's an address."
"South in 13012 north?" Zander tried. "That last part isn't an address?"
"I don't think so, no." The bard bent down and lifted the dead man's hand, examining his ring. "Look at this, though: it's a signet ring. That's the crest of the Theringold family; they're minor nobility."
"Not too well off, either," added Alewyth, "judging by the threadbare state of his clothes." Sure enough, the man's outfit was of top quality but it had seen much use; most noblemen wouldn't be seen in a set of clothes that had seen that much apparent prior wear.
Wakuren examined the wall closer, seeking a secret door or something. "There has to be a way in," he guessed. "We all saw him pass right through this wall."
"
Passwall spell," suggested Thurloe.
"Then maybe this is the password," reasoned the half-orc, looking down at the message in blood. "S in one-three-zero-one-two N," he said, feeling the continued solidity of the wall. "S in thirteen thousand and twelve, N," he tried, to no avail. Converting the "S" and "N" to "south" and "north" didn't get him anywhere, either.
From the other side of the wall, two robed figures watched the five people near the corpse of the man they'd just slain, one of them - a half-orc wearing the holy symbol of the All-Father around his neck - methodically tapping at the wall. From the inside of the building the wall was transparent, giving the half-orc the appearance of a mime playing "trapped inside an invisible box" tricks. The fact they couldn't hear anything being said outside only enhanced the illusion.
"You think they'll find their way in?" one robed figure asked.
"Doubt it," answered the other. "But I'll go bring up the watchbeast, just in case." He went to go do just that.
"Let's go check the front of the building out," suggested Thurloe. "Maybe whoever owns this place knows how the secret door works." He tied Horse's reins to the dead man's ankle, earning him a glare from Alewyth. "I'll stay here with the mounts," she offered, untying the reins and moving them over to a drain spout. "No respect for the dead," she muttered as the human fighter wandered off around to the front of the building. The other three men followed, Zander the only one remaining on horseback, leaving the dwarven priestess with four steeds and the body of the dead man. He was a human, so that would probably put him at...late twenties, thought Alewyth, mentally translating his appearance into human years. That meant he'd been only a young adult when he'd been killed.
Rounding to the front, Thurloe saw the entire building was one shop: "Sandoval's Scriptorium," according to the sign painted on the front door. Thurloe noted the high, narrow windows above the door and along the front wall that let light into the interior. He and Wakuren entered the building, leaving Xandro and the mounted Zander outside to stand guard.
"Good morning," the young fighter said to the bearded man behind the counter in what was apparently the front of the shop, the only area accessible to customers; there were two doors leading further into the building but they were both behind the wooden counter that stretched across the width of the room.
"Can I help you?" asked the man.
"Are you
Sandoval?"
"I am."
"Well, Sandoval, you seem to have a dead man in your back alley."
Sandoval just looked at Thurloe with a bored expression on his face. Once he pegged that the fighter was waiting for a response, he said, "...So?"
"So, don't you want to do anything about it? He looked to have had his throat cut, ear to ear." Thurloe indicated the location of the man's cut with his own finger.
"Nothing to do with me," Sandoval replied. "I run a respectable business. So, are you here for anything? Arcane scrolls, maybe? We offer competitive prices."
"No, we're more interested in your dead guy."
"He's not my dead guy. Take it up with the city guard; they'll deal with cleaning up the alley of any dead bodies hanging around. Now then, you here to buy something, or are you just wasting my time?"
"Somebody's wasting somebody's time, all right," Wakuren said, jumping up onto the counter and swinging his legs around. He landed beside Sandoval and headed for the door to the east.
"Hey, you can't be back here!" complained Sandoval. At the half-orc's ankle, a hissing sound announced the presence of Sandoval's weasel familiar,
Sleek. Wakuren ignored both of them, kicking in the door. The room beyond, however, was merely a storage area, with a writing desk and chair along one wall and a bookshelf containing all manners of scrolls and parchments, many of them rolled into leather tubes and stacked in neat rows. Vials of ink and quill pens were stacked neatly on the desktop, beside piles of clean parchment.
Pushing himself past Sandoval, the burly half-orc approached the door at the other end of the counter; this one faced south and would lead further into the building. Opening it, Wakuren found a short hallway with another door right beside this one, along the north wall. He opened this door as well, exposing a bedroom likely belonging to the scribe. The only other door in the room was in the northwest corner, and the area behind it was small enough it likely led to either a closet or a privy. Growling softly to himself, Wakuren realized he'd just seen the entirety of the front of the building and found no way to get farther back into it, closer to the wall abutting the alleyway.
As the half-orc turned to retrace his steps, he missed the homunculus crawling out from beneath Sandoval's bed. The thing leaped into the air and let its wings carry it across the room, striking out to bite at Wakuren. Fortunately, the cleric of Cal heard the drone of the wings at the last moment and spun about, the homunculus's sharp teeth just missing snapping down on the half-orc's cheek.
"Out of the way, old man!" snarled Thurloe, as Sandoval tried blocking his access to the door Wakuren had just gone through. He lifted the flap of the counter allowing one to move from the customer area to the back as he pulled the bastard sword from its scabbard on his back; then, when the scribe tried grabbing the fighter's hands he brought the blade down upon him. Thurloe had no qualms about attacking this man in his own shop, for he was already convinced Sandoval was complicit in the murder of the Theringold nobleman in the back alley.
Shoving the now-bleeding scribe to fall on the floor beside his familiar, Thurloe pushed his way through the door and found Wakuren in combat with some little bat-winged thing that was flying in his face and trying to bite him with needle-sharp teeth. It was a tight squeeze, as the narrow corridor was short and the half-orc stood in the doorway of the bedroom to the north, but Thurloe tried stabbing at the homunculus with the tip of his sword's blade over the half-orc's shoulder.
In the meantime, the robed figures - back together again now that the one who'd gone downstairs had returned with the watchbeast - saw Alewyth's back was turned as she said some last rites over the foolish human who had tried mounting a rescue attempt and ended up with his throat slit for his efforts. This was too good of an opportunity to miss, for the dwarven cleric was alone in the alleyway save for four mounts and a corpse. With short swords drawn, they said the command word that activated the
passwall effect and stabbed through the wall at the dwarven woman. Literally stabbed in the back twice at once, Alewyth collapsed into unconsciousness and began bleeding out.
Zander's keen elven ears had picked up Alewyth's startled cry from the other side of the building; kicking speed into Eddy, he rode the horse around the side of the building, Xandro running behind in his wake. The elf turned the corner just in time to see Alewyth's body being dragged inside the building through what had been a solid wall. "What in the--?" he cried as he leaped from Eddy's saddle and rushed over to the wall, but it was still perfectly solid from this side. He slapped the bricks in frustration. Inside the building, the robed figures let Alewyth's bleeding body fall to the floor and readied their weapons to attack the elf if he should be able to pierce their magic wall.
Wakuren brought his shield crashing down upon the homunculus, but it flapped over to the side, flew up, and bit the half-orc on the side of the face. The bite burned with a stinging sensation Wakuren figured was probably poison, but whatever effect had been intended the half-orc's rugged constitution prevent any further debilitation on his part. But the attacks had forced Wakuren to step further into the bedroom, giving Thurloe enough space to enter the room himself. With the extra room to swing his blade, he brought his bastard sword down upon the flying homunculus, practically cutting it into two.
"You okay?" he asked the cleric.
"I'll be fine," replied Wakuren. "There's got to be a secret door or something leading to the back end of the building - help me find it." He began slamming his fist against the southern wall, trying to hear if there were any hollow spots or anything that sounded different that might indicate a hidden passageway. Thurloe started doing likewise.
"Where's that elf?" he asked. "He's better suited to this sort of thing."
But Zander Quilson was in the back alley, frustrated at his inability to get through the solid wall through which Alewyth had been dragged. He looked back to the finger-drawn message in blood at his feet, beside the corpse of the man who had written it. "This has
got to be the way in!" he reasoned.
Xandro examined it as well. "The guy was dying," he said. "It's very possible he didn't have the coordination he would have had otherwise. What if we ignore the spacing between the letters and numbers? Maybe it's all supposed to be one word."
"A word with numbers?" argued Zander, but then applying Xandro's reasoning, if the spacing between the "1" and "3" were ignored, and likewise with the "1" and "2," and if that zero was actually an "o"....
"Sinborn!" cried Zander, slapping his hand against the wall. It passed right through.
"Uh oh," said one of the robed figures inside the room beyond. "Incoming!"
As Zander stepped through the wall he was immediately attacked by two robed figures wielding short swords. The sorcerer instinctively dodged one of the blows and the other only grazed him along one arm. But then Xandro had leaped through the wall beside him, his rapier in hand and flashing out at the one who had managed to cut Zander's arm. Alewyth was unconscious on the floor beside the two men in robes, but there was some sort of large, predatory cat sniffing at her as if checking out its newest meal - not good!
The robed figures struck out as one, each choosing a target and sticking with him. Xandro managed to put up a good fight with his rapier; Zander, armed only with a dagger, was at a disadvantage in a blade-fight due to the smaller reach of his weapon. But he had no intention of meeting his foe in melee combat, not when he had the power of spellcraft behind him! Stepping backwards, down a narrow hallway ending in a closed door to the east, he put enough distance between himself and his assailant to cast a
magic missile spell that struck his foe right in the face.
And what a face! As the creature involuntarily flinched his head backwards from the magical attack, the hood of his robe flapped back and Zander saw the face of the man he'd been fighting. From the nose down, his skin was green and he sported rather orcish features, whereas the left side of his face was covered with an orange-reddish skin and the right side seemed almost armor-plated. Worse yet, his right eye grew at the end of a short stalk, like one you might find on a snail or a slug - or, Zander belatedly realized, a crab, which would explain the carapace around that eyestalk. What kind of mishmash creatures were they fighting?
Xandro had gotten a glimpse of his own hooded foe's physical abnormalities, for the man's right arm was much shorter than his left and the left side of his head bulged out disturbingly, as if someone had tried making one head out of the halves of an ogre and a satyr; Xandro noted the small horn growing out of the right side of his enemy's temple. But despite the oddities of his form, the creature had apparently adapted to the reality of his misshapen body, for he wielded his short sword with the adeptness of a professional. It was all Xandro could do keep the malformed rogue's short sword at bay with his own rapier.
Not having found any hidden passageways in the bedroom, Thurloe had moved back into the short hallway and discovered the western wall likely held a secret door - he just couldn't find the triggering mechanism. So, deciding to make his own doorway, he brought his bastard sword crashing down into the wall, cutting a deep slice into the camouflaged wooden door. Hearing the noise caused by such activities, the mongrelman who'd been fighting Xandro backed off to go deal with this new threat, calling for their trained krenshar to attack the rapier-wielding human with the lute strapped to his back.
The krenshar growled, hunched as if getting ready to pounce at Xandro, and then - quite disturbingly - the skin around its face flipped up, revealing a feline skull covered in bands of sinewy muscle. The bard didn't feel fear so much as disgust, but the distraction was enough to allow the krenshar to get a grip on the bard's left leg with its powerful jaws. Xandro stabbed down at the beast's neck with the tip of his rapier, causing the hyena-sized creature to roar in pain and release his leg.
Zander sped past his foe and touched Alewyth's unmoving form, concerned she might be slipping closer to death with every passing second. He activated his own unique spell-like ability, channeling a small burst of positive energy into the unconscious priestess, enough to close up her wounds and prevent any further bleeding.
Wakuren took over the door-making procedure, smashing his metal shield into the hole Thurloe had started with his bastard sword. Then, kicking away fragments of the hidden door, he had enough of a hole to step through. But there was a strange, hooded man waiting there for him, stabbing out with his short sword. Wakuren managed to deflect the thrust with his shield, then stepped fully into the room, Thurloe entering behind him.
The mongrelmen each attacked their intended foes again; Wakuren deflected the blow successfully but Zander wasn't as lucky. Still, he was better off than the mongrelman attacking Wakuren, for Thurloe's bastard sword - held in a two-handed grip that allowed the fighter to put the full force of his not-inconsiderable strength behind it - cut him down.
The krenshar cringed, growled, and then sprung again at Xandro, toppling him backwards and causing him to hit his head on the floor as he fell; unconsciousness swept over him almost instantly. The skull-faced beast started chewing on the bard's leg, seeing no reason to wait for his prey to actually die before making him its next meal.
Zander knew he'd be following Xandro into unconsciousness if he let his mongrelman foe continue to attack him. So, since the door behind him was locked, he saw the transparent wall he'd walked through to get into the building and, not sure if the command word was still in effect, called out "Sinborn!" and dashed back through the wall and into the alleyway with the horses and mules. He allowed the words to another casting of the
magic missile spell come to the forefront of his mind, ready to send flying into the mongrelman rogue if he dared to follow the sorcerer back outside.
Wakuren dashed over to the fallen Alewyth and the unconscious Xandro and determined the bard was currently worse off - a rather easy determination, considering the krenshar was chomping on his leg like a chew toy. The half-orc cleric cast a
cure light wounds spell on the downed bard, slapping at the krenshar with his shield in an attempt to drive him off. The krenshar growled its anger at having been separated from his meal, but then he was slain by an overhand blow from Thurloe's bastard sword. Xandro sat up, rubbing his sore leg but finding he was able to stand upon it. "Thanks," he said to the half-orc cleric of Cal.
The remaining mongrelman ran outside through the wall in pursuit of Zander and the
magic missile spell hit him unerringly in the chest as soon as he entered the alleyway. He stabbed at the sorcerer with his blade, hoping to cut him down, but the nimble elf backed up and kept his distance. He blasted the rogue with another
magic missile and that was enough to send him crashing lifelessly to the alley ground, not far from the nobleman the mongrelman had slain just minutes earlier.
Wakuren knelt and healed Alewyth, bringing her back to consciousness with another casting of the
cure light wounds spell. Looking around and seeing no further combatants needing to be dealt with, Thurloe announced his intentions to go see to Sandoval and backtracked his way through the hole he and Wakuren had carved through the hallway wall. Sandoval was in a lot of pain but he was still conscious, his weasel familiar doing his best to lick his master back to good health (or perhaps he just enjoyed the taste of his master's blood). But the scribe cringed upon Thurloe's return, thinking the fighter was there to finish him off. "I've got powerful connections!" Sandoval cried out, thinking to prevent Thurloe from slaying him if he thought the guild of thieves with which he was associated would avenge him. But Thurloe wasn't in a murdering mood; instead, he bound the scribe tightly with rope from his backpack.
"Now, I'm going to ask you again about the dead guy in the alley," began the fighter.
"Screw the dead guy in the alley!" spat Sandoval. "I didn't have anything to do with anything like that! I'm a scribe - I create scrolls, documents, okay, maybe the occasional forgeries if the price is right! But that's it!"
"There were two...mishmash monster guys and a skull-faced hyena-thing in the back of your building who likely killed the guy in the alley. You have to be aware of who they are."
"Hey, if the guild says let some of their members bunk in the back, who am I to argue? I just run the scribe shop - that's it! Now let me go and get out of here, if you know what's good for you! Or I'll have the thieves guild on you so fast it'll make your head spin!"
Thurloe was getting tired of the same old protestations of innocence from a man who was obviously involved up to his eyeballs. Before either of the good-hearted clerics interfered with his own sense of justice, Thurloe ran Sandoval through with his blade; it turned out he was in a murdering mood after all.
A quick examination of the ground level of the scriptorium building revealed a dining hall and a set of stairs leading down to a basement level. But there was also the locked door Zander had found. Unable to open it via normal methods - Sandoval didn't carry a key to the door on his person, nor could Thurloe find one behind the front counter - Alewyth took matters into her own hands by smashing through the wooden door with her warhammer. A shriek of surprise accompanied her initial swings, but by the time she'd smashed all the way through and into the room, the startled screams had died down. Entering the room, the group found a line of cells along the eastern wall. They were all empty save for the northernmost one, which held a young woman in her late twenties.
"Who are you?" asked Alewyth, surprised to find a human woman in a cage inside this scriptorium manned by weird mongrelmen.
"My name is
Teresa Theringold," replied the young woman. "Did my brother
Bertram send you?" she asked, hope in her eyes.
"Uhhh," began Alewyth, then realized there was no good way to deliver the information. "I'm afraid he's dead, outside, in the alleyway. But he had apparently tracked you down and was attempting to rescue you from here. Why were you taken, may I ask?"
Teresa broke down into tears at the announcement of the death of her brother. "R-ransom," she finally replied. "They said if my family didn't pay them 15,000 pieces of gold by the end of the week, I'd be sold into slavery." She took a moment to try to recover her composure. "I'm afraid we no longer have that kind of money...my father has squandered most of it away, gambling."
"Well, don't you worry - we'll have you out of there in a jiffy," promised Alewyth, striking the cell door with her warhammer. But the metal bars of the cell were much sturdier than the wooden door she'd smashed through to gain entrance into the room and she soon realized she wasn't going to be able to break the door to the cell down.
"I'm afraid we'll have to come back for you, after we find the key to your cell," Alewyth amended her promise. "But we won't leave without you, this I swear."
Wakuren asked Teresa who had taken her hostage and who had been tending to her since - bringing her food and water, for example. "Monsters," Teresa replied with a shudder. "Stitched-together abominations from some mad wizard's lab." That would be the mongrelmen, Wakuren reasoned. And it explained the password controlling the back wall, as "sinborn" was a slang term for the patchwork creatures, many people believing anyone born as a mongrelfolk was being punished for sins committed in a prior life.
The group promised Teresa they'd be back and headed over to the stairs, which were lined up along the western wall of the building. Alewyth cast a
protection from evil spell upon herself, sure that anyone they'd meet would likely be of an evil bent. Seeing not even the faintest illumination coming from the lower level, Zander cast a
dancing lights spell that sent several marble-sized balls of illumination dancing around the top of his head. And then they went down the stairs.
About halfway down, Thurloe activated his sunrod and threw it down the stairs, to have it skitter along the floor and roll forward down a hallway. As he approached the lower level he picked up the distinct scent of cat urine; no doubt the krenshar normally spent most of its time down here. He also held up his hand, signaling the others behind him to stop, and strained to focus on what he thought he'd heard: the labored breathing of someone hiding in one of the rooms nearby. Moving forward again as quietly as he could go, Thurloe reached the floor and stepped into an open room with several open doorways. The smell of cat-piss was strong here and the scattered bones of previous victims - humans and elves, by the looks of them - indicated they'd found the krenshar's lair.
But that wasn't all of note. The room at the bottom of the stairs was at the northwestern corner of the basement level, with the doorways opening into some sort of maze network or something. The walls of the maze were ten feet tall and made of stone, but there was a wooden set of rafters at the 15-foot mark, and the ceiling stood a good five feet above them, a full 20 feet above the floor. A triangular platform of wood sat directly overhead, sitting in the corner of the rafter network.
Cautiously, Thurloe entered the maze, heading south to follow the path of the sunrod he'd tossed in that direction. This was also the direction of the heavy breathing sound, and as the fighter approached a side passageway in the maze the source of the wheezing made itself visible: a bearded mongrelman with patches of green scales on the side of its face and a crab claw in the place of its left hand. Almost without conscious thought, Thurloe swung his bastard sword at the abomination as it in turn snapped out with its claw; the fighter dodged the pincer but the mongrelman fell to the ground, dead. One down, thought Thurloe, wondering how many more of these "sinborn" were down here in this maze.
Alewyth stepped into the krenshar's lair and headed east. Zander followed in Thurloe's direction and cast a
detect magic spell, wondering if there were any magic weapons being used against them; if so, he might get a bit of a heads up from the casting of the spell. Turning slowly to face different parts of the basement level, he got a magical "ping" from the wooden triangle in the northeastern corner; there was something magical stored up there!
Xandro was the next to enter the krenshar's lair and he pulled the lute from his back and began singing a ballad about a brave band of heroes facing their enemies, thinking his friends could probably use a boost to their own courage in this dark labyrinth. He wove magic into the words of his song, inspiring courage into the minds of the fledgling heroes exploring this dark lair.
Wakuren brought up the rear and he also headed east, but by a different path than that chosen by Alewyth. He soon ran into another mongrelfolk, this one sporting facial features reminiscent of both gnolls and lizardfolk. He bashed it with his metal shield, dropping the sinborn to its knees, then using the side of the shield to crush its windpipe. It fell dead to the floor.
But now the remaining mongrelfolk exploded into action, attacking the heroes from all directions. Another crab-clawed sinborn snapped at Thurloe with its pincer, but this was just a distraction allowing him to strike the fighter with a wooden club the creature held in a hairy fist. A stumpy sinborn with one normal-sized eye and the other three times the size of its neighbor slammed a wooden club over Wakuren's head from behind and the half-orc fell forward into unconsciousness, his metal shield striking the ground with a clatter.
However, there were more than mongrelfolk down here in this labyrinth; the four triangular corners of the rafters each held the nest of a kenku: a humanoid crow covered in black feathers and with talonlike claws on both hands and feet. One kenku - the one from the northeastern nest - rose from its bed and crept cautiously across the wooden rafters, dipping an arrow into the glass vial of centipede venom it wore on its belt and nocking it into its shortbow as it did so. It saw Alewyth creeping forward, oblivious to the kenku's position, and fired down at the dwarf. The arrow struck true, piercing the cleric's shoulder and sending a burning sensation through the wound. But dwarves are a hearty race and Alewyth was able to shrug off the effects of the venom.
The other kenku awoke from the sounds of battle and grabbed up its own shortbow from its nest in the southeastern corner. The black-feathered rogue bounded across the rafters in a low crouch, gaining the central area of the labyrinth from where it could see Xandro playing his lute. The kenku fired, hitting the bard a glancing blow that was fortunately not deep enough for the centipede venom to enter Xandro's bloodstream.
Thurloe slew the crab-clawed mongrelfolk who'd hit him with the club and rounded a corner of the maze; fortunately, with Zander's
dancing lights floating above his head there was enough illumination to reveal the kenku up on the rafters and the fighter called out a warning to beware of archers from above. Alewyth moved forward to try to revive Wakuren, realizing the two of them were the group's primary source of healing and as such it was up to her to bring him back to consciousness. However, she not only had to contend with the kenku firing from the rafters above her but also a hulking mongrelman whose torso, right arm, and lower face seemed to be composed of primarily ogrish traits. It limped forward on mismatched legs, one of them sporting the scales and clawed toes of a lizardfolk, and swung its wooden club at the dwarf. She dodged the blow and maneuvered herself such that the burly sinborn stood in the way of the kenku's bow-shots, hoping he'd move off - for she needed to slay this mongrelman to get to Wakuren but as soon as her "mongrelman shield" dropped she'd be in the sights of the kenku's arrows again.
Zander moved up to give Alewyth what assistance he could, but he was almost out of his more powerful spells and had pulled out his dagger, fearing he'd have to engage in hand-to-hand combat, his least-preferred method of fighting. As he traveled east along the northernmost passage, his elven senses picked up the fact there was a hidden door along the left wall - no, make that two of them, spaced fairly closely together. He also got a magical "ping" from the kenku nest in the northeastern corner; apparently these kenku liked to keep magic items stored away! Having to ignore the secret doors for now - it sounded like Alewyth needed any help she could get, and quickly! - Zander vowed to remember to scramble up to the 15-foot-high perches to check out what all treasure the kenku had stashed about once this combat was done.
Xandro had to stop playing his lute and give more attention to his rapier, for another crab-clawed mongrelman stepped out to attack him. He handily dispatched him and opted to swing the lute back over his shoulder by its strap for now, content that the magical effect it had provided his friends would linger for a bit once the music itself had stopped. Then he darted forward into the maze, seeking out enemies - and making sure to check the rafters above him for the darting kenku. Fortunately, despite the fact there was a nest in each corner only two kenku seemed to be about; it was possible the other two were off on some mission for the thieves guild with which these animal-men seemed to be associated.
Straddling the unconscious Wakuren, the ogrish mongrelman attacked Alewyth again. And now, from a side-passage of the twisting maze, another sinborn stepped forward, this one feature a large, multifaceted insect eye growing out of the right side of his face. Fortunately, the clomp of his right foot - which was hoofed, like that of a satyr or minotaur - provided the priestess enough warning to avoid the swing of his club. But now she faced mongrelfolk on two sides and she still couldn't reach the downed half-orc cleric.
Fortunately, the kenku above her still couldn't get in a good shot, so he scampered over the haphazard rafters, looking for a better angle from which to assault these interlopers below. He got in a good shot against Thurloe, firing his arrow into the fighter's upper chest. Thurloe grunted in pain but remained on his feet, although he was now seriously thinking this might just be a fight they couldn't win at present. This view was only reinforced when the other kenku hopped along the rafters and got in a good shot at Alewyth, hitting her in the upper arm from above and to the side.
Zander shot his final
magic missile of the day at the bug-eyed mongrelman, distracting it from Alewyth; this allowed Xandro to come up from behind it and run it through with his rapier, the point sticking out of the thing's chest before the bard pulled it back out and the sinborn fell lifelessly to the floor of the maze. But the ogrish one kept up his attacks on the priestess of Aerik and the kenku above fired down another arrow into her back; she was now on her last legs and knew it, realizing also that if she were to fall in battle it would likely mean not only her life but possibly Wakuren's as well.
The other kenku, from his higher perch, fired another arrow at Thurloe, hitting him in the top of his shoulder. That was it for the fighter; with a bellowed cry of "Retreat!" he followed his own advice, backing to the stairs leading to the upper level of the scriptorium and taking a moment to pluck the arrows from his body, crying out on pain as he pulled out the one piercing his chest. But several steps up the stairs he was out of bow-shot range from the kenku archer; the angle was all wrong for the rafter-bound kenku to be firing up a slope.
However, Thurloe grimaced when Xandro called back, from deeper inside the maze, "Wakuren's down!" Crap, that meant retreat wasn't really an option, then. Steeling himself, he grabbed up his bastard sword and readied to run back into battle.
Fortunately, Alewyth managed to take out the ogre-blooded mongrelfolk with a desperate strike of her warhammer, which allowed her to scramble forward and cast a much-needed
cure light wounds spell on Wakuren, bringing the half-orc cleric to flickering consciousness. Zander kept the nearest kenku engaged by casting a
ray of frost spell up at it, covering the priestess's ministrations. Xandro also found the point of his rapier could reach up at the kenku's feet and he stabbed at it, causing the bird-man to leap and scramble away.
The other kenku, having lost Thurloe as his target, was leaping from rafter to rafter across the maze to line up another shot. It wasn't yet in position, but it was gaining fast on those in the maze below. But then, with a war-scream at his lips, Thurloe raced back into the maze and leaped into the air, bringing his bastard sword swinging wildly at the first kenku at the top of his jump. The blade cut the legs out from the startled avian and he fell backwards off the rafters to land, lifelessly, in an empty passageway on the other side of a maze wall from the fighter.
There was now only the sole remaining kenku facing the five heroes, but he still had the advantage of height and a ranged weapon with which he could shoot down at them, whereas the five on the ground were better geared toward hand-to-hand combat than ranged attacks. The kenku was also in a better position maneuverability-wise, for he could race across the rafters in pretty much any direction he wanted, whereas the ground-based heroes were forced to meander around the twisting passageways of the maze.
Zander, dagger in hand, started following Thurloe's earlier advice and began heading for the stairway. Xandro saw the kenku approaching and stabbed up with his rapier, causing the archer to squawk in frustration and dart off in a slightly different direction before stopping, taking aim, and firing an arrow down at the troublesome bard. Wakuren, back on his feet, took a moment to cast a healing spell upon Alewyth in return and then stalked through the maze, heading towards the kenku on the rafters above. It was difficult for the kenku, even with his higher elevation, to keep track of all five of his enemies below, and eventually he strayed too close to Thurloe, who repeated his earlier maneuver and cut the archer a deep gash in the leg with his bastard sword from below, causing him to fall from his perch onto the maze floor beneath the rafters. The others hurried to get to him before he could scramble back up the wall and onto the rafters, but when they got to the kenku it was already dead, its neck in an unnatural position from when he had fallen.
"Well, good," Thurloe replied with a weary sigh before heading off to find one of the clerics for some much-needed healing.
Their enemies dead, the five heroes set about seeing if there was anything of value to be found among the corpses of those they'd slain and, more importantly, up in the kenku nests. They boosted Zander up - he was the lightest of the group - and he tossed down the various treasures the kenku rogues had accumulated. The magic items the sorcerer had detected were mostly utilitarian in nature - two healing potions, an
everburning torch wrapped in a blanket - but they also snagged a tanglefoot bag, some tindertwigs and a candle, a vial of antitoxin, a smattering of coinage, and most importantly, a bunch of keys on a metal ring. These proved to be the keys to the cells in the room in which Teresa Theringold was being kept prisoner and she was grateful when the five returned to free her.
But before they did that, Zander wanted to check out what was behind the secret doors he'd sensed. One led to a small room with a terrarium filled with several centipedes as long as the elf's arm, along with heavy gloves and metal tongs that were apparently used in venom extraction; this was where the kenku got the poison for their arrows, it seemed. Another tunnel led to what appeared as a shrine of some sort, missing only the statue of the god to which it would normally have been consecrated; nevertheless, the assembled treasure of the mongrelfolk was apparently stored here, meager as it might be. Then, further down the wall, Zander discovered yet another hidden passageway he hadn't noticed before; this one led to the sewers even lower down and likely served as a means for the misshapen sinborn to move about the city unseen. But it served a different purpose this day, for at Thurloe's direction all of the kenku and mongrelfolk corpses got dragged to the sewer access hole and dropped down the shaft, to disappear into the rancid waters below.
Once freed, Teresa asked to be taken to the body of her brother immediately. Taking her through the oddly transparent wall (transparent from the inside only, as became evident once outside in the alleyway), Teresa identified the body laying there as her brother Bertram. "If you would help transport his body back to our estate, I will pay you what I can," Teresa offered. The group lifted Bertram's body and placed it across the broad back of Mica the mule and Alewyth walked her mount beside Teresa, who led them to the Theringold estate. There she insisted upon paying the group 500 pieces of gold for their assistance, Wakuren insisted that they needed no such payment, and Thurloe insisted that Wakuren was being a dumbass and of course they were happy to help but equally happy to be paid for their services.
And then the group mounted their horses and mules and returned the way they had originally been going, to stock up on the other supplies they'd need for their trek into the mountains, to try to find the dreamstones they'd been briefed about in the Dreamlands.
"You think of a name for your mule yet?" Xandro asked Wakuren.
"I'm thinking '
Perseverance,'" Wakuren replied.
- - -
This was an opportunity for me to put the PCs in combat against some creatures who might reasonably be expected to be found inside a city, since I imagine the vast majority of the campaign will be spent on the move, as the PCs travel about the continent coming to the aid of those who have fallen victim to the dream-sickness. But as they still need training on dream manipulation, I wanted to keep them in Port Duralia for a bit and this was a means to have an adventure take place entirely within its confines. I'll be sending them on the road before too long, which will make it difficult to have many repeat visits by established NPCs. Now at least they have earned the respect of a minor noble family; I may be able to do something with that in the future.
I figure Bertram Theringold had tracked down one of the two kenku who had kidnapped his sister and tortured the location and password out of him before killing him. That explains how he tracked down his sister's whereabouts, made it through the
passwall, and got himself killed - but at least had the presence of mind to try to write the password to the wall down before he died.
Incidentally, Harry absolutely
hated the fact that I had given Sandoval a weasel familiar and had the audacity to use the same mini he had used for his own half-orc sorcerer's familiar in our previous campaign. Harry demanded we kill Sleek for the simple crime of not being Wezhley.
- - -
T-shirt worn: My Einstein shirt, as it was the same game session as the first adventure.
