Erkonin (Campaign #2) [Session 45: Rajalmin's Agent]

[prabe]

Session 31: What’s Going on in Dhaqi?

Players:

Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Druid
Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest)
Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul)
Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster)

Note: Marxine's player could not be with us for this session

GM - Everyone Else

(Note: This session was held on Discord.)


19 Plantarin 749 (Campaign day 110)

After the inquiries and explorations of the day before, it was getting late so we went back to the Inn to read Danrom Orth’s papers.

We learned that Danrom met up with the dwarf paladin, Etta Blackgranite (Tylrok Hammerhammer’s aunt), on a ship to Dhaqi. In the course of some adventures on the ship they started working with the halfling cleric from that city, Sarik Whitesand, and with the human monk from Kiranamakir, Adlawan Gavlura. They had adventures around and in Dhaqi -- which is where they started learning about Rajalmin and his plans.

His cabals there were doing horrific summoning rituals -- with several different cabals working in a coordinated way (though they may not have realized it) to do a bigger summoning than any of the cabals would have been capable of independently. While fighting those cabals, they found clues about Rajalmin having activities in Kiranamakir and they went there.

That’s where they found out about Rajalmin’s thing with sparking duels and creating unrest and worked to put a stop to that. They also learned about the cabal in New Arvai that were summoning him repeatedly so that he was regularly being invited back to Erkonin.

They came to New Arvai and busted up that cabal -- they killed most of the cabalists, but Danrom was convinced that there were some that weren’t at the ritual site when he and his party got there and were therefore not among those who fought and were killed. Danrom believed that the ones that weren’t there perhaps didn’t know what they were doing or that they were summoning a Rakshasa.

Evidence for that fact is that he then lived a long life and died a natural death in New Arvai.

Vinya: So how do you find a cabal?
Elderron: I think they’re near or in the libraries.

Vinya had an idea to try and talk to the researchers who had assisted Elderron and Aldalomiel the day before, to see if they could give a bit of additional information. We went to the Library of School the World.

Vinya, to the desk clerk: Are the researchers who helped my friends yesterday still here?
Desk clerk: One just left for dinner. The one who helped your friend look into that blue dragon is about to leave, I believe.
Vinya: Excellent. We’ll wait.

The research assistant who had helped Aldalomiel was a very young rock gnome, barely an adult, named Trummim. She told us that, like other gnomes, his eyes are two different colors -- one very blue and one very grey. She also told us that he was extremely careful and very willing to tell her when he didn’t know something.

He came out of the library and we all noticed that he was dressed as though he was intentionally trying to look average or non-descript. He was wrapped up in his own thinking and walked right past us without even seeming to notice us.

Aldalomiel: Trummim.
Trummim, startled: Oh! Good evening! Ummm….hi!

Aldalomiel introduced us all around.

Aldalomiel: We’d like to talk for a bit.
Vinya: We’ll buy you dinner. You pick the place.

He led us to a restaurant and bar that he was clearly very familiar with. He pointed out the best items on the menu and on the drinks menu. We ordered food and drinks and sat down with him. He was having some very sturdy barleywine-type beer with his dinner.

Vinya, quietly: How does one find a cabal? Whether to fight it or to join it?
Trummim: Usually when people are fighting them, the cabal has made a move and revealed themselves and then they were backtracked and exterminated. As far as joining, I think they start with people who know and trust each other. Like you guys know and trust each other. So if you started wanting to get extra power from, say, a demon, the others might be willing to assist because they know you and trust you not to be doing anything bad. And then they get sucked in. If you need more people, you’d branch out to other folks that each of you know and trust.
Vinya: If one of my friends wanted to start summoning fiends, that would probably break my trust.
Trummim: Well, criminal conspiracies are a thing, as we know all too well here in New Arvai. This isn’t entirely dissimilar. I’ve known some people who’ve had to abruptly leave the city because they stumbled onto something -- it can be hard to know the full reach of the cabal, who’s in it, who isn’t, who you can and can’t trust. Easier just to leave the city.
Vinya: What’s the point of it -- summoning a fiend can’t be an end game, right? There has to be a point to it.
Trummim: Oh, yes -- they’re summoning a fiend to fight their battles or do things they can’t do to get them money or power or information. Then they hope that they can put the fiend back. If they summon a strong enough fiend, they hope perhaps that they’ll be treated by the fiend as a favored pet or servant. Though that doesn’t typically fit with the personality of a cabal leader. A willingness to be humiliated as a pet or servant doesn’t typically go with the power to summon a demon prince or prince of Hell.
Elama: Aren’t there spells that let you control whatever it is that you summon?
Trummim: They’re not as perfect as people think they are.
Elama: Within my own skill set I have knowledge of spells that will keep something like that contained.
Trummim: Those circles are definitely an important thing. I can’t understand why anyone would summon a fiend without having prepared a circle first. Unless you want it to get out and cause problems.
Vinya: It still seems really stupid…
Trummim: I don’t think it’s intelligent or sensible. People do it because they’re desperate or greedy and think it’s a short cut.
Elderron: Who might be desperate and greedy here?
Trummim: That’s a fair question. The wizarding schools are magnets for greedy and lazy people looking for a shortcut. There are almost always people who need or want something badly around them. People who are desperate for something. If a cabal can find them and dangle that thing they’re desperate for in front of them like a carrot…
Elama: Like those priestesses with The Enthroned.
Trummim: They are the best thing that’s ever happened to their congregation.
Vinya: I agree with you there.
Trummim: I believe that they believe in what they are preaching. I believe that the higher ups in The Enthroned believe in the extra money they’re getting in donations and tithes.
Vinya: I agree with you on that as well.
Trummim: I’ve been dragged to a few of those sermons. Once by my boss after a long night spent drinking very excellent beer here -- I went into work and the most expensive thing I owned was my hangover and he dragged me off to a sermon on moderation and controlling yourself.
Vinya: I’ve had days like that. Who benefits from this change in habits from a whole swathe of society?
Trummim: It’s better for the church, for the nobles themselves, for their underlings. Everyone but the Green Hand.
Vinya: Okay. Who benefits from the Green Hand losing power?
Trummim: The other gangs benefit from the Green Hand having less of a hold over the elites. Maybe if you backtrack these priestesses up the river to Auriqua and then to Tash you could make sure they followed the path they said they followed.
Vinya: Good idea. They’ve been here two years. They said they spent a little while in Auriqua and came down the river from there. From Tash to Auriqua is months and then from Auriqua here is also months. So you’re probably looking at three or three and a half years ago. But we don’t know how long they stayed in any of those places.
Trummim: That sounds about right.
Vinya: We could Send to people we met in Tashimeet, Urlocka at the caravanserai. And to the Captains of the Guard in both Erlin and Lonoj.
Elama: I can do that. Tomorrow.
Vinya, to Trummim: Thank you so much for taking your dinner to help us understand. I’m one of those people who have stumbled over a cabal, and even I can’t understand it. Why were they meeting and how did they meet and what the hell were they trying to do? I can’t even really explain how I stumbled over them.
Trummim: If it makes that little sense to you, you might never understand it.

Vinya asked about the other schools of magic in New Arvai. The School of the Mind mostly focuses on illusion and enchantment. The School of the Body has a lot of transmuters and healers. Even some druids among the students and teachers.

We thanked him for the information and left him to his dinner.

After we left the bar, we walked and talked.

Vinya: We don’t even know that anything’s happening here at all. We think there is, because Rajalmin is vindictive and plays a long game. But we don’t know anything at all.

We strolled around the town, listening for screaming or chanting or strange noises.

Elama: I think that any cabal worth its salt would do their summoning in a protected room or a cellar. Not where they can be heard, but it doesn’t hurt to be listening.

Elderron brought out his owl, Oda, and had him fly around with his keen hearing.

But even with Oda listening as well we heard nothing unusual. Sigh!

We went back to the Inn and rested for the night, which passed without incident.


20 Plantarin 749 (Campaign day 111)

In the morning, Elama prepared Sending and used it to talk to Urlocka from Tashimeet.

Elama: We were there on Feast of Stars. Did two priestesses from The Enthroned come through from Tash three to five years ago?
Urlocka: They came through almost 4 years ago.
Vinya: Maybe they are just a coincidence and a dead end. I’ve got nothing else there -- at least not until their sermon in a few days.

We talked about what we wanted to do next. We wanted to be on a crossroads outside of town in eight days (28 Plantarin, Day 119) to try to talk to the Walking Man about his cousin The Lingering Silence, who has an ongoing beef with Sossonatissis, the Blue Death, the dragon that Aldalomiel has been researching.

Elama: Do we know where a crossroads is?
Vinya: Good question.

She went to the person who was taking breakfast orders from the inn patrons and asked about roads out of New Arvai. She was told that the road north from the city becomes a road that parallels the river all the way up to Lonoj and beyond.

Bartender: What are you looking for?
Vinya: A village. We’re thinking it would be nice to take a break somewhere small and quiet.
Bartender: Well, it’s a couple of days to get to the road paralleling the river. There should be a branch road that leads to some villages pretty shortly after that.
Vinya: Perfect! Thanks so much!

She went back to the party. It’s four days to the priestesses’ sermon at The Enthroned and nine days to the full moon. So we have plenty of time to listen to the sermon and then leave and get to a crossroads by the full moon.


19 Plantarin 749 (Campaign day 110) - 23 Plantarin 749 (Campaign day 114)

DOWNTIME MONTAGE

At some point during the next four days, Vinya had the thought that maybe Rajalmin was doing something in Dhaqi right now. So she, along with Elama and Elderron went to talk to the tiefling, Brightwater, we’d rescued from the Aboleth’s domination, the one with the heavily pregnant wife, Sunrise Clear.

He was surprised to see us. Sunrise Clear was also there, still heavily pregnant.

Vinya: You just arrived on a ship from Dhaqi, I believe. Is that correct?
Brightwater: Yes.
Vinya: I don’t know if you got off the ship or away from the docks much. I’d really like to talk to someone from there. Was there someone from Dhaqi traveling on the ship perhaps? I’d really like to ask someone about what is going on there.
Brightwater: I don’t know anything about the city -- I was gone for months, but I just sailed there, helped with loading and unloading, then sailed back. I was on the Ocean’s Blessing. It goes between here and Dhaqi and sometimes between Dhaqi and one city or another in Mahassar. I could introduce you to Captain Tarim Bultar. I don’t think the baby will come in the next half-hour.

Brightwater took us to the Ocean’s Blessing. He got some earthy greetings from other sailors, who knew he’d been worried about getting home in time for Sunrise Clear to have her baby. He joked back with the other sailors and introduced us to the Captain.

Captain Tarim Bultar was a human male with long curly hair tied back and a beard. He was in his mid-30s but his skin was weathered and tanned.

Captain Bultar: What can I do for you?
Vinya: Are you from Dhaqi? Or was someone on the ship from there?
Captain Bultar: The Ocean’s Blessing is my home, but I was born and raised in the Queen of Cities.

Vinya explained a bit about the long term, subtle type of vindictive revenge that Rajalmin might be looking for there. And a bit about what he’d been up to in Dhaqi a hundred years ago.

Captain Bultar: My grandfather told me about that bunch of cabals doing stuff at the same time. The word at the time was that they were trying to pull Dhaqi into the Hells. Or maybe bring part of the Hells into Dhaqi in a permanent way. A bunch of cults and cabals were coordinating efforts.
Vinya: Can you think of anything weird going on now?
Captain: We weren’t there long, but the city was definitely tense. Something weird was going on. We left quickly. I have not often been there where the hair on the back of my neck was on end for a week. Not anywhere. There’s certainly something amiss there. Extra tension. There were some people at the docks who wanted to get out of the city and didn’t care where they were going. It took us a little while to get a cargo so those people all left on other ships.
Vinya: If we obtained a couple of dragon pages, could you help us send a message to someone you know there. You’d be giving us an introduction, so to speak.
Captain: Definitely. I’ll also ask around other people who might be in town that I know are here from Dhaqi.

Vinya, to Aldalomiel and Elama: We might be going to Dhaqi, y’all.

Also during this downtime montage, Vinya tried having her messenger butterfly take a message from her to Aldalomiel, in hopes that it would flitter around the party for hours and hours. Unfortunately, it took the message very quickly, just a few minutes.

Elama suggested that the butterfly could be used to find someone -- it has a 10 mile radius and if you set it off with the message and began to follow it you could find someone. It’s like a very slow, long-range find person item.

Vinya sent the butterfly off looking for a cultist like the Zariel cabalists she’d encountered at the monastery. It was carrying a message that said “I know what you did.” The butterfly flittered all over town aimlessly for fourteen hours and never found anyone. The next day she did a better test -- she went to a distant part of town and tried to describe Elama in general terms (as the item requires) that were nonetheless specific enough to describe Elama and no one else. She sent off the butterfly and followed it. 14 hours later it found Elama. So it does work as a find person item -- just a slow moving, and very pretty one.

Any remaining time during the downtime montage, Vinya spent at the Chiaroscuro Temple practicing with her radiant sunbolts. Elderron spent the downtime copying spells.


24 Plantarin 749 (Campaign day 115)

All of us went to the temple of The Enthroned to listen to the sermon. Marxine opted to remain at the inn, because she knew that the sermon was just doing to piss her off.

We stayed at the back of the temple and listened to the sermon, The elf woman named Galinaori Thianthe was the one of the priestesses who gave the sermon. It was not a fiery sermon, but it was a convincing one. Given the premises of The Enthroned the message that if one is to have authority over others one must have control over oneself was very powerful. She spoke about being in control of your pleasures and not the other way around.

Vinya tried to get a sense of whether people were being mind controlled or if something weird or creepy was going on. Elama used the helm of telepathy on the priestesses and random people in the congregation, just skimming their surface thoughts.

Among the random people there were: A well-dressed man sitting with his whole family was thinking about the sermon and what it meant for his kids; another man was sleeping and trying to fake being attentive; an older woman was looking around thinking about what people were wearing. A couple of people wondered why someone was wearing a helmet in church.

It seemed that the older people were less interested in the sermon and more interested in the other people in the church.

While we were listening to the sermon, Vinya realized that there was another group of people being hurt by this new message from The Enthroned -- the suppliers and distributors of the drugs and other physical elements of the various vices provided by the Green Hand.

After the sermon was over, Vinya got into the receiving line so that she could talk to Galinaori Thianthe, the priestess who gave the sermon.

Vinya: That was an excellent sermon. Thanks.
Galinaori: Thank you.
Vinya: Do you and Tirla have any plans to go elsewhere? This message could do great good all over Erkonin.
Galinaori: If the Church hierarchy thinks I or we should, I have not heard of it.
Vinya: If you can make suggestions up the hierarchy, this would be a good message to spread far and wide.

We left and walked back toward the Inn to get ready to leave the next morning to get to a crossroads by the full moon.

Vinya: Where’s the central hierarchy of The Enthroned? Like their mother-ship?
Elama: Their headquarters on Urnod is about three days travel from Tash in the direction of Anestri. They are also in Mahassar -- but the different orders work differently there so that’s not exactly relevant. There’s a big temple of The Enthroned in Dhaqi, but it doesn’t have the reach to have control over the order on Urnod or in Mahassar.

After the sermon, we went to Tralot’s, the magic shop in Stormyside that we were told was known for having very moderate prices, in order to make their goods more likely to be affordable. Vinya wanted to buy a few dragon pages.

With four dragon pages in hand (two for immediate use and two for the future), we went to the Ocean’s Blessing, still in port, to talk to Captain Bultar and to send a dragon page letter to someone in Dhaqi.

Captain Bultar: Top o’ the morning!
Vinya: How’s finding a cargo going?
Captain: We expect to have something in a week or ten days.
Vinya: We have some dragon pages. Is there anyone in Dhaqi we can send a letter to?
Captain: I talked to the Kotimanovs over there (he pointed to a large ship docked nearby) and haven’t heard back about whether they know of anything. It’s best not to push Kotimanovs too hard, they can be touchy.
Vinya: Should we talk to them? Or are they a last resort?
Captain: If you’re going to be fighting fiends, they might be a valuable resource. There are a number of aasimar among them.

We all wrote the letter with the Captain giving us a written introduction. We asked about strange things that might be going on in Dhaqi and what seemed like was going on in the city. We enclosed a blank dragon page with our names on it, so that if there’s a reply it will come to us.

We spent the rest of the day hanging out.

We’ll commence the next day ready to head out by road to get to a crossroads by the full moon.

Unless we decide we want to book passage on the Ocean’s Blessing and head to Dhaqi.

 

[prabe]

Session 32: Fiendish Business and the Walking Man

Dramatis Personae:
Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Druid
Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest)
Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul)
Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster)
Marxine - Mountain Dwarf Fighter (Champion)/Paladin

GM - Everyone Else

(Note: This session was held on Discord.)


25 Plantarin 749 (Campaign day 116)

We woke up with three days to get to a crossroads before the full moon on 28 Plantarin and the information that it was a little more than two day’s travel to get to one. We felt pretty good about this situation.

We decided to get horses and ride, because horses are nice. (Vinya paid for Marxine’s without even asking about it, because Marxine spent a lot of money on her Unmaking hammer.)

We rode along the road, which followed the coast for a while. It was all pretty normal looking and there was normal traffic. We’d been told that there were waysides and small villages about every half day along the way. It would take us about two and a quarter days to get to the river road.

We ate lunch at a wayside called Omruth and then continued on our way in the afternoon. About when it was time to stop traveling we got to a village called Tisp. Tisp had a couple of inns -- we chose to stay at The Sterling Harp where we were welcomed by the innkeeper, a halfling lady named Adda Tallbranch.

We spent the evening in the bar, listening to the bard, who gave a good performance.

The night passed without incident.


26 Plantarin 749 (Campaign day 117)

Our travels were again perfectly normal. We ate lunch in a village called Anvern and then got to a village called Karnish at dinner time. Once again there had been normal traffic all day. Sometimes the terrain let us see the water and the vessels that had come down the river and were traveling to New Arvai, staying close to the coast.

We spent the night at an inn called Bramit’s.

We talked with the innkeeper, Bramit, when he brought us our dinner.

Bramit: Why are you traveling by road rather than by boat?
Vinya, indicating Marxine: She doesn’t love the water.
Bramit: I can understand that.

The night passed without incident.


27 Plantarin 749 (Campaign day 118)

Over breakfast we talked with Bramit about where we’re going. Vinya gave the same story she had at the Seafarers’ and Wayfarers’ Inn about wanting to find a small village to take a quiet rest. Bramit saw right through that.

Bramit: You’re looking for a crossroads, aren’t you?
Vinya: Umm…
Bramit: It’s almost the full moon. You have no idea how many people come this way looking for a full moon because they’re desperate enough to turn to the Fey for assistance.
Vinya: We’re not desperate, we just have some questions.
Bramit: Whatever. The next crossroads is about 2 hours away and it’s cursed. You won’t find what you’re looking for there. Everyone who spends the night there at the full moon winds out horribly dead and poison stinking mists come into town…
Vinya: This far away??
Bramit: Yeah. And the poison mists hurt people here.

We decided to look into the curse at the crossroads and see if we could do anything about that situation -- if people in Karnish were being hurt by whatever the curse was up there, it needed to be dealt with. If, for whatever, reason, we couldn’t get to a crossroads to see the Walking Man because of dealing with this, we’d be able to on the New Moon.

Poison stinking mists and a curse sounded fiendish to both Elderron and Aldalomiel.

At the crossroads, two hours away, Marxine did a paladinly vibe-check and the answer was BAD. We looked around at the crossroads and right in one of the corners where the roads, covered in brush and shrubs, we found a foot-tall black marble pyramid. It had writing on it in Abyssal.

Elderron put on the helmet of comprehend languages and read the inscription to us.

Elderron, reading: Those looking for a way find instead their end.

Marxine and Elama (newly strengthened by her gauntlets of ogre power) started to try and dig the pyramid out. What they found was that it kept going down and down -- it was the tip of an obelisk. They gave up after a foot or so, when it became clear it was going to keep going down and down. There were no further inscriptions on it but there were carvings heavily influenced by spider and spider-web motifs.

Elderron cast detect magic and found that it is very magical. He had the feeling that there would be other pyramids/obelisks around the crossroads. We started looking for those. With Elderron’s detect magic guiding the way, we found another pyramid at every corner of the crossroads. They all had the same inscription and the same spidery and webby artistic design.

Elderron also had the sense that just dispelling the magic on the obelists/pyramids might trigger the summons.

Elama cast divination, asking: “How should we get rid of whatever this is?”
ANSWER: Carefully dispel and brace for impact.

Well, alrighty then.

Elderron helped Elama with the dispel magic, giving her some advice before moving away. Aldalomiel cast guidance on her, then moved away. Vinya stayed near her, in case whatever impact there was happened right next to her.

Instead it happened right next to Marxine -- a 10-foot tall column of yellow slime with tentacles manifested right next to her. (Elama recognized it as a yochlol.)

Marxine immediately attacked it and did a divine smite -- doing a lot of damage because she was fighting fiends. She then attacked again and did another divine smite. Between the two blows she did it 50 points of damage, which was very impressive.

Aldalomiel started glowing with the starry form of an archer forming over her, then she attacked with her bow, hitting it twice, hard. Vinya shot it with two sunbolts, hitting with both of them, then ran up to it and spent a ki-point for a flurry of blows, both of which landed.

The second punch of the flurry dropped it and the body began to deliquesce.

The magic on the column was not dispelled, so we tried again, taking up basically the same positions.

Elama’s second dispel attempt seemed to be a little better, but we couldn’t be sure of that. Because two of the yochlols appeared, right in the middle of the intersection, near Marxine.

Aldalomiel did another starry archer form and shot at the one further from Marxine and again hit it very hard. Vinya fired two sunbolts at the same one Aldalomiel had just hit, hitting twice. Then she ran over and took a position where she could give Marxine flanking on the one next to her and then turned and spent a ki point for a flurry of blows and attacked the one we were focusing fire on, hitting it twice. Elderron cast blight on that same one, but didn’t get it off for a lot of damage.

Marxine attacked the one right in front of her, hitting it once. Elama moved closer and cast bless on herself, Marxine, Aldalomiel, and Vinya.

The yochlols moved so that both of them had flanking on Vinya, then proceeded to attack her. The first one hit with a tentacle, doing a little bludgeoning damage and a lot of poison damage, leaving her reeling a bit.

Aldalomiel moved and took two bowh shots at the same one, hitting but not dropping it. Vinya spent a ki-point to take a step of the wind to disengage from them. She moved 30 feet away and shot two sun-bolts at the same one we’d been attacking.

Elderron moved to a position to cast lightning bolt on both of them. He remembered that they were resistant to lightning damage, so he made it do force damage. The force blast absolutely exploded the one we’d been attacking. Marxine attacked the other one -- getting a crit that was okay and another hit that barely landed but did the same damage as the critical hit.

It attacked Marxine with both tentacles, missing twice. She was the best target for it, because dwarves are resistant to poison damage.

Aldalomiel attacked twice, with her starry form, hitting once. Then her starry archer form let her fire a radiant arrow at it as well. Vinya fired four sunbolts at it and hit with all four of them.

Vinya: That time I spent at the monastery practicing with the sunbolts has totally paid off.

Elderron did another lightning bolt with force damage that hit it. It was finally dropped by Elama’s thunderwave.

We decided to take a short rest after that before trying again. Aladalomiel cast a cure spell on Vinya which, along with the short rest, got her feeling most of the way better.

Then we took up positions for Elama to try again.

Elama: I can try one more time. If it doesn’t work, we’ll have to try again tomorrow.
Elderron: We could get three of them this time.
Elama: Make me nervous why don’t you?

Elama cast the dispel magic spell and she saw the obelisks crack as the spell took hold. She felt confident that the curse had been dispelled. However, three of the yochlolls did in fact appear -- one right next to Elama and Vinya, one next to Elderron, and one alone at the one corner of the crossroads where there wasn’t a party member.

Elama, seeing the three of them: I’m sorry about that. But It worked!
Aldalomiel: Yay?

Aldalomiel again took her starry form and shot twice at the one all by itself alone with regular arrows, then her starry form shot a radiant arrow at it.

Vinya punched the one in front of her and Lamie, hitting and did a stunning strike. Which worked. She then punched it again. Elderron cast misty step to get away from the one on him then shot it with a firebolt. Elama tried to banish the one, but it didn’t get banished. Marxine charged the one Aldalomiel shot and hit it twice, wielding the unmaking hammer two handed.

The yochlol on Marxine attacked her twice and missed twice. The one that had been on Elderron turned into a sickly yellow mist and moved into the middle of the street. The one that Vinya had stunned shook off the stun effect.

Aldalomiel took two shots at the one on Marxine, the one that she’d shot at before, hitting once. Vinya punched the one in front of her and tried to stun it. That didn’t work and she punched it again with another stunning strike -- that one worked. She then did another punch on it. Elderron cast blight on the one Vinya had stunned and made the save a dexterity save -- this blight did lots of damage.

Elama banished the misty fog.

Marxine attacked the one in front of her and got a crit. Unfortunately, she didn’t have any more spell slots, so she was unable to smite it.

The one on Marxine attacked her and got a critical hit -- because she was attacking two handed, with her bulette hide shield on her back, she was not able to negate the critical hit. Fortunately, she’s resistant to poison damage so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The stunned one once again shook off the stun.

Aldalomiel dropped that one with two arrows, then she moved to get closer to theone on Vinya and Elama.

Vinya attacked the one she’d been stunning, hitting twice, then spending a ki point for a flurry of blows. She forgot to do a stunning blow on it though so it was going to be free to act on its turn.

If it lived that long.

It didn’t. Elderron cast a magic missile on it and dropped it.

We protected Elama for the remaining duration of the banishment spell, so that the third yochlol would stay banished.

And then we made camp, even though it was early in the day. We hung out and relaxed and took it easy for the bulk of the day.

During the night we had a fire and a pot of stew cooking over it. The moon was indistinguishable from full (though technically the full moon was the next day, we knew there was a bit of leeway on either side of the actual day). In the middle of the night, we heard a voice from the darkness.

Falaggo: Hello, the camp!
Vinya: Hello! Welcome.
Falaggo: You’ve come a long way.
Vinya: Not as far as you, I’m sure. We’re here because we wanted to talk to you.

Aldalomiel asked about Sossonatissis and the Lingering Silence and the beef between them.

Falaggo: I believe my cousin is carrying the grudge far more than the Blue Death.
Aldalomiel: I have a missing friend who is, apparently, in Castle Dante.
Falaggo: You asked about her before and I told you that I hadn’t seen her on the roads or ways. She may be in Castle Dante. I don’t go there very often and it’s very very large.
Vinya: Why would someone in your family want her?
Falaggo: My cousin is not cruel. Your friend will be taken care of and not treated badly.
Vinya: We don’t know for sure that she’s there because of the Lingering Silence.
Falaggo: She’s a good guess. She might have her to provide extra motivation for you to go after the Blue Death. Or as a reward for having done so.
Elama: How bad can a dragon be?
Vinya: Oh. Umm… How long have these obelisks been here?
Falaggo: Since just after the Fiend Wars. They were placed by Lolth herself.
Aldalomiel: Why here? Why at this crossroads?
Falaggo: She hates us and will mess with us whenever she can.
Elama: Can she get here?
Falaggo: Yes, if she’s summoned as a demon princess. She can’t have divine power here, but she can have all of her demonic powers.
Vinya: So she’s messing with y’all by interfering with your realm?
Falaggo: Yes, this is a crossroad near a major city and part of my realm where people will be likely to want to get in touch with me.
Elama: Does she also mess with others of your family?
Falaggo: Yes.
Elama: We’re looking for a rakshasa named Rajalmin, do you know anything about him?
Falaggo: They tend to be city creatures and therefore they rarely come into my realm at all. I’m afraid I can’t help you.
Vinya: The Enthroned’s main temple is outside of Tash. Have you picked up on anything odd going on there?
Falaggo: I know nothing of the inner workings of the church. But they have definitely been expanding and renovating the temple.
Vinya: Is your realm crossroads or roads in general?
Falaggo: I like all roads, but crossroads are special to me.
Aldalomiel: Your cousin...how can we find her? We’d like to talk to her. We hope she might be able to give us an in on how to work against the Blue Death.
Falaggo: I will see what I can do. It’s possible that if she does have your lover, I can arrange a conversation in Castle Dante. That’s not her realm, so she is more communicative there.
Elama: How will we get there?
Vinya: Oh, we can get to Castle Dante, through the fomori cave we were back in the winter.
Elama: That’s on the other side of the continent. And doesn’t it go straight into the prison?
Vinya: Yes, but we’re not fomorians so we should be okay.
Falaggo: There are easier ways. Let me see what I can do. Keeping someone against their will seems cruel.
Vinya: Should we come to a crossroads again to find you or will you be in touch?
Falaggo: I’ll be in touch.

We then offered him food and drink. He partook of our stew and something to drink and we talked in a friendly way for a while. Then he left.

Vinya, after he was gone: For the record, Aldalomiel, I’m 100% in on this dragon thing.
Elama: Me too.
Elderron: All of us.
Marxine: [nodding]

The rest of the night passed without incident.


28 Plantarin 749 (Campaign day 119)

In the morning, we checked the obelisks. They were now made of pinkish stone, not black, and deeply cracked and partly crumbling. Marxine recognized the stone as the same within the portal to Castle Dante that we found in the fomorian complex between the Knot and Tash.

The abyssal writing had been replaced with writing in sylvan: "Not all riddles have literal answers. Sometimes the answer is in your pocket.”

We all took some of the pieces of the pink stone.

Before we broke camp to head back to Karnish and Bramit’s inn, we received a dragon page. It flew to Vinya. It was the return letter from the person we’d contacted in Dhaqi.

Greetings from the Queen of Cities!

Things here have been less serene than the norm, without question. The peace of the city has been disturbed by several disappearances and at least one violent apparition. There are rumors of diabolists and cabals, but this is not New Arvai and such things are not normal here. If the guard have any information, they are not sharing it, so we residents are limited to what we hear from others, who may not know any better than we do.

Hurakil Assir

As we walked back to Karnish, we talked about sailing to Dhaqi to see if whatever is going on there had anything to do with Rajalmin. It’s a long trip -- 30+ days by sea.

We got back to Karnish and told Bramit that we’d fixed the crossroads.

And there we ended.

 

[prabe]

Session 33: Sailing to Dhaqi

Dramatis Personae:
Heath - Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Druid
John - Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest)
Sara - Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul)
Rich - Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster)
Emily - Marxine - Mountain Dwarf Fighter (Champion)/Paladin

GM - Everyone Else

(Note: This session was held on Discord.)


29 Plantarin 749 (Campaign day 120)

We got back to Bramit’s midmorning. We decided to press on to the village a full day’s travel hence, Tisp, even though it would be a long day. Because it would get us back to New Arvai sooner.

Bramit hooked us up with the provisions we needed for that and we rode hard and long.

We stayed at the Sterling Harp again in Tisp and had no difficulties all day or night.


30 Plantarin 749 (Campaign day 121)

The next day we travelled uneventfully and got to New Arvai just about dinner time. We went straight to talk to Captain Tarim Bultar of the Ocean’s Blessing, a ship we knew was going to be sailing to Dhaqi soon. We asked Captain Bultar about booking passage to Dhaqi.

He said that he has two rooms, with six bunks between them, connected by a door. He gave us a break on the cost of passage with the expectation that we’ll help with defense of the ship on the way, which we agreed to.

He said that he’d be sailing with the earliest tide day after tomorrow. We told him where to find us (the Seafarers and Wayfarers’ Inn) if he turned out to be leaving earlier than expected, and went to get rooms at the inns.

We spent the evening dining and watching whatever entertainments were at the Inn. The evening and the night passed without incident.


1 Kalavin 749 (Campaign day 122)

The day before we left on the Ocean Breeze passed more or less uneventfully. Elama spent the day sight-seeing like she’d never been in a city before. Vinya and Marxine went to the Chiaroscuro Temple to do some sparring with the monks there. Some folks spent time walking around hoping to stumble over cultists of one sort or another.

On the whole, the day passed without incident.


2 Kalavin 749 (Campaign day 123)

We boarded the ship very early with the expectation that we’d be arriving on 8 Bluzzimin 749 (Campaign day 159) or so -- it’s a 36 day trip on average. The Ocean’s Blessing is 150’ long and 50’ across at the beam.

We sailed uneventfully -- watching the dolphins and flying fish and distant whales and very distant ships. The weather was nice -- calm but not too calm and with comfortable temperatures.

Elderron made a daily ritual of casting waterbreathing on us every morning during breakfast. We kept watches at night, and generally kept someone on deck at all times, because we were charged with helping to defend the ship.


10 Kalavin 749 (Campaign day 131)

The day passed quietly. During the night’s first watch (Elama, Vinya, Marxine), Elama and Vinya were standing by the rail in the middle of the ship on one side. Marxine was in the middle of the ship, away from the railing about 40 feet away.

Marxine wasn’t surprised, because of the flail of warning, but everyone else was absolutely stunned when three trolls, dripping with seawater and with tattered kelp leaves for hair, clambered over the rails of the ship.

Vinya: How are there freaking trolls at sea!!???
Elama: What the naughty word?!

Two trolls were about equally far away on either side of Vinya and Elama and the other was on the other side of the ship between them -- so roughly speaking the trolls formed an equilateral triangle about 50’ on a side, with Marxine in the middle of them.

The guy in the crow’s nest on lookout started screaming like a siren -- being an air genasi, he didn’t need to stop to inhale at all.

Marxine, the only one among us who was not surprised, ran to attack the one by itself away from Vinya and Elama. She attacked it twice, hitting both times. She could see the wounds closing up immediately after her attack.

The one Marxine attacked immediately attacked her with its bite and two massive clawed hands, but it missed with all three attacks. One of them attacked Vinya attacked her -- it hit her with both claws and did rather a lot of damage. Elama was bitten as well as clawed and took even more damage.

Below decks, Elderrron and Aldalomiel heard the siren yell of the air genasi lookout. Elderron ran out onto the deck through a hatch that put him relatively near to Vinya and Elama and the trolls on them. He looked around and saw that Marxine was fighting one and Vinya and Elama were looking simultaneously shocked and fairly badly hurt. He cast confusion on the troll on Vinya, changing the save from wisdom to intelligence -- the troll succumbed to the confusion spell.

Marxine attacked again on the troll on her -- getting one hit.

She was hit in return with the two clawed hands. Vinya was bitten and clawed, but not dropped. Elama was missed all three times.

Vinya, finally shook off her surprise at sea trolls attacking in the middle of the ocean and attacked. She punched hers, hitting once and succeeding in landing a stunning strike. She followed that up with a flurry of blows, both of which hit.

Aldalomiel came up from downstairs just behind Elderron. She saw that the one on Elama was neither stunned nor hurt, so she put her hunter’s mark on it and shot it with two sling bullets.

Elama: What what oh my gads!! Where’d they come from!?

Thus she cast a high level healing word on herself, then attacked with her sword, doing both physical and thunder damage to it.

The air genasi seaman in the crow’s nest continued to wail his siren alarm.

Elderron thought for a second and realized that though he was aware that sea trolls existed, he didn’t actually know anything more about them. So he took a guess that, as sea creatures, their regeneration might be shut down by fire damage. He cast magic missile, doing fire rather than force damage, sending one missile to each of them. The fire-missiles hit with a cloud of stinking hissing steam.

Marxine got her second wind, then attacked, hitting twice.

All of us who were near one of the trolls noticed that their wounds weren’t healing.

Vinya: Elderron, keep up with the fire!

The troll on Marxine hit her with a bite and a claw. Elama was hit by only one claw -- she did her retaliatory shock to it, dealing it damage and pushing it away, but it just walked right back to her. Vinya’s was stunned and just stood there.

Vinya punched hers, hitting twice and succeeding with her second attempt to stun it again. She then decided to save her ki for stunning strikes, so she just did a regular unarmed strike. Aldalomiel shot Lamie’s again with her sling for 35 points of damage with her first shot. Her second shot missed. Then she assumed a starry form, one we hadn’t seen before, a form of a chalice constellation overlaid her.

Elama cast spiritual weapon and attacked with her thunder-cloud’s lightning bolt, then attacked separately with her sword. Elderron upcast magic missile sending one missile each to Marxine’s and Vinya’s, which looked about equally damaged, and two to Elama’s, which was very wobbly looking. The fire-missiles again hit with a hiss and puff of noxious steam -- they clearly didn’t do their full measure of damage, but did succeed in shutting down the trolls’ regeneration.

Marxine missed twice with her attacks, then was bitten and clawed by the troll she was fighting in return. Vinya’s troll was stunned and didn’t nothing. Elama’s troll bit her and she retaliated with her lightning energy -- which dropped it!

Vinya punched hers twice and tried to stun it twice. Unfortunately, it saved versus both attempts so she spent some of her ki-energy to do her patient defense.

Aldalomiel moved her hunter’s mark to the one on Marxine and shot it twice, hitting twice. Then she moved to within 30 feet of both Marxine and Vinya and cast healing word on Marxine. The starry constellation form flared and some healing was reflected over to Vinya as well. Elama also cast healing word on Marxine, then tried to sacred flame the troll on Vinya, but it saved.

Elderron cast another high-level magic missile sending one bolt to the troll Elama dropped, to make sure it would stay dead, one on Vinya’s, which was still under the effect of the confusion spell, and two on Marxine’s. There was a bit of damage done all around.

Marxine had the thought to rally some of the sailors to try and help us, but didn’t see any when she looked around. So she attacked, getting one hit.

The one on her hit her with both of it’s claws, but it didn’t do great damage. Vinya’s troll was still confused by Elderron’s spell and just stood there doing nothing.

VInya hit hers twice then used her last ki point for patient defense, because she couldn’t count on the confusion keeping it from attacking her.

Aldalomiel took another couple of shots at Marxine’s, hitting once -- which was enough to drop it. Then she did another healing word on Marxine and reflected some healing on to Vinya again.

Elama moved her spiritual weapon over to the one on Vinya and attacked with it, but it missed, then she again sacred flamed it. This time it didn’t save. Elderron cast another magic missile spell -- sending one missile to the one that Aldalomiel dropped and three to the one on Vinya. Marxine came over to help Vinya -- getting a critical hit and drawing down a divine smite into the hit. That was enough to drop the last one!

Elderron shot a firebolt into it to make sure it would stay dead.

After the trolls were dropped and we could look around, we noticed that there were sailors in the rigging with crossbows. They told us later that because of our close fighting with the trolls, they hadn’t been able to get a clear shot.

Elama: I’m going to bed now.

Vinya took her second watch and let Elama cover Vinya’s spot on third watch.

Vinya, to a sailor: Do these things come up often? Those were nasty.
Sailor: I’ve never seen that many at once. Or ones that big. But weird things happen when there are adventurers aboard.

The rest of the night, and the next 16 days, passed without incident.


25 Kalavin 749 (Campaign day 146)

Toward nightfall, Elama’s cloak of the weather turned very dark gray and felt almost damp to the touch.


26 Kalavin 749 (Campaign day 147)

Near dawn on this day, we spotted a distinct storm in the distance -- like a powerful but constrained typhoon about two miles wide. Vinya’d heard of storm giants and knew that they lived under the sea and on islands. The sailors didn’t know of any islands around where they thought we were, so if it was a storm giant it was living under the sea.

Whatever it was, Captain Bultar and the sailors wanted nothing at all to do with it, so they sailed wide around. As we sailed around, we watched the violent storm -- lightning flashed within the clouds and down to the ocean surface and thunder could be heard even miles away.

Vinya kept an eye on the storm to make sure it didn’t move in our direction. Elama just appreciated and enjoyed watching it.

Navigating around the storm added a little time to our journey, the rest of which passed without incident.


8 Bluzzimin 749 (Campaign day 159)

The coastline of Za’akkesh became visible in the afternoon and the barrier islands around the Dhaqin Lagoon distinct from the main coastline just around dark. We encountered some outgoing traffic as we approached the barrier islands. The Captain warned those outgoing ships about the storm giant on the sea-way to New Arvai. He also asked about what was going on in Dhaqi. He was told that there have been disappearances and also that there appeared to be some semi-contagious thing going on. One of the ship captains told him about something that, when it was defeated, turned to worms that then disappeared into the ground. Another ship mentioned rumors of an incident at a crematorium where the corpses rose up.

We anchored outside the barrier islands at night, because the navigator was skilled but not crazy enough to try and navigate the ever-shifting barrier islands in the dark.


9 Bluzzimin 749 (Campaign day 160)

The next morning at dawn, the ship weighed anchor and we navigated through the barrier islands and into the Dhaqin Lagoon. We sailed past a few of the city’s islands, noting the piers stretching out into the lagoon and canals running between and into the islands. The buildings were mostly low, though one of the islands furthest from the ocean had some taller buildings. The captain told us that was the izirate (island/city district) of Bakar, where the city government buildings are.

He told us we were going to be tying up in Tiras, the most outward looking and cosmopolitan of izirates in this very most cosmopolitan city. He told us that there was a part of the izirate called the Society of Guests that was a cluster of separate inns all within a few blocks. He specifically recommended an inn within the Society of Guests called Bultir’s.

He also told us about some other sights in the city that we should check out. He mentioned specifically Windows of the Past, which he said was something between an art gallery and a store.

Captain Bultar: It is amazing! Also the Feet of Marduk in Oldest Dhaqi are impressive and you might find them interesting since you seem to have an interest in things that predate the Severance.

We asked where we should go to see if we can help with the situation with the undead and worms and cultists. He said that we should go to the izirate Bakar and go to the Kul-Izir’s palace, which is also the main government complex: the Dojh. The guard are headquartered there and that’s a good place to offer our services to the city.

He said the best places to find food and entertainment are in Dhur, a central izirate a bridge away from Tiras and from Bakar. He recommended a place called Istin’s.

Elderron asked about where we could go to look for items for sale. He told us we could find stores on the Ledge -- part of Dhur where it faces Alhim and Bakar.

After a bit of sailing through the lagoon and Captain Bultar pointing out sights to us and telling us things we should be sure to see, he put in at a long pier where he’d been contracted to deliver his cargo. As we prepared to debark just after breakfast, he gave us directions to Bultir’s, the inn he recommended in the Society of Guests.

Vinya: Thank you, Captain Bultar. Please let us know if there’s anything we can do to help you. Also, if you hear of anything that we might be interested in, please let us know.
Bultar: I will. And good luck to you. May the Queen of Cities open her arms to you.

We went to Bultir’s, where we immediately took a large suite with multiple bedrooms and a couple of sitting rooms for six nights. Then we walked around the city, getting lunch at a restaurant along the way. Lunch was dark beer and something like mole negro street tacos and it was delicious.

The city is substantially larger than New Arvai -- there’s a park/green space in Bakar that’s several square miles. The city is not really gaudy -- it’s fanciest in Bakar because that’s where the Kul-Izir lives. She shows off her wealth much more than is typical for even the other powerful and wealthy people in the city. There is little vehicle traffic in the city -- it is mostly designed for foot traffic and a few riding animals or hand-carts. We walked across the bridge to the part of the city on the mainland, Oldest Dhaqi, where we saw Marduk’s Feet -- the feet of what was clearly a colossal statue straddling a canal that came across the flatlands from the mountains.

Vinya looked around and didn’t see any signs or inscriptions or explanation, so she asked someone nearby what they could tell us about the statue. We were told that it’s a statue of the city’s patron God, Marduk. Dhaqi’s first sign of the Severance was the collapse of the statue. All that remains of it now is the feet.

We decided to go to Windows of the Past, the gallery that Captain Bultar recommended to us. The building has no windows visible from the outside, but when you walk inside there are windows hung like paintings on the wall. Each one looked on a different view from somewhere on Erkonin. One of them looked out on a view of the Blackfield of Embernook, which Vinya recognized from her trip from New Arvai to the Knot. One of them looked out on Kiranamakir, the sign said (the architecture looks like Ankgor Wat). One of them was a place we recognized -- a scenic view of Promontory in Erlin.

We ended at the end of a day of sightseeing, preparing to head back to Bultir’s to have dinner and rest for the night.

We will start looking for worm things and dead people next session.

 

[prabe]

Session 34: Worms Upon Worms Upon Worms

Dramatis Personae:
Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Druid
Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest)
Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul)
Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster)
Marxine - Mountain Dwarf Fighter (Champion)/Paladin

GM - Everyone Else

(Note: This session was held on Discord.)

We ended the previous session with a long rest after a lovely day sight-seeing and getting oriented to Dhaqi.


10 Bluzzimin 749 (Campaign day 161)

We had very unsettling dreams -- even the elves found it hard to trance properly -- and the whole party gave up on resting around 6 am. Aldalomiel mentioned that all she could see in her trance-visions were worms upon worms upon worms.

Ew.

We shuffled down to breakfast and found that a lot of the other guests at Bultir’s inn were also looking for breakfast and wearing that “I can’t get back to sleep” look.

Bultir himself was bustling around as best he could -- we could see a brace on his leg that we hadn’t noticed when we took our rooms because he was behind the counter. He was limping and moving around serving coffee and food. He didn’t look like he’d slept at all either.

Vinya asked if she could help with getting breakfast out to people.

Bultir: I’ve got it. I feel responsibility for this.
Vinya: Why?
Bultir: It’s my inn.

Vinya noticed that after a few minutes there were some servers coming in to help Bultir.

We talked a little bit about how to get a start on figuring out what’s up with the people breaking up into
worms.

Vinya: I’d just go to the guard, because they’ll know what’s happened. But I’m sure Marxine has a better idea and I’m cool with that.

We remembered that we’d heard of an incident at a crematorium where the bodies had objected to being burned.

Marxine: Let’s go talk to the people at the crematorium.
Vinya (to a server): Where are the crematoria in town?
Server: The biggest ones are on Dhur. If you go to Anakim’s Ladder, the Temple of the Last Doorway has the largest crematorium. They’re something of a tourist attraction.

We decided to go there after we finished our breakfast. While we were eating Elama heard a voice in her head and shared it with us.

Elama: I just heard a voice saying to go to the Ladder. It sounded like Bultir, but his mouth wasn’t moving. He also said “Worms are rising.”

We asked the server how to get to Anakim’s Ladder and headed out that way after we finished our breakfast. As we walked we noticed that the other people on the street looked pretty normal -- apparently only the people at Bultir’s slept poorly. We considered going back to talk to him, but decided that we’d wait on that until we’d spoken to the people at the crematorium.

Anakim’s Ladder is a very narrow and steeply sloped road, almost an alley, with temples on either side of it. It’s not much more than two people wide -- so we were proceeding with Aldalomiel and Marxine in the front and Elama and Vinya in the back, with Elderron in the middle of the pack.

Because of the flail of warning, no one in the party was surprised but only Vinya and Elama saw gaunt figures with crawling, seething skin approaching from the alleys making a dim gurgling noise. With the warning from the flail, Aldalomiel looked down a side alley and saw some of them.

Aldalomiel: There’s something nightmare inducing down this alley.

Then she put her hunter’s mark on it and shot it twice.

Vinya: There’s more back here.

Vinya shot two sunbolts at the one she could see down a side alley, then moved between one behind us and Elama and took a defensive stance. Elderron moved to where Vinya had been and fired scorching rays at the one down the side alley. All three of them hit, it’s not hard to hit them, but the damage wasn’t great. Marxine moved to attack the same one that Vinya and Elderron had attacked, throwing hand axes at it.

One of them attacked Vinya, attacking with clawed hands and missing with both. A wormy-leechy thing was flung off it toward her, but she dodged that. Aldalomiel was hit by a claw -- it did both slashing and necrotic damage -- and dodged the worm. Marxine was completely missed by hers and also dodged the worm.

Elama cast sacred flame on the one that attacked Marxine -- it did not manage to save and it clearly didn’t like the radiant energy. Aldalomiel, with one right in front of her, dropped her bow, assumed her starry archer form, and drew her sword. She fired one of her radiant bolts at the one in front of her, hitting it. Vinya, unwilling to touch these things with her bare fists, shot sunbolts at the one right in front of her. Then she did patient defense again. Elderron shot three scorching rays at the one on Marxine -- it writhed and burst into flames and then smoldered with soft pops as the worms burst, but they didn’t burrow into the ground.

Marxine, now free, went down to fight the same one as Vinya, moving into a flanking position and hitting it.

The worm-zombie they were fighting attacked Vinya and missed her, but unfortunately Marxine didn’t dodge the flung worm/leech -- it started latching onto her neck. Ew!

Aldalomiel was hit once by hers but she did dodge the worm.

Elama dropped a spiritual weapon on the one on Aldalomiel, hitting with that, then she went and attacked with her sword, hitting and doing thunder damage in addition to the weapon damage. Aldalomiel missed with her sword, but the radiant arrow bolt did hit. Vinya shot two sunbolts at the one she and Marxine were fighting. It was still there so she summoned her ki energy for two more. The first one dropped it so she fired her last sunbolt at the one on Aldalomiel. Then she watched to see if the worms were burrowing into the ground -- they were not. The radiant energy appeared to have killed the worms. Good.

Elderron shot a firebolt at the one on Aldalomiel, dropping it with flame. Marxine, seeing no more opponents, scraped the nasty worm-leech thing off her neck.

Elderron recognized these things as undead of Orcus called the Spawn of Kyuss. The worms burrow into you and head for your brain, necrotizing parts of your brain. If you die with the worms inside you, you come back as a Spawn yourself. They exist because Orcus willed them into being -- he doesn’t have a direct connection to them as far as controlling their behavior or activities. There might be an Orcus cabal behind them, though.

We continued on our way up the very narrow Ladder.

Elama: This town is a maze of narrow streets. Someone could get lost in here.

We found our way, without getting lost or encountering further nastiness, to the temple of The Last Doorway. The temple was open, the doors wide and welcoming to those who needed them, but empty.

Marxine did her divine sense to see if the place had been desecrated and get a general vibe check. She sensed that something BAD had happened here -- the place has been desecrated indeed.

Oh dear.

We looked all around this floor -- the main hall was in the back with smaller chambers around the halls, private rooms that the grieving could retreat to. The crematoria themselves were doors in the walls of the hall. There were stairs down from the main ritual space. There was no one alive on this floor.

We noticed blood, still not entirely dry, on the floor near the stairs down.

We realized that this must have just happened -- because if it had happened even the day before word would have gotten out about it and the waitress wouldn’t have sent us to an abattoir. We heard about worms and problems at a crematorium two days ago when we were sailing into the lagoon, but this must have been more recent than that.

We headed down the stairs, the warning from the flail sounding in our heads as we went down the five foot wide stairs single file (Marxine, Aldalomiel, Elderron, Elama, Vinya). At the bottom of the stairs was a large room with big columns and some piles of stuff -- wooden crates and barrels, old pews, some plain lumber, etc.

There were also 10 of the Spawn of Kyuss -- shuffling around in the dim light. There were also two more normal looking humanoids -- though they looked a little puffy and squirmy under the skin. The two more normal puffy-looking ones were wearing priestly garb, though it didn’t look quite right, like it wasn’t cut for the bodies they now had. The robes were torn up, stained, defaced, and weren’t the robes of priests of the Last Doorway. We recognized one as from the Hearthkeepers and the other as from the Last Laugh. Some of the Spawn were wearing what we figured were stained and damaged guard uniforms, some were wearing the tattered remains of regular clothes

Aldalomiel pushed past Marxine and very slightly into the room (against the wall just to the left of the stairs). She was still glowing with her starry form, so she took two arrow shots at one of the two puffy people, hitting twice. One of the arrows did a lot of damage and went right through the figure, and greenish worms leaked out of the hole. Her radiant arrow bolt also hit.

Elderron cast fireball on the two puffy people without moving, also getting two of the Spawn in it. One of the puffy people got out of the way. It was clear that the Spawn don’t like fire any more than they like radiant energy. Good.

Vinya used her slippers of spider climb to run on the walls and ceiling and get past the rest of the party. She moved just into the room to the right of the doorway, mirroring Aldalomiel’s position. She fired two sunbolts at the Spawn nearest to her, hitting once, then did patient defense, because she could see a bunch that were going to be heading her direction.

One of the puffy ones moved slightly and shot a coruscating black bolt at Aldalomiel that did nasty necrotizing damage. It then moved into cover behind a pillar. The other one shot a similar bolt at Marxine, missing wildly, and also moved into cover.

Elama came down the stairs and got against the wall next to Vinya. She cast spiritual weapon on the one Vinya shot at, then she cast a sacred flame on it, which it utterly failed to dodge. Marxine stepped out of the stairway into the room and attacked one of the Spawn with her hammer. She hit well and did a lot of damage, but in the next second, she could see the wound healing.

Three of the Spawn attacked and mauled Marxine, who was hit once; she dodged the worms they cast at her. Two hit Elama, flinging worms that Vinya dodged. Elama did her retaliatory lightning strike, which it didn’t dodge.

Aldalomiel cast cure wounds on herself then did a radiant bolt shot at one of the ones on Marxine. Elderron got five of the Spawn, including three of the ones on Marxine, in a fireball. It wasn’t a huge fireball, but none of them saved and the fire damage kept them from regenerating. Vinya, still not wanting to touch these things, fired two sunbolts at the Spawn in front of her, then did a searing arc strike (burning hands) that hit both of the ones on herself and Elama.

The two puffy ones shot black bolts at Elderron -- one missed wildly. The other one hit him.

Elama hit with her spiritual weapon and with her sword. Marxine attacked one of the ones that had been in a fireball, hitting it and getting a critical hit, which she drew divine energy down into. Then she did her action surge. She dropped that one and moved to the next one in line.

One of the Spawn attacked Elama, hitting her but getting dropped by her retaliatory lightning strike, though it needed to take fire or radiant energy damage to keep from regenerating. One attacked Marxine, and she was unable to dodge the worm that it flung. One attacked Vinya, hitting her twice. Only two of the Spawn, which had been way at the far side of the room, were still undamaged at this point.

Aldalomiel shot two arrows at one that had broken away toward her location in the corner of the room. Then she shot it with a radiant bolt.

Elderron found himself in a complicated situation -- he had one heading straight toward him, but it wasn’t quite there yet. He shot a lightning bolt, changing the damage to fire damage, that was able to catch three of them. Vinya fired a sunbolt at the one that was heading toward Elderron and Elama, dropping it. She shot her other sun bolt at the one on her. Then she did a searing arc strike on the one on her, the one that Elama had dropped (that just needed some radiant or fire damage to stay down) and a free-floating one that was heading toward Elderron.

The two puffy ones shot their necrotic bolts at Elderron -- one missed and he was able to use his shield spell to block the other one. Then they both moved toward where Aldalomiel was in the corner -- they had also been moving up from the back of the room slowly.

Elama cast bane on the three surrounding Marxine, affecting all of them, then her spiritual weapon hit the last one on herself and Vinya, dropping it. Then she moved into the corner opposite the one Aldalomiel was in.

Marxine got her second wind and scraped the worm off of her neck before it started burrowing toward her brain.

Unfortunately, the three spawn on her immediately regenerated some of the damage they’d taken and attacked her. She dodged two of the worms but in doing so dodged into another one. One moved up on Vinya, hitting her twice. Vinya was badly hurt at that point, but did dodge the worm. One attacked Aldalomiel -- but it missed her and she missed the worm.

She did find herself with a Spawn right in front of her, so she dropped her bow and drew her sword, hitting twice. Then she shot her radiant bolt at it, hitting. Elderron cast a fireball that caught both of the puffy people and two of the Spawn of Kyuss. The two Spawn burned completely up.

Vinya dropped the Spawn right in front of Elderron with a sunbolt, then shot one that had not yet been touched that had made its way to right in front of her. Then she did patient defense, because she really didn’t want to take another hit.

One of the puffy ones then finally got to Aldalomiel. It stuck an arm down its throat to the elbow and pulled out a writhing handful of greenish worms and tried to hit her with it. Missing twice. The other one did the same with Marxine and also missed twice.

Gah!!

Elama’s spiritual weapon hit the one on Vinya very solidly. Then she cast a big guiding bolt on the puffy guy on Aldalomiel, blowing it away with the radiant energy (to which they are apparently vulnerable). Elama raised her sword in triumph, then ducked behind a pillar into cover.

Marxine hit the puffy guy in front of her, then hit it a second time, doing a divine smite that dropped it. The worms came out of it, but with the radiant energy dancing over them they just evaporated.

One of the remaining Spawn attacked Marxine, missing with its attack, but she did catch another worm from it. The one on Vinya missed her and she dodged the worm.

Aldalomiel hit the Spawn in front of her twice with her sword and then fired a radiant bolt at it. The radiant bolt dropped it. Elderron cast scorching ray, sending one bolt to the Spawn on Vinya and two to the Spawn on Marxine. Vinya missed twice with sunbolts, then did patient defense. Elama cast healing word on Vinya, bringing her back from the brink, then she cast sacred flame on the one on Vinya, but it saved against it. Marxine attacked the one in front of her, hitting once, though she took damage from the worms penetrating her body and heading toward her brain.

The Spawn attacked Marxine -- again it missed but she didn’t dodge the worm it flung at her. So she now had three worms. Egads. Vinya was hit by the Spawn on her -- but she wasn’t dropped. Not quite.

Aldalomiel cast a guiding bolt on the one on Vinya then fired her radiant bolt at the one on Marxine. Elderron did a magic missile, modified to do radiant damage, at the one on Vinya. Vinya finally dropped it with her first sunbolt. She fired the second sunbolt at Marxine’s. Elama moved her spiritual weapon to Marxine’s and hit it - but it saved against the sacred flame. Fortunately, Marxine was able to drop it, after taking more damage from the worms.

Elama immediately cast lesser restoration on Marxine to heal all the worms before they could kill her and cause her to come back as a Spawn of Kyuss.

We glanced around the room and saw no other exits.

And there we ended.

 

[prabe]

Session 35: Deputized and Doing Research

Dramatis Personae:
Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Druid
Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest)
Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul)
Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster)
Marxine - Mountain Dwarf Fighter (Champion)/Paladin

GM - Everyone Else

(Note: This session was held on Discord.)


10 Bluzzimin 749 (Campaign day 161)(immediately after)

After the last of the Sons of Kyuss dropped, we searched the room in the basement of the temple of the Last Doorway. Toward the far end of the room, where the two puffy worm guys had been when we arrived, we saw an incomplete summoning circle made of blood, viscera, and grey matter. We also saw a couple of corpses, one wearing the robes of a priest of the Last Doorway, that had been partially torn apart and turned into the foul raw materials for that summoning circle. (The other partially disassembled corpse was wearing ordinary street clothes.)

Elderron looked at the circle and realized that the puffy worm guys were attempting to summon Orcus himself.

We looked back over at the remains of the puffy guys -- with the worms destroyed by the radiant and fire damage they’d taken, what was left was a skeleton inside (basically) a skin sack. With the worms killed, there was nothing like muscle or meat or inside-stuff between the bones and the skin.

The temple was completely empty and obviously desecrated -- the circle to summon Orcus being a large part of the desecration. Also the puffy guys appear to have an inherent ability to unhallow places.

Elama did a sending to our innkeeper Bultir asking if he knew of anything else that might be going on.

Bultir (through the sending): I knew the worms were rising and where, and that they were a threat to Erkonin. Further information I do not have. Sincerest apologies.

After making sure that the temple was clear, we left, talking about where we should go and what we should do next. As we walked out of the temple, there was a group of guards arriving at the temple. They were being led by a dragonborn woman in a breastplate. She introduced herself as Sgt. Khalixi.

We explained that we’d heard about problems with corpses breaking into worms and something happening at one of the crematoria when we were sailing into the, so we came to the Last Doorway looking to talk to people about that incident and found the temple empty and desecrated -- and wormy undead in the basement.

We led her down to the basement, Aldalomiel keeping some distance from the dragonborn, while we showed her the remains of the Spawn of Kyuss and the puffy worm people -- including that one of the puffy people had been wearing the robes of the Hearthkeepers and the other was wearing tattered robes from the Last Laugh. Elderron showed her the summoning circle and pointed out the elements that made it clear it was a circle to summon Orcus.

Marxine: When we first arrived, I could sense that something had desecrated the temple. Then we came downstairs and found all of this.

While we were talking to her, we mentioned that we’d come to Dhaqi because we’d heard that there was some trouble with cabals and that the city wasn’t as peaceful as usual.

We went back upstairs.

Khalixi: I’d like to take you back to the guard house so you can explain what you fought and why you were in the temple.

We agreed to that.

Khalixi (to Aldalomiel): It’s clear that you are uncomfortable with my presence. Have I given offense?
Aldalomiel: It is not you. I have a history with one of your kind.
Khalixi: Would you prefer my corporal accompany you?
Aldalomiel: I need to work through these issues. It is fine.

Khalixi then gestured the gnome, her corporal, over and gave him some instructions about checking the neighboring temples.

She then started leading us on a walk through Dhur. During the 10 minute walk Vinya spoke to her.

Vinya: We’re concerned about other temples with crematoria.
Khalixi: My corporal is checking them out and will report.
Vinya: Good. Good.

We arrived at the guard house after about a 10 minute walk and were taken to a nice and quiet anteroom. Khalixi pointed us to a table with tea and other beverages and to a wash room in the back.

Khalixi: Please feel free to refresh yourselves and wash up. Someone will be back for you shortly but you will have time to get your breath back.

Vinya washed her face and hands and got a cup of tea.

After a few minutes, Khalixi came back with a large, heavily built albino man with what we would think of as African features.

Khalixi: This is Lieutenant Linnolim.
Linnolim: Good morning. My sergeant tells me that we owe you thanks and that you have information we need. Please come with me.

We followed him into his office -- it was clear that extra chairs had been brought in for us, including one that was distinctly dwarven-sized for Marxine.

Linnolim: So you found some Spawn of Kyuss around and under the temple of the Last Doorway.
Vinya: Yes, those. Also some others.
Elderron: Puffy-looking humanoids. Undead. With worms inside. They reached into their throats and pulled out handfuls of worms and tried to hit Aldalomiel.
Linnolim: Oh. You found a couple of Suffragans. Some people who are killed by the Spawn come back as Suffragans. Others come back as Spawn. I have come across both in my younger adventuring days. You used light on the Suffragans, yes?
Vinya: Yes.
Linnolim, to Marxine: My sergeant said that you could feel something was wrong there. Unholy. That is a gift that I’m well familiar with.
Marxine: I’m worried about the other priests and people who should have been there?
Linnolim: We believe that there was one priest and perhaps one other person there. Fortunately, it was early in the morning so they wouldn’t have been busy. The parsonage for the Last Doorway is a couple of blocks a way -- the off-duty priests would have been at the parsonage and not at the temple.
Vinya: We’re also worried about the other temples. The suffragans were wearing robes from the Last Laugh and the Hearthkeepers. So something bad must have happened in those temples as well.
Linnolim: Sgt. Khalixi had her corporal check that out.
Vinya: We arrived in Dhaqi yesterday morning. While we were approaching the city, we heard from some of the outgoing ships that some undead had attacked and then broken into worms. We came to Dhaqi because we heard about things being less peaceful here than they had been.
Linnolim: That is true. Where were you before?
Vinya: New Arvai.

Elama got the sense that Linnolim was sincere and dedicated to protecting the people of this izirate, Dhur (and more broadly Dhaqi). The community is his priority. He was very curious and trying to determine how far he could trust us and if he could turn to us to help him.

Elama gave Vinya a nod and Vinya then explained about Rajalmin and that we were trying to find and stop him. We’d gotten concerned about Rajalmin being active in Dhaqi, because he’d been active here in the past. And because one member of the party that had stopped him was from Dhaqi and he seemed to hold grudges. We mentioned that we’d used a dragon page to make an inquiry about how things were in Dhaqi, sent to a colleague of the captain of the Ocean’s Blessing. We’d been told that there was unrest in the city and some trouble with cabals and fiendish business.

Linnolim: I believe that you might find information about this at the Well of Screams. It’s not as bad as it sounds. During the Fiend Wars it was a portal to both the Abyss and the Hells. Now it is a library.
Aldalomiel: It’s a weird place for a library.
Linnolim: It holds the seal in place and anyone chanting will stand out. Also it is mostly only open to members. Here is how I think we can help each other. I can get you temporary guard badges. I can also give you a letter of introduction to the Well of Screams. You can talk to the people there. (To Elderron) Perhaps you can do some research. The people there will probably be helpful as far as providing information.

He pulled some folding wallets out of his desk. He opened one and showed us the bronze badge inside.

Linnolim: If these badges are out of this building for more than 36 hours, they’ll corrode and turn green. People will know that they have expired, so to speak. I suggest that you come in every morning and let me know what you’ve done the previous day and what you’re planning. That way I’ll stay abreast of what’s going on. And if you don’t check in, I’ll know where to look for you.
Marxine: That all sounds reasonable.
Vinya: Have you heard about other cabal problems in the city?
Linnolim: Not on Dhur. Maybe in the other izirates, though. The badges are technically city-wide, but they won’t have much pull outside of Dhur.
Marxine: I trust you, so far, but not everyone is so responsible in a position of power. Is there anyone we should avoid or seek out?
Linnolim: I believe that our Izir would have a better sense of what’s going on in the city overall, She has far better connections with other Izirs and other parts of the city. She is a far more political being than I am. I could arrange a meeting for you. That may take a few days. Where did you say you were staying?
Vinya: Bultir’s.
Linnolim: Ah, the Society of Guests. Bultir is a good guy. Pity about his leg.

He then handed each of us a wallet with a badge inside.

Elama: I can pull it out and say ‘I’m Elama. FBI.’
Linnolim: You could do that.

We asked if he had any place he could recommend that we go to check out or people to talk to other than the Well of Screams.

Linnolim: In Kalam there is the Truthteller’s Downfall. If anywhere has information others don’t want spread, it is there. Also Feloz. The entire izirate. Except for the Hall of Whispered Blades, that is not a place that has information you need.
Vinya: What do they do there?
Linnolim: People there practice using words to kill.

He then wrote us a letter of introduction to the Well of Screams. He let us read it before we left -- it asked them to talk to us and then make a decision about whether we should be allowed access to the library.

Vinya: Can we hang out in that room for a while and rest before we head out into the city again?
Linnolim: Certainly. Clean up. Rest. Enjoy the tea.

After a short rest, we headed to the Well of Screams, after deciding that talking to Bultir about how he knew things were going on in the Ladder could wait until we were back in the inn.

At the Well of Screams we were greeted by a gnome at the door. We explained that we were looking for information about rakshasa in general and Rajalmin in specific, and then handed her the letter from Lt. Linnolim.

The gnome went and came back with an albino woman, also with African features like Lt. Linnolim. She had a wad of burn scars on her face and arms. She looked over the letter.

Woman: I see my brother sent you to me. I am Jorcha Linnolim. Come in. I have heard of Rajalmin.

She invited us into the library and led us to a quiet room where we could speak.

Jorcha: When Rajalmin was working in Dhaqi before, creating smaller portals around the city that collectively formed a pattern that was a larger gate. Here, in fact. He was trying to re-open the gate under the Well of Screams.
Vinya: Could he have anything to do with the Orcus cabal and the Spawn of Kyuss?
Jorcha: I find the idea of Rajalmin working with demon cabalists is very unlikely, because demons and devils do not get along at all.
Vinya: I was concerned about that as well. It just seemed weird for him to be involved in a cabal that was summoning demons.
Marxine: We want to follow through with this demon problem here in Dhaqi, as well as staying on the trail of Rajalmin.
Jorcha: Well, certainly the Suffragans and Spawn of Kyuss indicate that something related to Orcus is going on. That’s not a good thing. It would be worth finding out if crematoria in other izirates have had a similar problem. It seems as though there might be something there.
Vinya: In New Arvai we couldn’t figure out how to encounter cabals or cultists. All we had was the sense that people who turn to making deals with fiends are often desperate, or feel they are. Where would be the best places to find people who would fit that description here?
Jorcha: Well, Alhim and Oldest Dhaqi are the more down-at-the-heels part of town. Maybe people are more desperate there.
Vinya: Is there an izirate that might appeal to an entity with hedonism on his top two list?
Jorcha: Alhim, perhaps. That is the izirate where vices are most given in to. It has the weakest vice laws.
Vinya: You mentioned that there are crematoria in other izirates. How might we find those?
Jorcha: Every izirate has at least one crematorium. In Alhim and Oldest Dhaqi there are public crematoria for those who can’t pay even the modest rates at the Last Doorway. Every izirate has civil or secular ones, for those who don’t feel a need for a religious gloss on the disposal of their remains. There is a private crematory in the Dojh, the Kul-Izir’s residence and the seat of government, but that is strictly for the Kul-Izir and others in her family. That is probably not going to be of interest to you.
Vinya: Not now, in any case.
Jorcha: Bakar has a lot of old/abandoned temples from before the Severance. The neighborhood is called Broken God Lane. Most of the temples are now used for other things, mostly not religious activities, but there might be some religious energy, and that can sometimes linger and go weird.
Vinya: Can you give us a map or something -- showing where the circles Rajalmin created were when he was active here 200 years ago?

Jorcha went to a shelf and pulled out some maps, one for each izirate.

Jorcha: No. I do not want to start to create the sigil that he was creating, even on paper. I do have a map of each izirate and will write down for you a description of where they were.
Vinya: That makes sense.
Jorcha: There were two in each izirate except Kalam.
Vinya: Why not there?
Jorcha: At that time, Kalam was still under construction. One of the ones in Dhur was at the Well of Screams and it was aiming the gate in the Well at the Hells, not the Abyss.
Vinya: Are there books here that might be useful for our research people?
Jorcha: Of course. I am happy to assist whoever would like to be here with research.

Elderron stayed to be Team Research in the library.

He found a good deal of information about Rajalmin specifically. He’s a good deal more scary than the average Rakshasa as far as being vengeful and unpleasant, and being somewhat more powerful than the norm. He found that Rajalmin has only a few, like five, plans that he’s done. He repurposes plans, or recasts the basic idea into new forms, He hasn’t done any of the ones that are known and showing up in the library’s materials about him less than twice. (For example: He used shape-shifters in Kiranamakir 200 years ago, creating discord and dramatically increasing the number of duels. And the duellists didn’t follow the normal “rules” -- so people were hurt and the professional class of duellists were substantially reduced. The details were different but the general idea of using shape-shifters to copy people and break down a social fabric was re-used in Torm Brinnom.)

DM’s NOTE: It turns out there are seven tactics that Rajalmin has used repeatedly, in varied combinations:

Using shapeshifters to sow social discord.
Running one or more cabals
Opening one or more gates to the Hells.
Pitting potential opponents and law enforcement against each other.
Blackmailing people in positions of power.
Impersonating one or more authority figures.
Defaming organizations that might interfere.

Team Walking Around decided to head toward Oldest Dhaqi, to go to the secular crematory there (as it is the largest one in the city) by way of Broken God Lane in Bakar, because Vinya really wanted to see that.

Bakar is the most opulent part of Dhaqi -- the buildings openly display some luxury and glamorous touches, though it’s still pretty restrained. In Broken God Lane we could see that the pre-Severance temples were mostly still in pretty good shape -- at least the architecture was still there. Though the things that were specific to individual gods have been removed or altered.

We did see a big temple near the Dojh. The building was clearly one of the ancient temples, but it had been turned into a temple of the Enthroned because it was the temple closest to the Dojh. The temple statues had been modified to suit the iconography of the Enthroned.

We decided to go in and talk to them a little bit. We were greeted by one of the priests. Vinya asked about the new teachings of the Enthroned in New Arvai. The priest said that those teachings sounded interesting, but didn’t seem as necessary in Dhaqi because the powerful had a different sort of relationship to those with less power, and less of an inclination to self-indulgence.

Marxine asked about undead. We could see that the priest was upset by that -- her teeth were clenched and she seemed completely scandalized by the idea of undead.

Marxine: Have you heard about anything like that elsewhere in the city?
Priestess: Not in Bakar. Or in any of the other izirates with Enthroned temples. Or at least the word hasn’t gotten to other Enthroned temples. It’s extremely disturbing that this could happen in the temple of The Last Doorway -- they have extensive wards to protect against undead, as I’m sure you can imagine.
Vinya: Do you know what god this temple was dedicated to before the Severance?
Priestess: Marduk, the city’s patron. Many of the temples on Broken God Lane were to Marduk -- though other, less majestic aspects of him. I know there’s at least one to him in his role as god of water and agriculture. One for him in his role as god of judges. There are undoubtedly others to gods related to him.
Marxine: Do you know about Orcus?
Priestess: People who deal with demons seem completely deranged. People who want to be undead are deranged. People who deal with a demon whose main promise is undeath...I’m not sure if that’s deranged times two or deranged squared.

We agreed with that, then thanked her and took our leave.

We walked along Broken God Lane. Vinya was looking for any Elven architecture among the ancient temples. Marxine, who was much more focused and on point, was looking for former gods that might have had anything to do with death, Perhaps funerary gods or gods particularly in opposition to undeath.

We didn’t see anything that fit either of those. So we got to The Shining Avenue in Oldest Dhaqi, where we’d been told there was a large public crematorium. There were also cafes and restaurants. The cafes had people brewing coffee over the hot sand (as they do it in Turkey and other places).

We went to the large public/secular crematorium and were met by a couple of civil servants.

Civil Servant: Hello. Forgive me but none of you people look dead.
Marxine: For better or worse. We did run into problems with undead in this town.
Civil Servant: Ack! That sounds bad and unfortunate! You killed them, right?
Marxine: Yeah. Have you heard of anything like that here?
Civil Servant: No.
Vinya: We heard about something a couple of days ago -- about corpses objecting to being burned at one of the crematoria. That was a separate incident from the one we dealt with this morning.

The two of them looked at each other, then one spoke.

Civil Servant 2: Perhaps Alhim? The Street of Shades. The crematory there is troubled.
Vinya (flashing her badge): If you hear of problems, please contact the guard in Dhur. We’re working with them.

We decided to go collect Elderron at the library before heading to the Street of Shades.

And there we ended.

 

[prabe]

Session 36: More Undead. Lots More. So Many.

Dramatis Personae:
Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Druid
Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest)
Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul)
Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster)
Marxine - Mountain Dwarf Fighter (Champion)/Paladin

GM - Everyone Else

(Note: This session was held on Discord.)


10 Bluzzimin 749 (Campaign day 161)(immediately after)

After talking to the people at the public crematory in Oldest Dhaqi, we went to the Well of Screams to collect Elderron.

Marxine: We have a lead on something.
Elderron: Let’s go.

We then headed toward Alhim and the Street of Shades. It was getting toward dinnertime and dusk was well advanced. There was some light still on the tops of the buildings, but down at the level of Alhim’s twisty narrow streets it was all shadows. Along the way, Aldalomiel took on her starry chalice form and healed Vinya some, because she was still in pretty rough shape after fighting the wormy guys in the Last Doorway temple.

Vinya cast detect evil and good from the rod of alertness, since we were looking for undead.

Well before we got to the Street of Shades, we heard screaming ahead of us. We saw angry-looking incorporeal humanoids, some of which were partially in the walls or passing through them, menacing some civilians on the street. These were not at all similar to the Sons of Kyuss, which are disgustingly corporeal.

Aldalomiel changed her starry form to her archer form, then she shot two arrows and the radiant bolt at the nearest one to us. Vinya, still not in great shape despite Aldalomiel’s very welcome healing while walking, planted the Rod of Alertness in the ground (giving all of us an advantage to AC and saves), moved into the road (to clear the way for people to move into the intersection) and did patient defense.

The spectres on one side (to the right of the picture) attacked the civilians they were menacing. One of them actually missed but the other civilians were instantly killed.

Marxine moved between the one surviving civilian on that side and the spectre menacing it. She attacked the menacing spectre and got a critical hit, which dropped it. She then moved to the next nearest and and attacked. She spared a glance for the dropped civilian up in that corner and saw that it was really absolutely dead, not merely dropped.

The spectres on the other side attacked and killed the civilians they could reach, dropping all of them. From further away down both the right and left sides of the little block we could hear more screaming.

Elama went the other direction from Marxine (who went to the right of the picture) and attacked one with her sword, doing thunder damage as well as the sword damage.

The one surviving civilian ran past Marxine and Vinya and down the hallway to near Aldalomiel.

Elderron moved to the corner of the alley and shot a firebolt at the same one Elama attacked, then he moved back into the alley in a position protecting the fleeing civilian. Aldalomiel moved to the doorway across from our alley, next to Elama, and shot the spectre Elama hit with her radiant bolt, dropping it. Then she moved around the corner toward where there were two more spectres. She shot one of them twice and dropped it. Vinya dropped the one Marxine hit then fired a sunbolt at one down in the corner of the alley. It hit, but the spectre wasn’t dropped. She thought about summoning her ki for some more sunbolts, but the civilian it was menacing was already dead and so she saved her energy.

A spectre came out of the wall and attacked Vinya and another one came up out the alley and attacked Marxine. Both missed. We could still hear screams coming from both directions.

Marxine attacked the one that attacked her, hitting it twice but not dropping it. Dang it.

Vinya: It’s because they’re incorporeal. It throws off the balance of the swing. And the rhythm.

Two came out of the walls near Aldalomiel -- one of them hit her. She took some damage but didn’t suffer the life-drain. One came out of the wall and took a swing at her in passing, then went into the central building in the middle of the block.

Elama, seeing that, kicked the door of the building open so hard that it flew off its hinges, then ran to the spectre inside and attacked. And missed.

The surviving civilian fled down the alley the way we’d come in through and got away to safety.

Elderron stepped to the corner of the alley again and saw two of the spectres, one to his left and one to his right. He firebolted the one he could see on Vinya and Marxine and dropped it, despite the fact that it didn’t take as much damage from the fire as he would have expected. Aldalomiel cast thunderwave, with a cracking blast of thunder, on the one in front of her, then she shot it with a radiant bolt, but it was still standing.

Vinya dropped the one left on her and Marxine with a couple of punches, then she ran down to the corner that led off to the right of the picture above, sparing a glance down the cross alley. As she ran, she yelled to Elderron.

Vinya: Elderron, please grab my rod before you go!

She didn’t see anything interesting in the cross alley but around the corner she saw another spectre.

Vinya: Hey! There’s another down here.

It moved up and attacked her, fortunately missing.

Marxine moved up and dropped it with two big hits. She stopped and listened and didn’t hear screaming in this direction any more. Good.

Spectres attacked Elama and Aldalomiel but missed.

Lamie attacked the one in the building and missed it. Elderron grabbed the rod of alertness then went into the doorway Elama had kicked open. He saw her fighting an injured spectre so he threw a firebolt at it, which dropped it despite the resistance to fire damage. Then he moved to the corner where he could see Aldalomiel.

Aldalomiel cast zephyr strike and moved to the corner to look down the road, then she shot an arrow at the one that came out of the wall at her, dropping it. She doesn’t hear screaming down this alley either. Then she headed along the cross alley. Vinya examined the body next to her and listened for screams. She ascertained that the body wasn’t going to rise as undead -- she had a bit of a recollection that she spectres don’t do that.

Vinya: We should head to the crematory. This bodes, and not well.

She’d barely finished getting the words out when one came out of the wall to attack Marxine, missing her. She attacked it and got a hit but didn’t drop it.

Aldalomiel turned back and saw one go past the end of the alley toward where she knew Elderron was. Two more came out of the wall at him and attacked. He cast shield to block the hits and was fine.

Elama: Elderron, I’ll save you!

Elama went out of the central building and cast a high-level shatter, putting all of her tempest energy into the spell, to catch the three on Elderron. In order not to also hit him, she did some damage to the buildings nearby -- all the windows shattered, adding to the huge noise from the spell, and there was a fall of dust. When the dust settled, the spectres were all still there.

Elama: Crap, they’re still here.
Elderron: I have dust in my eye.

Elderron then disengaged from the three spectres and ran backwards away from them. Aldalomel went back down the cross-alley and, when she go to the entrance to the alley, she shot one arrow each on two of them and fired a radiant bolt at the third one. She dropped two of them.

Vinya dropped the one on Marxine with a radiant bolt, then ran up the alley and across, past Elderron, and dropped the one that was still standing.

Vinya: We also serve who pick off the badly wounded.

We knocked on the doors around the area -- we found some people hiding in the buildings. We also, sadly, found some corpses both in the buildings and in the streets. We followed the “line” of bodies back from this fight toward the crematory we’d heard was troubled.

To our surprise, the bodies weren’t radiating or spreading out from the crematory. The crematory wasn’t even the end of the “line” of bodies we’d been following, it continued on beyond it. We continued to follow the trail of dead breadcrumbs past the crematorium and shortly found ourselves in the Abandoned Warehouse district. We were moving semi-sneakily along --stealth-ish.

Elama: Why didn’t we just come here in the first place?

We eventually got to where we could see a building with a lot of spectres and wraiths. Really a lot of them. We counted 21 spectres, to the extent we could individually identify them, and five wraiths, floating in and out of the walls of the building.

We backed away from the building to decide on a course of action. We decided that the area needed to be evacuated and sealed off and we needed help dealing with this situation, even though Elama thought she had a chance of being able to destroy them when she channeled divine energy.

We checked the map of Alhim we’d gotten from Jorcha Linnolim in the Well of Screams to find the nearest guard house. Vinya, as the fastest runner, ran to the precinct house, leaving the rest of the party to keep an eye on the situation.

Vinya, at the guard house: My friends and I here looking into a possible undead problem. We’re working with Lt. Linnolim in Dhur [flash badge]. There’s a big spectre problem in an abandoned warehouse. Like 20 of them. Would you like to have someone come look?
Sergeant: Yeah. Hey, Corporal, why don’t you go check this out?

A large dragonborn, Azzaorhan, stepped forward and walked with Vinya back toward the warehouse. When we got close, we started moving up stealthily, so as not to draw them all in our direction. He spotted the spectres going in and out of the walls and his eyes went wide. They went back and away from the building.

Vinya: We counted at least 20 of the spectres and maybe 5 wraiths.

We then headed back to the guard precinct.

Azzaorhan: Yeah, it’s a problem. A big problem.
Sergeant: What do you want?
Vinya: Priests with adventuring experience to help clear the building. And you need to clear the area -- evacuating people in a several block area and creating a perimeter.
Sergeant: We can make a perimeter and keep people safe. I’m not so sure about the clerics. Would you like a place to rest for the night?
Vinya: Oh, gods, yes!
Sergeant: We can do that.

Vinya went back to find the party and get them the message that we had a place to stay the night. We waited until the perimeter was set then went to the barracks. The guard had set aside an area for us with beds and a washroom for our use.

Vinya, to Sergeant: Have you had any luck lining up clerics?
Sergeant: No, ma’am.

Elderron thought about it for a bit and while we were getting ready to rest told us that spectres and wraiths are sensitive to sunlight. When we go back to fight them in the morning, we can break in the roof of the abandoned warehouse to let the sunshine in. That should help us control the battlefield a bit. Safely ensconced in the guard house, the night passed without incident.


11 Bluzzimin 749 (Campaign day 162)(immediately after)

First thing in the morning we checked in with the Sergeant before doing anything else. He confirmed that nothing bad, or worse, happened overnight

Vinya: We need to go check in with Lt. Linnolim in Dhur. Can you keep up the perimeter?
Sergeant: Yes. No problem.

Once at the guardhouse in Dhur, we talked to Linnolim. We explained what we’d found in Alhim and what we were planning to do.

Vinya: Any word from the Hearthkeepers and the Last Laugh? Did they have any problems?
Linnolim: No.
Vinya: Really??
Marxine: Huh!
Linnolim: Yeah. It’s not what I would have expected either.
Vinya: Can they check with their their temples in other izirates?
Linnolim: We’ve asked them to do so.
Vinya: We may stop back by later today after we’ve dealt with this situation in Alhim.

We then left and headed back to Alhim and the warehouse. We were stopped by a cluster of guards a few blocks from the warehouse. We showed them our badges and they waved us through.

We stopped a bit away from the warehouse and looked at the situation in order to come up with a plan of attack. Elderron sent Oda flying around to look at the situation -- the roof of the building was completely intact and the windows were boarded over. There was a large door for loading wagons and a couple of smaller, humanoid-sized doors. We developed a plan of attack for our first round involving a shatter spell and the rod of alertness and a storm sphere.

(Note: Since the plan pretty much worked perfectly (bizarrely), I’m not going to describe it here.)

We decided to enter through the human-sized door that was most in the shadows, so that creating a hole in the roof at a distance would let in more sun. We snuck up to the doorway with a pass without trace spell up.

Elderron picked the lock so quickly and efficiently we were all amazed at his heretofore unknown skill.

Once we opened the door, all the sunlight-averse monsters inside were aware of us, and we headed in.

There was a chest-height L-shaped wall right in front of us (about 4 feet tall) and 19 spectres and 5 wraiths in the room. Off in the corner there was something on the floor (the red circle), but we couldn’t get any impression of what was going on over there as it was all just marks on the floor.

Elderron started things off with a storm sphere that covered a large section of the room, catching two wraiths and some of the spectres closest to us, while still leaving us room to get past. Then he shot a lightning bolt at the closest wraith to us, doing it radiant damage.

Elama moved into the room, along the wall and cast shatter on the roof over some of the spectres. A section of the roof collapsed, creating a circle of sunlight on the floor. Marxine dashed through the storm sphere and attacked a wraith that was inside the storm from outside it. She used her action surge and with a couple of hits and a crit (on which she did a divine smite) she dropped it.

Vinya jumped over the wall and used her ki to step of the wind to get to a good point to plant the rod of alertness to give herself and Marxine a bonus to AC and saves, and light up that side of the room.

These area effects were all distinct and not overlapping and made three different parts of the room differently unpleasant for the undead.

Aldalomiel moved and dashed to get close (but not into) the circle of daylight, then she took on her starry archer form and fired a radiant bolt and one of the wraiths.

Then all of the spectres and wraiths went. All of them. Elama wound out surrounded by four of them. One of them hit her and faced a retaliatory thunder strike that pushed it away a few feet. Three of them attacked Aldalomiel - two of those missed, but one got a crit. Another group of spectres clustered around Vinya and Marxine -- all of them missed everyone. The final group of spectres moved, several of them clustering around Aldalomiel, who got hit once. One went to Vinya. Two were heading in Elderron’s direction, but were stuck in the storm sphere.

Elderron cast misty step, then moved and dashed and made his way into the circle of sunlight. Elama took some opportunity attacks to move into a good position near Adalomiel to turn as many of the undead as she possibly could.

Which turned out to be like 10 spectres. Unfortunately, the wraiths all saved.

Then she cast spiritual weapon and attacked one of the spectres near Vinya.

Marxine took a couple of opportunity attacks to get up to one of the wraiths and attacked it, hitting twice, but unfortunately that didn’t drop it. Vinya dropped a spectre with a couple of punches then, seeing that she was well and truly surrounded, decided to spend her ki-energy on patient defense. Aldalomiel cast Zephyr strike and moved into the middle of the daylight circle, then she fired an arrow at one of the wraiths, hitting very nicely.

After spending a bit of time moving up on us, the wraiths finally attacked. Two of them attacked Marxine -- one hit her but she managed to avoid the life-drain. Vinya and Elama were both missed. The spectres on Vinya and Marxine missed for the most part (Vinya got hit once). Elderron, who was at the very edge of the circle of daylight, found himself facing three spectres lined up along the edge of the bright sunlight attacking him. He would have been hit, but he used a shield spell.

Elderron then moved a bit more deeply into the sunlight, risking some opportunity attacks while his shield spell was still active. (It was a good risk -- they all missed.) Then he cast a lightning bolt that caught three of the spectres and two of the wraiths, changing the damage to radiant and the save to strength. The three spectres all died, but the wraiths were still standing. Then he moved back into the sunlight and pulled a lightning bolt out of the storm sphere and shot the wraith on Elama. It hit, but didn’t drop, the wraith. Elama’s spiritual weapon attacked one of the ones on Vinya, hitting it solidly, then she cast spiritual guardians. Marxine attacked, but didn’t drop, the more damaged of her two wraiths. Vinya punched the wraith on her, hitting once, then did patient defense, since she was still well surrounded. Aldalomiel cast guiding bolt on one of the wraiths on Marxine, missing, and fired a radiant bolt at the wraith on Vinya. That also missed.

The wraith on Elama got beaten up, but not dropped, by the spiritual guardians, then it missed her with its attack. The wraith on Vinya missed her because of the patient defense. Marxine got hit, but again saved against the life-drain. The spectres attacked Vinya and missed.

Marxine got hit by a spectre and she failed to save against the life-drain, but fortunately the HP loss wasn’t too bad. The three spectres that Elderron had run away from moved to Elama, running into the spiritual guardians.

Elderron shot a radiant lightning bolt at the line of spectres and wraiths on the other side of vinya, dropping a couple of spectres, then he moved back into the light and called a lightning bolt out of the storm sphere that hit the wraith on Elama. Elama then dropped one of the spectres on Vinya with her spiritual weapon. Her attack on the wraith on herself hit, but didn’t drop it. Marxine got her second wind then attacked the most beaten up looking wraith on her, dropping it.

Thanks to Elderron’s efforts, Vinya had one remaining spectre on her. She dropped it with some punches, then she went to help Marxine, hitting one of her opponents with the second punch of her flurry of blows. Aldalomiel missed with a guiding bolt on Marxine’s wraith, but then dropped Lamie’s wraith with a radiant bolt.

The wraith on Marxine turned its attention to Vinya, but missed. Two of the spectres on Lamie dropped to the spiritual guardians, but one hit her and drained some of her life. The two spectres on Marxine both missed.

(Note: At this point in the session it was after 11:30 and your deponent was falling asleep. The notes hereafter are utter gibberish.)

Elderron cast lightning bolt on two of the spectres. Elama did illegible things. Marxine dropped something.

And all of them were gone.

We looked around a bit -- checking out the circle drawn on the ground. There were five rapidly decaying bodies on the ground around the circle. It looked as though the circle was part of a ritual that drew the power of Orcus and caused the people to become wraiths.

Marxine used the hammer of unmaking to smash up the circle.

Since it was nigh midnight in the real world, we saved searching the place for next session. And there we ended.

 

[prabe]

Session 37: Library Research and Dinner With the Izir

Dramatis Personae:
Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Druid
Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest)
Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul)
Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster)
Marxine - Mountain Dwarf Fighter (Champion)/Paladin

GM - Everyone Else

(Note: This session was held on Discord.)


11 Bluzzimin 749 (Campaign day 162)(immediately after)

Immediately after the huge fight with All The Spectres, we started searching the abandoned warehouse. Other than the broken summoning circle, with five bodies around it, there’s nothing here. The circle was similar to but not the same as the one in the basement of the Last Doorway. This circle seemed to be trying to summon some of the power of Orcus, to get the power to do something -- that power involved being turned into undead (whether the people using that knew it or not). The one in the Last Doorway was to summon Orcus himself, or at least a powerful avatar.

We went to the guard house. On the way, we talked about the fact that there were bound to be lots of dead people around -- those spectres left bodies behind.

At the guard house we found the same sergeant on duty.

Sergeant: You survived.
Vinya: Yes. There are five bodies in the warehouse. When you find out who they are, we’d love to know. They were doing a ritual that involved Orcus.
Sergeant: Oh. We’ll contact some artists to make sketches or molds of their faces so we can ask around and find out who they were.
Vinya: There are also going to be a lot of bodies around - there were approximately twenty spectres that have left bodies behind somewhere. They were just victims.
Sergeant: It might be easier to get the victims identified, once we find them. Families might be a bit reluctant to identify a family member who tried to call upon the power of Orcus.
Vinya: Maybe don’t lead with that -- you know, get the identification then give that information.
Sergeant: Yeah. We won’t. I’ll get my people working on making the death masks, finding the bodies, and getting people identified.

We told him we’d swing back at some point to see what they’d found. We also suggested that if they found anything urgent to get a message to the guards in Dhur.

We headed back to our inn, Bultir’s. We all wanted to talk to Bultir because he’d communicated with Elama (in her brain directly) about the worms rising in Anakim’s Ladder. When we got to the inn, Bultir greeted us effusively.

Bultir: I am so relieved to see you alive and back here.
Vinya: I’m sorry -- we wound out staying in a guard house in Alhim last night.
Bultir: I was concerned when you went to face the worms and didn’t return.

Vinya turned to look at Elama pointedly.

Elama: Huh?
Vinya: [nudged Elama toward Bultir]
Elama: Oh! You sent me that message.
Bultir: Alas, all I knew was in my dreams. Unfortunately, the whole inn shared them.
Elama: Pity. We are out of leads.
Bultir: I am sorry. In my dreams the worms were rising and that is all I know.

Vinya and Elama got a sense that he was holding something back about himself.

Marxine: What’s up with that? How do your dreams affect others.
Bultir, in her mind directly: The same way I do this. But sometimes when I dream I can’t control it.

Elama got a sense of great age or old memories about Bultir -- but he looks human. She used the helm of detect thoughts to read his surface thoughts.

Bultir, surface thoughts: I am glad they survived. The worms in the dream looked dangerous and that kind of dream is usually about something that is a threat to the whole world. Sometimes I wish the world would leave me alone. At least my previous death was quick.

Marxine: We can’t help if we don’t know what’s going on.
Bultir: All I saw in my dreams was the rising of the worms.
Marxine: You must know about the city.
Bultir: I grew up here. I have never known of worms in the city.
Vinya: Is there any record of worms like this in the city’s history. Has this happened here before?
Bultir: I’ve never heard of it. I know of the gate pointed to the Abyss and the Hells.
Vinya: Yes, we went to the Well of Screams. We met Jorcha in the Library. I believe y’all adventured together.
Bultir: Yes, we did.
Aldalomiel: How often do you share your dreams? How far does the sharing go?
Bultir: Usually it just goes a few rooms on either side of mine. This is the first time the whole inn was affected.
Vinya: Where do the dreams come from?
Bultir: Erkonin.
Aldalomiel: ??
Vinya: The world? Fascinating.

Bultir then brought us lunch, since food was included in the price of our rooms, and we took a short rest.

Over lunch, we decided to head to the library -- it seemed like Elderron could usefully do some research on the Sons of Kyuss and on the rituals and ritual circles that we found.

We all went there together and talked to Jorcha before Elderron settled down to his research.

Jorcha: How are you doing?
Vinya: Pretty okay. We had an exciting morning fighting spectres and wraiths in Alhim. People were trying to get power from Orcus.
Jorcha: That never works out well. No one gets what they want. Not even Orcus.
Vinya: That’s an interesting way to think of it.

Vinya then got lost in the weeds of pondering what it could possibly mean that Orcus wasn’t getting what he wants out of these deals.

Marxine stayed on point.

Marxine: How do we find these cabals and cults and stop them? We don’t want to play whackamole.
Elama: It makes me feel bad when we go around listening for and chasing screams, because it means someone is being hurt.
Jorcha: That’s an admirable attitude. So you’ve found two circles to Orcus. The last time someone tried to turn this gate to the Abyss, they were trying to summon or contact Juiblex.
Vinya: Okay. Not Orcus. How do we find these people? We tried in New Arvai and had no luck at all. We keep thinking about people being desperate and maybe people being more desperate in the poor part of town. But I’m not comfortable with the idea that poor people are more likely to be diabolists or demonists. That just seems like an unlikely assumption.
Jorcha: You’re looking for someone who’s looking for power. Or revenge. Those are the two most common reasons someone turns to fiends for power. In this case you’re looking for someone for whom being turned into an undead is less of a turn-off. And they’re not looking for political power -- this is ‘I can kill you’ power.
Marixine: Undead don’t have much political sway.
Jorcha: Someone may be looking for revenge. Or they’re an utter nihilist.
Vinya: So do we go around looking for a Revenge Seekers’ Club? Restaurants with drinks called Salty Tears of My Enemies?
Jorcha: Well, you’re looking for a group of people -- either several people who want the same revenge or one very persuasive person.
Vinya: Where do we find persuasive people? Temples? Actors?
Jorcha: Yes. Also politicians. My brother knows far more of political circles than I do.

Vinya spread out the map sections on the table to lay out the city schematically. She indicated the Last Doorway with the worms and the abandoned warehouse in Alhim. Even with the Library to form a third point, there just isn’t much to see. Even if there’s going to be some larger picture, it isn’t a very good connect the dots.

Elderron stayed to do research in the library while the rest of the party headed out to Do Things. We talked about exploring Alhim’s abandoned warehouse district to see if we could find some of the bodies, or find any more information about who the five who were doing the ritual were.

We walked around for a bit, without finding anything useful -- then we decided to go talk to Lt. Linnolim.

Elderron in the library did some research into those circles -- looking for a common calling card between them, beyond that they were pointed to Orcus. Any sort of lead that might be useful.

(Player: Any type of lead that you want to make up off the top of your head.)

He learned that Orcus takes some pleasure in seeing the living suffer, but mostly he likes to see things die. He wants to see the entire multiverse as a necropolis with all entities undead under his control. People who kill in his name get a little power -- becoming zombies or ghouls. People who make undead in his name get more power -- becoming wraiths, perhaps.

Elderron, in doing his research and remembering what the circles looked like, got the sense that whoever did the circle in the warehouse either did it by rote or had been given detailed instructions and followed them carefully. But they didn’t seem to know what the end result would be. It was like a paint-by-numbers. The one in the temple was not entirely finished, but he didn’t get the same sense -- he felt that the people there knew what the goal was. For one thing, they were already undead (the suffragans). They were spellcasters who had been turned into something other than Spawn of Kyuss by the worms.

He also found information that implied that there is a ritual to make the worms of Kyuss -- he couldn’t find all the details but it appeared that it turned either a corpse or a person (that was not clear) into a Spawn of Kyuss, which would then go around creating more Spawn, because that’s a contagious form of undead. Sometimes knowledge of that ritual is directly imparted by Orcus in a deal where he trades magical power, and becoming a potent undead, in exchange for that person going out and creating undead havoc.

He then looked into whether there are potent undead who could either pass in a city or live in a city and not get immediately killed. He found that it might be possible, but not for long -- because these agents of Orcus look more and more dead over time until they become a Herald of Undeath. As they grow in power they grow in stature as well. The Herald always eventually becomes an undead about the size of an ogre, about 10 feet tall, and very very dangerous. They almost invariably wind out with a big scythe that they wield to great effect - killing things with the scythe and some sort of nasty quick kill effect. They tend to collect armies of undead.

Heralds of Undeath have appeared in cities twice since the Severance, so this is a rare occurrence.

Elderron did a fantastic job at the library.

The rest of the party went to the guard house in Dhur to talk to Lt. Linnolim.

Linnolim: I’m glad that you aren’t all dead. Where’s your wizard?
Vinya: Elderron’s in the library.
Marxine: We’re trying to get a sense of the city.
Linnolim: I think I can help with that. You asked me the other day to try to arrange a meeting with the Izir of Dhur. I’ve made an appointment for you to meet with her over dinner, if that’s okay.
Vinya: Yeah. That would be great. We can collect Elderron on the way.
Lieutenant: That would be good. She’s expecting five. It’s always best if she gets what she expects.

The Lieutenant went with us back to the library to collect Elderron. On the way there, we told him about what we’d found in the warehouse in Alhim. We found Elderron at the library, explaining to him that we were having dinner with the Izir. One our way, with the Lieutenant again, Elderron told us what he’d learned about the Herald of Undeath.

The Izir’s palace is not called the Dojh, but it is clearly styled to look like a scaled down version of the Dojh af Kul-Izir in Bakar. At the Izir’s palace, Lt. Linnolim talked to the guards at the gate, telling them that we had an appointment for dinner with the Izir. The guards insisted that we leave all of our weapons behind, including Elderron’s staff. We did so.

While we were disarming ourselves, the Lieutenant went ahead to talk to the Izir and make sure she was ready for us. He came back for us a few minutes later. He took us to a room with low cushions and lap desks to put our plates on. Lt. Linnolim introduced us to the Izir, a halfling woman.

Izir: I am Imada Palmroot. You can call me Imada. Or Ms. Palmroot.

She invited us to sit on the cushions. Because we were all sitting on cushions, the height differences between various members of the party and the Izir were minimized. Lt. Linnolim then left. After he left, food began to arrive -- small plates and tapas-style food.

Imada: The Lieutenant informs me that you stumbled on undead, a number of undead, under the Last Doorway. And other different undead in Alhim. In both cases, you found circles to draw the attention of the Prince of Undead. It appears these are part of a series of bad events.
Marxine: You clearly know the problem we’re having. We are hitting them as they come -- which means we’re behind. Who would want this? This isn’t new -- we came here because we heard rumors of weird unrest and strange disquiet in the city. We’re from outside.
Imada: You’re from New Arvai. You should find the fiendishness familiar.
Vinya: Honestly, we were trying really hard to find cabals there and couldn’t find any for looking. Looking for people who are dissatisfied or desperate, or both, just isn’t a good search strategy. But we think we’re looking for someone who wants revenge or power. Someone who feels that this is the only way for them to redress some grievance.
Imada: There was dissatisfaction among the Kul-Izir’s courtiers a couple-three months ago. The Kul-Izir announced her heir and at least one courtier was unpleasantly surprised that he wasn’t chosen.
Vinya: That might be someone who could cause some undead mayhem.
Imada: It’s a sign that she chose well.
Vinya: What’s this person’s name?
Imada: Intororum. He’s a rock gnome. I believe she was doing him a favor by not choosing him. He is young and his exile after 100 years of service to the city would have been long.
Vinya: Exile. Always? For the rest of your life?
Imada: Yes. After one has been Izir or Kul-Izir for 100 years, your ashes are welcome back after you have died, but when you leave you leave. It’s mostly there to make sure that longer lived races wouldn’t have too great an advantage over the humans and other shorter lived races. Especially since humans founded Dhaqi.
Marxine: It prevents an accumulation of power and wealth in one person’s hands.
Imada: Yes. In practice, most Izirs don’t choose individuals who will live long enough to be exiled as heirs.
Vinya: Given that, why did Intororum expect to be chosen?
Imada: He may have believed that he was obviously the most qualified. I am...dubious.
Vinya: Why?
Imada: Because every time I talked to him, I got a solid sense of how intelligent and capable he thought he was.

We all got the sense that she was being pretty straight with us.

Vinya: Does he have family? I assume he lives in Bakar if he’s in the Kul-Izir’s court.
Imada: He and his family actually live in Kalam, in a neighborhood called Alliq’s Arch. I haven’t seen or heard anything from him in at least a month.
Vinya: Would you describe him as persuasive?
Marxine: Were there people on his team rooting for him?
Imada: The people in his immediate circle were probably rooting for him, yes. Outside his immediate circle, maybe not. I believe the general sense was that he’d be heir to the next Kul-Izir or the one after that. As to talking people into acting against their better interests -- no doubt he could talk some people into doing exactly that. It would help if those people hadn’t interacted with him in a professional capacity. Those of us who have interacted with him in government have a different view of him than those in a social setting.

We ate a bit and absorbed that information, then the conversation went in a different way.

Vinya: What about the temples? The suffragans in the Last Doorway were wearing robes from the Hearthkeepers and Last Laugh. Was everything okay at those temples?
Imada: The temples of those orders in Kalam are missing officiants and Kalam is only one bridge away from Dhur. We believe those became the suffragans.
Vinya: What, the wormy dead guys just shuffled across the bridge and no one noticed?
Imada: Maybe they crossed at night. Those orders are tied for the second most cremations in Dhaqi after the Last Doorway.
Vinya: Okay. Do you know of any resentments among the people who work in the temples? It seems that a priest might be persuasive in the right way to get people to act against their interests.
Imada: There are some temples in Alliq’s Arch as well. Including the Last Laugh. The Last Laugh occasionally do get a little nihilistic, because everything is a joke to them.
Vinya: Seems like an order to keep on the edge of town.
Imada: Generally it’s a light-hearted nihilism. Sometimes not so much.
Vinya: Another area we thought might have people with the right sort of persuasiveness was the theater. But that might be outside your area of expertise.
Imada: I like the theater and do attend, but I don’t know the people involved or their interpersonal relationships and resentments.
Vinya: It looks like we do have some things to look into. Thank you. Have you heard anything about the new teachings in the Enthroned?
Imada: I have heard in some cities of Urnod that there has been a change in the messages they teach. I haven’t noticed that here. But they are not my preferred order.

We spent the rest of the dinner sharing news of Urnod with her -- she had questions about various things, which we answered to the best of our abilities, and we told her some about our adventures. She was an excellent conversationalist and the evening passed very pleasantly.

After we had recovered our weapons and left the Izir’s palace, we walked around more or less aimlessly as we talked about what to do. It was around sunset.

Vinya, to Elderron: How long does the process of becoming a giant zombie-ghoul-herald thing take?
Elderron: A few weeks, I think.
Vinya: Oh, boy. So he’s right on schedule.
Marxine: And no one has seen him in weeks.

We decided to head to Alliq’s Arch in Kalam -- just to try and get a sense of the area where Intororum lives. We were still a bit depleted from our big fight in the morning -- but we figured that we were just scouting and checking things out. Not really looking for a fight. We got there fairly quickly -- as Imada Palmroot had pointed out, it’s only one bridge between Dhur and Kalam.

Alliq’s Arch is a spiffy, upscale neighborhood -- there’s an actual arch, large and dramatic, over the streets at the entrance to the neighborhood. From what Imada Palmroot said, Intororum was from there and his family, presumably his natal family, still lived there. There were businesses, restaurants, and homes -- many of the shops were closed or closing up. Some of the stores had a few customers that were making their final purchases. There were also some bars and restaurants that were still open. We didn’t see a lot of people on the streets.

We walked around looking at the homes, trying to see if there was any sign of a gnome enclave within the community of Alliq’s Arch. We didn’t see any gnomes on the street, but we did see a few homes that looked to be mostly scaled to the gnomes, though they all seemed to have visitor spaces that would accommodate larger visitors. The gnome homes seemed to be in a few clusters, with a few scattered around that weren’t in the clusters. We didn’t see any homes that looked abandoned or unkempt.

So we went into a bar to listen to people. We found our way to Metorilen’s, a gnome bar, though they had a place where we could sit and be comfortable.

Vinya was sitting and listening. Elama went to talk to the bartender.

Elama: We’re looking for a guy named Intororum. He’s a gnome. We haven’t seen him in a while.
Bartender: No one’s seen him in a month or more. His place is still taken care of, but he might have a gardener taking care of it. If you see him, tell him to stop by. It would be nice not to have to worry about him.

Elama returned to the table where the rest of us were sitting.

Vinya: Is anyone else missing?

Elama got up and went back to the bartender.

Elama, to bartender: Is anyone else missing?
Bartender: Uh??
Elama: I’m not a cop.
Bartender: Not that I’ve heard of. Why? Do you think people are missing?
Elama: We’ve heard of nasty undead stuff and we’re hoping that everyone knows where everyone is and no one is missing.
Bartender: I haven’t heard of anyone else missing. Especially not any of the gnomes on the Arch.
Elama: If you hear of anyone else being missing, tell the guard.
Bartender: I’ll tell the guard and they’ll tell the weird elves...sure.
Elama: [shows her badge to him]
Bartender: So you’re a temporary cop.
Elama: We’re adventurers. We just got here and weird stuff is happening. It’s totally a coincidence.
Bartender: Seems legit.

We finished our drinks and left the bar, talking as we went. We decided that, if Intororum is the potential Herald, he’s probably keeping a low profile until he feels like he’ll be unstoppable. He still has to do his undead mayhem, but he may decide to do it away from his home.

As we were talking, Aldalomiel’s jaw dropped when she saw a huge bird that appeared to be rotten. She smacked the person next to her and pointed. We all started to run to follow the huge undead bird.

Elama, as she was running, holding up her badge: Stop in the name of the law!

The huge, undead bird did not stop.

It continued flying, heading toward a lighthouse/tower that appeared to be in Kalam, though not in Alliq’s Arch.

Other people on the street were looking at it with an expression of horrified awe, which was pretty much what we were feeling.

We continued to run to follow it. Elderron had Oda fly up over the roofs, where it could watch more effectively. Vinya ran up the walls (with the slippers of spider climb) and continued along jumping from roof to roof, but keeping pace with the party, not running ahead.

 

[prabe]

Session 38: Big Undead Problems Loom

Dramatis Personae:
Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Druid
Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest)
Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul)
Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster)
Marxine - Mountain Dwarf Fighter (Champion)/Paladin

GM - Everyone Else

(Note: This session was held on Discord.)


11 Bluzzimin 749 (Campaign day 162)(immediately after)

We ended the last session running through the streets of Kalam following a huge undead bird. It was flying in the direction of The Lighthouse.

Oda was flying over the buildings and Vinya was running across the rooftops, keeping pace with the rest of the party. They were keeping watch on the bird while the rest of the party was running in the right direction down in the twisty little streets.

Vinya saw it land, not at the tower, but in a small-ish park or square. When Vinya saw it land she started trying to sneak across the roofs somewhat, so that it wouldn’t spot her. She was able to get close enough to see that it had a corpse in its talons, which it dropped as it landed. Oda saw the corpse crawl toward a huge pile of other moving corpses -- not individually moving corpses, but sort of a seething mass of them.

The bird stayed on the ground and began preening, removing feathers and bits of rotting flesh..

Vinya ran down the wall to consult with the rest of the party -- what should she do if the bird took off. We decided that if it took to the air she should shoot it with her shortbow to try and draw its attention, but otherwise she was not to engage it until everyone was in position.

She also described the park to the party -- a square surrounded by buildings with some trees in it. From what she could see, the buildings were all shops and businesses and were empty at this time of the evening. Marxine and Lamie went to one side of the square, as near as possible to the seething pile of corpses. Vinya and Aldalomiel went to the side of the square nearest the bird, to try and keep it on the ground. Elderron stayed at the southern edge of the park so he could assist on either side, in cover behind one of the buildings.

As Marxine and Elama were getting into position, the bird noticed Marxine, but didn’t move to attack.

Aldalomiel, on the ground in the alley next to where Vinya was on the roof, put her hunter’s mark on the bird, then fired two shots at it. One of those shots hit.

That was the go signal for Elama on the other side of the park. She cast spiritual weapon and placed it next to the writhing mass of bodies. The weapon attacked and got a nice hit. Then she walked to the edge of the square and cast sacred flame on the writhing mass, but it avoided the flames. Marxine ran up to the corner of the building and threw a couple of hand axes at the writhing mass -- getting a critical hit. Elderron stepped out from behind the building and cast a scorching ray, altered to do radiant damage, on the bird. He missed with one of the rays but hit with two of them. Vinya fired 2 sunbolts at it -- hitting once -- then she did patient defense.

The bird, having been hit most recently by Vinya’s sunbolt, took to the air and attacked her from the air. It hit with a claw, but missed with the other claw and the bite.

We had surprised the writhing mass of corpses, so it didn’t get to attack.

Aldalomiel shot two arrows at the bird then turned into her starry archer form and fired a radiant bolt at it. Out of all of that she got one hit, but did a whopping amount of damage. Elama missed the writhing mass with the spiritual weapon, then she cast call lightning and dropped a lightning bolt on the mass of corpses. She moved a bit away from Marxine, into the park, to try and spread out some. Marxine ran in and attacked the mass, wielding her hammer and a shield. She got two hard hits in -- both of them for maximum damage. Elderron cast another radiant-damage scorching ray -- hitting the bird with all three bolts. Vinya, with the bird right in front of her, punched twice (because she figured it would take magical weapons to hit it). She hit one time, doing very little damage. Then once again she did her patient defense.

The giant bird in front of her reeked. It also attacked her with both claws and its beak again, but again only hit one time.

A corpse sort of fell out of the writing mass of bodies, then stood up. The main mass attacked and missed Marxine. The zombie that came out shuffled to Elama and attacked her. She did her retributive strike, doing it lightning damage in response.

Aldalomiel fired two arrows and a radiant bolt at the undead bird, hitting only with one of her arrows, but once again doing a lot of damage. Elama dropped a lightning bolt from the call lightning between the zombie and the writhing mass, hitting both. She channeled divinity to maximize the damage. That basically evaporated the zombie. Then she hit the writhing mass with the spiritual weapon. Then she moved deeper into the park, to stay out of the range of the seething mass and any zombies it might drop out. Marxine attacked the writhing mass, hitting once. Elderron, noticing that the bird was looking worse for the wear so he fired a radiant damage lightning bolt at it (changing the save to an intelligence save) -- hitting it hard. It noticed that. Vinya punched at it twice, only hitting one time (for decent damage for a change) and dropped it, thanks to Elderron’s radiant lightning bolt. She then ran down the wall and stopped about 30 feet from the writhing mound of bodies.

Another corpse tumbled out of the mass and started to shuffle toward Vinya, but it wasn’t able to get close to her. The mound shifted and seethed and moved to a position where it could attack both Marxine and Elama. It missed Lamie but hit Marxine. Marxine wound out being grappled and restrained by the arms of the corpses in the mound.

Aldalomiel moved up a bit toward the seething mound, moved her hunter’s mark to it, and shot two arrows at it, hitting once. Elama, now in melee with the seething mound of bodies, moved her spiritual weapon and hit it with her tiny lightning cloud. Then she fired a wave of lightning at Vinya, who was pretty chewed up looking -- she healed Vinya for a lot, and hurt herself some. Elama was also poisoned by the stinking cloud surrounding the mass.

Vinya: Wow! Thanks!

Marxine, grappled and restrained by the grasping arms and clinging hands of the seething mound, got her second wind, then she broke herself free from the clinging arms. She then surged with energy and attacked the mound -- getting a critical hit. Elderron moved 30 feet closer and cast a radiant-damage blight spell (with an intelligence save) doing a great deal of damage to the seething mound.

Vinya shot two sunbolts at the pile of bodies, getting a critical hit and a hit. Then she closed on the zombie near her, doing a flurry of blows and hitting it twice.

The seething mass spat another zombie out. It stood up and started shuffling toward Marxine. The mass of corpses attacked Marxine and Elama. Marxine wound out grappled and restrained again. Elama was hit -- it would have been a critical hit but she was able to use the bulette shield to negate that. She was also grappled and restrained. The zombie that had been spit out got into a position where it could attack Marine with flanking, but even with that, it missed. Vinya, on the other hand, suffered a critical hit, but not a huge one.

Aldalomiel shot two arrows at the writing mass of corpses, then fired a radiant bolt at the zombie on Vinya, dropping it.

Lamie pulled another lightning bolt out of the writhing mass, hitting it and channeling her divinity for maximum damage. That dropped it. Marxine then dropped the zombie on her.

With all the opposition apparently dead again, Vinya and Aldalomiel went around firing radiant bolts and Elderron fired firebolts at the dead things to make sure they stayed dead.

Elama used Vinya’s quarterstaff to poke around in the pile of corpses, but there was no recognizable stuff on any of the corpses. There was a distinct vibe that the things in the pile had been speed-rotted. They all had a distinct vibe of having been bathed in necrotic energy for a while -- the bodies are all beyond any possibility of identification by looking at them.

The party was talking about burning the bodies, and if we should do it right here. As we were having this discussion, some of the local Kalam guards showed up. The corporal in charge of the unit was a goliath and very tall.

Vinya, with enthusiasm: Oh, hi! It’s good to see you! There was a huge undead bird and it carried corpses here -- a lot of corpses. They all need to get to a crematory.
Goliath: You said there were undead.
Vinya: Yeah. We killed them.

Aldalomiel and Elama pointed to the pile of bodies and the corpse of the bird.

Goliath: Egad. I’m glad you survived contact with that. We can arrange to get carts to take them to a crematory. It sounded like you were going to burn them here.
Elderron: We just don’t want to have them get up again.
Goliath: There have been reports of people seeing that giant bird flying over Kalam for a few days.
Vinya: Is this part of Kalam abandoned or something? If this bird has been bringing corpses here for days, surely someone would have seen something.
Goliath: I expect this park gets a fair amount of use during the day. I can’t account for why the bird, and the pile of corpses, hasn’t been seen for days. Maybe it wasn’t always here.
Marxine: What about body theft? Have any bodies gone missing from the crematories?
Goliath: There have been some rumblings about it, but friend of friend stuff. Third hand information.
Vinya: What about people disappearing or being killed?
Goliath: I mean this is a big city -- there are always going to be murders and people going missing. But there hasn’t been an untoward number of those. At least not in Kalam. Maybe some of those bodies came from a different izirate. Or people who, well, nobody is noticing they aren’t there.
Vinya: The bird came from that direction. Maybe more people saw it.
Goliath: I’ll ask around and see if I can get more reports of the bird.
Vinya, flashing her badge: Please let us know if you hear of anything.
Goliath, looking at the badge: Dhur. I assume you’re working with Lt. Linnolim?
Vinya: Yes. You can get messages to us through him.

Aldalomiel tried to see if the writhing mass had moved into the park from somewhere else, backtracking it, but was unable to detect anything.

We thanked the Goliath for taking care of the corpses for us then headed out. We stopped by the Well of Screams, with the thought that we could talk to Jorcha about whether that giant undead bird was something that had been seen in the city before, perhaps historically. But the library was closed.

We went from there to the Dhur guard house to talk to Lt. Linnolim. We described the huge undead bird to him and the flight path we saw for it.

Linnolim: There have been frantic, incoherent reports of something like that flying low over the Ledge. Some people have been grabbed off of it. It’s one of the few places in Daqhi where a bird that huge could actually get to a person on the streets. From there it could get to either Alim or Bakhar easily.
Vinya: Where might it be going to or coming from in those izirates?
Linnolim: The Green in Bakhar is vast. Maybe there. But I’m not sure from the reports we’ve gotten that’s where it was going.
Vinya: Please let us know if you hear anything else.

We then went back to Bultir’s and rested for the night. Which passed without incident.


12 Bluzzimin 749 (Campaign day 163)(immediately after)

We went downstairs for breakfast. Bultir was serving and acting as host, as he generally did.

Vinya, to Bultir: When you have a moment, we have some questions.

When we were finishing our meals and sipping our coffee (or other beverage of choice) he came over to our table to see what we wanted. We described the giant undead bird to him with the thought that it was possibly an undead phoenix.

Vinya: Have people reported or seen a phoenix around?
Bultir: I’ve heard about a phoenix. But that’s not always a good thing to have around.
Vinya: Why?
Bultir: They’re creatures of fiery destruction -- they rise from their own ashes, coming back if you kill them.
Elama: So how does one kill them permanently?
Bultir: Kill them, then throw the egg and ashes through a portal and onto another plane.
Elama: Are they malevolent?
Bultir: No. They’re creatures of elemental fire and just want to see everything burn.
Vinya: Where has one been seen? And when was that?
Bultir: It was a long time ago, elsewhere in Za’akkesh.
Vinya: So not here in the city Okay.

We thanked him and left. We decided to go to the Ledge to see if we could find anyone to talk to about the huge undead bird and people who have been taken by it.

The Ledge is a number of stacked buildings, built on top of each other and cantilevered out over the side of the island. Some of those layers of buildings have walkways out over the water. The top layer of buildings has a public walkway with an open garden nearby.

We walked around on the top layer of the walk -- the day was bright and clear. We passed some cafes with indoor and outdoor seating. We decided to perambulate around looking for someone who might be there a lot -- like a gardener perhaps. We found a weathered looking human man, who was taking care of the plants on the upper level of the ledge.

Vinya: Hello! How are you doing?
Gardener: Uhhh. Fine. Busy. What can I do for you?
Vinya: We’ve heard reports of a veryveryvery large bird around here. Have you seen it?
Gardener: I’ve heard about people getting taken from the top.
Elderron: Do you know if that’s happened more at night or during the day?
Gardener: Generally people have been taken when it was getting on toward fully dark. When it was hard to see.
Vinya: Can you point us to some of the people who saw it? [she flashed her badge]
Gardener: It was all friend of a friend type stuff. I don’t know of anyone who saw anything with this or her own eyes.
Vinya: Do you know of anyone missing?
Gardener: I’ve heard of people missing from the top of the Ledge.
Elderron: Do you know what time of day they were taken?
Gardener: On toward dark, as I understand it.
Viya: Can you point us to some of the people who saw it?
Gardener: All the reports I’ve heard are distinctly third, or more, hand. A friend of a friend heard about it.
Vinya: Do you know of anyone missing?
Gardener: The waitress in one of the cafes is missing. I haven’t seen her in a while.
Vinya: Do you have her name?
Gardener: Intara. I think. Something like that.

We talked to someone at the restaurant about Intara being missing, but all we learned is that she hadn’t been around for a while.

Before we really dove into that, Marxine pointed out that this was maybe not our best choice. We weren’t likely to learn anything about the bird or where it was coming from, based on the actions the gardener had discover. So we decided instead to go talk to the Goliath, instead.

Vinya: Is there anything we can call you?
Goliath: My name is Tulwark.
Vinya: We’ve asked around and discovered that the gnome Intororum is missing.
Tulwark: He’s missing?! Isn’t he a courtier at the Kul-Izir’s court? If he was really missing, I’d expect someone on high would be calling for a welfare check.
Vinya: Hmm. The people in Alliq’s Arch are missing him.
Tulwark: Well, maybe that’s not the same as missing missing. He might be somewhere away from his home.
Vinya: Fair enough. He might just not be in his usual neighborhood.
Tulwark: Would you like to go check on his house?
Vinya: That would be fantastic.

Tulwark went to his superiors to get the mission approved. And to get directions to Intororum’s house. That approval was given.

We headed out, with him escorting us into Alliq’s Arch. We eventually ended up at a nicely sized gnome home. Like many gnome houses, it had a front room scaled to human sized guests. Tulwark was going to have to stoop a bit to go inside. The house is in good shape and well-kept and the plants and shrubs are all being cared for -- nothing is growing or going wild.

We went to the front door and Tulwark knocked with a cop-knock -- loud and insistent. There was no response, so he knocked again. When he tried the door, it was unlocked. The air inside smelled stale but not foul.

Elderron looked at the door to see if there were any signs of forced entry. The door didn’t look like it had been forced. But he did notice that it looked like someone had turned the knob so hard from the inside that the latch will no longer engage. That’s why the door is unlocked.

Tulwark pulled the door closed before any of us entered the house. He looked really unhappy about the door being unlocked and the knob being broken. We walked around the house -- the curtains were all tightly pulled and we were unable to look inside the building and see anything at all.

We went back to the front door. Marxine went just inside and did her divine sense -- it picks up whether things or places have been hallowed or unhallowed. She picked up bad stuff. Vinya stood at the door and cast detect evil and good through the rod of alertness -- that didn’t pick anything up (but it has a shorter range).

Marxine went another step inside.

Vinya explained to Tulwark that Marxine can detect the presence of badness and corruption.

Tulwark: There are a number of people in the guard with that ability. I thought she looked like she might be able to do so -- something in the way she carries herself. I’m not pleased that she’s detecting bad things.

We agreed that the party would clear the house of enemies, because he didn’t feel like he’d be an asset in a combat with any possible monsters we might find. Once we were sure the house was clear, we’d come back to Tulwark and he’d look into anything we found that was especially bad.

With an apparently mostly abandoned (at best) house in front of us and unknown amounts of combat ahead, we ended there.

 

[prabe]

Session 39: Found the Herald of Undeath!

Dramatis Personae:
Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Druid
Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest)
Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul)
Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster)
Marxine - Mountain Dwarf Fighter (Champion)/Paladin

GM - Everyone Else

(Note: This session was held on Discord.)


12 Bluzzimin 749 (Campaign day 163)(immediately after)

Elderron cast mage armor on himself and then we went into Intororum’s house. The first room we came to was a nice parlor -- the room as a whole was sized for humanoids of all sizes. There was furniture of all sizes. Off the parlor was a dining room -- like Imada Palmroot, the Izir of Dhur’s dining room, there were cushions and pillows on the floor with low tables for people to use.

The house has one floor above ground, but we anticipated that there would be one or more underground levels. Most of the above-ground floor is accessible to non-gnomes. We passed through a number of rooms -- a kitchen, an office.

Vinya used the Rod of Alertness to cast detect evil and good and detected nothing. Marxine’s divine sense got a sense of the unhallowed things being below us.

Between the kitchen and the office we saw a set of five-foot wide stairs. The risers were spaced for gnomish legs and feet -- narrow and low and small. We went down the narrow stairs. (Our marching order was: Marxine, Elama, Elderron, Aldalomiel, and Vinya. Elama cast light on her shield to light the way.

We went down to a lower level where we found a smaller, comfortable living space. Or it would have been comfortable in better times -- it was not in great shape. Down the hall in one direction was a bedroom -- it looked like something had rotten in the bed. There was a background scent of funky smoke and decay.

Vinya cast detect magic with the Rod again. And again she found nothing.

Down the hallway in the other direction was a gnome-sized dining room. The table was thrown against a wall -- apparently with some force because there were cracks in the wood. The chairs were thrown about.

We continued further down the hallway. There was a door next to the dining room that lead to a kitchen. There were some foods in the kitchen -- though everything in it had nasty looking green-shading-to-chartreuse worms. That looked sort of undead-ish or Spawn of Kyuss-ish.

Vinya: Elderron, would you please firebolt these?

Elderron looked around for any reason why he shouldn’t do that - especially for flammables. Not seeing one he firebolted all around, taking care of all the worms he could see.

We went back into the hallway and continued on down. We noticed that the hallway was sloping down. We also noticed that the smell of fire and decay was getting stronger.

After a bit, Vinya’s detect evil and good lit up just as Marxine, leading the way down the hallway, got to a large open space. The hallway we were in split to left and right into a five foot wide mezzanine with a large open space below us. The ceiling height had been six feet throughout this gnome residence and that’s how far down the floor was below the mezzanine. The room was a large library -- with shelves lined with books -- and there were several sets of gnome-sized stairs that went down from the mezzanine to the floor of the library. The room was sort of L-shaped, with part of it turning away out of our sight to the left.

Marxine stopped at the point where the hallway separated in the mezzanine to the left and the right. Aldalomiel shaped into her starry archer form. Vinya stood ready to move forward if a way opened up for her.

A suffragan on the mezzanine went to Marxine, pulled a wad of worms out of its chest and attacked her with it. Another suffragan, further away around the mezzanine, fired a black necrotic bolt at Marxine.

Aldalomiel shot two arrows and a radiant bolt at the suffragan on Marxine, hitting with all of them. Marxine shoved the suffragan back onto the stairs in front of her, but it didn’t fall down. Then she moved forward onto the top of the stairs and attacked it. She did some damage to the suffragan but, more importantly, cleared a way for other people to come out of the hallway onto the mezzanine.

Four spawn of Kyuss, some from the mezzanine and some from the level below, attacked Marxine. She dodged two of their worms, but caught two of them. And took two hits.

Elama turned undead -- getting four spawn of Kyuss and the suffragan clustered around Marxine as well as another spawn that was on the mezzanine. Then she cast shield of faith on Marxine. Elderron cast slow on the cluster of spawn and the suffragan on Marxine. Then he moved down the hallway toward the mezzanine.

About that time, a large creature came lurching around the corner -- it looked like a gnome that had actually been stretched on a rack and skeletonized. It held a rod in one hand and a scimitar in the other. It gestured with the rod and a thick black beam blasted out, nearly missing Elama.

Vinya moved up to between Elderron and Elama and fired two sunbolts at the suffragan on Marxine. The radiant damage chewed it up good. Seeing the effect she was having on it, she did a flurry of blows in the form of more sunbolts. The first one dropped it, so she fired the second bolt at the spawn of Kyuss that was on the mezzanine between Elama and Marxine.

The other suffragan, on the mezzanine at the corner where the room turned away from us, shot a necrotic bolt at Lamie and missed.

Aldalomiel moved up in the hallway and fired two arrows and a radiant bolt at the gnome skeleton, what we believed to be the Herald of Undeath. The two arrows hit but the radiant bolt didn’t.

The spawn of Kyuss healed up some -- one of them began to run away at half speed -- affected by both Elderron’s slow spell and Elama’s turning. Three others attacked Marxine from the mezzanine and another one stepped up from the lower level to attack her. The three from the mezzanine, all affected by Elderron’s slow spell, missed. The one that was not slowed hit her for the absolute maximum damage they can do.

Elama cast spirit guardians, surrounding herself with small lightning-filled clouds. This caused the shield of faith on Marxine to go down. Elderron cast fireball on the lower level, getting three of the spawn of Kyuss and the Herald. He altered the spell so that it did radiant damage and had an intelligence save.

Following the radiant fireball, the Herald moved in our direction. It stopped just outside the spirit guardians, behind a line of spawn. He then reached over the spawn to attack Marxine with his scimitar, moving frighteningly quickly. One of the scimitar attacks hit.

Vinya moved over and around the party-members in the hallway and got out of the hallway onto a clear part of the ledge. Then she fired sun bolts at the one on the ledge between Marxine (on the ledge) and Elama in the hallway. Then she moved to a corner where she could carefully angle a burning hands on five of the spawn of Kyuss, including the one between Marxine and Elama. Then she moved to a position on the ledge where she was not engaged with any of the spawn.

Aldalomiel did a guiding bolt on the Herald, which hit and left it glowing, then she cast a powerful healing word on Marxine. Marxine resisted some effect from the Herald’s aura. Then she attacked the spawn on the mezzanine between her and Elama, trying to clear the entrance to the halfway. Then she did an action surge so she could get rid of the worms she’d picked up so far by laying on hands.

The spawn of Kyuss near us on the mezzanine and near Marxine took damage from the spirit guardians.

Elama: Radiant damage to the FACE!

One of them hit Marxine twice, dropping her with its first attack then causing her to fail two death saves with its second attack.

A couple of the spawn couldn’t get to anyone -- the one that had been turned and slowed was blocking the suffragan from getting to us.

Elama did her emergency healing/life transference thing to heal Marxine. Elderron cast another fireball with radiant damage and an intelligence save on three of the spawn and the Herald.

The Herald apparently didn’t like that because he fired two black, necrotic beams at Elderron. Fortunately, both missed. Then he made a dismissive flick with his scimitar in Marxine’s direction, but missed with that too.

Vinya fired two sunbolts at the Herald, one of which hit, then she did another searing arc strike (burning hands) that finally took out the one on the mezzanine between Marxine and Elama.

The suffragan around on the ledge, blocked from getting close enough to do its disgusting blobby handful of worms attack by the turned spawn of Kyuss, fired black necrotic bolts at Elama. Both of them hit, but she was able to protect herself from a critical hit with the bulette shield. Unfortunately, the second hit caused her to lose her concentration on the spirit guardians.

Aldalomiel did another guiding bolt on the Herald. The bolt of radiant energy shot straight through it and it began to sublimate from the inside out, the radiance destroying its necrotic evil core. The rod and scimitar clattered to the ground. She then turned and shot a radiant bolt from her starry archer form at one of the spawn in the lower level of the library, but missed. Marxine attacked dropping one of the spawn with her first attack, hit another with her second, and then, since she was on a roll, did an action surge and got two more hits against it, one of them a crit.

Spawn of Kyuss attacked both Marxine and Elama -- Elama caught two of the flying worms and was hit.

Elama, to Elderron: Maybe a dimension door down into the library?

Then she cast cure wounds on herself.

Elderron took Elama’s suggestion and used dimension door to take both of them down to the floor of the library in a corner on the far wall. Vinya jumped the six feet down to the library floor, dropped one of the spawn on Marxine with a punch, moved back up to the ledge to attack a spawn up there, then jumped back down to wind out next to Marxine.

Vinya: naughty word! That was a punch. I think that one’s coming back.

The suffragan on the ledge, still bottled up by the turned spawn, fired two necrotic bolts at Elama. Fortunately only one hit.

Aldalomiel dropped a spawn of Kyuss with two arrows. Marxine hit the spawn next to her -- which she’d already hit twice before -- but it still didn’t drop.

The two spawn on Marxine and Vinya ignored Vinya to attack Marxine. Marxine dodged one of the worms, but in doing so dodged into the other one. Aldalomiel was attacked by a spawn and missed.

Elama, now on the lower level, moved up to right behind Marxine and cured her. Elderon cast a high level magic missile, doing radiant damage, on five of the six remaining undead (excluding the one that was still turned by Elama). After that, Vinya dropped the same one she’d dropped the previous round again, but this time it was going to stay down. She then went back up to the top of the ledge and dropped one of the ones up there. Then she jumped back down to the floor level and punched one of the ones on Marxine.

The suffragan shot black bolts at Elama again -- once again she used her shield to turn a critical hit into a regular hit and was hit twice. She didn’t drop, but she was very badly hurt.

Aldalomiel cast thunderwave on the spawn next to her but unfortunately it saved and wasn’t knocked prone. Then she shot a radiant bolt from her starry form at another spawn. Marxine went up the stairs and attacked the one Aldalomiel was fighting -- she smote it with her first attack then dropped it with her second.

Aldalomiel: Thank you.

The turned spawn, still trying to run farther from Elama, couldn’t get past the suffragan, who wasn’t letting it go anywhere. The spawn at the bottom of the stairs hit Vinya once, but it was a critical hit. Fortunately she was able to dodge the worms.

Marxine, able to feel worms crawling under her skin, laid hands on herself again and killed them. Elama cast cure wounds on herself and moved back to be nearer to Elderron -- then she took damage from the worms under her skin. Elderron cast magic missile -- spreading the radiant darts among the various undead (except the turned one). Vinya attacked the two remaining spawn on the lower level, dropping both of them.

That left just the turned spawn and the entirely untouched suffragan on the ledge. The suffragan, seeing that Elama was badly injured, fired at her again. (If she dies with the worms in her, she’ll come back as a spawn of Kyuss a few minutes later.) Fortunately it missed both times.

Aldalomiel moved along the ledge to a point where she could get a clear aim at the suffragan -- she fired two arrows and a radiant bolt at it, hitting with all three. Marxine went along the ledge toward the suffragan and the remaining spawn. Elama hid under a table in the library, to give herself cover from the suffragan’s necrotic beams, and cured herself again. Elderron cast scorching ray, changing the damage to radiant, and fired it at the suffragan. He hit with all three rays, leaving it looking bad. Vinya followed that up with a radiant sunbolt that dropped the suffragan. Her second sunbolt hit the turned spawn with a crit, breaking the turning. Aldalomiel shot at the last remaining spawn and hit with her radiant bolt (but not her arrows).

Marxine stomped down the mezzanine and smashed at the last spawn with her hammer, hitting it twice and dropping it.

There were no further opponents to fight -- except the danger of Elama turning into a spawn of Kyuss if we can’t get her to a temple and get the right kind of magic (which no one in the party has right now).

Fortunately, Tulwark, of the Kalam guard, was there to help. We haven’t looked around the room at all. There’s a hint of a circle on the floor, but we don’t know much more than that.

 

[prabe]

Session 40: ERROR

Dramatis Personae:
Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Druid (Circle of Stars)
Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest)
Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul)
Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster)
Marxine - Mountain Dwarf Fighter (Champion)/Paladin

GM - Everyone Else

(Note: This session was held on Discord.)


12 Bluzzimin 749 (Campaign day 163)(immediately after)

We ended when the last of the spawn of Kyuss in the library of the Herald of Galactus Undeath (formerly known as the gnome Intororum) dropped. Elama had a situation -- because she had 2 of the worms of Kyuss in her and about 40 remaining hit points.

Aldalomiel shifted into her starry chalice form because that increases her healing potential. Elama cast cure wounds on herself to buy some time. Vinya ran ahead out of the house to get to Tulwark and ask for directions to a temple.

Vinya blasted out of the front door and almost into Tulwark, who was right outside the door of the house, a goliath surrounded by 20 or so gnomes, each of whom wanted to know what was going on inside. Vinya, seeing the situation, gestured for him to lean over so she could talk to him quietly.

Vinya, whispering in Tulwark’s ear: We think the house is clear, but we need a temple. One of my friends has been harmed by undead.
Little Invisible Voice: What kind of undead?
Vinya, out loud: Spawn of Kyuss. Also suffragans. She got some worms. The house needs to stay secure but we need to get her to a temple.

A gnome appeared where the invisible voice had come from, wearing the robes of a cleric of the Random & Certain.

Gnome: Well, I sure followed the crowd to the right place.

Vinya led that gnome into the house, leaving Tulwark to deal with the rest of the crowd.

Gnome: Wow. He let this place go.
Vinya: He had other stuff going on.

Vinya, loudly: Elama! Help is here!
Elama, coming up the stairs: Whew!

The gnome then proceeded to cast the appropriate spell on Elama, killing the disgusting worms inside her.

Elama: How did you get here?
Gnome: By following someone who looked like they knew where they were going, I wound up where I needed to be.
Vinya: What’s up with that crowd?
Gnome: People around here know Tulwark and saw him outside the house and other people going in. We gnomes are a curious folk.
Vinya, flashing badge: We’re guard as well. We need to talk to Tulwark now. Thank you.
Elama: Thank you muchly!

We went back to the entrance, where Tulwark was still surrounded by gnomes, though they seemed to be asking fewer questions.

Gnome: Tulwark, your colleague isn’t dying now.
Tulwark: Thank you, Alnoroto.

We then started to talk to Tulwark about going back into the house with him to look at the circle there and make sure the place was clear. The gnomes were part of this conversation, though Alnoroto seemed to emerge as their spokesperson. We told Tulwark (and the gnomes) that we thought it was clear of major dangers, but there might still be some worms of Kyuss lurking around. The gnomes wanted to come in with us to make sure that Intororum hadn’t stolen anything from anyone else in the community. Or maybe that he didn’t have undead stealing from the community. Or because they wanted to see what was up.

The gnomes finally settled on two of their number to come with us, Alnoroto and one named Ixloxit, a former adventurer, as being the most psychologically and physically equipped to deal with the remains in the library and whatever else we might find in the house.

Speaker for the Gnomes: You guys are with Dhur’s guard. Tulwark will represent Kalam’s. And we’ll have some of our eyes in there as well.

Tulwark sighed and acquiesced with this plan.

The rest of the gnomes stayed outside blocking the doorway.

Vinya, to Alnoroto and Ixloxit: Do y’all routinely steal from one another?
Alnoroto: Well, I don’t see how Spawn of Kyuss could be here without him being involved with bad things somehow. If he’s gone that kind of bad, maybe he’s also stealing from us.
Marxine: Honestly, I’d prefer to live next to a guy raising zombies to steal from people than what we actually found.

When we got to the library, Alnoroto, Ixloxit and Tulwark seemed bothered but not ill or overwhelmed by what we found there.

The circle was another summoning (or contacting) circle to Orcus. Elderron figured out that the more undead there were around, the more powerful the signal or contact would be. Which explained all the spawn of Kyuss -- and possibly the worms, because those are also technically undead. The circle was made with unwholesome smears on the ground and powered by undead -- which it sucked the unlife out of. It looked similar to the circle in the warehouse -- but looked like it was made with more knowledge and less rote following of instructions.

In the papers in the library, we found some about how to summon Orcus. And a journal in which he talked about having gotten pissed off because the Kul-Izir hadn’t chosen him as her heir. Because of that anger and disaffection, he used the knowledge that he already had.

The gnomes recognized the Herald as Intororum.

Vinya: I don’t see how the timing works -- he hasn’t been seen for six weeks but it’s more like 10 weeks since the captain of the Ocean’s Blessing had a sense that weird things were afoot here and that he didn’t want to stay.
Marxine, looking over the journals: It looks like he was doing some things as far as undead mayhem and Orcus cabals before he started to actually become the Herald.

We speculated for a bit about how Intororum as the Herald intended to get out of the basement of this house, then found a trap door in the door in the floor in the middle of the circle that was definitely big enough for the Herald to squeeze through. Vinya followed the tunnel and found an exit into Kalam out beyond the gnomish neighborhood.

While she was doing that, Marxine was looking through Intororum’s notes to see if she could find any accomplices. Alnoroto, Ixloxit and Tulwark were looking around the library and the rest of the house. They found some stuff that they didn’t know where it came from.

Vinya: Did anyone else live here with him? Family or anything?
Ixloxit: His parents are gone and his sister moved out a few years ago.

We collected the papers and books on how to summon Orcus to take those to the Well of Screams.

In addition to those we found a nice lot of treasure:

10,773 gp (2154 gp each, with 3 left for the party kitty)
1575 pp (315 pp each)
7 x 750gp value art items
1 silver and gold brooch
2 painted gold war masks from a culture on the far side of Za’akesh (Vinya took one of these)
3 decorative silver-plated longswords with jets in the hilts
1 ceremonial electrum dagger with a black pearl pommel -- Elderron recognized this as something used in high ritual magic.
Set of +1 breastplate (Elama)
Scimitar of Speed (this was left by the Herald of Undeath and was identified by the gnomes as having been in his family) (Elama)
2 potions of flying (in the handy haversack as a party item)
Spell Scroll -- Scatter (Elderron)
Mirror of Life Trapping (umm, eww)
A rod (this was held by the Herald as well)

Tulwark made an inventory of what we found while Elderron was casting identify on the Rod.

Tulwark: I need to report this. I don’t understand all of the magic that’s here. Or where it came from.

About that time, Elderron’s spell went off and he started telling us about the rod.

Rod of Litrices:

While carrying this rod, you are immune to spells and magic effects that would alter your form. In addition, when a creature misses you with a melee attack while you are carrying this rod, that creature must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or be magically slowed. Until the end of its next turn it suffers the following drawbacks:

• It can't use reactions.
• Its speed is halved.
• It can't make more than one attack on its turn.
• It can take either an action or a bonus action on its turn, not both.

Also, when you make a saving throw against a spell that targets only you while carrying this item, you can choose to make the saving throw with advantage. If the saving throw succeeds and the spell is 7th level or lower, the spell has no effect on you and instead targets the caster, using the slot level, spell save DC, attack bonus, and spellcasting ability of the caster. If the spell requires concentration, it lasts until the end of the caster's next turn, even if they choose not to maintain their concentration on it. Once used, this property can't be used again until the next noon.

Anoroto: Holy crap!

Anoroto’s take on the Rod of Litrices was shared by pretty much everyone in the room.

Vinya, to Tulwark: Add to your inventory the books and papers about how to summon Orcus. Those need to be taken somewhere safer.

While Tulwark was struggling to write with writing implements not sized for his goliath hands, the party looked through the rest of the library. Many of the books were normal, fine books -- histories of Dhaqi and Za’akesh, etc.

Vinya: Maybe Intororum’s sister would like those.
Tulwark: There may be other interested people as well.

Before we left the house, we looked around for worms like the ones we’d found in the kitchen. We zapped a few more worms with radiant damage before deciding that the house was clear of any active Bad Stuff.

When we got out of the house, Tulwark told us that he was going to take the inventory to his Lieutenant. His lieutenant would talk to Lt. Linnolim and they’d work out what needed to come back and be restored to someone. Until then, we could keep it.

Aldalomiel, looking at the 5’ tall mirror of life trapping: It seems like it would be awkward to use.
Vinya: Yeah.
Tulwark: I’ll get a cart over here to help you shift this stuff.

While we were waiting for the cart, the assembled gnomes apparently realized that all the interesting activity was done and drifted away, wishing us good luck and good day. When Alnoroto wished us good luck, it sounded a bit more like a blessing. Once we had the cart, we talked as we walked to Dhur and the guard house.

Elama: That went too well. I don’t think this is over.
Vinya: I’m not sure Intororum was the start of this. How did he just happen to stumble over information about how to summon Orcus?

When we got to the guard house, Lt. Linnolim was there. He seemed surprised to see us coming in with all that stuff.

Vinya: We may have found the origin point of the undead in the city. But maybe not.
Linnolim: You seem unsure.
Vinya: I’m not sure I’m convinced about the timeline.
Marxine: The timeline is fine. The guy thought he was a genius. He thought he was due to be next in line to be Kul-Izir. He probably thought he could get away with dealing with Orcus. He may have even thought he’d come out on top of the deals.
Vinya: Well, that’s all true. There may still be more undead -- he was seeding little Orcus cabals around and they might do something even with him gone. We can keep our ear to the ground about that sort of thing. Anyway, we found this stuff and Tulwark took an inventory. Said you’d work with his lieutenant to figure out what needs to go back.
Linnolim, looking at the cart: Interesting. A mirror of life trapping?
Vinya: I guess it’s maybe something y’all could use here…
Marxine: I’m not okay with its use as a prison. But it might be something that could hang at the Well of Screams.
Linnolim: My sister would like it, I’m sure. I’ll talk with the lieutenant in Kalam. I can definitely take the mirror off your hands and find a way to make you whole from the loss of that.
Vinya: We got this spiffy rod and we have this other stuff.
Linnolim: I’ll let you know in the next few days if any of it needs to go back. And if I hear of any further undead problems, I’ll let you know.

We left the mirror in Linnolim’s office and took ourselves and the rest of the stuff to Bultir’s for a rest. We figured that if nothing bad happened all day, the short rest would turn into a long rest and we’d have an afternoon to relax. Bultir’s has baths and we availed ourselves of those as well as having lunch and just relaxing. Elderron took Elama’s ring of warmth, because she needed to take that off to attune to the scimitar. We decided that Marxine was the best person to carry the rod, because she gets missed a lot in combat.

Vinya pulled out her painting set and painted in Lamie’s book, letting her drawings disappear as she flipped the pages.

Marxine: Monk naughty word.

The rest of the day and the night passed in relaxation, soaking, dining and rest.


16 Bluzzimin 749 (Campaign day 164)(immediately after)

At breakfast, Vinya asked Bultir if there was a place in Dhaqi where you could find out about current events elsewhere on Erkonin. Like what’s going on today in Kiranamakir or something.

Bultir: In Feloz, there’s a place called Lugux’s Wall. Information about elsewhere can be found there.
Vinya: Thank you.
Elama: I can also send to people.

Before heading to Feloz, we went to talk to Lieutenant Linnolim. We needed to check in at the guard station to keep our badges active and Marxine wanted to talk to him about how to get an audience with Imada Palmroot, the Izir of Dhur.

The lieutenant was happy to see us and told us that we could come back every day or two to check in. We just needed to remember to return our badges before we leave the city for good. We told Linnolim a little about Rajalmin -- because with the Herald of Undeath stopped, we were back on that scent. Or back trying to FIND that scent.

Marxine: He might have been egging Intororum on -- leaving him to find his own methods of doing bad things, but egging him on. Maybe Imada would know if there were new people in Intororum’s life. She might have some details of that nature that didn’t seem important to her to mention. We just need a few minutes of her time.
Linnolim: I will see what I can arrange.

We went then to Lugux’s Wall. It looked a little like a library study room -- with carrels and tables and chairs around and people reading broadsides. There were no stacks, just a booth that looked a bit like a box office with a young thin dragonborn woman sitting in the box office.

Woman: How can I help you?
Vinya: We’re looking for information about current events around Erkonin, but I don’t really know a specific city to ask for.
Woman: We can look for a person, a place, or a type of event.
Vinya, after consulting with the party: How about New Arvai?
Woman: Is there anything specific you’re looking for?
Vinya: An uptick in cabal activity and anything to do with the descendants of the wizard Danrom Orth.
Woman, taking notes: Okay. That will be 100gp.

Vinya paid the 100gp.

The woman gave us a wooden flag with a number on it and gestured us into the room to wait for our report.

We waited around a table for about 15 or 20 minutes then a runner came out with our report printed on a broadsheet.

• Romza Orth--Danrom Orth's granddaughter--is working as an instructor of applied optics and illusions in The School of the Mind. She's been behaving in a slightly paranoid fashion, something that is not her normal way. She's been asking for increasing levels of security in her home, office, and classrooms, as though she's expecting to be assaulted from off-plane at any moment.
• New Arvai itself is not experiencing more cabal activity than normal. In the past month-and-change, there was an aboleth that thought it was going to take over the city, but the guard settled that (with some help from some adventurers).
• A Kotimanov ship rammed the docks in The Deeps, after a dispute over fees and tariffs. The damage slowed cargo transit for a couple weeks. The dispute was settled amicably over drinks.
• There was a fire in Coinscale. No merchant shops were damaged, but the city's Office of Weights and Trade was leveled. No trade bars were reported missing.
• Some warehouses in Woodyard have been robbed. Many planks of very rare woods were stolen. The buildings were heavily secured, and locks were broken by main force. There were larger-than-human footprints on the floor.

Marxine suggested, and we all agreed, that that all sounded pretty normal. Except that we’ve left Romna Orth with budding mental health issues.

Vinya went back and asked for a report on the Enthroned and their new teachings. Elama’s divination on this had said that the priestesses were sincere in their beliefs.

Vinya, when she got back to the party: They’re sincere, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t bad actors behind their sincere beliefs.

• The priestesses have settled and taught for a time in several places. They have had better success in places where there were actual nobles. Where they have had success, the behavior of the nobles has changed--mostly for the better.
• The Enthroned on Urnod--the Order, its hierarchy--seem mostly interested in the fact that the improved behavior comes with more-common attendance at services, and greater donations to the church's treasury.
• There is some thought the nobles whose behavior is changing are replacing one set of compulsive behaviors--gambling, drunkenness, and other vices--with another.

Vinya read that but it didn’t ease her suspicions about the Enthroned and the new teachings. Particularly that last line about replacing one set of compulsive behaviors with another.

(GM: Will you leave the straight-edge nobles alone?)

We got one final report, on Torm Brinnom, to see if there was any further activity there now that the Oni plot had been thwarted.

• Torm Brinnom is thriving. There was some tension among the clans a couple of months ago, but that seems to have settled down. The deaths of a number of oni seem likely to be connected both to the tension and to its recent relaxation.
• There have been some fumbling steps toward relaxing the pressures on the young dwarves in the direction of arranged marriages. Permissions among the clans will probably still be required, but in many instances are likely to be pro forma.
• The miners have reported several rich strikes. The smiths and craftsmen are waiting anxiously to see what comes out of the mines.

Vinya: Well, that’s happy news to end on.

We left Lugux’s Wall and went to the Well of Screams to ask Jorcha about Sarik Whitesand, the halfling cleric from Dhaqi who had been part of the party that took down Rajalmin two hundred years ago.

Vinya, while we walked: I could really see getting into that place. It’s so cool just to see what’s going on in different places.
Elama: Or you could go to those places and see them for yourself. That’s a lot more fun.
Vinya: I’m just thinking, like sitting in there over coffee reading up on the world.

Jorcha was happy, but a little surprised, to see us. Once we told her what we wanted and why, she did have information for us.

Jorcha: She was a Hearthkeeper. Not a surprising choice for a halfling. She was really dedicated to getting fiends off of Erkonin. It became her primary concern when they stumbled over Rajalmin’s plans. She and Adlawan, the monk from Kiranamakir, were the strongest voices keeping the party on his trail.
Vinya: Does she have family in town?
Jorcha: She wasn’t from Dhaqi. She was of Dhaqi. She adopted the Queen of Cities as her home, as so many do. She was actually from a village some way down the Ewiv Canal, called Brush Bend.
Vinya: That’s the stream between the Feet of Marduk?
Jorcha: Exactly. The village is on the far side of the flats around where the canal takes a bend.
Vinya: Since you’ve done some research on this party, what do you know about Adlawan from Kiranamakir?
Jorcha: Adlawan was … kinda strange. From what I can tell, she seemed to know at least that Rajalmin was working on something before anyone else really had any idea. I don’t know what that was or how she knew anything so early. The records I’ve found indicate she had some sort of divinatory abilities as a monk, but those don’t seem to have been how she knew about Rajalmin.
Vinya: How long would it take to go down the canal to that village--Brush Bend?
Jorcha: No more than half a month.
Elama: Maybe we can save some time and ask at Zugzug’s Wall?
Vinya: Weren’t you just extolling the virtues of going and seeing?
Elama: We’re on the clock.
Vinya: Sort of. But in Torm Brinnom the plot took 30 years. (To Jorcha) Did your brother talk to you about a mirror?
Jorcha: Yes. We’d love it here of course, but I think it’s going to the Izir or the Kul-Izir.

We thanked her for the information and went back to Luxug’s Wall to get a report on Brush Bend.

• The halflings of Brush Bend are taking advantage of their position on the Ewiv Canal, slowly building a trade hub. The Tallpalms and the Whitesands are celebrating a pair of marriages they hope will make for a long and profitable alliance
• ERROR
• ERROR
• FIRE AND SMOKE AND SULPHUR AND WHAT IS THAT
• ERROR
• END

Vinya: Hoo boy! There we go! Who do we go to for a teleport?
Elderron: Maybe Bultir or Linnolim can recommend someone.

Bultir’s was closer, so we went there as fast as we could, bursting in at mid-day as he was setting up lunch. Vinya, as the fastest and most concerned, was the first one into the room.

Bultir: What has gone wrong?
Vinya: Where would we go to get teleported somewhere?
Bultir: Where do you need to go?
Vinya: Brush Bend
Bultir: I know of it. Why?

Vinya showed him the broadsheet from Luxug’s Wall.

Bultir: To get somewhere fast, go to the Shining Silver Tetrahedron in Kalam. (He gave some directions.)
Vinya: Thank you.
Bultir: Good luck.

We proceeded quickly to Kalam and followed Bultir’s directions to the Shining Silver Tetrahedron. What we found is that it is basically none of those things -- it’s a non-descript building that looks somewhat like a warehouse. There was a small sign in front that was, in fact, a shining silver tetrahedron.

Inside we found a male dwarf, older than Marxine.

Dwarf, in Dwarvish: How can I help you?
Marxine, in Dwarvish: We have somewhere to be. Fast.
Dwarf: That is a large part of what we do here. Where?
Marxine: Brush Bend.
Elderron: You can get us there fast?
Dwarf: We can put you in a circle no more than a day’s travel overland. You’ll be at Elthir, the next village upstream from Brush Bend. 2000 gold each.
Us, almost in unison: Done.

We paid him then he took us into a back room. We waited for a minute while he cast teleportation circle then stepped through the circle. We stepped out into a circle under and awning in a semi-public square in a small village. The village looked pretty peaceful but there was a hint of sulfur and smoke in the air.

We asked after horses and whether there were any to rent or buy. The livery owner looked at us, recognized us as adventurers, and offered to sell us horses, tack, saddlebags and some food. For 100 gold apiece, we each got a horse and the necessary equipment.

Elama, to her horse: I’m going to call you Nibbles.
Vinya, to her horse, in Elvish: I’m going to call you Horse.

Once we were horsed up, the villagers pointed us to the road toward Brush Bend. We could see some smoke lingering in the air in that direction.

And there we ended -- in the golden afternoon.