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Story Hour
Erkonin (Campaign #2) [Session 45: Rajalmin's Agent]
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<blockquote data-quote="prabe" data-source="post: 8104284" data-attributes="member: 7016699"><p>Session 13: Ghouls In The Storm Sewer</p><p></p><p></p><p>Dramatis Personae:</p><p>Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)</p><p>Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest)</p><p>Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul)</p><p>Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster)</p><p>Marxine Deepfoot - Dwarf Fighter (Champion)</p><p></p><p>GM - Everyone Else</p><p></p><p></p><p>1 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 32) (immediately after)</p><p></p><p>We took a long rest at Alzey Telson’s ranch and the night passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>2 - 6 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign days 33 - 37)</p><p></p><p>We left the next morning to head toward Erlin and hopefully meet up with the force from Erlin. We travelled without incident or trouble until we got to the valley with the two faces on either side of it.</p><p></p><p>There we found Erlin’s guard setting up a defensive line when we got there around mid-day.</p><p></p><p>We told the leader of the unit that we’d killed all the gnolls, except a few hyenas. They looked quite relieved at that. We also told them that we hadn’t backtracked them at all beyond the ruined ranch, so we didn’t know where they’d started or if there were people who needed help.</p><p></p><p>A party went out to go backtrack the gnolls. We travelled the rest of the way back to Erlin with the rest of the guard. While we traveled we asked about the dragon statue and the valley with the faces.</p><p></p><p>The valley is called the Valley of Argument. Those of the longer-lived races knew that the faces were moving and the droning deep noise we could hear changed over time. It appeared that the faces in the walls of the valley have been and are having an argument in archaeological time.</p><p></p><p>The dragon statue had been there since the Giant-Dragon war and was once an ancient dragon.</p><p></p><p>We also asked about the floating upside-down tower, but they didn’t know anything about that.</p><p></p><p>Once we were back in Erlin, around sunset on 6 Blizzarin (Day 37), we went to talk to Captain Althorn.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: We just went ahead and killed the gnolls. With the help of Mr. Telson’s ranch hands who were great with crossbows.</p><p>Captain: I’ll keep that in mind.</p><p>Vinya: [waits for more reaction than that][waits some more]</p><p>Marxine: So I think we were owed more money.</p><p></p><p>We each get another 10gp, which is what we’d agreed on.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: You can reach us at Garlin’s, until we leave town.</p><p></p><p>We headed down to the docks to arrange passage down the river. There weren’t any boats heading in that direction for six days, alas. So we arranged to be workers on a boat, The Reed, leaving in six days (on Day 43).</p><p></p><p>We were looking at six days of downtime in Erlin.</p><p></p><p>When we got to Garlin’s, he pulled a card out from behind the counter and handed it to Marxine. She showed it to us -- it was a divination card in style, but it clearly showed a photorealistic image of Marxine herself standing on a causeway with water on both sides of her during that golden hour in the afternoon when the light is so gorgeous on everything. It was clearly a painting, but incredibly detailed. She was wearing armor and with weapons, a greataxe and a maul, slung over her shoulder. She looked like she was walking or going somewhere.</p><p></p><p>Elderron recognized the location as one of the causeways connecting Pelsoreen to the mainland.</p><p></p><p>Elderron: Have you ever been there?</p><p>Marxine: No.</p><p>Elama: We could take a boat there from New Arvai.</p><p></p><p>The back of the card had an abstract design -- it wasn’t similar to any elven motifs or dwarven motifs, or to the fomori design elements we’d seen in the caves. The card itself was of indeterminate age.</p><p></p><p>Up in our rooms, Elderron checked the card out. It was very faintly magical and on thinking about it he remembered that he’d heard of these cards. They attach themselves to people and follow them around. They’re harmless -- showing a possible fate or future.</p><p></p><p></p><p>7 - 11 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign days 38 - 42)</p><p></p><p>During our days of downtime, Elama went to talk to armorers about what can be done with the Bulette armor and learned that the answer was “Nothing in six days.” Then she asked about what to do with the basilisk venom glands she’d collected.</p><p></p><p>She got referred to Jamil, the sage we’d eaten Mahassari food with, or Thierry, the magic stuff seller.</p><p></p><p>She decided to go to Jamil, who looked at them, carefully, handling them with forceps and having a protective shield in front of his face. He gave Elama 50gp for them.</p><p></p><p>Jamil: I did some research on that dragon if your friend wants to come back.</p><p></p><p>Elama went to get Aldalomiel, and other members of the party, so we were all together visiting Jamil.</p><p></p><p>Jamil told Aldalomiel that the dragon’s name is Sossonatissis, an ancient and powerful blue dragon who was an adult before the Severance. He goes by the moniker The Blue Death. He lives mostly in the Scoured Hills on the other side of the mountains to the east of Tash. He occasionally gets obsessed or focused on a particular goal or idea. He’s been known to suborn entire tribes of dragonborn and to hire mercenaries from other planes. He’s also created draconic servants -- not dragons or dragonborn but other draconic entities. He was left alone for a long time after the Fiend Wars because he killed very many fiends, including devils.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel: The information my friends and I found was different from that.</p><p>Jamil: He’s been known to spread disinformation.</p><p>Aldalomiel: We will have to do more research, then.</p><p></p><p>We talked some about how to get that information to Aldalomiel’s friends and learned that Jamil had some of the dragon pages (like we’d gotten from Captain Althorn). We bought one from him for the entire party.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel bought three for herself -- one to send to the friend who researched the blue dragon for her and one to send to her vanished girlfriend, with a blank sheet for a return message.</p><p></p><p>Elama showed him a book that she pulled out of her pack.</p><p></p><p>Elama: I found this in the temple that I trained in. It won’t hold marks of any sort of pen, ink, pencil, paint or any writing implement at all.</p><p>Marxine: Have you tried other ways of making marks?</p><p>Elama: I’ve tried every kind of writing instrument I’ve encountered.</p><p></p><p>Vinya took a dart from her belt and with the tip scratched some marks into one of the pages, marring the paper. Elama closed the book -- when she opened it again, the marks were gone.</p><p></p><p>Jamil: I’ve never seen anything like that.</p><p>Elama: Me either!</p><p></p><p>Jamil asked about our plans and we said we were leaving for New Arvai on the 12th of Blizzarin. He asked us to do a favor for him -- he had a box that needed to be delivered to the Head Librarian at the School of the World in New Arvai. He said that he couldn’t leave Erlin because he had responsibilities and asked if we could deliver the box for him.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: We can take your box.</p><p>Jamil: It’s currently sealed.</p><p>Elama: I assume you want to keep it that way.</p><p>Jamil: It’s better for the contents if you do.</p><p>Vinya: Is there anything we need to know about the contents? For its safety and ours.</p><p>Jamil: It’s a very old history book -- 400 years old. It’s about the Kotimanov succession wars.</p><p></p><p>Not something any of us were terrifically interested in.</p><p></p><p>Much more interesting -- Jamil offered to let Elderron copy spells from his spellbook pretty much freely.</p><p></p><p>We left Jamil’s and went into a montage of time passing:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Elderron learned and copied spells from Jamil’s spellbook</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Aldalomiel spent the time writing letters on her dragon paper and meditating in one of the city’s parks</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Vinya sparred and worked out in a dojo with other monks</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Marxine did Marxine things, nonspecific</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Elama gave small items to squirrels and sent them on their way, then, after an hour or so, used Locate Object to find the items.</li> </ul><p>After dinner on 11 Blizzarin (Day 42), so the evening before our boat The Reed was to be leaving in the morning, Captain Althorn showed up at Garlin’s.</p><p></p><p>Captain Althorn: Some people in the city have been disappearing in Angler’s Ladder over the past weeks. Can you look into it?</p><p>Vinya: Our boat…</p><p>Captain: I can ask The Reed to wait a few days while you deal with this.</p><p>Elama: Let’s move. I don’t want to just sit here.</p><p></p><p>So we began to walk and talk with the Captain toward Angler’s Ladder while he explained what was going on. People on their way to or from late or very early shifts at the harbor have been disappearing, mostly between Angler’s Ladder and the Harbor district. We asked him to take us to where the most recent disappearance had happened. All that was left behind was a foul, foul smell.</p><p></p><p>Captain: Some of the guards looked around a little, but they were unable to track whatever did it because the smell was too strong for them. It should have dispersed by now.</p><p>Vinya: Were there any witnesses?</p><p>Captain: In some of the cases witnesses have heard a choked scream and bad smells. One witness reported hearing the sound of bestial eating, but they didn’t want to investigate.</p><p>Vinya: How frequently have these disappearances been happening?</p><p>Captain: They started just before you got back from Telson’s ranch, when the guard was short staffed. A couple of guards disappeared the night before you returned. Then one the next night. Another one the night after that. The night after that three people disappeared. Last night four people.</p><p></p><p>When we got to the location where one of the most recently missing people was last seen, we saw an entrance to the city’s sewer system.</p><p></p><p>Elama: Be bored or go into the sewers. Tough choice.</p><p>Captain: This is more like a storm sewer. It’s not that bad.</p><p>Vinya: How big an area are the people missing from -- just right around here?</p><p>Captain: No. It’s probably 20 blocks or more, with multiple access points to the storm sewers.</p><p></p><p>We looked around for blood -- Vinya and Elderron both spotted a dried smear of blood around the sewer entrance, heading in.</p><p></p><p>The Captain said he was going to set up a cordon around the area where people had been disappearing and encourage people not to go into the area -- but he knew it wasn’t going to keep everyone out as some people live and/or work in that 20 block area.</p><p></p><p>We headed into the sewers -- Elama fired up her glowing sword and also cast a light spell on her shield. Elderron cast mage armor on himself.</p><p></p><p>The storm sewer had narrow walkways on either side of the running water. Vinya tested the depth of the water with her extending rod and found it to be several feet deep. We went some distance into the sewer, following the intermittent smears and splotches of blood.</p><p></p><p>After a time, the whole party, save for Elama, was surprised by a swarm of very gaunt, humanoid-ish figures swarming up out of the water onto the ledge with us -- clawing and biting at us. Because we hadn’t noticed them in the water, most of them were attacking the back of the line of us (Elderron, Marxine and Aldalomiel).</p><p></p><p>Their surprise attack got in a couple of hits on Elderron and Elama.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel cast zephyr strike, so she could move away from the three on her, and dropped the one nearest to her with two arrows. Marxine got a critical hit against hers -- it survived but was cut from collarbone to pelvis. Vinya, as usual, missed with her quarterstaff but managed to land a punch. Elama cast her spiritual weapon and it shot a lightning bolt at the one attacking Elderron. Then she cast sacred flame on the one that was attacking her.</p><p></p><p>Elderron cast a new spell, fireball, placing it with surgical precision but not much power. It was a relatively weak puff of fire, but it hit four of the monsters without any of us being put in danger. Two of the ones in the fireball dropped in flames, so it was definitely a serviceable fireball.</p><p></p><p>They attacked and Vinya and Elama were both hit.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel shot one, softening it up for Marxine, who then dropped it with her first attack. Then she attacked the other one right next to her, cleaving it in half, the pieces falling into the water. Vinya dropped the one on her with the quarterstaff (which actually hit something!) then dropped the one that had been attacking Elama with the first punch of her flurry of blows. She was able to do a graceful maneuver to get to the one that was attacking Elderron and hit it as well. Elama then dropped it with her spiritual weapon.</p><p></p><p>With the last one dead, we looked again for the blood trail we’d been following. Elama and Vinya spotted it. Aldalomiel missed it. Before we continued on our way, we waited for 10 minutes while Elama cast a prayer of healing.</p><p></p><p>We continued on, following the blood trail, up the storm drains, away from the river. We came upon a pile of bloody bones, clearly gnawed on, with scattered viscera around. Bloody footprints of bare feet with long claws, continued up a narrower feeder pipe with water that we had to walk through (no ledges on the sides of it). We continued up that feeder sewer. There were openings in the walls where other, still smaller, pipes flowed into the feeder sewer we were walking through.</p><p></p><p>As we walked, we started to smell something absolutely foul, like days-old nasty death, and were all looking around for the source. Vinya, Elama, and Aldalomiel managed to hear something coming down one of the smaller pipes.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel backed up a few steps so she could look down a side passage and saw two of them coming down the hall.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel: There’s something back here.</p><p></p><p>She then put her hunter’s mark on the closer of those two and dropped it with her first shot, then fired her second shot at the other one.</p><p></p><p>One, reeking with a foul odor, came out of a side passage and attacked Marxine and another reeking one came out of a side passage and attacked Vinya. Both missed. Then some regular ghouls came out of a different passage, attacking Vinya and Marxine. Marxine was hit by one of them.</p><p></p><p>Marxine, not happy at having been hit, attacked the smelly ghast, hitting with both of her attacks. She followed that up with a surge of additional attacks, hitting it two more times and dropping it! Beautiful work.</p><p></p><p>While we were still appreciating Marxine’s awesome performance, two pale, translucent figures drifted out of the walls -- they looked humanoid, but their bodies trailed off into mist. One of them hit Elama, who did her retributive lightning shock against it in response. The other one missed Marxine.</p><p></p><p>Elama cast a new spell, spirit guardians, and was surrounded by little balls of light that shot out lightning flashes and small crackles of electricity when they hit enemies.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel moved her hunter’s mark to the ghoul fighting her, drawing a short sword. Unfortunately she missed with both of her attacks. Elderron cast magic missile on the spectral enemy near him, doing a lot of damage.</p><p></p><p>Vinya hit the smelly ghast on her with her quarterstaff, doing a stunning strike. When it was stunned, she used some of her ki energy for a flurry of blows. It took a lot of damage, but was still standing at the end of it. It then took damage from the spirit guardians.</p><p></p><p>The ghouls on Vinya then attacked her, hitting her hard. Marxine was hit by one of them. Aldalomiel was wildly missed.</p><p></p><p>Marxine attacked the one threatening Elderron, dropping it. The spectre on Elderron was dropped by Elama’s spirit guardians. Elama then cast sacred flame on Vinya’s stunned ghast -- it shrieked and flared with the radiant flames, then fell. Then she cast healing word on Vinya, who was very grateful.</p><p></p><p>Elama then moved so that all of the ghouls on Vinya were in the area of her spirit guardians. Aldalomiel drew her other sword and attacked her ghoul, dropping it. She moved to the ghoul that kept hitting Marxine and hit it solidly, but it didn’t drop. Elderron, finally without anyone in melee with him, cast a scorching ray, hitting Marxine’s ghoul with one ray and one of Vinya’s with two. That created the possibility for Vinya to drop one of the ghouls on her and hit another of those.</p><p></p><p>Two of the remaining ghouls on Vinya were dropped by Elama’s spirit guardians. The last ghoul left on her attacked Elama and hit her. The ghoul on Marxine and Aldalomiel attacked Marxine and got a hit.</p><p></p><p>Despite that, Marxine attacked the spectre -- dropping her shield and attacking with the battle axe. She hit it twice and dropped it. Elama cast sacred flame on the one in front of her and Vinya, dropping it, then moved, with her spirit guardians, back toward the last remaining ghoul (the one with Marxine and Aldalomiel). Aldalomiel hit it twice, with her hunter’s mark on it, and dropped it.</p><p></p><p>Elama listened for noises and heard some, similar to the claws in the pipes that we’d heard just before they attacked from the side passages. Vinya peeked down a side hall -- she didn’t see anything but she also heard the scrabbling claws that sounded like they were coming toward us.</p><p></p><p>Elama extinguished the light spell on her shield and the light from her sword. Aldalomiel cast pass without trace and we started sneaking down a side passage, still following the blood trail. Because of Aldalomiel’s spell, we were all incredibly sneaky, even Elama and Marxine.</p><p></p><p>We followed the passage for about five minutes, with occasional glimpses of the blood trail and the smell of decomposition and death from the ghast. We got to the edge of a large junction, where several passages intersected with one another. The floor of the junction was lower than the level of the passage we were in and it was filled with rubble and debris and detritus that had washed into the drain and accumulated.</p><p></p><p>Inside the room were a lot of ghouls, some of which smelled terribly, and possibly a few of the translucent spectres.</p><p></p><p>We ended there on the edge of the junction -- Elama has five minutes left of the spirit guardians. Aldalomiel has 55 minutes left on the pass without trace.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="prabe, post: 8104284, member: 7016699"] Session 13: Ghouls In The Storm Sewer Dramatis Personae: Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave) Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest) Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul) Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster) Marxine Deepfoot - Dwarf Fighter (Champion) GM - Everyone Else 1 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign day 32) (immediately after) We took a long rest at Alzey Telson’s ranch and the night passed without incident. 2 - 6 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign days 33 - 37) We left the next morning to head toward Erlin and hopefully meet up with the force from Erlin. We travelled without incident or trouble until we got to the valley with the two faces on either side of it. There we found Erlin’s guard setting up a defensive line when we got there around mid-day. We told the leader of the unit that we’d killed all the gnolls, except a few hyenas. They looked quite relieved at that. We also told them that we hadn’t backtracked them at all beyond the ruined ranch, so we didn’t know where they’d started or if there were people who needed help. A party went out to go backtrack the gnolls. We travelled the rest of the way back to Erlin with the rest of the guard. While we traveled we asked about the dragon statue and the valley with the faces. The valley is called the Valley of Argument. Those of the longer-lived races knew that the faces were moving and the droning deep noise we could hear changed over time. It appeared that the faces in the walls of the valley have been and are having an argument in archaeological time. The dragon statue had been there since the Giant-Dragon war and was once an ancient dragon. We also asked about the floating upside-down tower, but they didn’t know anything about that. Once we were back in Erlin, around sunset on 6 Blizzarin (Day 37), we went to talk to Captain Althorn. Vinya: We just went ahead and killed the gnolls. With the help of Mr. Telson’s ranch hands who were great with crossbows. Captain: I’ll keep that in mind. Vinya: [waits for more reaction than that][waits some more] Marxine: So I think we were owed more money. We each get another 10gp, which is what we’d agreed on. Vinya: You can reach us at Garlin’s, until we leave town. We headed down to the docks to arrange passage down the river. There weren’t any boats heading in that direction for six days, alas. So we arranged to be workers on a boat, The Reed, leaving in six days (on Day 43). We were looking at six days of downtime in Erlin. When we got to Garlin’s, he pulled a card out from behind the counter and handed it to Marxine. She showed it to us -- it was a divination card in style, but it clearly showed a photorealistic image of Marxine herself standing on a causeway with water on both sides of her during that golden hour in the afternoon when the light is so gorgeous on everything. It was clearly a painting, but incredibly detailed. She was wearing armor and with weapons, a greataxe and a maul, slung over her shoulder. She looked like she was walking or going somewhere. Elderron recognized the location as one of the causeways connecting Pelsoreen to the mainland. Elderron: Have you ever been there? Marxine: No. Elama: We could take a boat there from New Arvai. The back of the card had an abstract design -- it wasn’t similar to any elven motifs or dwarven motifs, or to the fomori design elements we’d seen in the caves. The card itself was of indeterminate age. Up in our rooms, Elderron checked the card out. It was very faintly magical and on thinking about it he remembered that he’d heard of these cards. They attach themselves to people and follow them around. They’re harmless -- showing a possible fate or future. 7 - 11 Blizzarin 749 (Campaign days 38 - 42) During our days of downtime, Elama went to talk to armorers about what can be done with the Bulette armor and learned that the answer was “Nothing in six days.” Then she asked about what to do with the basilisk venom glands she’d collected. She got referred to Jamil, the sage we’d eaten Mahassari food with, or Thierry, the magic stuff seller. She decided to go to Jamil, who looked at them, carefully, handling them with forceps and having a protective shield in front of his face. He gave Elama 50gp for them. Jamil: I did some research on that dragon if your friend wants to come back. Elama went to get Aldalomiel, and other members of the party, so we were all together visiting Jamil. Jamil told Aldalomiel that the dragon’s name is Sossonatissis, an ancient and powerful blue dragon who was an adult before the Severance. He goes by the moniker The Blue Death. He lives mostly in the Scoured Hills on the other side of the mountains to the east of Tash. He occasionally gets obsessed or focused on a particular goal or idea. He’s been known to suborn entire tribes of dragonborn and to hire mercenaries from other planes. He’s also created draconic servants -- not dragons or dragonborn but other draconic entities. He was left alone for a long time after the Fiend Wars because he killed very many fiends, including devils. Aldalomiel: The information my friends and I found was different from that. Jamil: He’s been known to spread disinformation. Aldalomiel: We will have to do more research, then. We talked some about how to get that information to Aldalomiel’s friends and learned that Jamil had some of the dragon pages (like we’d gotten from Captain Althorn). We bought one from him for the entire party. Aldalomiel bought three for herself -- one to send to the friend who researched the blue dragon for her and one to send to her vanished girlfriend, with a blank sheet for a return message. Elama showed him a book that she pulled out of her pack. Elama: I found this in the temple that I trained in. It won’t hold marks of any sort of pen, ink, pencil, paint or any writing implement at all. Marxine: Have you tried other ways of making marks? Elama: I’ve tried every kind of writing instrument I’ve encountered. Vinya took a dart from her belt and with the tip scratched some marks into one of the pages, marring the paper. Elama closed the book -- when she opened it again, the marks were gone. Jamil: I’ve never seen anything like that. Elama: Me either! Jamil asked about our plans and we said we were leaving for New Arvai on the 12th of Blizzarin. He asked us to do a favor for him -- he had a box that needed to be delivered to the Head Librarian at the School of the World in New Arvai. He said that he couldn’t leave Erlin because he had responsibilities and asked if we could deliver the box for him. Vinya: We can take your box. Jamil: It’s currently sealed. Elama: I assume you want to keep it that way. Jamil: It’s better for the contents if you do. Vinya: Is there anything we need to know about the contents? For its safety and ours. Jamil: It’s a very old history book -- 400 years old. It’s about the Kotimanov succession wars. Not something any of us were terrifically interested in. Much more interesting -- Jamil offered to let Elderron copy spells from his spellbook pretty much freely. We left Jamil’s and went into a montage of time passing: [LIST] [*]Elderron learned and copied spells from Jamil’s spellbook [*]Aldalomiel spent the time writing letters on her dragon paper and meditating in one of the city’s parks [*]Vinya sparred and worked out in a dojo with other monks [*]Marxine did Marxine things, nonspecific [*]Elama gave small items to squirrels and sent them on their way, then, after an hour or so, used Locate Object to find the items. [/LIST] After dinner on 11 Blizzarin (Day 42), so the evening before our boat The Reed was to be leaving in the morning, Captain Althorn showed up at Garlin’s. Captain Althorn: Some people in the city have been disappearing in Angler’s Ladder over the past weeks. Can you look into it? Vinya: Our boat… Captain: I can ask The Reed to wait a few days while you deal with this. Elama: Let’s move. I don’t want to just sit here. So we began to walk and talk with the Captain toward Angler’s Ladder while he explained what was going on. People on their way to or from late or very early shifts at the harbor have been disappearing, mostly between Angler’s Ladder and the Harbor district. We asked him to take us to where the most recent disappearance had happened. All that was left behind was a foul, foul smell. Captain: Some of the guards looked around a little, but they were unable to track whatever did it because the smell was too strong for them. It should have dispersed by now. Vinya: Were there any witnesses? Captain: In some of the cases witnesses have heard a choked scream and bad smells. One witness reported hearing the sound of bestial eating, but they didn’t want to investigate. Vinya: How frequently have these disappearances been happening? Captain: They started just before you got back from Telson’s ranch, when the guard was short staffed. A couple of guards disappeared the night before you returned. Then one the next night. Another one the night after that. The night after that three people disappeared. Last night four people. When we got to the location where one of the most recently missing people was last seen, we saw an entrance to the city’s sewer system. Elama: Be bored or go into the sewers. Tough choice. Captain: This is more like a storm sewer. It’s not that bad. Vinya: How big an area are the people missing from -- just right around here? Captain: No. It’s probably 20 blocks or more, with multiple access points to the storm sewers. We looked around for blood -- Vinya and Elderron both spotted a dried smear of blood around the sewer entrance, heading in. The Captain said he was going to set up a cordon around the area where people had been disappearing and encourage people not to go into the area -- but he knew it wasn’t going to keep everyone out as some people live and/or work in that 20 block area. We headed into the sewers -- Elama fired up her glowing sword and also cast a light spell on her shield. Elderron cast mage armor on himself. The storm sewer had narrow walkways on either side of the running water. Vinya tested the depth of the water with her extending rod and found it to be several feet deep. We went some distance into the sewer, following the intermittent smears and splotches of blood. After a time, the whole party, save for Elama, was surprised by a swarm of very gaunt, humanoid-ish figures swarming up out of the water onto the ledge with us -- clawing and biting at us. Because we hadn’t noticed them in the water, most of them were attacking the back of the line of us (Elderron, Marxine and Aldalomiel). Their surprise attack got in a couple of hits on Elderron and Elama. Aldalomiel cast zephyr strike, so she could move away from the three on her, and dropped the one nearest to her with two arrows. Marxine got a critical hit against hers -- it survived but was cut from collarbone to pelvis. Vinya, as usual, missed with her quarterstaff but managed to land a punch. Elama cast her spiritual weapon and it shot a lightning bolt at the one attacking Elderron. Then she cast sacred flame on the one that was attacking her. Elderron cast a new spell, fireball, placing it with surgical precision but not much power. It was a relatively weak puff of fire, but it hit four of the monsters without any of us being put in danger. Two of the ones in the fireball dropped in flames, so it was definitely a serviceable fireball. They attacked and Vinya and Elama were both hit. Aldalomiel shot one, softening it up for Marxine, who then dropped it with her first attack. Then she attacked the other one right next to her, cleaving it in half, the pieces falling into the water. Vinya dropped the one on her with the quarterstaff (which actually hit something!) then dropped the one that had been attacking Elama with the first punch of her flurry of blows. She was able to do a graceful maneuver to get to the one that was attacking Elderron and hit it as well. Elama then dropped it with her spiritual weapon. With the last one dead, we looked again for the blood trail we’d been following. Elama and Vinya spotted it. Aldalomiel missed it. Before we continued on our way, we waited for 10 minutes while Elama cast a prayer of healing. We continued on, following the blood trail, up the storm drains, away from the river. We came upon a pile of bloody bones, clearly gnawed on, with scattered viscera around. Bloody footprints of bare feet with long claws, continued up a narrower feeder pipe with water that we had to walk through (no ledges on the sides of it). We continued up that feeder sewer. There were openings in the walls where other, still smaller, pipes flowed into the feeder sewer we were walking through. As we walked, we started to smell something absolutely foul, like days-old nasty death, and were all looking around for the source. Vinya, Elama, and Aldalomiel managed to hear something coming down one of the smaller pipes. Aldalomiel backed up a few steps so she could look down a side passage and saw two of them coming down the hall. Aldalomiel: There’s something back here. She then put her hunter’s mark on the closer of those two and dropped it with her first shot, then fired her second shot at the other one. One, reeking with a foul odor, came out of a side passage and attacked Marxine and another reeking one came out of a side passage and attacked Vinya. Both missed. Then some regular ghouls came out of a different passage, attacking Vinya and Marxine. Marxine was hit by one of them. Marxine, not happy at having been hit, attacked the smelly ghast, hitting with both of her attacks. She followed that up with a surge of additional attacks, hitting it two more times and dropping it! Beautiful work. While we were still appreciating Marxine’s awesome performance, two pale, translucent figures drifted out of the walls -- they looked humanoid, but their bodies trailed off into mist. One of them hit Elama, who did her retributive lightning shock against it in response. The other one missed Marxine. Elama cast a new spell, spirit guardians, and was surrounded by little balls of light that shot out lightning flashes and small crackles of electricity when they hit enemies. Aldalomiel moved her hunter’s mark to the ghoul fighting her, drawing a short sword. Unfortunately she missed with both of her attacks. Elderron cast magic missile on the spectral enemy near him, doing a lot of damage. Vinya hit the smelly ghast on her with her quarterstaff, doing a stunning strike. When it was stunned, she used some of her ki energy for a flurry of blows. It took a lot of damage, but was still standing at the end of it. It then took damage from the spirit guardians. The ghouls on Vinya then attacked her, hitting her hard. Marxine was hit by one of them. Aldalomiel was wildly missed. Marxine attacked the one threatening Elderron, dropping it. The spectre on Elderron was dropped by Elama’s spirit guardians. Elama then cast sacred flame on Vinya’s stunned ghast -- it shrieked and flared with the radiant flames, then fell. Then she cast healing word on Vinya, who was very grateful. Elama then moved so that all of the ghouls on Vinya were in the area of her spirit guardians. Aldalomiel drew her other sword and attacked her ghoul, dropping it. She moved to the ghoul that kept hitting Marxine and hit it solidly, but it didn’t drop. Elderron, finally without anyone in melee with him, cast a scorching ray, hitting Marxine’s ghoul with one ray and one of Vinya’s with two. That created the possibility for Vinya to drop one of the ghouls on her and hit another of those. Two of the remaining ghouls on Vinya were dropped by Elama’s spirit guardians. The last ghoul left on her attacked Elama and hit her. The ghoul on Marxine and Aldalomiel attacked Marxine and got a hit. Despite that, Marxine attacked the spectre -- dropping her shield and attacking with the battle axe. She hit it twice and dropped it. Elama cast sacred flame on the one in front of her and Vinya, dropping it, then moved, with her spirit guardians, back toward the last remaining ghoul (the one with Marxine and Aldalomiel). Aldalomiel hit it twice, with her hunter’s mark on it, and dropped it. Elama listened for noises and heard some, similar to the claws in the pipes that we’d heard just before they attacked from the side passages. Vinya peeked down a side hall -- she didn’t see anything but she also heard the scrabbling claws that sounded like they were coming toward us. Elama extinguished the light spell on her shield and the light from her sword. Aldalomiel cast pass without trace and we started sneaking down a side passage, still following the blood trail. Because of Aldalomiel’s spell, we were all incredibly sneaky, even Elama and Marxine. We followed the passage for about five minutes, with occasional glimpses of the blood trail and the smell of decomposition and death from the ghast. We got to the edge of a large junction, where several passages intersected with one another. The floor of the junction was lower than the level of the passage we were in and it was filled with rubble and debris and detritus that had washed into the drain and accumulated. Inside the room were a lot of ghouls, some of which smelled terribly, and possibly a few of the translucent spectres. We ended there on the edge of the junction -- Elama has five minutes left of the spirit guardians. Aldalomiel has 55 minutes left on the pass without trace. [/QUOTE]
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Story Hour
Erkonin (Campaign #2) [Session 45: Rajalmin's Agent]
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