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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9408029" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 57: SOMETHING SINISTER AT THE SLIPPERY SHAFT (AGAIN)PC Roster: Ageratum Purslane, halfling rogue 14             Alistair Mandelberen Pastlethwaite, human sorcerer 14             Chaevaris Noarunal, elf archer 14             Harlan Starblade, half-elf paladin 14NPC Roster:Orchid, elf druid 14Game Session Date: 10 July 2024 - - -A week had passed since the Trained Professional Adventurers returned to Ghourmand Vale with Holyrood Carp, freed from bondage by an aboleth inhabiting his body via a magic jar spell.  The heroes were up on the top floor of the Dark and Light Club, Ageratum going over the blueprints of the group's permanent headquarters being constructed about a half-mile outside the borders of the young city, making a few corrections to how she wanted her rooms laid out with a dwarven craftsman, Bullhorn Hammerfoot, one of the many dwarves working with the Karkalatch Clan stone giants.  A floor below them, an increasingly boisterous Blorkane was buying drinks and having himself a grand old time, celebrating having just made a large amount of money selling a magic item.Another dwarf entered the Dark and Light Club, scowling deeply at the wizard Blorkane before heading up the stairs to meet with the TPA.  Alistair and Harlan were up there with Ageratum, the sorcerer fending off suggestions from Blorkane that he "come down here and learn to have a good time."  Alistair simply told the wizard he had an engagement later that night and needed to keep a clear head.  Blorkane waved him off and returned his attention to his drinking.Harlan looked up at the approaching dwarf.  "May we help you, sir?" he asked.The dwarf introduced himself as Draemon Klarbatch, the operations manager of the Slippery Shaft Silver Mine owned by Kasselban Picksmart.  "We are familiar with Kasselban," Harlan replied curtly, his expression and tone of voice revealing quite well his opinion of the dwarven mine owner."Well, I think 'e's about t' try t' kill me," Draemon said.  He then explained his tale: the other day, a group of ten dwarven miners had been brought into Kasselban's private vault in the mines for a meeting with the owner, and none of them has been seen since.  Now Kasselban and his wife - a dwarven woman Draemon had never seen before, nor ever heard mention of prior to suddenly meeting her - wanted Draemon to come to the vault this evening to discuss matters.  "I got this feelin', deep in me guts, that if'n I do as they sez, 'e'll kill me!" the miner admitted.  "I know ye lot're adventurers, an' I'd like ye t' check th' situation out, if'n ye be willin'.""By all means," agreed Harlan, always ready to lend a hand and more than happy to put an end to whatever wicked plans Kasselban might have.  The paladin well knew the mine owner to be evil, but it had always been the "money-grubber" kind of evil, not the "do away with ten miners for no good reason" sort.  "Do you know why Kasselban would have killed the ten miners?" he asked."No idea," admitted Draemon.  "'e's been quite upset at them miners what've quit his employ t' go t' work fer the stone giants - they pay a lot more than ol' Kasselban, I kin tell ye that - but these ones were loyal t' Kasselban one an' all - they were some o' th' ones what've stayed on.""A recommendation," piped up Alistair.  "I have recently mastered the veil spell.  I can cover us all in the illusion of being unemployed dwarven miners looking for jobs, and we can accompany Draemon to Kasselban's meeting at his personal vault.""I dunno," argued Draemon.  "I dinnae really want t' step foot into 'is vault, 'n case it's a trap.""I can make it such that you look like one of the work-seeking miners," Alistair assured him.  "I'll make one of us look like you, and I'll have a Rary's telepathic bond spell cast, so you can feed us any answers to questions Kasselban might ask that only you would know.""Better yet," piped up Orchid - the others hadn't even seen her and Chaevaris exit their extradimensional dwelling and join them at the table - "I can change myself to look like Draemon: observe."  And she altered her entire appearance, armor as well as body, until she was practically a clone of the dwarven mine overseer.  "I've even got his voice box in this form," she said, her voice virtually indistinguishable from Draemon's - if not her manner of speaking.  Once that was pointed out to her, she replied with, "Right, well - 'ow's this then?  Bit more like 'im, would ye say?"  Draemon was convinced enough that he was willing to accompany them to the mines, although he voiced a preference to hang back if any fighting broke out.  Harlan assured him that would be just fine.On the way out of the Dark and Light Club, Blorkane called out for Alistair to join him once again.  They headed over to the wizard, the young nobleman asking his heavyset colleague the cause of his celebration.  "I just made a small fortune selling a trinket to Kasselban Picksmart!" he announced.  When asked about the type of trinket, the wizard said it was a cubic gate - a powerful item that could open a gate to other planes of existence.  "With it, he can go straight to the Elemental Plane of Earth and dig to his little heart's content!" Blorkane chuckled, slurping up another goblet of wine."What other planes does this device link to?" pushed Harlan."Well, lemme see...the Material Plane, of course...the Ethereal Plane, and the Plane of Shadows....""That's four," prompted Alistair.  "Where else?""Um...the Abyss," Blorkane replied, looking upwards as if he'd find the answer written on the ceiling above him.  "Oh!  And the Nine Hells!""By the Goddess," murmured Orchid, shaking her head in disbelief."How much do you want to bet Kasselban's new wife is a succubus?" asked Chaevaris.  "That idiot's probably making deals with demons - that's how he expects to get even with the stone giants he feels have been 'stealing' his mine workers!""If that is true," observed Harlan, "there's a good chance those ten dwarves who went missing after their meeting with Kasselban have been sacrificed to the Abyss."  Draemon didn't want anything to do with fighting off demons, but once convinced of the seriousness of the situation and with Harlan's promises as a paladin of Pelor to keep him safe, he reluctantly agreed to lead them to Kasselban's personal vault in the Slippery Shaft mines.Thus it was that the group soon found themselves inside a maze of twisting passageways.  Four of the heroes had been inside the mines before, but none had ever been in this part of the mines, where Kasselban kept his private vault.  Before they got too close to where they might meet up with the mine owner or his new wife, Alistair cast his traditional shield spell upon himself, then granted each of the heroes the benefit of a darkvision spell - if they were going to be shrouded in the illusion of being out-of-work miners, they'd each need a dwarf's vision to successfully play the part.  Orchid cast a longstrider spell upon herself and barkskin spells upon Harlan, Ageratum, and herself, while the half-elf paladin covered himself with a magic circle against evil spell.  Then they continued down the tunnel to where Draemon said Kasselban's personal area was to be found.Sure enough, the cavern containing Kasselban's personal "front door" was a massive one, with a ceiling height of about 60 feet.  Seated on a wooden chair to the west of the door was a young dwarven woman, quite lovely by dwarven standards.  Harlan instinctively examined her aura and found the telltale presence of evil coming from her direction; he alerted everyone over Alistair's telepathic link he'd cast earlier."Draemon, how lovely of you to have come," greeted Mrs. Picksmart.  "And you brought along guests!  How nice!""Yeah," agreed Orchid, wearing the guise of Draemon Klarbatch.  "These fine dwarves're lookin' fer work, an' I figgered Mr. Picksmart might like t' look 'em over, like."  Then Orchid stopped talking in Draemon's voice and gave a warning over the Rary's telepathic bond spell.  <I'm not sure what exactly she just did, but I think "Mrs. Picksmart" just tried to charm me,> Orchid advised.  <For a brief second, I got an almost overwhelming urge to trust her and do whatever she said.><Succubus,> opined Chaevaris.  Alistair, standing in the front of the group, turned around and showed his back to the dwarven woman.  This wasn't intended as a rudeness, but rather so she wouldn't see him casting a spell when his illusory appearance was that of a poor miner.  He held up an illusory birdcage, inside of which Ambrose had taken on the false image of a canary, and pretended to fuss over the little yellow bird - when in reality, he was casting a spell onto his grackle familiar so he could then fly over and transfer it to Mrs. Picksmart.  "Oh!" Alistair exclaimed in his best dwarven accent (which, truth be told, wasn't necessarily all that convincing), "me wee canary's escaped 'is cage!"Ambrose flapped his wings and made a bee-line for Mrs. Picksmart, touching the top of her hair with a claw as he flew overhead, releasing the touch of idiocy spell Alistair had imbued upon him for that very purpose.  The "dwarven woman" flinched as if shocked - for the spell had overcome the succubus' natural resistance to spell energy, partially draining her mental faculties - and Chaevaris took that as the signal for "the battle is on!"  Pulling an arrow from her quiver and quickly aiming it at the succubus (the dwarven miner she appeared to be as a result of Alistair's veil spell seemingly pantomiming the actions), she released her bowstring and sent the arrow whizzing across the cavern to plant itself in the demon's gut.  (Not entirely 100% sure this was a demon they were fighting - after all, there was a possibility, however small, that this might in fact be a dwarven woman foolish enough to marry Kasselban Picksmart, who was being dominated by an invisible demon standing right beside her - the archer opted not to take out her eye, which had been her first inclination; better to do something not quite as lethal, that could be more easily undone if needed.)  But the single shot was enough to drop the succubus to the cavern floor, where she lay unconscious.Harlan, however, did not share Chaevaris's doubts, for his paladin ability to sense evil told him this was definitely a demon before him.  He charged across the cavern and swung his holy flaming burst longsword down upon the prone form lying there.  Ageratum followed in the paladin's wake, bringing her own blades to bear, and in slaying her, the demon reverted back to its succubus form, bat wings and all.  Quite tellingly, her body did not discorporate and return to the Abyss upon her death, revealing her to have crossed a planar gate rather than being summoned to the Material Plane.  It looked like Chaevaris's theory that Kasselban had been trafficking with demons was true after all.Orchid cast a mass bear's endurance, buoying the heroes' vim and vigor for whatever fight might be on the horizon.  Alistair cast a detect magic spell, hoping to see if there were any sources of magic in the area, either on the dead succubus or coming from the door.  But before he could find out for sure, the cavern was suddenly swarming with demons: one minute it was just the five heroes, Draemon, and Ambrose - the grackle returning to his master's shoulder once again - and the next there were no fewer than 16 humanoid vultures shrieking and squawking in their midst.<Vrocks - they teleport!> called out Harlan to the others over the link.  But then Orchid, the furthest back from the rest of the group, got a good look at the demons' locations and cast a transmute rock to mud spell on the ceiling directly overhead the vulture-fiends.  Gloppy mud fell down, covering the vrocks and popping the dozen of them that had been nothing more than mirror image spells cast by two of the vrocks into nonexistence.  It looked like four of them were actually flesh-and-blood vrocks, and neither looked particularly happy to have had their feathers coated in gloppy muck from the ceiling above.  The fact that dozens of small rocks had also fallen down upon them didn't make them any happier, either.Draemon, as promised, fell back away from the fight - he was a mine overseer, not a combatant.  Alistair, fearing for the safety of his familiar, sent Ambrose with him.  Because the second wave of this demon combat was now well underway!Chaevaris quickly aimed another arrow at the closest vrock to her and let fly, piercing its left eye and causing it to howl in pain.  Harlan raced up to the one just beside that one, stabbing at it with his Starblade, which he infused with Pelor's evil-smiting energy.  That vrock likewise howled in sudden agony, not having expected to have to deal with anything more difficult than an unsuspecting dwarven mine overseer whose mind they could pick to find the location of the Karkalatch stone giant clan, so they could wipe them out as per their agreement with Kasselban (who had thus far held up to his end of the bargain by sacrificing the ten dwarven miners as he'd done).Ageratum, in the meantime, ran past the one Harlan was fighting to backstab the partially blinded one.  But she miscalculated the reach of these vulture demons, and both scratched with wicked claws at the little halfling as she ran past; it was all she could do to dodge out of their way.  Still, she managed to get in a good hit with her sword at the one she'd targeted, but at a cost: for both vrocks on this side of the cavern sudden exploded out clouds of spores from their bodies.  Harlan seemed unaffected, but Ageratum soon had tight, wiry vines growing out of her skin.  "Orchid....!" she called out aloud, forgetting in her horror that the Rary's telepathic bond spell was still up and active.Alistair focused his attention on the two vrocks on the other side of the cavern, catching both in a cone of cold spell he maximized through the more powerful of his two metamagic rods.  The half-blinded one reached out and clawed the sorcerer on the shoulder - Alistair, like Ageratum before him, had miscalculated their reach - but it was after he'd gotten off his spell, which penetrated past the demons' inherent spell resistance.  One vrock seemed to take twice the damage as the other, but the young sorcerer was just glad both had been hurt, to whatever extent.Then the half-blinded vrock let out a screech unlike anything the heroes had ever heard before.  It was enough to cause all three women to momentarily freeze up, each dropping whatever items they might have had in their hands.  One of the vrocks Alistair had cold-blasted took the opportunity to take a bit of revenge on the nobleman, leaping forward and snapping at him with its vulture beak and clawing at him with its wicked hand-talons, then leaping up and clawing at him again with the talons it had in place of feet.  Try as Alistair might, he couldn't evade all of those attacks, and one set of hand-claws ripped across his torso, cutting through his robes and coming dangerously close to ripping his vest of charisma, for which he'd paid quite a pretty penny!  That near miss did more to incense the spellcaster than the actual attempt upon his life.The one fighting Harlan followed the attacks of his vulture-brother, but the paladin had a much easier time of batting them away with his shield and came away completely unscathed.  The fourth vrock - the other one Alistair's cone of cold had struck - went after Orchid, who was still stunned into momentarily dizziness by the horrid shriek she'd just endured, but she was still standing after the attack was finished, avoiding several of the blows by combat instinct alone.  Harlan channeled more of Pelor's energy into his blade and went to town against the vrock he'd decided was his primary target, slicing it up but good, to the point it looked just about ready to fall over.Alistair decided not to mess with success and fired off another maximized cone of cold through his metamagic rod at the same two vrocks he'd targeted before.  This time the other one seemed to take the brunt of the magical assault, but that was okay - they both seemed fairly spent, and nearly about to fall over.  But the one with an arrow sticking out of his left eye decided he was going to take out that blasted halfling, and he devoted his full attention to doing just that.  Ageratum managed to dodge away from all of his talon strikes, but his serrated beak caught her on the shoulder for a moment before she could wriggle free.  Then the one behind it gave forth with another shocking shriek, and this time it was Harlan and Alistair who froze up, dropping their weapons.One of the frost-covered vrocks decided this was a good time to try to bring in some reinforcements.  It cast its senses across the planes, seeking to make contact with another vrock it could summon onto the Material Plane to help it, but this sort of thing was iffy at best and he was unable to make contact with any takers.  Bummer!Orchid snapped out of her daze and cast a fire storm spell upon three of the four vrocks, covering them in flames from above.  She knew, as demons, they were able to ignore flames to some small extent, but this was no small extent: it engulfed their entire bodies, melting away any residual frost from those Alistair had been throwing spells at and drying up any residual mud still coating them, before singeing their feathers and starting to burn their flesh.  One of the vrocks fell over, dead from the magical onslaught.Chaevaris scooped up her dropped longbow and slapped another arrow from her quiver into place.  She aimed at the other eye of the one she'd shot earlier, hoping to give it a matching set of protruding arrows.  Ageratum went stab-happy against that one's partner, slicing it up with the two short swords she wielded, one in each hand, carving it up like a holiday turkey.  Its dying gurgle caused the partially blinded one to look over at its fallen compatriot, which gave Chaevaris the opportunity she'd been waiting for.  The vrock's right eye suddenly blossomed with an elven arrow, and it fell over beside its partner, just as dead.That left just one vrock still standing - and just barely at that.  As Orchid came up to Ageratum and cast a heal spell from her staff that caused the wiry vines growing in the halfling's skin - the results of the wretched vrocks' explosive spores - Harlan snapped out of his daze, grabbed up the Starblade, and stabbed it into the vrock's chest.  It died where it stood, and like the other three, its body remined on the Material Plane after death, as it had entered the plane through a planar gate opened by Kasselban's cubic gate."Let's go have a word with Kasselban," Harlan said, opening the door to his inner vault area.  On the other side of the door was a vast chamber containing a long, wooden table, with eleven chairs all around it - the one at the head engraved with a stylized dwarven "P" rune and the image of a pick, no doubt the Picksmart family crest - but there was nobody there, nor were there any other visible exits.  Employing the elves and their uncanny senses, Chaevaris soon found a hidden door that led to a narrow chamber wrapping around the room with the table and seating for eleven, and there was Kasselban, sitting on a wooden chair before a line of seven large chests.The mine owner had definitely seen better days: he was weak, too weak to sit up straight; the succubus, it seemed, had just about siphoned off the last of his life energy before sensing the imminent arrival of the guests.  Harlan detected the ever-present stain of evil in the dwarf's black aura."Shouln'ta done it," Kasselban whispered, barely loud enough to hear.  "They were ten good workers, they were.  Loyal.  Deserved better...."  As last words went, they were enough of a confession for Harlan to be convinced of his guilt, as his now lifeless body slipped off the seat of the chair and he slumped onto the floor of his hidden cache or treasure.  Only it turned out not to be much of a cache of treasure after all, as he'd emptied his coffers of coins in purchasing the cubic gate that sat inside the seventh chest, the other six being totally empty.  There was a black spoon along with the cubic gate, which Harlan and Alistair determined was a focusing device that attuned the Abyss side of the cubic gate to hone in on whatever part of the evil plane that particular quartet of vrocks inhabited.  The paladin swore to have the spoon destroyed, for it served no purpose to them; the cubic gate, he realized, could be put to good use, although the fact that anybody getting hold of it could open a planar gate to either the Nine Hells of the Abyss made it a very dangerous piece of magical paraphernalia.  Ageratum suggested they could have a metal "sleeve" of sorts made to put the cubic gate into, which would block off those two dangerous faces of the six-sided cube.  That way, they could still easily access the Elemental Plane of Earth, the Plane of Shadows, the Ethereal Plane, and still return back to the Material Plane as desired.  Harlan agreed, but insisted the dangerous device be kept inside the extradimensional dwelling, where it would be all but impossible for someone to get to it, even if they somehow learned of its existence.<Ambrose!> Alistair called over the link.  <It's safe, you can bring Draemon in here to see that Kasselban's been dealt with.  Then I think it's time we all went back home.> - - -Dan said it's likely the ownership of the Slippery Shaft Silver Mine will eventually fall to Draemon, the highest-level worker after Kasselban, after it's been determined that Kasselban Picksmart has no living heirs.  So that might take some time, but I think we'll like the new owner a whole lot more than we liked the old one.We all leveled up to 15th at the end of this adventure session.</blockquote>

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