NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Carlo-One" data-source="post: 8238498" data-attributes="member: 7015827">Late afternoon on Ches 28, the three adventurers departed Thessar’s house and Darrow headed back to the Gatereach, to check on the arrangements Jandrico was making for assistance with his brewery in Tallwell. Shanni then appeared, sauntering up to Aerikoth and Dermot to inform them she had been keeping an eye on the folk they were talking to. After complaining about having to keep kicking the rats away from her hiding place by the cave, she observed that they didn’t look like they wanted to talk any more. Aerikoth shared, in a deprecating manner, what they had been told about two individuals carrying a large sack entering the cave. Shanni indicated that she might have found it, describing it as an empty sack large enough to take a body and having dried blood all over it. She had decided to go no further into the cave, given the circumstances, and returned to find the others.The three decided to take a closer look at the site where Shanni had found the bag, to see if Dermot’s tracking skills could yield any more information. They made their way to the cave and past the door to the sewers, where Shanni pointed out where the bag was lying. Aerikoth cast a simple light spell to illuminate the area, allowing his ranger companion to carefully search for signs and oddities.The ranger observed that there was only one, days-old blood splotch area on the sack, which would fit with the idea of a single big thing being carried. He wondered where whatever was being carried had got to, guessing that someone had dumped a thing there and someone else had picked it up. he also found it odd that they had left the sack behind. Dermot concluded that it had been there a while, but there were a lot of signs of passage through the area, so it was hard to pick out anything further.As the ranger bent down and collected a little bottle from the sack, Aerikoth asked if the others recalled their trip to Starmantle, when they were looking for Janatha, the kidnapped daughter of Teziir Council Member Queron Ulanthar. Dermot sniffed the bottle’s stopper and confirmed that it was a healing draught, a strong one, before joining Shanni in nodding. The wizard reminded them that they had journeyed on the ship called Sea Sprite and had found a stowaway named Errend. He had told them how he was living in the Shore and had been drugged and ambushed after showing up for an offer of work, then ended up in a place he thought might have been a temple, along with other captives.Aerikoth graphically recalled Errend’s story, how one by one the others had been dragged off to a different area, with the sound of wet screaming heard afterwards. He managed to escape or was rejected, for whatever purpose, and that was why he had decided to stow away on a boat - to get out of Westgate as quickly as he could, having little to no money. The wizard concluded by saying he was curious if this was what had happened to their stowaway, indicating the bloody sack.In response, Shanni mentioned having found a temple down in the sewers during a previous excursion, but thought it was to Umberlee. Dermot grimaced at the tale, saying that he had no idea whether it had anything to do with vampires, but something was rotten down there. Aerikoth acknowledged that there might in fact be no connection, but also remembered hearing rumors of the parasitic undead almost since his arrival in this city.The three agreed they should continue tugging on the thread, as Dermot put it, and the ranger moved down the tunnel towards the next part of the sewers, listening at the door he came to. Aerikoth offered to cast a stoneskin spell on the others, who thought that would be a good idea if things got bad. Dermot said he thought someone or something was moving past the door, that did not sound like a rat. The ranger then tried the door and was surprised as several zombies came through to attack them. Shanni cursed and drew her weapons, she and Aeirkoth battling their new foes from a distance as the wizard summoned a water elemental into the fight. Unfortunately its drown attack was ineffective against the living dead, but Dermot was able to use his magic weapons to dismember them.Once that was done, the ranger admitted that maybe it did have something to do with the undead. Aerikoth again offered to cast his stoneskin spell and this time Dermot accepted it. (A rule of adventuring should be that when your wizard offers to cast a spell of protection on you, you accept it without argument. --R) Looking over the now-unmoving corpses, Dermot thought that they seemed to be wearing uniforms and observed that they might have found the Shore Patrol. Shanni agreed with this assessment, thinking that those were their colors.The large sewer area was at first confusing, but the three adventurers soon found another group of zombies in a corridor including one that had strong magic protections. They attempted to channel their attack using some vine growths as obstacles but were unsuccessful, nevertheless again defeating their slow-moving opponents, aided this time by Aerikoth summoning a large bear. Between the undead corpses and the usual sewer filth, the three felt like they were having a nasty time of it, threatening to lose their lunch.The moved into the next chamber and Dermot checked it over, poking at cracks in the walls and searching for something beyond the ordinary, as Shanni watched along the corridor and flitted her eyes around the room. However, they came up with nothing. Aerikoth observed that the zombies must have been guarding the way for a reason and that the individuals that brought the sack within the sewers must have had a way to bypass the undead.Dermot, frustrated at the results of the search, eventually looked up and noticed a pull chain. He shined his torch at the chain and spotted some old blood on it, saying he was curious about where it went. The ranger then married his words to deeds and put the torch in his mouth before starting to haul himself upwards. After a short time, he called down to say that it came up in the district with the temples, then came back down to inform his companions that it was near the old spot that Aerikoth’s friends had, called the hidden house. (This "Hidden House" has a rather cursed history in the chronicles, originally having been the burned-out location for a shrine to a dead god. Furthermore, Aerikoth was away obtaining the deed to it for his companions when they decided to go after Baron Hallton in Tallwell and two of them, Brok-Tul and Veran, were killed as a result. This was made even more ironic because Brok-Tul was the one who had most desired to convert the house into a shrine to Helm. No doubt the place bodes further ill for the party. --C)The three discussed the implications of what they found, then decided to exit the sewers. Shanni easily scrambled up the pull chain, followed by Aerikoth, who ascended slowly and weakly, breathing heavily as he emerged onto a street in the Temple District. Dermot came up last and offered words of support for the wizard, acting exhausted as well out of sympathy. After a moment to recover his breath, Aerikoth indicated he was ready to go on.</blockquote>

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