# Aphonion Tales:  Ravenskrag and the Shadowline, a preteen D&D game (lightly edited notes, updates Thursdays, updated 12/8/22)



## CPaladin (Mar 26, 2021)

This is the storyhour for a children's D&D game.  It's set in the same world as the Archducal Council storyhour and the Spice Lands storyhour, but both of those take place on the continent of Drucien, while this game is set on the continent of Zestqua.  This is in the same general area as the old Journals of a Licensed Diabolist storyhour, if anyone remembers that.  The players in this game are all pre-teen children, so it doesn't have any adult content or themes, unlike some of the Archducal Council and Journal of a Licensed Diabolist entries.  These are basically unedited notes that I take as the game goes along--I provide some organizational support to the DM and play a sort of party NPC.

Session 1 (3/28/20)
(Mostly an organizational session 0 type of thing)

28 Skard

This group started in Ravenskrag on Zestqua.  Ravenskrag is a heavily fortified city in a pass through the mountains between the border kingdoms (Tarkenia, etc.) to the east and the merchant cities and freeholds to the West.  Trade passes through Ravenskrag regularly as does whatever tribute can be extracted from the merchant cities to fund the continuous war effort by the border kingdoms to restrain the avarice of the demon worshipers in the Shadowlands.  Ravenskrag is not only heavily fortified, but very rowdy.  There is constant intrigue - and agents of the enemy are deeply insinuated into the city structure.

Possible hooks might be: Contracted agents for the Holy Inquisition of Paranswarm: Lord of Orderly Darkness, such agents are used to ferret out enemies of the Temple and are considered expendable, but paid well; caravan guards guarding a caravan traveling either West to the merchant cities (safer) or east to the border (less safe); or private agents hired by a particular cabal or noble house (such as they are in Ravenskrag - closer to the Cosa Nostra or the Borgias) to investigate any of a myriad of local difficulties, humanoids, and monsters. Note:  Ravenskrag does not really have an established faith - both major human temples have bishops here.  Other temples are tolerated.  Further everyone knows there are demon worshipers here as well, and other than the Temple of Paranswarm, no one seems to care unless they get in the way of something... so....  Oh and the Doge of the City State has also been in flux for several years now, with no single house able to hold onto control for longer than a few months - so there is also that.

Our heroes are Ulgorio, a rakasta bard; Runor, a dwarf cleric of Glordiadel, the Lord of Light; and Bartix, a half-orc ranger.  They hear the opportunities, and decide that they want to sign on as caravan guards.  The caravans heading towards the Shadowline pay much better than the safer caravan runs to the merchant cities, so they promptly sign up with a small caravan heading towards Tarkenia, one of the Border Kingdoms along the Shadowline.  They head out, and make camp after an uneventful day of travel across the desert.

End Session 1


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## CPaladin (Apr 1, 2021)

Since the first post was so short, here's an extra long one to compensate.

Session 2 (4/11/2020)

One day out from Ravenskrag, camped over night. 5 more days to Tarkenia.

Skard 29

Next day travel is uneventful.

The following night, it sounds like a human child yowling, maybe 300 meters out in the desert. Bartix is on watch, and he reports the sound to one of the older mercenaries. He says it might be a child, in which case you’d want to bring it in. Or it might be a mountain lion, trying to draw attention. And three of you could handle a great cat together. Bartix wakes the others and they head out towards it.

Ulgorio sees blinky eyes watching them out of some low scrub. It’s not where the howling is—it’s off to the right, while the howling is still ahead of them.

They find, laid on the ground, not very well kept, a baby. It’s kinda marked up, with a little scratching—it definitely didn’t make it here on its own.

Two humanoids, about 4’ tall, covered in patchy fur, charge at them with spears.

Runor makes a violent gesture at them with his mace. They jump back, stopping 10 feet back. Bartix swings his sword at them. And hacks one of them to pieces. The other one throws down his spear and flings himself down on his belly.

Runor interrogates the survivor.

“We crossed the border and found the baby to bait you. We did not know you were such mighty warriors. How can we serve, great lord?” He looks over at his buddy. “How can I serve?”

“Can you show a route that you never threaten?”

“We were scouting. We crossed over in an attack. We don’t know much about this land, except that there is much food here.” This sounds crazy in the desert. Runor scares it off.

The senior mercenary is surprised to here of eum this far from the border, but is glad that it was handled.

The next day goes uneventfully. There are some farms in the desert, irrigating from springs or oases.

The night passes peacefully as well.

The following day and night pass peacefully until the third watch. There’s grit in the wind. The more experienced mercenary tells them that it’s a sandstorm. They collapse the tents, put headdresses around the animals, and weighted blankets over the tents and people. The horses struggle—they really don’t like it, but the handlers prevent them from running off. It lasts 2-3 hours. In the morning, they dig themselves out. None of the drovers die. Everyone is apparently okay. It takes several hours to get the caravan on its way, but they succeed.

The next day and night are peaceful.

The next day, they start passing through more villages, doing some strange farming—trying to enrich the soil, perhaps. At the edge of their vision, they can see a tall walled city. Runor spots the fellow that they scared off about a quarter of a mile or third of a mile away, tracking the caravan. Runor casts sacred flame—not reaching him, but enough to scare him off. And he runs away.

They arrive in Tarkenia. The whole city is like a military fortification. The walls are pristine, 40 feet tall and thick as three carts wide; the gates are steel, but banded in a strange black metal. And the guards are careful and well disciplined, physically fit. They review the papers of the caravan carefully, before a priest of Glordiadel stamps them with a sun seal, and they give crisp salutes. It’s dramatically different from Ravenscrag. The caravan master thanks them, pays them the promised silver (8 sp/day * 6 days=48 silver each), and mentions that they had a difficult crossing a couple weeks ago, fighting a large band of eums. Offers them a place when they head back in a week or so, but no hard feelings if they don’t take it.

Several of them head to an inn; the Gryphon’s Golden Hind is the biggest, the Bespoke Dragon less so, and then there are some dives. They go straight to the Gryphon’s Golden Hind, looking for a medium priced inn. There is a stuffed Gryphon’s head on the wall, with a plaque that says in memory of my arm. They get a comfortable room with three beds and a private bath, for 3 sp/night.

Bartix hears offers of several types of work: caravan missions going west, paying 5 silver per day; caravan missions through the border kingdoms; guarding a colony against the border; hunting missions working for the Viceroy, paying 9 silver per day (hunting creatures that have crossed the border); there is mention of cross-border missions, but they are viewed as not ready for it.

Initially, they’re evenly divided—one wants guard duty, one wants caravan duty, and one wants hunting shadow creatures. Runor persuades the others by saying that pays the best. In the morning, they go to the viceroy’s office.

“It’s a fairly simple situation. The territory nearest the border, we use a reclaiming technique to restore the soil as best as we can. This was not always desert—the Shadowwar has made it what it is. Some Shadow creatures cross the border, and hunt the settlers. It’s not as dangerous as in Caldefor, but still always an issue. We pay 10 silver a day, plus a bonus of 5 silver per head for any of red or above among the eum, or any goblyn shamans. You can collect the bounty at any border fortress, and the daily fee after a tour of at least 10 days.”

They buy some mounts in the market—one horse, two camels. They exit through the eastern gate, having entered through the west. Both gates are equally well fortified and defended. Outside the east gate, there are merchants in tents offering large water skins, animal feed, and the like. They buy some emergency water skins, planning on mostly using Runor’s ability to create water.

They get a little ways from the city gates, beyond the merchants, and pass a group of beggars. One of them gives them a silver—very generous.

The next night, there’s a long, drawn out hoot—definitely not normal for the desert. It ululates again, staying out of the fire light. Bartix heads out of the camp towards the noise, as the other two wake up. Runor casts a light spell. It illuminates Bartix, but also a not terribly large creature, that looks like a small, feathered bear. It’s been injured. Something took a hunk out of its right flank—possibly a bite. Bartix leads it back to camp. Runor heals the wound as Ulgorio casts Speak with Animals and talks with it. That means that somewhere near here is the thing that killed its mother. It said “they were large and trying to eat it and its mother, with big bellies.”

Pet baby owlbear
Small, 1d8+5 hps, Beak attack 1d6, claws 1d4 each, Str 10, Dex 15, Con 12, Feats: Multiattack. It will be a baby for a long time, 10 years to grow up.
[End Session 2]


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## CPaladin (Apr 8, 2021)

Session 3 (4/25/20)

4 Tar-Skard

They have entered the lands of House Vilra.  Two additional adventurers join their patrol-Ashaltir, a wood elf paladin of the First Daughter (one of the major elven deities), and Merreep, an elven ranger.  [I think Merreep is also a wood elf, but I'm not sure off-hand.]

The present Sultan is Barash Abin, of House Jard.

Day passes uneventfully. During the middle of the night, Ulgorio is on watch and there’s a howling. It sounds kinda like people howling, in a varied pitch going up and down the scale. They’re getting closer.

Ulgorio wakes the rest. The horses and camels are also uncomfortable. There are 4 distinct tones, so probably 4 people.

Runor casts light, and cresting a dune about 25 feet away, they see 4 thin, emaciated looking people, dirty, howling, and spinning.

Runor zaps one lightly with a sacred flame, while Ulgorio and Bartix both run.

Ashaltir stabs one with a longsword, while Merreep shoots one in the back with a bow.

The one in the back hurls a handful of ichorous, green-looking substance at Marreep, missing entirely, and it sizzles as it hits the ground.

Ashaltir attacks again, taking down one.

Ulgorio hides, while the owlbear keeps attacking and bites down another one.

Bartix shoots one with a long bow.

Merreep drops the second to last one, and then Runor strikes the last one with a sacred flame, and it collapses, burning slightly.

Runor examines the bodies. It is very obvious that they have not been eating properly for at least weeks. The one who threw the handful of green stuff has a pouch at his side with at least 3 more handfuls. All of them look like commons, but all have something twisted about them, and the one who threw the handful has a strange symbol. Runor recognizes it as a hand-made symbol of Orlodu, the Worm that Bores Beneath, one of the minion deities of Borsh’tro. They get a grand total of 12 sp from the 4 bodies, and 4 shoddy longswords.

The rest of the night passes uneventfully.

They travel on southwards towards Circle Perilous, in their second full day out. They reach the Circle uneventfully. There’s a 60’ tower, made out of some form of glittering crystal, and its top glows. A thin line of energy extends out in either direction from the Circle. And on the far side is the Shadowlands, where there is no sunlight, and it’s a depressing gray everywhere.

A handful of soldiers in glittering silver and crystal armor supervise regular humans, and there is a full legion of troops there.

Runor walks up and hails the soldiers.

“There have been more small border crossings. We can certainly use aid in taking care of the detritus that crosses. We have reports of goblyns, and also of some undead being raised this side of the line, towards House Nin. The viceroy made the standard offer, 10 silver per day for 10 days, plus a bonus for any appropriate skulls you bring back. Take care if you see any eums—we’ve heard no reports of eums on this side of the border, but you’re a little green to take on eums.”

They offer them rations and clean water to supply for the patrol.

He updates their papers to indicate that two more have joined the group.

They overnighted at the Circle.
[cont'd]


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## CPaladin (Apr 15, 2021)

Session 3 [cont'd]

They head towards House Nin’s lands, looking for goblyns, undead, or other things. There are more humans watching from the other side of the Shadowline. They make no efforts to cross, but they are following their progress.

They travel most of a day out from the Circle on the 6th of Tar-Skard, walking together in a clump.

Bartix spots tracks in the sand, heading away from the border. They’re not animal tracks, but not exactly human.

They follow the tracks, staying together in a clump. The tracks are new, no more than a day old, and approximately 5 humanoid figures with 4 toed feet. The rangers suspect that these are goblyn tracks.

The goblyn watcher sees them coming.

All of a sudden, the tracks stop. They must be concealing their tracks—they know that they’re being followed.

Bartix keeps following the concealed tracks—it’s hard, but they can still manage it. As night is falling, they crest a dune and see a cold camp in the hollow beneath them. There are short humanoids, with bulging bellies, light armor, clubs and spears, and a sheep—probably stolen. They do not seem to have noticed our heroes cresting the dunes.

Ashaltir detects evil—one is distinctly evil, the rest are not.

Runor tries to sneak down the dune, planning on attacking the evil one, and he trips over his own feet and rolls down the dune, around 21 feet to the edge of the camp.

Ashaltir charges past him on her horse, and smites the evil one hard, but doesn’t drop him. Merreep shoots one.

Bartix charges another and cuts him down.

Ulgorio misses with his rapier.

The chieftain, who also is a shaman, touches Ashaltir and inflicts light wounds.

One of the goblyn tries to club Runor with his club, and hits him for 3.

The last uninjured one, grabs the sheep, tucks it under his arm, and runs off.

Merreep shoots her target again, dropping it.

Ashaltir gallops up to the goblyn carrying the sheep, and cuts him down.

Bartix finishes off the chieftain with his bow.

Ulgorio stabs one with his rapier, and Runor finishes him off with a sacred flame, dropping the last one.

Runor heals himself and Ashaltir fully.

They get the goblyn shaman as a trophy (which will get a bonus); 2 sp; a skin of very potent alcohol; and a sheep.

[End session 3]


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## CPaladin (Apr 22, 2021)

Session 4 (5/9/20)
Nightfall on Tar-Skard 6

In the middle of the night, an unnatural chill settles on them. (Rolled encounter, then a 20 on the table…) The owlbear and sheep are acting skittish, and they begin to feel chilled even by the fire. They begin to hear whispers, saying “Come away from the fire, come out into the Night…”

Runor casts light, and triggers a shriek from a dark outline of a shape, with no person visible. There is a hissing noise, and it retreats from the light. Runor advances after it, hearing it saying, “Accursed cleric!” and muttering about getting him when he’s not ready. Runor returns to the light after it retreated. They’re pretty sure it’s a shadow or a wraith of some kind, but it doesn’t approach the light, and the noise stops entirely when the dawn comes.

The next day (Tar-Skard 7) they head on. They see scraggly farms and little villages as they travel. The farmers and villagers are supportive and respectful, bringing them drinks of water and the like and thanking them and bowing to them.

Both rangers notice that they’re being paralleled. On one side is the border, and while they’re being watched from that side, at a distance of perhaps an eighth of a mile in the other direction, into the desert, they’re also being paralleled. They can see the rising of the dust. It’s probably not a large group, but they feel scouted. When they stop, it stops. When they move, it moves.

The group travels to confront them, and they see a group with three individuals—two on camelback, and a third on foot.

One of the camel riders fires a bow at them, and misses widely. The other rider raises up his hand and two globules of energy fly from his hand, wounding the owlbear. The third figure charges on foot at the owlbear. It looks similar to the dirty creatures they saw previously, but whereas those had yellow fur, this one has patchy red fur.

Bartix charges to intercept the creature on foot, and hits it with a short sword.

Ulgorio heals the owlbear with a cure spell.

Ashaltir detects evil, and they are all evil.

Runor casts Blindness on the mage, but it does not succeed.

The owlbear unleashes a claw/claw/bite routine at the figure with a spear, hitting with one claw.

The red furred creature with the spear stabs the owlbear, hurting it badly. The archer fires and misses entirely. The mage stands in his stirrups, “Great Lord Gothatha of the Quenching Flame, strike down my enemy!” And he shoots two magic missiles at Runor, doing 5 damage.

Mareep shoots at the mage, hitting for 9 points of damage. The mage looks very unhappy.

Bartix heals the owlbear fully.

Ashaltir charges on horseback to smite evil. She smacks the red-furred creature. It looks startled for a moment and then collapses.

Runor runs up to the archer, Inflicts Wounds, and does 25 hp of damage. Right on top of the red eum being slaughtered, the archer gets instant gangrene and pitches off the camel.

The owlbear charges and attacks the mage. It misses with both claws but hits with the bite. The mage reels in his saddle, and tries to race away.

Mareep pegs him with an arrow, and the mage pitches off the camel.

They now have a dead red eum, two dead humans—an archer and a mage--, and two camels. The eum obviously has nothing on it. The humans weren’t starving, and that suggests they were from this side of the border.

Mareep searches one and Bartix finds the other; they have 10 sp total.

Ulgorio checks out the camels. They’re both healthy now, but their hooves are poorly cared for. They need proper care, because otherwise they won’t remain healthy.

They take the camels with them.

The mage was also carrying a small symbol—a carving of a flame with eyes, and a short scroll, not in a language they speak, but very brief—probably orders. Runor recognizes it as a symbol of Golthatha, one of the Council of “demigods”, really demon lords, that serve Borsh’tro. They know that there are cults of the demonlords on this side of the border. That means that, since he was a mage, he must be a member of a cult—so there’s a priest somewhere.
[cont'd]


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## CPaladin (Apr 29, 2021)

[Session 4 cont'd]
They travel for the rest of the day. They could travel into the night to reach Circle Constance, or they could camp and then finish the trip the next morning.

They rest for the night. And they have another encounter (a 19) almost as soon as they’ve gone to sleep.

Mareep begins to feel that same chilling effect that there was last night. The same whispering voice sets in—“come out. Come away from the fire…” Mareep wakes up her companions and lets them know.

They build the fire up and chase it away with a burning torch. It hisses and pulls away—not as quickly as it responded to the light spell, but enough to drive it away. It continues muttering, but it doesn’t close with them again that night. It’s obviously following them. They hear mutterings all night, but as long as they keep the fire built up, it doesn’t approach.

Dawn breaks (Tar-Skard 8), and they enter the lands of Circle Constance. The desert gives way to a little greenery.

The circle is militarized, like the previous one. The extra camels draw some attention, because they assume that’s missing riders. But they come out, check the papers, and then admit them. They thank them for coming—“we’ve had some problems.  Not as bad as before Caldefor restored itself, but still some problems.”

It’s more developed than the other circle—perhaps older, or more successfully established.

They turn in the skull of the shaman, and Ulgorio sells the spare camel. They dicker over it, and settle on 11 silver as a price for it. They also shoe the camel that they’re keeping.

They turn in the skull and show the holy symbol of Golthotha. “Oh, I don’t understand why anyone would follow those… I suppose that’s less bad than some of the others. And earlier a follower of Urlodo? We have to increase our scrutiny of those areas.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Runor sees a figure gliding by the conversation. He turns to look, and it’s a slender woman, elven, with an elaborate hairdo and a long silver robe, floating along towards them. The villagers either drop to one knee or bow. Runor follows suit and drops to one knee, as does the officer. She nods in their general direction, and then floats up to the tower.

“Well, it’s not often that a visitor so new in our service gets to catch a vision of a Hastur going about their duties.” The officer gives them a dozen silver. “Please, continue your service. I think the thing speaking to you from outside your camp is a shadow. Someone is raising undead. But the Hastur are busy with the Shadow, and they do not have the time to find the necromancer on this side.”
[End session 4]

[A question for readers:  I've realized that posting the sessions in roughly half a section chunks, one per week, means that we're generating new material nearly as quickly as the old material is getting posted, remaining about a year behind.  That seems undesirable to me, since it seems like more fun for everyone to catch up to the current state of the game.  So I have a question:  Would you prefer me to post updates more often (probably adding a Sunday posting day to this thread and a Saturday to the Spice Lands thread) or would you prefer that I post longer updates with each post (roughly a whole session at a time)?  Longer updates per post is slightly easier for me, but not so much so that I care much.]


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## CPaladin (May 6, 2021)

Session 5 (5/30/20)
Tar-Skard 9:

They wake up from their rest in the area around Circle Constance.

They decide they want to hunt the necromancer raising undead on this side of the line.

They decide that they’ll try to find the necromancer by doing patrols in concentric semi-circles around the area guarded by Circle Constance. The lands of House Nin are much less heavily patrolled than the area around the Circle. There are reclaiming villages, where there are some houses, some fields, and every type of fertilizer imaginable. There are a handful of ruined buildings—probably the result of the border moving back and forth as they fight the war.

There is a thundering of hooves, and a cloud of sand off to their right. It’s at least 3-4 times the size of the cloud of sand that they produce when they gallop. Mreep gallops over to take a closer look. She sees a large herd of wild camels, clearly spooked. They are fleeing like mad, towards their group, as a lion chases after their hindmost. The lion misses one of the camels, pouncing on empty sand.

Mreep calls back that there’s a herd of wild camels coming, chased by a lion. Runor immediately starts plotting to tame the lion, and get another dangerous pet. The camels rush past them pell-mell. The lion stops running, having lost the chance. It looks over the group, and turns to slink away among the dunes. Ashaltir rides out towards it as it’s trying to slink away.

They cast animal friendship on the lion, and it walks over, growling softly in the base of its throat.

They feed it some dried meat and befriend it. They now have a young male lion as part of their menagerie. It’s not ready to fight for them yet, but it will travel with them.

The night passes peacefully. The shadow(?) does not appear.

The next day they travel on. There are more small villages, more ruined buildings, and small packs of hyenas that avoid them assiduously.

They have an encounter the next day.

One building is particularly large. It’s not in good shape—at all—but it’s still standing, and it has a huge tower, 8 or 9 stories tall. It’s clear that it’s been beaten and battered. There is a large symbol on the stone disk blocking the path to the building. It was a forbidden symbol, but has been broken in half—clearly deliberately.

This seems like an ideal place for a necromancer. There could be magical energy here, because both sides have valued it, and the frequent battles give a steady supply of bones. They decide to approach.

They enter a broken bailey. The exterior walls are breached but the tower still stands. They hear a grinding noise from an inverted stone bowl which rises out of the ground, and then two steel bolts slammed into Ashaltir’s armor. It sinks back into the ground, and the grinding noise starts again. The group all charges up and attacks the stone bowl.

Mreep tries to shoot her bow into the slots on the stone bowl. She shoots into the bowl, doing 8 points of damage as it pings inside. They shot more arrows and fire into it, and an imp crewing it came out. The imp talks to them and complained. It told them where they could find the necromancer, because it wants to get unbound. Runor wanted to kill it, but the rest of the group wouldn’t hear of it because it was cute. They found that this is the tower of the Great Bartholomex, and Bartholomex is three stories down. They went in, and headed downwards to try to find the necromancer.

They come down stairs, into a 30’ square room, with corridors opening north and south from the room.

After initially considering splitting up, Runor persuades them that they shouldn’t split up, and they decide to head north as a group. They follow a passage east, and while they don’t hear a voice, they feel the same cold feeling as they felt outside when the voice (the shadow?) spoke to them.

Humanoid figures made out of bones scrabble out of the weak light. They seem to be drawing bows. The cold is still there, and a voice begins to be heard, whispering to the skeletons.

Mreep charges into the darkness with her sword.

Ashaltir gets a critical hit against a skeleton and shatters it.

Runor zaps one with a sacred flame.

They keep hacking down the skeletons.

The shadow is still there, but it hasn’t done anything.

The Shadow says “Master, they are coming. The imp has betrayed you.”

They find 13 sp in the skeleton room.

[End Session 5]


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## CPaladin (May 13, 2021)

Session 6 (6/13/20)
[A new character joined the group--Finn, a human fighter.  He was only around for a few sessions.]

Tar-Skard 10 (cont.):
They open the door leading out of the room they were in. The next room, somewhat larger, was once a dining area, some time ago. The former diners are now just bones. The skulls have long teeth all the way around. Bartix begins examining the bones, while Finn immediately starts smashing them. The teeth were clearly artificially sharpened—filed into sharp points. Finn runs through a skull with his sword. It starts to get colder in the room.

The soft familiar voice says, “Ah… defilers! Defiling the bones that even the Master does not disturb. Defiling the bones of the old orc kind that used to dwell here. May their God curse you. May their god hear you!”

Runor says, “Ah, orcs! That’s what these were.”

Finn says, “We’re not defilers. We’re not necromancers. We just don’t know any better. We’re ignorant.”

Ashaltir senses evil, and senses a spot in the upper corner of the room that is mobile evil. She points, and her finger follows a moving point. Nobody else can see anything there, but they assume she’s indicating something real.

Ulgorio retreats out of the room into the passageway, and he sees something moving in the dim light, further into the passage. He shouts that he sees something, possibly undead.

Mreep attacks the spot on the ceiling, jumping up to try to hit it. She’s pretty sure she would have hit it if something were there physically, but her sword feels no resistance.

Ashaltir throws water up in that area, trying to outline it. Some water stops and falls, so there is definitely something physically there, at least sort of.

Bartix moves back through the north door to defend against the approaching creatures. Bartix sees a group of five shambling humanoid creatures. They are slow, and have a stench about them—they truly stink. Bartix slashes the lead one with his short swords, hitting twice. The first zombie falls apart before it can engage him.

Ulgorio stabs a zombie over Bartix’s shoulder, wounding it.

Runor casts hold person on a zombie, having no effect.

Finn tries to intimidate the evil spot, “If you don’t leave us alone, I’ll chop you into pieces so small that I can make a stew out of you!”

The spot flies downward and attacks Finn. It tries to touch him, and he almost feels like something almost brushed his hair, but it doesn’t touch him. It feels much much colder as it reaches out towards him.

Two zombies, including one that’s slightly larger than the others, tries to strike Bartix.

Mreep tries to hit the “spot” with her sword. Her sword just barely contacts something—it’s like cutting jello.

Ashaltir strikes the “spot,” getting a critical and smiting evil, doing a total of 40 hit points of damage. The smite causes a brief shriek of “Master!!!” before it falls in pieces of ectoplasm on the ground.

Bartix slashes again, chopping the big zombie to pieces.

Ulgorio stabs again, finishing off another zombie.

Runor turns undead, driving off the two remaining zombies.

The cold fades slowly from the room, but they continue to hear distant whispers.

Finn gathers some ectoplasm, and stores it in his backpack.

They advance forward, following a passageway as it curves to another door. Finn tries to detect traps, finds none, and Ulgorio opens the door. He jumps aside as a spear comes down from above the door at a slant and slams into the ground before retracting. Finn decides to bash down the door. At the same time, he wants to get the spear, which is metal all the way through.

They enter the next room, and there’s a dim, yellowish light from somewhere—not like sunlight, but like sulfur burning, and they can smell burning sulfur as well.

Finn immediately focuses on hoisting himself up with a rope, then opening the steel grate to get at the spring mechanism with the spear loaded in. He works the spear out of the spring mechanism. It’s a steel spear, nice and solid.

The sulfurous odor continues to waft out of a doorway to another room, where there’s also the sulfurous light. They proceed forward, and there are three upright urns of burning sulfur in the other room. As they get closer, they see scribed marks. Runor examines the runes, and he recognizes them as Shadowspeech, the language normally used on the far side of the border. On this side, Shadowspeech is only used for spells. Runor tries to read the runes, but fails—as he tries, the fire from that urn gets brighter, before dying back down. Runor casts sacred flame next to one of the urns. The sacred flame appears much brighter than normal. It flares up and it as if the two fires consume each other; the urn’s fire flares up as well, and then disappears completely for two rounds, and then slowly builds up.

Ashaltir is sure that the urns are evil. Ashaltir smashes one of the urns with her sword, and it flies apart. There’s a cloud of sulfur, and in its midst there is a small creature, very thin that’s released, another imp.

“Ah! I’m finally out of that place. I’ve been in their for years—decades-centuries. A long time! To think! Rescued by a paladin! I’ll never live it down. But here, take this. Don’t worry—I haven’t enchanted the money.” He gives her a small purse of 5 sp and disappears from this plane.

They smash another one, and a different creature appears. “Here, have my wine.” It holds out a vial.

“Wait till you break the third one—you won’t believe what happens.” He disappears.

They break the third one, a glowing symbol emerges, and the floor falls out. The glowing symbol is a chaotic symbol, but not a symbol of evil. It’s a holy symbol of Berta.

They end up down below in the next level of the dungeon, in a twenty foot square room.
[End session 6]


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## CPaladin (May 20, 2021)

Session 7 (6/27/20)
Tar-Skard 10 (cont.)

They start in a good sized rectangular room with some fragments of the ceiling on the floor. There are open passages to the north and east.

Finn randomly chooses north, and they head up a short passageway to a large, completely empty room, with not even so much as dust here. Ashaltir detects evil—there is a miasma of evil through the entire chamber. It’s not like the cold that they felt with the creature, but it’s almost like there is a very old evil here that had mostly faded away. It’s coming most strongly from southeast of them. They head easterly, but through the northern most of the three passages all that lead to the east.

After another short passage, it opens into a very large—some 100 feet square—with the remains of about a dozen wooden long trestle tables, collapsed from age. There are remains of long benches. And there are a lot of scattered bones—they’re just laying around, but there are a lot of them, both within view and dimly visible beyond that. This room connects to several passages from the west, but not the southmost one. There are two doorways to the north, and a passage leading off from the east.

Runor hears a distant voice say “Non lumen,” almost like a distant echo, and the light fades to a quarter of its previous brightness. Finn lights a torch—it burns, but it’s also dampened. Standing spaced apart, they can illuminate a larger area. In the darkness, they hear a rattling.

Everyone stands around, trying to figure out what to do. Finn ties his torch to his sword, to keep his hands free.

Ulgorio goes to the very edge of the light, to check the rattling, and he can dimly see a few of the bones—not all of them, but a few of them—assembling into skeletons.

The skeletons that are forming are of larger creatures. They’re the bones of ogres, and in one particular case what they think was a minotaur—it has horns and a bovine head. There are only 4 of them, three ogres and the minotaur.

Ashaltir smites an ogre skeleton, doing 22 damage. Ulgorio stabs another for 7 damage. Bartix attacks the minotaur, hitting for 9 total. Runor casts sacred flame on the minotaur, doing 6 damage. Finn slashes the minotaur for 8 damage.

The ogre hit by Ashaltir falls apart. Another swings at Ulgorio, and misses. The third misses Runor. The minotaur attacks Bartix, Ashaltir hits an ogre for 16 with a crit. Ulgorio damages it further but without dropping it. Bartix hits the minotaur twice for 15 damage. Runor hits one with a sacred flame for 10 damage. Finn misses the minotaur.

The one on Runor and Mreep misses, and Finn gets raked by the minotaur, but it misses with its horns again. Mreep drops the last ogre. Ulgorio does 9 to the minotaur. Bartix finishes off the minotaur. As his skeleton falls apart, the lights brighten back up.

A swirling white mist rises from his body and forms an image of a minotaur in a tabard with a sunburst on its chest. We have been bound for decades upon decades, thank you, thank you. “Holy priest, please sanctify our bones so we cannot be raised again.” Runor prays over the bones, and the ghost points with a misty hand at what was once a dais. “Beneath the dais, under the compartment, the master always kept a few things. Neither he nor we will need them again. Victory to the Light!”

Finn pulls the trestle table off the dais. There’s an inset stone with a locking mechanism, clearly the location that he was referring to. There’s a lock, but Finn breaks the lock with a bolt. He pulls out a thin box. There are 60 sp, a Glordiadelian prayer book, a solid silver dagger, four potions, and a tightly wound scroll. The scroll is clearly magical, but most people can’t read it. Ulgorio realizes that it’s a Glitterdust scroll.

In the room to the northeast, there are a whole bunch of racks, now empty, with rust on the floor, and a trickle of water coming in. Finn searches around in the old weapons racks, possibly where they racked their weapons while they ate dinner. Most of the skeletons had no weapons, so maybe they left them here while they ate.

They travel northwest, and they see a set of stairs leading down. They go down those stairs and enter a very long corridor heading eastwards before reaching a door with a few passages leading off to the south. There is a single torch stuck in the right hand wall. It doesn’t seem to be made of wood, but it is on fire and producing light. Finn examines it carefully. He realizes that there is some sort of flexible copper tube running from that into the wall. It looks like it’s an oil lamp. Runor is positive that there were dwarves involved when this castle was built. The torch is a dwarven oil lamp, with an oil reservoir. But this is not a fortification anyone mentioned. It’s obviously been unused for hundreds of years, but the border has shifted. Perhaps it was once a border fort.

They take the first passage to the south, but about 20’ later it ends at a stone-covered well. There’s water in it. The water is clean and pure, and they drink and refill their water skins. They then move on to the next southerly passageway. It snakes its way south before it ends at a door.

They go to the end of the east passageway. The door here is locked. Finn immediately tries to bash it open. A voice from the other side of the door says, “Yes! Hit it harder! Hit it harder!” They hack at it and bash on it and it finally collapses. A person about 4’ tall with a very frog like appearance is jumping up and down and clapping. “You opened it! Aleep has been trapped here since Aleep got here. Aleep closed the door and it locked behind Aleep. Aleep is Aleep’s name.”

They talk, and Aleep says that he came to defeat the necromancer, too. He can avoid most things. But he got trapped, and he was almost out of mushrooms. The knight he was with didn’t make it—or at least he assumes he didn’t make it, because he abandoned Aleep. He hopes he didn’t make it—wait, that’s a terrible thing to say. Aleep is sorry. Aleep is a froglock. He offers to join them. He’s a minor mage.
[Aleep joined the party as a sorta party NPC.  Starting with the next session, I play Aleep, but taking a less active approach than I would if I were playing a full PC.  The goal is to be helpful to the actual players and add some amusing roleplay, while keeping the game focused on them.]
[End Session 7]


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## CPaladin (May 27, 2021)

Session 8 (July 11, 2020)
10 Tar-Skard (cont’d)

They work to set up a barricade out of the fragments of the door into Aleep’s chamber so they can take a long rest. Finn and Bartix work together on the task.

The night passes uneventfully—something clawed at the barricade, but left when they stirred.

11 Tar-Skard

Bartix and Mreep go in to scout. They both sneak in successfully. This is the basic chamber he’s in. There is an altar at the right of the room, where the Necromancer is busily raising more undead. There is a large pit in the room, filled with skeletons and corpses, surely intended for later work. There’s also a door to the south. There are also at least 6 fleshy undead in the room, on either side of the altar.

The altar has a sign of a rearing worm incised in it.

Runor recognizes that as a symbol of Urlodo, the Worm that Bores Beneath.

Finn proposes a planned division of forces. Everyone except Aleep and the rangers will rush the necromancer, while Aleep and the rangers hang back.

Mreep shoots the necromancer in the back, hitting him narrowly. Aleep casts Web on three of the undead; two are restrained, but one is not. Bartix shoots the necromancer as well, hitting him solidly. Runor runs forward and inflicts wounds on the necromancer, doing another 10 points of damage. Ashaltir shoots at the necromancer and misses. Finn whacks the necromancer with his metal spear. Ulgorio shot one of the zombies.

One of the zombies breaks free of the web. Another whacks Runor for 5 points of damage.

The necromancer heals himself.

Aleep blasts him with scorching rays. Then the necromancer gets shot with an arrow, finishing him off.

The zombies fight on for a bit, but Runor turns most of them and they finish off the ones that keep fighting quickly.

The skeleton on the altar is not animate.

The necromancer has 1 gold and 17 silver, along with two potions. The altar has a gold-chased dagger laid across it, probably worth a fair amount. There is also a flawed gem set on the altar—and there’s a bucket of them. It was laid on the skeleton. There are a total of 39 of them, probably worth 1-2 silvers each.

Runor immediately knows that this is an unholy altar.

They have effectively finished the dungeon with the defeat of the necromancer.
[End Session 8]


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## CPaladin (Jun 3, 2021)

Session 9 (July 25, 2020)
12 Tar-Skard

They split up the cash, giving Aleep a share.

They exit the dungeon, using Aleep’s leaping ability and some rope to climb up through the place where the floor collapsed.

Finn proposes going back to Circle Constance where they received the mission to track down the necromancer.

They travel back to the Circle uneventfully. They go to the tower, and they speak to a simple human who is a representative of House Hastur.

They show him the dagger. “That’s probably a ritual knife used for sacrifices. Won’t be used for that here, but it could still be sold for its gold value.”

“Here’s your reward for the necromancer’s death.” Hands them 100 silver in a bag. “There’s a goldsmith in the craft area—offer the knife to him, but hold out for about 20 silver more than he’ll offer at first.”

The goldsmith looks at the knife. “The workmanship isn’t of value to me, but I’d give you the full value of the gold. Say, 35 silver?”

Bartix pushes back, asks for 55 silver (after Finn says that they were warned that they’d be scammed out of 20 silver.) Finally, the goldsmith counts out 55 silver.

Finn also wants to sell the metal spear, but concludes that if he can’t really get new weapons, he should keep it.

They also seek out a mage to have the potions examined. There are a group of magi who help the Hastur defend the line. This is two doses of a potion of invisibility, and this one—very useful—two doses of cure serious wounds.

Runor observes that it seems like whoever made these expected them and one other person to need to go invisible and get hurt. They talk about what that could mean, and Aleep suggests that maybe the cult has a priest, as well.

The group decides to scour the desert for more signs of the remainder of this cult.

They agree to head south along the border, trying to find more signs of the cult.

They travel south, and they come upon the bones of an enormous worm of unbelievable proportions. They are the ribs of a doyle that was killed maybe a thousand years ago; doyles are creatures of negative energy that only the Hastur can face. There are runes carved into the ribs in shadow speech, and they face towards the border. The 1st, 3rd, 7th, and 9th ribs have the carvings. They are recent—no more than a few months old. The other ribs are untouched.

The rangers notice that although they buried it, somebody had some sort of fire on the top of the ridge of dirt inside the ribs of the creatures. It was clearly there, and is clearly recent.

Runor suggests that they examine the 5th rib. It looks to him as if the sand under the fifth rib has been disturbed. The group starts digging under the rib. They quickly find a double handful of bone disks, each with a rune scribed on it. The runes are also shadow speech. None of them match the same words as on the ribs.

The sun is slowly setting.

Aleep casts detect magic as a ritual. Every disk, and the carvings on the ribs, detect as magic, and they detect as necromancy.

Runor saws one disk in half. By the time he finishes, the sun is down entirely.

As everyone focuses on the disks and the magic auras, an arrow slams into Mreep from the back, scoring a critical hit.

They hear scrambling footsteps and some rapidly approaching figures with swords. Ulgorio stabs one with a rapier. Aleep hits the archer, who is surprisingly squat and may not be human, with one of three scorching rays. Bartix charges and attacks both swords people, hitting both. Runor casts hold person and freezes one of the attackers. Mreep drops the other sword person. Ashaltir hits the held attacker.

The archer fires an arrow that splits into three. All three arrows miss and as they flicker into the sand they have puffs of greenish mist. The heroes then rush him and overwhelm the archer.

They take the last attacker prisoner.

They make a camp, and wait for the prisoner to become unheld. They find a holy symbol of Urlodo on him.

Bartix interrogates the prisoner. “Who sent you?”

“We came here to the tokens under the great lord. We did not expect interlopers, so we struck. We should have waited for more numbers.”

“Who is the great lord?”

“Urlodo. We are a cult, we serve him.”

“We had new tokens. The priest said that when we had tokens we should bring them here and bury them, so that more undead can be brought forth.”

“Where does this great lord live?”

“Urlodo? In the Abyss! But our priest lives here with us.”

“Why did you attack?”

“You were disturbing the sacred tokens?”

“Why do you wish to raise the undead?”

“That the border may move. We serve a mage, and a priest, and together they are raising an army.”

“Is your mage the one in the castle over there?”

“Yes, yes, he is ours. But he, like we, serves the priest. The priest goes back and forth. But you have disturbed the tokens, and delayed us by many weeks.”

“Do you know where the priest lives right now?”

“He is with his tribe in Shadow. But he has a way through—he passes back and forth through the Shadowwall.”

They tie the prisoner up, stripping him of weapons. They give the holy symbol to Runor. Runor defaces the holy symbol of Urlodo.

“Is the priest a human?”

“No, he is a Eum.”
[End Session 9]


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## CPaladin (Jun 10, 2021)

Session 10 (August 8, 2020)
[I think Finn left the group at this point]

13 Tar-Skard
They discuss whether to hug the Shadowline, or stay farther in from it and go near the fortress. They decide to scout around the fortress.

The first part of the march back to the fortress is completely peaceful. The next part is a little more exciting. A small train of people are marching along, a cleric with a sun disk and a group of companions scattering dust on the ground. They’re blessing the barren desert to make it grow better.

Runor greets the priest.

“We bear the light to all who would have it. It is our duty. What are you and your companions about?”

“Mainly getting creatures that have crossed from the Shadowlands.”

“Ah, you’re a patrol. Very important. Just last week Father Patrick was set upon by a group of Eum that had somehow crossed the border. He was badly hurt, though he lived, and lost two companions.”

They are blessed by Glordiadel for another 24 hours.

“We must move on. We have a certain amount of territory to cover each day.”

They camp for the night. Aleep suggests that if we could find the tunnel and close it, it would be really valuable.

The group agrees that the next morning, they’ll close in towards the border, and then patrol along the border, looking for tunnel mouths and signs in the sand or dirt of disturbances or footprints.

The night passes uneventfully, though they see a fire burning on the far side of the Shadowline.

14 Tar-Skard
The next morning they travel along the Shadowline, looking for signs of the tunnel.

The next morning, they see dust rising up, from further west, moving north (away from the Shadowline). It’s moving fast, at an angle that would take it to the Hastur circle.

The group heads towards it, to find out what it is. At an incredible distance, Runor feels overwhelmed by a sense of evil.

They are riding hard, not galloping but riding fast at a steady pace. There is a heavily armored humanoid, in baroque armor, with a banner with a curled worm or snake. There are a half-dozen yellow humanoids running literally in the dust of the horse, carrying light weapons and a few scattered pieces of armor. But it is the individual on the horse that is emanating evil. The sharp-eyed rangers can tell that the horse isn’t alive. It has skin stretched over its bones, but it is a skeletal horse.

Bartix fires an arrow at him, but misses so completely that the figure doesn’t notice at all.

The group decides to warn the Circle, so they gallop north riding hard trying to beat him to the Circle. They gallop up to the Circle, the horses exhausted.

They report to the first officer they see.

“A knight of Chaos? It has been a while since one of those made it through the line without setting off the alarm. I will inform the Tower.”

A group of magi float out to meet him.

They then float back. Bartix asks if they stopped him. “We have eradicated him. He was a knight of Urlodo. He was a great threat.” The Hastur reward all the PCs with 50 silver each.

“How did he get through the border, do you think? The wards should have lit up.”

“What if he passed through a different region’s Shadowwall, and then travelled.”

“What if the Shadowwall is broken?” the PCs ask.

“That would be very serious, very serious indeed. It strikes us as very unlikely, though.”

The group decides to follow the knight’s path backwards to reach the Shadowline, to see if there’s any breach they can find. Midway down the path, they find what’s left of the horseman, his horse, and the footmen. They are very very dead. The path where the dust was churned up by the horse is easy to find, at least for the rangers. They follow it directly back towards the Shadowline.

No more than 40 yards in from the Shadowline, they see an area where the ground has been churned up. There’s also a small group of eums—between 3 and 6 yellow eums—posing as rocks around the dunes. They are just there, quietly waiting.

Mreep scouts forward. The disturbance is definitely the mouth of a tunnel. And the Eums are definitely guarding the mouth of the tunnel. There are definitely at least 4 eums, and there are another two rocks that Mreep thinks are eums.

The PCs sneak close, then charge the eums from surprise. Two are dead before they even react. The eums roll low on initiative, so the PCs pound them for a second round. Two more die, and a fifth gets knocked out by a Sleep spell. The leader, off to the side, still uninjured, makes the hideous error of running directly through the Shadowline. There is a flair of runes across the surface of it, and he’s incinerated.

They now have possession of the mouth of the tunnel.
[End Session 10]


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## CPaladin (Jun 18, 2021)

Session 11 (August 22, 2020)
15 Tar-Skard
They have possession of the mouth of a tunnel traveling east into Shadow.

They start to head into the tunnel. Mreep, Ashaltir, Ulgorio, Runor, Aleep, and Bartix bringing up the rear. The tunnel is crudely built, with wood supports that would be easy to collapse, and it exits a long distance away—about 1000 yards. It emerges into the gray haze of the Shadow, with no real sunlight, dust everywhere, and a large hulking fortress some quarter-mile away, with limp banners hanging from its ramparts. There is some speculation that the castle may be where the priest was from. The fortress is north of them.

To their east, further into Shadow, they see three groups moving in the distance.

The group decides to head towards the fort; some of the party are confident in their ability to handle threats, some are afraid of the dangers of Shadow. The group tries to be stealthy and to sneak up.

The fortification is gray, as is the plain of dust. There are repetitive thumps, thuds, and ringings from within the fortification. As they approach, Mreep notes that there are humanoid figures scattered about the top of the wall, marching back and forth. They’re not regularly spaced, but they’re definitely patrolling the wall.

At that point, the group decides to head back to the Circle to report.

The return to the Circle is uneventful. The same captain, still on duty, greets them.

They report. The captain says, “One of the dragonfortresses. We should seal that up. I wonder if that’s how the priest is travelling back and forth.”

The captain considers. “We could seal that up immediately. Or we could temporarily leave it open, and you could ambush the priest the next time he comes through.”

Everyone agrees to ambush the priest.

They return and set up a cold camp at the mouth of the tunnel. A small chubby humanoid with little tiny wings flies out of the tunnel mouth and looks around, and he takes a deep breath. Runor and Bartix are staring at him. Runor is absolutely sure this is a quasit, the least powerful form of demons. They’re very minor demons.

Bartix tries to sneak up to grab him. He bounces up and grabs him. As he’s being dragged to the ground, he’s saying, “Hey, what are you doing? Now you’re lying on top of me in your armor and driving all the breath out of me. Hey look. I haven’t taken any souls recently, or cannibalized any dogs. You should let me go.”

Bartix drags him back to their camp.

“Oh, don’t take me back to the Circle! They’ll incinerate me. It will be no more Bigglesnoz.

“That’s a dragonfort in there. That’s where my lord is, like your lords are in the Tower. My lord is a mighty demonlord. His name is Nightwalker, a servant of Orlodu, the Worm that Bores Beneath. He has ruled that fortress for… millennia.”

Nightwalker has an army. It varies in size. You try to control a group of Eums! And occasionally he has a demon knight, but they then ride off across the border because they don’t believe that they need to wait for the doyles.

They ask some more questions about Nightwalker. He’s a demon, like all the lords of the dragonfortresses except the great black dragons. (Runor fakes casting a spell to force him to tell the truth.)

Nightwalker started getting more powerful, but before he reached Balor status, he became a Lord. He stopped getting personally more powerful as much as he could, but started controlling more stuff.

Nightwalker became the lord of the fortress when he destroyed the previous lord, a minor Balrog, and now he’ll be lord until someone else destroys him. That’s how the lords of the fortresses work, except the ones held by the great elder dragons, which are too powerful for them to destroy.

They have a discussion about how the quasit can reform. He agrees to try, but may be lying.

They keep watching the tunnel mouth.

They hear the clanking of hooves coming out of the tunnel. Skeletal winged horses rise up out of the tunnel mouth, pulling an old style chariot, with a single human, in black robes, with a holy symbol of a coiled worm. The horses quickly settle back to the ground—they can’t fly very well. The horses start trotting slowly towards the fortress/dungeon where they dealt with the necromancer. The priest pays them no mind, but seems to assume the quasit is part of the guard posted by the Shadow to defend the tunnel.

The group attacks the priest, and the last attack on the surprise round is enough to defeat him. The driver, a skeleton, collapses.

The priest was alive but bleeding out, and they finish him off and take a trophy. (He was a 9th level priest.)

They bury the bones of the skeletal driver. They also detach the skeletal pegasi and try to take them with them.

They return to the Circle. The Seneschal of the Tower comes out to thank them personally on behalf of the Hastur, and gives them 50 silver each, and then sends a team out to collapse the tunnel. They have 2 undead pegasi, that can be ridden. They also still have a captive quasit.
[End Session 11]


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## CPaladin (Jun 24, 2021)

Session 12 (September 5, 2020)
16 Tar-Skard

The group discusses what to do. Runor suggests that they could go scouting in the Shadowlands. Mreep agrees, as does Ulgorio.

They plan on bringing food and water.

They go to the officer of the watch for the Tower to tell him that they plan on scouting in Shadow.

“Really? Let me speak to a member of the Circle. There may be things that would be particularly helpful.”

After a few minutes, he comes back with a figure in crystal armor, who he addresses as “my lord.”

“If you are going in, there are certain things that we would like you to find. The Council of the Hastur has a reason to believe that one of the great dhoyles has spawned within a few days of the Shadowline. Their spawn are more mobile and less detectable until they cross the Shadowline. If you fought a dhoyle, you would be dust within seconds. It sheds an aura of chaos and destruction—you do not want to enter that aura.”

“Take this crystal. You can communicate to the Circle with it up to three times. After that, you will not be able to recharge it without a psion. You must bring clean water, and we suggest concentrated rations instead of foodstuffs. If you’re careful with water, and the mission is no more than 3 days in and three days out, 4 gallons should be sufficient.”

They travel directly to the Shadowline, cross through the tunnel that hasn’t been collapsed yet, and they travel a distance within the Shadow. It’s not truly dark, but it’s gloomy. Everything is a dull gray. The dust on the ground, the air above, everything is a shade of gray. They can’t see any clouds above, because they cannot see that high.

The group has a standard marching order:
Merreep
Ulgorio
Ashaltir
Runor
Aleep
Bartix

They travel directly east. Off ahead of them and to the right, they see what looks like a small fire. As they travel, Merreep spots a group of humanoid figures—only 4 or 5—approaching from the direction of the fire. They continue on, as if they belong there.

These are orange eums—they look like yellow eums, but a little larger, and they look at the group, at the quasit, at the skeletal horses, and they ignore them.

They travel on another hour or so, and then a figure settles down from out of the sky. He appears to be a very gaunt human as he resolves. His eyes travel across all of them.

“Trueborn scum—should I not call upon you for tribute?”

None answers.

“What tribe are you, that you would not speak to one of the Spawn?”

Bartix replies, “We are not of a tribe. We’re demon hunters.”

“Demon hunters? Here?”

“Demon worshippers! Demon worshippers!” says the quasit. “See! We have a frog demon with us.”

“Ah, so you are renegades, thrown out of your tribe for some offense. Perhaps I should eat one of you as a vampire Spawn in service of Cartaluma, the Weaver in Darkness.”

“Are you Nightwalker?”

“No, I am not. Is he the one you worship?”

“Yes.”

“Of course! He gathers such as you together as he prepares for his push. It will be glorious. His encampment is two days farther on, while he waits for his dhoyle to finish bringing forth its spawn. If you wish to join him, press on.” The vampire ascends into the sky.

They travel until it feels like night—there is no night and no day, so it’s hard to be sure. They stop and make an encampment.

Most of the night passes fine. Then, in the third watch, most of the way through the night, a tall scaled humanoid figure strides into their camp, arrogantly. “Hail!”

“I have heard a rumor, that your group goes to offer your services to the hoard being gathered by the Nightwalker. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“I, a servant of Gnnnst, now ask you: what reason do you have to unite with the Nightwalker and not one of the other great lords? Can we entice you away? He will only waste your lives against the Shadowwall. It will be a great loss to Shadow after we have lost half of Caldefor. I will not stop you, but I urge you to reconsider.”

“What other lord would you propose we serve?” replies Bartix.

“Gnnnst would be my ideal choice, but you could also serve Carthaluma the Weaver in Darkness or the Lord of Disease and Decay.”

“Perhaps we should serve Gnnnst and then struggle against the Nightwalker.”

He is pleased, and gives them a single scale, that he says can be presented to any dragonborn encampment to get food and to hear the priest speak.

Bartix proposes actually throwing in with Gnnnst’s forces—he says that becoming part of the demon army could be good.

Runor opposes this as not what Glordiadel would want. Aleep expresses that he does not want to be in with the demon armies, because they spend lots of time killing and eating each other and he doesn’t want to get eaten.

The group splits up. Ulgorio and Bartix head off to try to find a dragonborn camp, while the rest of the group continues on towards Nightwalker’s camp.

17 Tar-Skard
Ulgorio and Bartix head off, carrying the scale, into the wastes away from the camp. They travel for most of the day, and then they realize that they are being slowly encircled at a distance by rather squat humanoid figures. Abruptly, 11 figures close in from all directions, out of the dust. They are paunchy, with distended bellies, large heads for the size of their bellies, armed with spears and primitive swords, and one in the back has fetishes that he rattles at them.

“Who approaches our tribe, and why should we not eat you?”

“We want to serve Lord Gnnnst, and we’re journeying to find his followers.”

“We are not cultists of his. Why should we let you go?”

“Because I could destroy you in five seconds.”

The shaman looks him up and down. “I think not.” It is the first time he has spoken. “You are water fat and food fat. I don’t think you come from the Shadowlands.”

“We don’t come from the Shadowlands, but we want to be demons.”

“Also, we can communicate with people outside the Shadow, and become spies.”

“You offer yourselves to become spies on the Light?”

“Yup.”
“Yup.”

“We will not eat you now, but you will come to our camp and I will consult with our lord. We have use for traitors.”

They return to a large encampment, and the shaman brings them to a large tent.

“What do you bring me?” says the elaborate lord.

“Two who dwell in the light and offer themselves to become spies.”

“What payment do you seek?”

“No payment, but we want to join you and become demons.”

“You realize that we are not demons. We are goblyns. You can become a servant to a demonlord, but you will never become demons. You are mortal, and they hold their privileges close. But if you would spy—we can pay you, and offer you well. What information do you have as an earnest for your services?”

“There are scouts in the Shadowland. And the tunnel into the Light has been discovered and captured by the Light.”

“That is a good earnest. You came with others, no doubt.”

“Yes, but they did not want to serve. They scout. They scout Nightwalker.”

“Pfft. They do not scout us. You must learn to be clever as a serpent. We serve Carthaluna. Return to your companions. Tell them you have had a change of heart. Then join them, scout with them, and return to the Light. Once you are back on the other side of the Shadowline, you will be contacted. You will be very useful spies. We will escort you back to rejoin your companions, so nothing threatens you.”

The other group has an entire day’s travel without incident.

They make camp. In the first watch of the night, a group of humanoids covered in greenish fur come to the edge of the camp. Ashaltir and Merreep are on watch. They carry shields and spears, and several carry lashes. There are 9 of them total.

“Whose are you?”

“What are you doing here?”

“We are slow players.”

“Oh. How are you doing?”

“We are… well. How are you doing? Nice horses. Where are you going?”

“To the next camp.”

“Oh. The big one. Yes, yes, some of our brothers went.” He sighs.

“Are you?”

“No, no, we are not stupid, we are not going. Yes, we know, he is new, he is powerful, the Nightwalker’s followers think he will be the one to breach the wall. But without something like when Caldefor fell, they will not succeed. I suppose we will not anger one such as Nightwalker by interfering with you. His camp is not far, another day and a little and you should reach his camp. You look like Trueborn—I did not know he was gathering Trueborn.”

18 Tar-Skard
In the morning, they decide to not continue on to the encampment. Instead, they send a message through the crystal reporting about the encampment; its location (3.5 days due east of the Shadowline); that it’s a very large encampment, gathered by the Nightwalker, because the Nightwalker is powerful and they believe that it will breach the Shadowline; that there is a great dhoyle and that the Nightwalker is waiting for it to spawn, which should happen soon; and that two of the people from the group left the group and sought to join the Shadow.

Ulgorio and Bartix get led back to near the main group. They cover themselves in dust and injure themselves lightly, planning on claiming that their offer was rejected and they were attacked.

They stagger out. Merreep shouts, “they’re alive.”

They tell their story, and that “you don’t want to know” about what they fought. Merreep and Aleep believe their story, but Runor is suspicious and watches them carefully.

They start heading back to the Shadowline. Midway through the day, they approach 4 tall, thin figures, thin but not emaciated, mounted on skeletal horses. They’re not pureblood humans, but they have some elven blood that Ashaltir can see. They are heavily armored, and have lances.

“Careful, cousins. There’s activity near the border. We have seen it. We return to the tribe because our champion foolishly crossed over days ago. He has not returned, so we return to our tribe to report him lost.”

The night passes without event.

19 Tar-Skard
They travel towards the Shadowline. They approach a small bunker from the rear. There are a half-dozen what appear to be humans, sheltering behind the bunker—it’s one sided and faces the Shadowline. It was not here before. It has a banner, with an ebon field and nothing but two red spots on it, that look kind of like eyes. They appear to be watching the Shadowline—they’re not paying much attention to movement in Shadow. They avoid the forward picket, and they go through the tunnel and come out on the other side.

They return and report again.

“We have spread word of what you have told us to the Keepers of the two neighboring Circles. We will gather energy while we wait for the attack. They will attack within two weeks, and they will have sufficient strength to break through the wall with the dhoyle spawn until it is slain. The lesser creatures will be dealt with by the military that we are bringing in now. We greatly appreciate your aid. We appreciate the risks you have taken. If you intend to continue serving in this area, we would be pleased to offer you quarters in the barracks here. We will ultimately triumph.”

They each get an additional 50 silver.
[End Session 12]


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## CPaladin (Jul 8, 2021)

Session 13 (September 19, 2020)
20 Tar-Skard

The group decides to seek a new employer. Things have not changed much from where they were. There are caravans heading back to Ravenskrag. There is a caravan traveling through all the way to Delwan, pretty much all the way across. There are some people trying to hire bounty hunters to bring back creatures they think are on this side of the line. And they could volunteer for the replenishment efforts by the border, which are pretty dangerous as they’re spreading fertilizer.

They decide to seek out bounties. They go to the local inn. There is a far more elegant man than they would expect, looking to hire people to hunt bounties. He is looking for harpy parts, and there is a flight of harpies further along towards the neighboring area, Pestisranic. He offers them 25 silver per harpy, as well as wanting their feathers (especially their pin feathers). The group accepts.

He seems hurried. He acts like he has a lot of work. He offers rations as well to motivate them. He does not detect as evil.

The travel is uneventful for the first day.

21 Tar-Skard
The next day, Clawy, the owlbear, starts getting very nervous, as do the regular horses.

The horse under Ulgorio gives a hideous scream and its back quarter shifts downwards into the ground. Ulgorio slides backwards off the horse. For a second it looked like the horse sat down, but its legs have been pulled under ground.

The horse is frothing in terror.

They can see that there is an insect with mandibles trying to pull it under.

Merreep shoots it. The giant sand lion attacks Merreep, and another emerges nearby. Ashaltir smites the thing mightily.

Runor creates a continuous flame and uses it to scare them off, then casts cure minor on the horse to prevent it from bleeding out. (10 bonus xp for the clever idea.)

22 Tar-Skard
Merreep and Bartix see harpies off in the distance, in the sky. They tell the rest of the group. The two or three circling are probably just watchers.

They decide to approach the harpies and to talk to them to ask for some feathers.

The harpies are surprised to be asked for feathers. They’re used to being hunted for feathers. But they’re okay to give feathers.

The harpy guards ask them to come to the camp to talk to their queen.

This is a large harpy encampment—some 50 harpies, roosts, eggs, child harpies.

They’re led to a really old harpy, sitting at a loom, weaving cloth.

"We would trade with you for these feathers. We would be paid in song. What songs do you sing, mighty bard?"

Ulgorio sings and plays a song of Godzilla.

The loom is massively magical and not entirely there.

She plucks a feather from her wing and gives it to the bard, asking him to keep it with his lute.

They receive feathers of 25 harpies.

"This is a loom of fate. It was a great gift to my line, from a priestess of the Lady called by Many Names, and Many Faces, and Many Aspects, whose character varies from day to day. I find it a good way to weave the future of my daughters.

"We were waiting for you today. We could not tell if you were going to attack or come in peace. But we waited for you. Because we could not tell, we did not flee, but only sent our few males and our youngest away. I could also tell you much of the one who hired you, but that you must discover for yourself."

23 Tar-Skard
Passes peacefully.

24 Tar-Skard
Sir Clarence is still here. He seems startled when they enter, and present huge piles of feathers. “You’re more capable than I thought.” He counts out 1000 silver in gold coins, that almost none of them have seen before. “I will take this back to my own employer. May I suggest you to some colleagues of mine for more jobs?”

Bartix volunteers that they never actually killed any harpies.

“I see. So the witch and her brood are still free? I will report the result of this. I suppose you deserve some credit for telling me, so I did not report false information.”

He snaps his fingers and vanishes.
[End session 13]


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## CPaladin (Jul 15, 2021)

Session 14 (October 3, 2020)

25 Tar-Skard
They look for a caravan going back in the direction that Sir Clarence came from, mostly hearing about caravans going to Ravenskrag, offering 4-5 silver per day (guarding empty caravans).

They decide to hire on with Misty Starfire.

Misty Starfire is a tiny winged figure, with a caravan that includes both normal horses and wagons, and a handful of small, winged horses. She’s heading to Ravenskrag, and then on to the coast. On the return trip, they don’t expect problems with bandits, but occasionally problems with Shadowcreatures.

Aleep and Ashaltir recognize Misty as a fairy. She’s scattering fairy dust as well as her wings and appearance—they’re rarely seen outside the faerie forests.

26 Tar-Skard
Depart in the morning, uneventful travel.

27 Tar-Skard
Uneventful travel.

28 Tar-Skard
Peaceful travel.

29 Tar-Skard
Peaceful travel.

30 Tar-Skard
They pass a caravan going the other direction. The other caravan says that they hit a problem with bandits about a day on, but cleared them out.

They’re traveling faster than normal—there must be magic in Misty’s pixie dust.

31 Tar-Skard
Uneventful

1 Zar
Uneventful

2 Zar
They rise into the foothills of the mountains. There is a shout and a group of humans wearing a pure white come charging out of the foothills at them, pointing their lances and charging.

Mreep shoots one with her long bow, and Ashaltir shoots the same target. He’s still up, despite two hits.

Ulgorio casts a cloud of daggers. It kills the horse on the right, wounds the rider, and he rolls to the ground and then regains his feet and starts drawing his long sword. Bartix shoots and kills that one.

Aleep misses with two scorching rays, but hits with his third.  His target continues to sway in his saddle.

Two of the guards miss badly, and the third manages to fumble and break his bow.

Runor hits the center rider with a sacred flame, and he droops over in his saddle but the horse keeps charging.

Mreep shoots the next rider for 13.

Ashaltir charges the last rider, deflects his lance with her shield, and smites him, doing about 25 damage. Ulgorio finishes him off with a cloud of daggers.

There is a pure white, almost albino horse standing there—the last survivor of the attackers. It drops its head and starts chewing some grass.

“How did three Pureblood get this far from the border? Charging hapless travellers 6 days from the border.”

Misty has no use for the horse, so lets the party take it.

By the end of the day, they reach the city of Ravenskrag. She pays them each 40 silver for their wages. She offers for them to sign on again to get to the Trade Cities by the coast. There will be no Shadow creatures on that side of the mountains, but bandits, I guarantee you. The PCs sign on, while she’ll take two to three days to get new cargo for the trip to the Trade Cities.

The PCs decide to stay at the same inn as Misty, which is a slightly expensive traders’ inn, but they can afford the 2 sp a day each.

3 and 4 Zar
The PCs just relax and practice for two days.

5 Zar
They travel on. It’s 12 days to the Trade Federation Cities. The 4th and 5th days are patrolled by the elven forest and have no chance of encounters.

7 Zar
The land they’re passing through has a fair number of fortified farms with fields and fields of corn and wheat. As they pass one, they hear cursing and crossbows being cranked and fired. They just press on, leaving the farmers to kill the plague of rats on their own.

8-9 Zar
Pass the elven forest.

10-16 Zar
Uneventful travel, before they reach a walled city, with a sign above the city gates: Mintalentelonde, All Welcome. Its name is bastardized elven, but it’s certainly not an elven city.

Misty pays each of the PCs another 60 sp. “I’ll be here some time before I head back—I’ll need a cargo that will pay me to Ravenskrag, and then either a cargo that will pay back or on to the Borderlands. Be careful in the city. It has a large cathedral of your god, Runor; and if the same count who was in power here last time is still in power, it’s the head of whichever merchant house is wealthiest, he’s in the 4th house in Merchants’ Row, should you need him for some ungodly reason.”

It’s a large city, some 70-80 thousand, mostly human, with a smattering of half-elves and a few elves.

Ashaltir, Ulgorio, and Bartix go to investigate Sir Clarence, and ask some questions about him. They head to an expensive inn to ask about him. They come to the Eagle’s Feather, which has a liveried servant to open the door. The common room is well appointed, with stuffed hunting trophies—including an eagle—decorating it. The common room is full, with mostly wealthy people. The doorman opened the door for them, but was a little hesitant. A serving maid immediately approaches them.

They ask after Sir Clarence. “He’s not a member of this establishment, but we know of him, of course. He’s the city’s magus.” She leads them over to a window. “That tower, on the hill? That is his residence. He belongs to the wizards’ guild, of course, and some other honorable societies, but his knighthood is of some other continent.” She waives her hand as if other continents don’t really matter.

Bartix and Ulgorio decide they don’t want to actually talk with him, because he might attack them, but that they want to spy on him. So they decide to spy on his tower. As they approach the hill, the structures become less elegant. The inn was in a more affluent area, but the tower looks much richer. Various people ask Ulgorio for a song, and he plays the Godzilla theme again. By the time they get near the foot of the tower, it’s clear that the buildings on the hill are slums. The buildings are ill-kept, the people look poor, but the tower glitters above it all. The group blends in as well as they can, which is reasonably well. There are a few small temples of Glordiadel that are well kept, but everything else in this area is ragged and ratty.

The tower grounds are completely clear of people, and there is a shimmering barrier around the grounds. The grounds are immaculate—cleanly cut grass, carefully tended hedge gardens, and totally empty of people.

No one in the neighborhood looks at the tower at all. None of them, ever. It’s kind of offputting once they notice it.

An older women, wearing silvery clothing and a silver veil, with a prominent sun symbol at her chest, is the one exception. She looks wherever she wishes, and she’s carrying a basket of foodstuffs. She goes up to the door of a house near them, and hands the basket to the person in the house, who bows and makes the sun symbol sign. “From the Temple. We heard there was need.”

She notices the group, particularly Ashaltir. She is clearly a sister of the Silver Veil. “Good day, travelers. Are you lost? You do not seem to be in a place I would have expected to see members of the gentry.”

Meanwhile, Runor, Mreep, and Aleep head to the Cathedral of Glordiadel, at Runor’s suggestion. The temple as a whole respects wealth, but it is not oriented towards wealth. This cathedral is a strange mix of styles, with some displays being garish displays of wealth. The merchant houses obviously compete by giving chapels, artwork, etc. A young tonsured priest approaches and welcomes Runor to the cathedral.

“I share the light of Glordiadel in a different place, but I figured I would visit the cathedral.”

“Would you care for a tour or to meet his eminence at the Anointing of the Sun?”

“I wish to ask a question of a certain man you may know about.”

“I will do my best to answer.”

“Do you know anything about Sir Clarence?”

“The Chief Magus? He came from overseas, he brought great wealth with him which allowed him to buy the tower in which he dwells; he became the head of the brothers and sisters of the magi in a very short time. He is a cruel and hard man, not a member of the faith. He has curried favor with many of the merchant houses. He is rumored to have gain much of his wealth by hiring people to hunt forbidden magic components—such as those taken from sentient creatures.”

“Hunting harpies would be forbidden?”

“Not by the city, but by the faith, unless they were a threat. He is also suspected of hiring groups to hunt for werebear claws, which is strictly forbidden by both the city’s laws as well. His Eminence might feel more free to speak about what the temple believes but cannot prove.”

Father Runor is introduced to the bishop after the service.

“Come, come into the vesting chamber with me.” While he is stripping off his finery, he says, “what do you need to know that I might know?”

“There are rumors that Sir Clarence has done unfavorable things for magical components.”

“You are certainly correct that there are such rumors. Most egregiously, he sought werebear parts, and hunting them for parts is the same as murder. What appears to happen is that he hires underpowered groups so there are no survivors, but they locate the prey, and then he and a highly trained group of his own men target the prey.”

Runor describes our experience.

“So he was using a tracking spell, not a tracking item. It will be long since dissipated.”

The gold from him has an enchantment on it—likely a tracking spell. The bishop suggests taking it to a moneychanger.

Aleep asks if the bishop could mock up fake werebear claws. He says that he could arrange that with his contacts, and that we should return in 3 days. The idea is to try to sell it through the black market to try to get evidence on Sir Clarence.


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## CPaladin (Jul 22, 2021)

Session 15 (October 17, 2020)

17 Zar
The group has reunited and shared information. They change their money (most for silver), but Aleep gets a letter of credit. The money-changer is a dwarven man, friendly, who takes a 2% cut.

They stay in the city, in an inn.

18 Zar
The day passes uneventfully.

19 Zar
In the morning, they hear about a botched attempted robbery on the money-changer where they changed their money. A group of burglars tried to break in, but there were good defenses—several guards and a stained-glass golem. One of the guards died, and several were injured, but the burglars were repulsed. Four of the burglars were killed, the rest fled. Runor decides to provide holy rites for the dead guard; on Aleep’s suggestion, he plans on telling the money-changer that he suspects this was caused by the tracing message. Runor also decides to cast speak with dead on the burglar.

There is a very minor temple functionary with the bodies, performing the equivalent of last rites. He is friendly to Runor, recognizing him as a priest. Runor takes over saying the words for the guard, before turning to the thugs.

Each of the thugs has an identical tattoo at the base of their neck that looks like a broken bone—looks like it could be a broken tibia. It’s the only tattoo any of them have.

Runor casts speak with dead:

"Did someone send you, and if so who?"
"We were sent by the Left-footed Man."

"What reason did he give you?"
"We were sent to retrieve gold from the money-changer that should not have been there. We would not have taken the job if we had known how good the defenses were."

"Have you worked for this man before?"
"Yes, the same man, in cowl and cover, has been their before, through the Left-footed Man. The guild will work for anyone who has enough money."

"Do you know of anything of Sir Clarence?"
"He is rich and powerful and would be able to pay the guild for things, but we know nothing of that."

"Have you ever hunted for illegal magical components?"
"We are the guild. We do not hunt animals—only occasionally the children of men. The Left-footed Man would not take any contracts to hunt for animals or monsters, but would hunt for gold. Apparently not so well."

The functionary says, “They’re talking about the Hidden Guild! The Guild of thieves, and possibly assassins. Why would the Left-footed Man want to attack a money-changer?”

Runor explains why they might have attacked the money-changer.

The functionary asks if they want to meet the Left-Footed Man. They say yes, and he says that one of his cousins could put them in touch with the Left-Footed Man.

Off they go to meet the functionary’s cousin. They end up in a tidy, well-kept, but not rich part of the city at a small house.

The matron of the house invites them in, and brings in her husband. He’s wiping off ink-stained fingers.

Runor says that we are looking for a guild that we have heard you have contact.

“You’re not from the city government, are you.”

“No. I swear by Glordiadel that I will not harm you unless you take action against us.”

“I’m an accountant! I don’t take action against anyone. But I do some accounting for some businesses that a certain guild has, and some windfalls they have from … special tasks for well-healed individuals. If you intend to hunt them, it will mean my life. But if you wish to speak with them I can set up a meeting with someone who speaks for them.”

(They confirm they’ll be meeting with the Left-Footed Man, and he cautions them to not make fun of the peg-leg he has in place of his right leg, though he has accepted the appellation “the Left-footed Man.” He lost it years ago in a misadventure with a land-shark.)

The accountant heads out, and returns a half-hour later with the Left-Footed Man—who looks more like some sort of warrior-type than a rogue, although he’s accompanied by two obvious rogues. The Left-Footed Man joins them for dinner (though his companions do not). Runor tests the food for poison.

“I do not go to temple often. But what can I do for the church?”

“I am looking into possible dealings between you and the people you represent and Sir Clarence.”

“Sir Clarence is a careful man. Mind you, I think it was ultimately he who hired us, that son of a bitch—we lost four men to that golem, and if it was Sir Clarence, he should have known that there was a golem. But the person who contacted me was a city guard lieutenant who shouldn’t have known how to find me, but did, and who has been seen in the presence of Sir Clarence.”

We mention Sir Clarence’s history of setting up groups to fail.

“I can’t question a lieutenant of the Watch. His name is Lieutenant Godwin. He’s usually on the east wall of the city with his men, but he’s been seen a lot with Sir Clarence. Sir Clarence’s rise in the city was meteoric, and many of us watched it closely.

“Anything I can tell you about Sir Clarence on the off-chance that he was the one who sent my men to die?”

“Anything you can tell us about the rumors that he hunts sentient creatures for magic parts?”

“You mean the werebears. That group has been allied with this city since before there was a city.” The Left-Footed Man clearly disapproves. “I would tell you this—the people of the poor quarter are terrified of him. Be careful of the wards of the grounds—they’re hidden and potent. He’s not a normal mage.”

“Not a normal mage?”

“He is a powerful mage, but he is not normal. You see in the middle of the night his tower glowing purple—he’s summoning something. A few of the local youths were crossing over into his yard. They were found, but they were never the same. We only saw it from a distance way, but it comes in purple light, it’s winged, and it left the tower.”

Ulgorio asks, “Did it look like a harpy?”

“Y’know, they did say it looked like a harpy, but more vicious. But it wasn’t the first time we’ve seen the purple glow.”

If he were a necromancer, he could be summoning the spirits of the creatures’ whose parts he used. But he would have to be a powerful mage, at least 12th or 13th circle, in addition to being a necromancer.

Aleep says, “if you want, you might watch the money-changer. There may be a second attempt, and you might be able to get some licks in at those who set you up.”

-----
The group goes to talk to the money-changer and warns him of what they think is happening. That gives him time to go to the Guild of Mercenaries and Slayers to hire more guards. He is pretty concerned about the idea of attackers capable of making it past his stained-glass golem.

They then go to talk to Lieutenant Godwin.

Runor takes the lead. “Do you have any acquaintances by the name of Sir Clarence?”

“I would consider him more than an acquaintance, but yes, I know Sir Clarence.”

“What would you consider him?”

“An associate in keeping the city ruled in a rational and lawful manner.”

“We heard that you contacted a certain guild.”

“You use the tools that you have to hand, even if you must destroy them.”

“We suspect that Sir Clarence sent you to reach out to them.”

“The money-changer had some ill-gotten gold that belonged to Sir Clarence, and he wanted it back. I was surprised that the guild was so messy in how it handled it."  Lt. Godwin pauses before continuing.  “Were you hear a few years ago? Then you know that the city was falling into disarray. Why was this happening? Because we did not have strong governance. Now the Lord Mayor is better than he was, at least marginally competent. But a lot of it is Sir Clarence. He organized the mages, brought the trade back—we’ve established law and order, but more than a little was him. I’m more than willing to sacrifice some of the riff-raff that tear at the city to finally end the internal strife within the city that is mostly between the magi will cease.”

“To put things bluntly, we believe that he is not to be trusted and has sacrificed many people to find magical components to pursue his goals and think that he hurts good workers—not necessarily people I agree with—but kills people who were following his orders.”  Runor changes subject.  “Are you a follower of the Lord of Light?”

“No. I am a follower of Lord Sytry. Order must be maintained.”

“What does Lord Sytry teach about necromancy?”

“The dead must be left at rest. Not even the resurrection of our dead is permitted.”

Runor tells him some stories about hunting down the necromancers and their cult to build Lt. Godwin's support for them.  The group then tells him that Sir Clarence has been implicated in necromancy, and that he hired the party to hunt creatures for their body parts.

Lt. Godwin is very troubled by this, and admits that he was a go-between to the guild from Sir Clarence. “Sir Clarence never said anything about his own faith, just that he was of Law. But necromancy? None of the lawful faiths permit that, except some followers of Paranswarm. This is very disturbing. I will investigate as well.”

“Do you know of any associates of Sir Clarence you do not approve of, but that he must associate with?”

“Yes. Some of the mages, and Lady Lillian of course.”

“Lady Lillian?”

“Yes. You would think that by now she would have been driven out of the city, yet there she is.”

“Who is Lady Lillian?”

“Lady Lillian was the widow of the old Doge. The Doge used to rule, with the Lord Mayor only a sinecure. She was regent when the old Doge died, and his son was too young to inherit. As the young Doge approached his majority, he sickened and died, and I’m sure she killed him. But even I have to tolerate her, so I may become guard commander and stamp out the heresy of chaos despite not being of the majority religion. But I can’t prove her guilt, at least not yet.”

Aleep speculates that this is part of a plan—to undermine the stability of the city, by causing the death of the last of the line of anointed nobles who ruled the city and maintained a stable government, thus setting up Sir Clarence to take over.
[End session 15]


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## CPaladin (Jul 31, 2021)

Session 16 (November 1, 2020)

20 Zar
The group discusses what to do. Runor is worried that Sir Clarence is too powerful to take on directly, unless maybe they could fight him alone.

The whole group wants to investigate Lady Lillian further.

Ideas:

Talk to Church of Glordiadel about Lady Lillian
Talk to Left-Footed Man
Break into her house and search it; they decide to table this idea for the time being
Runor, Ashaltir, and Merreep go to talk to Church of Glordiadel while Bartix, Ulgorio, and Aleep go to meet with the Left-Footed Man.

Info from Left-Footed Man:
Lady Lillian loved her son; she married for wealth and power.
Son died of a wasting poison, maybe magic.

He was approached by an albino with midnight black hair, definitely not a Noldar, perhaps a tiefling, about three months before the Doge’s death, about killing the Doge.He suggests contacting the old servants of the Doge, including Timulthius, who was dismissed.

The bishop tells them that three merchant houses approached them about a change in the Doge. The bishop also thought Lady Lillian could not have killed her son, and had no motive to kill the Doge. He is very worried that this might have been a conspiracy, especially of Sir Clarence, who is not of the faith and a foreigner, and not well liked by the common folk though he has brought order. The Church and the common folk would both like a new Doge. He doesn’t know how the Doge’s son died, but knows that the church healers detected for poison and found nothing. The church healers tried really hard to save the Doge’s son, but could not succeed. He tells them where the Doge’s son is in the Doge’s mausoleum, and implies that he’ll turn a blind eye to them checking it out. He also hires the remaining PCs (besides Runor) to investigate for 200 sp.

They talk to Timulthius. He tells them: it was definitely a murder, because the Doge’s parapet was warded (mostly against intruders, but also creates a barrier against falls, a five-foot tall invisible wall of force); doesn’t know if the wards were broken or how, no wizard ever checked them. He suspects one of the three houses that pressed the Doge for major concessions, far more than they should have expected, but they had no agents in the palace, not even ladies in waiting. The three houses (out of 15) that pressured the Doge: Lithala (under Lord Postra Taka), Sran (Lord Divinder), and Fooblu (Lady Safana). He also mentions that he was fired by the House Head, Delbambi, for suggesting that it might have been a murder. Delbambi also insisted on being the only one to care for the young Lord as he was dying. He had worked for the Doge’s family for 40 years, and had no apparent social connections at all. But he would occasionally leave the palace late at night; the servants posit that this was for licentious purposes. Timulthius offers to give the PCs a letter of introduction to Lady Lillian to check out the wards if they want.

The PCs go directly to the Doge’s mausoleum. It has a lockable door, but was not locked. They entered, and immediately a lithe form that attacks Mereep; most weapon attacks are bouncing off of it. Merreep wounds it, but not as badly as would be expected; also, it’s not bleeding. Runor does some damage with an inflict wound spell.

It looks like a small child, and then it sinks its fangs into Ashaltir, but fails to drink her blood. Aleep blasts it with a Scorching Ray, and it slumps to the ground, mouldering.

They identify this as the Doge’s son, a vampire spawn.


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## CPaladin (Aug 5, 2021)

Session 17 (November 14, 2020)

20 Zar (evening/night)
They’re in the mausoleum of the Doge.

Runor searches the body of the Doge’s son carefully for bite marks, and finds a concealed, repeated wound in the calf of the leg, as if he were fed on repeatedly but with the attack concealed. Runor speculates that Delbambi might be a vampire. He also speculates that the albino figure who tried to hire the Hidden Guild to kill the Doge might also be the vampire.

Ulgorio suggests that they question Delbambi, but make him go outside for the questioning, with no shade. They also discuss finding out if Delbambi looks like a classic vampire.

They discuss the palace. The palace is defensible—it’s not a castle, but it is defensible, and most of the windows face into the courtyard and are heavily shuttered.

They put the body back into the casket, and they seal it up as if nothing had happened. They close the mausoleum back up, and then they travel back to their inn for the night.

21 Zar
They travel to the palace. There are public areas of the palace that they can enter. There are clerks at work, armed guards, and the like.

They ask one of the guards if they can meet Delbambi. “He’s a member of Lady Lillian’s entourage. You’d have to go to the private wing for that.”

The private wing is more heavily guarded. There are more guards, and a single clerk with a large book (and a set of books) behind a heavy desk. They ask after Delbambi. “He’s presently waiting upon the lady. He should be available to meet with visitors in the small sitting room in about half an hour, when the Lady meets with the Council. Is this a personal matter or business?”

“Personal.”

“Who shall I say wants to meet with him?”

“Adventurers.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Very well. I must say, he has many more visitors recently than he ever used to. Corporal, lead them to the sitting room and make sure a servant offers them tea and bread.”

After a while, an older looking gentleman, dressed in elegant clothing, with garters and leggings. Ulgorio can tell that in addition to wearing elegant clothing, he’s heavily made up, including enough base to change his skin color. “How can I help you gentles?”

“We were wondering if you know anything about the possible murder of the Doge’s son.”

“It was a disease, not murder.  Not like the Doge's death.  I feel absolutely confident that my master was murdered, but it’s not something to be bandied about. I do not see anyway that the spells on the balcony could have failed, to allow him to fall.”

“We were wondering if we could allow any sunlight into the room.”

“If her ladyship ever ends her mourning, yes, but while she mourns, she refuses to allow any windows to be opened, nor any mirrors to be left uncovered.”

“Can we go outside?”

“I won’t go about the city, but we can go into the courtyard.”

Aleep prestidigitates a mirror, which he uses to check Delbambi. He appears in the mirror. He also doesn’t seem to mind the sunlight, but he is clearly aged—he’s probably more than 80, but made up to look like he’s 60ish.

“We saw the doge’s son—he became a vampire spawn.”

“A vampire spawn? A vampire spawn? No wonder the priests couldn’t heal him. That damnable merchant. Not bad enough that he allied with that outsider.”

“What merchant?”

“Recently, some merchants sought to pressure the Doge to make changes that would hurt the city, and would hurt its standing in the trade federation. When I was a young man, the head of House Fooblu was a blood-drinker, but I thought he was destroyed—the Church sent hunters. You have earned your pay—which of the groups I approached sent you to investigate this? Never mind—you have brought me this information.” He hands them a gold sovereign. “I will pay you for your service. You must hunt down who is responsible.”

Aleep asks Runor quietly, “Can we accept his money as well?”

“It’s a different quest, a different goal, so yes.”

Runor asks, “Was there anyone else who would have regular access to the son of the Doge once he sickened?”

“Not once he sickened. He kept to his room, and I was the only one who brought him food and drink, and it was within the palace. That raises questions, doesn’t it… Will you examine the boy’s room?”

“It might be helpful to solving this.”

He leads us to a young boy’s bedroom. “I will remain without, so you can examine it more thoroughly.”

There’s a large bed. There’s a highboy dresser with hanging clothes and drawers. A chest, a window leading into the courtyard, and a couple of small rugs. Only one door enters.

As they look around, one of them notices that the wall behind the highboy isn’t quite even, as if there were a door. They move the highboy and they can find that it’s definitely a stone door.

Ulgorio asks Delbambi if he knows how to get the secret door open. “That’s not something that’s in the maps. I’ve studied the maps. This must be part of a secret escape path—I didn’t know that the palace had one. But I had no idea—and this has been a child’s room for generations.”

Eventually, above the lintel of the door, they find a stone that can be depressed just a little, which causes the whole door to move open a fraction of an inch with a click.

The door now can be pushed open.

“So… It was coming in and out of the palace through this. And draining the boy’s blood after I was going to my own rest. What will you do?”

“We must go in and find where it goes.”

“I will post guards. I must go back to wait upon my lady.”

“Does she ever go into the sun? The courtyard, or the parapet during the day?”

“Not while she has been in mourning.”

“We’re worried about whether she may have been attacked and turned as well.”

“I’m going to assume not…. But she went through no sickness. And if she had been turned, would he not already have control of the house? But tell me if the passage also reaches her chambers. If you find evidence, though, you must bring it to me. And not just me—the bishop must know as well. I’m not sure I would have the strength to act against the House if it were necessary.”

Father Runor prepares a note for the Bishop, reporting what they have found: "Doge’s son was slain by a vampire, Delbambi assisted us and is not a vampire, some suspicion about Lady Lillian, going to explore secret passageway into the Doge’s son’s room."

They secure stakes and 10 vials of holy water before going in, in case they meet up with the vampire, plus a small waterskin full of water from the holy font of the cathedral. They also get torches.

By the time they return, there are some guards looking official there. The guards don’t look very capable, but they’re dressed in pretty uniforms.

The passageway is about 5 feet wide, and it winds through the walls to stay concealed. After a while it reaches a peephole, looking into an unused bedroom. It then continues, splitting left and right. They go left. Ashaltir is in the front of the group, Mereep, Runor, Ulgorio, Aleep, and Bartix bringing up the rear. It goes perhaps 30 feet left, and then the corridor gives way to stairs down, still only 5 feet wide.

The stairs go down and then end at what appears to be an iron or steel door with a barred grate that can be seen through. Beyond it, they hear water running. There’s a locking mechanism that can be manipulated by hand—at least from this side. It opens onto a metal grate over moving water. The grate looks old and rusty. The water stinks—probably a sewer. Once the door is open, the grate goes in both directions—left towards the body of the city, and right towards the outer walls and wards and the bay the city is situated on (where the sewer probably empties). The group think that the main part of the city might be more likely to lead to Sir Clarence or House Fooblu. There are some tracks, mostly going left towards the main part of the city. Some did come from the right, though. (They shim the door.)

They continue to the left. They pass another steel door, but this one seems unused for many years. Then, suddenly several figures rise out of the muck to the right and fling a half-dozen javelins at the group. Runor and Bartix get hit by the javelins, which do damage and have poison on them. Runor makes his saving throw.

The attackers immediately sink back into the water. Those were definitely grippley. They are capable of remaining underwater for a long period of time, and moving around under water well, though not capable of breathing water. They tend to be mercenaries, though some are in service to various evil powers. They are also often cowardly. Aleep casts web, into the water and catching the whole area but not the walkway.

They travel on, seeing a thin greenish light ahead, both in the air and on the walkway as we approach, from the ceiling down. Aleep is pretty sure that it’s a magical barrier. It should also be at roughly the outer edge of the circle around Sir Clarence’s estate.

The group returns to the doge’s palace, and this time follows the path the other direction internally. The hidden doors are very obvious from this side. There are chain ladders that go up to upper floors. There are two more secret doors on this floor, that do not appear to have opened in many years. Both have peepholes; one enters an elegant bedroom with suits of armor decorating it. The other is obscured completely.
[End session 17]


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## CPaladin (Aug 26, 2021)

Session 18 (November 29, 2020)

21 Zar (cont’d)
There are two chain ladders leading up, one at the end of the corridor and one in the middle. They climb up a chain ladder to a chamber with several piles of bedding, a pipe in, and some water pot. Under the bedding, there is a yellowing piece of parchment with a crest on it and a purse with 15 silver. They search the room some more. It’s pretty clearly a dead-end room.

They go back down and take the other ladder up, to a passageway that snakes around behind the walls of the third floor of the building. Runor keeps creating light with a cantrip, and Mereep notices tracks in the dust on the floor—recent tracks. They follow the tracks, and they pass two obvious secret doors that have nothing visible through them, clearly blocked, and then to a secret door through which the tracks go. Through the peephole, they can see logs on the far side of the room, leaning against the far wall. They finally figure out how to open the door and they wedge themselves around it into a large room, where something like a large bird is screeching at them. The logs are in fact large ballista bolts. There is a large door that leads through the lefthand wall. There is a large eagle chained to a stand, and screeching like mad.

Ulgorio casts speak with animals and talks to the eagle. “Why are you screaming?”

“Guarding! Guarding! Guarding! Guarding that door, and supposed to screech as loud as I could and peck whoever came through the door.”

“Who told you to guard the door?”

“Names are human things. The person who told me was human.”

“Was he a vampire?”

“Vampire is a human thing, too. He’s not a bat.”

“Was he tall and pale?”

“Yes, he was tall, and wore a very bland uniform.”

“Do you know why he told you to guard here?”

“No. He would feed me, then go through that door, then be gone for a long time, then come back and feed me again. It’s been a long time since he came through the door… I’m worried that he won’t come back. I’m getting hungry.”

They give him food to stop screeching. They also agree to free him.

“Did he have any strange symbols on his uniform?”

“Yes, something that was supposed to be a picture of a hawk. I don’t know why anyone would have a hawk when they could have an eagle, much more majestic.”

They show him the symbol of the house on the yellowing parchment, which has a stylized bird holding a sword, a sheaf of arrows, and a severed head held by its hair in its mouth; the eagle confirms that’s the same symbol.

Aleep works on the piece of parchment, trying to see if he can find any secret message or the like on it. Bartix picks the lock and frees the eagle.

“He said someone might come out through that hole like you did. But someone was supposed to come in when I screeched… but they didn’t.”

Mereep opens the door. It leads onto a crenellated parapet. There are some old ballista emplacements, but they don’t look like they’ve been used in a long time. The parapet goes all the way around the building. The entire center area is roofs of various parts of the palace, except for little buildings that stick up. The building next to us sounds like someone is sawing wood, but there’s no one going in and out of the building. They can also see legs sticking out horizontally.

The magic barrier is still up, making it impossible to fall. When they get to the place where the doge fell, the barrier is partially effective—you can feel it, then you can not feel it, then you can feel it again. The runes in this area—clearly within the barrier—have been deliberately obscured.

They look into the building and see three men sleeping, with empty bottles around them. They’re in the doge’s colors, and armed, but they’re drunk and not on guard.

They later find a second spot where the runes have been obscured. It’s not a spot that is commonly used. These appear to have failed from old age—weathered over time until they failed (although it could have been someone pouring acid on them). And here, there’s evidence that someone has climbed up and down on the outside. It runs down to a part of the hedge maze/formal garden outside the palace’s walls.

They head back out. The guards in the prince’s room ask us to meet with Delbambi, who left instructions for the guards to send for him when they re-emerged.

In the sitting room, Delbambi asks what they found. They show him the crest, which Delbambi identifies as House Fooblu. They also told him about the sleeping guards, and the person in the colors of House Fooblu who was coming in and out of the secret passageway. Delbambi says that he’ll see to it that the guards are disciplined and possibly replaced. Also, he says that he’ll have a mage repair and restore the wards on the parapet.

Delbambi asks if they’re willing to talk to Lady Lillian. They agree, and he leads them to a small chapel where Lady Lillian prays to Glordiadel for her son.

She seems very devout. They tell him that her son was turned into a vampire spawn, and then laid to rest. They also show her the crest of House Fooblu, and tell of the intruder. “There are not many males in that House. The grandfather, of course, was… The grandfather… Delbambi, summon the bishop. I cannot accuse them on the basis of a tall man wearing their crest. But I can invest you with the power of royal investigators throughout the city and the lands of the Trade Federation. If you can bring those responsible to justice, I can assure you that you will be well rewarded, and your fame known throughout the continent.”

They all accept this charge and are led to the presence chamber where she usually holds court. The bishop arrives shortly. Lady Lillian has Delbambi bring out her sword, which glows slightly but has a serviceable but worn handle. She calls for the group to kneel, and taps them each on the shoulder. She invests them as royal investigators and provides them with writs of authorization. The Bishop blesses them as well.

“Does House Fooblu extend beyond this city?”

“All of the houses have at least factotums in multiple cities. Some of the great houses, including Fooblu, have emplacements in multiple cities and are counted among the noble houses of each.”

Delbambi tells us to not hesitate to call on him, day or night, with information. They ask him how to find House Fooblu’s manor house in the city. He gives us instructions on how to get to their house—a shorter route skirts through Sir Clarence’s territory, but instead they go around. They come upon a well-appointed manor house. Guards in flamboyant uniforms patrol the area in front of the manor.

The group approaches directly and asks to see the Lady Safana as two guards cross their halberds to stop them. The guard demands why he should admit them, and Bartix says that they are investigating the death of the Doge and his son. He shows the writ of investigation from Lady Lillian.

“It’s genuine. We cannot bar your way. I will send someone to notify the Lady that you wait upon her for audience.”

They’re shown to a waiting room, and a considerable amount of time passes—enough that would insult a noble, but none of the PCs feel insulted. Finally, they’re led into the lady’s presence. The guards are more attentive than any of the guards at the Doge’s palace.

“The investigators from the Doge, my lady.”

“Enter and approach.”

(Aleep has prestidigitated a hand mirror, and is checking for people who don’t appear in the mirror. Lady Safana appears clearly.)

Lady Safana says that she knows all of the common knowledge of the death of the doge and his son, and that Lady Lillian seems to mourn deeply. Also, she knows that the Doge’s staff besides Delbambi is incompetent. “I can’t say I would know who would want to kill him. Certainly I wouldn’t. If my grandfather were still alive… but they did him in thoroughly.”

She happily strolls out into the square when asked, with a laugh. “I am not my grandfather. You see, young man, I do not fear the sun, though I do not worship its god. My house has followed the Lord of Orderly Darkness since the interregnum—the sun failed us, but the Darkness did not. It was the Darkness that covered our flight, the Darkness that protected us, and from the Darkness that we climbed up again.”

“Your servants wear bright and gaudy colors. Do any wear drab colors with your symbols?”

“Not anymore. That was my grandfather’s affectation. We renounced that voluntarily when we turned away from my grandfather’s way.”

They tell her about the witness’s report. “My grandfather brought this house low. That’s when we had to flee and hide, when we turned to Paranswarm. But the Bishop of Glordiadel reduced him to dust.”

“Is his body in the family crypt?”

“In the great mausoleum, in Easthaven. That is our traditional seat, though I prefer this city. It has more trade, and I like to keep an eye on my factor. But this place was bled far less than Easthaven by my grandfather and his spawn. I grant you my permission to check the mausoleums.” She offers them passage by a caravel in two days time, though they could ride there in the same time.

“Did you and some of the other merchant houses make demands of the Doge before his death?”

“Yes. He was tariffing goods unevenly, charging more for the families less closely aligned with his family. It created unfairness and made it hard for us to succeed.”

“Do you have any particular dealings with Sir Clarence?”

“Not like my husband did. He has been very kind to me since my husband’s death. The carriage horses bolted—I have never seen the like—and they were both trampled. My husband died, but Sir Clarence lived. We assumed they got spooked by something.”

Sir Clarence was not a coreligionist. She implies without saying expressly that Sir Clarence is not lawful, and she doesn’t know his religion. She knows he’s a mage, though of a different school from her, but doesn’t know his religion (or that he’s a necromancer).

“Do you have an heir apparent?”

“Not anymore. He went mad, suddenly. He is in Easthaven as well, under the best of care.” She asks that in Easthaven we check on her son in his sanitarium. She gives them 50 silver.

“Have the heirs of other great houses fallen as well?”

“Not in Easthaven, but there is a rumor the heir of Copervein has fallen ill suddenly as well. They have a younger one as well, but barely in arms. Copervein is primarily of this city.”
[End session 18]


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## CPaladin (Sep 2, 2021)

Session 19 (December 12, 2020)
22 Zar

The group travels to the cathedral again to meet with the bishop. They arrive during the rituals in the morning, and they can go to talk to him when the rituals end.

“We’ve come to ask you about the vampire head of House Fooblu.”

“That was a very unfortunate time, and an unfortunate circumstance. I was not bishop at the time—I was young. But he was ravaging the city at the time, at will, and the church sent a pair of paladins and myself to deal with it.”

“Go on with the story.”

“I was able to use divine power to turn him away from us, and then we were able to use a powerful artifact of the light to reduce him to dust. We still keep the artifact here in the reliquary. Any of the faithful may see where it’s on display for veneration.”

They ask to see it, and he leads the way. There is a case, magically warded, with a gold sun disk with a hollow center, with a burning glass in the center, incised with symbols of the church, which glows.

“We do not know why this fell to the Church to care for. Originally it was blessed to be used in battle, when a great knight died in battle with a mighty demon, that was also destroyed by its effect. I would have expected it to go to Tarkenia, but the knight was from this city, and it returned with his body.

“It reduced the body to ash, which blew away on the wind.”

“We were told that the body was taken to the mausoleum of the family.”

“There was no body—I can assure you it was not taken to the mausoleum.”

They discuss whether he might have survived.

“Were there other minions or spawn of his that might have survived?”

“He had two spawn at the time that we hunted down and destroyed. There have been no signs of him surviving or of more vampires since then, up until recently.”

The group speculates that either Sir Clarence may be the dead vampire, or may have resurrected or freed the dead grandfather.

“I can assure you the relic was and is real. But I wonder now if he might have used magical means to escape—but why would he not have defeated us then? He likely could have, but for the relic’s effect.”

The bishop is deeply concerned that Sir Clarence might have restored the vampire to undeath, but he doesn’t know if that’s possible.

“Perhaps a spawn escaped us. If it is him, he would have gained venerable power by now. But this one has definitely started to create spawn, whether him or otherwise. I do not know if they have yet gained enough control to pass in society.”

The group travels to House Copervein’s manor. There are ceremonial guards outside—they don’t look super effective.

They show the guard the writ. “We’d like to come inside to ask some questions.”

A house steward comes to talk to them. “We’d like to speak to the head of the house.”

“Of course. I’ll take you to his office.”

A man approaching middle age is sitting studying ledgers.

“They bear the royal seal, sir.”

He lays aside the ledgers. “Come in, come in. How can House Copervein help you?”

“We’d like to ask you about the sick heir of the House. We think it might have something to do with the death of the Doge’s son.”

“That was a horrible thing. You think my son is afflicted by the same thing? Great Lord of Light, do you think it’s a plague?”

“We think it’s vampires.”

“How would the Doge’s son know vampires? How would my son know vampires? Ferdinand, take the desk. Follow me. We’ll have to go into the House.”

He asks a maid where his wife is. He’s told that she’s in with the kitchen staff. “Can you tell her that I’ve taken some representatives of the Throne to see the boy?”

As they are walking down the hallway, Runor’s priestly senses leap into the highest alertness. Darkness falls over the hallway, as if the sun had been blotted out, there is a chill. And there is a shrieking howl that passes over them and away.

The lord of the house is now totally pale. “What was that? What was that? Why is this happening?” He rushes forward to the end of the hall, followed by the group, and rips open the door. As he rips open the door and starts to go in, a steel-shod spear comes straight through the door and into his shoulder. It does not look like a normal spear. He staggers back, bleeding, and slams into the opposing wall, and slumps down.

Mereep rushes up to the injured man—he’s nearly dead, blood gushing. She also sees men in the room—three of them heavily armored with spears. Runor rushes forward and casts cure wounds on the lord.

Aleep casts Lightning Bolt, catching two of the three. They’re both electrocuted and slump down with partly melted armor.

The last one drops his spear, pulls a dagger, and leaps over to slash the throat of the boy. Ashaltir slashes him with her sword as he steps away, staggering him with a holy smite with increased effect, but not quite dropping him.

The young boy seems either delirious or unconscious.

Ulgorio casts hold person on the last man, who freezes. Ashaltir immediately throws him to the ground and ties his hands behind his back.

The boy is still not responding at all. But in the lowest quadrant of his leg, there are toothmarks. His pulse is weak, but present, and he’s muttering to himself, obviously delusional. Bartix casts detect disease and poison, and there is a form of poison causing the delusion.

Runor casts a spell to remove the poison effect from the boy, who gradually, weakly, regains consciousness.

Aleep searches the room carefully for secret doors or ritual activity.

Meanwhile, Bartix begins interrogating the prisoner. “What is all this?”

“We came with the Master.”

“Who is the Master?”

“The Master is the Master, who else would he be? We follow and obey.” There is something unnatural about him.

“Does the Master have a master?”

“Yes…”

“What does the Master tell you to do?”

“Whatever he wishes. Often, we creep from place to place with him while he goes about his work.”

“What are you doing to the child?”

“He is converting him, to the true faith.”

“Who is the Master’s master?”

“A mighty prince, far from here!”

“Where exactly?”

A pause. “To the east. You have been to the east—I see its mark upon you.”

“How can you see the mark?”

“When one has been once to the east, the mark never fades.”

Ulgorio asks, “Where does your master live?”

“Somewhere you will never go, and live.”

“Is your Master or your Master’s master, possibly, Sir Clarence?”

“I cannot speak of such things.” (Bartix mutters, “It’s definitely Sir Clarence?”)

“What of the former vampire head of House Fooblu?”

“I cannot speak of such things!” He starts breathing heavily and shaking.

Aleep suggests that he may have a binding upon him, but that means that they are getting close to the truth.

“Do you have a spell on you that limits what you can say?”

“Yes! If I speak too plainly, it will tear me apart.”

“What is the true faith that you speak of?”

Heavy breathing. “The many lords of of the planes beyond.”

Aleep clarifies this means the Abyss, which means they follow the forces of Shadow.

“Follow? Or bound to by ties of blood.”

“Oh, are you a tiefling?”

“Yes.”

“And did one of you talk to the Left-Footed Man?”

“Yes.”

Aleep says, “I found a secret door!”

“I could have told you about _that_. Almost all of the old houses and great manors have secret passages.”

“What houses did you attack?”

“Only three were attacked. One was stupid and died, one was converted unwillingly to the true faith, and this one.”

They figure out that the second was the Doge’s son.

“The Doge was in the way.”

“Can you say who the third was?”

“House Velshoun. He realized what was happening, and he was a fanatic. He threw himself off a ship.”

“Where is the Master?”

“He returns to his crypt, to wait and grow in power. He has a magic that lets him travel during the day.” He begins twitching. “He has had time now to reach his crypt.”

Ashaltir casts protection from evil. It’s clear that afterwards, he will die from the bindings, which are too powerful for any of us to break and woven through his system.

Runor blesses him, and offers to hear his confession and bring him to Glordiadel. He confesses, horrifyingly.

At the end of that, he becomes dessicated and dies horribly.

None of the servants can be seen or heard. Lord Copervein promises to reward them, and agrees to bear witness.

“Where are the servants?”

A steward says. “I could not speak of it until they died. I fear the other servants are dead. They told me this was my last day.”

We look beyond the secret door—there are dead servants there.

“Why your house, the Doge’s, and Velshoun?”

“All three are in many cities. Ours and Velshoun here and in Easthaven. The Doge’s house in many of the cities, Easthaven and others.”

“We thought all of the houses had holdings in other cities.”

“Had. Now, it is mostly fiction. We trade among the cities. All the other houses only trade abroad. That’s where all the wealth is—trading what goods this continent has to other realms abroad, whence most of the wealth comes. All the wealth that enters this continent eventually ends up in the war effort.”

“So, those houses could, if turned to Shadow, bring down the whole trade federation, and that would cut off the supply of wealth and materiel that supplies the whole war.”

“I never thought of it that way, but yes, I suppose it does.”

Lord Copervein moves his son to a safer room, calls for the guards to equip with true armor, not ceremonial, and provides a reward: 100 sp for each, and a token of the family that will cause any in House Copervein to offer hospitality and support. Lord Copervein invites them to stay in House Copervein’s palace in Easthaven. He also has a weather mage there that they can consult if they need him.

They report back to Delbambi and Lady Lillian. They explain everything.

“And there were half-demons there, tieflings? I’ve heard of them. Well. You have done well. You saved the heir of a house. You proved your contention that vampires are involved. I will try to have delicate inquiries done about House Fooblu. We thought them uninvolved.”

We ask about the tariff discussion with House Fooblu.

“The issue is that certain houses’ stability in recent decades has been less robust. The Doge always paid the equal tariff with the other houses. But some doubted that, and if the tariffs were equalized, some of the houses would fail. We need all the houses to survive, for reasons that go beyond the oligarchy. Yes, some other houses paid lesser rates, but not because they were allied with the Doge, but because they could not survive the rates charged to House Fooblu and the Doge.”

“Do those houses that would not survive play an important role in the war efforts?”

“Yes. We need the central cities to take seriously that the border kingdoms and the trade federation cannot be the only ones fighting this war. But I do not think they will understand until demons are at their gates.”

They give the same report to the Bishop—he is horrified, as he doesn’t have the personnel to handle a major vampire here.
[End session 19]


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## CPaladin (Sep 9, 2021)

Session 20 (January 9, 2021)
23 Zar
They set sail on the ship heading north to Easthaven. The ship hugs the coast, following it north. The first day passes peacefully.

24 Zar
Another peaceful day of sailing.

25 Zar
Another peaceful day of sailing.

26 Zar
Yet another peaceful day.

27 Zar
At the end of the day, they make port, still with no difficulties. The port of Easthaven is much less busy than the one they came from. There are a few fishing vessels, a couple of merchant ships in port, and the like, but it’s a quiet port. An inefficient port official checks the captain’s documents, and discharges them into Easthaven.

They head directly to the burial grounds. The mausoleums and graveyards are the only part of Easthaven that doesn’t seem run down. They are scrupulously well maintained. A watchman confronts them.

The watchman directs them to where House Fooblu’s burial grounds are, in the north quarter of the cemetery. There are a number of mausoleums, with various towering statues of various… divine beings, and various simpler grave markings. The markings on the graves are in an archaic form of Common. As they advance towards the present, there are fewer graves marked.

It was a slightly cloudy day when they came into the city, but it’s now windy and more clouds are blowing in, with lightning in the distance.

Aleep detects magic, and finds diffuse magic throughout the area—consistent with weather magic. Bartix also detects evil, finding five spots of evil. He approaches one and indicates the other four to the rest of the group. The ground then bursts open, and humanoid figures with lightning bolts around them and grayish-blue shadows about them emerge. “What do you do in the ancient burial grounds of House Fooblu?”

“We are here with permission of the Lady of House Fooblu.”

“Present the talisman of the house.”

They show the talisman and the figures fade away, and the clouds part.

The more recent tombs are distributed to the northeast, and the family must be both rich and arrogant to spend as much on the burial of the dead. Finally, they reach a tomb with burial dates in the last hundred years. There are the names of several members of House Fooblu on it—a married couple, and apparently their children. It is locked. Runor smashes the lock with a hammer. The first blow is glancing, but then the second smashes the mechanism. They pull the lock out, and open the tomb.

The tomb is ornate, and larger below ground than above, with the crypt expanding beyond the tomb’s footprint aboveground. With no warning, swarms of rats emerge from the walls and envelope Ashaltir, Runor, and Bartix. Runor gets bitten and has lice all over him. Ashaltir kills some rats with her sword. Runor tries to crush them against his body with his armor, killing some. Bartix rolls on the ground. Aleep casts sleep, affecting 22 of the rats, while Mereep flings some of the rats into the wall.

A man in ragged clothing appears from the back of the tomb. “Grave robbers! Grave robbers robbing my tomb! Killing my pets, the guardians!”

“Who are you?”

“I am Bernard! I am the guardian of this tomb. I and my pets. Once I was the servant of the great lord, but he died, and his wife, and his children.”

“Was he the vampire?”

“Yes, he fell into darkness and then death. He didn’t mean evil. But the one who meant evil, who used him, has come back. I sensed him walking outside—I can feel him. He was a greater vampire, and a sorcerer of great power. He came to House Fooblu as an ally, and then my master fell into darkness. I think he has corrupted the guardian spirits the sorcerers placed here. He always sought power. He sought power when I was a boy. He still seeks power, I’m sure.”

Greater vampires have many spells—almost as powerful as a lich, and able to appear as a human, even in sunlight.

“He came as an ally, but I did not trust him. He used the name Peter, but I did not believe him. There was something off about him. But my master did not listen, and he fell into darkness. He mesmerized my master, and then fed on him slowly. Once he had fed on him for some time, my master became a lesser version of him. And yet my master never harmed me, nor his wife, nor his children, though they have all passed.”

“Do you know where he kept his lair, this Peter?”

“I will tell you if you wish, but I fear that if you go there you will not come back. It is only a day’s travel from the city. It was once beautiful on that estate, we thought, but it was only an illusion. The bishop should pay more attention, I think. If you follow the trail to the old estate, they are supposedly abandoned. But I don’t think they are—I think he has come back, to try again. I do not know where he went in between.”

“Do you know anything about your master’s great-grandson’s ailment? We were told he went mad, suddenly.”

“That can happen if one resists the mind control of the greater vampire. I would be willing to bet he has been exposed—the same thing happened to the master’s wife. I do not know if it is permanent or if it can be cured.”
[End session 20]


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## CPaladin (Sep 15, 2021)

Session 21 (January 23, 2021)

28 Zar
The group heads to the sanitarium where the son of House Fooblu is. The city was once greater than it is now, but it’s still a major city. The sanitarium seems unusually large for a city this size.

An attendant with a sun disk symbol greets them. “Checking in, or here for a visit?”

“Visiting the son of the House of Fooblu.”

“Ah, the young heir. He gets more visitors than all the rest combined! I’ll have someone take you to him.”

There are Glordiadelian nuns everywhere, from three or four different orders.

Young Lord Fooblu is sitting at a table in a private room, but he has a thin silver chain running from his wrist to a pole in the room.

“Hello,” says Runor.

“The sun rises.”

“We’d like to talk to you about any possible attacks or meetings with someone or some thing before this.”

“Shadows come, shadows go. They want to put a darkness inside me, but I will not have it. Shadows come, shadows go.”

“We believe that they put shadows into someone related to you, and that the one who tried to put it in you is still hurting others.”

“The darkness consumed, it will not consume me. They come and offer it over and over and over.”

“Do you know if they have gone to a different place recently?”

“The one who sends to me has gone to the capital. I tried to tell my mother’s steward when he came, but they do not trust my words. Have you ever been mad?”

“No.”

“In my stable moments, I do not recommend it. I wish they would stop coming. If they stopped coming, I think I might regain my mind.”

“We are determined to make it so.”

“He wants to rule. He wants to rule.”

“Do you mean Sir Clarence? Who do you mean by 'he'?”

“The darkness they want to put inside me. The one who wants to put it inside me is his servant, and he cannot enter here. So he sends his servants.”

“Where is he located?”

“In the cap—“ He goes into convulsions.

Aleep casts protection from evil. Two ectoplasmic entities literally pour out of him and attack us.

Ulgorio hits them with a cloud of dagger, and Aleep blasts them with a lightning bolt, destroying one. He also blasts the boy’s bedframe to bits in the process.

Runor casts a shield of faith on Aleep.

The remaining spirit attempts to possess Aleep, but Aleep resists the effort. The boy faints into Mereep’s arms. Bartix slashes the ectoplasm.

“Mercy lords, leave me incarnate and I’ll tell you everything.”

Bartix responds. “Well, then start talking. Why are you doing this?”

“I was commanded to after I was purchased.”

“Who commanded you?”

“A lord who I am compelled to not mention. He is to the south.”

“Was it Lord Clarence?”

“He didn’t compel me not to answer direct questions. Yes, it was! He bought a whole lot of us from a medium in a village south of the city.”

“Why did he do this?”

“Because the boy might tell things about being approached and offered great power to allow his great-grandfather’s spirit to live again in him. He refused.”

“Do you know anything about the vampire Lord of Fooblu?”

“He served a greater one, the same one that Sir Clarence serves. I do not know who that is.”

“Is Sir Clarence a greater vampire?”

“No, he’s a human. But he serves a master who is. And I think much of his wealth comes from that master. Oh, and he worships demons.”

“Do you know which demon lord he follows?”

“I can tell you what it looks like. It manifests a spirit form that looks like a giant worm. He summons a spirit form in his rituals.”

(The PCs speculate that that is Orlodu, the Worm that Bores Beneath.)

“Do you know anyone else who participates in Sir Clarence’s demon rituals?”

“I can give you an image. I don’t know their names.” He gives us an image of the people at Sir Clarence’s ritual. There are twelve of them, none of whom the group recognizes.  “Sir Clarence does his rituals in the city. The place north of this city belongs to the greater vampire. He can’t leave his properties. Bound to them. But everyone knows not to go there—maybe really powerful adventurers could, but anyone else would be doomed.”

Runor provides funereal rites for the ectoplasmic image. A few chords of music sound, an orb of light appears, and the ectoplasm passes through the orb of light and is laid to rest.

The boy slowly regains consciousness. He looks around in a somewhat confused fashion. “I think I should thank you all, but I’m not sure why. Do I know you all?”

“You were just possessed, and we saved your life.”

“Well, then I should thank you. Thank you. Am I in the Easthaven sanitarium? It has that look."

"What do you remember?"

“I remember being asked if I would allow my great-grandfather to live again in me. He was an evil, evil man. So I refused, and I invoked my favored saint. Nothing is clear after that.”

They call for the priest and the chief nun.

Aleep and Runor come up with a plan to fake young Lord Fooblu’s death, and to bring the priest and the chief nun (a mother superior) into this.

The priest agrees to the plan. “There was a time when the old Lord Fooblu was a generous and a good man. But not towards the end… I remember that.”

“Do you know who has been visiting him?”

“We have a registry, yes. I always assumed it was because of his family’s influence. The Fooblus are wealthy people indeed.”

The group gets a copy of the registry.

They have a great deal of insanity in this area, focused around the greater vampire’s estate, but dating back before the greater vampire came. There have also been horrible cults springing up in the area, that practiced human sacrifice. They were stamped out.

The group sneaks out through the window. They resolve not to tell anyone in House Fooblu here, but Runor sends a Sending privately to Lady Fooblu telling her that her son is alive, that they have faked his death to protect him, and that she should play along and not let Sir Clarence know.

The group leaves young Lord Fooblu in the monastery of St. Dillygaff-in-the-Fields. They then resolve to head back to the capital.
[End session 21]


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## CPaladin (Sep 24, 2021)

Session 22 (February 6, 2021)

29 Zar
They plan on heading back to the capital. They have a choice of going back by ship, by horse, or asking House Copervein for an escort. The voller tower is unused currently, and looks rarely used. The group decides to go back on horse, but with a cadre of House Copervein soldiers escorting the group and a single small wagon.

They arrive in the evening of the 31st of Zar. There is a raucous celebration going on, celebrating the Fall Solstice. The lieutenant with them seems very disapproving—he was highly religious—and apologizes to Father Runor for the circumstances that they must see.

Lady Copervein meets them in the courtyard of House Copervein as they arrive. The lieutenant reports to her. “The delivery.”

“I see. You have done well, and my friends return with you.” She approaches. “I’m glad for your safe return. Things have gotten interesting since you left. Lady Fooblu is in deep mourning and has her house shrouded. She intends to have a procession in his honor and memory. This has excited others. There has been more activity on Sir Clarence’s estate in the last three days than I have seen ever. I thought you should know. You’re welcome to seek shelter here. We are well aware of what you have done for us and you have our thanks.”

The group decides to report to their sponsors (Lady Fooblu, the Archbishop, and the Doge’s widow) and then to stake out Sir Clarence’s estate. They head to Lady Fooblu first.

The Fooblu estate is bunted in deep purple and black, and where everyone else is celebrating, this house is somber. “The Lady asked that you be brought to her on your return.” He shakes his head. “I hope the boy’s passing was peaceful. He was a good lad.”

“Thank you for all that you do,” she says, taking Ulgorio by the hand. She slips a small piece of paper to him in secret. She also gives each a small bag of silver (50 sp) to each of them. She talks nonstop, not giving us the opportunity to say anything until she’s sure we’ve gotten the idea. She then shoos the others out of the room. “Thank you, all, very much. Your news… you cannot imagine. I’m following your direction as best as I can. None suspect. I will make it up to my guards later for missing the celebration tonight. I am hopeful that we can… we are very fortunate that you came here when you did. Most of your stature are fighting at the line. I believe there is an incarnate demon loose in the city, and has been for two days now. If you wish, I can provide safety for you here. Or you could seek out the archbishop. But I am certain one is here, in human form. I maintain a medium, and they have let me know this.”

They travel to talk to the Archbishop, to warn him of the demon. En route, Ulgorio reads the note. “Friends, I have every reason to believe that Dame Belladonna of Irlu - who is in command of the harbor is in some way connected to Sir Clarence, my men saw her enter his estates twice while you were gone, without challenge.”

They make their way through the streets full of revelers, and reach the cathedral. They have huge trestle tables out feeding the poor of the city on the festival. A canon ushers them in and takes them to the Archbishop, Claude Flarvori.

“Lady Fooblu told us that Dame Belladonna of Irlu is connected to Sir Clarence.”

“She is in command of the harbor defenses!”

“Can you describe her?”

He does, and it matches fairly closely to one of the cultists they saw in the image with Sir Clarence.

Bartix tells the Archbishop, “A spirit that was under control of Sir Clarence showed us an image. It included Dame Belladonna and Sir Clarence in a demonic cult.”

“Very disturbing. But I can’t see how they could use the harbor—their ability in the water is very weak. But maybe if they were trying to smuggle something in or out.”

Bartix points out that Sir Clarence has grippley, which are sort of frog-hobbit hybrids, working for him.

The Archbishop pays them 200 sp, and thanks them for their service. He tells them that he has requested reinforcements from the Holy See, but that it will take time for Knights of Valor or similar forces to arrive. He asks them to continue working for him and to investigate Dame Belladonna. They agree.

They also tell the Archbishop about the demon in human form. The Archbishop says that he will notify the constabulary immediately. It will likely blend into the festival, among the people wearing fantastical costumes. The Archbishop asks the group to keep an eye out for the demon as well. He also says that he will quest for it with two church knights.

“If it is a servant of Orlodu, it is not a vrock. One of his greater servants could likely not disguise itself. So it must be a lesser servant, and cannot fly. If you find it before we do, and it seems a threat, do not engage. Raise the alarm and keep the people safe. Do not get yourselves killed.”

The group decides to wait until the morning to go to meet with Dame Belladonna.

1 O-Zar
The group travels to Dame Belladonna’s establishment, traveling past various snoring and disheveled people. The guards are bleary eyed and seem much less disciplined than the military around the Shadowline.

At the dock, the guards seem more alert. “Halt!”

Bartix shows the writ from the doge’s widow, and asks to see Dame Belladonna. The guard shows us to the harbormaster’s building.

There is no doubt when we see her that she was one of the cultists. She is in half-plate, sitting at a table, stringently questioning a man in merchant’s clothing.

The group waits for her to finish grilling him, and then greets her.

Bartix shows the seal. “We’d like to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind.”

“I can hardly refuse. But let’s make it quick.”

“Do you know anything of Sir Clarence?”

“He says he is a knight, though not of this realm, he maintains a sizable estate, which is a boon for the city, and he is no merchant though he engages in some minor trade. Why?”

“We suspect you have something to do with him.”

“While flattering, I have neither his wealth nor his power. And what do you mean by that exactly? Who are you, gentlemen?”

“Adventurers.”

She asks their names.

“Everybody in the city who hopes to get ahead has something to do with Sir Clarence, but I take it you mean something more sinister.”

“Evil plotting stuff.”

“You think I am plotting some evil thing. A take-over of the docks, perhaps.”

“Actually, yes.”

She laughs. “You are a bold one to accuse me of plotting vile take-overs with a man who is probably the wealthiest in the city, in my own duty station. You have the Doge’s seal. You could, theoretically, arrest me. But you would have to be able to prove a crime.”

“Of course, which we can’t do. Yet.”

She dismisses us.

“Aleep thinks, if Sir Clarence asked you to overlook some things, and you told us, that might just make you a witness if you told us, instead of a target if we found out separately.”

She remains dismissive.

They leave but ask some of the dock guards, “Are there any ships she insists on checking herself?”

“A few, ones that she doesn’t trust, and probably shouldn’t, that she does herself.”

“Any that arrived about two days ago?”

“Ayup. A bireme, heavily armed. Pirates, we think, but can’t prove it. The captain is onshore.”

The captain matches the description of one of the cultists. He is ashore currently.

Aleep casts detect magic and finds a powerful magic source on the deck of the ship, near the prow, along with a lingering magic in the hold.

The first mate, a chullik, says that the captain is crazy. “He has that strange stuff in his cabin. But I don’t think he worships it. But you think he’s in a cult, Father?”

The first mate has a tiny beaten gold sun disk on a chain around his neck.

They stop the gangplank, and ask the mate to take us to the captain’s cabin.

The upper deck of oars are shipped, and clearly used by the sailors. There are slaves chained to the lower deck. Slavery is illegal in the cities, but tolerated on ships if they don’t sell slaves.

In the captain’s quarters, there is a tiny statue of a marilith, which Runor immediately recognizes. It’s not Orlodu, but it might be a servant of Orlodu. It’s a demon statue. The altar on which the statue sits has minor lingering magic; there are various powders beneath that detect as evil, as well as an incense burner.

The first mate then leads us to the bow of the ship. “We obtained this from a strange merchant.” It’s a long rod mounted on a tripod. “If you stay near it too long, you start to feel weak.”

Aleep thinks it drains life energy through necromancy and then powers evocation magic. It’s not weak.

“What was strange about the merchant?”

“I’ve never seen something like that before, and I’m from a different plane before I came through the gate. It looked part worm and part man. The captain said that we would get to see it work after we left port this time. We had an important delivery to make. The captain took the special casket to wherever it is that he sells that, but said we would use the rod on our next trip.”

A very cringey man wearing the dockguards’ uniform is scampering in front of another man, dressed extremely well, and bringing him in this direction. The other man is striding along in speed, and is the captain of this ship. He is making as much speed as he can while maintaining his poise.

[End session 22]


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## CPaladin (Sep 30, 2021)

Session 23 (February 20, 2021)

1 O-Zar (cont’d)
The captain demands that the gang plank be lowered immediately. The first mate refuses, because he is obeying the group.

Runor claims to be working for Sir Clarence. The captain sputters, saying that he’s always made his deliveries on schedule and asks whether we bear his mark.

“We do, but we’re too far away to show it to you.”

“Then lower the gang plank and I’ll show you.”

“Sure.” Runor says to the chullik, “Lower the gangplank, but be ready to raise it again at a moment’s notice.”

As the captain starts climbing the gangplank, Runor says “Raise it again! Don’t let him on.”

The chullik throws the gangplank overboard, and gangplank, captain, and all splash into the bay. Dame Belladonna has exited the guard house, and starts heading away onto the mainland after she sees the captain has fallen into the water.

The captain suddenly changes shape, shifting from the man he was to some sort of huge sea worm, which dives under the ship.

Runor says, “Full speed away from the dock.”

The first mate passes on the command, and the ship starts pulling away from the dock. The sea worm is paralleling the ship, but there’s enough wind that they think that with the sails set, the ship is faster. Runor orders the sails deployed, and then casts protection from evil at the water ahead of it. With the sails unfurled, the ship shoots ahead of the worm and out into open water.

Runor announces that he plans on claiming all the cult stuff, and then scuttling the ship. Aleep suggests that they give the ship to the first mate.

They take all of the cult stuff, including the strange weapon, and they search the hold. Runor, Mereep, and Ulgorio go into the hold. Bartix, Ashaltir, and Aleep stay on guard on deck, while the new captain unlocks the slaves at the lower oar-deck, partly to get himself some potential allies if there are problems with the rest of the crew.

In the bilges, in the back of the ship, there is a small chest, locked in place. There are emanations of magic and evil from the chest. Runor decides to carefully open the chest. He cannot help but notice a tag written on it some odd language. As he opens it, he sees a set of odd, mottled robes, from which the magical stench arises. There is a flash, and a crouched thing that looks sort of like a cross between a bird and a man appears.

“What is the word of passage?”

Ulgorio immediately says, “Swordfish!”

“No. You have two more tries. Oh, how delicious. A priest of light. A ranger of elf-blood. Fortunate I am today.”

Runor says, “Hmm. What is the answer to a mind-flayer’s riddle?”

“Mind-flayer? I am no mind-flayer. What are they teaching you in theology these days?”

Runor recognizes that it’s an immature vrock. “Oh, I meant an immature vrock.”

“Thank you, now you recognize my plumage. Now, you must make your other guesses. I cannot leave until you make your other two guesses—or unless you try to access the precious things in the chest that we’re bearing to Sir Clarence.”

Runor spends a moment confirming that the vrock is evil, and then casts Inflict Wounds on the vrock. The vrock is hurt substantially (15 hp, about a quarter of its hit points), and then releases a burst of poison spores. Everyone saves successfully and no one is hurt.

Merreep asks if the vrock could be freed, trying to make peace.

“I can only be freed by obeying my master’s commands. I was commanded to guard this chest from anyone who did not know the password.”

“Well, maybe we can free you.”

“You are no mage. How can you free me?”

“Maybe we can figure it out. Runor, might you have a spell to get this bird free?”

“Oh… umm… I’ll check.”

“Alright, I’ll stop trying to eat you while you check.” The vrock settles on the lid of the chest. “I admit, it’s much more fun soaring through the air of the Abyss that being bound to a chest.”

Runor says, “Remove Curse might work…”

“I guess we could give it the old academy try… Go ahead and try. I can always eat you later.”

Runor casts Remove Curse on the vrock. He tries to remove the binding on the vrock. Runor loses every spell he had memorized, as an angel takes notice. The binding dissipates.

“I’m free! You’re miracle workers. I can go home. I don’t have to stay here. Do you know what this means? Thank you, elf. Thank you all. I suppose I should warn you that the skull at the bottom of the chest has a dangerous spirit in it. It could possess you, especially now, and it won’t be as kind as I was.” In a flash of brimstone, it disappears.

They close the chest up and take it with them, along with the rod and all of the cults equipment. They also give the chullik a writ saying that he owns the ship now, and with the former slaves freed, he now outnumbers the sailors who might be a problem.

The group lands on the coast about two hours north of the city and hurries back to the city. Shortly after they return, a guard slips up to Ulgorio, and informs him that they should go to the palace.

They hurry to the palace. They are passed through immediately to the Doge’s widow. “I’m told my agents stole a boat.”

“Cultists.”

“I suspected as much. I hope you didn’t scuttle it.”

“We made the first mate captain, seized the artifacts of the cult, and sailed off.”

“I hear the fanciful tale that he turned into a sea slug. He did not look like one when he spoke to me.”

“That’s true. He may have other forms, as well.”

“Well, I sent one of my servants to follow him when he and Dame Belladonna left here, and they left together. The servant has not yet returned. Some form of lycanthrope or skinwalker. Wonderful. I am increasingly glad that I hired you.”

They explain about the artifacts they recovered, and that this was linked to Sir Clarence.

“You should take the cursed artifacts to the Church—they will be better suited to deal. We would be pleased if you would allow us to continue to retain your group. This is a trying matter to need to be in charge of the city.”

They agree, and she says that she will make them permanent agents of the court.

A young man enters. “They entered past the energy wall at the edge of Sir Clarence’s estate.”

“Well, that settles any doubt about his involvement. I would like you to probe the energy wall under ground—it may be weaker than the energy barrier above ground. If you can find a weakness or some way to pass through, you should be able to explore the grounds with only the monsters and traps to stop you. We need to get you inside his estate, and while he continues to play my friend in public, he has ejected our agents. I loved my husband dearly, but the military discipline of the troops here is less than it was.

“I have exchanged missives with my sister, though she is on another continent. She thinks this is a long-established chaos cult, seeking to topple the Trade Federation to weaken the war effort. I have few agents. Do not engage Sir Clarence. Do not endanger your lives. But find out what you can.

“If you can successfully bring low this cult over the coming months, I will knight all of you that survive. I cannot increase the salary, but I can offer you that, and there is land between the cities that you could claim at that time. You should bring the artifacts to the bishop to be cleansed or destroyed. He’ll know which to do. I must meet with the heads of the other houses, to see what we can do to increase trade. I wonder if this captain is part of the cause of the lost trade.”

She hands them each a sack of silver as they leave.

They go to the archbishop and are immediately shown in. “Oh, you’re back. And you’re carrying a chest, which drips with evil. I take it your mission was successful?”

“Our mission was horrifyingly successful,” says Runor.

“These are the items from the ship?”

“There are two items of note. This, which drains life energy from those around it and then uses it to release energy. And then, in here there is a skull with a fierce ghost inside of it.”

“Possession by touch?”

“Yes.”

“We’ve heard of these. That, on the other hand… Could you go and get the supplicant, please?”

An aide fetches in a novice in a pure white robe.

He raises two fingers to the young man in the robes, who is completely covered by his robe, and is much more slightly built than a human.

“Is this of your people’s?”

“No, it was not ours. This was at one time a Noldar death lance, but it has been altered. I do not know how. The gems have been stripped, and it has been changed to no longer be of psionic use, but to drain life energy instead.”

“Hmm. Perhaps taken from a fallen voller? We stop it from draining life energy, and then send it to the schola for further study.”

“We worry that Sir Clarence intended to use it, to power it.”

“If someone used these runes carefully, it could probably be used to drain life energy quickly from human sacrifices, and then be charged rapidly and used. If we needed any evidence of how twisted these people are… We will break it so that it loses its ability.”

The novice spins around. “Your eminence! No! I do not think you could break it, but if you did, it would release all the energy that it had absorbed at once. It is high glass—you would be hard put to break it at best.”

Runor says, “If we cannot break it, perhaps we can discharge it so that it would be less of a threat.”

Mereep and Ulgorio recognize that it is somewhat like a battery, and used correctly, could be used to power spells. But that would be energy drained from other people, so it might have strange consequences. The bishop offers to keep it in lead, but will let the group take it with them if they would prefer. The group decides to take it with them.

The skull and other items in the chest, he will deal with. The robes, alone among the items, can be purified without being destroyed. He offers to do that. They are robes of magical puissance—they strengthen spell casting while worn, at the cost of making you look like an idiot.

The Archbishop blesses the group (+1 on hits and saves for 24 hours).

The group plans to go in through the underground route after waiting to the next morning.
[End session 23]


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## CPaladin (Oct 7, 2021)

Session 24 (March 6, 2021)

2 O-Zar
The group decides to head back into the sewers. To find a way in other than through the great houses of the city, they seek out the city engineers in the city government building.

They tell the engineers that they’re trying to find an entrance to the sewers, claiming that they’ve been hired to deal with an outbreak of oozes. They’re told that the easiest entrance is by the Seagate, but there’s also one on the market square, one near Sir Clarence’s tower, and one by the Farmgate.

Runor suggests breaking the entrance near Sir Clarence’s tower. Aleep suggests that we have it watched instead, to see who goes through.

The group discusses impersonating a different group of adventurers, and bringing a delivery of fake werebear claws to Sir Clarence’s tower. They discuss infusing the necromantic magic from the death lance into the fake werebear claws. They go to the Archbishop to see if he can help them move a curse onto the werebear claws.

The Archbishop asks, “Are you certain that you are ready to take on a mage of that sort of power?”

Merreep says, “That’s why we want to weaken him first. And we’ll be disguised so he won’t recognize us.”

“I urge you to be extremely careful. But yes… I recognize that he is a danger to the city, though that was difficult for me to acknowledge. And I hope…”

“You hope that we mostly know what we’re doing.”

“Yes. Yes. But it seems terribly dangerous to me, and you have been so successful, that I would hate to see you get yourselves killed.”

The group decides to try a practice run—perhaps selling a fake werebear claw without any curse on it. The group disguises themselves, using Ulgorio’s skills, and Aleep using an Alter Self spell.

There is a large building on the map next to Sir Clarence’s estate. The archbishop says that Sir Clarence had it built after he moved into the tower. It appears to be a warehouse of some sort.

The group heads over to the edge of his territory, where there’s an energy wall. There are guards near the inside of the barrier, which pulses with energy. The majority of the people avoid this area completely.

Merreep calls out to the guards, “Hello?”

“What do you seek here?”

“We have something for Sir Clarence. A werebear claw.”

“Ah. You’re here to sell parts.” The guard nods. He makes a gesture and an area of the wall becomes translucent. They go through, and he tells them to wait in the pavilion.

Aleep tests the lower the wall gesture and the raise the wall gestures, and they work for him as well. They are apparently just key worded gestures.

Ulgorio notices that there are a ton of guards in here, many more than we would expect.

Eventually, an officer or clerk in robes, but with a knife at his side, comes in.

“We have a claw for Sir Clarence.”

“On the table.” He puts on a loup. “Probably regular bear claws, passed off as werebear. But we can still make use of those. Here’s 5 silver. We’ll pay 3 silver for each bear claw, 4 silver for wolf paws, and 2 gold for any actual lycanthrope parts.”

“And then we could proceed?”

“We do our purchasing here except for Sir Clarence’s special agents. And his special agents tend to get greedy and overreach. You’ll do better in the long run if you don’t get greedy.”

He leaves.

We ask a guard about the large, well-built building. “That’s where we all stay. Poshest barracks I’ve ever been in. Of course, part of it’s for his special shipments.”

“How many of you are there? Is he looking to hire more?”

“There’s 160 of us, and I think he’s hiring more, but he isn’t hiring local. We were hired on Khamista, after the wars in the White Mountains ended and we needed more work.”

“So are you mostly Paranswarmian then?”

“Most of us, aye. Don’t know why he doesn’t hire from his own faith—it’s a Glordiadelian city. But we don’t ask questions, because he pays well.”

After they depart, the group discusses plans to break back in, defenestrate Sir Clarence, and then escape in the chaos. The plans are at best half-baked. They also discuss testing the gestures that raise and lower the barrier in the sewers and decide to head in through the Farmgate entrance, so that they’re as far from Sir Clarence’s tower as possible.

After removing their disguises, they make their way through the sewers from the Farmgate entrance. They then make their way through the sewers, though a different part from where they were before.

As they head through the sewers, Runor notices a patch on the walkway that is a different color than the rest and has many holes in it. Runor grabs Merreep and stops her. It’s bright green and full of holes, but it’s ten feet in width.

Runor casts mending on the area with the holes, but nothing happens. He then tosses a rock over it, to see if there’s any response. There is none. He then tosses a rock onto the walkway, and it plunges through into the sewer below.

Aleep jumps past. They throw a rope to him, but the back end hits the green area and immediately dissolves. He secures it to a rung on the wall. He then throws it back to Merreep, who ties it off on her end, and then run a rope harness around Ulgorio, who then makes his way across. They then get the rest of the group across, with Aleep jumping back to help secure it.

Having successfully bypassed the green slime, they then proceed forward until they reach the edge of the energy field. The gesture to make the barrier lower doesn’t work from outside. Merreep touches the field—it tingles, but it is weaker. Aleep checks whether the barrier continues under water. It does not. He swims under, then lowers the barrier. It works, and in fact basically disappears entirely down here. He crosses out and brings it back up.
[End session 24]


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## CPaladin (Oct 15, 2021)

Session 25 (April 3, 2021)

3 O-Zar
The group decides to infiltrate Sir Clarence’s area, claiming to be newly hired mercenaries, fresh off the boat. They come up with a backstory—they were hired in Tarsh, and they’re Tarshan mercenaries. Aleep uses Alter Self to look like a Tarshan human sorcerer, and Runor pretends to be a warrior and hides his holy symbol. They get rucksacks from House Copervein to make it look realistic.

As they draw near the barrier, we see another group of seven men, who look like they also got off of a ship, but are clearly from the north mountains of Khamista. The group talks with them, and blends right in—we know that they’re hiring mercenaries from all over, and they seem to think that makes perfect sense.

At the barrier, the others say that they spent five years in service to the Queen of Black Ice, but took to the mercenary life when discharged.

The party is told that they need to pick from among themselves an officer after they tell their story about coming from Tarsh. The group picks “Brunhilde,” who is actually Merreep. They’re sent to the barracks to check in and got assigned a barracks room. Everyone seems to totally believe that they’re Tarshan.

They ask the sergeant if they’re expecting fighting soon, and he says he wish he knew, but that the master has started hiring a whole lot more soldiers recently. Also, he mentions that the city militia isn’t worth a serious threat. They’re told the captain will be along later to review them—the group assumes that’s when they would get issued the tabards that serve as uniforms. The sergeant says that they’re going to form up companies, but Sir Clarence doesn’t seem in a hurry to do that.

The group splits into pairs—Runor and Aleep; Ulgorio and Bartix; and Merreep and Ashaltir—and goes looking for soldiers who are hanging out and gambling, so they can blend in and listen for gossip.

Runor and Aleep join a card game and throw some money around, deliberately losing a little. They totally fool the White Mountain soldiers that they’re from Tarsh, although the mercenaries want to gossip about things going on in Tarsh, which Runor and Aleep very much don’t want to talk about, because they don’t know much. When the other players mention the corruption of the former Tarshan emperor, Aleep asks if they’ve done any work for the Inquisition, and they say yes, but that right now, they’d rather work jobs like this instead of walking into the dragon’s maw with the Inquisition. They are all clearly Paranswarmian. Aleep, in his guise as Helmut, asks about whether there are chaplains, and they’re told there aren’t any official chaplains, but there are some priests in the corps of mercenaries. They conclude that Helmut must be devout, and Aleep plays along, making the sign of the downward arrow. He asks where he could find a priest, and they tell him, accepting that he would want to see a priest after a long boat ride.

Ulgorio and Bartix join a different game. They hear that some of the officers have been talking and saying that Sir Clarence wants to become doge and displace the dowager dogaressa, who is acting as doge. Given the quality of the guard, and the size of the barracks if it fills up, the mercenaries think it won’t be hard for them to take over the city, and then there may be good work as the new doge’s guards.

Merreep and Ashaltir join a third game. They ask where the forges are, and are told that it’s in the fourth subbasement—the barracks goes below ground many levels, almost to the storm drain, and then extends towards the tower. They’re told that the barrack is supposed to be primarily a warehouse, and if they go out in the city “to support the dowager dogaressa in patrols” they should say that it’s a warehouse. They ship in lots of supplies, but immediately ship out to the east anything except for food, which goes to the kitchens, and metal ingots, which go to the forge. There are also some special storage rooms below ground. They assume the barrack rooms below ground were built in case they hired orcs, but they don’t seem to have needed to.

The party regroups and discusses what they learned. Aleep suggests a risky plan: he could go to a priest, and pretend to have seen something demonic associated with the person who hired them, to see how he responds. In part, this is to possibly see if they could flip parts of the army by revealing that Sir Clarence is in league with demons. The group thinks that this is a good idea. They also think that the dogaressa should be warned. Runor and Ashaltir are unwilling to receive Paranswarmian blessings, so they decide to sneak out to warn the dogaressa while the rest of the group goes to talk to a Paranswarmian priest.

They find the priest as they were told, with a group of Mandrathian mercenaries. As they approach, the group calls over their officer, who has robes on under his armor and a visible holy symbol of Paranswarm and is clearly a priest. They tell him that they are newly arrived and want a church service, and he immediately leads them to a field altar that he has set up in the Mandrathian barracks room. He performs an abbreviated but complete Paranswarmian church service. The priest asks if they have anything to confess, and Aleep says that he is worried about something that he saw. He tells a story about seeing the altar and marilith statue (that they actually saw in the captain’s quarters) in the inn room of the person who recruited them to work for Sir Clarence, having inadvertently seen it through an open door. The priest buys it completely and is very concerned, identifying that as a demonic altar. He says that Aleep did nothing wrong, but that he was right to tell them about it and he will discuss it with the other priests. He also tells them that they can always come back to that unit with any needs. He gives them his name as Captain Bernardo, or Father Bernardo if they prefer. (They also cover for Aleep’s strange way of talking by claiming he had an accident with a horse.)

As Runor and Ashaltir try to go to talk to the dogaressa, they get intercepted by a junior officer, who tells them that there are already as many troops as are allowed in the city, and they can’t go outside until others return. They play dumb, and the officer asks if they’re part of the new group, and they say they are. The officer accepts that they just didn’t understand, and sends them back to the barracks.

They then try to find their way into the sewers. The sewer grates are all heavily soldered in place and are very secure. They decide to go down into the basements of the barracks to see if they can find a connection to the sewers. They make it down to the fifth sub-basement where there are some very quiet people pushing around some wheelbarrows and the like. They say nothing. Runor finds a door that leads into the sewers, to a familiar looking platform, but farther in than they have gone previously. They find the barrier, drop it with the gesture and make their way to a sewer exit. Some people see them exit but are only moderately surprised. They ditch parts of their disguise, and go to the doge’s palace.

Runor tells the dogaressa that they think there is a coup in preparation. She is shocked, but believes him. She says she will immediately send for troops from East Haven, as well as for the archamaga there since there is no powerful mage in this city besides Sir Clarence.

Having made their report, Runor and Ashaltir return through the sewers, re-entering the barracks and meeting up with the rest of the party in their barracks room.
[End session 25]


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## CPaladin (Oct 21, 2021)

Session 26 (April 17, 2021)

4 O-Zar
They go to the mess in the morning. An older, graying man in trim armor with the emblem of Vitrix-Henoxi stamped in his armor, approaches.

“An interesting group, an interesting group. What has led you here?”

“Brunhilde” answers. “The job offer seemed good enough.”

“It pays well, and we don’t ask questions. Have you been a mercenary long?”

“No.”

“Neither have I, but there comes a time, there comes a time.”

“What did you do before you were a mercenary?”

“I was a member of the guard of a kov in Hanal. My kov is no more, and so I became a mercenary. I brought my troops with me, and here we are. Do not take any work in Hanal,” the captain cautions.

He signals a lieutenant over, who issues them tabards and tells them they’ll need to show their skills in a room down the hall.

“Do you know where we can find out more about what we’re doing?”

“Nobody knows, though most of us suspect that we’re going to be part of an effort to overthrow the city government.”

“That’s what we’ve heard, too.”

“We’ve heard that Sir Clarence may not be as Paranswarmian as he seems.”

“My captain suspects this, too, and it troubles him. But the pay is good, and what can we do?”

“Is your captain head of all of us? Does Sir Clarence have his own man or woman as head?”

“He has a captain of his personal guard, but he leaves the mercenaries to ourselves. Captain Goddard is the most senior and experienced officer among us, so he was put in charge of all of the mercenaries. Only the Mandrathians are even close in experience. We fought our way all the way back to the kov’s citadel. He then ordered us to leave and to take his child to safety, but they tracked us with hounds—and things that were worse than hounds. It was terrible. The child did not make it, but we did. And so we came here, and that dreadful experience put our captain in charge.”

They go back to the room. Since Captain Goddard seems devout, they think that if they could prove Sir Clarence is in league with demons, they could turn him and the Paranswarmian priests.

They talk about it, and then Runor suggests scrying on Sir Clarence with Clairvoyance—perhaps tonight, when there are propitious moons for summoning. We think about the tower, which has a top floor with windows that bulges out from lower tower. Runor decides to try a test run, and he casts Clairvoyance. He sees an opulent room, with runes around the walls that he can’t see clearly, even through the Clairvoyance. The puce carpeting seems to be undulating, which might be a trick of the light. It’s very think carpeting. There is a variety of alchemical equipment, some of it on a thin table, covered in puce cloth, on a three step dais. There is a curved knife on the table and some other odd things, though no statue.

Runor switches to listening, and he hears a murmuring of voices. He can’t make out anything they are saying, but the sound is disturbing and seems to confuse him a little. He easily makes a Wisdom save. It seems to be coming from the floor, somehow.

Runor switches back, and after a little while, he sees a small faun or goat enter the room. It prances across to the table, seeming to be careful to only step on certain spots. Runor makes a map of where those spots were. When it reaches the low table, it transforms into a brown, 4-foot tall creature with fur, a bulbous nose, and wings. He recognizes it as a quasit. It picks up an alembic, with a viscous red liquid that swirls in it, and then carefully prances back out.

Shortly after the Clairvoyance expires, a sergeant tells us that in two hours we need to go to the display room to show off our martial ability and get our regular duties assigned.

The group discusses, and decides to tell the priest of Paranswarm, Father Bernardo, during the time in between. So the whole group goes to see Father Bernardo. Runor decides to pretend to be a not very religious follower of Dain, to explain why he doesn’t want any blessing.

The group pretends that “Helmut” scried on the room instead of Runor. “Helmut” describes what Runor saw, being careful to describe the quasit in detail. Aleep points out that it is a Lesser Festival of Mists tonight, which is magically powerful.

The priest says that the liquid could be red mercury, which some alchemists purify to create the elixir of life. Theoretically, it can be used to live forever, without needing to become a lich. He also says that the creature could be a quasit, which means that Sir Clarence might be working with the Ruinous Powers. He resolves to cast his own Clairvoyance. He tells us to come back after nightfall to discuss with him.

The group then goes to the display room. They see the captain behind a table, along with the mage clerk that they sold the bear claws to. They hope that the disguises fool him, but the mage doesn’t seem to be paying much attention and wasn’t at the previous occasion, so doesn’t notice that he might have seen us before.

“Each of you must demonstrate… wait, is that a lyon of Paranswarm?”

“We don’t know, she took oath not to speak.”

“Oh, she must be then, only lyons take oaths like that.”

“Each you must demonstrate your martial expertise so we can see what we’re capable of.”

The group talks among themselves. Aleep asks Brunhilde whether he should give a good demonstration, okay, or bad. She says good to impress them, so he casts a fireball that explodes overhead in the cavernous room stopping about five feet above their heads.

The mage suddenly takes a keen interest, and watches everyone carefully, examining the group.

“Magnificent! These would be wasted on patrols in the city, wasted in guarding the underways. We must find a better duty for them. They are brilliant, brilliant," says the mage.

“They are. What do you suggest?”

“The Master has asked me to find a group that could take a special shipment from Westhaven and return. I think they could do it.”

“The lord of Westhaven is no friend to our master.” The Captain’s lips curl as he says the word “master” as if it is distasteful. “But the lord of Westhaven does have great respect for adventures… Very well. I will instruct them personally and send them on the mission. You can tell your master… the master… that they are the best of the lot, and I will send them on the mission.”

The captain speaks to the group after the mage leaves. “I know that you have taken Sir Clarence’s coin. But as your commanding officer, I would take it as a personal favor if you somehow accidentally saw what was in the shipment. We normally send things to the border—we send food and things of value to the border. It is strange that something would be sent from the border to here, and for some reason, Sir Clarence does not want it sent with normal guards. I can send you with a homing pigeon. The master of the roost has been with me for a long time.”

He then wants them to leave immediately. We ask to see Father Bernardo before we leave.

Father Bernardo sighs. “You are correct. I watched part of a very unsettling operation. He is producing elixirs of life in very small quantities. With enough, he could immortalize himself. But he is doing it with the assistance of demonic powers. That was a quasit you saw. And it’s not the worst. I saw a vrock in the tower as well.”

“A vrock?” Marreep asks.

“A nasty buzzard demon.”

They tell him they’re going to Westhaven. He says that if they are not back in a fortnight—which they should be—he will try to convince the three cleric-led groups to decamp.

Helmut says, “Helmut think you might talk to Captain Goddard, too. Captain Goddard very devoted to dragon-saint.”

“Yes, he’s asked me to bless several things in the little time I have been here. This is a good idea.”

On the way out, they sneak over to the Dogaressa’s palace, to tell her about the situation and that there may be groups of mercenaries leaving Sir Clarence’s service soon that she might be able to hire.
[End session 26]


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## CPaladin (Oct 29, 2021)

Session 27 (May 2, 2021)

5 O-Zar
They head out to Westhaven, on horseback. The first day of travel is in heavily patrolled areas. Initially, we see as many people in Sir Clarence’s livery as in the Eastern Trade Federation’s livery. After half a day of travel, we only see Eastern Trade Federation guards, but they continue to look very sloppy. After they’re clear of the city, they take off the tabards of Sir Clarence, but remain in disguise, just in case.

6 O-Zar
Second day is uneventful. They don’t even see patrols.

They camp in a reasonable seeming field.

7 O-Zar
Uneventful travel.

8 O-Zar
Uneventful travel.

9 O-Zar
Uneventful travel. By the end of the day, the density of the farms has increased; there are tinkers traveling among the farms. The group draws some attention.

10 O-Zar
After a half day of travel, they reach the city of Westhaven. Westhaven looks much more military than the other cities of the Eastern Trade Federation. The walls are well maintained, there is a heavy steel gate which stands open, and there are smart looking guards at the gate. They wear the local city’s colors.

They’re asked their business, and they report that they are here to pick something up.

“You’re picking up from the warehouses of Master Finaster, then. Finaster’s warehouses are on the farthest quarter of the city, by the Intake Gate at the west edge. They’re the largest warehouses in that area, and they have sigils on flags nearly the same as those on your uniforms.”

The guard finishes with a banal invocation of Glordiadel, to which Aleep (posing as Helmut) responds, “And may the Lord of Darkness keep you Orderly.”

The group then bickers a little as they walk away about whether that was a good or bad thing to say.

This is a good sized city. As they travel through the city, a young lad wearing a sash with the city’s emblem. “The captain asks, that after you have attended to your duty, you meet him at the Tavern of the Six Bells, for a drink and conversation.”

The group hurries on to the warehouse. The warehouse was clearly unused for a long time, but it was whitewashed recently. There are a handful of men in armor outside of it, and a man with a clipboard hurries out to talk to you. “Hail there, ye group. You have business with Master Finaster’s warehouse?”

“Yes.”

“Who do you represent?”

“Sir Clarence.”

“Ah, one of the Master’s favorite customers. Has his own section in the warehouse for trade in and out. The Master will want to speak with you personally. Sir Clarence is very particular—had one of his own couriers drawn and quartered for losing a shipment.”

A well dressed older man hurries out when a bell is rung for him. “Are you here for Sir Clarence’s special package? You’ll see that the seals are undisturbed. It will be nice to have my two guards who were guarding these specific barriers.” There are lead seals with sigils on it.

Aleep casts detect magic; almost all of the sigils have divinatory magic on them, except the one nearest the lock on each, which has summoning. They appear to be just to prevent the caskets from being opened. The contents do not detect as magic, and they can detect through them, so there’s no barrier in place to stop detect magic.

Runor casts clairvoyance to look inside one. Inside the casket -- half of it is filled with carefully packed and sealed glass phials full of a liquid the color of brown smoke. The other half of the casket is packed solid with brick sized, tightly packed brick shaped objects that are stacked like bricks would be. These brick shaped objects are the brown of dehydrated plant matter.

When they start moving the crates, Master Finaster (who had hidden during the magic casting) comes back and has “Brunhilde” sign the bills of lading, which she does illegibly.

The group goes to the Tavern of the Six Bells with the caskets, which weigh about 80 pounds each, planning on getting a room at an inn to try to investigate the caskets further. The Tavern is a middle of the run place. The captain of the gate guard is sitting alone and waves us over. “I did not know that you’d come, but I’m glad that ye have. Take their orders, all on the tab of the good Lord Lydell.” He taps himself. “My master.” Lord Lydell is the head of the lead house of the city.

“Sergeant Brunhilde, are all of your men Paranswarmian like Helmut? I could not help but overhear his response to the guard at the gate.”

“Yes.”

“What do ye see in your service to this man?”

“Mostly, it’s money.”

“I tell you in my heart, that I cannot prove anything about the man, but there is no one here who does not shudder when he deals with them. He came here from the west. He’s been here a few times. Master Finaster seems to owe him a debt. But every single liegeman he has sent here has been a servant of the Lord of Orderly Darkness—a respectable sect, though not mine. I understand why he hires you—you have the reputation as the most lawful of all sects. You will obey without questions.”

“I urge you to be careful. One of his liegemen dropped an item. Broke something. Sir Clarence had the man executed in a particularly egregious manner. His incoming shipments have been getting bigger. His outgoing shipments remain the same—weapons and food for the front. But the incoming shipments keep growing, and the money for the warehouse has to have come from Sir Clarence. Finaster was a two bit merchant before Sir Clarence came.”

He describes Sir Clarence as extremely pale and emaciated. Sir Clarence dresses in either the most ostentatious of wizards robes, or as a rich merchant, with padding to conceal that he is emaciated. He had a thin face when we met him, but did not seem thin otherwise.

“Brunhilde” says that we don’t trust him either. She also mentioned that he was hiring a large number of mercenaries, for an unknown purpose.

He thanks us and suggests the Strangled Goose for good rooms.

The group eats dinner on Lord Lydell’s tab and then goes to take rooms in the Strangled Goose.

In the suite, Runor carefully cuts a hole in the side of the casket. He pulls out a potion and a brick.

Aleep recognizes the smokey liquid as a diffusible poison—very potent, and capable of being spread through water and remaining effective.

The bricks are tightly packed, dried vegetable matter. Ashaltir tells the rest of the group that they emanate evil and chaos. Ulgorio notices inside the chest a folded piece of parchment. He pulls it out. It has writing on it, and as he holds it, his fingers tingle, as if electrical charges running through them.

Ulgorio lays it down, open, and reads it. The parchment says:

   Sunsha'ill -- I am pleased to send you this shipment of death poison from the 9th layer and also a considerable lot of dried grasses from the plains of the 317th layer to be used in slowly influencing herbivores that you give small bits to so that they become destructive and violent.

   I hope that your plan works well - we will have victory, the turning will come.
   Ish'ill-tuvan

The names look like demon names. We’ve never heard anything like them.

Runor repeats the process of cutting a small hole in the other chest. The chest has more bricks, and more vials, though the vials are a slightly different color. Aleep describes this as a bizarre long-term delay poison.

The group prepares a message for the captain: “We have discovered half poison, half Abyssal hay, sent by (and to??) demons.” They send it back via homing pigeon.

They then put the items back in the chests, and use a Mending spell to repair the holes, leaving the caskets unmarked from their investigation.

In the morning, they’ll start the trip back.

[End session 27]


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## CPaladin (Nov 4, 2021)

Session 28 (May 15, 2021)

11 O-Zar
They awake in the Strangled Goose, and prepare to head back to the Eastern Trade Federation capital.

They approach a nest of venomous snakes, but Merreep spots it easily. They avoid it, although Runor casts a neutralize poison on the snakes just in case.

At the end of the day, they make camp and the night passes uneventfully.

12 O-Zar
Day and night pass peacefully.

13 O-Zar
Day passes peacefully.

At night, they see huge numbers of fireflies flitting around. They also hear distant carnival-style music. A certain number of the fireflies appear to be dancing in time to the distant music. Runor recognizes that the Violet Moon is full, along with the Silver Moon, and he concludes they are likely tiny fae instead of fireflies.

Shortly after moonrise, a tall, slender figure, with barely pointed ears and violet clothes steps into the camp.

“Hail, well met in the midst of the woods in the midst of the night. I must ask, because if I do not ask the Lady will ask: Why does such a band, bright in the light, travel in the raiment of darkness, and carry with you abomination?” They think that it is a sidhe lord, though they are not sure.

“We’re trying to prevent something bad that might otherwise happen.”

“Ah, but you have not said why you travel in the raiment of darkness.”

“We actually made camp, so we’re not traveling actually.”

He laughs uproariously, and then decides they should dance, levitating part of the group up into the air and setting them to dancing. They all dance for an hour and then float gently to the ground, exhausted.

He then says, “I don’t think you know that you are drizzling chaos and evil behind you.”

“We are?” they ask, actually surprised.

“Yes, I was sure you didn’t. If you had, I might have had to draw my swords—you know how it is. I will cure that before I go.” He draws a sigil on each casket with a crystal blade of grass. “Do not worry—the one you deceive could not recognize fae magic to save his life. Not that it would.” He then leaves to attend on a group of chipmunks that are awaiting him.

14 O-Zar
Day and night pass peacefully.

15 O-Zar
Day and night pass peacefully.

16 O-Zar
Expecting to arrive at the city this day, the group puts on their outfits. The morning passes uneventfully, and they approach the city on horseback.

As they approach the energy barrier, they note the city folks again avoiding the area, but also looking at them somewhat suspiciously.

The gate guard lets them directly through the barrier, and calls for the captain to inform the tower.

A captain hurries up. He is quite happy. “I trust your trip was uneventful.”

After a pause, “Brunhilde” says “Yes.”

He is clearly a captain, but not one they have seen before. He wears no Paranswarmian symbols, but has very shiny armor and a swagger stick. “I had feared you might have had a problem. But I have now returned from my mission—storms at sea, you know—and I see you have as well. Sir Clarence will be very pleased. I was concerned, you know, when I learned fresh recruits had been sent. But you must be fully committed to the cause.”

After a little more conversation, he says, “I know the intent for these materials. Let’s get them into the secure chamber. Come along.”

He takes us to a door we haven’t seen before, into the tower, and makes a highly complicated series of gestures at the door. Aleep is fairly certain that he got the whole series of gestures. So is Ulgorio.

“You there!” He gestures at a guard who leaps to his feet.

“Yes, Lord Ishulvan.”

“Fetch the keys. The delivery has arrived.”

“Yes, Lord.”

He gestures into a storage room. There are a group of sea chests there, and a space for the caskets.

“You deserve good compensation. Here is a bonus from me—50 silver. Go out on the town. Enjoy yourselves, get drunk or whatever you do. Report back in the morning.”

As they leave, he makes another small gesture and the door disappears back into the wall.

Runor thinks about the captain’s uniform, and realizes that he has heard of cultists of the Worm who wear armor like that, generally as a way of emulating servants of the Worm. The captain also had no religious symbols on him at all, which is reasonably unusual (though not unheard of).

“Brunhilde” leads the group to find the captain who sent them.

“I’m pleased to see you alive. Things have gotten a bit more tense since you left. Sir Clarence’s personal guard captain has returned. He has taken charge of many things very quickly. But I have heard from the people who have been here longest that he is in charge of everything. He apparently was away at sea.”

They ask for a private place to speak, and the captain leads us into the Paranswarmian chapel that has been set up by now.

“I think he’s going to move soon.”

Aleep asks, “The personal captain is called Lord Ishulvan?”

“I have never heard that name. We were given no name—told only to call him sir. I do not recognize that name, or where that name would be from.”

“I think it might be Ish’ill-tuvan. The name of the second demon from the letter.”

“That is very troubling. We are not permitted out into the city any more. Some troops have arrived from East Haven. But they are still not many, and they have no archmage to counter Sir Clarence. And if they have a demon as well to back them… If only we could get a message to the Bishop of Glordiadel.”

“We could take a message to the Bishop,” says Merreep. “We were given liberty in the city by the captain.”

“Ask the Bishop whether he recognizes the name. And warn him, and perhaps the Dogaressa, that things may be happening soon. Some of us are not committed, but there are not many of us, and there are many troops.”

The group heads out. Shortly after leaving, they remove their uniforms and head to the Cathedral. They are passed through quickly to the Bishop.

“Greetings. It is good to see you alive. I was worried when they sent you to get a special package.”

Aleep says, “We looked in the package. There was a letter. Here is a copy.”

The Bishop calls for his chief expert in demonology. A very ascetic priest enters. “Are we sure that this letter is precise?”

“Aleep is sure. Aleep copied carefully.”

“This is a letter from the Seneschal of the Worm. The second name is in the Book of Names… I believe it is a field marshal. I could look if it was important. How did you get this?”

Merreep explains.

The Bishop continues, “There is an archmage en route, but I do not think he will arrive in time. He was shunted away from here when he tried to teleport here. He arrived north of North Haven and is now traveling overland. He will likely take a week to arrive. But I think that will be too late, and we will need to respond with what we have at hand. There are also troops marching from North Haven to reinforce.” He pauses. “How committed are you to this? I cannot ask more of you after all that you have done, but I want to know how determined you are to see this through.”

Merreep says that they are fully committed.

They decide to stay in contact via Runor, through magical means.

Aleep says that they worry that “Lord Ishulvan” might be Ish’ill-tuvan.

The demonologist says, “Then that almost surely is the demon lord in a human form. We will look in the Book of Names to verify his powers.”

“Do you have any way to get out of the city?” asks the Bishop.

Merreep says no, not without getting very lucky.

The Bishop discusses the possibility of hiring local mercenaries en masse, from the hordes of Fangtooth. “If I could hire even a force that seems to be invading, it might distract him long enough for the archmage to reach us. You must warn the Dogaressa. I think battle is coming soon.”
[End session 28]


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## CPaladin (Nov 11, 2021)

Session 29 (May 29, 2021)

16 O-Zar (cont’d)
They head to the palace from their meeting with the Bishop. The guards recognize them, and they are immediately taken to the Dogaressa.

“Hail and welcome back. What news?”

Runor says, “We think there may be a demon pretending to be human, and working for Sir Clarence.”

“He is Sir Clarence’s personal captain, and not part of the mercenaries,” adds Aleep.

“We are hurrying reinforcements here. Do we think they will have time to arrive?”

“We think so,” says Runor.

“Ah. Could be worse, then.”

“He also has access to powerful poison. We’re not sure what he intends with that.”

Merreep adds, “And there was also abyssal hay. It would cause any animal that eats it more aggressive.”

The dogaressa is very concerned about this, both with the effects on cows but especially on horses.

They also tell her about the long-lasting delay poison potions.

“You have rendered a great service here. I will order the palace sealed—it can be done surreptitiously. We will come up with some excuse—mourning for a distant ally or something.”

“You must remember they have access to the sewer system,” adds Runor. “They could use that to try to get people within the palace. Or to poison the general water supply. But we might be able to use some of the green slime we found to block off their entrance to the sewers.”

The dogaressa agrees that might be possible, and could be passed off as simply natural.

“Aleep thinks that the Bishop thought the attack might come before the reinforcements arrive.”

“Oh. That would make things much more difficult. I have found the military of the city has been… much more lax than I had realized. But I cannot not be seen in public. I will declare three days of celebration—my distant cousin has been found to be with child, I think. That will make it harder for them to plan things, I think. Besides, people will drink from the cellars instead of water, which would protect them from the poison.”

Ulgorio points out the poison could be in things besides water—wine, or beer. Any liquid.

Aleep also points out that some of the dogaressa’s guards have been drunk on duty before. It would be bad if they would over celebrate.

The dogaressa is concerned about that. “There is one other possibility. Sir Clarence has made a romantic interest in me known since shortly after my husband’s death—quite too soon, it’s still too soon, but perhaps if I invited him to a private meal in the palace.”

Runor responds, “I am almost certain he would try to kill you.”

“I am as well. But if you could arrange to be the guards assigned to accompany him, he would be alone. And I am not without my own capabilities. I have a special chain shirt that I can wear under my dress.”

Runor adds, “We must make sure that his guards are not allowed to enter.”

“Unless you are his guards. I think you have substantial influence. I can invite him for two or three days in the future, bringing six guards—the same number of guards as your group. I do not think he would attack if he thinks he can win without an attack.”

Runor comments that they know that Sir Clarence is not the top of the authority. “He serves a being on the power level of a lich—a greater vampire. But it is not here.”

“He may be place bound.”

“Aleep thinks Aleep’s friends know that, that he cannot leave the manor north of East Haven.”

“If you cannot arrange to be his guard when he comes in 3 evenings’ time, try to let us know in advance.”

“And if things go badly,” says Runor, “make sure that the people know, so he cannot take over without the opposition of the people.”

“I will send the invitation within an hour.”

“Aleep thinks you might also seek allies for at the dinner. Perhaps people from the temple, and perhaps some of Lady Fooblu’s troops.”

“Yes, I will ask her. Thank you again.”

They depart. Runor mentions that he would like to get some better armor, and they have plenty of money.

Almost as soon as they have left the palace, the Bishop’s chief demonologist slips up to them. “I verified it. The one you speak of is a field marshal under the Worm that Bores Beneath. He is a minor field marshal, and he partakes of the essence of Socothbenoth - Lord of Perversion and Taboo. His power relates to charm, travel, chaos, and evil. He is a competent torturer. He wields a quarterstaff, and is deadly with it. He has few spells, but he can often charm people, even in combat.”

“Abyssal field marshal sounds scary. Is that as scary as it sounds?”

“No, they all take whatever titles they can. He is potent, but not nearly as potent as say a field marshal in Hell would be.”

“Do we need any special weapons?”

“Yes, they should be silvered. And he is immune to cold and lightning, resistant to poison and regular weapons.” [Resistance (30) poison, damage reduction 10/silver.]

He departs quickly, and takes a carefully circuitous route back to the cathedral.

They decide to head to armorers to get better armor and silvered weapons. (Light and medium armor is 10% cheaper than standard, heavy armor is 10% more expensive.) Bartix gets two silver short swords; Bartix and Merreep both get silver arrows. Runor gets half-plate for 675 silver, borrowing some from the rest of the group. Ulgorio and Ashaltir each get silver swords.

The group then heads back to Sir Clarence’s tower, and when they’re waved through, they go into the barracks.

They head into their barracks room. One of the (Paranswarmian) captain’s trusted men comes to talk to them.

“Did you get the word out?”

“Yes.”

“Do you need anything else?”

“If we can delay the attack, that would be good.”

“Do you know how long until the reinforcements arrive?”

“No.”

“They’re preparing a caravan to head off with the trade goods to the frontlines; our unit might be one of the ones guarding it.”

“The dogaressa is inviting Sir Clarence to dinner to delay things.”

“Ah, good. But you folks are probably on your own until we get back.”

“Aleep, erm, Helmut wonders why they are sending a large caravan of supplies to the frontlines.”

“Brunhilde” suggests, “Maybe they’re concealing something dangerous in a large caravan.”

“Then Helmut wonders if they should prevent the caravan from being delivered, or make sure the Hastur inspect it before the goods are dispersed.”

Brunhilde agrees with that suggestion.

The captain’s man agrees that, by the time they reach the Shadowline in several weeks, they will either search the caravan for problems or make sure the Hastur do, since by that times everything here will probably be resolved. He wonders aloud whether they are distrusted, and thus being deliberately gotten out of the way.

After he leaves, Merreep wonders if they might be bringing the abyssal hay and poison to the frontlines to try to disrupt the Shadowline armies.

Runor decides to use detect poison and disease on the caravan. He casts the spell first, and then he heads into the courtyard and wanders near the caravan. He detects disease in the hogsheads of flour—a cholera like disease—and he detects the poison we knew about in the barrels of ale, beer, and wine. There is clearly also a lot of animal fodder, though he doesn’t detect anything there—but then, the abyssal hay is neither technically a disease nor poison. He also sees that the demon-disguised-as-a-captain is carefully watching the caravans. Runor slips back into the barracks and tells the rest of the group. They then make sure the Paranswarmian captain knows about the poison and the disease.

The group spends some time planning for how to try to make sure they get selected. Runor suggests making it clear they’re available, while Bartix and Ulgorio plan a one-two punch: Bartix making himself seem powerful and intimidating, and Ulgorio using his persuasiveness to befriend people.

Ulgorio starts performing in the mess hall, trying to impress people, while Bartix engages in displays of strength. Bartix is enormously impressive, lifting armored soldiers up to show how strong he is and so forth. Fortuitously, Lord Ishulvan enters along with several officers, and a robed figure, that looks vaguely familiar from the border, but now Sir Clarence is dressed in overdone mage clothes and with a staff. The group cannot help but notice that Sir Clarence is extremely thin. They stand watching Bartix and Ulgorio’s performance. The captain speaks to Sir Clarence, and gestures towards the group, and the group makes its way over.

“Sergeant. Have you met your employer?”

“No.”

“This is the Magus, Sir Clarence of the North. I was just telling him what an exemplary job that your group did retrieving the special delivery from West Haven. And Sir Clarence has a special mission for you. He would like your group to accompany him to a special dinner with the dogaressa on the third night. You should dress in your best armor, make sure that your clothes are clean, and if any of you are lousy, see the medical personnel for a powder.”

Sir Clarence nods to the group briefly.

Runor, even without casting an active detect good or evil, can sense the evil periodically rolling off Sir Clarence when he’s not in disguise.
[End session 29]


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## CPaladin (Nov 18, 2021)

Session 30 (June 12, 2021)

17 O-Zar
The next couple of days pass uneventfully, with training and other routine duties.

Evening of 19 O-Zar
They are summoned by Sir Clarence’s personal captain about 2 hours before the dinner. His office is surprisingly opulent.

“Sergeant Brunnhilde, you are going into a circumstance that is very fraught. He may, or may not, call upon you to go above and beyond ordinary mercenary service—the sort of thing that might give you not just long-term employment, but even titles.” As he talks, he weaves a compulsion on the group. “Of course, while he cares about the interests of the Dogaressa and has a romantic interest in her, the good of the city must be paramount. He intends to give her a gift, that may persuade her to overlook her late husband for the good of the city. If not… he may need to take more direct action. Are you loyal to Sir Clarence, Sergeant?”

Everyone in the group resists the ensorcelment, and only Aleep even notices.

“Sergeant Brunnhilde” says, “Yes, sir!” enthusiastically.

“Good. There’s a lieutenancy in this for you, Sergeant. I must stay here to manage the garrison. Do not let this go wrong.”

They return to their barracks. Aleep ritually casts Detect Magic to make sure he didn’t miss anything else. They are all clean. He also tells the whole group about the charm attempt.

They get ready, and two hours later join an elaborately dressed Sir Clarence to go to the palace. In addition to much fancier clothes than usual, he wears an unusual ring, with a smoky amethyst on it, that they have not seen before. He also has several sigils on him, including one of binding that is strange to wear. He carries a large box, covered in beaten gold wrapping.

He makes nervous small talk as they walk.

Aleep asks if there is anything the group should be ready for.

Sir Clarence says that he hopes the Dogaressa will agree to marry him, but if not, she must be restrained for her own good while they deal with the large force approaching overland. She would of course be restored to rule afterwards, if not with Sir Clarence ruling as well. He says that they may need to… placate her guards.

The Dogaressa waits to meet him in a finely decorated dining room. She has six guards of her own. Before the meal begins, he gives her the small package, which she immediately hands to one of her guards, who clears it away. The two of them sit for a meal while the guards, including our heroes, stand. They eat and make small talk, and then he makes his pitch, which they cannot hear. She says that she must take time to consider such a thing. He says that time is running out, and this must happen before the forces outside reach the city’s wall. She feigns surprise. He then says, “I must take you in hand for your own good.” She is shocked by this.

The binding sigil glows and two demons of some sort, in armor, cleaned up to look good, appear. Sir Clarence casts a charm at the Dogaressa, which Aleep counterspells. Everyone leaps into action.

Merreep casts Hunter’s Mark and tries to stab Sir Clarence, and her sword slides weirdly off his robes. Aleep then casts Scorching Ray, hitting him twice for 16 damage.

Ulgorio summons a cloud of daggers around Sir Clarence.

Sir Clarence begins to move, and takes 10 damage from the cloud of daggers. “Calumnies! Treason! Kill them all!” He tries to cast lightning bolt, and Aleep counterspells it again. One of the demonspawn attempts to grapple the Dogaressa, though neither is doing very well.

The other demonspawn spins, jumps at Aleep, and claws him, doing 2 points of damage and poisoning him, although Aleep resists the poison.

Runor steps forward and casts inflict wounds on Sir Clarence, barely hitting and doing 36 points of damage.

Bartix stabs at Sir Clarence, but does not hit him.

The Dogaressa shouts, “Take Sir Clarence alive, and get this thing off me!” She casts a spray of magic missiles at the demonspawn.

Most of her guards hack at it as well, although one throws a dagger at Sir Clarence, managing to hit him.

Ashaltir smites the demonspawn, doing 31 points of damage.

Mereep stabs Sir Clarence for 15 points.

Aleep casts Magic Missile at Sir Clarence, using a 2nd level slot, for 16 points of damage.

Sir Clarence takes 10 damage from the cloud of daggers, which he is essentially boxed into by all the people fighting him. He touches a stud on his ring, and a cloud of a white-grayish powder sprays out in front of him. Three of the Dogaressa’s guard collapse, unable to breathe, but the Dogaressa makes her save as does Runor. The Dogaressa takes some damage from it, but is still up. The demonspawn both miss.

Runor misses with another inflict wounds.

Bartix stabs at Sir Clarence, hitting once for 10.

The Dogaressa casts another magic missile, finishing off the demonspawn attacking her. One of her remaining guards attack Sir Clarence, throwing a dagger wildly. Another guard—who Runor now recognizes as a disguised priest from the temple—pours water from a carafe over the Dogaressa.

Ashaltir smites the remaining demonspawn for 29 points of damage, dropping it. The demonspawn are rapidly turning to goo.

Merreep misses.

Aleep casts another 2nd level magic missile, doing 18 more damage.

Ulgorio misses, but Sir Clarence is still surrounded and unable to move out of the cloud of daggers. The cloud of daggers cuts him to pieces, and he tumbles to the ground.

The soldier who is actually a priest says—“That’s not good—the Dogaressa’s guard captain is dead.”

There is a shrieking noise, and a cloud of black mist travels from Sir Clarence’s body towards the northeast.

“What do you carry against long-lasting poison?” asks the priest to Runor. “That was a philter of love, mixed with breath of the wyrm. I’ve never seen the like of it. I don’t know what this creature was thinking.”

Runor casts a protection from poison on the Dogaressa, who shudders with relief as the poison is neutralized.

A city guard comes skittering into the room with her seneschal.

The seneschal says, “It’s alright. They are with us. You are still us, are you not?”

“Don’t plan on switching sides any time soon,” says Merreep with a smile.

“Good. This guard has news.”

“My lady, the dome around Sir Clarence’s estate has turned completely opaque. There were sounds of violence within, but it is now completely sealed off from the city. There was also a cloud of black mist that left the city travelling northwest.”

Sir Clarence had a poison ring with an amethyst, worth about 500 silver; a +2 dagger; a scroll of summon elemental; and a purse of 150 silver. The Dogaressa allows the group to loot him. She also gives them each another 100 silver in thanks for keeping her safe from Sir Clarence.

Runor realizes that the beautiful robes Sir Clarence was wearing were carefully stitched over some sort of hide that itself detects as evil. It is likely from the Shadowlands and should probably be destroyed.

Aleep points out that the only notable thing to the northwest of the city is North Haven, the only city the group has not been to.

Runor asks to be allowed to burn the hide robes. The group agrees.

Merreep gives the scroll to Aleep, because he is the most likely to be able to use it effectively.

Bartix takes the dagger, agreeing that if and when he gets a magic sword, he’ll pass it on to one of the other fighting types who doesn’t have a magic weapon.

Ulgorio takes the poison ring.

The Dogaressa knights all of our heroes on the spot, declaring them cavalieri with the honorifics of Don or Donna. They each receive a grant of land—regular land for everyone except Don Aleep, who receives a swampy area adjacent to their lands. They are essentially unpopulated.
[End session 30]


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## CPaladin (Nov 26, 2021)

Session 31 (June 26, 2021)

20 O-Zar
The group discusses what to do next. Runor and Merreep want to travel back to recover their owlbear.

They also confirm that the eagle they freed and befriended is still with them, and check in on the quasit they have partially reformed—who is still sleeping in a backpack.

The owlbear, Clawy, is back in Ravenskrag. That’s about 500 miles away, so their options are a long overland trip on their own, an even longer caravan trip, or sailing to a port north of Ravenskrag and then a short distance over land—the shortest in time, but the most expensive.

After some debate, they decide to go by caravan, signing on as guards. They get offered 5 silver apiece per day. And they set off with a medium sized caravan. It’s a mule caravan, with all mules and no carts, which means they’ll probably take a somewhat unusual path. There are 92 mules, stretched out over about 400’ in double rows. The group are the only real guards, though the drovers (of whom there are many) are lightly armed.

The trip to West Haven takes about 3 days. They then go along an unusual set of roads or paths. The lead merchant is using a compass and seems to know what they’re doing. It will take about 10 days to go from West Haven to the town at the edge of the Eastern Trade Federation.

31 O-Zar
During the day, they begin to hear a lot of stomping and noise. The drovers start getting nervous and whisper urgently to the merchant chief.

Merreep goes ahead a little while to the crest of a hill, and there’s a small sea of wild buffalo. She does a quick estimate of about 600 head.

The drovers are nervous because of the risk of stampede.

The merchant chief asks them to try to deal with it and get them out of the way.

Ulgorio casts speak with animal, and then asks a bull if they could move out of the way for a while.

“You’re mooooving something through?”

“Yes.”

“I guess we could moooove down the valley. Good grass here, though.”

“We’ll be through soon enough.”

“Let me talk to the head cow.”

They agree to move down the valley while they go by.

The bull trots off in a slow way, and the herd starts slowly moving down the valley.

1 Ghast
That night, there’s lots of chittering. And then a cloud of bats sweep down out of the north and across the encampment. They are not deliberately attacking anyone, though their swooping and diving is nerve wracking. They pass peacefully.

2 Ghast
They arrive in the evening at a large but fairly rough town—stockaded not walled, earthworks, most of the buildings made of heavy planking. There are both human and centaur guards. A centaur tallies the goods being brought into the town. “No tariff on the way in; 3 copper per mule on the way out. Light guard, big load.”

“I’m not worried; they are the heroes of the Trade Federation, and they cleared a herd of aurochs without even killing any.”

They head into the town, and go to an inn. They are served incredibly hearty meals.

In the morning, they head on towards Ravenskrag.

9 Ghast
They hear extremely shrill whistling—like the whistling of bats, but much much louder—at about 1 in the morning. Runor and Bartix are on watch. Bartix recognizes it as the most over-sized sounding bat calls he has ever heard.

Bartix wakes the rest of the group.

Out of the darkness sweep nine taller-than-human bats. They are diving and separate with two headed towards each of the two fully awake, and the others dividing up. A bat latches onto Bartix and begins sucking out blood at a terrific rate.

Bartix stabs back with his magical dagger, doing 8 points of damage.

Runor casts Inflict Wounds and explodes one of the bats.

Merreep jumps up and draws her sword, as does Ashaltir.

Bartix kills his with his dagger.

Aleep engulfs five in a fireball—including one that perched on a nearby branch and is holding something. Four of them are crisped entirely, including the one that was carrying something.

One of them bites Runor and hurts him some more. He responds by killing it with an inflict wound.

Ulgorio stabs down another, and then Aleep finishes the last one with magic missiles.

Bartix examines what the last one was carrying—a roughly sewn leather bag. He immediately looks inside. There are several items—a couple small objects, one glittering yellow, the other very dark in color, and also a rolled up piece of parchment.

Aleep casts detect magic as a ritual. There are two types of magic—necromancy and enchantment. The dark object and the scroll are what radiate magic, with the dark object radiating enchantment. It’s a scroll of ray of enfeeblement. The yellowish object is a fairly low grade but large citrine. The dark object is what would be a perfect black pearl, but with runes carefully etched into the outer layer. The runes emanate enchantment. Aleep can’t recognize the runes, but thinks there is a similarity between the etching and the coat of arms Sir Clarence used.

The group theorizes that it might be a mind control object. Even in its damaged condition, the pearl is worth 250 silver, and the citrine is worth 55 silver.

Aleep identifies the black pearl, and realizes that it is a demon-powered pearl of animal control. They hypothesize that this was sent by Sir Clarence’s captain, or by his master.
[End session 31]


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## CPaladin (Dec 2, 2021)

Session 32 (July 10, 2021)

10 Ghast
They have 7 more days of travel to get to Ravenskrag. The next several days of travel pass uneventfully.

15 Ghast
In the morning, Merreep notices a bright light, near to the ground, slowly coming closer. It’s in the west, so clearly not the Sun, and not a fire. Runor detects magic, but it’s too far away to register. It is getting closer though, at a speed close to a slow walk.

Merreep stays forward and tries to get a better look, while Ulgorio ducks off into some cover and Bartix heads forward. Aleep hides behind a mule, just in case.

Merreep and Bartix finally can tell that a creature that looks like an emaciated young child, with a blue flame burning in the left side of its chest, surrounded by a nimbus of bright light. It continues floating forward. The child spreads its arms out, and the nimbus of light grows so strong that they can barely look at it. It declares, in some way that they can understand even though it’s not using their language, “Embrace the Light of Sytry!” It floats a little farther up.

Both Merreep and Bartix look down so that they aren’t blinded. Ashaltir seems uncomfortable about this figure and positions herself to keep as many people as possible in her aura of protection. Merreep quietly says, “Hello?”

Runor can see that the blue flame is pulsing and growing stronger with each pulse.

He calls out, “What is that blue flame? And who do you serve?”

It clearly hears him, but can’t see him. “I am the Brilliant Child of Sytry, and the blue flame is the light of His servant, who reaches out to embrace the world!” There is a sudden bright flash of light.

Both Merreep and Bartix feel a tug in their minds pass over them, but they resist it.

The leaves on the trees turn translucent, and various small animals fall out of the trees, stunned. Runor could see that the flash came from the blue flame.

Bartix calls out, “Why are you here? What are you doing here?”

“I have been summoned to this cold, dark place, and sent out to do my master’s bidding, to convert more to follow the Ruler of Golden Purity.”

“You should go to a more populous area, then.”

“I am heading as fast as I can towards Westhaven. But I cannot travel very fast… perhaps you know where there’s a cart that I could take?”

“We might be able to.”

“But you’re traveling in the wrong direction.”

“Maybe you could buy a mule from us—here’s the head of the caravan.”

Merreep adds, “There might be a way we could help you.”

“I carry a small amount of silver. I could pay to speed me on my mission of conversion.”

Aleep calls out, “What was that flash of light?”

“My passion for the Lord Sytry and the Blue Star.”

The caravan master says, “So you wish to purchase one of my mules?”

“I will return it to you when your caravan returns. Would 10 silver be enough?”

“Yes, that would be fine.” The caravan master is clearly terrified.

They bring up one of the spare mules, and he heads off on the mule.

The money he paid with has a lingering sense of magic from him, although no actual magic on them. They appear to be pure silver, with a strange seven-pointed star and the number 1 on both faces.

Ghast 16
The rest of the journey is completely uneventful, and they arrive on the evening of Ghast 16. The caravan master pays them out: 135 silver each.

They have no problem finding the inn where they left Clawclawbite. The innkeeper bustles out immediately. “Ah! I thought you were dead. I had no idea what I was going to do with the beast in a little bit. He’s been pining for you.”

“Can we see our owlbear?”

“Of course, right this way. We set him up in the end stall, and gave him a post to sharpen his beak on.”

Clawclawbite rushes over to the edge of his stall, smelling the group carefully and then loudly letting out a contented sigh.

“Are you taking him back?”

“Yes, we are.”

The group discusses what to do next, and they decide to head back to their lands to check out the area they have been granted. It will take them about 17 days to travel back, since.

Ghast 17
They depart back towards their lands.

Ghast 18
The Sapphire and Violet Moons are both spectacular, full and high in the sky. Despite a strange sense of being watched and laughed at, the night passes uneventfully. Despite the fact that they would have expected to overtake the Brilliant Child, they do not see it at all.

Ghast 23
This night, the Ruby Moon and the Sapphire Moon are both full. Conjunctions involving the Ruby Moon are known to weaken the forces of good and strengthen the forces of evil while they take place.

While Merreep, Ulgorio, and Ashaltir are on watch, Ulgorio notices that there is something very odd about a tree near the camp. He heads over to investigate. The tree has a thick vine, maybe a foot in diameter, wrapped around the tree. Except suddenly, a humanoid head comes whipping around on that stalk—apparently it was more of a tail or snake.

It looks at him with contempt. “Mortal, why should I spare you?”

“Well, there’s no real reason to kill me.”

“That’s original. I don’t get to come to this plane very often, and where do I manifest? Out in the middle of nowhere, where there’s usually no one to find. And yet here you are, and here I am, and your people are all over there. Do you know what I am?”

“No, I do not.”

“I am a dark naga. You say that you have no reason to kill you, and I can find no fault in that statement. Amuse me.”

Ulgorio casts speak with animals and persuades a squirrel to dance, as if its life depended on it.

Merreep notices and approaches. “Hi.”

The dark naga looks at her. “I will ask you the same question I asked him. Why should I not kill you?”

“It would be useless.”

“You are an unusual group. Usually when I catch someone, they talk about their small children, their mates, or their miserable lives. But you tell me that it would be useless.”

“I just don’t see what you would get out of it.”

“Disturbingly rational. I hope the whole world does not become as rational. Very well. Amuse me.”

Ulgorio now starts playing his favorite Godzilla song.

She focuses. “I have a feeling that what you are singing relates to a very large relative of mine…”

They are still entertaining the naga when the next watch awakens.

Aleep hides in the underbrush and casts Protection from Evil on himself. Runor detects evil, and finds that it is evil. Amused, but definitely evil.

They entertain the dark naga all night, and as the moons begin to set, it rouses itself. “I must return to my home plane. I will be back in this glade soon.” With a shimmer, it is replaced with a normal vine.

Ghast 24
Ulgorio and Merreep are utterly exhausted, but they still try to press on as much as they can the next day to get far away from that grove by the next night.

When they make camp that night, the same two moons are still full. Runor hears howling off in the woods. The owlbear sits up and makes growling noises in the distance of the growls. From outside the range of the fire, they see five sets of eyes surrounding the camp, about 2 feet off the ground.

Aleep builds the fire up, and the creatures move farther back. They are five enormous, shaggy wolves, with a strange glow to their eyes. Eventually, around midnight, the eyes gradually, one pair at a time, vanish from the edge of the firelight. Some distance away, the group hears a horrible bellow, and then silence.

Ghast 25
They pass through a small town. They hear that one of the cows on a nearby farm was utterly mangled the previous night.

Ghast 30
That night, the Silver and the Violet Moons are full—a positive conjunction, unlike the Ruby conjunctions.

A small, brilliantly dressed figure glides into their camp. “Hail and well met, large folk.”

“Greetings to you as well.”

“It is a great pleasure to be here on a night like this when my Lady is great in power, along with the greatest of the moons. Hmm. Skeletal horses. I don’t know that my Lady would approve of that.” The fey sprinkles a large amount of dust on the skeletal horses. One of them regrows flesh and life, to its considerable disbelief. The other one reshapes itself into a huge living eagle. “There. Much better. I thought that it was really an eagle. You might need to teach it how to fly. I’m not sure it knows how—it used to be a horse. What else should I do? Would you like some bread enchanted?”

“No, thank you,” says Merreep.

“I’m always nervous when I do that. Sometimes they change into a giant crocodile. You can’t reason with a giant crocodile.”

“You can’t reason with any crocodile!”

“Soon the moon will be passing. I must find others to bless with the magic of Whimsey.”

Ghast 31
That night, in the wee hours of the morning, Bartix sees a hand with a bowl reach over the edge of the stew pot, dip into the stewpot, and go out the other side. He walks up and looks over the top of the kettle at a small ratty looking person in ragged clothes eating a bowl of their stew.

“Why are you eating our stuff?”

“Umm, hi, everyone. Well, you all ate, and I was sampling your cuisine to tell you how wonderfully cooked.”

“Would you like to join us?” asks Merreep.

“As in join you for more delicious stew? Or join you as you go into the city? Or are you not going into the city and join you going somewhere else?”

“The first one.”

“Oh, I would very much like that. Where are you going?”

Aleep says, “Aleep and friends are cavalieri. We have been given lands.”

“Oh, that will make Old Thurston very happy. He was caretaker for the old knight who was there, and he was never replaced. He’ll be very happy. But be careful, he’s really old. You going to rebuild the tower and everything?”

“Tower?”

“There used to be a tower, before I was born. They protected the people and everything. And then the tower fell down, and the knight disappeared, and the dead started walking around. I think I will join you then, if your worshipfulnesses are okay with that.”
[End session 32]


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## CPaladin (Dec 9, 2021)

Session 33 (July 24, 2021)

5 Ta-Ghast
They have arrived in their new lands. There are the remains of farms, though they don’t seem like active farms.

They ask their new follower to lead them to where Old Thurston is.

He excitedly leads them to the tower—it was never more than 4 stories, and looks decrepit. But there is a nice, well kept garden around it, along with an elderly horse, a few cows, and a single sheep.

Thurston springs up excitedly, as quickly as he is able. “Welcome, my lady and lords. Does this mean the Trade Federation looks to us once more? There are only a few of the wood crofters left.”

He prepares a simple meal for the group.

“My master did have an apprentice, but he took the field after my master’s unfortunate death.”

He tells them about some of the things in the area. The swamp has a few lizardfolk; north of the swamp there are some bullywugs, though no froglocks. The bullywugs do not trade and are standoffish—they demand a toll to pass through. There was once a catobeplas to the west, but he wandered away—just as well.

Merreep expresses a plan to clean up the area.

Thurston prepares a room for them in the tower that’s not particularly leaky.

It’s a stone tower. It was roofed in at best rude thatch, and that has fallen into disrepair.

“How did old knight die?”

“We used to have more farms. And then cattle started coming up dead, with not a drop of blood left in their bodies. When a human was found the same way, the knight donned his armor and rode off to deal with it. Only the horse came back. He was declared dead by the priests. Then his squire rode out, too, and not even his mule came back. This was off to the northwest. After that, most of the farmers left.”

There’s a village about a day away east by southeast. It’s outside the formal land grant, but in nobody’s domain, so… There’s nothing else near here.

Ulgorio suggests we may be able to get farmers back by offering them money and protection. Ulgorio suggests going to the town first; Bartix mentions finding out what happened to the knight first. Then Merreep suggests talking to the lizardfolk first, since that’s in roughly the right direction to investigate the knight’s death, and then go investigate the knight’s death.

6 Ta-Ghast
The group heads out into the swamp. The water is basically not flowing here, though there are hummocks with trees on them. After about an hour, a couple of lizardfolk arise from the water. They are short-ish, about five feet, gray-green, dressed in loincloths, and one of them carries a wooden spear with a fire hardened tip and a spear thrower.

They have a quick conversation. The lizardfolk are glad to hear that knights are back and accept Don Aleep’s statement that he is their knight now. They lead us to a small village so that we can talk to all of them. One of them seems to be cooking.

The group asks about the blood-sucking among the humans. The lizardfolk say that they do know about it. “Mad man lived there. Built little fort, lived alone. Raised dead to walk. He was okay neighbor for a long time. Then… he died and was not good neighbor anymore. But left the People alone; not like our blood. We sent messenger to knight explaining, but he thought he could do it. He did not do it. Then young human followed. He did not come back. But not good neighbor kept flying overhead, every week or so. Not fly overhead any more—no farmers left. Can’t get in tower, I think. Once big fight on western border. Killed long-neck cow. Lost many of his dead people killing long-neck cow. Could not raise long-neck cow or bring his people back who died. But he lived.”

They are excited about the idea of new humans coming in and restoring trade.

The group travels on to look at the long-neck cow corpse. It is now a skeleton, with the flesh decayed away. Around it, there are some statues of lesser undead—no greater undead.

They scrape some catobeplas poison into a vial.

They head on towards where they think the vampire creature is. They pass some abandoned farms, with stone houses still standing. They then come upon the wreckage of a battle—armor, great sword, small sword, broken stirrups, and a mule’s skeleton. There is a quantity of white powder in the armor—powdered bone. It could be done alchemically. There is dull magic clinging to the powder. Aleep determines that after the person died, they were limed and it decayed to powder.

It’s coming up on evening, so the group decides to make camp. They decide to hide to try to protect themselves.
[End session 34]


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## CPaladin (Dec 17, 2021)

Session 34 (September 4, 2021)

7 Ta-Ghast
The group wakes in the morning, camped near the catobeplas’s corpse. They head on towards the northwest, in search of the vampire or whatever, and they find an area that was recently cleared—perhaps three years ago, though now it’s starting to become overgrown again. In the middle of the clearing, there’s a small stone fort.

The fort has a curtain wall, a single tower near its northeast corner, and a single large building in the center. The gates are steel-bound wood, but are not maintained.

Aleep casts detect magic, and they creep up to the west wall, planning on scanning inside with detect magic and detect unholiness. The whole complex is not more than 90’ wide east to west and 50’ from north to south. As they approach, three of the group (Merreep, Bartix, and Runor) note that some of the ground is very spongy. They warn the rest of the group. Runor is pretty sure that the area that is not naturally spongy—there’s worked stone in there. He thinks that they’re pit traps that have become overgrown to the point of not working cleanly. The group begins testing ahead of themselves with staves and easily determines where the pit traps are, making their way up clearly.

Ashaltir detects evil in the central building but nowhere else. Aleep detects a magic item, also in the central building, and some lingering auras. There is a mix of necromancy and conjuration magic. The evil and the magic seem to be in the same location.

The walls of the old fort are only between 12 and 15 feet tall—never really meant to stop a serious siege, but enough to deal with minor threats. The group makes their way around to the north wall, and they now sense another source of magic and evil in the tower. The magic there is just conjuration… but it seems older. Along the north wall, they notice no pit traps—perhaps they’re farther out from the wall.

The group decides to go over the wall, on the west side of the building. They scramble up easily. The parapets of the wall remain in good repair, and the courtyard is cobbled—though now there is grass and the like growing through the gaps between the cobblestones. There are some standing horse skeletons near an old cart and carriage. The main gate is barred, and the area around it on the inside has been cleared.

They can also see two doorways into the main structure. The main structure is two stories tall and has a well-maintained slate roof, with a shallow incline. If the building has similar doors on the far side, it has many doors for a building that small—the group speculates that some of them might be traps. Merreep and Bartix try to identify which of the entrances have actually been used, looking for signs of use. They then change their minds before approaching and decide to scout the tall tower first.

Merreep and Bartix begin sneaking towards the tower, with the rest of the group clustered behind the northern point of the main building, watching their approach. They can see a shiny bauble around the top of the tower—almost like a giant soap bubble. There is no door on the tower, but there is an opening directly onto a staircase that winds its way up towards the bubble. Both of them can hear a very high-pitched sound emanating from the tower. They’re not sure what they’re hearing—it’s a repetitive descending series of notes. They begin cautiously ascending the stone stair case in a spiral around the inside of the tower, to the point where it opens into a larger floor. They felt a slight tingle as they passed through the bubble. Merreep peaks over the top of the platform that the stairs open onto. She sees a crystal ball on a stand, with a huge horn sticking out over the edge of the tower. Chained to the floor, there is a snoring imp—clearly the source of the high-pitched noises. They’re pretty sure he’s supposed to be watching the area with the crystal ball and alerting others with the horn.

Merreep and Bartix decide to wait for the imp to awake. After a while, it startles awake. It looks at the crystal ball, grumbles, and then takes out a snack and begins to grumble to himself about having let himself be captured by someone who then made himself undead, forcing him to guard an area for 100 years. He still clearly hasn’t noticed Merreep and Bartix. “Hmm. Something disturbed the grass I see.”

He then hears something from the stairs. “I heard that!” He peers in the direction of the stairs. Bartix waves at him.

“Ack! They’re already in here! Alarm… Wait, what am I thinking? Hail fair invaders. I will be compelled to blow the horn in a few minutes. There’s no one really to warn, since he became a vampire. But I’ll have to anyway. I don’t suppose you’re here to kill my master and set me free, are you?” They watch him quietly. “Well, I have to blow the horn.” He blasts the horn. “See, nothing. Who are you, anyway? Thieves?”

“No, we’re not thieves.”

“Too bad. Thieves have tools and might be able to free me… But hurry up and kill my master. It’s daytime and he’ll be asleep!”

Bartix and Merreep decide to bring the rest of the group up, much to the imp’s encouragement.

They ask the imp about the bubble. “It’s from the crystal ball. It lets me see 500 feet in any direction. Not sure what the point is, since there are no guards to call. Sorry about the horn blast, by the way.”

“Can you see inside the building? Can we see in the building?”

“I don’t see why not.” He makes a sigil. “That’s how you can control it.”

They carefully study the inside of the building. The main story is all one room, with a secret door in on the south face of the building—where no obvious door existed. All of the obvious doors in are fake, with bare stone on the inside. The upper story has two large rooms. There is an incorporeal undead moving around in the cellar—probably a wraith—and a corporeal undead, definitely not a vampire or a zombie but unclear what, moving around as well, on the second floor. There’s also a casket in the well-appointed cellar, along with various alchemical tools and apparatus.

The group decides to rush into the cellar after finding the secret door, and to then kill the wraith first, hoping to finish it off before the corporeal undead can close on them. Ashaltir and Bartix take the lead, because Bartix has a magic weapon and Ashaltir can make her sword holy. Bartix and Ashaltir attack first. Bartix hits it with his magic dagger, doing 8 points of damage. Ashaltir smites for 16 and then 27. A moment before the wraith would have gone, Aleep casts Magic Missile as a fourth level spell, finishing it off.

Runor, Ulgorio, and Mereep see a mumia, a partially mummified undead, closing with them. It can’t reach them, but it does gaze at Runor, forcing a Wisdom save. Runor saves easily. Ulgorio casts cloud of daggers, enveloping the mumia and doing 13 points of damage. Runor casts spirit guardians. The mumia takes 15 damage as it pushes forward through the guardians and attacks Ulgorio, hitting him hard and doing necrotic damage as well. Mereep strikes it in response, doing 11 damage.

Ulgorio stabs it with his rapier, doing 10 damage and dropping the foe to a heap of rotting flesh.

At this point, the group easily pries open the vampire’s coffin and Bartix stakes it and destroys it. The body crumbles to dust.

The group finds a large crystal bowl filled with water that emanates magic—a little necromancy, but mostly conjuration.
[End session 34]


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## CPaladin (Jan 6, 2022)

Session 35 (September 11, 2021)

8 Ta-Ghast
The next morning, the group explores the fort. It’s in some disrepair—windows were left open, which ruined drapes and bedding. There is a well with crystal clear water in it.

They tromp back up the tower. The imp is still there, chained up but now freed from compulsion.

He offers to become a hireling, saying he’s good at cleaning and mopping.

Bartix is enthusiastic about this, but wants him to fight for them. The imp is a little hesitant about this—he’s only an imp—but willing.

Runor tries to convert the imp to follow Glordiadel, and talks about how great Glordiadel, Lord of Light is.

“So, you’re saying you’ll strike my chains and let me work for you, as long as I convert?”

“You wouldn’t even have to work for us if you convert.”

“But then I’d be unemployed!”

“Well, you could work for us if you want and we’d pay you.”

“I’m not really very attached to the Hells… they’re pretty awful places, really. What does Glordiadel have? Paranswarm has the Hells, but does Glordiadel have some place?”

“Glordiadel has the Heavens. He is like a good version of Paranswarm, also lawful but good.”

“Well, I guess if you’re offering me a job, and need me to convert, I guess I will. I can maintain the fort, clean things.” He kisses Runor’s holy symbol, and then yelps in pain when he does.

Runor sets a schedule for religious instruction for the imp (and for the quasit they’re also redeeming).

The imp mentions that the dead vampire was trying to become a greater vampire, like its master. Its master came here, but not for a long time—not since the dead vampire was firmly on its path. The imp also tells them where the greater vampire’s lair is, but warns them not to go there. (It’s the same location that they already knew about.)

The imp offers to reset all the traps, and tells them that it can teleport. It also maps out the path through the traps to get through to the door. The worst traps are anyone who tries any of the fake doors.

“If you go west, there’s a fairly good sized town. A whole day’s travel. It started out as a woodcutter’s hold, but slowly grew. He was ‘husbanding the resources.’”

“Did he likely have spawn if he’s been feeding there?”

“I don’t know if he had spawn, but he had a little cult—at least a half-dozen of them. They are on the edge of the town, this way. They would find victims for him and the like.”

The group discusses what to do and decides they need to stop the vampire’s cultists first. They also think that there may be other vampires in the service of the master vampire that they should also hunt down.

The imp shows them through the crystal ball, trying hard until a distant hazy image of a small stockaded town. It’s probably 1500 or 2000 people. It looks pretty self-sufficient, with some paths running in that are probably trade paths. There’s no sign of a manor or tower or anything that might indicate a noble. “You see those houses near here that are outside the wall? That’s where the cult is, along with a lot of other people.”

“Do you know what the bowl in the basement is?”

“I don’t know what it is, but I do know what he used it for. He could put a drop of blood in it—any type of blood—and then he could talk to his master. I don’t know if it could do anything else. He stole it—made a big trip, I thought he was dead—but then came back. And then people came after it—a tall women in silver armor, a young woman who rode on a mule behind her, and a half-dozen people with crossbows. But they were stupid—they attacked at night, and he defeated them and ate them.”

“Did he keep their armor? We might be able to tell who they were.”

“He buried them under those flagstones. Said they burned.”

The group pries up the flagstones, and finds a set of silvered armor, somewhat dented, a bunch of crossbows, and a holy symbol of Glordiadel. They think it might have been a paladin, and Aleep suggests that the bishop might know who the paladin was.

Aleep identifies the bowl. It is a bowl of memories, with hundreds of memories imbued in it. The vampire was clearly misusing it. The water contains specific memories, none longer than 5 minutes, some fairly old, some recent, with none of them in the past year. It is divinatory and can be used by either a bard or a wizard. It can draw memories out of people and store them as long as the water isn’t spilled. The most recent memory is a performance of a skald, in a rough-hewn pavilion made of wood, open on the sides. The people there are dressed in simple clothing. The song is ancient, well-performed, but showing no originality whatsoever.

They head off towards the town. The trip takes essentially a whole day, but is uneventful. There is a gate, which is open, with people passing through the gate. There is a single guard, in half-armor, keeping an eye at the gate. The other gates are closed.

“Halt there. Who approaches the Free Town? A priest, an elf, another elf… and you there, are you a bard? The mayor will want to see you. It’s been hard since our bard vanished.”

He gives the group directions to the mayor and to the inn, the Eager Beaver. As they go into the town, there are statues all over the place, of wood and stone, and paintings on white washed walls. They also see the pavilion that Aleep saw in the memory.

As they arrive at the inn, the innkeeper sees Ulgorio’s instrument. “Master bard?”

“Yes?”

“Welcome to Freetown. Are you here to perform?”

“I need to talk to the mayor, but probably.”

“Excellent, excellent. Our bard disappeared a year ago, and we haven’t had a bard visit since then. He left all of his things, his money, and everything else, but not his own harp, or him, or his magic pool.”

Aleep confirms that the magic pool matches the description of the bowl they found.

“Oh have you seen it? Have you seen him?”

“Bartix slew the vampire that stole it.”

The innkeep offers free dinners to the whole group in thanks, though he’s clearly deflated by the news and implication of the bard’s fate. “I must go and tell the priest of what happened to the bard.”

“The priest is of Glordiadel?”

“Of course! Are there others?”

“Yes.”

“Not here, there are not.” The innkeep bustles out.

They have dinner in the common room, and the innkeep comes back with a burly man. “I wish to introduce you to Mayor Kevin.”

“Ah, you’re the bard. I’m Kevin. I’m the mayor—at least until the next Judgment Day.”

“Judgment Day?”

“Every two years, our heart is judged. We each make a project, as best as we can, and then some people from out of town come and judge which project is best. The winner is mayor for the next two years.”

The group is somewhat surprised but accepts this.

The priest, Father Xerxes, arrives shortly thereafter. They conclude that this must be why there have been some blood-draining incidents. The mayor says that he’ll have to tell the militia and see about ferreting any other vampires out.

Ulgorio agrees to sing at the place. The mayor tells them that the hall was built by a traveling elf who came through and created it by growing the trees into shape. That was also when the town changed from a wood-cutting village to focused on art.

Aleep suggests the elf may have placed a glamour on them; the mayor agrees, but doesn’t care—“We are much happier than any of our ancestors ever were.” This happened within living memory—the elf said that he would return, and also said that the people of Freetown should continue to follow their human god and not the goddess that inspired him.

The mayor shows Ulgorio the performance hall—the pillars are still vibrant and alive. When Ulgorio strikes a note, the hall transforms, with golden leaves growing from the pillars and the mayor suddenly wearing a brilliant white toga trimmed in gold. As the note fades, the hall returns to normal. (Aleep later confirms that the hall is enormously magical, with elven magic that is far beyond him.)

With that, they return and sleep for the night.
[End Session 35]


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## CPaladin (Jan 13, 2022)

Session 36 (September 25, 2021)

9 Ta-Ghast
The group travels outside the walls of Free Town to look for the followers of the vampire.

Ulgorio suggests talking to people in the tavern outside the wall. It is considerably more rough hewn than the inn inside the walls.

Marissa, the barkeep, is surprised to see visitors from outside. She serves them some meals and drinks.

“Ah, a knight—you’ve come to do something about it then.”

“We are all knights, actually.”

“Then you’ve definitely come to do something about it.” She sends her potboy to fetch Mrs. Smithers, telling him to tell Mrs. Smithers that they’re here to help her husband.

After a little while, an older middle aged woman comes to talk to them.

“He’s a lumberjack, you know. The other men came back with him, and he was stricken. Pale as a sheet and with no energy.”

The group goes back to his house. It’s a simple, split log house.

“The boys said they heard him shout, went around to the tree, and found him like this. I’ve never seen the like.”

They examine his body, and find a clear bite mark in his armpit.

The crew was out working at night—they had a big order to fill.

Runor casts remove curse on him. He still looks pale, drawn, and weak. He follows that up with a cure wounds spell, restoring 8 hit points. The glaze in his eyes clears up.

“Oh!”

“Now, look here,” says Merreep. “You’re not to go back to cutting wood yet. You need some rest.”

“Did they finish the order, then?”

“I’m quite sure it’s been taken care of, dear.”

“Did anyone send you to a specific area before you were attacked?”

“Aye. Frederic sent me to take down an oak in a dense thicket—I’m good at that and known for it.”

“Who is this Frederic?”

“He’s the crew boss. He picks the trees we cut.”

“What do you think of him?”

“He’s efficient. Cold, not the sort to have a spot of tea with you. But he’s good enough at his job. His wife’s even worse though—be ready for frostbite if you go to their house.”

“Do you attend the parish regularly?”

“On the high holy days, sometimes other days when the schedule allows.”

“Do you see Frederic at the holy days?”

“We used to. Not as much now. And never his wife. But then, she’s foreign, from one of the big cities. Ravenskrag.”

His wife pulls Merreep aside. “Do you think Frederic did this to him deliberately?”

“Possibly.”

She gives Merreep instructions on how to get to Frederic’s house.

After giving her some nutrition instructions and the like for Smithers’s recovery, they travel to Frederic’s house.

A strikingly beautiful woman, in a distant sort of way, opens the door. “Yes?”

“Hello there,” says Merreep. “We have a couple questions.”

“Perhaps you had better come in, then. It doesn’t seem polite to talk in the street. But there are so many of you, it’s surely safe for you to come in.”

She welcomes the group in. The quality of the cushions and the like greatly exceeds what we would expect from a random human woman.

Bartix asks, “What is that table, with the dragon and the black arrow?”

“Ah. That is an altar to Paranswarm, the Lord of Orderly Darkness, and that is Vitrix-Henoxi, the dragon saint of Paranswarm that we venerate.”

Merreep says, “We heard that one of your husband’s coworkers got attacked?”

“I told Frederic that that was what happened. He thought it was a seizure. But I wonder if it’s just that my homeland has more problems of this. Do you know who was responsible? I think it must have been one of the crew.”

“We think it was a vampire.”

“I had hoped that it was but a spawn. I figured it had to be a vampire of some sort. The cattle were the first sign. It would not surprise me if there were a vampire to the east. If it is a full-blood vampire, it will have twisted some of the people here.”

(They came from Caldefor, after the fall, and traveled as far from the border as they could without leaving the continent.)

She suggests they wait for Frederic to return.

“It must have watched us then. That’s a chilling thought.”

They talk for a bit. Frederic suggests bringing them back to the worksite, where they are planing the boards from the trees, so they can meet the whole work crew.

As they arrive, one of the crew members leaps up, throws something down on the ground, and a large cloud of pink gas envelopes Merreep, Ashaltir, and Frederic. Frederic is badly hurt and falls unconscious, but the others save against the poison.

Runor casts protection from poison on Frederic, saving his life. Aleep casts web on the person who threw the poison; Ulgorio follows up with cloud of daggers, which cuts him to ribbons since he’s trapped in the web.

After Frederic regains consciousness, he chuckles weakly. “Yup, you were right. There was someone in the crew…”

“Who was he?”

“His name’s Robert—Bob to us. He’s been with us for years. Acting strangely recently. I figured it was the baby. His wife’s expecting.”

Ulgorio searches the body. The belt is a false belt, with 50 silver hidden in it. He has a second poison ball. The belt also has a long slender piece of metal that’s flexible in it. Also, his left boot has a dagger in a special sleeve. Its edges also have a pinkish-white miasma on them.

Frederic sends Tim, one of the work crew, to bring the group to Bob’s wife. Runor brings the body with him, in case he wants to speak with dead.

A quite pregnant woman comes to the door.

Merreep says, “We have some unsettling news.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Is my husband alright?”

There is an awkward pause. She sees the corpse, and staggers back and sits down.

“Did anything strange happen with your husband over the last few weeks or months?”

“He got sullen as the baby was coming, and then he suddenly had a lot of extra money. I was surprised—Frederic paid well but not that well—but I was grateful.”

Runor says, “It seems, miss, that your husband was working for a vampire.”

“Aleep wonders, did your husband have new associates or friends around the time your husband started getting more money?”

“Yes… there was a young man with an ill-favored eye. I thought he might be a gambler. My husband liked dice. He was about as tall as my husband, but thinner. He wasn’t originally local, but he always had plenty of money. They would probably know him at the tavern.”

She checks his chest for them. Mostly, there is a well-used book of scriptures, a few random minor pieces of paper, and one with weird markings. Merreep looks at that one and her hands tingle.

Aleep casts identify on the piece of paper. He feels something become aware of him as he casts the ritual. The paper is a communication device of some type.

Runor casts speak with dead on the corpse.

“What should we tell your wife?”

“Tell her the rest of the money is under the loose flagstone.”

“Who was your employer besides Frederic?”

“Nandor hired me.”

“What were Nandor’s motives behind the attacks?”

“Nandor had no motives. I attacked because you endangered.”

“What is Nandor planning for the future?”

“Whatever Lord Acoldima tells him.”

“Who else worked or works for Nandor?”

“I do not know. He never had any of us meet each other, but there are others in the outer village.”
[End session 36]


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## CPaladin (Jan 20, 2022)

Session 37 (October 9, 2021)

9 Ta-Ghast (cont’d, late afternoon)
The group heads directly back to the inn outside the walls to look for Nandor. By this time, dinner is clearly getting finished, and there are a substantial number of people in the inn drinking.

Ulgorio approaches the innkeep and asks if she has seen the tall, thin man with an ill-favored eye.

She asks if he knows the man’s name, and Ulgorio says it’s Nandor.

She says she does know him—every two to three days he comes in, buys a meal, and then gambles. She thinks he may cheat—he always seems to win, but then ends up friends with the people who he gambles with, which she thinks is odd. She also doesn’t know how he cheats—she figured weighted dice, but even after she made sure that the dice that were in use were fair, he kept winning.

Runor says a blessing before the meal is served, at Marissa’s suggestion. One of the patrons then approaches him, and he counsels her.

Aleep tosses around some money gambling, deliberately making sure to lose by doubling his bet each time he wins until he has lost. He makes some friends with some people who dice, who mention Nandor to him. They mention that Nandor is a farmer, but has more money than you would expect from a farmer. One of them also says that Nandor doesn’t actually drink—he pretends to, but doesn’t actually.

On the way back to their inn, Ulgorio notes someone shadowing them. He seems to be reasonably, but not enormously, skilled. They take no action, and after they reach the inn, the shadow disappears.

They set watches carefully because of the tail: Merreep and Bartix first watch, Ashaltir and Ulgorio middle, and Aleep and Runor last watch.

In the third watch, Runor hears horses suddenly—clearly several, going from a gallop to a dead stop. He then hears a crash downstairs, probably the riders crashing through the door.

Runor and Aleep wake everyone, and after casting Mage Armor and Invisibility, Aleep slips forward to the top of the stairs. He sees that there are 4 armored figures and that they have stabbed the innkeep, who confronted them after they barged in.

They head up the stairs and Aleep catches them in a fireball, badly burning three and lightly burning one (33 hp damage), but they all stay up. One of them says, “Forward! Don’t let them escape!”

Ulgorio casts cloud of daggers on the first one of them. They all plunge through the cloud of daggers, taking 11 damage each.

As they reach Bartix, he stabs the lead one with his magic dagger, doing another 8 points of damage.

That one misses Bartix. The rest spread out, engaging Merreep and hitting Merreep for 8. Another rushes pass both Merreep and Bartix to try to reach Runor, and their opportunity attacks cut him down. The last one slips pass them in the confusion and attacks Runor, clanging off his armor.

Merreep stabs the one she’s fighting for another 7 damage. Ulgorio stabs another for 4. Bartix misses with his magic dagger, but hits with his off-hand short sword for 2. Runor vaults down over the balcony (taking 6 damage from the fall) and heals the innkeeper (with a 3rd level spell slot, healing 14 damage), saving his life. Aleep casts a lightning bolt; he thinks he can hit the leader and another without hitting any of his friends, but he accidentally catches Bartix as well. The leader takes 31, the other and Bartix each take 15.

The one in front of Bartix smacks Bartix for 14 damage. The one fighting Merreep misses. The leader, who was fighting Runor before Runor apparently fled, flings a steel bolt at Aleep doing 5 damage and forcing a poison save, which Aleep makes.

Ashaltir hits the leader, smiting evil for 19 damage, and dropping him. At that point, one of the last two surrenders, at which point the other one does as well—they’re both badly wounded. Ashaltir heals the leader a little, to make sure he doesn’t die.

“Didn’t tell us you were a clownish group. Just said, ‘go to this inn, take this money, kill the group you find.’”

“Who sent you?”

“Normally we’re mercs. We usually work the line. But a man appeared in our camp, and moved us and our horses to outside this village after hiring us. Told us to kill you. Didn’t tell us anything else—should have known better than to accept a mission from someone like that.”

“You want us to describe the man?” says one of the other ones. “We can!”

“That would be helpful.”

“Helpful is our middle name! Tall, thin man. Clothes out of style. Clearly had a lot of money, with that ring on his finger.”

“Were the clothes drab, with a raven on them?”

“Yes! How did you know?”

They ignore the question. “And the money you were paid—show it please.”

It’s local coinage, but it’s all old—from several doges ago, coins that they haven’t seen before.

The leader comments that it wasn’t the sort of job that they would normally take, and Aleep confirms that they were ensorcelled. They suddenly realize that they abandoned the caravan that they were accompanying to Easthaven. They’re shocked by that when they realize it.

The group discusses recruiting them as soldiers for their new dominion. Two of them are Glor’diadelian, with the third Paranswarmian.
[End session 37]


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## CPaladin (Jan 27, 2022)

Session 38 (October 24, 2021)

10 Ta-Ghast
Ulgorio is scheduled to perform tonight, during the Lesser Festival of Mists that takes place that night. They wait until evening. There are a large group of people at the performance hall; a huge number of people from the town, but also some who seem to be from beyond the town.

Merreep looks around to see if she sees anyone who matches Nandor’s description. She notices that there is also another group of people watching from the gate, deliberately not entering the town. She tells the rest of the group that she’s going to go over and talk to them. Aleep follows at a distance, in case Merreep needs support. They notice that the group includes Frederic and his wife, plus some woodsmen.

“Hello!”

“Hello! Magnificent performance, isn’t it?”

“You know, you could come in.”

“There are wards here that make us uncomfortable to pass, but we like to live nearby and enjoy the music and the other art. Some of us can pass the wards, but find them uncomfortable.”

Aleep casts Detect Magic as a ritual, and identifies that the wards are elven and hedge out anyone who is not a follower of Eiru, Elberith, Whimsey, Glor’diadel, or Gunnora. He is a little surprised that he hasn’t been affected, but concludes his association with a cleric of Glor’diadel and a paladin of Elberith, along with his respect for Glor’diadel, is enough to protect him from the wards.

After Ulgorio’s concert, the mayor gives him a wooden key to the city, though there is no actual lock on the gate.

Mereep tells the rest of the group after the concert that she received a note from Frederic’s wife. It said that they were expecting a priest of Paranswarm who rides circuit to arrive and minister to them. They are planning to go looking for him.

Aleep says, “If they go looking for him without us, they will surely die.”

They travel to the gate and talk to Frederic and his wife, Beatrice. The group says that they will accompany them, to their thanks. They say that Father Gillian is almost never late—perhaps a few minutes in a major storm, but never a day. He has been riding circuit for twenty years.

He is very peaceful—formerly a cloistered cleric, before he was called by Paranswarm to minister to scattered, underserved communities. He is an old man, and among the few Paranswarmian priests blessed with significant healing, likely because of his devotion to the Weeping Woman, who Beatrice describes as a saint (thus marking her as theologically conservative, perhaps even old-fashioned). She demonstrates a great deal of hagiographic knowledge, however, happily discussing the various saints of Paranswarm at length, while carefully avoiding anything that would seem like proselytization.

After about 4 hours of travel, they are in full dark, following a regular path that goes somewhere in the woods to the northwest. They then come upon an old man, in a habit, with one leg trapped under a badly mauled horse. A young bear is growling and crouched in a defensive posture trying to protect him.

Beatrice begins talking with Father Gillian, and the bear relaxes. Father Gillian says that a group of nine creatures set upon them, and he drove seven of them off through the power of Paranswarm. But the other two killed his horse, and would have killed him if the bear hadn’t defended him. The group levers the horse off him. He has a badly broken leg.

Runor sets the leg and then heals him. Father Gillian grits his teeth against the pain.

He reports that the undead were zombies, and that the last two fled after their attacks could not hurt the bear. Aleep points out that this means that there must have been something controlling them actively, because zombies are mindless and, on their own, would fight until the bear (Burl the Bear) tore them apart, even with his relatively small claws. The bear then trots off, apparently to look for the zombies.

They talk about the vampire activity, and the almost certainty that there are spawn in the area. Father Gillian does not recognize the name of Lord Acoldima, but mentions that legends say that vampires that reach enough power take on names of great grandeur to try to intimidate their foes. It could also be an actual name.

Once they get back to Beatrice and Frederic’s house, Aleep heads to the inn outside the walls to see if Nandor is there. Merreep and Ashaltir stay with the couple and the priest, and the rest head over to the inn.

It is very late as they arrive, but there are a handful of people still gambling and a couple still drinking. There are two men sitting with the gamblers that we do not recognize, both tall and thin. Aleep goes over to them, in his same alter self disguise, and asks to join the game.

One of them has a wall-eye and a heavy pile of silver in front of him, and introduces himself as Nandor. After enough money is on the table to match Nandor’s pile, the other man puts enough money in gold to match. He introduces himself as Archibald Ambrose. He later describes himself as Archibald Ambrose, of the Sixth Legion of Tarsh. After Nandor departs, Archibald Ambrose tells them that he is the general of the Sixth Legion, sent to determine if the Second Field Army should be committed to the Border Lands to help secure Caldefor. King-Emperor Jazeol trusts him, and wanted an analysis of whether Caldefor can be held before sending soldiers. He accompanies them back to Beatrice and Frederic’s house, wanting to meet the priest. He also tells them that Nandor was not using magic to fix the rolls; since it’s hard to see how he could have used thief skills (because rolls went his way even when others were rolling and he wasn’t touching the dice), so they figure that makes psionics likely, but he has no way to tell.

Archibald Ambrose (who is probably also a noble, but hasn’t confirmed it) decides to stay with Beatrice and Frederic to keep them safe—they’re being watched by bats, some of which have a divination effect on them. He plans on staying there while the group investigates further and clears up the problem, before heading on to the Shadowline, to help make sure that the efforts to cut off the supplies don’t succeed.
[End session 38]


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## CPaladin (Feb 3, 2022)

Session 39 (November 7, 2021)

11 Ta-Ghast
Aleep proposes using the Bowl of Memories to see if they can identify how Nandor is cheating.

The group agrees, and they try to put their memories (including Archibald Ambrose’s) in. They watch the memory repeatedly and then Runor notes a very faint misty white hand turn the dice. It’s whispy around the outside edges, and the only thing they see appear is the hand. Runor suspects that it might be an undead spirit, trapped in the ethereal plane, interacting a little.

The group talks about this; it’s a surprising amount of capability devoted to such a minor task, but it would make sense as an intelligence tactic. Luring people into debt is a standard spy tactic. Runor wonders whether Nandor might be a spy working for the Shadowlands; Nandor might also be working for the vampire lord, Lord Acoldima.

The group decides to split up. Two people, Aleep and Ashaltir, stay at the house, ready to respond to a problem. Merreep and Runor travel outside the town to search for any signs of the enemy group in the area surrounding the town. They head back towards the area where the vampire spawn was, trying to scout around carefully to see if there are zombies or anything like that near where they found the original vampire. Ulgorio and Bartix head to the tavern outside the city walls to see if they observe anything during the day.

Runor thinks that there’s something wrong as they’re traveling around. But Merreep notices that there is no noise—no birds, no animals, no bugs. As they head back towards the town, they see a young man in a tree with a bow. He hops down, approaches carefully, and speaks to Runor. “I could hear you coming for the last several miles. Can’t you move quieter? You’re scaring away all the game.”

“Hello. We’re trying to figure out what’s going on in this area.”

“A lot’s going on in this area, I’ll tell you. Just the other day, my dad was out hunting, and he was attacked by a bear that was dead. That’s not something that happens very often. Been a lot of weird stuff recently.”

“Did the bear seem to be smarter than usual?”

“That one didn’t but the bear that came to Da’s rescue seemed smarter than the average bear, and he killed the dead bear. You’re going to think that I’m crazy…”

“We might, but we’ve seen similar things.”

Meanwhile, back at the inn, Ulgorio and Bartix pretend to drink, but don’t really and keep a watch on things. About 1 in the afternoon, a man who is obviously attempting to disguise himself and failing miserably comes in. He has a wig on backwards, a large fake nose, and looks like a buffoon. He approaches the tavernkeep and speaks to her. She says that he can’t stay there, and he is very frustrated. “Where am I to stay then? I can’t go in to the town—the other inn won’t have me. But I can’t move on to the next safe point. I won’t get there in time.”

“And they won’t have you because of the 50 weasels that got loose.”

“Look. I’ll give you 5 silver. It’s all I got.”

“I know it’s not all you got, but I won’t do it. What if the weasels got loose here?”

She eventually drags him over to Ulgorio and Bartix. “This is my useless one time husband, Bernard the Buffoon, a jester without a court. If you want to talk to someone who has been everywhere across the continent and beyond the seas and gained no wisdom whatsoever, talk to Bernard.”

“Do you know a man named Nandor?”

“You are friends of Nandor?”

“Why do you seem so concerned?”

“I knew Nandor before he took up with his master—the strange man in old-fashioned clothes. I used to perform in a public house in Easthaven, where he gambled. Sometimes he won, sometimes he lost, but he made a living at it. And then one day this gentleman came in with antique clothes, only after night, with a cane with a head of ivory, and asked to join the game. There were four of them that played that night. By the end of that night, the man had taken everything they had. The two others laughed and left when told to pay their debts, but Nandor agreed to pay their debts and his own, because the man said they would be dead by dawn if they didn’t pay their debts. I think he works for him now. And his eye wasn’t like that before.”

When they mention that Nandor is sometimes seen here, he takes off immediately.

Later, the group meets up in the tavern. A pair of heavily armored men enter, ask if this is the inn, are told that it’s not and given directions to the inn, and then head off there.

A little while later, the serving boy from the inn enters and approaches the group. “Did you send friends over?”

“No.”

“They’re in your room. Da sent me over to tell you.”

The group heads back to the inn to deal with them.

They travel to the inn, where they find people ransacking their rooms. One of them identifies himself as Sergeant Major Devin Cleary and asks if one of them is the priest Runor. When Runor confirms that he is, he says, “You must die,” and flings something at Runor. Runor deflects it, and it explodes against the ceiling. Runor casts Inflict Wounds on the sergeant major and drops him immediately.

The corporal eventually surrenders, when he realizes that he has been sent to attack a priest of Glordiadel. They were sent from Ravenskrag with a message; the corporal thinks that he was carrying a message seeking to buy weapons from the Eastern Trade Federation to then resell to Tarkenia. The message is missing. The corporal describes a stranger in antique clothes who approached them while they were camping.

The group saves the sergeant major’s life, and as they do, they notice twin puncture marks on his neck. They conclude that he must have been attacked by the vampire and mind controlled.

The general worries that this is a deliberate effort to disrupt supply lines to the Shadowline, and offers the group a passel of potions and an offer of substantial support and money if they can bring him the head of the vampire.
[End session 39]


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## CPaladin (Feb 10, 2022)

Session 40 (November 20, 2021)

11 Ta-Ghast (late afternoon)
They try to wake the Sergeant-Major by splashing water on him.

He wakes, with no memory of what happened or how he got here. He remembers speaking to the man in antique clothing, but nothing since then. He’s very concerned about the missing message bag, which had both a message in it and a draft for 25,000 sp. They were with a whole detachment of horsemen—they have no idea what happened to them.

“I can’t imagine telling the Vizier’s secretary that we were under mind control when someone walked off with… they’ll think we stole it!”

“Who was the draft on?”

“The government of the city-state of Ravenskrag. Well, there’s nothing for it now. We have to find the men who stole the draft…” They also realize that they went out of their way to get here, but they’re not sure exactly where they are until the group explains that they are in Freetown. They were traveling up the main road north to the coast—they arrived roughly 375 miles out of their way, having traveled the intervening distance in two days.

The group suspects that they must have been teleported here, because they could not have possibly crossed that distance on horseback, or even on a voller.

“Why did they take the draft, though?”

Runor says, “I have a theory. They may want to make you sell your soul away, desperate for the money.”

The group also thinks that it might be a political machination intended to create a war—angering the Eastern Trade Federation by attacking its knights, while angering Ravenskrag by stealing the draft and killing some of their soldiers. It was a small detachment—8 total, including the two noncoms who are here.

The group speculates that they may have been set up by the secretary to the Vizier; the secretary gave them their orders directly, showing them the seal of the Vizier (who is the ruler of Ravenskrag’s right-hand man).

They never saw the draft; it was in a sealed bag. It was supposed to be delivered to one of the major trading merchants at the docks.

Aleep detects magic, and can find lingering enchantment on him, but no ongoing magic. They untie the sergeant-major.

The sergeant-major and the corporal are both famished, as if they haven’t eaten in two days.

Aleep uses the memory bowl to try to get images of the Vizier’s secretary, a prim, well-dressed man, with a pointed beard, with the Vizier’s seal. There are a few occasions when there’s a shimmery appearance to him in the memory—just once or twice. The seal also shimmered. Aleep thinks this is consistent with illusion magic being used.

When Aleep tries to get a clear vision of the vampire, he gets a very brief flash of an elegantly garbed man in out of style clothing, rapidly approaching from out of the darkness, and then everything becomes blurred.

He also recovers some in between memories—the campfire is now out, the other soldiers are scattered about, with one of them twisted and broken. They are then led by hands into the broken down old tower by the road. They then reappeared in the forest, about a day’s travel out from Free Town, and made their way here as quickly as they could, now alone.

The sergeant-major asks if Runor could write a letter explaining what happened to the bishop of Ravenskrag, who he thinks would believe him.

The group discusses what to do. Runor thinks they should go to the old tower that we saw in the memories to try to track down the vampire (and possibly find teleportation equipment). Ulgorio agrees. But that would represent weeks of travel, so Mereep suggests we wrap up the Nandor matter first, then go. The group decides to deal with Nandor first, tonight, then to travel with the sergeant-major and the corporal to the tower, and then likely on to Ravenskrag.

That evening, Aleep as “Helmut” goes to the gambling game, with Mereep, Ulgorio, and Bartix keeping a watchful eye. Runor and Ashaltir stay back at the inn with the soldiers of Ravenskrag. Archibald Ambrose is in the tavern as well. There are six or eight observers this time, after dark by a bit, when Nandor comes in, buys a round for the room, and comes over to the game.

Bartix notices something, but he can’t let Aleep know without tipping off the whole room. He quietly tells everyone else: there are three heavily armed people in the room, with carefully concealed weapons, two men and a woman. One of them has a garrote in her hair, along with light armor concealed under fine clothes. The other two have other weapons concealed on their persons. All of them stick out as strangers in these parts, and they are flicking small hand signals at each other while they watch the game. At first, Aleep is winning, and he excitedly buys a round for the table and then starts raising the stakes. He wins some more, and then Nandor pulls out some gold, which shocks the room and causes several people to drop out of the game. Aleep makes a show of hesitating… and then commits to playing on at the even higher stakes.

Aleep immediately loses at the higher stakes, rolling several times before being wiped out. Aleep says, “Double or nothing! Helmut is good for it!” after checking his pouch to make a show of not having any more money.

Nandor agrees with a smile, and of course, Aleep loses again.

They then have a conversation about working things out, as Aleep says, “Helmut doesn’t have the money now—but he can get it!”

A woman with a garrote in her hair saunters over to Ulgorio. “Cousin. I know that we walk something of the same path. You and your companions… do you have difficulty with the Guild in East Haven, or are you free of disagreement with them?”

“I don’t think we have any problems with them.”

“Then tell me what you saw, as you watched this. And I will tell you what we saw. We looked for magic, and we saw none. We looked for sleight of hand, and we saw none. We have traveled for weeks to be here, because word reached us that he is… making servants out of young men that lose their money to him. And such a thing, without the Guild, is forbidden. He has no Guild marker. We can’t intervene if he used no forbidden techniques, but if he did, we must defend our territory. What did you see? Did he use any means to fix the game?”

Ulgorio says, “No?” He’s wary and doesn’t want to share information with them.

Merreep says, “Is there any way we can know you are trustworthy?”

“I am not trustworthy, but if you have no difficulties with the Guild, we have no problem with you. But we saw nothing. No magic, no sleight of hand, and no psionics. And our Guildmaster sent us to investigate, to find out what’s happening. Why? We don’t know. You have my sworn word upon blood and iron that I’m not your enemy, nor do we have any ill-designs upon you or the poor young man over there. It can’t be honest, yet we can’t see how.”

Merreep whispers to Ulgorio, “Should we tell them? I don’t see any reason we shouldn’t.”

Ulgorio thinks and then agrees.

Aleep tells Nandor a story about being a mercenary sorcerer, keeping up the story of “Helmut.” He agrees to do work for Nandor.

“There are older villages in these lands. One days’ travel northwest of here, there is an old tower or the ruins of one. Take this talisman to it. There is a metal plate with runes on it. Slot the talisman into it, and step on the plate. It will carry you to another tower, where you . There is a whole network of them, the master may teach you how to use all of it. It has been forgotten by all but the Hastur, and they do not care. And then I must leave—your friends are talking to some people who do not like me, and I must go before they have words with me.”

“They are more like acquaintances than friends. But they also do mercenary work. Should I try to hire them as well?”

“Yes, do that. Lord Acoldima could use more useful mercenaries. Have them each remove and replace the talisman, but quickly—it will crumble to dust once it has been untouched for 20 heartbeats. It will bring you to the Lord, and you and they will be well compensated.”

He then disappears suddenly and with no warning.

Moments before, Ulgorio tells the representatives of the Thieves’ Guild about the ghost that Nandor is using. They are then shocked to see Nandor disappear, and they quickly head back, mostly frustrated to not have accomplished their mission (and sure than Nandor will not return to this village after he saw them) but glad to know how he’s cheating to report that back.
[End session 40]


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## CPaladin (Feb 18, 2022)

Session 41 (January 15, 2022)

12 Ta-Ghast
The group decides to head to the tower with the teleportation device. They ask the sergeant-major and the corporal to come with them, which they immediately agree to, since they want to know more about the teleportation towers. They decide to travel on foot, to make it easier to be less obvious and more stealthy.

The forest is thicker and wilder once they get out of the area around the town. There’s also a darker feel to it, to the rangers.

They approach at the end of the day the ruins of a tower. It’s basically just the first floor of a tower, with an open doorway, and a magical plate in the middle.

Merreep suggests that they might use disguises.

Aleep examines the magic plate. It’s clearly magical, with runes written in a relative of Elven (though older than the language Merreep has ever used); it sparkles in Merreep and Ashaltir’s vision, though not in anybody else’s. There are clearly multiple destinations, but they can’t tell how many or how to select them. There is conjuration magic embedded in the plate, as well as some other magical effect that Aleep can’t identify.

Ulgorio has comprehend language, so he casts the spell and begins reading the runes. He gets the feeling of a spider web as he reads it. He gets 15 distinct phrases, set up as if they were a poem, but they don’t rhyme, either in translation or in the original. The phrases are things like “Blue top rock,” and “overlook” and “vine home.” Full list:

Vinehome (shines)
Blue-topped Rock
The Road
The Overlook
The Cavern of Spiders
The Oldway
The Cemetary
The Farway
The Castle
The Dip
The Nearby
The City
The Frontier

The one labeled “Vinehome” shimmers differently than the others.

As he reads them, he sees a flash between two of them, but neither of them is Vinehome. It could be a map, maybe, in a spider web. He guesses that the one labeled “the road way” might be where the soldiers were taken from. Aleep speculates with concern that it might be Drowan—elves who use a language different from Merreep and are associated with spiders.

Aleep also tells him various place names, trying to see if any of them translate to match the nodes.

Suddenly, Ulgorio sees two of the nodes—Vinehome and the node at the top right—light up. He mentions that to the rest and Aleep shouts, “Is someone teleporting here! Hide!” as he dives for cover.

Everyone hides. A second later, the platform glows and two men in very archaic uniforms appear suddenly. They look around, see no one, and then step out and flank either side of the doorway. A second later, a mage, also in very archaic robes, steps through between them and doesn’t even look. He breathes a deep breath. “We must make our way quickly to the village. Our lord wants a new reconnoiter, and I will give him a new reconnoiter. That damnable vampire.”

The uniforms had heraldry on them—it’s archaic, different from the heraldry of both old House Fooblu and of the vampire in the memory of the soldiers.

After they have left, Aleep asks Ulgorio if “Drow,” “Mordhel,” or “Noldar” sound like anything. Ulgorio says that they mean, “Dark Elves,” “Savage Elves,” and “Majesty and Terror,” respectively—very consistent with this language being Drowan or some close relative.

At this point, it’s evening, and the group withdraws into the woods, able to watch the tower but some distance away, and makes a cold, hidden camp.

Runor also reports that the tower was clearly neither human nor dwarven work, and that the stones were made to fit together like puzzle pieces, which suggests magic was used to shape them.

At the end of the night, after dawn but before sunrise, Bartix sees two groups of humanoids, much cleaner and dressed archaically, run up to the tower and check it out. After they check it out, they form up, and two humans, also dressed archaically and carrying parasols, walk up, shielding an emaciated human in the same archaic clothes, and wearing the heraldry that he thinks is of Lord Acoldima. They all pass through. Bartix wakes people in time for them to see the group teleporting out, first the emaciated human, then the other humans.

Ulgorio rushes up and comprehends language, and sees that Vinehome and The Castle are both glowing, with The Castle indicated as the destination. Also, examining the token that the group was given, he sees that it says “The Castle” in the same script.

13 Ta-Ghast
Aleep comes up with a dangerous plan: prestidigitating a token that says “The Road” on it, passing through, then making a token that says “Vinehome” on it and attempting to return. The group agrees, and agrees that Aleep and the sergeant-major should go. They teleport through, confirm that The Road is the tower north of Ravenskrag, and return.

Shortly after they return, another figure, again dressed in archaic robes, teleports through.

“I salute you in the name of the ancient city of Ulfarshan! Have you declared a faction? I don’t think any of you have from the way you’re dressed. Let’s see… two rangers, a bard, and a priest of one of the young gods.”

Runor bristles at the idea of Glor’diadel being a young god, but the man keeps talking.

“You are a dwarf, are you not?”

“I am…”

“Excellent, excellent. Your kind were only beginning to emerge when we sequestered ourselves.”

“Are you a drow?”

“No, the Great Ones left us long ago. I am a human. But the Great Ones made the network long ago, and Ulfarshan was founded by the Great Ones.”

The group decides to travel back to the capital of the Eastern Trade Federation to tell the Dogaressa about this and to discuss an embassy to Ulfarshan.
[End session 41]


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## CPaladin (Feb 24, 2022)

Session 42 (January 29, 2022)

14 Ta-Ghast
The group heads back towards Mina Talen te Conde, expecting the trip to take 5 days.

The first two days are entirely peaceful.

16 Ta-Ghast
As they’re traveling, Merreep hears a great deal of deep grunting in the brush. She proceeds forward and checks to see what it is, and she sees two enormous boars, with two smaller boars hiding behind them. She backs away slowly.

The rest of the group follows her example. They give them a wide berth and work their way around carefully, and the rest of the day passes without incident.

18 Ta-Ghast
After some more uneventful travel, they reach the city in the evening. The East Haven troops are now here, reinforcing the city.

Runor rushes across the city to the cathedral. The rest of the group slowly jogs after him casually, keeping pace easily.

When they reach the cathedral and head in, Runor heads straight to the bishop.

“Runor! You’re back.”

“It’s been a while.”

“It has.”

“We’re currently dealing with a vampire problem, and thus we think holy water should be produced as quickly as possible.”

“You’re telling me that there are many undead.”

“Many undead, and it seems that there is a group of vampires and other unholy creatures working around this location.”

“I’ll see what I can do. How much were you thinking?”

“Enough that any adventurer going out can have more than a little with them. Also, there’s something of a cult. Recruiting people through gambling debt.”

“This was working for the greater vampire that calls himself Lord Acoldima.”

“Some vampires have charms… perhaps this is part of that, or it’s strengthening its charm powers.”

Aleep says, “Sergeant-major, perhaps sergeant-major should tell bishop about his experience.”

The sergeant-major describes his experience. They discuss the teleportation network with the bishop.

The bishop expresses concern that, if one of the nodes is beyond the Shadowline, it could be a strategic weakness, allowing for the Shadow to cross the Shadowline in an attack. He also calls for some scholars.

“Acoldima, does that name mean anything to you?”

“I’ve seen the name in the histories, but it predates the Trade Federation. Acoldima resisted the formation, and was, I believe, eradicated. It would have to be someone else using the name.” The scholar goes to research them.

“Aleep and his friends also saw ancient heraldry, both of Acoldima and of some other group.” Aleep prestidigitates images.

“I think I recognize one of those as an old, old house, though Acoldima’s would have been stricken from the records. Perhaps I can find the other one in the records.” One of the scholars goes to check.

They discuss the “keys” used to activate the teleportation network.

The bishop says, “So they require a device to be made to work?”

“Aleep and his friends need to use a device to make them work,” says Aleep. “We saw someone else activate them without using a device, and without casting a spell.”

“Perhaps psionics, then?” says the scholar. “Especially if they have a connection to the elves… the elves have more psionic power than humans.”

“The writing on the network seemed like a sort of Elven, though not the Elven that Merreep can read. But it seemed like the elves who made the network were not drow, but were friendly with drow. And if they viewed dwarves as young, they likely sequestered themselves in the First or Second age.”

The scholar requests a copy of the writing on the brass plate to attempt to both translate it and identify its origins.

“You’ve done the faith a great service, Father Runor. I would ask that you go now to report to the Dogaressa as you have reported to me, and then return on the morrow.”

The group then travels to the Dogaressa’s palace. They are immediately recognized of course, and ushered through immediately to meet with the Dogaressa herself.

“Ah, you return.”

They report on what they have discovered, starting with the story of Nandor.

“I’m going to ask you to escort the new ambassador to Ulfershan. I then must ask you to take the dangerous road of mapping the other nodes on this pathway. Not only for purposes of trade, but for the sake of the Gods and Goddesses, for the sake of protecting us strategically.”

The Dogaressa gives each of them 200 silver pieces.

19 Ta-Ghast
The next day, they’re given a report about the language. It’s clearly a form of elvish, neither Eldar nor Noldar, but perhaps related to both of them, and perhaps an ancestor of both of their languages. Merreep has heard legends of a precursor race of elves that divided into the Eldar and the Noldar, but she knows nothing about them, nor anyone who does.

Among the petty kingdoms before the Trade Federation was founded, whose land mostly voluntarily got absorbed in, was the House of Acoldima. That vampire lord’s lands are near where House Acoldima’s lands were.

The Dogaressa has appointed an elderly woman, with perhaps a trace of elven blood and a touch of psionics but still clearly elderly, as ambassador to Ulfershan. “I am Dame Amelia.” She is rail thin, obviously at least in part a mage, although she carries a sword and can ride.

22 Ta-Ghast
After 4 days of uneventful travel, Merreep and Ashaltir are on watch at night. Ashaltir hears a really funny noise and tells Merreep, who hears nothing.

“What does it sound like?”

“People dragging something heavy. Started off towards the east, now sounds off towards the north.”

Merreep makes her way out with Ashaltir, after waking Runor and Ulgorio to stand watch. She sees a pair of figures, about six feet tall with multifaceted eyes, loading logs up into a deadfall to crush people walking under them. Merreep is sure that they’re setting up the deadfalls to ambush the party as they move out.

Merreep decides to start a conversation. “Hi there!”

“Flesh-thing talk!”

“Yes!”

“What you want, flesh-thing-blood-sack?”

“I see you’re putting up lots of logs.”

“Yes. Traps. Why, flesh-thing-blood-sack?”

“Traps for what exactly?”

“Intruders. Intruders who might… want the eggs.”

“Oh, you have eggs. How interesting.”

“Interesting, they say. Egg eaters?”

“No, we’re just trying to pass through area.”

They agree to not set a trap in the west, so that the group can head out safely as long as they just continue west.

23 Ta-Ghast
After another uneventful day of travel, they return to the tower.

They pass through with the token they were given and enter into a large courtyard, surrounded by crossbowmen with very old styles of crossbows. A man in old robes comes to greet them.

“Ah! I was told you would be coming. Prithee enter.”

Dame Amelia presents a sealed document. “My credentials.”

“Ah, ambassadors. Please, follow me.” He leads them into the city, which is clearly ancient.

Merreep and Bartix look at the sky, and eventually one of them points out to the other that the sky doesn’t look right. It’s green.

They’re escorted into a rococo palace.
[End session 42]


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## CPaladin (Mar 3, 2022)

Session 43 (February 12, 2022)

23 Ta-Ghast (evening)
They enter the palace, and their escort fetches a functionary more appropriate to the situation, and returns with Dior Bindal, a middle-aged human woman. “Quarters have been prepared for you. We resuscitated one of the long abandoned manors. Repairs will be ongoing, and if you wish, you may want to stay within the palace until the repairs are completed.”

The whole palace is ornately decorated with elaborate, excellently executed plant-themed decorations.

The group follows along as Bindal escorts Dame Amelia to her quarters. The group inspects the rooms, which seem fine. Aleep detects ancient, almost impossibly old magics; they seem to be fading away and imperfectly powered, but still active.

The group is then led through the city to an ancient manor, now being worked on. The city is clearly much less populated than it once was. The manors around the one being worked on are all empty. As they cross the city, they can tell that it is not all humans—they see a few strange gnomes, an aasimar, and even one half-elf, though he is far away.

Dior tells them, after being asked, that they are fading away. They have less children in each generation, perhaps because of something about the rocks around the city. They are trying to recruit more people in from among their allies. But even so, the population has faded from a quarter million to less than 60,000.

As they look around the manor, Merreep estimates that the manor has been abandoned for 4 or 5 human generations, but is in surprisingly good shape. Merreep also asks about the sky, and is told that it is a dome—a natural dome. They are in a great cyst in the earth, beneath the wood, where the Lost Master established this many years ago.

“We have weather, two or three times a year, when the priests call it.”

“How do you raise your crops without regular rain?”

“We irrigate them. They are then illuminated by the great pillar the Founder left, which causes them to grow very well.”

They realize that the whole city is illuminated by that light, which is fading slowly as night comes on. Runor cannot think of any clerical magic that could do that—it seems far beyond normal magic.

They are also told that the god that the priests serve is “The Founder. The Originator. The One who preceded all things. The One who made the First Comers, may they be praised.”

Runor explains that that must refer to Eiru the Creator, the principal elven god. It’s very rare for humans to worship Eiru. Also, it’s strange that she referred to the pillar as being made by “the Founder,” apparently referring to a great elf, but then used the same term to refer to the Creator.

They ask Dior about their mission to map the nodes and ask if they could have keys. She tells them that they have to ask a member of the Council about that.

Taken to see Windrola, a very frail, very elderly human man, sitting on a stone throne. He gives them a skeleton key to the network, and tells them that they can’t make them anymore but can make keys for specific destinations. He also mentions that few of them can activate the nodes with their minds anymore.

He warns us about Walkers, that walk the nodes without keys. There are terrible Walkers, and some kind ones. The kind ones are recruited, in some cases to join the city. The terrible ones are released by the First Comers who turned to evil, more each year. Some make it into the web.

The skeleton key is a bright, shiny very pure looking silver metal. When it is inserted, all the nodes will light up, and they can then select a destination at will.

Windrola also asks Ulgorio if he will perform when he returns. He says he will. Windrola then says, in an almost religious tone, “The last of the Founders went forth to find great music beyond what can be heard here. He was the last to leave. He will be the first to return.” (The other local residents all murmur “He will be the first to return.”)

They then are shown to the merchant’s quarter. There are several small stores, including a bowyer, an unusually elaborate blacksmithy, an elaborate temple that Runor doesn’t recognize at all but assumes, based on size and decorations, must be a cathedral, and an alchemy shop, along with several food merchants. Everything seems surprisingly quiet and low energy.

Ulgorio goes into the blacksmithy. Everything is of masterwork quality, though none is magic. He asks for a grappling hook, and buys a fancy folding one for 2 gold, along with a chain that will bear 350 pounds of weight.

Runor looks into buying a hammer. He starts looking at a great hammer, nearly as tall as he is and quite heavy. He heads over to a practice dummy, and smacks it a mighty blow, breaking the dummy off the rope from which it is suspended. It is a masterwork weapon, with a nonmagical +1 bonus to hit. Runor buys it for 2 gold.

Bartix sees that there is a magus who has a shop there (the Vearing Almbic), and looks to buy a masterwork sword to get enchanted by the magus. Bartix buys a masterwork great sword for 17 gold. A gnome in a tall hat meets him in the magus shop, and Bartix asks to have the great sword enchanted. He now has a +1 greatsword, for 100 silver more.

Aleep examines the alchemist’s shop. There are many unusual things, including other magical supplies beyond what you would expect. There are barrels with runes in them, to improve the quality of ale kept in them. He is told that they do not carry magic scrolls, but the Shrine of the Violet Leaf does, or at least they try. In recent years, there has been more call for scrolls, and there are only a few who can make them. Aleep also buys 4 doses of antitoxin and 6 potions of healing, for a total of 400. He’s warned that it won’t affect magic poison, and that the things released from one nodes (the one with the fallen First Comers, by which the alchemist means elves) have much poison, occasionally magical poison. He is also told that he could get 17 silver per dram of saffron, up to 100 drams, which is much more than it would cost in the Trade Federation.

Merreep heads to one of the food stores. She buys some smoked and jerked meats. The butcher offers beef, which is the most expensive, but also rothe (which is like pork) and lizard. Merreep buys some rothe, ready for travel—about 20 pounds of each of smoked and jerked, and 20 pounds of pemican, for a total of 180 silver.

They also visit the temple, which is an elegant structure with arched ceilings, with statuary that looks like art more than devotional, and a waterfall behind the high altar. In addition to the high altar, there are three other smaller altars. The priest, who appears to have elven blood, wears clothes evenly divided into bright white and black clothes. He is extremely interested in the elves among the group. The high altar is white to the east and dark to the east, in a way that Runor has never heard of before. The three lower altars however have notes and prayers on them, in imperfect script. “These are where our people come to pray to the three Founders who were once with us. The high altar is where I offer prayers to the Brothers.”

“Who are the Brothers?” asks Runor.

“We worship both the Creator and his Brother, who brought Death to the world for the newer races.”

“Is that Morgroth, then?”

He nods respectfully. “The Founders who walked with us for a time were from before the wars between the followers of the Brothers.”

“That’s very rare.”

“Yes. We do not believe that we are alone as remnants. But we know we are rare, but we have always received spells so they must not think we are heretics, or at least must not be bothered.”

“Meaning no offense, but are you slightly descended from the Founders?”

“Yes. All the priests must have some of the Blood, or they cannot approach the high altar. That is why the people leave notes at the other altars. They could, of course,” he says as he gestures at the elves in the party.

24 Ta-Ghast
The group travels back to the teleport device to head off to their first node.

They know where three of the nodes are—The City, which is here, Vinehome, which is near the group’s holdings and Free Town, and the Road, which is north of Ravenskrag. They consider which of the other places to try:

Blue-topped Rock
The Overlook
The Cavern of Spiders
The Oldway
The Cemetery
The Farway
The Castle
The Dip
The Nearby
The Frontier

Merreep suggests that they try the Oldway. It is in what appears to be a jungle. It is uncomfortably hot. The pad is in a square tower, and unlike the others the group has been to, it has been maintained. There are tables, with fresh fruits and flowers against the walls. The trees are large and have large leaves. About 50 feet away, a lizard person with an elaborate headdress of flowers and an antique polearm looks at them. It does not approach at first, but it also does not retreat. Once it knows it has been seen, it approaches cautiously and holds up one webbed hand. It seems confused, but not completely surprised.
[End session 43]


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## CPaladin (Mar 10, 2022)

Session 44 (February 26, 2022)

24 Ta-Ghast (cont’d, after passing through to the Oldway)
Merreep says “hello!” to the lizardperson, who replies in some language none of them know.

Merreep asks what the direction to the nearest city is, and the lizardperson points up and in a direction. It’s clear that the lizardperson can at least to some degree understand, though his speech is unintelligible to the group. Based on the position of the sun, he was pointing mostly north and a little to the east, towards some distant mountains that are vaguely blue with distance.

The lizardperson also removes his headrest, and places it on Merreep’s head, and bows repeatedly as he backs away back into the jungle.

The group sets out in the direction the lizardperson pointed. The tower is near something that can be generously described as a footpath, but they see no other structures nearby.

They make their way directly in the direction he pointed, ignoring the footpath to bushwhack through the deep jungle. After a little while, they emerge into a lizardperson village on the edge of a swamp. The lizardpeople jump up in consternation, but they wave back when Merreep waves. After a little while, one of the lizardpeople fetches a slightly larger lizardperson from the largest hut, who walks over while plating some flowers together into a crown, which it puts in its head.

After some failed attempts at communication, a tall lizardperson who is bent over finally says, “You… return?”

“Oh, do you think Merreep is a great elf who has come here before?”

“Kah!” it replies, while nodding.

The lizardperson then brings out one of the familiar keys and a collection of papyrus fragments. The writing is in Elven, but with a mix of familiar Elven words and words that Merreep cannot read, but thinks is similar to the ancient Elven on the pad. Ulgorio casts comprehend languages. He reads it, and it’s a stylized creation myth, describing the creation of the world, the creation of the elves (the first intelligent people on the world), and the early days of the world. The old bent lizardperson gestures excitedly towards the stone with the key on it. This is another one of the skeleton keys, like the one the group received.

Ulgorio doesn’t see any references to the stone in the document, but on the last leaf, in an entirely different language, it says, “Guard the tower. Keep the key. Wait for the return.”

“Do you want us to take it?”

“Up… to… you…” The old one pats its chest and pats the chief’s chest, and says “loyal.”

“Aleep wonders, do you know where we are?”

“Dalwan.”

Aleep clarifies to anyone who is unsure that Dalwan is one of the Border Kingdoms, along the Shadowline.

When the lizardperson hears the word “Shadowline,” it points to the southwest.

They clearly venerate elves, and think that Merreep is the great elf who came here before. They also respond to the word “Hastur” with religious fervor, grovelling on the ground.

Aleep gives them a piece of parchment with the arms of the Eastern Trade Federation on it, and indicates that people with those arms are with them.

The chief gives each of them three fire-hardened, poisoned javelins.

The group then heads back to the tower, accompanied by one of the guards.

They prepare to pick the next destination and decide to go to The Dip. They pass through the teleportation plate and step out onto spray-dampened rock. Behind them, is what looks to be a lighthouse, still with a light atop it. The lighthouse is a tower just like the others, but with a globe of light atop.

A voice calls out, “Faith! Ye almost gave me a heartattack. Ring the bell when you come! Ring the bell! Everyone coming through here without a bit of warning, and then that guy the other day, almost killed me, he did. But fortunately, Nathaniel had a bow.”

“Are you Nathaniel?”

“No! Do I look like a Nathaniel? I’m Rudolf.”

After some discussion, they determined that this is just to the east of the Phraint lands, and the keeper was sent from Ravenskrag.

Once they realize that Runor is a priest of Glordiadel, Nathaniel asks Runor to take his confession.

“Who was the guy that tried to kill you?”

“We buried him! We had to! He tried to kill me!” He shows them a mark where he was bitten on his neck. “Nathaniel had to shoot him.”

Runor finishes blessing Nathaniel and asks them to show them the grave.

The keeper is happy to show them the grave, with a pile of stones on it and a wooden headstone marker labeled “Unknown attempted murderer.” Runor insists on digging it up, and they find an uncorrupted body, with a sun symbol on it slowly burning into it. Runor smashes in the vampire spawn’s head with his hammer, and as the sunlight strikes it, it bursts into flame and there’s an unearthly scream. They push the corpse around to make sure it’s fully incinerated. The group realizes that Nathaniel inadvertently staked it when he shot it with a wooden arrow, and then when they put the holy symbol on it they pinned it in the grave.

“Were you looking for something? You weren’t looking for those elves that came through the other day. Came through in the middle of the night, with their giant pet spider.”

They conclude that those were drow, especially with the description of them as having “faded into night.”

Aleep searches the vampire’s ashes and finds a small metal symbol in the shape of Lord Acoldima’s arms. It has a slight magical aura of divination. After some discussion, they chuck it out into the sea as far as they can fling it.

Having finished up here, they go back to the teleport network, and head to The Cemetery. They step out past two highly stylized figures of angels, into the midst of an enormous cemetery. The tower still stands, though somewhat worse for wear, and adorned with all sorts of Glordiadelian symbology and gargoyles and the like. It has clearly been turned into a mausoleum.

As Merreep steps through, she hears a deafening, terrible scream, but it doesn’t stun her. Ashaltir also makes it through fine, but Runor is deafened and stunned, falling to the ground to the side as he hears the scream. No one else is harmed by the sound. As they look around, they realize that the sound comes from a circle of mushrooms surrounding the tower.

Once they get Runor past the shrieking mushrooms, he gradually recovers.

Moments later, a group of figures in shiny steel chainmail with longbows and swords strapped to their sides rush up, and aim their bows at them. “Who are you, and why do you come to this holy place?”

The group introduces themselves.

“Behold the Cemetery of the Victims of Shadow, to inter the most heroic defenders against the Shadow in the thousand year struggle.”

Looking around, they realize that they are up in the mountains.

“This place was created years ago by the Hastur.”

They discuss the network, and are told that there were two that led to lands that had been seized—one in the former lands of their capital, the Thronged City, and the other in the lost kingdom that fell to them many fewer years ago--Caldefor. They may have disappeared entirely from the network if the towers are fully fallen and the pads no longer powered.

The guards take them to talk to the Master of the Cemetery. The Master floats over. He’s clearly one of the Hastur. They discuss the network with him, and he tells them, when asked about the strange elves who made it, that they were Eldron, from the original group of elves before the split. He also knows of Lord Acoldima, and mentions having incinerated a group of his minions.

The group then heads to The Frontier. They step through, and as soon as they step through, they hear thundering hooves. A large herd of the largest bison they have ever seen are running from something, directly towards the group. There are very few trees, some rocks, and open plains. The herd parts around the rock on which the tower stands. The hunters chasing the bison slow as they approach—they are half horse and half human. Without a moment’s hesitation, the lead hunter throws a heavy spear directly towards Merreep. It sails past Merreep and slams into the tower. In total, there are six centaurs closing in from different directions, one with a rattle and the rest with spears. The rattle causes all of them to glow slightly.

Ulgorio attacks the one that’s rapidly closing, and it slides off his leather harness. Aleep casts a fireball, catching four of them, two of whom save, for 18 or 9, depending.

The battle rages on. The one with the rattle heals one of the other ones. The last one of the enemy stops and draws a bow.

Bartix charges the one with the bow, critting it and hitting it.

Ulgorio casts hypnotic pattern, incapacitating all of them except for the priest.

Aleep casts magic missile, hitting the shaman for substantial damage.

At that point, the shaman calls for quarter, and the fight ends.

The shaman says that they attacked because three-quarters of the things that come through the gate are dangerous. When asked about vampires, they say that after some scouting expeditions, the vampires tried to drink from some of their human kinfolk and they put them to the sun.

[End session 44; we're now up-to-date, so I'll be switching to posting half-sessions at a time so I continue to post once every week even though the games are once every two weeks.]


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## CPaladin (Mar 18, 2022)

Session 45 (March 12, 2022)

25 Ta-Ghast
The party is still with the centaurs at the Frontier. The centaurs give them some breakfast.

Runor speaks to them. “About those vampires.”

“Yes. Those vampires. We thought to send a warband to trace them, but we can’t.”

“They seem to be growing more hungry, perhaps.”

“Hungry, numerous…”

“They seem to be taking over the network.”

“Yes, they are a great threat. The sun kills them. And old style, wooden spears.”

Runor gives them some holy water and explains that it can burn the vampire.

They call over the shaman to learn how to make holy water, and Runor explains that they must call on Glordiadel, the Lord of Light and greatest of all gods. He teaches the shaman the ritual.

“Aleep wonders, where is this plains?”

“Here!”

“Yes, but what’s around here? Not here but nearby?”

“Potato farms. Ocean—we not go on ocean. Human village. More plains. Far away, mountains. Then, end of world.” Consulting a compass, they conclude that the mountains are roughly north by northwest.

Bartix points out, “The sun is turning green. I’m not sure that it’s supposed to do that.”

“Does the sun often change color here?”

“Yes. Sometimes yellow, sometimes green, sometimes cloudy and bluish.”

Runor meditates on the sun, which is after all an icon of Glordiadel, and concludes that it could not possibly be their sun. They ask about the moons, and are told that there is only one moon, a small purple moon.

“What gods do humans worship here?”

“Great Lady. They say She why sky and sun change, but eh.”

The centaurs walk them a couple of hours to a small human village of about 300 people. The first person they meet fetches the head man, an older man. “Ah, visitors. Let’s see… fey, and a very short man, and a demon, and … whatever you all are. Welcome!”

Runor asks about this world and why the sun changes.

“All things flow from Great Lady, short man. When She wills sun change, it changes. When She wills the bay comes in, the bay comes in. When she wills the bay go out, it goes out.” He points to the boats, which are up on racks with no water visible nearby. “If we lived where there is always bay, then when it comes in we would be flooded.”

Aleep asks if there is a hedge wizard or witch, or a wise woman, or something. He gets directed to Nana’s house on the edge of the town. She is tending an active garden, with some plants that actually walk around. She recognizes what most of the party is, correctly, though she does not recognize Aleep.

“Do you know, is this Aphonion?”

“No. Well, in the very broadest sense. Many years ago, generations ago, there were a band of people who lived on the edge of the sea, just within the boundaries a great barony. These people included humans and centaurs both and were faithful of the Great Lady. An army, with great shields of iron, marched on them, and they cried out to the Lady to save them, because they were not warriors. And here we are. There was not much here at all when they arrived. Just empty land, a few scattered plants. But the Lady brought them plants for food, and made the bay come in with fish, and here we are. Generations later, there still isn’t that much to speak of—it ends in every direction, and only Her moon is in the sky. So I would say, no, it isn’t Aphonion really, though I know of what you speak.

“Ah! This is a pocket universe!” says Aleep. “Like with spells that make space that is not space.”

“Pocket universe. I like that. Yes, I think that’s a good description of it. So yes, the Great Lady protects her own. I think she forgot us here, though. Some generations ago, the centaurs moved away, formed their own tribe around the area where the tower stands.”

Runor says, “The ‘Great Lady’ must be Whimsey.”

“Yes.”

“Was the tower here when your people arrived?”

“Yes, the tower was always here, even when there was nothing else. We maintain it. Well, the centaurs maintain it mostly, and recently nasty things have been coming through.”

“Vampires,” Runor says. “Can you make holy water? I taught the shaman of the centaurs how to.”

“No, I know that at one time there were priests that could do that, but I am more of a witch than a priestess.”

“Are there any among your people who are priests, with spells from the Great Lady.”

“No priests as such anymore. There are sometimes followers of the Great Lady who sometimes get spells of all sorts of powers, and sometimes don’t.”

“That’s Whimsey for you,” says Runor, perhaps a tad disapprovingly.

“Aye. And perhaps she hasn’t forgotten us entirely, then.”

They discuss how to fight vampires and remedies against them—holy water, wooden stakes, and so forth. Nana mentions that they have special nets that they use to hold the vampires in place until the sun rises and burns them away. She promises to pass this information on to the warriors—there aren’t many, but there are a few, who sometimes travel about the land as far as the strange city.

She explains that the strange city is perhaps 5 miles away. It appeared suddenly, after they were here. Sometimes strange things appear in this world, and sometimes they disappear again. But this city arrived, all of metal and with strange inhabitants. They aren’t really alive.”

“What are they?”

“They are strange figures of metal, wire, and crystal.”

“Golemim?”

“I don’t know that word.”

“Living statues?”

“Well, these aren’t statues exactly. But they are crafted, like they were made by a master crafter, and they talk in a limited fashion. They spend their time polishing and maintaining the city, sweeping the streets, and waiting, though they will not say what they are waiting for. Strange people in a strange city, as I said.”

The group decides to check the city out, and the village provides them a guide who can lead them to it.
[cont'd]


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## CPaladin (Mar 25, 2022)

[Session 45, cont'd]
They travel to the strange city. There are metallic rounded towers, a twenty-five foot metal wall with open gates, and a paved road that leads out half a mile and then stops at a dead stop, at the same distance from the city as there is a sudden clean change in vegetation in a perfect circle. The road is cobbled, in a way that is familiar to the group, but with cobblestones that are precisely evenly shaped and laid with greater precision than they are used to.

They talk to the gate, who welcomes them to Mechanus.

Runor immediately identifies the fine craftsmanship as gnomish.

They ask the gate where it was before it came here. The gate suggests that they speak to the Archivist. When they’re asked if they remember anything from before they were here, the gates tell them they don’t remember anything, but the Archivist will. They light a path to the Archivist, then fall silent.

Ulgorio hears in his ear a female voice, “There is an opera house in the city, young one, if you want to try your voice.”

Runor presses the gate hard about what he remembered from before they were here.

The gate begins crying. “I loved my maker! He polished me and made me. And now he is lost and gone!”

“We’re trying to find your maker and understand what happened.”

“You’ll find my maker?”

“Yes. We want to find out what happened. There were people here.”

“There once was a great one and many little ones. And then the great one fell in battle. And the little ones could not defend the city from the many soldiers in steel with their shields. We sent out our gargoyles, but the city was not finished and the city did not have the knowledge it would need to defend itself. And the little makers called on the Great Lady, that the Moonstone City would not fall, for they followed the Great Lady as well as the great maker. And then the city was here. But the little makers were not.”

Runor hypothesizes that there was once an elf running the city, with a population of gnomes. He also suspects that they were attacked by Paranswarmians.

Within the city, nothing is alive. There are flowers, but they are cunningly made from metal.

A metal figure, shaped like a bespectacled gnome, approaches them, and introduces itself as the Archivist.

“This city began millenia ago as the final of the Gem Cities. But with time, there were no longer enough of the great lords and ladies for all of the Cities. The City of Chimes and the City of the Moonstone were abandoned to the younger ones. The Lord of the City of the Moonstone was little more than a child. He could not stand against them when the accursed hordes of humans came to try to take the City and its treasures, and he fell. The city defenses are not complete. The city responded with all of its force, but the Iron Legions are endless; and my master, the one who made me the archivist that once dwelled in this archive and many others sought the intercession of the great lady. Lady Whimsey to save us. The city was moved here without its people, and they were dying in the fields without. It was horrific. Some of my kind were able to fight, but many of us are not equipped to.” It holds up a hand. “I am delicately wrought out of copper wire and crystals, I cannot even hold a sword. Even a heavy pen, or a heavy tome stresses me. Many are like me, artisans who work completing the building of the city under the guidance of the makers. We miss them.

“We’ve been here a thousand years, nearly. No evil comes here, but we continue to finish the city. Perhaps one day the gnomes… perhaps even one of the great ones… will come here. And I remember it all. And I will record everything that happens in the City between now and then.”

They notice that the Archivist is making careful notations on a sheet of beaten copper with a mechanical stylus, recording the details of their visit.

“Aleep thinks this is a pocket dimension?”

“Yes, created by Whimsey and controlled by Whimsey. That is certainly true, although she may not take note of it very often.”

“So, when the teleport tower was built here, the pocket dimension already existed. It's very strange.”

“That is beyond our knowledge. But I think another triad of the great masters created the beginning of the network. There are similar small teleport networks here and there, and I think it was built by one of them. I think there were great lords and ladies who made that tower. All are passing, all are passing, and they are probably long gone. But it could be their work, and one must remember that the Lady Whimsey-- despite how She may be treated in later years, whether justly or unjustly I am a mere construct and cannot judge-- She was among the Elvin Pantheon, the youngest of Eiru’s children. So, it is not inconceivable that some of the great masters in the early days would plant a tower in her plane. She probably has never noticed it. I believe She has forgotten us here, although I respect Her, and we will just keep working.”

“There are some, but not many gnomes where we come from. Would you wish us to bring them here?”

“If they are followers of the Great Lady...  The gnomes are fairly evenly divided. You know, those who craft things like us mostly follow the Great Lady. Those who craft in the manner of your people,” it extends a chain and copper claw towards Runor, they they tend to serve Lord Dain. To have again among us some who follow the Lady, and who can take over the work, even if they do not remember the will of any of the great lords and ladies… Yes, yes, we would welcome it. We would reward you. We have a small store of moonstones that we could reward you with if you could bring us others of their people.”

They thank the Archivist and leave the city.

They decide to begin the next day at The Far Away.
[End session 45]


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## CPaladin (Mar 31, 2022)

Session 46 (March 26, 2022)

26 Ta-Ghast
They activate the teleport device in the tower, and they travel to “The Far Away.” They are standing outside a ruined but not destroyed tower, with sand up to about two feet up its walls. Gray sand blows around, and they hear the distant sound of thunder. For a moment, the wind clears, and at a distance across the sand they see what looks like it might be a city. They can only see the sky when the wind drops down, and then there is a thin haze in the air, but it looks like the sky.

Runor suggests looking around, and Aleep says, “Aleep’s friends might go to city. Some of the people there might be able to tell us where Aleep’s friends are.”

The city appears to be northwest of the tower, when Aleep checks a compass. It’s difficult to stay on course, because they can’t see any landmarks most of the time, but Mereep and Bartix try to keep them on track. They easily agree on the course they’re keeping and they make their way through the blowing sand and wind.

It’s extremely dry as they crest some rocks and look down at what was clearly once a magnificent desert city, but is now run down. There is clearly activity there. As they approach, a heavy spear flies past them and lands near them. A figure, dressed in bright colored rags, jumps out from behind a rock and says, “I missed again! I missed again! That damn bird always gets away.” He pauses. “Oh! Who are you? Visitors?”

“Yes, we’re visitors.”

“We haven’t had visitors since my grandfather’s day!”

They talk for a while and then figure out that it was about 40 years since the last time any visitors came. He starts leading them towards the city, to meet his parents who will then be able to take them to the vizier.

“Does city have name?”

“We forgot. It had name. We forgot. Chief witchdoctor might know. Elders might know.”

As they enter the city, most streets have about 2 feet of sand against the wall. A few have been cleared, and those have stalls with goods for sale, including strange fruits. Aleep’s skin starts drying out, but not yet to a point that harms him.

The boy, Kenji, brings them into a house in decent repair. The people look like they might be humans, though on the small side.

“The histories say that in the early days of the city, strangers came frequently, and trade was maintained. Not anymore.”

They serve a boiled drink, but it is very bitter and strong. (It’s strong coffee, a drink none of them have ever had.) Runor asks for beer, and they have no beer, but they do provide him a pot of mead.

They make polite conversation about many things.

“What brings you to see us?”

“Do you know of the teleporters?”

“You mean the ancient connections? We’ve read the histories.”

“We came through them. Do you know of the long-toothed ones? They like to bite people?”

“Long-toothed tigers? Or serpents?”

“They are neither. They are human-sized but long-toothed and bite people.”

“No.”

“That is good. We came from the network, and we are fighting them.”

Aleep says, “Aleep’s friends are explorers and adventurers.”

“Like in the stories.” The woman’s eyes light up.

“Do you know the name of the city?”

“It had a name once. It was built by a Firstcomer. To watch.” Kenji’s father takes them to the roof of the building. “See how it is more dark over there in the east? That is the Shadowline. The city was built to watch the Shadow.”

This confuses everyone, because they are unaware of any place where the Shadow is east of an area outside Shadow.

He describes further directions—east to the Shadow, west to the great water, and south to swamp. He knows of mountains, but says that you could never reach the mountains—they are beyond the Shadow.

The group worries that they are in Shadow, but the family reassures them that the Shadow never comes here. The only place where they encounter threats from Shadow is when they go out of the city.  They go into the swamp, because there are things they need there. “The creatures there are very dangerous.”

“Do you go to the great water ever?”

“It is too far. We cannot cross the sands—the Eum come.”

“Do you have a god?”

“Of course! We follow Eru, as the Firstcomer told us. We were told that if we followed Eru we would always be safe.”

“Do you also follow Eru’s brother?”

“Yes, there are temples to Him as well, but He does not protect the city.”

“But perhaps His Brother sometimes kills things that come to threaten city?”

“Yes! You know Eru and His Brother.”

They reach the end of what these people can tell them, and the parents send Kenji to take him to the council.
[cont'd]


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## CPaladin (Apr 7, 2022)

[Session 46, cont'd]
As they head over, Kenji explains, upon questioning, that the city’s population is shrinking generation by generation—they rarely have more than two children, and some people get lost in the sands or killed in the swamp.

They are taken to the head of the council. He looks intently at Merreep and Ashaltir. “Are you heralds?”

“No. Aleep’s friends are knights.”

“Knights? We could use knights. How did you get here?”

“Through the connections.”

“They still work? The last time we sent an expedition to attempt to use the pathways, they could reach neither the Castle, nor the Deep Inside, so we presumed that the pathways no longer worked.”

“The Castle is controlled by the vampires.”

“They must have blocked us. I wonder why.”

“We do not know of the Deep Inside. It is an overlook, deep in Shadow.”

“Ah. It is no longer part of the network.”

“They must have destroyed it. They are brutes.”

Eventually, the rest of the council comes in. One is garbed as a priest of Eru, though human, which is extraordinarily strange. Another is clearly a magus. And the third carries a flat rock and sits down with it in his lap.

The leader says, “They are adventurers. I think we might be able to hire them to go on a mission for us.”

“Are you thinking of asking them to recover the crystal from the lake?”

“Yes.”

“If they are foolish enough to go that deep into the swamp, it would be very useful.”

“There is a matrix there. It would enable us to expand all the way to the great water. We could pay. I suppose the fall of the matrix provides us some warning of what might happen to us.”

“Do you know the Hastur?”

“They are part of the secret knowledge,” says the priest.

“Do you know the name of the city?”

“For many years, we called it The Far Away. I do not know why a city would be called that, but the Firstcomer may have called it that.” The party confirms that The Far Away is what the network calls this place, and so was likely what the Firstcomer called it.

“Do you know what you watch for?”

“We do not remember, but we conjecture. When the city was founded, the histories say that the lands around the city were still green, but demons wandered the lands. After some time, the lords of Shadow came. We think we were brought here to watch for the coming of the Shadow.”

As far as they can tell, this city was established in the First Age—the Shadow came about in the Second Age.

The priest says that they have one of the Firstcomer’s artifacts in the temple. That helps keep them safe.

The matrix was in a tower by the shores of the lake. It was made by a circle of the great elves, and then while they were away, the Shadow came, and the swamp came, and the matrix was taken. They have tried repeatedly to reach it, but never been able to make it that deep into Shadow.

The group confers, and they decide that they need to tell the Dogaressa about this idea before engaging in this quest. They decide to head back to the tower, and to then go to the Cemetery, and from the Cemetery to the City and then to Vinehome, so they can get back to the Dogaressa. Traveling through the blowing sands is difficult, but the rangers keep them on course.

They explain the situation to the Hastur at the Cemetery, who is very surprised to find out about an enclave of safety within the Shadow, but recognizes that a Firstcomer from before the Division might have been able to create that. He is also excited about the idea of a lost matrix, and explains that a matrix is a collection of cold-forged crystals that together take on a form of sentience. He also explains that the great matrices are psionically incredibly powerful, dedicated to specific purposes, and that each tower in the Shadowline has a great matrix at its heart.

They then travel through the City and on to Vinehome, and then overland to the Eastern Trade Federation.

They resume in the capital of the Eastern Trade Federation.
[End session 46]


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## CPaladin (Apr 14, 2022)

Session 47 (April 9, 2022)

1 Chund
They report to the Dogaressa’s palace first thing in the morning. They are quickly passed through to the Dogaressa.

“We are here to talk about something different from our holdings. We may have found a city inside the Shadow that is not controlled in the Shadow that we can teleport to.”

“So you have been exploring the network.”

“Yes, the city was made by the Firstcomer elves, and they still worship Eru and Morgroth. That seems to protect their city from Shadow, though their population is dwindling—apparently that happens among humans who follow Eru and Morgroth.”

“Most unusual.”

“They told us that there is a crystal that if we could recover would allow them to extend their protection to the coast, which would allow us to resupply them and provide them with reinforcements.”

“Yes, that would certainly distract the enemy, at least. But the swamp is very dangerous. The great oblex are there. They are the cast off spawnings of the chaos lords and a demon prince. They are not pleasant to happen by. If you are heading to that lake in the Palood from the north… you shouldn’t run into anything more dangerous than a great oblex, unless you happen to run into a greater demon. I want the Bishop to bless you first, and to supply you with holy water.”

The Bishop brings them a bandolier of twelve vials of holy water. He calls them the bravest men and women he knows, and blesses them (though the blessing, while powerful, will only last for three days).

“With the oblex, the most dangerous thing is fire. It will either cause them to flee, or make them attack with even more viciousness. The odds are slightly in favor of causing them to flee. The lycanthropes we know of in the Palood are best met with silver or silvered weapons. There are also ghouls and ghasts, some of which have been bolstered. The great frogs can be harmed with normal weapons, but they are enormous. There are some black dragons within the swamp, though as far as we know all of them sleep. A few demons dwell there. And last but not least, shambling mounds are quite common. I’m sure there are minor demons wandering about as well.

“It has been said that on rare occasions the Worm that Bores Beneath has entered the Palood, but it is mostly ignored by the great lords of Shadow. There are some truebloods living in the swamp, likely degenerate. There are some trolls, or were at one time. I have heard of no major leadership, though, although I might not know of it.”

The Dogaressa says, “Take what you need from the provisioners, and the royal smith can silver weapons for you. I have a royal smith now.”

They decide to gather supplies, recruit some people to build a stockade and begin trade with The City, silver their weapons, and the like. They also begin looking for gnomes who follow Whimsey. They gather 40 eager volunteers, with minimal military experience, but better than nothing. They are competent with bows, but at best know which end of the sword to hit things with. But they are reasonably well equipped—mostly with leather, some with scale, armor. Some of them plan to bring family out later, while others have no family yet. Merreep and Runor review them carefully, and conclude that they’re good but green. Runor also begins drilling them hard.

They also buy 500 sp worth of spices to trade to The City.

Merreep gets 20 silvered arrows and a silvered sword. Ulgorio has a silvered rapier, and also gets 10 silvered arrows. Ashaltir gets a silvered sword and 20 silvered arrows. Runor gets his hammer silvered.

They bring a mule with about 30 gallons of water, 2 weeks of emergency rations (planning on using create food and water for most days), rope, oil, and other camping supplies.
[cont'd]


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## CPaladin (Apr 21, 2022)

[Session 47, cont'd]
2 Chund
They head back to Vinehome, without any difficulty. Runor teaches the troops basic drills in the evenings.

6 Chund
They arrive at Vinehome and set the volunteers to building the stockade—one tight around the ruined tower facing inwards, and one wide around the tower facing outwards. They then travel through the teleport pad to The City.

They then go through to The Far Away. The winds are low, so they can see the city clearly from the tower. Runor can see clouds of sand blowing to the northwest, however, which almost seem to be cut off at one point, with only a small thin cloud blowing out from that storm.

They head in to the city. They realize that the city sort of sets a guard in this direction. They see another person keeping watch out some distance from the city, who recognizes them and waves. They then meet the gate guard. The guard is a little confused by a mule, which he has never seen before, but pays no mind to the owlbear.  He leads them in to see the council.

The council asks, “Are the ways clear? We saw ones of the one you mentioned, that came through at night. We immolated him. I think he was already wounded by the protections, though.

“We have convinced an old sorceress to give us what knowledge she can of the tower, the old matrix, and the creatures that overran it all those years ago. The Sorceress, Adele.”

The Sorceress Adele introduces herself to the party. “We are very near the border of the Palood. Unfortunately, we are very near the part of the Palood that is somewhat organized.” She shows the party a crudely drawn map of the Palood. “The part of the map within this red line in the Palood is the part where they have sorted themselves out to the point where they can be more dangerous.” The red line travels north-south, perhaps 50 miles inland from the ocean, until it cuts to the east well south of the great lake. The organized area is the eastern, inland area, including the area around the lake. “The threat there isn't simply an enormous frog's mouth, begging your pardon, that rises up out of the murky water and consumes half of you instead. It's more a well-armed band or group of trolls, or on occasion a demon. In the other area you should just be afraid of random things. In fact, I was with a group the last time we tried this. I'm the survivor. We thought it would be best to skirt along the border of that area until we got to the closest point to the lake. Something came out of the water, and while it was consuming one of my colleagues, it was attacked by something else that came out of the water.

“Now, unfortunately, being a sorceress, not a wizard, I'm not extremely scholarly, but I’ll still answer your questions as best as I can?”

“Would you recommend that Aleep's friends also follow that plan and travel down outside the organized area and then cut in?”

“It will avoid any form of hierarchical response, which you may well suffer in the area that they've organized if anything escapes from a meeting. It may have something to report to that will bring more.

On the other hand, for the most part they have driven things like the froghemoths out of their area through organized action. You will find those creatures, and the bodacs, of course, out in the deep swamp.”

“Bodacs?”

“Yes, there are a number of them here. They would love to gain control, but they can't.”

“Aleep is not familiar with word ‘bodac.’”

“Oh, they’re a form of demons, mostly nobles. Nasty pieces of work.”

“So to summarize, more dangerous, bigger creatures outside organized area. But much less organization, and so the choice is between individually riskier things and things that might bring allies.”

“Smart lad, that is exactly right. And that you must decide for yourselves.”

“Do you know where the Tower is?”

“Yes, the tower was at the southern bump of the lake.” She indicates on the map. “Yes, it was well fortified, and had a deep underground structure for their psionics works. I think the psionicists who were working on the creation of the matrix were what drew the enemy, but that's only my guess. They were not of the greatest power, you understand.”

“Do you know anything of the matrix itself that Aleep's friends should know?”

“By now, it has become sentient. That was unavoidable without guiding minds. Before the tower fell, it had already begun to respond intelligently to its proctors, I understand, but I also think it was young and curious, and it may have reached out to see the surrounding area and alerted something.”

“We all make mistakes,” says Runor.

“Oh, yes, I cannot blame it, because it was a child—a baby really-- and babies are always careless, my young dwarf,” she chuckles.

“Young dwarf? I’ve lived longer than you have.”

“Perhaps, but I am older than you, even if you've lived longer than me, friend dwarf.” They have a slightly confusing conversation about age—Runor thinks she was saying that she had more of the wisdom of age than him, but it’s unclear exactly what she meant.

One of the councilors pushes to get the meeting back on track. “Adele, what advice can you give them?”

“I don't know what advice they need. They must ask. We reached the Tower, but we did not managed to assail it. We entered the broken grounds of the fortification, and we entered the tower proper. Two days later, I and the other survivor left the tower and tried to make our way back here. He was consumed on the fourth day of our travel.” She shakes her head sadly. “I hid myself as a tree for a time, and then, when they'd given up looking for me, I scurried like a cur with its tail between its legs all the way back. It’s a miracle I made it. I was sick for months. The water there is not something you should drink.”

“What type of creatures does the tower itself hold?”

“There's a mix of them. There is a hierarchy of some sort of cross between snakes and men. They're like snake centaurs. I had never seen the like before. They called themselves something like yank-tea? Yu kzi? They had magical abilities among them, and powerful warriors and servants. They had both trolls and lizardmen as servants. When we were there, I did not see any of the True Born, as the humans of the Shadow call themselves, but there are True Born in the Palood and they may be there.”

“Were the trolls of the usual type, vulnerable to fire?”

“Yes, yes, ordinary swamp trolls, but you could not break their will. It was very, very odd. If you face trolls and defeat a couple of their people, particularly with fire, normally the rest flee. These would not flee. It is as if somehow the yanti, yin tai, whatever, could control their minds and prevent them from flight. Or perhaps their terror of whatever the yangti overlord is was so great that they did not dare retreat. They're stupid, but not totally bereft of sense. You must reach the sixth deeping to reach the matrix room.”

“So the matrix is in the basements, too.”

“They must have thought that it would shield it from notice until it was older and more powerful.”

“Do these snake things have weaknesses or protections that we should know of?”

“I assume that they must, but there were none that we discovered before we were forced to retreat. Avoid them, if possible. If not, let none survive to return to their fellows. That was the mistake we made. The first group we encountered, we slaughtered them, and a couple of the younger, smaller ones fled. We thought that each band was separate, so we let them go. They were young and small. We should have killed them. After that, more powerful ones came. The first group of them failed. Shortly thereafter, another one came. I expended nearly all of my spells, and we were overextended, so the wizard expended all of his. The lyan stood firm, but it was not enough. The priest called upon the Two Great Ones but still ran short of healing. It was a disaster, and only I and the rogue escaped, and he was consumed on the way back.”

“It's a shame but maybe someday we can claim it for ourselves.”

“You’re a kind lad. It is a shame that it fell. It is a shame that we were not prepared for them to be organized. If perhaps a little bit of knowledge I've imparted will help your group, it might make our defeat mean something. Does anyone else have questions?”

“We were warned of great oblex. Are there any near that tower that we should know of?”

“My suspicion is that there are some in the lake. If you do not draw them out, at least alert them to your presence, I do not think they will bother you. They're most comfortable in the water. If you bring them out, use fire as quickly as possible. You're more likely to encounter oblex, however, outside their zone of control. There’s even at least one elder oblex, but I think he's deeper in the south.”

“What do oblex look like?”

“A mass of translucent, or sometimes blue, gelatinous material, somewhat similar to a gelatinous cube, or some of the other of that ilk but much more powerful. They are some sort of a union between the Worm who Bores… or rather I should say, they were born from from a short union between the Worm who Bores Beneath, and the Lord of Slime, and then left to roam the swampy waters to dissuade intruders. Or perhaps not to dissuade. Who knows the mind of the Worm? Prod ahead of yourselves with long polls when you're in water more than a foot or so deep. They often lie along the bottom, and this will at least rouse them before they can engulf you, which is their favorite attack. They wait until you are literally on top of them, and then they engulf you.”

“What if you opened a flask of holy water as they engulfed you?”

“That would certainly harm them if you got them to eat holy water.”

“I’ve always wanted to use holy water like a poison—put some in some blood, get a vampire to drink it, that sort of thing.”

“Yes, that would certainly do them damage.  Their form comports in such a way that the damage of most weapons is reduced. They are susceptible to fire. The greater ones also are intelligent. They are capable of attempting to hold people still magically so they can engulf them. That is an unpleasant ability. If you are engulfed, while it’s digesting you, anyone who attacks and tries to free you almost inevitably also stabs you.”

“Can you stab them while trapped?”

“If they engulf you without controlling your mind, you can try with short weapons--daggers, perhaps or maybe dirks. If they consume you when you are held one of the greater ones, then no, you will not be stabbing them. You'll be quietly being digested.”

“One more question. Are these yanti, or whatever they are, part of the broader hierarchy in that area?” asks Runor.

“I think so. I do not know who their ultimate lord is, though we were never in a position to even consider searching for that information. There's probably something above them. There was some great lord or snake thing there as well. With luck you will never see him. I do not think he will come close to the matrix. By its nature it will hurt him, even in captivity. But yes, young dwarf, I think you are correct, and their great lord is somehow connected to their hierarchy.

“Does anyone else have any other questions? Then I shall head off and offer up a candle to the Brothers for your success. They'll be surprised to see me. Sorceresses don't usually visit their shrine.”

The party discusses among themselves and decides to follow the same plan Adele’s group did: they will head south through the wilder, less organized part of the Palood, risking encounters with more individually dangerous monsters, until they are near where they need to cut east to reach the tower.

[End session 47.  We're now up to date, and we'll be missing this weekend's game, so there will be a delay of a couple weeks before the next post.  I'll make bonus posts in the Archducal Council thread during the meantime.]


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## CPaladin (May 12, 2022)

Session 48 (May 7, 2022)

7 Chund
They crest a hill as they approach the Palood. They can smell the swamp. Along the edge of the desert, there is a whole line of trees, perhaps 100 feet wide, with surprisingly healthy leaves. Even the elves do not recognize the trees. They have bright red berries. The area around them seems almost wholesome. Beyond that, they hear grunting, and sounds like large animals, though they don’t see them.

The group moves cautiously forward towards the trees. The sounds are clearly from beyond the trees, and almost sound like groaning noises. Most of the group goes up to right near the trees, but Aleep hangs back a little. When they get very close to the trees, where there is a nice smell of cinnamon, they can hear the noises just south of the trees. They still can’t see anything in the swamp, though. The sound is loud and disturbing, like the sound of wounded elephants dragging themselves along the ground, occasionally punctuated by a groan of pain. Merreep looks carefully on the other side of the trees. There is a small strip of grass before the trees, a small strip of grass beyond the trees, and then a very corrupted looking swamp. There are three large masses, each green, throwing themselves towards the grassline, and then retreating back away from it. There seems to be an invisible barrier holding the strange green masses back.

Merreep goes back to the rest of the group and describes what she saw.

“That sounds sort of like the Shadow Line, but maintained by trees instead of by the Hastur.”

“Why would trees keep out large green mounds? And how could they?”

“If those trees are holy to the elven gods, perhaps they could.”

“Trees can do that? Can they be holy?”

“Aleep is a wizard, not a priestly type. But Aleep has heard legends of the great powerful trees in the great elven forests.”

“If we try to cross it, would the same thing happen to us?”

“Aleep would not think so. If it is like the Shadow Line, Aleep’s friends can cross without being harmed.”

“Would we be able to return?”

“As long as Aleep’s friends are not corrupted. If they cross the Shadow Line, and then become corrupted, and then attempt to cross back, bad things would happen.”

“What do we think the green mounds are, anyway?”

“They could be minor oblexes. They don’t seem very intelligent.” Aleep comments.

Behind them, a figure rises out of the grasses. It looks elf-like in shape, but is made of peat and bark and the like.

She greets them.

“Who are you?”

“I am a construct of the lothlorien that still try to survive here. They are not mobile. I am.”

“What would your thoughts be on our expanding the trees? How would we do that?”

“You are kind to ask. Bring a great elf-lord, or nuts of a lothlorien tree, and it will grow and expand. I know that it is not as a lothlorien tree ought to be, but it is a struggle. And we have no pollinators, and thus our berries are sterile. We will never allow Banahog and her servants to triumph.”

“Who is this Banahog?”

“Mistress of the Abominable Swamp beyond for some distance. We don’t know how much distance. I am the only one who is mobile, and the trees do not wish to risk me. Those three are her servants.”

“What are they?”

“We think they are some type of demon. We are not a wood of wide experience.”

“What if we just killed them?” asks Runor. “We might be able to.”

“You could do that? We would appreciate it. We might be able to grow more leaves. But they do regenerate, even from the spark of life. I think fire would stop them from regenerating.”

Merreep steps to a location where she can be seen from the other side and calls out. “What are you doing?”

All three rear up out of the swamp, 8 or 10 feet tall, and seem to regard her. They have no eyes, no mouths, and no apparent organs. But they do stop.

While they are focused on Merreep, Runor strolls up and smacks one with his hammer. He really drives the hammer in, doing 15 points of damage. Runor notices that the goop that was the monster spilled down his hammer, but he avoids getting it on his hands. The goop makes pits in both the metal of the hammer and the wood of the lower shaft. Aleep responds by casting fireball, positioning it so that it catches most of their mass but does not come within 5 feet of the grass verge of the trees. He does 32 points of damage, although one avoids much of the blast. Ulgorio slides forward and drives his rapier in with a critical, doing 16 points of damage. He avoids any splash, but the metal does pit. Bartix slashes it with his longsword, doing 8 points of damage. It shudders, and falls into a heap, slowly sliding back into the swamp. Merreep shoots one of the creatures with her bow, hitting twice and sinking two shafts deep into the creature.

Merreep shoots it twice more, and it makes that horrible howling noise again. One of the creatures slams towards Runor, missing and slamming into the ground next to him. The badly wounded one tries to hit Ulgorio. It slams into him, and he has to make a Constitution save, but gets a 0. He takes 9 damage from the impact, and 7 points of acid damage. He can clearly hear, through the air, “Blight! Blight! Blight the Light!” The other is calling “Banahog! Banahog!” Neither is speaking aloud in any language he knows, but he can still understand what they are saying.

Aleep casts another fireball, doing 26 damage. Ashaltir smites the last remaining one as it begins slumping away into the swamp. Runor casts a guardian of faith, which blasts the last one as it tries to flee. It howls, and then disintegrates into the swamp, with a strange green sulpherous light.

“You did it! We will have a respite, and we can likely expand by a few inches before they send more. Beware of the undead ram. It is half as tall as a tree, and made of smaller rams that are also dead but moving. You’re the first mobiles I’ve seen in many years, since that unfortunate woman.”

(They have made an enemy of Banahog.)

They head into the Palood proper.
[cont'd]


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## CPaladin (May 19, 2022)

[Session 48, cont'd]

8 Chund
(Hex 745, 344)

9 Chund
(Hex 746, 345)

10 Chund
(Hex 746, 346)
After a few days of uneventful travel, they approach a large tree reaching out of the water, with branches weeping down around it. Under it are a bunch of mounds of moss. They also see what looks to be the corpse of a mule-sized reptile. They are not certain that it is dead, though—the membranes on its eyes still seem to open and close periodically.

Merreep calls out, “Hello!”

They eyes definitely move and look at her. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Where?”

Runor joins in. “Who? Which?”

“The tree.” They eyes look up at the weeping tree above it. “Beware!”

“About what? The tree?”

“The tree. Beware here.”

Merreep says, “Are you in pain? You don’t look like you should be able to talk.”

“The tree does not permit any to pass.”

After a little more discussion, they confirm that it means that it can’t die near the tree.

They make a lasso, and throw it over to the reptile thing. They pull it away from the tree, which roars and throws a barrage of small sharp seeds in their direction. They slowly but steadily drage the lizard thing out of the root system, where little roots keep grabbing up at it, trying to pull it back in. They pull it out.

Runor heals it so its wounds will close, but it’s missing one leg.

“Thank you. Thank you. You do not know... That thing is so vicious. My tribe was angry with me, so they brought me there and sacrificed me to it. I must offer you something in repayment. Thankful I am. I know this area. I can give you information, tell you what tribes there are, and where to avoid the great ram.”

Runor is shocked to find out that it doesn’t know what a dwarf is, and asks about legends that it might have heard about. It doesn’t recognize the story, but it knows what giants are—there are swamp giants farther south, though not around here. They are very dangerous.

It does recognize the elves as looking like Makers. Some discussion makes it clear that the Makers were the ancient elves. It asks whether Aleep is one of the froglocks that follow the Worm that Bores Beneath, but he explains that he doesn’t.

Runor regales the lizardperson, Amet’alox, with tales of Glordiadel.

“I am in your debt, though my tribe, the Long Arms, are not, because they cast me into the great tree.”

They ask if Amet’alox would like to accompany them. He agrees. They find a small normal tree, and make him crutches and a peg-leg of sorts.
[End Session 48.  There will be a gap of another couple weeks before the next post.]


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## CPaladin (Jul 21, 2022)

Session 49 (July 2, 2022)

11 Chund
(Hex 747, 346)

They continue onwards, with Merreep scouting about 200 feet ahead of the group.

Merreep trots back and tells the group that she started to hear something up ahead. Just as she is about to describe it, the whole group begins to hear a sibilant voice calling out words of endearment in sweet tones. Bartix and Ulgorio begin walking towards the voice, as if charmed.

“Friends, Aleep is not sure you want to go towards that voice,” warns their wizard. “Aleep fears magic!”

They continue dreamily walking forward. Finally, they stop in front of several tall mushrooms. All of a sudden, Bartix looks extremely startled, and the dreamy look fades from his face. Ulgorio, however, remains glamoured.

The rest of the group suddenly sees Bartix hacking at the area around his feet as he hacks a set of vines—thin, long, and white off one of his feet. The vines around the other foot retreat, while Ulgorio continues to take damage, not that anyone but Bartix can see.

Bartix says, “Strange plants are attacking us!”

Aleep casts a fireball at the grove of mushrooms, doing 20 points of damage. A keening wail brakes out. The vines on Ulgorio retreat. Ashaltir, Amet’alox, Runor, and Merreep all are knocked flat. Ulgorio and Bartix retreat, just in time as a large cloud of brown spores erupt from the mushrooms.

The group then presses on, sweeping quite wide around the mushrooms.

The rest of the day passes uneventfully.

12 Chund
(747, 347)

Uneventful.

13 Chund
(747, 348)

Bartix, the rear guard, hears something from behind the group. It seems to sound sort of like “Bloop. Blub-blub-blub-blub-bloop. Bloop. Blub-blub-blub-blub-bloop.” Bartix runs forward into the main group and tells them that there’s something approaching behind them that could be there in a matter of moments. The group begins rushing forward, while looking around cautiously.

They then begin to hear drums, which is answered by a bullroar or calling horn. The calling horn does not seem to be moving. Amet’alox says that he thinks that they are likely froglocks, and likely ones who serve The One Who Bores Beneath.

Ulgorio sends his pet squirrel to investigate and distract them.

Merreep sees a few froglocks at the far end of her range of vision, with two creatures on leashes like dogs, but with the heads of badgers and the hooves of stags. They also have a banner, with some form of giant fungus in the middle of their banner.

The group decides to move quickly, figuring that if the froglocks are barely at the edge of Merreep’s vision, the froglocks can’t see the group. The rangers try to conceal the tracks of the group and mislead anything trying to follow them.

The bullroarer does not catch up, and gradually starts fading. Maybe it was moving, but at the same speed as they were. As they pass forward, Merreep notices that the pools of water in the swamplands are trembling. As she moves forward, the water is trembling more. She then sees a large, humanoid figure, female, covered in moss and fungi, moving with purpose in the direction of the bullroarer. It’s twelve or fourteen feet tall. She falls back to the group.

“Amet’alox, is that a swamp giant?”

“Could be a swamp giant. Could be her.”

“Banahog?”

“Uh-huh. She could be coming to treat with your relatives.”

They all hunker down and try to move carefully past her while she rushes towards the froglocks. They all see her as they pass. In her wake, a number of mobile fungi follow along behind her.

They travel on and make camp for the night.

14 Chund
(747, 349)

Uneventful.

15 Chund
(747, 350)

They finish another day of uneventful travel, and turn east.

16 Chund
(748, 350)

After another day of travel, they can see the lake. Its water is startlingly blue, and they can even see fish—which they have generally not been seeing in the Palood. In the morning, they plan on following the lakeshore around until they reach the ruined tower.

17 Chund
(749, 350)

Most of the day passes uneventfully. In the afternoon, all of a sudden, a large face, covered in baby fat, wit a five foot tall toddler-like body, pops up from behind a hummock. He gasps in shock, and then runs off, before returning with a 15 foot tall woman in a smock. She looks them over carefully, especially Aleep.

“Wee folk. Are you slaves to the hopper, or free?”

Runor says, “Free, I guess? I’m a priest.”

“Great hopper, why do you and your companions come here?”

Runor says, “We want to find something we lost.”

“You lost it here?” she says increduously.

“In tower,” says Aleep.

“Ah, yes, in tower. You want to go to tower?” She gestures for them to follow. As they begin to walk, she carefully positions the whole group between her and Aleep. She then quietly says to Runor, “You seek to take hopper to tower, to get free from him? Good plan, could work.”

As they walk, Aleep asks, “who do you serve, if any?”

She cringes a little. “I do not serve any hopper, great one. What service do you need from me?”

“Aleep not need any service from you. Aleep will not be happy if you tell anyone of Aleep and his friends. But Aleep not need any service from tall ones.”

“Your people will not like you for saying this.”

“Aleep is from far distant tribe, and he is knight and chieftain of far distant tribe, far from here. Aleep’s friends are also knights.”

“Oh! Shiny stones. You seek shiny stones.”

“Yes, definitely those,” says Runor.

“Another group, not people, hoppers, seeks to get shiny stones for long time. They seek to bring great demon to get stones. But it will not matter--the stones always win.”

“Do they not want to be taken?”

“They serve other things, not in the swamp. They do not wish to be one with the swamp, but they make water clean. They make fish live, they give life to my tribe. We can eat because they are here.”

“Will your tribe be in danger if the stones leave? Stones will want to come with Aleep’s friends.”

“If stones leave, the lake will die. The lake will die, and then we will die.” She sounds completely sure of this.

“What do Aleep's friends think about this, if there is tribe of giants that do not follow demons and depends on the matrix?”

“Could you come with us?” Runor asks.

“Must ask brother. My dear brother leads tribe. Still camped outside tower. Those that enter die.”

“Are the snake people still at the tower?”

“Yes.”

“Do they kill hoppers?”

“Yes, kill hoppers. Kill strange, shiny humans that came, too.”

The group agrees to meet her brother to discuss the idea of allying with them and trying to bring them out with the matrix.

She leads the group into a small settlement, with about a dozen giants, on the shore of the lake. The leader bounds out and jabbers with her.

“This is my brother, Quick-Axe.”

“Sister say, you okay. Wait. You priest. Met priest when shiny humans came here. Went in, didn’t come out. Been many many eats since then. Fish? Come eat with us. Do not ensorcel us now.”

After a little eating and some more talking in their language, he continues. “You here for shiny rocks. Everyone come for shiny rocks. That why we not live closer to tower. Shiny rocks clean water, clean air, make safe to live here, not like our cousins who have changed over the years.”

“Yes, there is large group of humans that have protections, but need the shiny rocks to expand the area that is protected so they can push back the Shadow.”

“The old stories say that we once lived in a clean land with small people. And then the Shadow came, and we fled and ran without small people. And then one night we found ourselves here. Many of our other people drifted away and changed, but we stayed near the lake, near the fish. Many generations later, we are still ourselves.”

“They think the shiny rocks will go with them, brother.”

“So you guys need the shiny rocks obviously,” says Runor.

“We need the water, the food, the air.”

“Yes, you need what the shiny rocks give you. You do not need the rocks themselves. But you cannot travel to the edge of the Shadow.”

“We very large. We stay near the lake. The water of the lake is poison to other things, as their water is poison to us. If we travel, even if we know where, we would attract too many other creatures.”

“Even if you have the gems during the travel?”

“Hmm. Oh. That thought.” Quick-Axe seems pleased by this idea. “How would we get them? The camp around the base of the stone spire--the hoppers never leave. They stay outside and send their servants into the tower. Their servants do not return, but they remain. Too many of the hoppers couldn't stop us, their powers to compel to make us obey. They do this with our-- are they still our cousins?--they do this to those who were once our cousins. It is almost impossible for us to resist.”

“They keep your people as slaves, but we could resist, and we are strong fighters. We may need to plan a jewel heist,” Runor says. “How many are in this camp?”

“About five hands, sometimes as many as ten hands, plus their servants. And some of them also have other magic-- bolts of lightning. I have seen them use when we were spying on them from afar with the magic glass that the humans left us.” He proudly pulls out a telescope.

“It sounds to Aleep like they are primarily enchantment specialists, but that they also are of at least the fifth circle of power. If they are enchantment specialists, but also can cast lightning bolt, they may well be closer to the seventh circle of power—roughly our capabilities, at least their strongest.”

“You might be able to sneak in, but once you're inside the tower, I do not know what to tell you-- I do not know where stones are. We don't fit in tower.”

“We know there are the snake people, and we know that we would need to go deep beneath the tower.”

“The snake people sometimes come forth, or did in my father's day. Even now, they sometimes exchange spells with the hoppers from the tower itself. But no longer do they come out in force.”

“Are the snake people high in the tower or at base of tower?”

“Both. They also have slaves who fight, but I do not know where they got those. Their type we have not seen before. They do come forward. Sometimes I think that is why the hoppers keep their slaves with them always.

“My sister was wise to bring you here. We will do what we can to help you. Avoid the hoppers.”

“We have anti-venom for what good that will do.”

“Good. The snake people use powerful poisons, and they are uncaring of on who.”

The group spends the night in the encampment, sharing fish with the giants and providing them with some magically created food for variety and to strengthen ties. In the morning, they intend to press on towards the tower, with a plan of bringing back the matrix and then traveling with the giants back to the city.

[End session 49]


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## CPaladin (Sep 8, 2022)

Session 50 (July 16, 2022)

18 Chund
(750, 350)

They leave the giant encampment in the morning, and begin the final approach towards the tower. They expect to reach the tower this day, or possibly the next day.

Even at the giant’s camp, it seems less oppressive than it had been elsewhere in the Palood. As they approach the tower, there start being even more signs of health, with some green plants that do not look sickly and clear water.

They approach a fortification—an 80’ diameter tower, with crenellations and fortifications. The outer works extend out about 340’, but are in ruins. Mereep, as the scout, can see figures moving around in the ruined fortifications. There are a handful of huts, set up in three areas. Along the shore of the lake, a giant lumbers slowly, dragging something. Mereep makes her way back and reports what she saw.

Aleep suggests that there may be a sally port that would allow the group to bypass the froglocks. They do not appear to be very sophisticated, so may not have known to look for it. The snake-people inside would almost certainly have found it, but it still might be a way to get inside.

Bartix smells something foul on the wind behind them. It smells sort of like orc or goblin, but with a foul tinge to it that those would not. He goes to investigate with Runor, and they begin hearing chanting, closing in towards them, in a language they don’t speak. They can hear the word “Banahog” periodically, each time followed by a thump. Bartix estimates that there are more than 20 in the group, some with reedy voices similar to Aleep’s, and some basso profondo voices.

Ashaltir reports that some of the pools of water seem blessed. The group moves to hide within those pools, seeking to avoid the approaching force. Two of them are closely placed together, so the group hides within those two.

They note some sort of scaly being on the top of the tower, at the crenelations, looking out in the inland direction, towards the chanting of “Banahog.” The figure on top of the tower begins chanting a counter-chant of “Amongorla.” Runor recognizes the name as the demon lord of nightmares. A white mist seems to be spreading down the tower from the figure on top. Over the following several rounds, the mist surrounds the tower and seems to muffle the cries of the followers of Banahog. Runor believes that the figure on the top is defending the tower from the other group.

Bartix reports seeing a snake-like figure that slithered out of the corrupt pool nearby, traveling very fast, and headed out towards the shore.

Aleep suggests that, since the snake-people are inside the tower, this may imply that there is a path into and out of the tower in or near that corrupt pool.

After some whispered discussion, the group decides to withdraw about half a mile west of the tower, and to set up camp for overnight, to see whether anything significant happens. The night passes peacefully. There are not many animals here, even though they are within the area that the matrix keeps clean. In the middle of the night, at perhaps two or three in the morning, they see flashes and crackling sounds, and even a few shrieks, in the direction of the tower. After about twenty minutes, it falls silent for the rest of the night.

19 Chund
In the morning, Mereep heads towards the tower to scout. The white mist is still drifting around the tower, out to a distance of about 20 feet around the tower. Bodies surround the tower. Many of the froglock are dead—about 30—along with the bodies of two snakepeople and a giant body. The froglock appear to have withdrawn to further away from the tower.

The group decides to see if they can ally with the froglocks against the snakepeople. They take a wide route around to meet up with the froglocks. A sentry calls out, in a language, Aleep can vaguely speak—well enough to know that the sentry is warning the people that there are True Born coming. As they get to the camp, they realize that there are more of the froglocks then there had been when they first approached—about double what they saw initially.

A froglock approaches cautiously, and then after spotting Aleep, relaxes and salutes the group. “Welcome cousin, and your servants. Banahog will have our heads. We sought entry, and we were driven back.”

“Greetings, cousin. Do not insult Aleep’s companions by calling them servants. They are mighty knights.”

“Knights of Banahog?”

“No, no! Knights of another.”

“Well, welcome knights. We hope to take your help if you offer it. That was a bitter loss. We know few of the great lords. Forgive me, none of the greatest lords, but even of those who contend here we know but few. But I know that Banahog would willingly share the treasures of the Tower--there's only one item within the Tower that she seeks.”

“The matrix.”

“Yes, a great matrix of blue stones. I fear it, but we will do as we are commanded. She gives us life. Come, come, eat slime with us.”

Runor says, “I love slime. It's my favorite snack.”

The froglock gives what they recognize from Aleep as a smile for the froglocks. “Our slime pot is this way.” He hops over to it. “What does bring you to us?”

Aleep mutters in Common, “Don't eat any of the slime it might be corrupted.” He then continues in Froglock, “For reasons that are our own, and that that do not concern Banahog or the forces of Banahog, we have an issue with Amongorla and his snake followers. We would see them discomfitted, but in a way that had not our our markings upon it.”

The froglock smiles broadly at that. “Your master does not wish his markings upon it. We can work with that. What if Banahan wants to claim a glorious victory?”

“Banahog is as she is, and if you want to claim a glorious victory for her, what does that have to do with us?”

He nods. He takes a generous serving of slime out of the slime pot, which looks much like its name, and which Ashaltir immediately recognizes as highly corrupt--they have demon energy running through that stuff.

The group takes bowls, and then slosh it out onto the ground by talking with their hands without ever eating any.

“The shields are powerful. Amongorla commands the spirits of nightmare. We underestimated the priest of Amongorla. It's very potent. More come to join us, but a frontal assault will not work. You say your men are mighty knights-- powerful.”

“Yes.”

“And you are strong in magic.”

“Yes.”

“We have learned,” he says as he gestures negligently towards a giant who is chained in what looks to be a terribly uncomfortable position, “that there is a hidden entrance. It is inhabited by one of the ulith. If we all go there, they will know what we've uncovered, and we will be met with death in the tunnel. But… if we make a distraction at the front when our new reinforcements arrive, you and yours, who are unknown, could sneak into the tunnel beneath the waters…”

“And we can be the knife in the back while you are the sword brandished in the face.”

“Correct, and you and yours will remain unknown. All that will be known is sword that was brandished in face. I will tell you what is necessary. The high priest of Amongorla must fall, for when he falls, that shield will fall. Until that shield falls, I do not think we have the strength to enter unless Banahog herself comes and joins us, and she has many other duties.”

“And if Banahog herself came, she would not view you well.”

“Now, no, for we would have failed her. She would eat me. It would be a great honor, but nonetheless I think that your coming is providence of the greater lords beyond.”

“Can you yet provide a diversion while there's still the shield?”

“Yes, we can get close enough. We can shoot darkness, we can throw fire, although that means one of us will have to make it, but we can throw fire if we have enough guards.”

“Will they sally forth again?”

“I do not know. They lost two. They do not like losing their people. I do not know if they will make another sally or not--at least not for a day or so.”

“Do you have a count on their numbers, not counting the slaves and the animals and the beasts within?”

“There are forty of them. I do not know how many slaves.”

“Are they all so strong that two of them can account for thirty of you?”

“Yes, but there's much territory for them to cover. The tower does not look big above the ground, but just for you, cousin, it is much larger below the ground. That is where the tunnel opens. I am told that no more than one of them will be guarding that if they do not think we are coming that way, and they do not know we have the slave.”

“That is an advantage of fighting people who keep slaves instead of treating them decently for loyalty. The slave was theirs before you claimed it?”

“Yes, we would not impart such with important intelligence. More slime or are we all full?”

“I am—we thank you for the good slime.”

“There is much of the power of Banahog and her minions within it.”

“Indeed, mighty slime.”

The froglocks keep them in the camp for several hours until they start hearing that chant again, and shortly thereafter another fairly large infusion of froglocks enter.

“Aleep must speak with other knights.”

The other froglock goes to talk to the newcomers, and Aleep turns to his friends and describes what was said.

Merreep says, “I think it's a great plan. The other thing is, we might want to make sure that the priest doesn't die, because then they can't get into the tower and can't try to take the matrix away from us once we get it.”

Runor says, “But on the other hand, letting them fight the snake people for us is also good.”

They decide to leave that decision for once they have gotten in.

“We need to remember that we've been warned that if we meet any of the snake people, we have to kill them all. We can't have them spreading warnings back. It sounds like one of them will be a tough fight for us. Defeatable, but not easy.”

[Next session to begin by going through the pool, which is corrupt, and has an ulith in it.]
[End session 50]


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## CPaladin (Nov 1, 2022)

Session 51 (September 25, 2022)
20 Chund
They pass through the pool of corruption; Ashaltir can feel the corruption pushing against his holy bubble, but it holds. They quickly emerge into a room with a fair number of skeletons and bones; some froglocks, some snake spines, and a few human skeletons.

A dark shadow coallesces in the middle of the room.

“Who bids me pass? Thrice I will ask, who bids me pass?”

“A band of adventurers.”

“Adventurers, you seek the blood of those who serve the usurpers?”

“Was that a question or a statement?”

“Uliths are bound to speak in my way. What do you seek?”

“The matrix.”

“Wise, all seek the matrix. Even those who have corrupted this land and inhabit this tower seek to take and corrupt the matrix, though they constantly fail.”

Merreep says, “It’s good that they fail. We don’t seek to corrupt the matrix or the land, but to bring the matrix back to those who made it.”

“The land is already corrupted by the hands of the usurpers, but perhaps you will fare better with the matrix. What do you offer me for passage, that you may seek your deaths at the hands of those who now hold the matrix?”

“Aleep notes that you view the Shadow as usurpers.”

“For so they are, for they have usurped the planes of the ulith. They have extended those planes into this region, and seek to corrupt it as well. Once, we were the greatest, supreme throughout the abyss, and now we are but a handful hiding in corners. Only one of our princes remains. How are these creatures not usurpers?”

“Then perhaps the first thing that Aleep’s friends would offer you is that they plan to use the matrix to greatly discomfit them.”

“And what is the second thing you would offer? The first thing that you would offer was the death of our enemies and their discomfort and the destruction of their holding here. What else would you offer?”

Runor muses quietly, “I don’t suppose we could offer this the Palood. I don’t think we could guarantee it, or that it would be wise.”

“Some precious silver?” Aleep holds out a handful of five silver pieces.

“Yes, treasure! It has been so long since I sat on treasure. A like amount from each of your companions, and you must each swear that you will devote your life to the discomfiting of the enemy!” As the ulith speaks, her voice takes on an even more maniacal tone.

“I swear that I will spend my life struggling against the powers that currently rule in the Shadow,” says Runor. Once they have all so sworn, the ulith is satisfied.

“Take this. I do not know if any of you can use it. They thought to use it against me. It did not work. I am ulith.” The ulith rolls over one of the corpses nearby, and reveals a metallic rod of a reddish color.

Merreep says, “Why did it not work on an ulith? What are ulith, anyway?”

The shadowy form seems offended. “Why did you not bring a powerful and well-trained magus with you?”

Now it is Aleep’s turn to be offended. “Aleep is of considerable power. Aleep has seen mention of uliths in old books. They were ancient enemies of demons.” He does not add that most of the authors seemed to believe that the demons had wiped out the uliths.

“Yes. Most ancient enemies of the demons are no more. But my Prince escaped, and so I escaped.”

“Who is your prince, may Aleep ask?”

“You may not. If I told you his name, it would give you power over him.”

“Surely there is some title or use-name that would have no power over him.”

“Hmm. I fear that the Vails have been turned into rivers of lava and fire for the torment of those who meet them, but he was once known as the Prince of the Vails.”

Aleep suspects he was a minor princeling, forgotten and thus allowed to survive.

They turn to examining the brass rod. It is enchanted, with enchantment magic, and not inherently evil—if anything, it is inherently good.

Runor takes the rod.

The ulith says, “I believe it can only be used to bind two more.”

“Seems useful. I think I will likely encounter some demons in the future.”

“Oh, you will. There are several demons here that serve them. It is not like they have any major ones, except the one that serves the high priest. But they are not willing to risk it, because though it might defeat me, if it did not, they would have nothing that could stop me. They sought to use it to bind me, but they would have to know far more of the uliths than the savages do to bind me. Still, even without knowing all the words, you should be able to bind demons with it.

“You should not need to face the major demon, if you seek the matrix. It almost always remains at the top of the tower, with their high priest. It has only descended on a few occasions. Once, when the servants of Banahog breached the front door, it descended to fight them and drive them back. And at first, its master and it tried to take the matrix by force, and were thrown off by the matrix like a rag-doll. I’m not certain what a rag-doll is, but I like that turn of phrase. But I distract you… you must head on, and bring defeat to our mutual enemies.”

They travel out through the passageway of worked stone and into the tower proper. They begin traveling up a flight of winding stone. Suddenly, instead of being worked stone, the walls and then the steps turn to fused crystal—clearly ancient elven work. They have no choice but to climb at first, though they know that they ultimately wish to descend. They eventually emerge from the spiral stair in the center of a large circular room, with doors out in multiple directions. They have no indications at all of which way to go.

They decide on the southern door at random, and Ulgorio is eventually, with effort, able to pick the lock. They follow a series of winding passageways, past a few dead-ends that look like they were once cells before something burst the doors open from the inside with great force. Eventually, they come upon another door, which seems to have been formed from some sort of crystal stone. The handle turns easily, and they enter a large room. In the center of the large room, there is an unusual apparatus, almost like a forge, with an anvil and tools for working on it, but with no source of fire or heat. [This is a coldforge, which requires psionics to operate, but none of the PCs could recognize it.]

A group of humans stands gathered around the forge—most in dull gray robes with a leader in robes of black and red, with flames on them.

The leader looks at them with surprise as they enter through the door, and appears to assume that they are also servants of the snake-people.

“What are you doing?” calls out Merreep.

“We were attempting to operate this coldforge. But no matter what we do, nothing works. Our lord said that if we could make this work, we could make weapons that would strike down the servants of Banahog effortlessly. We've done everything! We have offered it blood, we have pounded on it with hammers, we have begged, we have pleaded, we have crawled --it does nothing.”

“It might need a blessing. I know some religious stuff and may be able to bless it,” says Runor.

“You think blessing it might help? By the way, welcome to the services of the Lord of Flame and Death. I have not seen you before, I think.”

“Are we trying to make it work?” asks Merreep.

“The lord said that we would be able to make weapons that would strike down the servants of Banahog if we could but make this forge work. This forge, which was left here in ancient days by the great enemy.”

Merreep has no doubt that by “the great enemy” he means elves. Since he hasn’t realized he’s talking to a group that contains elves, she figures that he’s never actually met any—they are all but unheard of in the Shadowlands, except in responding to assaults at the Shadowline. She says, “Perhaps we need to give them more fiery light.”

Aleep interprets that as a command to attack and unleashes a fireball.

The fireball immediately drops all five of the figures in the drab robes, but the leader remains. As the group rushes into battle with him, the priest calls out, “Ulfashi, attend me!” and with a sulphurous cloud of smoke, a glabrezou appears. He also casts a spell and closes many of his open wounds.

The glabrezou strikes Bartix with its two smaller claws, but misses with its two great claws and its bite. Ashaltir smites the demon mightily, drawing its attention away from Bartix.

Runor inflicts dreadful wounds on the priest with a spell, and while the enemy priest attempts to respond in kind, he misses. After some frenzied additional fighting, Runor inflicts more wounds on the priest, and he collapses to the ground with a terrible scream.

The glabrezou laughs at his master’s death. He reaches out a dreadful claw, plucks a tattered gray thing from inside the priest’s body, and says, “Mine.” With that, he disappears.

They find a few potions on the priest by detecting magic, as well as noting a strange power that isn’t quite magic, but still is visible with a detect magic effect, emanating from the forge. [This is of course psionic energy, which they are able to figure out—not the first time they’ve encountered it, though none of them have any psionic abilities. They have now slain the third-ranking priest in the complex.]
[End Session 51]


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## CPaladin (Nov 18, 2022)

Session 52 (October 9, 2022)

20 Chund (cont’d)
They begin by opening a door to the west; they can tell from their map, that there is not much space there. At the end of the short hallway, there are three miserable, chained humans.

Merreep holds her hands out, showing that she isn’t holding anything.

“You don’t look like cultists…” says the bravest of them, an old man. “Does that mean you might not be cultists?”

“We’re not cultists. We’re enemies of the cultists,” replies Runor.

“Oh, that’s very good to know. They’ve been raiding our village for some time.”

“Where is your village? Is it in Shadow?”

“Five days mule ride, and yes. But we are Trueborn.” The word means nothing to the group. “Our patron fears their patron, so he does nothing. Who is your patron?”

“Glordiadel,” says Runor.

“Does he not burn you and eat your children?”

“Glordiadel? Lord of Light and Holiness?” responds Runor increduously.

"Yes, that's what we were always told. That he is the light, and the sun hates everyone, and so he selectively burns and tortures."

The whole group is silent for a while, shocked by this. Runor then starts responding: "He's the greatest god of all. He protects those who cannot protect themselves, and he shines light into where there was dark."

The old man decides he has challenged Runor far enough and nods vigorously. "We are at your mercy and are your slaves."

"We're saving you, but slaves... that's not how Glordiadel works."

The old man looks very confused. "Everyone is a slave to someone."

Runor spends some more time arguing with the old man, whose understanding of the world is so different from his own.

"If Aleep's friends free you, can Aleep's friends know that you will not tell any of the snake people about us?"

"The snake people are enemies. They raid our village and kill our people."

After some more discussion of Glordiadel and the wonders of the world beyond Shadow, the prisoners decide that, when the group returns, they will go with them to the city.

"Do you know how to get down into the basement?"

"Go east, and then south, and then west, and then south, and there are stairs. It is not far. But there are guards. This be a maze. It is not far—but you are lucky you did not go north.”

“What is north?”

“Much, much complex. Mostly abandoned, but there is much of it. It would be long before you found your way out. And some things have crept into the abandoned complex. Unclean things. I do not think you fear the guards.”

“Are the guards snake-people?”

“No, minor eaters from the Shadow. Rutterkin. But they have an alarm bell. You do not want the alarm bell rung. That will bring snake-people. There is something below that they want to protect.”

They try to set the prisoners free, but the priest had no key. The prisoners tell them that the priest would simply pass his hands over the cuffs and say some words when he wants them to open.

Ulgorio picks the locks successfully and releases them. They can tell that the chains have been on long enough to leave marks.

“Be careful of the rutterkin. Do not let them ring the bell.”

The group travels east into a small, 10 by 10 room, with a pile of vestments in the corner. There are no obvious exits, but in a small alcove to the south, there’s a section of wall that has what seems to be a door concealed in the stonework. They can’t figure out how to open it at first, but they scrabble at it until Ulgorio slowly and painfully slide the door half an inch open. Now, with the door partially open, they each take turns pushing at it and sliding it further. With the door open, they see a passageway leading to the south and then turning to the west.

This corridor looks like it is somewhat regularly used. After traveling to the south, the tunnel travels some 25 feet to the west, and then comes to a 3-paneled, wooden door. It looks like it was fine workmanship at one time—elven make, likely—but then debased with dreadful carvings. Bartix can hear movement and gutteral tones of conversation beyond the doors.

While the group quietly argues about what to do next—Runor wants to travel through and kill the rutterkin, while Merreep argues that they can’t attack the rutterkin if the rutterkin don’t attack first—the voices beyond the door fall silent, and Bartix hears heavy footsteps beyond the door, much heavier than the noises they’ve heard before. The group immediately decides to run, fleeing back into the big room. When they arrive, they realize that the priest’s body is missing. They rush into the small area where the “Trueborn” are, along with the body of the priest. A short while later, they hear three heavy footsteps coming from the east, and then proceeding south. The rangers both note the smell of the troll-ogre things that the snake-people use to patrol.

They make their way back down to that door, and they listen. They hear much quieter talking and occasional dice rolls, sometimes followed by cursing.

The group tries to quietly open the doors and then move through. In the northwest corner, there are six small, bedraggled creatures crouched around a dice game with coppers in small piles in front of them.

One of them abruptly shouts, “You cheat, Snozzlenose!”

Another shouts back “Snozzlenose not cheat!” and lunges for him. The others start cheering as a fight breaks out. While the rutterkin are totally enmeshed in their own fight, the whole group quickly makes its way through the room and through a door out in the southeast of the room. (Snozzlenose is getting the worst of it in their fight.) They enter a 30’ passageway, which ends in a plunging staircase down.

At the base of the staircase, there’s a short winding passageway, which ends in a door and a short dead-end passage. They promptly go through the door, into a very large, empty room, with an open doorway to the north and two more doors to the east. Aleep pokes his head through the open doorway. There is a slight musty odor, and a pile of humanoid bones in the southwest corner of the room to the north. There are also a couple of doors out of that room, to the north and to the east.

Merreep looks around the large room, and finds that there is some sort of ancient looking frame in the north wall, with something in it that is completely covered by dirt. Merreep examines it carefully, and it appears to be a wide, full-length mirror set into the wall. The frame sparkles a little—perhaps with small gems set into the frame. Some of the crystals, on closer examination, twinkle with their own inner light.

Aleep mentions that crystals that glow with their own light are sometimes associated with psionics. As Merreep, Aleep, and Runor examine it closely, they see that at the base of the mirror, there are some disturbing runes that have been slashed into the sill. Aleep casts mending, and mends away the runes.

The dust also disappears, and the mirror suddenly glows with a soft light. It’s as if they were looking at banks of white clouds. A voice speaks softly into all of their minds.

<<Directions?>>

“Aleep’s friends seek the matrix?”

The back of the clouds parts, and they see a large circular room with an open screen, with different crystals of different colors and patterns glowing in it. Standing back some distance, there is one of the snake-people, five of the large things, a couple of humans, and a couple of what are obviously corpses that look like they have been electrocuted.

“Aleep thinks this is a scrying device, not a mirror.”

They also notice that one of the twinkling crystals is not twinkling any more. There are five remaining twinkling crystals.

Runor says, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the coolest of them all?”

The mirror clears again, and shows an enormous ice elemental. Four crystals remain twinkling.
[End session 52]


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## CPaladin (Dec 8, 2022)

Session 53 (October 23, 2022)

20 Chund (cont’d)
Merreep thinks, and then says, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, can we have a guide to the stairs.”

There is a flash of light, and a tiny figure, about a foot tall, appears suddenly on the floor in the middle of the room.

“Hello,” says Merreep, to the confused looking little person.

“What kind of person are you?” asks Aleep.

“I am Snoz the Imp. Why have you summoned me, o great sorcerers?”

“We want to find the stairs down.”

“Snoz could say many things, but I fear that would get me pummeled. I can take you to the stairs down if you don’t pummel me too much.”

“If you show the stairs, Aleep’s friends will not pummel you at all.”

"I see no reason to in the first place," adds Merreep.

The imp seems more suspicious after that statement than before it.

"But Aleep's friends definitely will not pummel you if you take them to the stairs."

Snoz thinks, and then nods. "What we need to do is to get you all the way to the east. I know the way. I've been here for years ever since I got summoned."

"Who summoned you?"

"Big snake guy. He pummels me a lot."

"That narrows it down," mutters Runor.

"If Aleep's friends find what they seek, they may be able to free you from big snake guy."

“I promise to work very hard to get you to the stairs alive. At least you're not trying to do that thing downstairs that the snake guys always are trying. It’s better if we go through the south door. It’s very twisty-turny in every direction, but it’s less twisty-turny in that direction.”

“Aleep’s friends would also like to avoid snake-people and things like that.”

"Hard to avoid snake-people. If we go south, very very hard to avoid dead people."

"Dead or undead?"

"Dead people who wander around. They don't eat anything or go anywhere, they just exist. If you knock them down, they don't get back up for a hand of hours."

The group decides to take their chances with the undead to get a faster route.

“This first room, this first room is okay.” Snoz leads them through a series of rooms and passages, and then up to a metal curtain-like door. As they head through that, they can hear scraping, growling, and knocking.

The darkness around them becomes almost more palpable, and while their light spell continues to illuminate the area around them, the area it illuminates is getting smaller as they move forward.

They come to the doorway into a room, and the light flickers, barely illuminating the room ahead of them. Three translucent humanoid figures float in the air ahead of them.

A dreadful smell wafts through, and Aleep begins retching in the corner. Seven physical figures, seemingly the source of the odor, have gathered around the floating figures. That’s when Aleep casts fireball, doing 32 damage to any who fail to save.

The fireball incinerates the physical forms and blasts away two of the three floating figures. The blackness now presses in on them, extinguishing their light and bathing them in a wave of fear.

Aleep is touched by something in the darkness, draining away a few hit points and one point of constitution. The rest of the group attacks into the darkness, without much success, and Ulgorio lights an arrow on fire that illuminates almost nothing.

Aleep backs up a little and throws another fireball into the darkness, positioned to end just ahead of him. As the flames burst out, they can momentarily see, in the center of the darkness, an ogre-sized humanoid floating apparition.

Ashaltir leaps forward, smiting at the creature despite now being unable to see it. She does about 9 points of regular damage and 34 points of radiant damage, destroying the creature.

“I will be back…” says the entity as it dissipates.

Runor’s light suddenly springs back to full effect, and the light from the burning arrow as well.

Snoz says, "You dealt with them faster than the snake-people. They usually just throw a slave to them and slink past. I think I like your way better."

After leading them through a series of turning passageways, Snoz stops at a door. "There are guards behind this door--the only guards between you and the stairs to the next level."

They discuss a plan, and decide to pretend that they are a group of slaves being escorted by a guard. Ulgorio casts disguise self and makes himself look like a troll-giant creature. Snoz perches on Ulgorio's shoulder.

They enter the room and find three troll-giants and one snake-person. The snake person looks them over. "More sacrifices? Are you sure that you have them secured well enough?"

Snoz says, "He is mighty warrior, gesturing at Ulgorio."

"I suppose so. And you got one of Banahog's people!" The snake-person gestures at Aleep. "Always nice to take one of those alive. Well, take them down, don't make them wait. Give my compliments to the summoner."

They make their way through the room and to a set of stairs beyond it. Snoz is unable to descend the stairs--magically bound to this level of the complex. And so the rest of the group heads on without him.

At the bottom of the stairs, there is a room with exits in each of the cardinal directions. After finding that one leads a short distance to a spring, they decide to head west, figuring that if the levels are directly over each other, since they were all the way east, the exit to the next level must be west. The door to the west is locked.

It takes a minute or four, but Ulgorio finally picks the lock and opens the door to the west.

They enter a square room. Black and white tiles tesselate the floor, while a fountain sprays water into a bowl. Something about the fountain disturbs Runor. Perhaps most notably, a large, doglike humanoid in the center of the room leaps to its feet as they enter.

"Stop! Forbidden!" It crouches on all four of its arms. "Who you?"

"Snake-people said we need to go to the matrix room," says Merreep.

It looks at Aleep. "You from Banahog?"

"Not from Banahog. Need to go to matrix room. Aleep's friends are sacrifices."

"Sacrifices?" The dog-creature looks confused. It's clearly not very bright. "Sacrifice is dragged through here, kicking, screaming. These sacrifices walk in and say me on a way to sacrifice." It mutters to itself. "If you stop sacrifices, ritual will not go forward, severe punishment. If you let through people cleverly claiming they sacrifices that not sacrifices, that serve Banahog, severe punishment..."

"Aleep does not serve Banahog. If Aleep served Banahog, he would be scared to say: 'Curse Banahog and wish Banahog were destroyed by Light.'"

"No serve Banahog... You think you are the ones that will finally buy the matrix? So those that live be rewarded?"

Runor says, "Sure."

"Hmm! Paladin!" The dog-beast points to Ashaltir. "Not tried one of those. She sacrificed first?"

"Is likely."

"You go." It gestures to the north door. "You go through. Yipper stay here. You tell them when it succeeds that Yipper sent you through to matrix room." Yipper moves over, and unlocks the door with a key on a chain at its belt, along with a gold circlet and a rapier with runes that burn.

"Do you know where we should go beyond that door?"

"No. Yipper bound here. Yipper not go past north door. Yipper very good guardian."

They keep their opinions of that to themselves as they head towards the north door. They hear the door click locked behind them.

Aleep comments, "Is strange. That was demon. Most of stupidest summoned things are. But imp was devil. Perhaps priest is demonist, sorcerer is diabolist? Perhaps matrix is making some more lawful?"

They travel on and enter another room with a very attractive, scantily dressed woman in it. She immediately rises as they enter. "Now that's interesting... a priest of Glordiadel, and a paladin of Eiru? A ranger, a bard, and a froglock that obviously does not serve Banahog? How strange..." She tosses her hair for dramatic effect. "And I, a poor, unarmed, defenseless woman, who could do nothing to stop such a mighty, powerful band of adventurers as yourselves..."

They all need to save against the power of her charm. Ironically, Runor and Aleep, though in theory among the most resistant, both fail and pledge that they will keep her safe and help her escape this tower.

Merreep says, "Do not trust this woman!"

But the strange woman sidles up to Aleep and Runor, who promise to keep her safe.

"Beware. There are many traps that await you ahead of here."

Aleep asks, "Is maiden enslaved by evil? Aleep's friends could take maiden with them when they leave."

"I would be delighted to leave with you, my dear froglock."

"Could Aleep's friends rest here?"

"Of course, of course."

Despite their (obviously correct) distrust, even the non-charmed members of the group agree that resting and recuperating would be a good idea. They simply maintain a steady watch to make sure the "maiden" does not harm their friends. But offered with the possibility of being freed, she is all too willing to let them rest safely here. She gives Aleep a beautiful ring of obsidian set with malachite. "Take this with you. It is my good luck charm and will keep you safe from the traps ahead." [In fact, her magic has cursed Aleep and Runor to be more susceptible to the traps, but they do not know that.]

In the morning, she serves them a fine breakfast, and sends them off to the north.
[End Session 53]


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