Session #10

[Nathan Sherman]

Session #10
9/21/07


While the rest of the party was dealing with the Oricalcum smuggler, Paragon was out in the countryside doing etchings of Traxien glyphs in some ruins and returns from a nice day that was amazing encounter free. Oliff decides to join in the local baking contest for the next couple days so won't be able to join us if anything comes up.

Aruzmathel is given a 5 pound brick of Orichcalcum as his gift from Mistress Alia Qaigen instead of his spell book.

The Chamberlin asked Aruzmathel and his team to meet with him at the tenth hour in the east meeting room.

While the rest of the team squabbled over who was the team leader, Aruzmathel let the Chamberlin know that he would get his men in line and be there in the morning, and as a side note, the crew should be given decaf from now on because they apparently get riled up easily in the morning.

Master of Arms and Master Chamberlin are in the meeting. Garalich was robbed last night, one of their guild members. His business is the Wandering Eye, an import/export trader. He is a cashier specialist and was working on certain items that we're not yet declared. His 2 children (son 14 and daughter 7) were taken as well as the scrolls that were not yet declared and some other items. The scrolls are details of religious ceremony of a border clan of Keshier, the Ahsetu clan.

He lives in the Tower Bright district of the city. We have a house messenger leads us there. Garalich tells us that the thieves took told, his wife's jewelry, some tapestries, carpets, the scrolls he was working on, a number of tribal artifacts, etc. Oh, yes, they also took the children.

We examine the house and by the little bit of mud we guess that the thieves came in from the back door and went up the stairs and robbed the upstairs master bedroom and study.
Torgren goes into the back yard and checks for tracks. He finds one from boots and one that looks like it was made by webbed, four toed feet (not a saurian or orc, but not sure what. About 4 feet tall and light with a tail). There are also one set of kid foot prints, small and probably the daughters. It looks like someone had scrapped off their shoes before going into the house. There is something green in it, tiny green leaves. There were three sets of boot tracks, two hard and one soft, two sets of webbed feet and the little girl's prints.

We check out the boys room and it looks like there was a struggle. There was no struggle in the girls room. None of the other rooms look like they were searched. The parents were at a social engagement last night when this happened.

Torgren follows the footprints into the street and Paragon finds that there is a manhole that they could have gone down. Torgren finds some scrapes on the manhole and some mud.

The main headquarters for Prad Ironworks is about four blocks away. They specialize in weapon and armor and the occasional siege engine. It's doubtful that they would have been involved in the robbery, but we keep in mind how close we are to them.

The translation notes were taken as well. The scrolls would have been worth about 5-10,000 gp on the open market. The religious ceremony was for conjuring up the ancestors of the clan. They don't know if this ceremony would actually work or not.

We use the house ring to call Fennigan to try to find out what the webbed footed creature is. He will research it and get back to us.

We go back to the manhole and Torgren drops down and looks around, using the Light spell from Aruzmathel. He finds a doll head on the ground in there a little way down one direction. He heads off that direction and gets to an intersection in the sewer section. Just down the right branch he finds the arm of a doll. We all go down into the sewer and catch up to Torgren.

We want to find out how deep the water is in the channel so we have Torgren jump in. He is only 4'4" and the "water" covers his head, being about 5' deep. The walkways are about 2' wide. We have Hugh and Aruzmathel on one walkway side of the sewer and Torgren and Paragon on the other.

Three giant (weighing more than Torgren) rats come down the walkway, one chewing on a doll leg. Aruzmathel used web to hold two in place, but the third jumps into the water. It swims on and ends up attacking Paragon. Aruzmathel takes it out with a Hail of Stones. Torgren kills the entangled rat in front of him. We easily kill off the other rat that is trapped in the webs.

Torgren tacks the rats and finds where the rats came from (left turn in the passage) and where there was another doll leg. The walkway that Hugh was walking on crumbles at one point and he falls into the filth.

We get to another crossway and find a doll arm down the left branch of the tunnel. We hear a bubbling down the way and as we get closer we see what looks like webs that are across the passage. There is a giant rat in the webs and it is being dissolved down to the bones. There are other bones and items in the acid web creature.

Aruzmathel detects magic on the items in the creature. It looks like there are six magical items in it of average power. There is a ring on a skeletal hand and a rusty iron sphere about the size of a baseball on a belt, but Aruzmathel can't make out the other itmes.

Aruzmathel cast Resist Energy, Acid on Paragon and gives him the ring of healing. Paragon then casts Nimbus of the Balor and charges the acid creature and attacks it. When he hits the creature with his body the Nimbus of the Balor bursts into flame and does vast amounts of damage. The creature goes into spasms and green slimly fits. Hugh slashes it and does lots of damage with his flaming sword.

It lashes out with tendrils and hits Aruzmathel and Torgren and starts burning them and dragging them in. Torgren pulls the tendril off his leg. Paragon jumps into the center of the creature and burns it up more. What is left of it drops into the water and starts to make moves to get away. Hugh and Aruzmathel deal the final fire damage to it and its remains slide into the water.

Aruzmathel points out the magical items and Paragon fishes them out of the remains that are both on the path and in the water. Ring, rusted metal sphere, 2 potions in glass containers, dagger, skull with a magical gem in its eye.

We contact Fannigan through the House Quagin Ring and he confirms that we are probably looking for Boglings by the description of the footprints.

Torgren continues tracking and he finds some tracks at the next intersection and the last leg of the doll heading straight down the passage. He leads on and steps on a trap that swings a heavy weighted spike into his sternum and impales his body. Paragon jumps into the water and avoids the swinging Torgren and spike. Hugh and Aruzmathel jump into the water to avoid the swinging trap on their side.

There are more pressure plates down the hall and Torgren leads us through them. Once we get to the next intersection Torgren finds a doll torso in the left tunnel. We go down it a little ways and then it turns to the right.

We go around the corner and find a 9-10 foot tall zombie standing in the center of the sewer. It is headless and has an extra arm attached to its chest, each arm is holding a large weapon. Aruzmathel casts Bristle on Hugh before he charges into battle. Hugh hits it and his armor spikes hit it too for plenty of damage.

Aruzmathel casts spells into it, Hugh and Torgren pound it and Paragon moves up to heal Torgren but takes a nasty hit and loses his spell. It pounds the party and the party pounds back. Torgren swings the final blow to the zombie and then drops into unconsciousness.

There is a glyph on the body of the creature and we cut out that patch and take it with us. We head up to the next intersection and find a little blue doll dress stuffed into a crack in the wall of the passage going forward. It leads to a large area that has a large circular pool and a lantern with a glowing crystal on the wall. The water is rushing in from one direction and goes out the other three directions.

Hugh goes into the water and finds a latch in the pool. He pulls it and then finds that one of the blocks of stone can be pushed, leading to a passage under the water. He lets us know and then goes through finding a cavern with a torch burning. He hears two voices talking from a distance. After checking out the area he lets us know by the rings that it is safe for us to come in. After we are all in the area, Aruzmathel casts Prestidigitation to dry us all off. Paragon casts silence on a coin. We advance and Paragon peaks around the corner and sees a man talking to the son of the merchant. Both men are armed and it looks like the son was in on the job. We shift back, leaving Paragon out of the silence and able to hear the conversation.

There are many people in this thief den and it looks like a professional gang. The leader is telling the boy that it will give him lots of marks in the Scourge Gang if he kills his sister. There was about 10-12 bandits (mage, grum, woman, leader, ogre, etc.).

Paragon motions us back out of the room and back out of the water entrance. He briefs us on what he saw. After talking about it, we decide to contact the Master of Arms through the House Quagin rings and tell him that we want plenty of backup. He can spare 8 men right now or more in a couple hours. We want to wait the couple of hours with the 12 men (including a cleric). We meet with these men at a local tavern. There are 11 solders, one captain, a cleric and a low ranking mage)

We head back in and find that they have discovered our presence. We hurry into the room with the pool and find that the trap door is open. Paragon, Hugh and Torgren head into the water, but as they reach the turn in the water they run into a guard. Hugh pushes past Paragon and fights the guard and kills him. He then moves to the end of the tunnel and comes up at another guards feet. Hugh kills that guard and we start getting everyone else into the room. The enemy mage comes around the corner and is surprised by us. We move up and slaughter the mage.

We recon the room from a distance and then Paragon throws the Silence coin in and Aruzmathel follows it up with a Web spell getting the little girl and an orc fighter stuck and the woman and ogre entangled. The rest of the party moves in. Paragon moves up, attacks the traitor son and drops him with a critical hit. Aruzmathel tries to blind the woman sorcerer/evil bitch. Torgren moves in and slaughters one of the thugs and Hugh swings at one and trips and sprawls on the ground.

One of the thugs comes around the Web corner and throws a flask of acid or something into the guards. Aruzmathel goes around the corner of the web as the crazy bitch is dragging the girl out of the web with a sword to her chest. Aruzmathel tries to use Baleful Transportation on her and she saves. She then runs out dragging the child.

Hugh and Aruzmathel chase her. The rest of the party warp up the last of the enemy between some of them surrendering and killing the rest.

Hugh and Aruzmathel catch up to the witch and are in a stand off with her saying that if we advance, cast a spell or try anything she will kill the little girl. Aruzmathel uses Benign Transportation to swap the places of Hugh and the little girl. The bitch cuts the girl before the spell could take effect but the girl squirmed enough to make the dagger miss her vital spots. Hugh moves from his new position to block the only exit of the witch. She takes a swing at him and fumbles and falls. When she stands up she throws a dagger and it glances off Hugh's armor.

Aruzmathel casts web and catches her in the middle of it. Paragon heals the little girl.

We get our party into position and Aruzmathel drops the web. She has gutted herself and used her blood to write 18 glyphs in the floor. There is also a blank sheet of paper. These were written in the Iskren code with a few subtle twists on it. Aruzmathel deciphers the magic that was used and decides that it is blood magic, Transmutation in nature, probably 1st or 2nd level, for communication. Like a message or sending.

We recovered all the scrolls and the artifacts that were stolen from Garalich as well as looting all the bodies. Aruzmathel makes sure to search the witch for any spell book she might have.

We head out through the tavern's secret entrance that the witch was trying to escape through. Since it is associated with the thief guild, Paragon sets it on fire after us.

[Golanthius]

Sounds like an exciting little adventure. I have a few of questions though.
1) Who saved Torgren after he was impaled on the spike?
2) Why kill the son? He should have been returned to his father or to the local militia for trail.
3) All of that action and the only damage was from a spike trap and a little acid creature?
4) Didn't the kidnappers realize that the little girl had a doll with her and was leaving a trail?
Anyway, sounds like an interesting group you have.

[Nathan Sherman]

1) Little detail. Paragon used lots of healing spells to bring him back up to good health.
2) Because Paragon is mean. I don't think that he meant to kill him, but he didn't seem to show any remorse about it after he checked and found no pulse.
3) There was more damage done to the party and we had a lot of cannon fodder soaking up damage for us too. I didn't record all of it, it was pretty late at that point.
4) Apparently not.
Thanks for the questions