Back to the Beginning	Previous Session	Next Session	Latest Session

CLICK ON THE MAP TO SEE MORE DETAILS

For some weird reason, it felt like a LOT of time had passed since we finished fighting that chaos beast…

But it was time to shake off the rust and dust and get back to it.

We opened the door to the next room and…

Found ourselves facing off against a pair of REALLY scary demons!

The big one was… well, he was HUGE. He was red, muscular, had four arms – two of which ended in gigantic crab claws – and a canine head. The other one was human-sized, but had weird spikes and horns sticking out all over. These two demons hit HARD, as Aendir Meliamne quickly learned.

Things started out bad, with the front-line fighters struggling to do much damage to the foul fiends, but then Yona Note stepped up.

She timed her strike perfectly, viciously wounding the big demon TWICE in as many strikes. (Double crits?! I mean holy CRAP man!)

Right after that, the lights went out. Literally. The room was plunged into magical darkness, and the demons suddenly fled through the south door unseen… by everybody except Mos. The warlock had gained a fun new ability that allowed him to see through magical darkness!

Aendir Meliamne dropped a dispel magic that removed the magical darkness, and then there was a mad scramble to find the demons again.

The door to the south led to what was obviously the living quarters of these demons. A huge mound of bloody and ichor-stained pillows filled most of the room, and two iron chests turned out to be full of coins and various treasures. Searching the room only turned up a torn page and no demons.

Frustrated, the heroes searched elsewhere. A small storeroom to the east was unremarkable, as was an apparent guest bedroom down the hall. It was quite tidy in there.

The next room was a much more lived-in bedroom, but the occupant was obviously much bigger than your average human. Based on the size of their clothing and furniture, the absent occupant had to be at least 9 feet tall. Two notes tucked into a book revealed that the occupant was apparently an Ebon Hand cultist named Rhinnis (Note #1 and Note #2).

South of this bedroom was a large chamber split down the middle into two identical halves, each empty except for a wide round dais of black stone about a foot off the floor. The eastern room was decorated with rude epithets and scrawled pictures of people in agony, and the western half had crude paintings of tentacled horrors on its walls.

After some deliberation, the heroes chose not to investigate closer and continued on. This may have been a wide decision.

Beyond this place they found a prison with eight cells and a very unfriendly jailor. As soon as she spotted the delvers, she pulled out a frightening Chaositech Content Not Found: steaming-axe that immediately began steaming! And then she opened her mouth…

She was a vicious opponent, and very proficient with that axe. She nearly knocked Aendir Meliamne unconscious with a single flurry of wicked cuts! But there were six of us and only one of her, and the heroes surrounded and pounded the prison warden into the ground(ed).

Then we got to have fun releasing all the prisoners.

The very first cell held only a giant rat, which immediately disappeared into a crack in the back wall.

The next occupied cell held two human noncombatant commoners. They’d only been captured the day (separately), and both were very anxious to escape this horrible place. Their names were Kori and Lorat.

Then they found and released:

• Ugglam, an ogre who wanted payback
• Eliava, a halfling who wanted payback
• Murlash, a troll who wanted to help Chesh Briarthorn (the person who released him) fight

With this ragtag bunch in tow, the heroes decided to try taking on that soul-crushing evil way off to the south. Murlash and Ugglam took point, and that was probably a good thing. As soon as the door opened, a massive toad demon stepped out and casually beheaded the ogre!!

Murlash did a bit better, thankfully, but that demon didn’t go down easy. It took a long time to kill the thing, but eventually we won the battle. Murlash was happy to be awarded the ogre’s corpse as payment for fighting, though Yona nearly upchucked when the troll sucked the eyeballs out of the ogre’s skull…

They found stairs leading down to a lower tunnel, but chose not to investigate that just yet. Instead they backtracked a bit to a side door that opened into an odd chamber with splotched purple stains on its floor. Those turned out to be magical tentacle traps, as Mosquilius Kito learned the hard way. Thankfully, the warlock was quick and used a misty step to bypass the trap. He beat the rest of the group into the room beyond the trap, which turned out to be the medusa’s boudoir. The party found the halfling bouncing on the medusa’s bed…

The medusa was obviously pretty well-off. A jewelry box overflowing with valuables and a pair of brilliant emeralds hidden at the bottom of a fruit basket were very nice, but the real prize was a map that explained how to find and pass through the secret door in the demons’ room!

Grumbling, the heroes backtracked again and headed for something called the Mrathrach Machine. But on the way there, they found the Kaleidoscope Temple. There the high priestess, apparently naked and wreathed in flames, stood waiting between two very familiar-looking demons…

End of Session.

Back to the Beginning	Previous Session	Next Session	Latest Session

Back to the Beginning	Previous Session	Next Session	Latest Session

CLICK ON THE MAP TO SEE MORE DETAILS

For some weird reason, it felt like a LOT of time had passed since we finished fighting that chaos beast…

But it was time to shake off the rust and dust and get back to it.

We opened the door to the next room and…

Found ourselves facing off against a pair of REALLY scary demons!

The big one was… well, he was HUGE. He was red, muscular, had four arms – two of which ended in gigantic crab claws – and a canine head. The other one was human-sized, but had weird spikes and horns sticking out all over. These two demons hit HARD, as Aendir Meliamne quickly learned.

Things started out bad, with the front-line fighters struggling to do much damage to the foul fiends, but then Yona Note stepped up.

She timed her strike perfectly, viciously wounding the big demon TWICE in as many strikes. (Double crits?! I mean holy CRAP man!)

Right after that, the lights went out. Literally. The room was plunged into magical darkness, and the demons suddenly fled through the south door unseen… by everybody except Mos. The warlock had gained a fun new ability that allowed him to see through magical darkness!

Aendir Meliamne dropped a dispel magic that removed the magical darkness, and then there was a mad scramble to find the demons again.

The door to the south led to what was obviously the living quarters of these demons. A huge mound of bloody and ichor-stained pillows filled most of the room, and two iron chests turned out to be full of coins and various treasures. Searching the room only turned up a torn page and no demons.

Frustrated, the heroes searched elsewhere. A small storeroom to the east was unremarkable, as was an apparent guest bedroom down the hall. It was quite tidy in there.

The next room was a much more lived-in bedroom, but the occupant was obviously much bigger than your average human. Based on the size of their clothing and furniture, the absent occupant had to be at least 9 feet tall. Two notes tucked into a book revealed that the occupant was apparently an Ebon Hand cultist named Rhinnis (Note #1 and Note #2).

South of this bedroom was a large chamber split down the middle into two identical halves, each empty except for a wide round dais of black stone about a foot off the floor. The eastern room was decorated with rude epithets and scrawled pictures of people in agony, and the western half had crude paintings of tentacled horrors on its walls.

After some deliberation, the heroes chose not to investigate closer and continued on. This may have been a wide decision.

Beyond this place they found a prison with eight cells and a very unfriendly jailor. As soon as she spotted the delvers, she pulled out a frightening Chaositech battleaxe that immediately began steaming! And then she opened her mouth…

She was a vicious opponent, and very proficient with that axe. She nearly knocked Aendir Meliamne unconscious with a single flurry of wicked cuts! But there were six of us and only one of her, and the heroes surrounded and pounded the prison warden into the ground(ed).

Then we got to have fun releasing all the prisoners.

The very first cell held only a giant rat, which immediately disappeared into a crack in the back wall.

The next occupied cell held two human noncombatant commoners. They’d only been captured the day (separately), and both were very anxious to escape this horrible place. Their names were Kori and Lorat.

Then they found and released:

• Ugglam, an ogre who wanted payback
• Eliava, a halfling who wanted payback
• Murlash, a troll who wanted to help Chesh Briarthorn (the person who released him) fight

With this ragtag bunch in tow, the heroes decided to try taking on that soul-crushing evil way off to the south. Murlash and Ugglam took point, and that was probably a good thing. As soon as the door opened, a massive toad demon stepped out and casually beheaded the ogre!!

Murlash did a bit better, thankfully, but that demon didn’t go down easy. It took a long time to kill the thing, but eventually we won the battle. Murlash was happy to be awarded the ogre’s corpse as payment for fighting, though Yona nearly upchucked when the troll sucked the eyeballs out of the ogre’s skull…

They found stairs leading down to a lower tunnel, but chose not to investigate that just yet. Instead they backtracked a bit to a side door that opened into an odd chamber with splotched purple stains on its floor. Those turned out to be magical tentacle traps, as Mosquilius Kito learned the hard way. Thankfully, the warlock was quick and used a misty step to bypass the trap. He beat the rest of the group into the room beyond the trap, which turned out to be the medusa’s boudoir. The party found the halfling bouncing on the medusa’s bed…

The medusa was obviously pretty well-off. A jewelry box overflowing with valuables and a pair of brilliant emeralds hidden at the bottom of a fruit basket were very nice, but the real prize was a map that explained how to find and pass through the secret door in the demons’ room!

Grumbling, the heroes backtracked again and headed for something called the Mrathrach Machine. But on the way there, they found the Kaleidoscope Temple. There the high priestess, apparently naked and wreathed in flames, stood waiting between two very familiar-looking demons…

End of Session.

Back to the Beginning	Previous Session	Next Session	Latest Session

Back to the Beginning	Previous Session	Next Session	Latest Session

CLICK ON THE MAP TO SEE MORE DETAILS

The hearty adventurers were ready to move further into this ruinous underground temple. They found more defenders almost immediately in the courtyard on the other side of the tower; a couple of Venom-Shaped Thralls started lobbing bombs their way from the roof of an ancient building. The heroes clambered up to attack… well, except Aendir Meliamne. He charged into the building’s front door and found himself face-to-face with a pair of tough gnoll opponents!

The sound of battle brought other defenders, too. From the north a pair of hulking trolls lumbered in to join the fray, and from the south a woman in strange plate mail armor was peppering the heroes with arrows from afar.

The trolls weren’t too bad, but when the heroes closed in on the woman she opened her helmet to reveal… snakes.

The medusa’s gaze caught both Aendir Meliamne and Chesh Briarthorn by surprise, turning both to stone!

When the dust settled, the heroes had to do some significant logistical juggling to get the statues up to the surface to break the enchantment on their friends, but they did eventually succeed in freeing both healers from their stony prisons.

They went back immediately, of course.

To the south, they found a long hall – newly-made – that opened into an ancient chamber with an ancient building ruin. From behind that ruin’s intact door emanated a feeling of awful, soul-clutching evil. The delvers decided to not investigate further right now.

They found the trolls’ chamber, a bedchamber that probably belonged to that dwarf cultist, and a watery cave with a slippery floor and a very deep water-filled pit.

And then they found the Sanctum.

This huge chamber was newly built, with masonry walls and a vaulted ceiling that reaches a height of twenty-five feet in the center and eighteen feet near the walls. Painted or chiseled chaos symbols of different types—spirals, multi-pointed arrows, black hand prints, and so on—covered the walls. A stone structure in the center of the room measured ten feet high, twenty feet long, and ten feet wide. Adorned with demonic visages and sculpture, it resembled a gothic sepulcher, although there was no obvious door. Atop the structure in the center squatted a stone statue of a bloated, misshapen demon. Candles in various colors rested in sconces along the walls, and hundreds of unlit candles were placed irregularly around the room.

VERY creepy vibe here. Especially when the central structure started pulsing with a golden glow as the party entered the room. A bit of experimentation determined that it was specifically Yona Note who, for some unknown reason, caused the thing to glow.

The adventurers were leery about touching anything in here, but finally someone touched the glowing sepulcher.

With a teeth-clenching scrape of stone on stone, the sepulcher’s lid – which had to weigh at least several tons – slid to the side. From within, a bizarre monstrosity oozed out of the crack and formed into a mound of disgusting… stuff.

The chaos beast emerged and just… waited.

Nobody knew what it was waiting for, though. It eventually stopped waiting and tried to eat the interlopers. That didn’t go well.

It died eventually, but it was a very unpleasant fight.

End of Session.

Back to the Beginning	Previous Session	Next Session	Latest Session

Back to the Beginning	Previous Session	Next Session	Latest Session

The heroes had just enough time to catch their breath before they heard another wave of enemies coming from around the corner.

Another of those dogmole juggernauts led the way, followed by another pack of gnolls. These were all wielding dragon rifles, and they began using them to very good effect on Thorzin Oakwood and Aendir Meliamne!

Mosquilius Kito led off with a well-placed fireball that softened up the monsters. But as the Punnishers moved in to deal with these foes, someone dropped a yellow cloud of stinking vapor at the feet of Mosquilius Kito. (No clue where it came from, since Chesh Briarthorn hadn’t had time to warn anyone else about the illusionary wall she’d seen earlier.)

The cloud of awful, nauseating mist completely obscured everything. Mosquilius Kito and Nethwen Nagel stumbled back into the big hall, while everyone else moved forward among the gnolls to get clear. The gnolls did not appreciate this at all, especially after their pet juggernaut dropped to the floor with a Brool-sized hole in its head. It didn’t take long to mop up after that.

Nethwen Nagel and Mosquilius Kito investigated the possibility of an invisible caster in the entry hall, but found nothing. They did hear the sound of a distant door slamming, however. The stinking cloud dissipated about that time, and the heroes looted a whole bunch of corpses before exploring on into new areas.

CLICK ON THE MAP TO SEE MORE DETAILS

The gnolls’ room was a dead end (and an utter mess), so they moved on past the illusionary wall and into another huge hall. This one was entirely splattered with bright, wildly-clashing colors of paint. Behind some wooden screens in the corner they found a bedroom (loot recovered!) and continued exploring this level.

Next they found a chamber with spartan decoration – just a straw mat on the floor and paintings of famous wizards hanging on the walls. They did find a wizard’s spellbook there. Next was a seriously-locked door that stymied Yona‘s lockpicking attempts, but removing the door itself was successful (if loud and time-consuming). That bedchamber was nicely furnished but filthy – the occupant was an utter slob. Nobody felt bad about taking this person’s gold stash hidden under the bed.

They headed into the tunnels next, and discovered the cultists’ secret getaway exit ladder/secret door into the Sewers, then found a scum-filled pool of stagnant water. The pool was giving Nethwen Nagel bad vibes, but Mosquilius Kito wanted to be sure there wasn’t some kinda magical treasure hidden in there. There wasn’t, but the pool itself surged up and attempted to engulf the halfling entirely! Thankfully, Aendir Meliamne was hanging onto the warlock and physically threw him back away from the pool at the first sign of trouble. Nethwen Nagel suspected it was some kind of gelatinous ooze, but it didn’t seem to be able to chase them so they just backed away and left.

It was time to head down the stairs.

They descended into a huge, ancient courtyard. Nethwen Nagel explained to everyone that the current city of Ptolus wasn’t the first Ptolus. She’d heard tales from Delvers of the Buried City, and this appeared to be a section of that ruin. An intact round tower and wall blocked further progress, but Mosquilius Kito – wearing his magical, cult-symbol-covered robe – waltzed right through the door like he owned the place.

He surprised the occupant, a human woman in black leather, lazing on her bed and reading a book. She leapt up as he entered, and the little con man proceeded to spin her a jaw-dropping tale. [Chesh Briarthorn, hearing this from outside, quietly closed the door to let him work…

He claimed he was the Man In Charge, even higher than Wuntad. (She asked.) He was even convincing enough to allay her suspicions. He picked up a bottle of wine and a glass, deftly pouring and taking a sip before dumping in the philtre of love and handing her the glass. She missed the mickey and took a drink.

She fell for it… and for him. Gavele the cultist assassin started babbling all the secrets she could to her newfound love while he “suggested” they play some fun games together… with rope. And manacles. She was okay with this, too. There was a brief interruption when a quasit appeared and tried to sting him with its poisonous tail, but she shooed it away and it bailed through a crack in the wall.

After the assassin was properly hogtied, Mosquilius Kito reached for the door to invite everyone else in…

Meanwhile.

While the halfling was getting his groove on, everyone else stood around uncomfortably for a bit in the courtyard…

Until a pair of shadows appeared in their midst, and someone started taking pot shots at them from above.

That exchange didn’t last long; Aendir Meliamne and Thorzin Oakwood easily swatted down the shadows, and Nethwen Nagel landed an incredible thread-the-needle shot (in proper elf fashion) through the murder hole in the ceiling. Things got more interesting when Nethwen Nagel‘s sharp eyes spotted movement on the ceiling near the tower. A gigantic spider was huddled in the corner where the tower met the ceiling, but it didn’t appear to be doing anything except observing.

But when she tried to take a shot at it, Thorzin Oakwood suddenly cried out, “Don’t you hurt Mister Legs!” and threw his hands in her face to mess up the shot! Aendir Meliamne tried using a command spell to make the spider fall, but it instead retreated into a corner.

And while this was going on, a heavily-armored dwarf emerged from that murder hole and levitated down to attack the intruders, warhammer in hand.

Chesh Briarthorn and Yona Note dealt with the dwarf, while Thorzin Oakwood bear-hugged the paladin to keep him from attacking the spider. Aendir Meliamne, realizing his friend was under the influence of a spell, quickly dispelled magic on Thorzin Oakwood. Nethwen Nagel fired arrow after arrow into the arachnid foe, eventually killing it. The dwarf defender fared no better, quickly falling to the Punnishers…

Meanwhile.

Mosquilius Kito reached for the door and opened it just after the battle ended. “…What the??”

The heroes piled into the assassin’s living quarters. Mosquilius Kito asked her a few more questions, and we learned a few things.

• There are more gnolls nearby.
• The Tolling Bell cult is trying to organize all of the disparate cults into working together toward a common goal.
• The Cult of the Ebon Hand and the Tolling Bell cult are supposed to be working together on something big, but there has been a schism. They’ve begun fighting against each other. (Gavele plays both sides, not committing to either.)
• There is something called the Mrathrach Machine somewhere below.
• Gavele’s biggest assassination was the second-in-command of the Order of the Dawn.

Upon learning that last piece of information, Aendir Meliamne promptly beheaded the assassin.

Someone clambered up to investigate the wall crack the quasit had disappeared through, and discovered it was just a hole leading out of the tower into an as-yet unexplored open area. They plugged the hole.

A staircase led up to the tower’s upper level, a wrecked chamber with lots of rubble and spiderwebs EVERYWHERE.

The dwarf, the assassin, and the spider were all looted. Surprisingly, the spider wore a magical bone ring on one of its hand-like front appendages and it carried a pouch. Inside was an unfinished letter.

End of Session.

Back to the Beginning	Previous Session	Next Session	Latest Session

Back to the Beginning	Previous Session	Next Session	Latest Session

Having finished their exploration of the ground floor, it was time to clear the upper floor of the apartment building.

THE APARTMENT HOUSE

This innocuous apartment house is in northern Oldtown off of Crossing Street. A few days ago, cultists sneaked into the building and killed or captured all the tenants to experiment upon them with a terrible new mutating poison they have developed.

The cults have worked together to create a terrible poison that mutates its victim in a prolonged misery that lasts for weeks or even months until the victim dies. For a time, the victim’s mind becomes so pliable he or she becomes a slave of the cult(s) before finally dying. This magical poison is called Askara. Its mutated victims are called Venom-Shaped Thralls.

When victims are injected with Askara, they weaken until they collapse. Within twelve hours, their bodies secrete a dark, syrupy substance that covers them and then hardens, forming a black, spherical cocoon. Within another twenty-four hours, the victim emerges from the cocoon, mutated into a hideous amalgam of an insect-like creature and his former self.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 B C N V

ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS

The characters investigated the building and encountered not only the venom-shaped thralls and chaos priests but other unique challenges as well. On the map are references to nests, cocoons, and violet slime.

Nests

Discarded cocoons of dark, hardened material are scattered throughout the apartment building. One often finds these used cocoons in corners, attached to the walls. Each one is about seven feet across, although they are all broken open. The “shells” of these remnants measure about ten inches thick. As a result of the Askara poison’s magical effects, after a Venom-Shaped Thrall comes out of its cocoon, the cocoon becomes a nest for some spontaneously-generated insects. These terrible, chaos-spawned creatures are red and black butterflies and carry a powerful sting.

Cocoons

Cocoons are like nests, but they still have a mutating thrall inside. The cocoon is made of dark, hardened material but is only one inch thick. Askara victims in mid-transformation removed from their cocoons prematurely must make a Constitution saving throw (DC 17). Success means they live, and the process slowly reverses over the next twenty-four hours, during which time the victims remain comatose. Failing the save means they die.

Violet Slime

When a new Venom-Shaped Thrall comes out of its cocoon, some disgusting purple muck spills out of the cocoon as well. This slime is a colony organism not unlike green slime. Violet slime moves extraordinarily slowly (about one foot per hour) and positions itself on the ceilings of the apartment building so it can drop down on living creatures. Every patch marked on the map on the next page is on the ceiling. Characters in the area of the patch (usually about ten feet square) must dive out of the way to avoid getting some of the slime on themselves. The violet slime was an unpredicted side effect of the Askara process and poses a threat to characters and cultists alike.

LAYOUT

After his rescue, Tolliver the Fast told the player characters that he heard about a “secret project” conducted by some cultists at a certain address in Oldtown.

1. Entrance
A wide portico once offered an outdoor gathering area for tenants. Now it is empty. The door is not locked, but a patch of violet slime hangs immediately above it. The open room beyond the door was a common area for all residents to share. It contains simple furnishings such as tables, chairs, and a few divans. A nest lies in the northwest corner.

The dead body of a middle-aged woman lies near the middle of the room. She’s been dead a few days and was killed by a claw attack.

2. Thrall Guardians
Once a one-room apartment, this ground floor room east of the entrance chamber is now a shambles, with all its furnishings destroyed. Two Venom-Shaped Thralls were here. Their cult masters charged them with defending the building if intruders should enter.

3. Injection Room
In this former sitting room down the hall from the building’s entrance chamber, the cultists injected their victims with Askara poison. They cleared the room of furnishings except for a large wooden table covered in a stained white cloth. Three vials of Askara were found on the table, as well as a large syringe and five empty vials.

Two dretches working for the cultists were squatting on the ground near the far eastern end of this chamber, a very small kitchen area. They were supposed to be guarding the prisoners in Area 4, but they seemed more interested in banging pots and pans and eating garbage. They attacked anyone they saw other than those wearing one of the well-known chaos symbols. One had the key to Area 4 around its neck.

4. Prisoners
The wooden door to this room was locked. The only people who were in this apartment house when the cultists struck and remain alive and untransformed now wait here for the chaos cultists to do with them as they will. Each was a plain commoner; four are human and one is a half-elf. They were frightened and hungry, but not wounded. Once freed, they made it out of the house and into the city on their own.

5. The Hole
This room on the ground floor in the northwest corner of the building has a hole punched through the wooden floorboards from beneath. The opening reveals a shaft twenty-five feet deep, ending in the Sewers. A rope ladder hangs down through the hole.

6. Venom-Shaped
This room in the northwest corner of the building’s second floor lies in shambles. A single Venom-Shaped Thrall waited here, resting. It had orders to attack and kill any intruders, and it did so—fighting to the death.

7. Weakened Floor
This room in the central portion of the building’s second floor looks like any other in the apartment house—which is to say, torn apart and strewn with debris. However, due to actions of the [[Venom-Shaped Thralls, the floor here is very weak and could collapse when more than one hundred pounds rests on it. And it did, right in the middle of a fight. Thankfully, Thorzin Oakwood didn’t take a tumble down into the area below, but the collapse is still there.

8. The Accident
Like most of the rooms here, this one in the southwest corner of the building’s second floor has been thoroughly torn apart, with furnishings tossed about, holes punched in the walls, and slime coating various surfaces. Not every application of Askara poison worked correctly. The process is still not perfected, and a fair number of victims died immediately or were transformed into random, bizarre creatures. The victim here became a blob of protoplasmic goo not unlike a Gibbering Mouther. The only difference is, unlike a standard gibbering mouther, this mutant lacked the ground manipulation ability. Instead, it was much stronger than normal.

9. Betrayer Priests
This room on the eastern side of the building’s second floor is a disheveled mess like all the rest. The two blood-spattered men encountered in here were breathing heavily as they stood over a corpse.
Priests: Audon and Uranik were priests of the Brothers of Venom—so-called “deep brothers,” they were full-time cultists, not clandestine members who lived double lives. They had just murdered the Ebon Hand priest Reggaloch Murchand after a fevered argument.

Audon was thin and almost seven feet tall, cclean shaven with a large nose and light brown hair. Uranik was rather stocky with thick bushy black eyebrows and hair.

The battle against these two cultists proved to be quite challenging, as both were skilled casters. Guardian of Faith and Flame Strike spells were quite effectively used against the heroes, but were not enough to take down the Fellowship of the Punnishers.

The cultist priests had some choice booty, as did the dead guy on the floor. He also has a note with large lettering that reads as follows:

Reggaloch,

I agree. The Brothers of Venom likely do plan violent treachery so they can be in sole control of the venom-shaped thralls. You should leave and find Malleck in the Ebon Hand Temple, to tell him what’s going on.

—Rhinnis

Since they’d already killed Malleck a long time ago (actually only a little over a month back) the heroes decided to check out that escape hole down into the Sewers.

Nethwen Nagel spotted tracks leading off to the west, and they moved off upstream. Before the next junction, they found a newly-installed and securely locked iron door, faintly gleaming with an oily sheen to protect it from the water and filth of the sewers.

The lock wasn’t a deterrent for Yona Note though, and she easily opened the door. Unfortunately, she failed to detect the wire attached to the backside of the door, and as it swung open to reveal stairs leading down, a clanging of cowbells rang out from somewhere below.

The stairs open out into a huge empty chamber, also obviously recently constructed. The dark stones of the walls, floor, and ceiling are laid in strange patterns that catch the eye in a distracting, even disturbing manner that one can’t quite name. A huge banner hangs on the western wall.

The heroes began to move in to investigate when a pack of gnolls and a horrible, drooling beast came tearing around the corner to attack. Just as Aendir Meliamne and Thorzin Oakwood closed with the guard force, another guardian suddenly appeared in the opposite corner and closed to attack Chesh Briarthorn!

Mosquilius Kito slung a few spells that way to damage the pesky cleric who dared to attack our cleric, but then he dropped a fireball too just for good measure. Hilariously, he managed to completely kill a wizard we hadn’t even seen yet!

The guards put up a good fight, but were no match for the Punnishers.

End of Session.

GM Note: Sorry, I know there were a lot of details I left out. With the new year arrived and a lot of other time-consuming commitments now out of the way, I intend to spend a lot more focus on DMing and giving all of you as good a game as I can provide. And that means faster adventure log updates – like, within a few days after the game session – and paying a lot more attention to the little details that matter.

Back to the Beginning	Previous Session	Next Session	Latest Session

Back to the Beginning	Previous Session	Next Session	Latest Session

Now that the Banewarrens had been completely cleared out… well, okay, the little part we could access was cleared anyway, but it was time to get back to the surface and recuperate.

Kalerecent asked us to accompany him to St. Gustav’s Chapel to see Brother Thisk. As we approached, it was obvious something was going on there, with people running into the building. We were almost there when Happy Jack and Villam the Pretty spotted us and hustled over with bad news.

Someone had taken Tolliver the Fast. Again.

The inside of the chapel was torn up. Whoever had taken him, there’d been quite a fight there. Brother Thisk fought back as best he could, but he’d have probably died if someone hadn’t found him lying inside and brought him back from death’s door.

As another Lothianite cleric tended to his wounds, Thisk explained that the attackers had kept their faces hidden beneath nondescript travel robes, and they’d been there to specifically snatch the boy. Thisk also said that a friend of his, a delver bard named Lavis Fallomire, had used a locate object spell to find Tolly’s leather jacket, then had impulsively gone in search of them by herself. She’d not been heard from since.

While investigating the scene, Mosquilius Kito found a spatter of blood and quietly pocketed a sample for later use…

Happy Jack pulled Mosquilius Kito aside and told him that they’d overheard Lavis say the jacket was in a storehouse behind some school in Oldtown…

Kalerecent and Brother Thisk asked the Punnishers to come with them to St. Valien’s Cathedral to report on what was found in the Banewarrens, so off we went to the Temple District.

St. Valien’s is the biggest and most opulent building in the entire Temple District. Adventurers are generally not allowed to attend services there, but since we had official Church business we were allowed in. We didn’t go into the main sanctuary, but into a meeting room with a bunch of Lothianites.

Brother Thad, Sister Varaun, Brother Heth, Sister von Witten, and Master Terestir grilled the party, with Kalerecent and Brother Thisk’s supporting commentary.

They were alarmed to learn that the Banewarrens had been breached, and Kalerecent was quick to volunteer to keep an eye on the Oldtown building where the tunnel exits.

Brother Heth (who runs St. Thessina’s Chapel in Rivergate) requested that they go back in and use a legend lore spell scroll on the Sealed Door, to try and gain more information about the magics that are keeping the Banes locked away. (The others seemed a bit surprised by this.)

The party pleaded their case about finding Tolliver the Fast first, and Brother Thisk pointed out that this was more of an “us” problem than a Church problem.

We agreed to go investigate, and after we left we decided to go deal with the more immediate problem (Tolliver the Fast) now, since we probably have a few days before those monstrous types try again on that Sealed Door.

So now it was time to start sleuthin’. Before leaving St. Valien’s, Mosquilius Kito requested a few minutes to use a holy water font to scry the blood sample he’d found. (If he hadn’t had two Lothianite paladins and a priest, it wouldn’t have been allowed!) He successfully located the subject, who turned out to be a guy in nondescript robes, but he had that Crimson Coil spiral tattooed on top of his shaved head. He and another brown-robed person (we couldn’t see their face) were talking to someone or something that was completely obscured. We could see where someone should be standing, but we could neither see nor hear that person in any way. Just before the scrying image cut out, they heard a name: Kinion Luth. With a bit more digging from Yona Note, we discovered this Luth person was much better known as the Surgeon in the Shadows.

No one knows where Luth came from or how he learned his trade, but he’s the person who creates and surgically grafts Chaositech on anyone willing to pay his price. (And rumor has it he’ll also work on the unwilling!) He’s extremely careful, highly intelligent, and has connections with every single illegal and criminal organization in the entire city. Getting on his bad side could have… consequences.

Yona Note, Mosquilius Kito, and Thorzin Oakwood went on a hunt for someone – anyone – who’d been a “patient” of the Surgeon. Their search led them deep into the Warrens, where they talked to a strung-out junkie named Rudge. His legs had been removed and replaced with Chaositech, but it had apparently malfunctioned and the man was now forced to hobble around as best he could on broken legs.

Yona Note gave him ten gold thrones to tell her everything he knew about the Surgeon in the Shadows, an exorbitant amount for someone like this. Rudge didn’t hold back. He said the Surgeon kept himself completely covered with a mask and horrible metal claw hands, but had no idea where the Surgeon’s hidden lair could be. They’d blindfolded him when he went for his surgery.

We knew the Surgeon had to be in Oldtown somewhere, but there are a LOT of schools there. We tried to get lucky with our own locate object spell cast by Aendir Meliamne, but struck out three times. Thankfully, Chesh Briarthorn had also taken the spell and her final casting was the one that succeeded. An abandoned storeroom behind Allam’s School of Thought was the pinpoint location of Tolly’s leather jacket.

We surrounded the place. Yona Note checked the two entrances and found traps on the inner doors of both. She set off the lightning trap when she tried to disarm it, but had a far easier time with the acid spray trap on the back door.

Aendir Meliamne and Thorzin Oakwood went in the front door. Yona Note and Mosquilius Kito took the back door, while Nethwen Nagel and Chesh Briarthorn kept watch outside with weapons drawn.

Yona Note was the first to encounter anything, and oh boy did she find somebody fun!

This guy was waiting for her to open the secret door, and as soon as she did he attacked with all six arms!

There was a brief but fierce fight between the two squishiest party members and this nasty Chaositech-covered guardian. Mosquilius Kito got sliced up pretty bad, but was still standing over its corpse when the dust settled.

The timing was pretty much perfect, as all four party members entered the main lab at the same time and found young Tolliver the Fast strapped down to an operating table! And standing in this unsettling laboratory was another Chaositech-enhanced guardian, a woman with a massive blade for an arm.

She put up a pretty good fight, but was no match for the Punnishers.

Nethwen Nagel got poor Tolliver the Fast unstrapped and off the table while Thorzin Oakwood and Aendir Meliamne went looking for those responsible. Yona Note had just realized no one had actually yet seen their faces, and if they left now they might be able to get away without any repercussions or retaliation…

But nobody mentioned that to the fighty-types. Aendir Meliamne found himself face to face with a masked dwarf, while Thorzin Oakwood was suddenly standing in front of the Surgeon in the Shadows himself!!

Thorzin Oakwood got in a quick pair of hits with his axe, but then Kinion Luth spoke in a dry, raspy voice. “You are not supposed to be here…” And then he simply vanished.

Meanwhile, the dwarf shouted something similar at Aendir Meliamne and chucked a gas-filled Chaositech bomb at the paladin’s feet. Noxious gases filled the area, forcing all who came in contact with it to start puking and choking on the awful stuff.

The dwarf made a beeline for the exit, throwing several more gas bombs to incapacitate the rest of the Punnishers before throwing in an explosive firebomb as he left the building! The fire spread very quickly, and the Punnishers had to exit in a hurry. On her way out, Chesh Briarthorn checked the one remaining unopened door just in case… and found the bound-and-gagged missing bard!

She shouted for assistance, and Aendir Meliamne easily carried Lavis to safety.

Sadly, the masked dwarf did get away in the confusion, but we did rescue Tolliver the Fast. When questioned about why he’d been taken (yet) again, Tolly explained that the cultists had come after him as payback for the party’s attack on the Brothers of Venom‘s secret meeting. The cult handed the boy over to the Surgeon to turn him into a mindless drone servant (like the two they’d already dispatched)! The delvers were very interested in finding someplace where Tolliver the Fast would be safe from the cults; Chesh Briarthorn and Mosquilius Kito looked at each other at the same time and said simply, Mother Barrow. The halfling matron of the Tenpin Children’s Home took all three urchins in without question. The boys looked doubtful though…

End of Session.

Back to the Beginning	Previous Session	Next Session	Latest Session

Mos’ List of Things He’s Done That He Never Ever Ever Thought He’d Do:

1. Shoving a corpse into a bag of holding. Some assembly required upon removal.
2. Getting kicked by a paladin for closing a door. Is there an anger issue clause for paladin grace?
3. Losing one’s eyes to chaos. And then getting them back. Mostly the getting them back part.
4. Having to explain to another paladin why I’m wearing the extremely magical robes I took off a dead cultist. You can’t hold fashion against the clothing; they’re just clothing. Extremely magical clothing.
5. Trying to explain to a paladin why I saved their life. Yes, the bad guy went free. No, you’re not currently in three pieces in my bag of holding. Get over it.
6. Explaining anything to a paladin. When did my life sink so low?
7. Watching a dwarf get nearly hugged to death by a snake woman. If that’s not an advertisement in thoroughly investigating potential dates BEFORE the date, I don’t know what is.
8. Watching a certain annoying halfling’s head and feet swell like balloons as she got squeezed by a snake lady. They pay extra for that in certain places in Ptolus. I’ll give you a referral; tell ’em Mos sent you. Ask for Melanie.
9. List to be continued…

Back to the Beginning	Previous Session	Next Session	Latest Session

It went well. Honest.

Or at least, it could have gone a lot worse.

We did find Kalerecent the missing paladin. And we also found his dead partner Rasnir, the monk. (Ex-monk?)

They followed some monstrous bad guys in here and got in a fight. Sadly, Rasnir was killed in that battle by a serpentine lamia. Kalerecent was pretty mad about that. He got his payback though when another team of monsters showed up. They fought really, really hard. There was a minotaur, a lamia (not the same one), and a bunch of bugbears. We fought ’em in a huge chamber with a weird sphere-topped pillar, and we had the high ground – we were up on the catwalk, and they were stuck below. If it had been the other way around, we may not have won that fight.

Kalerecent was a big help right up until the first lamia showed up to join the fight, and then he ignored everything else to get vengeance on her. He vengeanced her a LOT.

Afterwards, we all agreed to finish exploring this area for more baddies or clues before returning. We found a room full of what appeared to be spare parts for that unfinished pillar thingie, but it was a level of mechanical mess higher than Chesh Briarthorn could comprehend.

In the big room was a locked and sealed DOOR. Kalerecent and his pal saw the first batch of monsters trying to get through that door, and unfortunately they weren’t entirely successful in stopping them. A hag did slip through the door while the rest fought the paladin and monk. I’m sure it’ll be fine though.

Exploring other areas, we found a pair of nasty humanoids made entirely of bugs. Ew.

We also found an iron golem guardian that fell to pieces after just one attack. Mosquilius Kito almost got cut in half. We laughed.

Later we found a horrible troll-like creature and had to fight that too. It was also unpleasant.

We completely explored the area, aside from one still-sealed door that just didn’t really seem like the kind of thing we’d want to open.

End of Session.

Back to the Beginning	Previous Session	Next Session	Latest Session

Once upon a time there was an upright citizen named Mosquilius Keto. He was a good halfling, a pillar of the community and a stalwart fellow. He ran a respectable business selling hard to find real estate at unbelievable prices. But he had a secret: a dark connection with shady individuals in his past. He had fled that life, left it behind in favor of honor and trust, but some times you just can’t escape your past.

So it was that he heard a call from a devious street-ling named Chesh Briarthorn. She had fallen in with a dangerous crowd and had become disgruntled, shady and greedy. She wanted to get rich and she didn’t want to work for it. So she called up the bestest person she knew, your narrator, Mos. He met with her, knowing that it would be best to guide her baser instincts into a more moral manner. So he met with her ‘crew’:

• Aendir: a holier than thou type with anger issues and a god-complex
• Nethwen: a noble slumming it in the cheap seats. Also owner of a vicious wild beast which was allowed to roam free because of definite money changing hands.
• Yona: Lost soul and freelance filcher. Not a bad sort, but definitely in need of guidance.
• Thorzin: dwarf with an actual axe to grind. Smells like a brewery after fleet week.

This band had potential, but it needed direction, wisdom and guidance. Naturally they asked Mos to lead them. He refused a few times, but finally he understood that without him they were just one conviction away from prison. He lead them. He lead them into dark places, though dangerous dungeons and lately, into the Banewarrens, where they sought the answer to who had opened it and why.

So far, he’s managed to keep them alive and mostly semi-legal. But when you’re dealing with shady halflings with monkey toes who are entirely too tall, you can expect trouble to follow. And it will follow.

And Mos will be there to save them all. It’s his calling.