Tyrandro kills the final devil. He never even got a chance. With his last shot, one of the Gray Maidens takes an arrow to the knee.
Ayako heals Sebastian some more while her summons close in on the enemy.
Iolana teleports again and drops Sebastian on the group of Gray Maidens. He quickly kills the first one in front of him and then he kills a second with a well placed thrust through the heart.
The two remaining Gray Maidens divert their attention from Tyrandro to the more immediate opponents within arms reach. One targets the babau and the other targets Sebastian. The babau gets hit once with its damage reduction, it hardly notices. The Maiden targeting Sebastian has incredibly good aim but even so, she does not stand a chance against Sebastian's prowess.
Tyrandro kills one of the Maidens and Sebastian and the babau overpower the last one.
The Gray Maidens (same as last time) each have the following: +1 full plate, +1 heavy steel shield, +1 composite longbow (+2 Str) with 20 arrows, +1 longsword, cloak of resistance +1, 31 pp, 4 gp.
Togomor has: scroll of break enchantment, scroll of greater dispel magic, scroll of greater teleport, scrolls of stoneskin (2), scroll of wall of force (CL 10th), staff of evocation (10 charges); handy haversack, headband of vast intelligence +4 (grants ranks in Acrobatics and Use Magic Device), necklace of adaptation, ring of keys, spell component pouch, 20 gp, 12 cp
The barbed devils had no equipment.
Descriptions of the other rooms you've seen:
North Barracks: The room is fitted with six bunk beds, each one with a wooden bedside table. Woolen tapestries hang on the walls, and folding screens of wood and canvas are stacked near the beds.
Mess Hall: Four stone pillars support the ceiling of this large mess hall. Between each pillar stretches a long table lined on either side by high-backed chairs, although many of the chairs are slashed and savaged, or in some cases little more than ruins heaped on the floor. The table is piled with old pieces of rotting meat, broken bones, shattered weapons, bits of armor, and dozens of long barbs and quills. A fire burns in the large fireplace in the west corner, slowly cooking what appears to be a mostly plucked and skinned hippogriff. The scent of the cooking meat from the hippogriff isn’t quite enough to mask the rancid stink of decay.
We could outfit our friends with all of this Grey Maiden equipment and form a new force for the city.
"Do you have some healing left for me?" Tyrandro asks no one in particular.
Ayako starts tapping people with her wand
"That's much better, thank you." Tyrandro tells Ayako. "That was an interesting fight. Are you still up to more? A few more Gray Maidens we can for sure take, but if more of the Red Mantis Boss or that Sorcerer show up we might have difficulties."
"Iolana, do you have at least an emergency exit spell for all of us left?"
Seeing the sad remains of the proud creature in the pot Tyrandro sighs. "Looks like they dismantle the Sable Company."
I believe we have disposed of the Mantis leader earlier and that wizard was certainly a target.
"I have at least one more, and I have this scroll of greater teleport off of the fat man. I can get us out of here." She grabs the scrolls and magic items off of the wizard's body.
"Poor creature. We have to fix this." she says as she notices the hippogryph in the fire.
Iolana looks around the rooms carefully casting detect magic. She shrugs, "Just in case something interesting is lying around."
Iolana does not detect anything additional with detect magic.
To the parlor!
"Is Zellara still suggesting to go down here? Then we need another staircase." Tyrandro states.
Parlor: This little junction room contains a table with two stools and a wooden cupboard embellished with gilt designs. The cupboard contains a reserve of candles, matches, torches, and oil lamps.
Next to that the Old Tower Guardroom has no description but the stairs on the northeast wall lead down.
If you ask Zellara for directions to the ghost's bones, she directs you to the Workshop Storage room. There doesn't immediately appear to be anything of interest in the room but she insists you head towards a seemingly solid wall to the north.
Seb carefully looks around. He doesn't see anything.
Iolana cats Detect Secret door from her scroll. "Let's see if it's a door we can find."
She finds the door. [b]"Let's go down."[b] And asks Seb to take the lead.
Ayako takes the middle
"There are a lot of secrets in this castle." Tyrandro comments, as he follows Sebastian.
You head down the spiral staircase. There is another secret door that opens to the first floor but Zellara indicates further down so you leave it alone for the moment. From there, the stairs continue down another 70 ft. until it finally ends in a subterranean dungeon. A single 5 ft. wide hallway leads west from the landing.
The Hidden Way Below: This circular chamber has a sixty-foot-high ceiling supported by a huge greenish-gray pillar in the middle. Part of the southeast wall has collapsed, leaving one quarter of the floor space blocked by a ten-foot-high pile of rubble.
An investigation of the huge central pillar reveals that it is cooler to the touch than the surrounding walls.
Two hallways lead out from this room: one west and one south. Zellara finally stops urging you down and now projects that you should head northeast but shows no preference for either of the hallways, perhaps indicating that both ways can lead to your destination.
"There is one way as good as the other." Tyrandro comments and moves straight on.
S̠͇͍O̸̳U̞̹̜̮̮͞T҉̮H͕͝
"South is as good as any." She casts Stoneskin on the group just in case.
The southern passage forks west and east. The western hallway extends 30 feet then turns and wraps back around north. To the east is an ancient guardroom.
Ancient Guardroom: A passageway leading to the southwest seems to have once been closed off after only a few feet by an ancient brick wall, but a human-sized hole has been smashed through it.
Zellara indicates east. The hallway exiting east from the guardroom ends at a dead end after 40 feet where the passage has collapsed from age. But a side passage leads north.
Does this pillar look like the one in Castle Scarwall?
North
You follow the hallway north.
The hallway is lined with empty vaults. The ceramic floor, walls, and ceilings of these vaults are lined with light brown tiles that form gentle geometric patterns. These chambers were used to store various treasures, but each has long since been emptied by Queen Ileosa.
At the northern end of the hallway, you come across another vault that has been sealed shut by a brand new brick wall. Zellara indicates that this is where you need to go.
From where you are standing, you can also see the next room to the west, which is the Royal Crypts.
Royal Crypts: Burial niches line the walls of this large crypt, but only five of the seven contain sarcophagi.
Each of the five sarcophagi bears the name of a deceased king or queen. Starting from the westernmost coffin, in counterclockwise order, they are Lord Arbust, King Eodred I, Queen Domina, King Eodred II, and (far from the others) King Cardraith. An inspection of each sarcophagus reveals that all of them have been opened relatively recently.
Tyrandro looks through his gear. "Didn't I have something made of adamant?"
Finding the axe in the depth of his magic quiver. He take sthe tool with both hands and starts whacking at the wall. Hitting a stone wall with a sharp weapon might hurt to look at for some melee fighter, but Tyrandro doesn't care much and the adamant doesn't care too.
It takes Tyrandro a few swings but the axe cuts through the wall like butter and soon a man-size hole is carved through the bricks.
Once the wall is down, a thick stench of decay erupts from the opening.
A partially decomposed corpse, mouth agape in a painful death scream, lies slumped against the wall at the entrance to this otherwise empty room. The corpse, which is clad in a rich, dark purple outfit, is that of a thin, bearded humanoid with pointed ears and a pair of vestigial horns sprouting from his brow.
"Are we supposed to drag that rotting corpse up to that ghost? I hope there are mgical means to take it along, without picking it up." he tells.
We've waded through sewers and up to our hips in blood and gore fighting creatures. we can handle this.
Ayako rolls the corpse up in a blanket and into the bag of holding.
"That's not what I expected, but dragging a corpse around isn't the worst thing we've done. Want a quick trip back to the attic or shall we crawl through the various floors?"
She casts Detect magic on the royal sarcophagi. "Recently opened. Interesting. I'm guessing she took all the pretties a king or queen would be buried with. Let's hope she didn't raise them as an undead army or something."
Back upstairs I believe
Iolana checks the royal sarcophagi. To her relief (probably), the bodies are still in the coffins. The bodies within the four older repositories are leathery and long-dead, but when she investigates the contents of Eodred II’s sarcophagus, she receives a shock, for his body is not the only thing within. Ileosa has placed dozens of dead stirges, their bodies crushed and broken, throughout the coffin with his corpse—a final insult to the man once known as the Stirge King for his spendthrift ways.
Afterwards, Iolana uses her teleport to instantly bring the party back up to the attic.
Once Venster’s remains are brought into this room, the ghost manifests again, but this time not as a vague misty outline. Venster can now manifest as a full ghost, appearing as a translucent elderly tiefling man with a deck of harrow cards that periodically flies out of his hands to spiral around him before returning to his clutches. He regards you with kind but sorrowful eyes before he speaks.
"Thank you for taking my bones out of that "dreadful dark room below".
My tales begins with the catalyst the set all the current events in motion.
Queen Ileosa was a woman of breathtaking beauty, and some of Korvosa’s nobles worried of the dangers of placing a “trophy wife” within reach of the Crimson Throne, but Ileosa’s interest in the city seemed secondary to her desire for the life of luxury it afforded—and with the more-than-competent seneschal Neolandus Kalepopolis guarding Castle Korvosa’s interests, these noble families felt they had little to worry about.
Oh how wrong they were.
On one of Queen Ielosa's visits to Castle Korvosa’s treasury (visits that required surreptitiously “borrowing” the key from the seneschal), the queen discovered a secret door. Believing she had found a hidden vault, she investigated the room beyond, but was disappointed to find only an old stone coffer on a pedestal. She didn’t understand the Shoanti warning runes carved on the walls, nor did she feel the menace and evil in the air. She opened the coffer, and her life was changed forever. For inside rested the fangs of Kazavon, and their evil had been waiting for that day. It was but the smallest fragment of Kazavon’s spirit that burst from his fangs and infused the young queen, but even that small shard of cruelty and blind ambition was enough. Ileosa closed the coffer, resealed the secret door, and returned to her chambers in the castle above, her mind changed for the worse. Gone were any shreds of caution, replaced by ambition. Gone too were any fragments of self-doubt, replaced by a cruel imagination capable of envisioning all manner of depravities. In a way, Queen Ileosa died that fateful day, only to be reborn as something new—something wholly evil.
Queen Ileosa made plans for a personal guard of warrior women, the eradication of Korvosa’s poor and undesirable citizens, dramatic increases to her wealth, and even a method to preserve her beauty and youth forever. But none of these plans could begin before she had full control of Korvosa. First and foremost, Eodred II had to go. Ileosa desired that he die swiftly, yet that death needed to come from what appeared to be natural causes, or at least the anarchic cruelty of an outside source. The legacy of the curse of the Crimson Throne would help somewhat in explaining a Korvosan king’s sudden demise, yet his death couldn’t look like murder. Ileosa needed a period of mourning where she could capitalize upon Korvosa’s well-wishes and pity to put her true plans into motion, and charges of regicide would endanger that. To aid in laying her plans, she surreptitiously allied with two dangerous groups—the cult of Urgathoa and the Red Mantis assassins—yet neither group could or would aid directly in the king’s death. If Eodred II was to die, it had to be at her own hands.
So she turned to me, the king’s deformed tiefling stepbrother. I had long nurtured a deep streak of hidden jealousy for the successes of my younger brother Eodred II. For his part, Eodred II allowed me to remain in Castle Korvosa for fear that I could not survive on my own. Now and then, when Eodred II was seized with pity or boredom, he visited me to play cards, even though the visits generally ended in arguments and insults.
Ileosa found an opportunity in me. She played upon my hidden envy and convinced me to take part in Eodred II’s murder. To this end, she gave me a vial of fool’s leprosy, an ingenious venom invented by the Red Mantis. The poison mimics the effects of a rapid form of leprosy, but as a poison, it resists treatments that cure diseases. With Ileosa’s aid, I coated the upper half of my playing cards with the poison, so when Eodred II (among other things, a compulsive nail-biter) played, he unknowingly coated his fingers and nails in the stuff, ensuring a slow but steady exposure to the poison. It took little prodding from the young queen to convince Eodred II to visit his brother, which exposed the king to her horrid toxin.
My usefulness nearing an end, Ileosa refused my further requests for companionship, compelling me to threaten to reveal to the seneschal the true nature of the king’s “illness.” Because I was relatively feeble, it was an easy matter for Ileosa to murder me and hide the crime by walling up my corpse in the castle dungeon, yet my disappearance was noticed by Neolandus Kalepopolis, the castle seneschal. He had long suspected Ileosa was up to something, and when I vanished, his suspicions were confirmed. But the seneschal had made fatal mistakes: he confronted the queen privately, gave her the benefit of the doubt, and underestimated what she had become. She responded by sending the Red Mantis after him.
As long as Ileosa continues to live, I remain bound here, incapable of emerging from this room. I am imprisoned here by my own shame and guilt and thus unable to directly move against her.
Yet you may be my salvation. While I filled you in on how Ileosa murdered Eodred II, my true value is in what I know of her plans. Although I am imprisoned here, I could sometimes sense the queen’s thoughts and desires when she was in the castle. The knowledge tormented me, but now I realize that it was all simply preparing me for this day, for my chance at redemption. If what I can tell you can undo what I helped set into motion, I feel that I can move on to face Pharasma in the afterlife and accept my fate.
In particular, I know that Ileosa plans on using potent magic found in a place called the “Sunken Queen” to achieve eternal youth. Although I don’t know exactly what this entails, I do know that the ritual is based on ancient magic that requires the lifeblood of an army of unknowing sacrifices. In short, I fear that Ileosa has been grooming the citizens of Korvosa to be those sacrifices she needs to achieve immortality. I urge you to seek her out and stop her before she can complete the ritual. Even now I can feel strange and potent forces gathering in the spirit world as she makes ready to take the final step."
"Sounds a lot like in that other undead castle. Kill the anchor and free the undead." Tyrandro tells.
So we should try to find her at this Sunken Queen. Thank you, Venster.
"Thank you for your information, and your help. Can you tell us anything else about this ritual? Did you overhear any thoughts or plans for an Abaedaran priest or who the current leader of the Grey Maiden's might be? We'd like to weaken her base as much as possible before we face her. It won't be easy to stop her."
Venster quickly grows frustrated when you begin asking more questions. He grabs his head and grits his teeth.
"I'm sorry. My grief, madness, and undead state have wreaked havoc on my mind, and I find it difficult not only to remember what I knew in life, but also to speak aloud of what I've learned by spying on the snatches of Ileosa’s desires and thoughts I've been able to “overhear.” Seek out my “mother’s tower,” a place where the monarchs of the Arabasti line could go for peace and solitude. I have sensed Ileosa in this location several times, and often her most notable bursts of sudden inspiration and power occurred in this chamber. The only way to easily access Domina's Study is through Domina's Tower Entrance. The room inside is empty, but there is a hidden chamber above; a permanent phase door in the ceiling 20 feet above acts as a hidden trap door. Anyone touching an Arabasti family symbol (be it from a signet ring, banner, scroll, shield, or other source) to the phase door can use it to enter the area above.
Thank you for that information. Ayako darts her eyes around, looking for anything that might have that symbol.
As the king's brother, it is reasonable enough to assume that Venster would have a few items bearing the Arabasti family symbol on it. You find a dusty signet ring on his desk that you can take.
Venster says, "Before you go, there is one more gift that I can offer you: the grace of the spirit world. Many have died in Korvosa due to Ileosa’s whim and cruelties, and each death has bolstered my grief and desire to set things right. Further, you yourselves carry with you a spirit of your own—Zellara."
At this point, Iolana suddenly feels an empathic burst of excitement and fear from Zellara, for she has suddenly realized her final role in the protection of Korvosa.
Venster explains further, "By using Zellara’s harrow deck as a focus, Zellara and I can harness the spiritual power and energy of those who have died at Ileosa’s hand or through her orchestration into that deck, transforming it into a powerful tool and method for the spirit world to grant you further insight and power."
"But I must warn you that not all of the spirits are kindly ones: many were insane or cruel in their own lives, and there is, unfortunately, no way to exclude them from this infusion of power. Zellara and I can moderate their influence, though, by focusing them through the traditions and mysticism of the harrow. In effect, Zellara and I can use our own undead natures and the psychic energy of all those dead who blame Ileosa for their fate to transform Zellara’s harrow deck into a powerful and unique harrow deck of many things."
"I like Zellara very much. What good would it do, to add the scum of this castle to her cards where she is living in?" Tyrandro inquires with a raised brow.
If she wishes to move on with you, then goodspeed. I do believe we should make our own fate instead of drawing from the cards.
Once you agree to this, Zellara and Venster both manifest in the room, and the cards of Zellara’s harrow deck fly out of their container to spiral and spin in the air between them. As the ghosts concentrate, the anger and wrath of the city’s dead siphon through them to infuse the cards, which begin glowing brighter and brighter. After only a few rounds, with a final flash of light, the cards settle in a neat and tidy stack on the table, at which point both ghosts vanish.
At this point, both Zellara and Venster have bonded with the haunted harrow deck, which has transformed into a harrow deck of many things. Even though you choose not to draw any cards at all from the deck, this does not bar the ghosts from moving on, and their spirits still continue to the Boneyard for their final rewards.
Zellara manifests one last time before you. Her expression is one of hope as she smiles at each of you and gives the Iolana a single ectoplasmic kiss before she fades from view. Her final purpose served, Zellara finally receives her eternal rest.
Ayako watches the display and then sighs as Zellara leaves their group. Well, I hope she can find peace with her family at long last. Where will we strike enxt?
"I don't care. But this endless number of rooms and corridors of these stupid castles is really annoying. Who else is on our bucket list, before we can go for the queen?"
"There was something about proving she bonds with devils. Do we throw dead devils over the castle wall into town?" Tyrandro asks.
Works for me! Ayako helps lug the devils Maybe just one
Iolana tucks the harrow deck away, and gives Zellara a last smile. "Go in peace. You did good here."
"I'd like to look through the seneschal's rooms. Who knows what kind of information we'll find there. We also still need to find the second leader of the Grey Maidens as well. I vote for the apartments first. I don't think throwing a devil from the ramparts will work, but it could be interesting to see the reaction."
Apartments.
You save Domina's Study for later and head back down the stairs to the Seneschal's Apartment (on the 2nd Floor).
This room contains a canopied bed, a desk, a trunk, and a large cupboard. Colorful woolen tapestries hang from the walls, while exotic carpets decorate the floor. To the northeast, three narrow barred windows have been covered with additional tapestries. A standing lamp in a corner looks like a strange swamp plant with wrought-iron leaves and a single, oversized fruit of amber-colored glass. The stink of discarded food—bread crusts, chunks of moldy cheese, and bones with tattered remnants of meat—competes with the stale smell of body odor and sweat that fills this room.
Togomor keeps his personal treasure hidden behind a secret panel in the wall above his bed. Inside are a pouch containing 70 pp, a scroll of greater teleport, and all of Togomor’s spellbooks. These books contain all of his prepared spells, plus 2d6 additional spells of your choice for each spell level (including arcane sight, darkvision, see invisibility, tongues, contingency, permanency, all three planar binding spells, and all the spells necessary for the creation of an akaruzug—enervation, magic jar, and limited wish.) The spellbooks contain additional notes on topics such as hemotheurgy, the creation of several constructs (including the process of creating an akaruzug), rejuvenating blood baths, and other ways to achieve immortality as a construct, an undead, or an outsider. These last notes indicate that Ileosa has some sort of plans to use blood as an element to aid in immortality, but to date, she has not revealed to Togomor how she intends to achieve this goal, despite his intense curiosity. Finally, Togomor’s books contain scores of unfinished drawings of wormlike monsters with three faces at one end and a fanged mouth at the other.
Next to Togomor's Apartment is the Scriptorium. This room contains two well-equipped writing desks with comfortable armchairs and matching lecterns. A large map of Korvosa hangs on one wall over a wooden box full of rolled parchments, and in the south corner, stairs ascend.
This room is used by the royal scribes to write documents on the seneschal’s behalf. The map in the showcase is marked with red ink in several areas to record the queen’s ambitious building plans, including the creation of her four statues throughout the city. The plans contain no indication of her projects’ purpose, however.
The rolled parchments are all highly detailed maps of Korvosa and Varisia (worth a total value of 400 gp). One of the maps is of the eastern Mushfens and provides an accurate marking of the Sunken Queen’s position. The map was drawn by Togomor during his early adventuring days and indicates a path named “Trail of the Frog” that leads to the Sunken Queen from a coastal site named “Greenrust Reef.”
Hmm.. strange drawings
"Disgusting." Tyrandro calls out on seeing and smelling that mess. "There are animals that keep their nests more clean than that."
Mushu oinks in agreement from inside of Ayako's haversack