Zephyrus leads you deep into the woods where they are dense and dark even when the sun is shining in a blue sky. While marching through the trees protecting your face with your arms from the branches in the way you hear faint pipe music in the distance. Following that sound you finally you reach a clearing with a bonfire in the center, but even there with no trees blocking the sun the place isn't properly lit. Maybe magical darkness?
Around the fire a feast is going on. Furs are laid out and bowls with all kind of food are all over the place. Grapes, apples, pears and other less common fruits. Peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes and others you don't recognize. And wineskins.
At first glance you see about a dozen people celebrate. Three stunningly beattiful women, five satyrs trying to charm them and four satyr younglings staring. And all of them follow the no pants, no shirt rule.
Narciso isn|t sure, but Ernhild can tell that the woman is honest in what she is telling. Also, between the yellow eyes and the inside knowledge about what is going on in the sewers you can tell she is a wererat too. And Tisha remembers that besides the unpleasentness of what you can catch when bitten by a wererat, you should bring silver weapons when you want to kill one.
Even though it takes a while the walk to Kelmarane is scenic and otherwise uneventful. When you arrive you find Nefeshti and her small army have mopped up what little was left of Jhavhul's followers and gnolls.
You meet Garavel there and the other prisoners as well as Seriyle. The princess is not there though.
As you arrive you are quickly surrounded by the locals and they cheer for you having freed them once more. They feel like celebrating. And so, after initial greetings and questions about your well being, they disperse to get what little they still have or can loot from the tower in the center of town to set up a buffet for the spontaneous festivities.
"It would be one less front to fight for now, so it is for the better of the city." the woman explains with a shrug.
"And luckily it isn't too long a journey through the sewers, I know the closest entrance that leads eventually to that hidden den..." then follows a detailed description on the path to be taken through the sewers. "If you get the turns right you can't miss it. It's a dug out gap on the left, and if you miss it, you run into a rusty grate just around the corner."
"To recognize Girrigz, look for an upright walking rat wearing a chain shirt and a rapier made of some silvery metal."
"I wouldn't expect ambushes, but there are regular rats of all sizes and Girrigz for sure has some loyal followers that guard the den."
From all the inside knowledge and the yellow eyes you suspect the woman to be a wererat herself, even though she hasn't come clean about that.
She leads you to the entrance she talked about which is some narrow stairs, overgrown, a maintenance entry of sorts.
"There are stupid people doing stupid things. And I tried to talk one of them out of doing something immensely stupid. Deadly stupid even. But he doesn't listen to me."
"There are wererats living in the sewers. One of them was stupid enough to be seen in a dark alley in rat form and some stupid people lynched him. Accusing his kind of being the cause of the plague."
"This encouraged some more stupid people to go into the sewers to hunt wererats. Most of the wererats aren't stupid and simply hide elsewhere. But there is one stupid wererat that deems it a good idea to fight back against those people. And he is collecting followers."
"And now I search someone who can persuade him of the stupidity of his idea. Or if he can't be persuaded, to stop him by all means necessary."
An elderly woman leaves the path above and comes down to you at the shore. "You are those people who work for the Field Marshal, aren't you?" she inquires. "I have an issue you could maybe help with."
You notice, that she has unhealthy looking yellow eyes.
Jewel recalls that those fey are called satyr or faun.
The faun chuckles at Tarjun's prude objections. He bows. "I'm Zephyrus, a faun." He takes out his panpipes and plays a catchy song.
Perform(Pipes):1d20 + 19 ⇒ (20) + 19 = 39
It's a music so enchanting, you've never heard anything like this. The wonderful sound fills the whole area, with floating layers of notes as if several musicians would play with him.
Tarjun Fail Will DC18:
You suddenly feel ashamed of your comment about him not wearing pants. To make it up to him you think it would be a great idea not wearing pants yourself. This is a suggestion.
Jewel Fail Will DC18:
With Tarjun harassing the faun based on his prejudices against other cultures really vexes you. And you find that supporting the faun by not wearing pant to support the faun is the thing to do. This is a suggestion.
The Janni see that scary guy on the flying doormat and ponder their options. If he tells the truth, fighting and dying would be stupid. If he is lying and Jhavhul is still alive they might be in trouble too, as that guy comes through the stable and that doesn't bode well in regards to the horses that they should guard.
One of them feels the need to argue that their boss is called Jhavhul and that they are actually at home here but the others silence him and drag him along as they all poof out of existance (on the material plane).
The horse resists most of the lightning only to be reduced to shreds by Ohrmizd.
Cauchemars have no pockets and this 'stable' also offers no valuables.
Moving on through the eastern passage you find a river of lava flows ten foot below. Eight Janni Captains are on guard duty in the cave beyond the lava. So far they only pay attention to each other and the eastern entrance.
The smoke is in a 15ft cone Hazreem successfully sucks up the sulfurous smoke, which leads to only him having to supress the upcoming nausea henceforth.
The chest has no markings. It is a chest with a lid, a latch and a simple padlock. Not your everyday crate to deliver cabbage but also not what one would expect for a chest full of coin.
While discussing means of pest control you have wandered to the Jeggare river somewhere between North Bridge and Old Korvosa. You see a ship's mast stick out of the water some 100 yards from the shore. Seems to be what is left of the ship that was shot at the night you came back to Korvosa. At the shore you see a broken wooden chest that was opened by brute force.
Bun-bun isn't as harmless as he looks and could probably keep the house clean of rats - if they don't gang up on him.
The pseudo dragons can understand draconic language and communicate telepathically. Like most critters they can be bribed with food and as they are intelligent they can be befriended if treated well.
Everything in the area that sticks from the ground, every moss, every lichen and every fungus that clings to dear life in this hot environment grows to gargantuan proportions and grabs for everything. After Heshan got in place to see the evil horses and threw the magic the whole area from where Heshan stands through the next cave as far as you can see gets covered in those grappling vines. Even the cave walls start crumbling under the attack. The cauchemars are caught by surprise and are held tight in the grip of the spells result.
Tisha keeps glancing at the sky as they do their shopping looking to see if she can see any little dragons the city is known for so she can figure out what they like.
Ok Foxy we want to set up the house. Per the cost of living it looks like this is 10gp per month for average living. Should we just all drop in 10gp each, and say that gets her house back to average and able to accommodate all of us for a month?
Then if we want anything special (Like Tisha is upgrading locks) we can call that out as being worked on till the next downtime.
Then we can move on and not get bogged down in this shopping.
That's fine with me.
Other cities have pidgeons, Korvosa has tiny dragons. The absence of pidgeons hints at their diet. But everyone living in Korvosa knows those creatures that feed on rodents, birds and insects or basically everything that moves and is small enough for them to take down and carry away.
[dice=Knowledge(Planes) DC27]Black tentacles are no SR no save, so that is a plus. As you probably have no time to do a binding circle or something like that, you can only hope that the horses from hell get grappled and then fail their concentration checks for any magical disappearance. Otherwise they disappear to the ethereal plane.[/spoiler]
The trip to the temple is not very helpful. Ishtani was up to date when telling what is known and nothing new was revealed. A handful of people suspected to have that new disease are awaiting treatment.
Hazreem tries to make them look like a drowned rat, but there is still fire left in them. A solid magic missile chips away some more of the Efreeti's health.
The cauchemar is a horrible, especially malevolent version of a nightmare. The sight of one of these great horrors bearing down is enough to shake the heart of the boldest champion. If you're almost immune to fire they lose some of their fright, but their snorting sulfurous smoke and their evil hooves that trample everything into the group are still unsettling.
(D5) Various trophies of war line the walls of this cavern: armor, weapons, and battle standards. Three small stone huts stand in the southern portion of the room, and three huge iron braziers provide dim illumination.
(D4) This oblong cavern reeks of sulfurous smoke mixed with the sharp bite of singed hair. You find two huge fiery horses here that are rather foul tempered.
Ishtani presents the golden key he wears on a cord around his neck and casts the spell which douses the girl in holy light. Brianna is immediately visibly better. The color returns to her skin, the dark spots disappear, the cold sweat and the fever are things of the past. She sits up with a smile.
Cheer fills the house as the lingering doom this sicknes is leaves.
DnD 3.5 has no CL check for remove disease and no one cared to put a DC in for the rework of the AP-book.
The last erinyes falls into the blade of Ohrmizd and dies.
Loot:
The various silk hangings and other
accoutrements are worth a total of 8,500 gp if they can be
safely transported out of the caverns. In addition, buried
beneath the pillows in the pavilion is a wand of summon
monster IV with 17 charges.
Omari kills the devil outside the whirlwind with his first shot.
I'm not sure what the rules are for attacking into the whirlwind. But for now I say: 50% miss chance. Also Khedron is smaller than the whirlwind and has to make a reflex save or join the merry go round.
Ohrmizd sends one of the erinyes back to hell while Hazreem keeps two busy in the shaker. Both are trapped, but are not harmed. But they try to harm Hazreem from inside the whirl.
